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+Project Gutenberg's A Popular History of Ireland, by Thomas D'Arcy McGee
+#3 in our series by Thomas D'Arcy McGee
+
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+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
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+
+
+Title: A Popular History of Ireland
+ From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics
+
+Author: Thomas D'Arcy McGee
+
+Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6634]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on January 6, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND ***
+
+
+
+
+This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan with help from
+Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+A Popular History of Ireland: from the Earliest
+Period to the Emancipation of the Catholics
+
+by Thomas D'Arcy McGee
+
+
+
+
+PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
+
+Ireland, lifting herself from the dust, drying her tears,
+and proudly demanding her legitimate place among the
+nations of the earth, is a spectacle to cause immense
+progress in political philosophy.
+
+Behold a nation whose fame had spread over all the earth
+ere the flag of England had come into existence. For 500
+years her life has been apparently extinguished. The
+fiercest whirlwind of oppression that ever in the wrath
+of God was poured upon the children of disobedience had
+swept over her. She was an object of scorn and contempt
+to her subjugator. Only at times were there any signs of
+life--an occasional meteor flash that told of her olden
+spirit--of her deathless race. Degraded and apathetic as
+this nation of Helots was, it is not strange that political
+philosophy, at all times too Sadducean in its principles,
+should ask, with a sneer, "Could these dry bones live?"
+The fulness of time has come, and with one gallant sunward
+bound the "old land" comes forth into the political day
+to teach these lessons, that Right must always conquer
+Might in the end--that by a compensating principle in
+the nature of things, Repression creates slowly, but
+certainly, a force for its overthrow.
+
+Had it been possible to kill the Irish Nation, it had
+long since ceased to exist. But the transmitted qualities
+of her glorious children, who were giants in intellect,
+virtue, and arms for 1500 years before Alfred the Saxon
+sent the youth of his country to Ireland in search of
+knowledge with which to civilize his people,--the legends,
+songs, and dim traditions of this glorious era, and the
+irrepressible piety, sparkling wit, and dauntless courage
+of her people, have at last brought her forth like.
+Lazarus from the tomb. True, the garb of the prison or
+the cerements of the grave may be hanging upon her,
+but "loose her and let her go" is the wise policy of
+those in whose hands are her present destinies.
+
+A nation with such a strange history must have some great
+work yet to do in the world. Except the Jews, no people
+has so suffered without dying.
+
+The History of Ireland is the most interesting of records,
+and the least known. The Publishers of this edition of
+D'Arcy McGee's excellent and impartial work take advantage
+of the awakening interest in Irish literature to present
+to the public a book of _high-class history_, as
+cheap as _largely circulating romance_. A sale as
+large as that of a popular romance is, therefore, necessary
+to pay the speculation. That sale the Publishers expect.
+Indeed, as truth is often stranger than fiction, so Irish
+history is more romantic than romance. How Queen Scota
+unfurled the Sacred Banner. How Brian and Malachy contended
+for empire. How the "Pirate of the North" scourged the
+Irish coast. The glories of Tara and the piety of Columba.
+The cowardice of James and the courage of Sarsfield. How
+Dathi, the fearless, sounded the Irish war-cry in far
+Alpine passes, and how the Geraldine forayed Leinster.
+The deeds of O'Neil and O'Donnell. The march of Cromwell,
+the destroying angel. Ireland's sun sinking in dim eclipse.
+The dark night of woe in Erin for a hundred years.
+'83--'98--'48--'68. Ireland's sun rising in glory. Surely
+the Youth of Ireland will find in their country's records
+romance enough!
+
+The English and Scotch are well read in the histories of
+their country. The Irish are, unfortunately, not so; and
+yet, what is English or Scottish history to compare with
+Irish? Ireland was a land of saints and scholars when
+Britons were painted savages. Wise and noble laws, based
+upon the spirit of Christianity, were administered in
+Erin, and valuable books were written ere the Britons
+were as far advanced in civilization as the Blackfeet
+Indians. In morals and intellect, in Christianity and
+civilization, in arms, art, and science, Ireland shone
+like a star among the nations when darkness enshrouded
+the world. And she nobly sustained civilization and
+religion by her missionaries and scholars. The libraries
+and archives of Europe contain the records of their piety
+and learning. Indeed the echoes have scarcely yet ceased
+to sound upon our ears, of the mighty march of her armed
+children over the war-fields of Europe, during that
+terrible time when England's cruel law, intended to
+destroy the spirit of a martial race, precipitated an
+armed torrent of nearly 500,000 of the flower of the
+Irish youth into foreign service. Irish steel glittered
+in the front rank of the most desperate conflicts, and
+more than once the ranks of England went down before "the
+Exiles," in just punishment for her terrible penal code
+which excluded the Irish soldier from his country's
+service.
+
+It was the Author's wish to educate his countrymen in
+their national records. If by issuing a cheap edition
+the present Publishers carry out to any extent that wish,
+it will be to them a source of satisfaction.
+
+It is impossible to conclude this Preface without an
+expression of regret at the dark and terrible fate which
+overtook the high-minded, patriotic, and distinguished
+Irishman, Thomas D'Arcy McGee. He was a man who loved
+his country well; and when the contemptible squabbles
+and paltry dissensions of the present have passed away,
+his name will be a hallowed memory, like that of Emmet
+or Fitzgerald, to inspire men with high, ideals of
+patriotism and devotion.
+
+CAMERON & FERGUSON.
+
+
+
+
+[Note: From 1857 until his death, McGee was active in
+Canadian politics. A gifted speaker and strong supporter
+of Confederation, he is regarded as one of Canada's
+fathers of Confederation. On April 7, 1868, after
+attending a late-night session in the House of Commons,
+he was shot and killed as he returned to his rooming
+house on Sparks Street in Ottawa. It is generally believed
+that McGee was the victim of a Fenian plot. Patrick
+James Whelan was convicted and hanged for the crime,
+however the evidence implicating him was later seen to
+be suspect.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+CHAPTER I.--The First Inhabitants
+
+CHAPTER II.--The First Ages
+
+CHAPTER III.--Christianity Preached at Tara--The Result
+
+CHAPTER IV.--The Constitution, and how the Kings kept it
+
+CHAPTER V.--Reign of Hugh II.--The Irish Colony in
+ Scotland obtains its Independence
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Kings of the Seventh Century
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Kings of the Eighth Century
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--What the Irish Schools and Saints did in the
+ Three First Christian Centuries
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+CHAPTER I.--The Danish Invasion
+
+CHAPTER II.--Kings of the Ninth Century (Continued)--
+ Nial III.--Malachy I.--Hugh VII
+
+CHAPTER III.--Reign of Flan "of the Shannon" (A.D. 879
+ to 916)
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Kings of the Tenth Century--Nial IV.--
+ Donogh II.--Congal III.--Donald IV
+
+CHAPTER V.--Reign of Malachy II. and Rivalry of Brian
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Brian, Ard-Righ--Battle of Clontarf
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Effects of the Rivalry of Brian and Malachy
+ on the Ancient Constitution
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--Latter Days of the Northmen in Ireland
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+CHAPTER I.--The Fortunes of the Family of Brian
+
+CHAPTER II.--The Contest between the North and South--
+ Rise of the Family of O'Conor
+
+CHAPTER III.--Thorlogh More O'Conor--Murkertach of
+ Aileach--Accession of Roderick O'Conor
+
+CHAPTER IV.--State of Religion and Learning among the
+ Irish previous to the Anglo-Norman Invasion
+
+CHAPTER V.--Social Condition of the Irish previous to
+ the Norman Invasion
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Foreign Relations of the Irish previous to
+ the Anglo-Norman Invasion
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+CHAPTER I.--Dermid McMurrogh's Negotiations and Success--
+ The First Expedition of the Normans into
+ Ireland
+
+CHAPTER II.--The Arms, Armour and Tactics of the Normans
+ and Irish
+
+CHAPTER III.--The First Campaign of Earl Richard--Siege
+ of Dublin--Death of King Dermid McMurrogh
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Second Campaign of Earl Richard--Henry II.
+ in Ireland
+
+CHAPTER V.--From the Return of Henry II. to England
+ till the Death of Earl Richard and his
+ principal Companions
+
+CHAPTER VI.--The Last Years of the Ard-Righ, Roderick
+ O'Conor
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Assassination of Hugh de Lacy--John
+ "Lackland" in Ireland--Various Expeditions
+ of John de Courcy--Death of Conor Moinmoy,
+ and Rise of Cathal, "the Red-Handed"
+ O'Conor--Close of the Career of De Courcy
+ and De Burgh
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--Events of the Thirteenth Century--The
+ Normans in Connaught
+
+CHAPTER IX.--Events of the Thirteenth Century--The
+ Normans in Munster and Leinster
+
+CHAPTER X.--Events of the Thirteenth Century--The
+ Normans in Meath and Ulster
+
+CHAPTER XI.--Retrospect of the Norman Period in
+ Ireland--A Glance at the Military Tactics
+ of the Times--No Conquest of the Country
+ in the Thirteenth Century
+
+CHAPTER XII.--State of Society and Learning in Ireland
+ during the Norman Period
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+CHAPTER I.--The Rise of "the Red Earl"--Relations of
+ Ireland and Scotland
+
+CHAPTER II.--The Northern Irish enter into Alliance with
+ King Robert Bruce--Arrival and First Campaign
+ of Edward Bruce
+
+CHAPTER III.--Bruce's Second Campaign and Coronation at
+ Dundalk--The Rising in Connaught--Battle of
+ Athenry--Robert Bruce in Ireland
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Battle of Faughard and Death of King Edward
+ Bruce--Consequences of his Invasion--
+ Extinction of the Earldom of Ulster--Irish
+ Opinion of Edward Bruce
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+CHAPTER I.--Civil War in England--Its Effects on the
+ Anglo-Irish--The Knights of St. John--
+ General Desire of the Anglo-Irish to
+ Naturalize themselves among the Native
+ Population--A Policy of Non-Intercourse
+ between the Races Resolved on in England
+
+CHAPTER II.--Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant--
+ The Penal Code of Race--"The Statute of
+ Kilkenny," and some of its Consequences
+
+CHAPTER III.--Art McMurrogh, Lord of Leinster--First
+ Expedition of Richard II. of England to
+ Ireland
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Subsequent Proceedings of Richard II.--
+ Lieutenancy and Death of the Earl of March--
+ Second Expedition of Richard against Art
+ McMurrogh--Change of Dynasty in England
+
+CHAPTER V.--Parties within "the Pale"--Battles of
+ Kilmainham and Killucan--Sir John Talbot's
+ Lord Lieutenancy
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Acts of the Native Princes--Subdivision of
+ Tribes and Territories--Anglo-Irish Towns
+ under Native Protection--Attempt of
+ Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, to
+ Restore the Monarchy--Relations of the
+ Races in the Fifteenth Century
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Continued Division and Decline of "the
+ English Interest"--Richard, Duke of York,
+ Lord Lieutenant--Civil War again in England--
+ Execution of the Earl of Desmond--
+ Ascendancy of the Kildare Geraldines
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--The Age and Rule of Gerald, Eighth Earl of
+ Kildare--The Tide begins to turn for the
+ English Interest--The Yorkist Pretenders,
+ Simnel and Warbeck--Poyning's Parliament--
+ Battles of Knockdoe and Monabraher
+
+CHAPTER IX.--State of Irish and Anglo--Irish Society
+ during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
+ Centuries
+
+CHAPTER X.--State of Religion and Learning during the
+ Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
+
+
+BOOK VII.
+
+CHAPTER I.--Irish Policy of Henry the Eighth during
+ the Lifetime of Cardinal Wolsey
+
+CHAPTER II.--The Insurrection of Silken Thomas--The
+ Geraldine League--Administration of Lord
+ Leonard Gray
+
+CHAPTER III.--Sir Anthony St. Leger, Lord Deputy--
+ Negotiations of the Irish Chiefs with
+ James the Fifth of Scotland--First Attempts
+ to Introduce the Protestant Reformation--
+ Opposition of the Clergy--Parliament of
+ 1541--The Protectors of the Clergy
+ Excluded--State of the Country--The Crowns
+ United-Henry the Eighth Proclaimed at
+ London and Dublin
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Adhesion of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Brien--
+ A new Anglo-Irish Peerage--New Relations
+ of Lord and Tenant--Bishops appointed by
+ the Crown--Retrospect
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+CHAPTER I.--Events of the Reign of Edward Sixth
+
+CHAPTER II.--Events of the Reign of Philip and Mary
+
+CHAPTER III.--Accession of Queen Elizabeth--Parliament of
+ 1560--The Act of Uniformity--Career and
+ Death of John O'Neil "the Proud"
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Sir Henry Sidney's Deputyship--Parliament
+ of 1569--The Second "Geraldine League"--
+ Sir James Fitzmaurice
+
+CHAPTER V.--The "Undertakers" in Ulster and Leinster--
+ Defeat and Death of Sir James Fitzmaurice
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Sequel of the Second Geraldine League--
+ Plantation of Munster--Early Career of
+ Hugh O'Neil, Earl of Tyrone--Parliament
+ of 1585
+
+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
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--The Ulster Confederacy--Feagh Mac Hugh
+ O'Byrne--Campaign of 1595--Negotiations,
+ English and Spanish--Battle of the Yellow
+ Ford--Its Consequences
+
+CHAPTER IX.--Essex's Campaign of 1599--Battle of the
+ Curlieu Mountains--O'Neil's Negotiations
+ with Spain--Mountjoy Lord Deputy
+
+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
+
+CHAPTER XI.--The Conquest of Munster--Death of Elizabeth,
+ and Submission of O'Neil--"The Articles
+ of Mellifont"
+
+CHAPTER XII.--State of Religion and Learning during the
+ Reign of Elizabeth
+
+
+BOOK IX.
+
+CHAPTER I.--James I.--Flight of the Earls--Confiscation
+ of Ulster--Penal Laws--Parliamentary Opposition
+
+CHAPTER II.--Last years of James--Confiscation of the
+ Midland Counties--Accession of Charles I.--
+ Grievances and "Graces"--Administration of
+ Lord Strafford
+
+CHAPTER III.--Lord Stafford's Impeachment and Execution--
+ Parliament of 1639-'41--The Insurrection of
+ 1641--The Irish Abroad
+
+CHAPTER IV.--The Insurrection of 1641
+
+CHAPTER V.--The Catholic Confederation--Its Civil
+ Government and Military Establishment
+
+CHAPTER VI.--The Confederate War--Campaign of 1643--
+ The Cessation
+
+CHAPTER VII.--The Cessation and its Consequences
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--Glamorgan's Treaty--The New Nuncio Rinuccini--
+ O'Neil's Position--The Battle of Benburb
+
+CHAPTER IX.--From the Battle of Benburb till the Landing
+ of Cromwell at Dublin
+
+CHAPTER X.--Cromwell's Campaign--1649-1650
+
+CHAPTER XI.--Close of the Confederate War
+
+CHAPTER XII.--Ireland under the Protectorate--
+ Administration of Henry Cromwell--
+ Death of Oliver
+
+
+BOOK X.
+
+CHAPTER I.--Reign of Charles II.
+
+CHAPTER II.--Reign of Charles II. (Concluded)
+
+CHAPTER III.--The State of Religion and Learning in
+ Ireland during the Seventeenth Century
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Accession of James II.--Tyrconnell's
+ Administration
+
+CHAPTER V.--King James to Ireland--Irish Parliament
+ of 1689
+
+CHAPTER VI.--The Revolutionary War--Campaign of 1639--
+ Sieges of Derry and Enniskillen
+
+CHAPTER VII.--The Revolutionary War--Campaign of 1690--
+ Battle of the Boyne--Its Consequences--
+ the Sieges of Athlone and Limerick
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--The Winter of 1690-91
+
+CHAPTER IX.--The Revolutionary War--Campaign of 1691--
+ Battle of Aughrim--Capitulation of Limerick
+
+CHAPTER X.--Reign of King William
+
+CHAPTER XI.--Reign of Queen Anne
+
+CHAPTER XII.--The Irish Soldiers Abroad, during the Reigns
+ of William and Anne
+
+
+BOOK XI.
+
+CHAPTER I.--Accession of George I.--Swift's Leadership
+
+CHAPTER II.--Reign of George II.--Growth of Public
+ Spirit--The "Patriot" Party--Lord
+ Chesterfield's Administration
+
+CHAPTER III.--The Last Jacobite Movement--The Irish
+ Soldiers Abroad--French Expedition under
+ Thurot, or O'Farrell
+
+CHAPTER IV.--Reign of George II. (Concluded)--
+ Malone's Leadership
+
+CHAPTER V.--Accession of George III.--Flood's
+ Leadership--Octennial Parliaments
+ Established
+
+CHAPTER VI.--Flood's Leadership--State of the Country
+ between 1760 and 1776
+
+CHAPTER VII.--Grattan's Leadership--"Free Trade" and
+ the Volunteers
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--Grattan's Leadership--Legislative and
+ Judicial Independence Established
+
+CHAPTER IX.--The Era of Independence--First Period
+
+CHAPTER X.--The Era of Independence--Second Period
+
+CHAPTER XI.--The Era of Independence--Third Period--
+ Catholic Relief Bill of 1793
+
+CHAPTER XII.--The Era of Independence--Effects of the
+ French Revolution in Ireland--Secession of
+ Grattan, Curran, and their Friends, from
+ Parliament, in 1797
+
+CHAPTER XIII.--The United Irishmen
+
+CHAPTER XIV.--Negotiations with France and Holland--
+ The Three Expeditions Negotiated by Tone
+ and Lewines
+
+CHAPTER XV.--The Insurrection of 1798
+
+CHAPTER XVI.--The Insurrection of 1798--The Wexford
+ Insurrection
+
+CHAPTER XVII.--The Insurrection elsewhere--Fate of the
+ Leading United Irishmen
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.--Administration of Lord Cornwallis--
+ Before the Union
+
+CHAPTER XIX.--Last Session of the Irish Parliament--
+ The Legislative Union of Great Britain
+ and Ireland
+
+
+BOOK XII.
+
+CHAPTER I.--After the Union--Death of Lord Clare--
+ Robert Emmet's Emeute
+
+CHAPTER II.--Administration of Lord Hardwick (1801 to
+ 1806), and of the Duke of Bedford (1806
+ to 1808)
+
+CHAPTER III.--Administration of the Duke of Richmond
+ (1807 to 1813)
+
+CHAPTER IV.--O'Connell's Leadership--1813 to 1821
+
+CHAPTER V.--Retrospect of the State of Religion and
+ Learning during the Reign of George III
+
+CHAPTER VI.--The Irish Abroad, during the Reign of
+ George III
+
+CHAPTER VII.--O'Connell's Leadership--The Catholic
+ Association--1821 to 1825
+
+CHAPTER VIII.--O'Connell's Leadership--The Clare Election--
+ Emancipation of the Catholics
+
+
+
+
+HISTORY OF IRELAND
+
+
+BOOK I.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FIRST INHABITANTS.
+
+Ireland is situated in the North Atlantic, between the
+degrees fifty-one and a half and fifty-five and a half
+North, and five and a quarter and ten and a third West
+longitude from Greenwich. It is the last land usually
+seen by ships leaving the Old World, and the first by
+those who arrive there from the Northern ports of America.
+In size it is less than half as large as Britain, and in
+shape it may be compared to one of those shields which
+we see in coats-of-arms, the four Provinces--Ulster,
+Connaught, Leinster, and Munster--representing the four
+quarters of the shield.
+
+Around the borders of the country, generally near the
+coast, several ranges of hills and mountains rear their
+crests, every Province having one or more such groups.
+The West and South have, however, the largest and highest
+of these hills, from the sides of all which descend
+numerous rivers, flowing in various directions to the
+sea. Other rivers issue out of large lakes formed in the
+valleys, such as the Galway river which drains Lough
+Corrib, and the Bann which carries off the surplus waters
+of Lough Neagh (_Nay_). In a few districts where
+the fall for water is insufficient, marshes and swamps
+were long ago formed, of which the principal one occupies
+nearly 240,000 acres in the very heart of the country.
+It is called "the Bog of Alien," and, though quite useless
+for farming purposes, still serves to supply the surrounding
+district with fuel, nearly as well as coal mines do in
+other countries.
+
+In former times, Ireland was as well wooded as watered,
+though hardly a tree of the primitive forest now remains.
+One of the earliest names applied to it was "the wooded
+Island," and the export of timber and staves, as well as
+of the furs of wild animals, continued, until the beginning
+of the seventeenth century, to be a thriving branch of
+trade. But in a succession of civil and religious wars,
+the axe and the torch have done their work of destruction,
+so that the age of most of the wood now standing does
+not date above two or three generations back.
+
+Who were the first inhabitants of this Island, it is
+impossible to say, but we know it was inhabited at a very
+early period of the world's lifetime--probably as early
+as the time when Solomon the Wise, sat in Jerusalem on
+the throne of his father David. As we should not altogether
+reject, though neither are we bound to believe, the wild
+and uncertain traditions of which we have neither
+documentary nor monumental evidence, we will glance over
+rapidly what the old Bards and Story-tellers have handed
+down to us concerning Ireland before it became Christian.
+
+The _first_ story they tell is, that about three hundred
+years after the Universal Deluge, Partholan, of the stock
+of Japhet, sailed down the Mediterranean, "leaving Spain
+on the right hand," and holding bravely on his course,
+reached the shores of the wooded western Island. This
+Partholan, they tell us, was a double parricide, having
+killed his father and mother before leaving his native
+country, for which horrible crimes, as the Bards very
+morally conclude, his posterity were fated never to
+possess the land. After a long interval, and when they
+were greatly increased in numbers, they were cut off to
+the last man, by a dreadful pestilence.
+
+The story of the _second_ immigration is almost as vague
+as that of the first. The leader this tune is called
+Nemedh, and his route is described as leading from the
+shores of the Black Sea, across what is now Russia in
+Europe, to the Baltic Sea, and from the Baltic to Ireland.
+He is said to have built two royal forts, and to have
+"cleared twelve plains of wood" while in Ireland. He
+and his posterity were constantly at war, with a terrible
+race of Formorians, or Sea Kings, descendants of Ham,
+who had fled from northern Africa to the western islands
+for refuge from their enemies, the sons of Shem. At length
+the Formorians prevailed, and the children of the second
+immigration were either slain or driven into exile, from
+which some of their posterity returned long afterwards,
+and again disputed the country, under two different
+denominations.
+
+The _Firbolgs_ or Belgae are the _third_ immigration.
+They were victorious under their chiefs, the five sons
+of Dela, and divided the island into five portions. But
+they lived in days when the earth--the known parts of it
+at least--was being eagerly scrambled for by the overflowing
+hosts of Asia, and they were not long left in undisputed
+possession of so tempting a prize. Another expedition,
+claiming descent from the common ancestor, Nemedh, arrived
+to contest their supremacy. These last--the _fourth_
+immigration--are depicted to us as accomplished soothsayers
+and necromancers who came out of Greece. They could quell
+storms; cure diseases; work in metals; foretell future
+events; forge magical weapons; and raise the dead to
+life; they are called the _Tuatha de Danans_, and by
+their supernatural power, as well as by virtue of "the
+Lia Fail," or fabled "stone of destiny," they subdued
+their Belgic kinsmen, and exercised sovereignty over
+them, till they in turn were displaced by the Gaelic, or
+_fifth_ immigration.
+
+This fifth and final colony called themselves alternately,
+or at different periods of their history, _Gael_, from
+one of their remote ancestors; _Milesians_, from the
+immediate projector of their emigration; or _Scoti_, from
+Scota, the mother of Milesius. They came from Spain
+under the leadership of the sons of Milesius, whom they
+had lost during their temporary sojourn in that country.
+In vain the skilful _Tuatha_ surrounded themselves and
+their coveted island with magic-made tempest and terrors;
+in vain they reduced it in size so as to be almost
+invisible from sea; Amergin, one of the sons of Milesius,
+was a Druid skilled in all the arts of the east, and led
+by his wise counsels, his brothers countermined the
+magicians, and beat them at their own weapons. This
+Amergin was, according to universal usage in ancient
+times, at once Poet, Priest, and Prophet; yet when his
+warlike brethren divided the island between them, they
+left the Poet out of reckoning. He was finally drowned
+in the waters of the river Avoca, which is probably the
+reason why that river has been so suggestive of melody
+and song ever since.
+
+Such are the stories told of the _five_ successive hordes
+of adventurers who first attempted to colonize our wooded
+Island. Whatever moiety of truth may be mixed up with
+so many fictions, two things are certain, that long before
+the time when our Lord and Saviour came upon earth, the
+coasts and harbours of Erin were known to the merchants
+of the Mediterranean, and that from the first to the
+fifth Christian century, the warriors of the wooded Isle
+made inroads on the Roman power in Britain and even in
+Gaul. Agricola, the Roman governor of Britain in the
+reign of Domitian--the first century--retained an Irish
+chieftain about his person, and we are told by his
+biographer that an invasion of Ireland was talked of at
+Rome. But it never took place; the Roman eagles, although
+supreme for four centuries in Britain, never crossed the
+Irish Sea; and we are thus deprived of those Latin helps
+to our early history, which are so valuable in the first
+period of the histories of every western country, with
+which the Romans had anything to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE FIRST AGES.
+
+Since we have no Roman accounts of the form of government
+or state of society in ancient Erin, we must only depend
+on the Bards and Story-tellers, so far as their statements
+are credible and agree with each other. On certain main
+points they do agree, and these are the points which it
+seems reasonable for us to take on their authority.
+
+As even brothers born of the same mother, coming suddenly
+into possession of a prize, will struggle to see who can
+get the largest share, so we find in those first ages a
+constant succession of armed struggles for power. The
+petty Princes who divided the Island between them were
+called _Righ_, a word which answers to the Latin _Rex_
+and French _Roi_; and the chief king or monarch was called
+_Ard-Righ_, or High-King. The eldest nephew, or son of
+the king, was the usual heir of power, and was called
+the _Tanist_, or successor; although any of the family
+of the Prince, his brothers, cousins, or other kinsmen,
+might be chosen _Tanist_, by election of the people over
+whom he was to rule. One certain cause of exclusion was
+personal deformity; for if a Prince was born lame or a
+hunchback, or if he lost a limb by accident, he was
+declared unfit to govern. Even after succession, any
+serious accident entailed deposition, though we find the
+names of several Princes who managed to evade or escape
+this singular penalty. It will be observed besides of
+the _Tanist_, that the habit of appointing him seems to
+have been less a law than a custom; that it was not
+universal in all the Provinces; that in some tribes the
+succession alternated between a double line of Princes;
+and that sometimes when the reigning Prince obtained the
+nomination of a _Tanist_, to please himself, the choice
+was set aside by the public voice of the clansmen. The
+successor to the Ard-Righ, or Monarch, instead of being
+simply called _Tanist_, had the more sounding title of
+_Roydamna_, or King-successor.
+
+The chief offices about the Kings, in the first ages,
+were all filled by the Druids, or Pagan Priests; the
+_Brehons_, or Judges, were usually Druids, as were also
+the _Bards_, the historians of their patrons. Then came
+the Physicians; the Chiefs who paid tribute or received
+annual gifts from the Sovereigns, or Princes; the royal
+stewards; and the military leaders or Champions, who,
+like the knights of the middle ages, held their lands
+and their rank at court, by the tenure of the sword. Like
+the feudal _Dukes_ of Prance, and _Barons_ of England,
+these military nobles often proved too powerful for their
+nominal patrons, and made them experience all the
+uncertainty of reciprocal dependence. The Champions play
+an important part in all the early legends. Wherever
+there is trouble you are sure to find them. Their most
+celebrated divisions were the warriors of the _Red
+Branch_--that is to say, the Militia of Ulster; the
+_Fiann_, or Militia of Leinster, sometimes the royal
+guard of Tara, at others in exile and disgrace; the
+_Clan-Degaid_ of Munster, and the _Fiann_ of Connaught.
+The last force was largely recruited from the Belgic race
+who had been squeezed into that western province, by
+their Milesian conquerors, pretty much as Cromwell
+endeavoured to force the Milesian Irish into it, many
+hundred years afterwards. Each of these bands had its
+special heroes; its Godfreys and Orlandos celebrated in
+song; the most famous name in Ulster was Cuchullin: so
+called from _cu_, a hound, or watch-dog, and _Ullin_,
+the ancient name of his province. He lived at the dawn
+of the Christian era. Of equal fame was Finn, the father
+of Ossian, and the Fingal of modern fiction, who flourished
+in the latter half of the second century. Gall, son of
+Morna, the hero of Connaught (one of the few distinguished
+men of Belgic origin whom we hear of through the Milesian
+bards), flourished a generation earlier than Finn, and
+might fairly compete with him in celebrity, if he had
+only had an Ossian to sing his praises.
+
+The political boundaries of different tribes expanded or
+contracted with their good or ill fortune in battle.
+Immigration often followed defeat, so that a clan, or
+its offshoot is found at one period on one part of the
+map and again on another. As _surnames_ were not generally
+used either in Ireland or anywhere else, till after the
+tenth century, the great families are distinguishable at
+first, only by their tribe or clan names. Thus at the
+north we have the Hy-Nial race; in the south the Eugenian
+race, so called from Nial and Eoghan, their mutual
+ancestors.
+
+We have already compared the shape of Erin to a shield,
+in which the four Provinces represented the four quarters.
+Some shields have also _bosses_ or centre-pieces, and
+the federal province of MEATH was the _boss_ of the old
+Irish shield. The ancient Meath included both the present
+counties of that name, stretching south to the Liffey,
+and north to Armagh. It was the mensal demesne, or "board
+of the king's table:" it was exempt from all taxes, except
+those of the Ard-Righ, and its relations to the other
+Provinces may be vaguely compared to those of the District
+of Columbia to the several States of the North American
+Union. ULSTER might then be defined by a line drawn from
+Sligo Harbour to the mouth of the Boyne, the line being
+notched here and there by the royal demesne of Meath;
+LEINSTER stretched south from Dublin triangle-wise to
+Waterford Harbour, but its inland line, towards the west,
+was never very well defined, and this led to constant
+border wars with Munster; the remainder of the south to
+the mouth of the Shannon composed MUNSTER; the present
+county of Clare and all west of the Shannon north to
+Sligo, and part of Cavan, going with CONNAUGHT. The chief
+seats of power, in those several divisions, were TARA,
+for federal purposes; EMANIA, near Armagh, for Ulster;
+LEIGHLIN, for Leinster; CASHEL, for Munster; and CRUCHAIN,
+(now Rathcrogan, in Roscommon,) for Connaught.
+
+How the common people lived within these external divisions
+of power it is not so easy to describe. All histories
+tell us a great deal of kings, and battles, and
+conspiracies, but very little of the daily domestic life
+of the people. In this respect the history of Erin is
+much the same as the rest; but some leading facts we do
+know. Their religion, in Pagan times, was what the moderns
+call _Druidism_, but what they called it themselves we
+now know not. It was probably the same religion anciently
+professed by Tyre and Sidon, by Carthage and her colonies
+in Spain; the same religion which the Romans have described
+as existing in great part of Gaul, and by their accounts,
+we learn the awful fact, that it sanctioned, nay, demanded,
+human sacrifices. From the few traces of its doctrines
+which Christian zeal has permitted to survive in the old
+Irish language, we see that _Belus_ or "Crom," the god
+of fire, typified by the sun, was its chief divinity--that
+two great festivals were held in his honour on days
+answering to the first of May and last of October. There
+were also particular gods of poets, champions, artificers
+and mariners, just as among the Romans and Greeks. Sacred
+groves were dedicated to these gods; Priests and Priestesses
+devoted their lives to their service; the arms of the
+champion, and the person of the king were charmed by
+them; neither peace nor war was made without their
+sanction; their own persons and their pupils were held
+sacred; the high place at the king's right hand and the
+best fruits of the earth and the waters were theirs. Old
+age revered them, women worshipped them, warriors paid
+court to them, youth trembled before them, princes and
+chieftains regarded them as elder brethren. So numerous
+were they in Erin, and so celebrated, that the altars of
+Britain and western Gaul, left desolate by the Roman
+legions, were often served by hierophants from Erin,
+which, even in those Pagan days, was known to all the
+Druidic countries as the "Sacred Island." Besides the
+princes, the warriors, and the Druids, (who were also
+the Physicians, Bards and Brehons of the first ages,)
+there were innumerable petty chiefs, all laying claim to
+noble birth and blood. They may be said with the warriors
+and priests to be the only freemen. The _Bruais_, or
+farmers, though possessing certain legal rights, were an
+inferior caste; while of the Artisans, the smiths and
+armorers only seem to have been of much consideration.
+The builders of those mysterious round towers, of which
+a hundred ruins yet remain, may also have been a privileged
+order. But the mill and the loom were servile occupations,
+left altogether to slaves taken in battle, or purchased
+in the market-places of Britain. The task of the herdsman,
+like that of the farm-labourer, seems to have devolved
+on the bondsmen, while the _quern_ and the shuttle were
+left exclusively in the hands of the bondswomen.
+
+We need barely mention the names of the first Milesian
+kings, who were remarkable for something else than cutting
+each other's throats, in order to hasten on to the solid
+ground of Christian tunes. The principal names are: Heber
+and Heremhon, the crowned sons of Milesians; they at
+first divided the Island fairly, but Heremhon soon became
+jealous of his brother, slew him in battle, and established
+his own supremacy. Irial the Prophet was King, and built
+seven royal fortresses; Tiern'mass; in his reign the arts
+of dyeing in colours were introduced; and the distinguishing
+of classes by the number of colours they were permitted
+to wear, was decreed. Ollamh ("the Wise") established
+the Convention of Tara, which assembled habitually every
+ninth year, but might be called oftener; it met about
+the October festival in honour of Beleus or _Crom_; Eocaid
+invented or introduced a new species of wicker boats,
+called _cassa_, and spent much of his time upon the sea;
+a solitary queen, named Macha, appears in the succession,
+from whom Armagh takes its name; except Mab, the
+mythological Queen of Connaught, she is the sole female
+ruler of Erin in the first ages; Owen or Eugene Mor ("the
+Great") is remembered as the founder of the notable
+families who rejoice in the common name of Eugenians;
+Leary, of whom the fable of Midas is told with variations;
+Angus, whom the after Princes of Alba (Scotland) claimed
+as their ancestor; Eocaid, the tenth of that name, in
+whose reign are laid the scenes of the chief mythological
+stories of Erin--such as the story of Queen Mab--the
+story of the Sons of Usna; the death of Cuchullin (a
+counterpart of the Persian tale of Roostam and Sohrab);
+the story of Fergus, son of the king; of Connor of Ulster;
+of the sons of Dari; and many more. We next meet with
+the first king who led an expedition abroad against the
+Romans in Crimthan, surnamed _Neea-Naari_, or Nair's
+Hero, from the good genius who accompanied him on his
+foray. A well-planned insurrection of the conquered
+Belgae, cut off one of Crimthan's immediate successors,
+with all his chiefs and nobles, at a banquet given on
+the Belgian-plain (Moybolgue, in Cavan); and arrested
+for a century thereafter Irish expeditions abroad. A
+revolution and a restoration followed, in which Moran the
+Just Judge played the part of Monk to _his_ Charles II.,
+Tuathal surnamed "the Legitimate." It was Tuathal
+who imposed the special tax on Leinster, of which, we
+shall often hear--under the title of _Borooa_, or Tribute.
+"The Legitimate" was succeeded by his son, who introduced
+the Roman _Lex Talionis_ ("an eye for an eye and a tooth,
+for a tooth") into the Brehon code; soon after, the
+Eugenian families of the south, strong in numbers, and
+led by a second Owen More, again halved the Island with
+the ruling race, the boundary this time being the _esker_,
+or ridge of land which can be easily traced from Dublin
+west to Galway. Olild, a brave and able Prince, succeeded
+in time to the southern half-kingdom, and planted his
+own kindred deep and firm in its soil, though the unity
+of the monarchy was again restored under Cormac Ulla, or
+_Longbeard_. This Cormac, according to the legend, was
+in secret a Christian, and was done to death by the
+enraged and alarmed Druids, after his abdication and
+retirement from the world (A.D. 266). He had reigned full
+forty years, rivalling in wisdom, and excelling in justice
+the best of his ancestors. Some of his maxims remain to
+us, and challenge comparison for truthfulness and foresight
+with most uninspired writings.
+
+Cormac's successors during the same century are of little
+mark, but in the next the expeditions against the Roman
+outposts were renewed with greater energy and on an
+increasing scale. Another Crimthan eclipsed the fame of
+his ancestor and namesake; Nial, called "of the Hostages,"
+was slain on a second or third expedition into Gaul (A.D.
+405), while Dathy, nephew and successor to Nial, was
+struck dead by lightning in the passage of the Alps (A.D.
+428). It was in one of Nial's Gallic expeditions that
+the illustrious captive was brought into Erin, for whom
+Providence had reserved the glory of its conversion to
+the Christian faith--an event which gives a unity and a
+purpose to the history of that Nation, which must always
+constitute its chief attraction to the Christian reader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+CHRISTIANITY PREACHED AT TARA--THE RESULT.
+
+The conversion of a Pagan people to Christianity must
+always be a primary fact in their history. It is not
+merely for the error it abolishes or the positive truth
+it establishes that a national change of faith is
+historically important, but for the complete revolution
+it works in every public and private relation. The change
+socially could not be greater if we were to see some
+irresistible apostle of Paganism ariving from abroad in
+Christian Ireland, who would abolish the churches,
+convents, and Christian schools; decry and bring into
+utter disuse the decalogue, the Scriptures and the
+Sacraments; efface all trace of the existing belief in
+One God and Three Persons, whether in private or public
+worship, in contracts, or in courts of law; and instead
+of these, re-establish all over the country, in high
+places and in every place, the gloomy groves of the
+Druids, making gods of the sun and moon, the natural
+elements, and man's own passions, restoring human sacrifices
+as a sacred duty, and practically excluding from the
+community of their fellows, all who presumed to question
+the divine origin of such a religion. The preaching of
+Patrick effected a revolution to the full as complete as
+such a counter-revolution in favour of Paganism could
+possibly be, and to this thorough revolution we must
+devote at least one chapter before going farther.
+
+The best accounts agree that Patrick was a native of
+Gaul, then subject to Rome; that he was carried captive
+into Erin on one of King Nial's returning expeditions;
+that he became a slave, as all captives of the sword did,
+in those iron times; that he fell to the lot of one
+Milcho, a chief of Dalriada, whose flocks he tended for
+seven years, as a shepherd, on the mountain called Slemish,
+in the present county of Antrim. The date of Nial's death,
+and the consequent return of his last expedition, is set
+down in all our annals at the year 405; as Patrick was
+sixteen years of age when he reached Ireland, he must
+have been born about the year 390; and as he died in the
+year 493, he would thus have reached the extraordinary,
+but not impossible age of 103 years. Whatever the exact
+number of his years, it is certain that his mission in
+Ireland commenced in the year 432, and was prolonged till
+his death, sixty-one years afterwards. Such an unprecedented
+length of life, not less than the unprecedented power,
+both popular and political, which he early attained,
+enabled him to establish the Irish Church, during his
+own time, on a basis so broad and deep, that neither
+lapse of ages, nor heathen rage, nor earthly temptations,
+nor all the arts of Hell, have been able to upheave its
+firm foundations. But we must not imagine that the powers
+of darkness abandoned the field without a struggle, or
+that the victory of the cross was achieved without a
+singular combination of courage, prudence, and
+determination--God aiding above all.
+
+If the year of his captivity was 405 or 406, and that of
+his escape or manumission seven years later (412 or 413),
+twenty years would intervene between his departure out
+of the land of his bondage, and his return to it clothed
+with the character and authority of a Christian Bishop.
+This interval, longer or shorter, he spent in qualifying
+himself for Holy Orders or discharging priestly duties
+at Tours, at Lerins, and finally at Rome. But always by
+night and day he was haunted by the thought of the Pagan
+nation in which he had spent his long years of servitude,
+whose language he had acquired, and the character of
+whose people he so thoroughly understood. These natural
+retrospections were heightened and deepened by supernatural
+revelations of the will of Providence towards the Irish,
+and himself as their apostle. At one time, an angel
+presented him, in his sleep, a scroll bearing the
+superscription, "the voice of the Irish;" at another, he
+seemed to hear in a dream all the unborn children of the
+nation crying to him for help and holy baptism. When,
+therefore, Pope Celestine commissioned him for this
+enterprise, "to the ends of the earth," he found him not
+only ready but anxious to undertake it.
+
+When the new Preacher arrived in the Irish Sea, in 432,
+he and his companions were driven off the coast of Wicklow
+by a mob, who assailed them with showers of stones.
+Running down the coast to Antrim, with which he was
+personally familiar, he made some stay at Saul, in Down,
+where he made few converts, and celebrated Mass in a
+barn; proceeding northward he found himself rejected with
+scorn by his old master, Milcho, of Slemish. No doubt it
+appeared an unpardonable audacity in the eyes of the
+proud Pagan, that his former slave should attempt to
+teach him how to reform his life and order his affairs.
+Returning again southward, led on, as we must believe,
+by the Spirit of God, he determined to strike a blow
+against Paganism at its most vital point. Having learned
+that the monarch, Leary (_Laeghaire_), was to celebrate
+his birthday with suitable rejoicings at Tara, on a day
+which happened to fall on the eve of Easter, he resolved
+to proceed to Tara on that occasion, and to confront the
+Druids in the midst of all the princes and magnates of
+the Island. With this view he returned on his former
+course, and landed from his frail barque at the mouth of
+the Boyne. Taking leave of the boatmen, he desired them
+to wait for him a certain number of days, when, if they
+did not hear from him, they might conclude him dead, and
+provide for their own safety. So saying he set out,
+accompanied by the few disciples he had made, or brought
+from abroad, to traverse on foot the great plain which
+stretches from the mouth of the Boyne to Tara. If those
+sailors were Christians, as is most likely, we can conceive
+with what anxiety they must have awaited tidings of an
+attempt so hazardous and so eventful.
+
+The Christian proceeded on his way, and the first night
+of his journey lodged with a hospitable chief, whose
+family he converted and baptized, especially marking out
+a fine child named Beanen, called by him Benignus, from
+his sweet disposition; who was destined to be one of his
+most efficient coadjutors, and finally his successor in
+the Primatial see of Armagh. It was about the second or
+third day when, travelling probably by the northern road,
+poetically called "the Slope of the Chariots," the
+Christian adventurers came in sight of the roofs of Tara.
+Halting on a neighbouring eminence they surveyed the
+citadel of Ancient Error, like soldiers about to assault
+an enemy's stronghold. The aspect of the royal hill must
+have been highly imposing. The building towards the north
+was the Banquet Hall, then thronged with the celebrants
+of the King's birth-day, measuring from north to south
+360 feet in length by 40 feet wide. South of this hall
+was the King's Rath, or residence, enclosing an area of
+280 yards in diameter, and including several detached
+buildings, such as the house of Cormac, and the house of
+the hostages. Southward still stood the new rath of the
+reigning king, and yet farther south, the rath of Queen
+Mab, probably uninhabited even then. The intervals between
+the buildings were at some points planted, for we know
+that magnificent trees shaded the well of Finn, and the
+well of Newnaw, from which all the raths were supplied
+with water. Imposing at any time, Tara must have looked
+its best at the moment Patrick first beheld it, being in
+the pleasant season of spring, and decorated in honour
+of the anniversary of the reigning sovereign.
+
+One of the religious ceremonies employed by the Druids
+to heighten the solemnity of the occasion, was to order
+all the fires of Tara and Meath to be quenched, in order
+to rekindle them instantaneously from a sacred fire
+dedicated to the honour of their god. But Patrick, either
+designedly or innocently, anticipated this striking
+ceremony, and lit his own fire, where he had encamped,
+in view of the royal residence. A flight of fiery arrows,
+shot into the Banqueting Hall, would not have excited
+more horror and tumult among the company there assembled,
+than did the sight of that unlicensed blaze in the
+distance. Orders were issued to drag the offender against
+the laws and the gods of the Island before them, and the
+punishment in store for him was already decreed in every
+heart. The Preacher, followed by his trembling disciples,
+ascended "the Slope of the Chariots," surrounded by
+menacing minions of the Pagan law, and regarded with
+indignation by astonished spectators. As he came he
+recited Latin Prayers to the Blessed Trinity, beseeching
+their protection and direction in this trying hour.
+Contrary to courteous custom no one at first rose to
+offer him a seat. At last a chieftain, touched with
+mysterious admiration for the stranger, did him that
+kindness. Then it was demanded of him, why he had dared
+to violate the laws of the country, and to defy its
+ancient gods. On this text the Christian Missionary spoke.
+The place of audience was in the open air, on that
+eminence, the home of so many kings, which commands one
+of the most agreeable prospects in any landscape. The
+eye of the inspired orator, pleading the cause of all
+the souls that hereafter, till the end of time, might
+inhabit the land, could discern within the spring-day
+horizon, the course of the Blackwater and the Boyne before
+they blend into one; the hills of Cavan to the far north;
+with the royal hill of Tailtean in the foreground; the
+wooded heights of Slane and Skreen, and the four ancient
+roads, which led away towards the four subject Provinces,
+like the reins of empire laid loosely on their necks.
+Since the first Apostle of the Gentiles had confronted
+the subtle Paganism of Athens, on the hill of Mars, none
+of those who walked in his steps ever stood out in more
+glorious relief than Patrick, surrounded by Pagan Princes,
+and a Pagan Priesthood, on the hill of Tara.
+
+The defence of the fire he had kindled, unlicensed, soon
+extended into wider issues. Who were the gods against
+whom he had offended? Were they true gods or false? They
+had their priests: could they maintain the divinity of
+such gods, by argument, or by miracle? For his God, he,
+though unworthy, was ready to answer, yea, right ready
+to die. His God had become man, and had died for man.
+His name alone was sufficient to heal all diseases; to
+raise the very dead to life. Such, we learn from the
+old biographers, was the line of Patrick's argument. This
+sermon ushered in a controversy. The king's guests, who
+had come to feast and rejoice, remained to listen and to
+meditate. With the impetuosity of the national character
+--with all its passion for debate--they rushed into this
+new conflict, some on one side, some on the other. The
+daughters of the king and many others--the Arch-Druid
+himself--became convinced and were baptized. The
+missionaries obtained powerful protectors, and the king
+assigned to Patrick the pleasant fort of Trim, as a
+present residence. From that convenient distance, he
+could readily return at any moment, to converse with the
+king's guests and the members of his household.
+
+The Druidical superstition never recovered the blow it
+received that day at Tara. The conversion of the Arch-Druid
+and the Princesses, was, of itself, their knell of doom.
+Yet they held their ground during the remainder of this
+reign--twenty-five years longer (A.D. 458). The king
+himself never became a Christian, though he tolerated
+the missionaries, and deferred more and more every year
+to the Christian party. He sanctioned an expurgated code
+of the laws, prepared under the direction of Patrick,
+from which every positive element of Paganism was rigidly
+excluded. He saw, unopposed, the chief idol of his race,
+overthrown on "the Plain of Prostration," at Sletty. Yet
+withal he never consented to be baptized; and only two
+years before his decease, we find him swearing to a
+treaty, in the old Pagan form--"by the Sun, and the Wind,
+and all the Elements." The party of the Druids at first
+sought to stay the progress of Christianity by violence,
+and even attempted, more than once, to assassinate Patrick.
+Finding these means ineffectual they tried ridicule and
+satire. In this they were for some time seconded by the
+Bards, men warmly attached to their goddess of song and
+their lives of self-indulgence. All in vain. The day of
+the idols was fast verging into everlasting night in
+Erin. Patrick and his disciples were advancing from
+conquest to conquest. Armagh and Cashel came in the wake
+of Tara, and Cruachan was soon to follow. Driven from
+the high places, the obdurate Priests of Bel took refuge
+in the depths of the forest and in the islands of the
+sea, wherein the Christian anchorites of the next age
+were to replace them. The social revolution proceeded,
+but all that was tolerable in the old state of things,
+Patrick carefully engrafted with the new. He allowed much
+for the habits and traditions of the people, and so made
+the transition as easy, from darkness into the light, as
+Nature makes the transition from night to morning. He
+seven times visited in person every mission in the kingdom,
+performing the six first "circuits" on foot, but the
+seventh, on account of his extreme age, he was borne in
+a chariot. The pious munificence of the successors of
+Leary, had surrounded him with a household of princely
+proportions. Twenty-four persons, mostly ecclesiastics,
+were chosen for this purpose: a bell-ringer, a psalmist,
+a cook, a brewer, a chamberlain, three smiths, three
+artificers, and three embroiderers are reckoned of the
+number. These last must be considered as employed in
+furnishing the interior of the new churches. A scribe,
+a shepherd to guard his flocks, and a charioteer are also
+mentioned, and their proper names given. How different
+this following from the little boat's crew, he had left
+waiting tidings from Tara, in such painful apprehension,
+at the mouth of the Boyne, in 432. Apostolic zeal, and
+unrelaxed discipline had wrought these wonders, during
+a lifetime prolonged far beyond the ordinary age of man.
+
+The fifth century was drawing to a close, and the days
+of Patrick were numbered. Pharamond and the Franks had
+sway on the Netherlands; Hengist and the Saxons on South
+Britain; Clovis had led his countrymen across the Rhine
+into Gaul; the Vandals had established themselves in
+Spain and North Africa; the Ostrogoths were supreme in
+Italy. The empire of barbarism had succeeded to the empire
+of Polytheism; dense darkness covered the semi-Christian
+countries of the old Roman empire, but happily daylight
+still lingered in the West. Patrick, in good season,
+had done his work. And as sometimes, God seems to bring
+round His ends, contrary to the natural order of things,
+so the spiritual sun of Europe was now destined to rise
+in the West, and return on its light-bearing errand
+towards the East, dispelling La its path, Saxon, Frankish,
+and German darkness, until at length it reflected back
+on Rome herself, the light derived from Rome.
+
+On the 17th of March, in the year of our Lord 493, Patrick
+breathed his last in the monastery of Saul, erected on
+the site of that barn where he had first said Mass. He
+was buried with national honours in the Church of Armagh,
+to which he had given the Primacy over all the churches
+of Ireland; and such was the concourse of mourners, and
+the number of Masses offered for his eternal repose, that
+from the day of his death till the close of the year,
+the sun is poetically said never to have set--so brilliant
+and so continual was the glare of tapers and torches.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE CONSTITUTION, AND HOW THE KINGS KEPT IT.
+
+We have fortunately still existing the main provisions
+of that constitution which was prepared under the auspices
+of Saint Patrick, and which, though not immediately, nor
+simultaneously, was in the end accepted by all Erin as
+its supreme law. It is contained in a volume called "the
+Book of Rights," and in its printed form (the Dublin
+bilingual edition of 1847), fills some 250 octavo pages.
+This book may be said to contain the original institutes
+of Erin under her Celtic Kings: "the Brehon laws," (which
+have likewise been published), bear the same relation to
+"the Book of Rights," as the Statutes at large of England,
+or the United States, bear to the English Constitution
+in the one case, or to the collective Federal and State
+Constitutions in the other. Let us endeavour to comprehend
+what this ancient Irish Constitution was like, and how
+the Kings received it, at first.
+
+There were, as we saw in the first chapter, beside the
+existing four Provinces, whose names are familiar to
+every one, a fifth principality of Meath. Each of the
+Provinces was subdivided into chieftainries, of which
+there were at least double or treble as many as there
+are now counties. The connection between the chief and
+his Prince, or the Prince and his monarch, was not of
+the nature of feudal obedience; for the fee-simple of
+the soil was never supposed to be vested in the sovereign,
+nor was the King considered to be the fountain of all
+honour. The Irish system blended the aristocratic and
+democratic elements more largely than the monarchical.
+Everything proceeded by election, but all the candidates
+should be of noble blood. The Chiefs, Princes, and
+Monarchs, so selected, were bound together by certain
+customs and tributes, originally invented by the genius
+of the Druids, and afterwards adopted and enforced by
+the authority of the Bishops. The tributes were paid in
+kind, and consisted of cattle, horses, foreign-born
+slaves, hounds, oxen, scarlet mantles, coats of mail,
+chess-boards and chess-men, drinking cups, and other
+portable articles of value. The quantity in every case
+due from a King to his subordinate, or from a subordinate
+to his King--for the gifts and grants were often
+reciprocal--is precisely stated in every instance. Besides
+these rights, this constitution defines the "prerogatives"
+of the five Kings on their journeys through each other's
+territory, their accession to power, or when present in
+the General Assemblies of the Kingdom. It contains,
+besides, a very numerous array of "prohibitions"--acts
+which neither the Ard-Righ nor any other Potentate may
+lawfully do. Most of these have reference to old local
+Pagan ceremonies in which the Kings once bore a leading
+part, but which were now strictly prohibited; others are
+of inter-Provincial significance, and others, again, are
+rules of personal conduct. Among the prohibitions of the
+monarch the first is, that the sun must never rise on
+him in his bed at Tara; among his prerogatives he was
+entitled to banquet on the first of August, on the fish
+of the Boyne, fruit from the Isle of Man, cresses from
+the Brosna river, venison from Naas, and to drink the
+water of the well of Talla: in other words, he was entitled
+to eat on that day, of the produce, whether of earth or
+water, of the remotest bounds, as well as of the very
+heart of his mensal domain. The King of Leinster was
+"prohibited" from upholding the Pagan ceremonies within
+his province, or to encamp for more than a week in certain
+districts; but he was "privileged" to feast on the fruits
+of Almain, to drink the ale of Cullen, and to preside
+over the games of Carman, (Wexford.) His colleague of
+Munster was "prohibited" from encamping a whole week at
+Killarney or on the Suir, and from mustering a martial
+host on the Leinster border at Gowran; he was "privileged"
+to pass the six weeks of Lent at Cashel (in free quarters),
+to use fire and force in compelling tribute from north
+Leinster; and to obtain a supply of cattle from Connaught,
+at the time "of the singing of the cuckoo." The Connaught
+King had five other singular "prohibitions" imposed on
+him--evidently with reference to some old Pagan rites--and
+his "prerogatives" were hostages from Galway, the monopoly
+of the chase in Mayo, free quarters in Murrisk, in the
+same neighbourhood, and to marshal his border-host at
+Athlone to confer with the tribes of Meath. The ruler
+of Ulster was also forbidden to indulge in such
+superstitious practices as observing omens of birds, or
+drinking of a certain fountain "between two darknesses;"
+his prerogatives were presiding at the games of Cooley,
+"with the assembly of the fleet;" the right of mustering
+his border army in the plains of Louth; free quarters in
+Armagh for three nights for his troops before setting
+out on an expedition; and to confine his hostages in
+Dunseverick, a strong fortress near the Giant's Causeway.
+Such were the principal checks imposed upon the individual
+caprice of Monarchs and Princes; the plain inference from
+all which is, that under the Constitution of Patrick, a
+Prince who clung to any remnant of ancient Paganism,
+might lawfully be refused those rents and dues which
+alone supported his dignity. In other words, disguised
+as it may be to us under ancient forms, "the Book of
+Rights" establishes Christianity as the law of the land.
+All national usages and customs, not conflicting with
+this supreme law, were recognized and sanctioned by it.
+The internal revenues in each particular Province were
+modelled upon the same general principle, with one
+memorable exception--the special tribute which Leinster
+paid to Munster--and which was the cause of more bloodshed
+than all other sources of domestic quarrel combined. The
+origin of this tax is surrounded with fable, but it
+appears to have arisen out of the reaction which took
+place, when Tuathal, "the Legitimate," was restored to
+the throne of his ancestors, after the successful revolt
+of the Belgic bondsmen. Leinster seems to have clung
+longest to the Belgic revolution, and to have submitted
+only after repeated defeats. Tuathal, therefore, imposed
+on that Province this heavy and degrading tax, compelling
+its Princes not only to render him and his successors
+immense herds of cattle, but also 150 male and female
+slaves, to do the menial offices about the palace of
+Tara. With a refinement of policy, as far-seeing as it
+was cruel, the proceeds of the tax were to be divided
+one-third to Ulster, one-third to Connaught, and the
+remainder between the Queen of the Monarch and the ruler
+of Munster. In this way all the other Provinces became
+interested in enforcing this invidious and oppressive
+enactment upon Leinster which, of course, was withheld
+whenever it could be refused with the smallest probability
+of success. Its resistance, and enforcement, especially
+by the kings of Munster, will be found a constant cause
+of civil war, even in Christian times.
+
+The sceptre of Ireland, from her conversion to the time
+of Brian, was almost solely in the hands of the northern
+Hy-Nial, the same family as the O'Neills. All the kings
+of the sixth and seventh centuries were of that line. In
+the eighth century (from 709 to 742), the southern
+annalists style Cathal, King of Munster, Ard-Righ; in
+the ninth century (840 to 847), they give the same high
+title to Felim, King of Munster; and in the eleventh
+century Brian possessed that dignity for the twelve last
+years of his life, (1002 to 1014). With these exceptions,
+the northern Hy-Nial, and their co-relatives of Meath,
+called the southern Hy-Nial, seem to have retained the
+sceptre exclusively in their own hands, during the five
+first Christian centuries. Yet on every occasion, the
+ancient forms of election, (or procuring the adhesion of
+the Princes), had to be gone through. Perfect unanimity,
+however, was not required; a majority equal to two-thirds
+seems to have sufficed. If the candidate had the North
+in his favour, and one Province of the South, he was
+considered entitled to take possession of Tara; if he
+were a Southern, he should be seconded either by Connaught
+or Ulster, before he could lawfully possess himself of
+the supreme power. The benediction of the Archbishop of
+Armagh, seems to have been necessary to confirm the choice
+of the Provincials. The monarchs, like the petty kings,
+were crowned or "made" on the summit of some lofty mound
+prepared for that purpose; an hereditary officer, appointed
+to that duty, presented him with a white wand perfectly
+straight, as an emblem of the purity and uprightness
+which should guide all his decisions, and, clothed with
+his royal robes, the new ruler descended among his people,
+and solemnly swore to protect their rights and to administer
+equal justice to all. This was the civil ceremony; the
+solemn blessing took place in a church, and is supposed
+to be the oldest form of coronation service observed
+anywhere in Christendom.
+
+A ceremonial, not without dignity, regulated the gradations
+of honour, in the General Assemblies of Erin. The time
+of meeting was the great Pagan Feast of Samhain, the 1st
+of November. A feast of three days opened and closed the
+Assembly, and during its sittings, crimes of violence
+committed on those in attendance were punished with
+instant death. The monarch himself had no power to pardon
+any violator of this established law. The _Chiefs_ of
+territories sat, each in an appointed seat, under his
+own shield; the seats being arranged by order of the
+Ollamh, or Recorder, whose duty it was to preserve the
+muster-roll, containing the names of all the living
+nobles. The _Champions_, or leaders of military bands,
+occupied a secondary position, each sitting' under his
+own shield. Females and spectators of an inferior rank
+were excluded; the Christian clergy naturally stepped
+into the empty places of the Druids, and were placed
+immediately next the monarch.
+
+We shall now briefly notice the principal acts of the
+first Christian kings, during the century immediately
+succeeding St. Patrick's death. Of OLLIOL, who succeeded
+Leary, we cannot say with certainty that he was a Christian.
+His successor, LEWY, son of Leary, we are expressly told
+was killed by lightning (A.D. 496), for "having violated
+the law of Patrick"--that is, probably, for having
+practised some of those Pagan rites forbidden to the
+monarchs by the revised constitution. His successor,
+MURKERTACH, son of Ere, was a professed Christian, though
+a bad one, since he died by the vengeance of a concubine
+named Sheen, (that is, _storm_,) whom he had once put
+away at the instance of his spiritual adviser, but whom
+he had not the courage--though brave as a lion in battle--to
+keep away (A.D. 527). TUATHAL, "the Rough," succeeded
+and reigned for seven years, when he was assassinated by
+the tutor of DERMID, son of Kerbel, a rival whom he had
+driven into exile. DERMID immediately seized on the throne
+(A.D. 534), and for twenty eventful years bore sway over
+all Erin. He appears to have had quite as much of the
+old leaven of Paganism in his composition--at least in
+his youth and prime--as either Lewy or Leary. He kept
+Druids about his person, despised "the right of sanctuary"
+claimed by the Christian clergy, and observed, with all
+the ancient superstitious ceremonial, the national games
+at Tailteen. In his reign, the most remarkable event was
+the public curse pronounced on Tara, by a Saint whose
+sanctuary the reckless monarch had violated, in dragging
+a prisoner from the very horns of the altar, and putting
+him to death. For this offence--the crowning act of a
+series of aggressions on the immunities claimed by the
+clergy--the Saint, whose name was Ruadan, and the site
+of whose sanctuary is still known as Temple-Ruadan in
+Tipperary, proceeded to Tara, accompanied by his clergy,
+and, walking round the royal rath, solemnly excommunicated
+the monarch, and anathematized the place. The far-reaching
+consequences of this awful exercise of spiritual power
+are traceable for a thousand years through Irish history.
+No king after Dermid resided permanently upon the hill
+of Tara. Other royal houses there were in Meath--at
+Tailteen, at the hill of Usna, and on the margin of the
+beautiful Lough Ennell, near the present Castlepollard,
+and at one or other of these, after monarchs held occasional
+court; but those of the northern race made their habitual
+home in their own patrimony near Armagh, or on the
+celebrated hill of Aileach. The date of the malediction
+which left Tara desolate is the year of our Lord, 554.
+The end of this self-willed semi-Pagan (Dermid) was in
+unison with his life; he was slain in battle by Black
+Hugh, Prince of Ulster, two years after the desolation
+of Tara.
+
+Four kings, all fierce competitors for the succession,
+reigned and fell, within ten years of the death of Dermid,
+and then we come to the really interesting and important
+reign of Hugh the Second, which lasted twenty-seven years
+(A.D. 566 to 593), and was marked by the establishment
+of the Independence of the Scoto-Irish Colony in North
+Britain, and by other noteworthy events. But these
+twenty-seven years deserve a chapter to themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+REIGN OF HUGH II.--THE IRISH COLONY IN SCOTLAND OBTAINS
+ITS INDEPENDENCE.
+
+Twenty-seven years is a long reign, and the years of
+King-Hugh II. were marked with striking events. One
+religious and one political occurrence, however, threw
+all others into the shade--the conversion of the Highlands
+and Islands of Scotland (then called Alba or Albyn by
+the Gael, and Caledonia by the Latins), and the formal
+recognition, after an exciting controversy, of the
+independence of the Milesian colony in Scotland. These
+events follow each other in the order of time, and stand
+partly in the relation of cause and effect.
+
+The first authentic Irish immigration into Scotland seems
+to have taken place about the year of our Lord 258. The
+pioneers crossed over from Antrim to Argyle, where the
+strait is less than twenty-five miles wide. Other
+adventurers followed at intervals, but it is a fact to
+be deplored, that no passages in our own, and in all
+other histories, have been so carelessly kept as the
+records of emigration. The movements of rude masses of
+men, the first founders of states and cities, are generally
+lost in obscurity, or misrepresented by patriotic zeal.
+Several successive settlements of the Irish in Caledonia
+can be faintly traced from the middle of the third till
+the beginning of the sixth century. About the year 503,
+they had succeeded in establishing a flourishing
+principality among the cliffs and glens of Argyle. The
+limits of their first territory cannot be exactly laid
+down; but it soon spread north into Rosshire, and east
+into the present county of Perth. It was a land of stormy
+friths and fissured headlands, of deep defiles and snowy
+summits. "'Tis a far cry to Lough Awe," is still a lowland
+proverb, and Lough Awe was in the very heart of that old
+Irish settlement.
+
+The earliest emigrants to Argyle were Pagans, while the
+latter were Christians, and were accompanied by priests,
+and a bishop, Kieran, the son of the carpenter, whom,
+from his youthful piety and holy life, as well as from
+the occupation followed by his father, is sometimes
+fancifully compared to our Lord and Saviour himself.
+Parishes in Cantyre, in Islay, and in Carrick, still bear
+the name of St. Kieran as patron. But no systematic
+attempt--none at least of historic memory--was made to
+convert the remoter Gael and the other races then inhabiting
+Alba--the Picts, Britons, and Scandinavians, until the
+year of our era, 565, Columba or COLUMBKILL, a Bishop of
+the royal race of Nial, undertook that task, on a scale
+commensurate with its magnitude. This celebrated man has
+always ranked with Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget as
+the most glorious triad of the Irish Calendar. He was,
+at the time he left Ireland, in the prime of life--his
+44th year. Twelve companions, the apostolic number,
+accompanied him on his voyage. For thirty-four years he
+was the legislator and captain of Christianity in those
+northern regions. The King of the Picts received baptism
+at his hands; the Kings of the Scottish colony, his
+kinsmen, received the crown from him on their accession.
+The islet of I., or Iona, as presented to him by one of
+these princes. Here he and his companions built with
+their own hands their parent-house, and from this Hebridean
+rock in after times was shaped the destinies, spiritual
+and temporal, of many tribes and kingdoms.
+
+The growth of Iona was as the growth of the grain of
+mustard seed mentioned in the Gospel, even during the
+life of its founder. Formed by his teaching and example,
+there went out from it apostles to Iceland, to the Orkneys,
+to Northumbria, to Man, and to South Britain. A hundred
+monasteries in Ireland looked to that exiled saint as
+their patriarch. His rule of monastic life, adopted either
+from the far East, from the recluses of the Thebaid, or
+from his great contemporary, Saint Benedict, was sought
+for by Chiefs, Bards, and converted Druids. Clients,
+seeking direction from his wisdom, or protection through
+his power, were constantly arriving and departing from
+his sacred isle. His days were divided between manual
+labour and the study and transcribing of the Sacred
+Scriptures. He and his disciples, says the Venerable
+Bede, in whose age Iona still flourished, "neither thought
+of nor loved anything in _this_ world." Some writers have
+represented Columbkill's _Culdees_, (which in English
+means simply "Servants of God,") as a married clergy; so
+far is this from the truth, that we now know, no woman
+was allowed to land on the island, nor even a cow to be
+kept there, for, said the holy Bishop, "wherever there
+is a cow there will be a woman, and wherever there is a
+woman there will be mischief."
+
+In the reign of King Hugh, three domestic questions arose
+of great importance; one was the refusal of the Prince
+of Ossory to pay tribute to the Monarch; the other, the
+proposed extinction of the Bardic Order, and the third,
+the attempt to tax the Argyle Colony. The question between
+Ossory and Tara, we may pass over as of obsolete interest,
+but the other two deserve fuller mention:
+
+The Bards--who were the Editors, Professors, Registrars
+and Record-keepers--the makers and masters of public
+opinion in those days, had reached in this reign a number
+exceeding 1,200 in Meath and Ulster alone. They claimed
+all the old privileges of free quarters on their travels
+and freeholdings at home, which were freely granted to
+their order when it was in its infancy. Those chieftains
+who refused them anything, however extravagant, they
+lampooned and libelled, exciting their own people and
+other princes against them. Such was their audacity, that
+some of them are said to have demanded from King Hugh
+the royal brooch, one of the most highly prized heirlooms
+of the reigning family. Twice in the early part of this
+reign they had been driven from the royal residence, and
+obliged to take refuge in the little principality of
+Ulidia (or Down); the third time the monarch had sworn
+to expel them utterly from the kingdom. In Columbkill,
+however, they were destined to find a most powerful
+mediator, both from his general sympathy with the Order,
+being himself no mean poet, and from the fact that the
+then Arch-Poet, or chief of the order, Dallan Forgaill,
+was one of his own pupils.
+
+To settle this vexed question of the Bards, as well as
+to obtain the sanction of the estates to the taxation of
+Argyle, King Hugh called a General Assembly in the year
+590. The place of meeting was no longer the interdicted
+Tara, but for the monarch's convenience a site farther
+north was chosen--the hill of Drom-Keth, in the present
+county of Deny. Here came in rival state and splendour
+the Princes of the four Provinces, and other principal
+chieftains. The dignitaries of the Church also attended,
+and an occasional Druid was perhaps to be seen in the
+train of some unconverted Prince. The pretensions of the
+mother-country to impose a tax upon her Colony, were
+sustained by the profound learning and venerable name of
+St. Colman, Bishop of Dromore, one of the first men of
+his Order.
+
+When Columbkill "heard of the calling together of that
+General Assembly," and of the questions to be there
+decided, he resolved to attend, notwithstanding the stern
+vow of his earlier life, never to look on Irish soil
+again. Under a scruple of this kind, he is said to have
+remained blindfold, from Ms arrival in Ms fatherland,
+till his return to Iona. He was accompanied by an imposing
+train of attendants; by Aidan, Prince of Argyle, so deeply
+interested in the issue, and a suite of over one hundred
+persons, twenty of them Abbots or Bishops. Columbkill
+spoke for his companions; for already, as in Bede's time,
+the Abbots of Iona exercised over all the clergy north
+of the Humber, but still more directly north of the Tweed,
+a species of supremacy similar to that which the successors
+of St. Benedict and St. Bernard exercised, in turn, over
+Prelates and Princes on the European Continent.
+
+When the Assembly was opened the holy Bishop of Dromore
+stated the arguments in favour of Colonial taxation with
+learning and effect. Hugh himself impeached the Bards
+for their licentious and lawless lives. Columbkill defended
+both interests, and, by combining both, probably
+strengthened the friends of each. It is certain that he
+carried the Assembly with him, both against the monarch
+and those of the resident clergy, who had selected Colman
+as their spokesman. The Bardic Order was spared. The
+doctors, or master-singers among them, were prohibited
+from wandering from place to place; they were assigned
+residence with the chiefs and princes; their losel
+attendants were turned over to honest pursuits, and thus
+a great danger was averted, and one of the most essential
+of the Celtic institutions being reformed and regulated,
+was preserved. Scotland and Ireland have good reason to
+be grateful to the founder of Iona, for the interposition
+that preserved to us the music, which is now admitted to
+be one of the most precious inheritances of both countries.
+
+The proposed taxation Columbkill strenuously and
+successfully resisted. Up to this time, the colonists
+had been bound only to furnish a contingent force, by
+land and sea, when the King of Ireland went to war, and
+to make them an annual present called "chief-rent."
+
+From the Book of Rights we learn that (at least at the
+time the existing transcript was made) the Scottish
+Princes paid out of Alba, seven shields, seven steeds,
+seven bondswomen, seven bondsmen, and seven hounds all
+of the same breed. But the "chief-rent," or "eric for
+kindly blood," did not suffice in the year 590 to satisfy
+King Hugh. The colony had grown great, and, like some
+modern monarchs, he proposed to make it pay for its
+success. Columbkill, though a native of Ireland, and a
+prince of its reigning house, was by choice a resident
+of Caledonia, and he stood true to his adopted country.
+The Irish King refused to continue the connection on the
+old conditions, and declared his intention to visit Alba
+himself to enforce the tribute due; Columbkill, rising
+in the Assembly, declared the Albanians "for ever free
+from the yoke," and this, adds an old historian, "turned
+out to be the fact." From the whole controversy we may
+conclude that Scotland never paid political tribute to
+Ireland; that their relation was that rather of allies,
+than of sovereign and vassal; that it resembled more the
+homage Carthage paid to Tyre, and Syracuse to Corinth,
+than any modern form of colonial dependence; that a
+federal connection existed by which, in time of war, the
+Scots of Argyle, and those of Hibernia, were mutually
+bound to aid, assist, and defend each other. And this
+natural and only connection, founded in the blood of both
+nations, sanctioned by their early saints, confirmed by
+frequent intermarriage, by a common language and literature,
+and by hostility to common enemies, the Saxons, Danes,
+and Normans, grew into a political bond of unusual
+strength, and was cherished with affection by both nations,
+long ages after the magnates assembled at Drom-Keth had
+disappeared in the tombs of their fathers.
+
+The only unsettled question which remained after the
+Assembly at Drom-Keth related to the Prince of Ossory.
+Five years afterwards (A.D. 595), King Hugh fell in an
+attempt to collect the special tribute from all Leinster,
+of which we have already heard something, and shall, by
+and by, hear more. He was an able and energetic ruler,
+and we may be sure "did not let the sun rise on him in
+his bed at Tara," or anywhere else. In his time great
+internal changes were taking place in the state of society.
+The ecclesiastical order had become more powerful than
+any other in the state. The Bardic Order, thrice proscribed,
+were finally subjected to the laws, over which they had
+at one time insolently domineered. Ireland's only colony
+--unless we except the immature settlement in the Isle
+of Man, under Cormac Longbeard--was declared independent
+of the parent country, through the moral influence of
+its illustrious Apostle, whose name many of its kings
+and nobles were of old proud to bear--_Mal-Colm_, meaning
+"servant of Columb," or Columbkill. But the memory of
+the sainted statesman who decreed the separation of the
+two populations, so far as claims to taxation could be
+preferred, preserved, for ages, the better and far more
+profitable alliance, of an ancient friendship, unbroken
+by a single national quarrel during a thousand years.
+
+A few words more on the death and character of this
+celebrated man, whom we are now to part with at the close
+of the sixth, as we parted from Patrick at the close of
+the fifth century. His day of departure came in 596.
+Death found him at the ripe age of almost fourscore,
+_stylus_ in hand, toiling cheerfully over the vellum
+page. It was the last night of the week when the
+presentiment of his end came strongly upon him. "This
+day," he said to his disciple and successor, Dermid, "is
+called the day of rest, and such it will be for me, for
+it will finish my labours." Laying down the manuscript,
+he added, "let Baithen finish the rest." Just after
+Matins, on the Sunday morning, he peacefully passed away
+from the midst of his brethren.
+
+Of his tenderness, as well as energy of character,
+tradition, and his biographers have recorded many instances.
+Among others, his habit of ascending an eminence every
+evening at sunset, to look over towards the coast of his
+native land. The spot is called by the islanders to this
+day, "the place of the back turned upon Ireland." The
+fishermen of the Hebrides long believed they could see
+their saint flitting over the waves after every new storm,
+counting the islands to see if any of them had foundered.
+It must have been a loveable character of which such
+tales could be told and cherished from generation to
+generation.
+
+Both Education and Nature had well fitted Columbkill to
+the great task of adding another realm to the empire of
+Christendom. His princely birth gave him power over his
+own proud kindred; his golden eloquence and glowing
+verse--the fragments of which still move and delight the
+Gaelic scholar--gave him fame and weight in the Christian
+schools which had suddenly sprung up in every glen and
+island. As prince, he stood on equal terms with princes;
+as poet, he was affiliated to that all-powerful Bardic
+Order, before whose awful anger kings trembled, and
+warriors succumbed in superstitious dread. A spotless
+soul, a disciplined body, an indomitable energy, an
+industry that never wearied, a courage that never blanched,
+a sweetness and courtesy that won all hearts, a tenderness
+for others that contrasted strongly with his rigour
+towards himself--these were the secrets of the success
+of this eminent missionary--these were the miracles by
+which he accomplished the conversion of so many barbarous
+tribes and Pagan Princes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+KINGS OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
+
+THE five years of the sixth century, which remained after
+the death of Hugh II., were filled by Hugh III., son of
+Dermid, the semi-Pagan. Hugh IV. succeeded (A.D. 599)
+and reigned for several years; two other kings, of small
+account, reigned seven years; Donald II. (A.D. 624)
+reigned sixteen years; Connall and Kellach, brothers,
+(A.D. 640) reigned jointly sixteen years; they were
+succeeded (A.D. 656) by Dermid and Blathmac, brothers,
+who reigned jointly seven years; Shanasagh, son of the
+former, reigned six years; Kenfala, four; Finnacta, "the
+hospitable," twenty years, and Loingsech (A.D. 693) eight
+years.
+
+Throughout this century the power of the Church was
+constantly on the increase, and is visible in many
+important changes. The last armed struggle of Druidism,
+and the only invasion of Ireland by the Anglo-Saxons,
+are also events of the civil history of the seventh
+century.
+
+The reign, of Donald II. is notable for the passing away
+of most of those saintly men, the second generation of
+Irish abbots and bishops; for the foundation of the
+celebrated school of Lismore on the Munster Blackwater;
+and the battle of Moira, in the present county of Down.
+Of the school and the saints we shall speak hereafter;
+the battle deserves more immediate mention.
+
+The cause of the battle was the pretension of the petty
+Prince of Ulidia, which comprised little more than the
+present county of Down, to be recognised as Prince of
+all Ulster. Now the Hy-Nial family, not only had long
+given monarchs to all Ireland, but had also the lion's
+share of their own Province, and King Donald as their
+head could not permit their ascendency to be disputed.
+The ancestors of the present pretender, Congal, surnamed
+"the squint-eyed," had twice received and cherished the
+licentious Bards when under the ban of Tara, and his
+popularity with that still powerful order was one prop
+of his ambition. It is pretty clear also that the last
+rally of Druidism against Christianity took place behind
+his banner, on the plain of Moira. It was the year 637,
+and preparations had long gone on on both sides for a
+final trial of strength. Congal had recruited numerous
+bands of Saxons, Britons, Picts and Argyle Scots, who
+poured into the Larbours of Down for months, and were
+marshalled on the banks of the Lagan, to sustain his
+cause. The Poets of succeeding ages have dwelt much in
+detail on the occurrences of this memorable day. It was
+what might strictly be called a pitched battle, time and
+place being fixed by mutual agreement. King Donald was
+accompanied by his Bard, who described to him, as they
+came in sight, the several standards of Congal's host,
+and who served under them. Conspicuous above all, the
+ancient banner of the Red Branch Knights-"a yellow lion
+wrought on green satin"--floated over Congal's host. On
+the other side the monarch commanded in person, accompanied
+by his kinsmen, the sons of Hugh III. The red hand of
+Tirowen, the cross of Tirconnell, the eagle and lion of
+Innishowen, the axes of Fanad, were in his ranks, ranged
+closely round his own standard. The cause of the
+Constitution and the Church prevailed, and Druidism
+mourned its last hope extinguished on the plains of Moira,
+in the death of Congal, and the defeat of his vast army.
+King Donald returned in triumph to celebrate his victory
+at Emania and to receive the benediction of the Church
+at Armagh.
+
+The sons of Hugh III., Dermid and Blathmac, zealous and
+pious Christian princes, survived the field of Moira and
+other days of danger, and finally attained the supreme
+power--A.D. 656. Like the two kings of Sparta they
+reigned jointly, dividing between them the labours and
+cares of State. In their reign, that terrible scourge,
+called in Irish, "the yellow plague," after ravaging
+great part of Britain, broke out with undiminished
+virulence in Erin (A.D. 664). To heighten the awful sense
+of inevitable doom, an eclipse of the sun occurred
+concurrently with the appearance of the pestilence on
+the first Sunday in May. It was the season when the
+ancient sun-god had been accustomed to receive his annual
+oblations, and we can well believe that those whose hearts
+still trembled at the name of Bel, must have connected
+the eclipse and the plague with the revolution in the
+national worship, and the overthrow of the ancient gods
+on that "plain of prostration," where they had so long
+received the homage of an entire people. Among the victims
+of this fearful visitation--which, like the modern cholera,
+swept through all ranks and classes of society, and
+returned in the same track for several successive
+seasons--were very many of those venerated men, the third
+and fourth generation of the Abbots and Bishops. The
+Munster King, and many of the chieftain class shared the
+common lot. Lastly, the royal brothers fell themselves
+victims to the epidemic, which so sadly signalizes their
+reign.
+
+The only conflicts that occurred on Irish soil with a
+Pictish or an Anglo-Saxon force--if we except those who
+formed a contingent of Congal's army at Moira--occurred
+in the time of the hospitable Finnacta. The Pictish force,
+with their leaders, were totally defeated at Rathmore,
+in Antrim (A.D. 680), but the Anglo-Saxon expedition
+(A.D. 684) seems not to have been either expected or
+guarded against. As leading to the mention of other
+interesting events, we must set this inroad clearly
+before the reader.
+
+The Saxons had now been for four centuries in Britain,
+the older inhabitants of which--Celts like the Gauls and
+Irish--they had cruelly harassed, just as the Milesian
+Irish oppressed their Belgic predecessors, and as the
+Normans, in turn, will be found oppressing both Celt and
+Saxon in England and Ireland. Britain had been divided
+by the Saxon leaders into eight separate kingdoms, the
+people and princes of several of which were converted to
+Christianity in the fifth, sixth, and seventh century,
+though some of them did not receive the Gospel before
+the beginning of the eighth. The Saxons of Kent and the
+Southern Kingdoms generally were converted by missionaries
+from France or Rome, or native preachers of the first or
+second Christian generation; those of Northumbria recognise
+as their Apostles St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, two Fathers
+from Iona. The Kingdom of Northumbria, as the name
+implies, embraced nearly all the country from the Humber
+to the Pictish border. York was its capital, and the
+seat of its ecclesiastical primacy, where, at the time
+we speak of, the illustrious Wilfrid was maintaining,
+with a wilful and unscrupulous king, a struggle not unlike
+that which Becket maintained with Henry II. This Prince,
+Egfrid by name, was constantly engaged in wars with his
+Saxon cotemporaries, or the Picts and Scots. In the summer
+of 683 he sent an expedition under the command of Beort,
+one of his earls, to ravage the coast of Leinster. Beort
+landed probably in the Boyne, and swept over the rich
+plain of Meath with fire and sword, burning churches,
+driving off herds and flocks, and slaughtering the clergy
+and the husbandmen. The piety of an after age saw in the
+retribution which overtook Egfrid the following year,
+when he was slain by the Picts and Scots, the judgment
+of Heaven, avenging the unprovoked wrongs of the Irish.
+His Scottish conquerors, returning good for evil, carried
+his body to Iona, where it was interred with all due
+honour.
+
+Iona was now in the zenith of its glory. The barren rock,
+about three miles in length, was covered with monastic
+buildings, and its cemetery was already adorned with the
+tombs of saints and kings. Five successors of Columbkill
+slept in peace around their holy Founder, and a sixth,
+equal in learning and sanctity to any who preceded him,
+received the remains of King Egfrid from the hands of
+his conquerors. This was Abbot Adamnan, to whom Ireland
+and Scotland are equally indebted for his admirable
+writings, and who might almost dispute with Bede himself,
+the title of Father of British History. Adamnan regarded
+the fate of Egfrid, we may be sure, in the light of a
+judgment on him for his misdeeds, as Bede and British
+Christians very generally did. He learned, too, that
+there were in Northumbria several Christian captives,
+carried off in Beort's expedition and probably sold into
+slavery. Now every missionary that ever went out from
+Iona, had taught that to reduce Christians to slavery
+was wholly inconsistent with a belief in the doctrines
+of the Gospel. St. Aidan, the Apostle of Northumbria,
+had refused the late Egfrid's father absolution, on one
+occasion, until he solemnly promised to restore their
+freedom to certain captives of this description. In the
+same spirit Adamnan voluntarily undertook a journey to
+York, where Aldfrid (a Prince educated in Ireland, and
+whose "Itinerary" of Ireland we still have) now reigned.
+The Abbot of Iona succeeded in his humane mission, and
+crossing over to his native land, he restored sixty of
+the captives to their homes and kindred. While the
+liberated exiles rejoiced on the plain of Meath, the tent
+of the Abbot of Iona was pitched on the rath of Tara--a
+fact which would seem to indicate that already, in little
+more than a century since the interdict had fallen on
+it, the edifices which made so fine a show in the days
+of Patrick were ruined and uninhabitable. Either at Tara,
+or some other of the royal residences, Adamnan on this
+visit procured the passing of a law, (A.D. 684,) forbidding
+women to accompany an army to battle, or to engage
+personally in the conflict. The mild maternal genius of
+Christianity is faithfully exhibited in such a law, which
+consummates the glory of the worthy successor of Columbkill.
+It is curious here to observe that it was not until
+another hundred years had past--not till the beginning
+of the ninth century--that the clergy were "exempt" from
+military service. So slow and patient is the process by
+which Christianity infuses itself into the social life
+of a converted people!
+
+The long reign of FINNACTA, the hospitable, who may, for
+his many other virtues, be called also the pious, was
+rendered farther remarkable in the annals of the country
+by the formal abandonment of the special tax, so long
+levied upon, and so long and desperately resisted by,
+the men of Leinster. The all-powerful intercessor in this
+case was Saint Moling, of the royal house of Leinster,
+and Bishop of Fernamore (now Ferns). In the early part
+of his reign Finnacta seems not to have been disposed to
+collect this invidious tax by force; but, yielding to
+other motives, he afterwards took a different view of
+his duty, and marched into Leinster to compel its payment.
+Here the holy Prelate of Ferns met him, and related a
+Vision in which he had been instructed to demand the
+abolition of the impost. The abolition, he contended,
+should not be simply a suspension, but final and for
+ever. The tribute was, at this period, enormous; 15,000
+head of cattle annually. The decision must have been made
+about the time that Abbot Adamnan was in Ireland, (A.D.
+684,) and that illustrious personage is said to have been
+opposed to the abolition. Abolished it was, and though
+its re-enactment was often attempted, the authority of
+Saint Moling's solemn settlement, prevented it from being
+re-enforced for any length of time, except as a political
+or military infliction.
+
+Finnacta fell in battle in the 20th year of his long and
+glorious reign; and is commemorated as a saint in the
+Irish calendar. St. Moling survived him three years, and
+St. Adamnan, so intimately connected with his reign, ten
+years. The latter revisited Ireland in 697, under the
+short reign of Loingsech, and concerned himself chiefly
+in endeavouring to induce his countrymen to adopt the
+Roman rule, as to the tonsure, and the celebration of
+Easter. On this occasion there was an important Synod of
+the Clergy, under the presidency of Flan, Archbishop of
+Armagh, held at Tara. Nothing could be more natural than
+such an assembly in such a place, at such a period. In
+every recorded instance the power of the clergy had been
+omnipotent in politics for above a century. St. Patrick
+had expurgated the old constitution; St. Ruadan's curse
+drove the kings from Tara; St. Columbkill had established
+the independence of Alba, and preserved the Bardic Order;
+St. Moling had abolished the Leinster tribute. If their
+power was irresistible in the sixth and especially in
+the seventh centuries, we must do these celebrated Abbots
+and Bishops the justice to remember that it was always
+exercised against the oppression of the weak by the
+strong, to mitigate the horrors of war, to uphold the
+right of sanctuary (the _Habeus Corpus_ of that rude
+age), and for the maintenance and spread of sound
+Christian principles.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+KINGS OF THE EIGHTH CENTURY.
+
+The kings of the eighth century are Congal II. (surnamed
+Kenmare), who reigned seven years; Feargal, who reigned
+ten years; Forgartah, Kenneth, Flaherty, respectively
+one, four, and seven years; Hugh V. (surnamed Allan),
+nine years; Donald III., who reigned (A.D. 739-759) twenty
+years; Nial II. (surnamed Nial of the Showers), seven
+years; and Donogh I., who reigned thirty-one years, A.D.
+766-797. The obituaries of these kings show that we have
+fallen on a comparatively peaceful age, since of the
+entire nine, but three perished in battle. One retired
+to Armagh and one to Iona, where both departed in the
+monastic habit; the others died either of sickness or
+old age.
+
+Yet the peaceful character of this century is but
+comparative, for in the first quarter (A.D. 722), we have
+the terrible battle of Almain, between Leinster and the
+Monarch, in which 30,000 men were stated to have engaged,
+and 7,000 to have fallen. The Monarch who had double
+the number of the Leinster Prince, was routed and slain,
+_apropos_ of which we have a Bardic tale told, which
+almost transports one to the far East, the simple lives
+and awful privileges of the Hindoo Brahmins. It seems
+that some of King FEARGAL's army, in foraging for their
+fellows, drove off the only cow of a hermit, who lived
+in seclusion near a solitary little chapel called Killin.
+The enraged recluse, at the very moment the armies were
+about to engage, appeared between them, regardless of
+personal danger, denouncing ruin and death to the monarch's
+forces. And in this case, as in others, to be found in
+every history, the prophecy, no doubt, helped to produce
+its own fulfilment. The malediction of men dedicated to
+the service of God, has often routed hosts as gallant as
+were marshalled on the field of Almain.
+
+FEARGAL'S two immediate successors met a similar fate
+--death in the field of battle--after very brief reigns,
+of which we have no great events to record.
+
+FLAHERTY, the next who succeeded, after a vigorous reign
+of seven years, withdrew from the splendid cares of a
+crown, and passed the long remainder of his life--thirty
+years--in the habit of a monk at Armagh. The heavy burthen
+which he had cheerfully laid down, was taken up by a
+Prince, who combined the twofold character of poet and
+hero. HUGH V. (surnamed Allan), the son of FEARGAL, of
+whom we have just spoken, was the very opposite of his
+father, in his veneration for the privileges of holy
+persons and places. His first military achievement was
+undertaken in vindication of the rights of those who were
+unable by arms to vindicate their own. Hugh Roin, Prince
+of the troublesome little principality of Ulidia (Down),
+though well stricken in years and old enough to know
+better, in one of his excursions had forcibly compelled
+the clergy of the country through which he passed to give
+him free quarters, contrary to the law everywhere existing.
+Congus, the Primate, jealous of the exemptions of his
+order, complained of this sacrilege in a poetic message
+addressed to Hugh Allan, who, as a Christian and a Prince,
+was bound to espouse his quarrels. He marched into the
+territory of the offender, defeated him in battle, cut
+off his head on the threshold of the Church of Faughard,
+and marched back again, his host chanting a war song
+composed by their leader.
+
+In this reign died Saint Gerald of Mayo, an Anglo-Saxon
+Bishop, and apparently the head of a colony of his
+countrymen, from whom that district is ever since called
+"Mayo of the Saxons." The name, however, being a general
+one for strangers from Britain about that period, just
+as Dane became for foreigners from the Baltic in the next
+century, is supposed to be incorrectly applied: the colony
+being, it is said, really from Wales, of old British
+stock, who had migrated rather than live under the yoke
+of their victorious Anglo-Saxon Kings. The descendants
+of these Welshmen are still to be traced, though intimately
+intermingled with the original Belgic and later Milesian
+settlers in Mayo, Sligo, and Galway--thus giving a peculiar
+character to that section of the country, easily
+distinguishable from all the rest.
+
+Although Hugh Allan did not imitate his father's conduct
+towards ecclesiastics, he felt bound by all-ruling custom
+to avenge his father's death. In all ancient countries
+the kinsmen of a murdered man were both by law and custom
+the avengers of his blood. The members of the Greek
+_phratry_, of the Roman _fatria_, or _gens_, of the
+Germanic and Anglo-Saxon _guild_, and of the mediaeval
+sworn _commune_, were all solemnly bound to avenge the
+blood of any of their brethren, unlawfully slain. So that
+the repulsive repetition of reprisals, which so disgusts
+the modern reader in our old annals, is by no means a
+phenomenon peculiar to the Irish state of society. It
+was in the middle age and in early times common to all
+Europe, to Britain and Germany, as well as to Greece and
+Rome. It was, doubtless, under a sense of duty of this
+sort that Hugh V. led into Leinster a large army (A.D.
+733), and the day of Ath-Senaid fully atoned for the day
+of Almain. Nine thousand of the men of Leinster were left
+on the field, including most of their chiefs; the victorious
+monarch losing a son, and other near kinsmen. Four years
+later, he himself fell in an obscure contest near Kells,
+in the plain of Meath. Some of his quartrains have come
+down to us, and they breathe a spirit at once religious
+and heroic--such as must have greatly endeared the Prince
+who possessed it to his companions in arms. We are not
+surprised, therefore, to find his reign a favourite epoch
+with subsequent Bards and Storytellers.
+
+The long and prosperous reign of Donald III. succeeded
+(A.D. 739 to 759). He is almost the only one of this
+series of Kings of whom it can be said that he commanded
+in no notable battle. The annals of his reign are chiefly
+filled with ordinary accidents, and the obits of the
+learned. But its literary and religious record abounds
+with bright names and great achievements, as we shall
+find when we come to consider the educational and missionary
+fruits of Christianity in the eighth century. While on
+a pilgrimage to Durrow, a famous Columbian foundation in
+Meath, and present King's County, Donald III. departed
+this life, and in Durrow, by his own desire, his body
+was interred.
+
+Nial II. (surnamed of the Showers), son to FEARGAL and
+brother of the warrior-Bard, Hugh V., was next invested
+with the white wand of sovereignty. He was a prince less
+warlike and more pious than his elder brother. The
+_soubriquet_ attached to his name is accounted for by a
+Bardic tale, which represents him as another Moses, at
+whose prayer food fell from heaven in time of famine.
+Whatever "showers" fell or wonders were wrought in his
+reign, it is certain that after enjoying the kingly office
+for seven years, Nial resigned, and retired to Iona,
+there to pass the remainder of his days in penance and
+meditation. Eight years he led the life of a monk in
+that sacred Isle, where his grave is one of those of "the
+three Irish Kings," still pointed out in the cemetery of
+the Kings. He is but one among several Princes, his
+cotemporaries, who had made the same election. We learn
+in this same century, that Cellach, son of the King of
+Connaught, died in Holy Orders, and that Bec, Prince of
+Ulidia, and Ardgall, son of a later King of Connaught,
+had taken the "crostaff" of the pilgrim, either for Iona
+or Armagh, or some more distant shrine. Pilgrimages to
+Rome and to Jerusalem seem to have been begun even before
+this time, as we may infer from St. Adamnan's work on
+the situation of the Holy Places, of which Bede gives
+an abstract.
+
+The reign of Donogh I. is the longest and the last among
+the Kings of the eighth century (A.D. 776 to 797). The
+Kings of Ireland had now not only abandoned Tara, but
+one by one, the other royal residences in Meath as their
+usual place of abode. As a consequence a local sovereignty
+sprung up in the family of O'Melaghlin, a minor branch
+of the ruling race. This house developing its power so
+unexpectedly, and almost always certain to have the
+national forces under the command of a Patron Prince at
+their back, were soon involved in quarrels about boundaries,
+both with Leinster and Munster. King Donogh, at the outset
+of his reign, led his forces into both principalities,
+and without battle received their hostages. Giving
+hostages--generally the sons of the chiefs--was the usual
+form of ratifying any treaty. Generally also, the Bishop
+of the district, or its most distinguished ecclesiastic,
+was called in as witness of the terms, and both parties
+were solemnly sworn on the relics of Saints--the Gospels
+of the Monasteries or Cathedrals--or the croziers of
+their venerated founders. The breach of such a treaty
+was considered "a violation of the relics of the saint,"
+whose name had been invoked, and awful penalties were
+expected to follow so heinous a crime. The hostages were
+then carried to the residence of the King, to whom they
+were entrusted, and while the peace lasted, enjoyed a
+parole freedom, and every consideration due to their
+rank. If of tender age they were educated with the same
+care as the children of the household. But when war broke
+out their situation was always precarious, and sometimes
+dangerous. In a few instances they had even been put to
+death, but this was considered a violation of all the
+laws both of hospitality and chivalry; usually they were
+removed to some strong secluded fort, and carefully
+guarded as pledges to be employed, according to the
+chances and changes of the war. That Donogh preferred
+negotiation to war, we may infer by his course towards
+Leinster and Munster, in the beginning of his reign, and
+his "kingly parlee" at a later period (A.D. 783) with
+FIACHNA, of Ulidia, son of that over-exacting Hugh Roin,
+whose head was taken from his shoulders at the Church
+door of Faughard. This "kingly parlee" was held on an
+island off the Methian shore, called afterwards "King's
+Island." But little good came of it. Both parties still
+held their own views, so that the satirical poets asked
+what was the use of the island, when one party "would
+not come upon the land, nor the other upon the sea?"
+However, we needs must agree with King Donogh, that war
+is the last resort, and is only to be tried when all
+other means have failed.
+
+Twice during this reign the whole island was stricken
+with panic, by extraordinary signs in the heavens, of
+huge serpents coiling themselves through the stars, of
+fiery bolts flying like shuttles from one side of the
+horizon to the other, or shooting downward directly to
+the earth. These atmospheric wonders were accompanied by
+thunder and lightning so loud and so prolonged that men
+hid themselves for fear in the caverns of the earth. The
+fairs and markets were deserted by buyers and sellers;
+the fields were abandoned by the farmers; steeples were
+rent by lightning, and fell to the ground; the shingled
+roofs of churches caught fire and burned whole buildings.
+Shocks of earthquake were also felt, and round towers
+and cyclopean masonry were strewn in fragments upon the
+ground. These visitations first occurred in the second
+year of Donogh, and returned again in 783. When, in the
+next decade, the first Danish descent was made on the
+coast of Ulster (A.D. 794), these signs and wonders were
+superstitiously supposed to have been the precursors of
+that far more terrible and more protracted visitation.
+
+The Danes at first attracted little notice, but in the
+last year of Donogh (A.D. 797) they returned in greater
+force, and swept rapidly along the coast of Meath; it
+was reserved for his successors of the following centuries
+to face the full brunt of this new national danger.
+
+But before encountering the fierce nations of the north,
+and the stormy period they occupy, let us cast back a
+loving glance over the world-famous schools and scholars
+of the last two centuries. Hitherto we have only spoken
+of certain saints, in connection with high affairs of
+state. We must now follow them to the college and the
+cloister, we must consider them as founders at home, and
+as missionaries abroad; otherwise how could we estimate
+all that is at stake for Erin and for Christendom, in
+the approaching combat with the devotees of Odin,--the
+deadly enemies of all Christian institutions?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+WHAT THE IRISH SCHOOLS AND SAINTS DID IN THE THREE FIRST
+CHRISTIAN CENTURIES.
+
+We have now arrived at the close of the third century,
+from the death of Saint Patrick, and find ourselves on
+the eve of a protracted struggle with the heathen warriors
+of Scandinavia; it is time, therefore, to look back on
+the interval we have passed, and see what changes have
+been wrought in the land, since its kings, instead of
+waiting to be attacked at home, had made the surrounding
+sea "foam with the oars" of their outgoing expeditions.
+
+The most obvious change in the condition of the country
+is traceable in its constitution and laws, into every
+part of which, as was its wont from the beginning, the
+spirit of Christianity sought patiently to infuse itself.
+We have already spoken of the expurgation of the
+constitution, which prohibited the observance of Pagan
+rites to the kings, and imposed on them instead, certain
+social obligations. This was a first change suggested by
+Saint Patrick, and executed mainly by his disciple, Saint
+Benignus. We have seen the legislative success which
+attended the measures of Columbkill, Moling, and Adamnan;
+in other reforms of minor importance the paramount
+influence of the clerical order may be easily traced.
+
+But it is in their relation as teachers of human and
+divine science that the Irish Saints exercised their
+greatest power, not only over their own countrymen, but
+over a considerable part of Europe. The intellectual
+leadership of western Europe--the glorious ambition of
+the greatest nations--has been in turn obtained by Italy,
+Prance, Britain and Germany. From the middle of the sixth
+to the middle of the eighth century, it will hardly be
+disputed that that leadership devolved on Ireland. All
+the circumstances of the sixth century helped to confer
+it upon the newly converted western isle; the number of
+her schools, and the wisdom, energy, and zeal of her
+masters, retained for her the proud distinction for two
+hundred years. And when it passed away from her grasp,
+she might still console herself with the grateful reflection
+that the power she had founded and exercised, was divided
+among British and continental schools, which her own
+_alumni_ had largely contributed to form and establish.
+In the northern Province, the schools most frequented
+were those of Armagh, and of Bangor, on Belfast lough;
+in Meath, the school of Clonard, and that of Clomnacnoise,
+(near Athlone); in Leinster, the school of Taghmon
+(_Ta-mun_), and Beg-Erin, the former near the banks of
+the Slaney, the latter in Wexford harbour; in Munster,
+the school of Lismore on the Blackwater, and of Mungret
+(now Limerick), on the Shannon; in Connaught, the school
+of "Mayo of the Saxons," and the schools of the Isles of
+Arran. These seats of learning were almost all erected
+on the banks of rivers, in situations easy of access, to
+the native or foreign student; a circumstance which proved
+most disastrous to them when the sea kings of the north
+began to find their way to the shores of the island. They
+derived their maintenance--not from taxing their pupils
+--but in the first instance from public endowments. They
+were essentially free schools; not only free as to the
+lessons given, but the venerable Bede tells us they
+supplied free bed and board and books to those who resorted
+to them from abroad. The Prince and the Clansmen of every
+principality in which a school was situated, endowed it
+with a certain share--often an ample one--of the common
+land of the clan. Exclusive rights of fishery, and
+exclusive mill-privileges seem also to have been granted.
+As to timber for building purposes and for fuel, it was
+to be had for carrying and cutting. The right of quarry
+went with the soil, wherever building stone was found.
+In addition to these means of sustenance, a portion of
+the collegiate clergy appeared to have discharged missionary
+duty, and received offerings of the produce of the land.
+We hear of periodical _quests_ or collections made for
+the sustenance of these institutions, wherein the learned
+Lectors and Doctors, no doubt, pleaded their claims to
+popular favour, with irresistible eloquence. Individuals,
+anxious to promote the spread of religion and of science,
+endowed particular institutions out of their personal
+means; Princes, Bishops, and pious ladies, contributed
+to enlarge the bounds and increase the income of their
+favourite foundations, until a generous emulation seems
+to have seized on all the great families as well as on
+the different Provinces, as to which could boast the most
+largely attended schools, and the greatest number of
+distinguished scholars. The love of the _alma mater_
+--that college patriotism which is so sure a sign of the
+noble-minded scholar--never received more striking
+illustration than among the graduates of those schools.
+Columbkill, in his new home among the Hebrides, invokes
+blessings on blessings, on "the angels" with whom it was
+once his happiness to walk in Arran, and Columbanus,
+beyond the Alps, remembers with pride the school of
+Bangor--the very name of which inspires him with poetic
+rapture.
+
+The buildings, in which so many scholars were housed and
+taught, must have been extensive. Some of the schools we
+have mentioned were, when most flourishing, frequented
+by one, two, three, and even, at some periods, as many
+as seven thousand scholars. Such a population was alone
+sufficient to form a large village; and if we add the
+requisite number of teachers and attendants, we will have
+an addition of at least one-third to the total. The
+buildings seem to have been separately of no great size,
+but were formed into streets, and even into something
+like wards. Armagh was divided into three parts--
+_trian-more_ (or the town proper), _trian-Patrick_, the
+Cathedral close, and _trian-Sassenagh_, the Latin quarter,
+the home of the foreign students. A tall sculptured
+Cross, dedicated to some favourite saint, stood at the
+bounds of these several wards, reminding the anxious
+student to invoke their spiritual intercession as he
+passed by. Early hours and vigilant night watches had
+to be exercised to prevent conflagrations in such
+village-seminaries, built almost wholly of wood, and
+roofed with reeds or shingles. A Cathedral, or an Abbey
+Church, a round tower, or a cell of some of the ascetic
+masters, would probably be the only stone structure within
+the limits. To the students, the evening star gave the
+signal for retirement, and the morning sun for awaking.
+When, at the sound of the early bell, two or three thousand
+of them poured into the silent streets and made their
+way towards the lighted Church, to join in the service
+of matins, mingling, as they went or returned, the tongues
+of the Gael, the Cimbri, the Pict, the Saxon, and the
+Frank, or hailing and answering each other in the universal
+language of the Roman Church, the angels in Heaven must
+have loved to contemplate the union of so much perseverance
+with so much piety.
+
+The lives of the masters, not less than their lessons,
+were studied and observed by their pupils. At that time,
+as we gather from every authority, they were models of
+simplicity. One Bishop is found, erecting with his own
+hands, the _cashel_ or stone enclosure which surrounded
+his cell; another is labouring in the field, and gives
+his blessing to his visitors, standing between the stilts
+of the plough. Most ecclesiastics work occasionally either
+in wood, in bronze, in leather, or as scribes. The
+decorations of the Church, if not the entire structure,
+was the work of those who served at the altar. The
+tabernacle, the rood-screen, the ornamental font; the
+vellum on which the Psalms and Gospels were written; the
+ornamented case which contained the precious volume, were
+often of their making. The music which made the vale of
+Bangor resound as if inhabited by angels, was their
+composition; the hymns that accompanied it were their
+own. "It is a poor Church that has no music," is one of
+the oldest Irish proverbs; and the _Antiphonarium_ of
+Bangor, as well as that of Armagh, remains to show that
+such a want was not left unsupplied in the early Church.
+
+All the contemporary schools were not of the same grade
+nor of equal reputation. We constantly find a scholar,
+after passing years in one place, transferring himself
+to another, and sometimes to a third and a fourth. Some
+masters were, perhaps, more distinguished in human Science;
+others in Divinity. Columbkill studied in two or three
+different schools, and _visited_ others, perhaps as
+disputant or lecturer--a common custom in later years.
+Nor should we associate the idea of under-age with the
+students of whom we speak. Many of them, whether as
+teachers or learners, or combining both characters
+together, reached middle life before they ventured as
+instructors upon the world. Forty years is no uncommon
+age for the graduate of those days, when as yet the
+discovery was unmade, that all-sufficient wisdom comes
+with the first trace of down upon the chin of youth.
+
+The range of studies seems to have included the greater
+part of the collegiate course of our own times. The
+language of the country, and the language of the Roman
+Church; the languages of Scripture--Greek and Hebrew;
+the logic of Aristotle, the writings of the Fathers,
+especially of Pope Gregory the Great--who appears to have
+been a favourite author with the Irish Church; the
+defective Physics of the period; Mathematics, Music, and
+Poetical composition went to complete the largest course.
+When we remember that all the books were manuscripts;
+that even paper had not yet been invented; that the best
+parchment was equal to so much beaten gold, and a perfect
+MS. was worth a king's ransom, we may better estimate
+the difficulties in the way of the scholar of the seventh
+century. Knowing these facts, we can very well credit
+that part of the story of St. Columbkill's banishment
+into Argyle, which turns on what might be called a
+copyright dispute, in which the monarch took the side of
+St. Finian of Clonard, (whose original MSS. his pupil
+seems to have copied without permission,) and the Clan-Conal
+stood up, of course, for their kinsman. This dispute is
+even said to have led to the affair of Culdrum, in Sligo,
+which is sometimes mentioned as "the battle of the book."
+The same tendency of the national character which
+overstocked the Bardic Order, becomes again visible in
+its Christian schools; and if we could form anything like
+an approximate census of the population, anterior to the
+northern invasions, we would find that the proportion of
+ecclesiastics was greater than has existed either before
+or since in any Christian country. The vast designs of
+missionary zeal drew off large bodies of those who had
+entered Holy Orders; still the numbers engaged as teachers
+in the great schools, as well as of those who passed
+their lives in solitude and contemplation, must have been
+out of all modern proportion to the lay inhabitants of
+the Island.
+
+The most eminent Irish Saints of the fifth century were
+St. Ibar, St. Benignus and St. Kieran, of Ossory; in
+the sixth, St. Bendan, of Clonfert; St. Brendan, of
+Birr; St. Maccartin, of Clogher; St. Finian, of Moville;
+St. Finbar, St. Cannice, St. Finian, of Clonard; and
+St. Jarlath, of Tuam; in the seventh century, St. Fursey,
+St. Laserian, Bishop of Leighlin; St. Kieran, Abbot of
+Clonmacnoise; St. Comgall, Abbot of Bangor; St. Carthage,
+Abbot of Lismore; St. Colman, Bishop of Dromore; St. Moling,
+ Bishop of Ferns; St. Colman Ela, Abbot; St. Cummian,
+"the White;" St. Fintan, Abbot; St. Gall, Apostle of
+Switzerland; St. Fridolin, "the Traveller;" St. Columbanus,
+Apostle of Burgundy and Lombardy; St. Killian, Apostle
+of Franconia; St. Columbkill, Apostle of the Picts;
+St. Cormac, called "the Navigator;" St. Cuthbert; and
+St. Aidan, Apostle of Northumbria. In the eighth century
+the most illustrious names are St. Cataldus, Bishop of
+Tarentum; St. Adamnan, Abbot of Iona; St. Rumold, Apostle
+of Brabant; Clement and Albinus, "the Wisdom-seekers;"
+and St. Feargal or Virgilius, Bishop of Saltzburgh. Of
+holy women in the same ages, we have some account of
+St. Samthan, in the eighth century; of St. Bees,
+St. Dympna and St. Syra, in the seventh century, and of
+St. Monina, St. Ita of Desies, and St. Bride, or Bridget,
+of Kildare, in the sixth. The number of conventual
+institutions for women established in those ages, is less
+easily ascertained than the number of monastic houses
+for men; but we may suppose them to have borne some
+proportion to each other, and to have even counted by
+hundreds. The veneration in which St. Bridget was held
+during her life, led many of her countrywomen to embrace
+the religious state, and no less than fourteen _Saints_,
+her namesakes, are recorded. It was the custom of those
+days to call all holy persons who died in the odour of
+sanctity, _Saints_, hence national or provincial tradition
+venerates very many names, which the reader may look for
+in vain, in the Roman calendar.
+
+The intellectual labours of the Irish schools, besides
+the task of teaching such immense numbers of men of all
+nations on their own soil, and the missionary conquests
+to which I have barely alluded, were diversified by
+controversies, partly scientific and partly theological
+--such as the "Easter Controversy," the "Tonsure
+Controversy," and that maintained by "Feargal the Geometer,"
+as to the existence of the Antipodes.
+
+The discussion, as to the proper time of observing Easter,
+which had occupied the doctors of the Council of Nice in
+the fourth century, was raised in Ireland and in Britain
+early in the sixth, and complete uniformity was not
+established till far on in the eighth. It occupied the
+thoughts of several generations of the chief men of the
+Irish Church, and some of their arguments still fortunately
+survive, to attest their learning and tolerance, as well
+as their zeal. St. Patrick had introduced in the fifth
+century the computation of time then observed in Gaul,
+and to this custom many of the Irish doctors rigidly
+adhered, long after the rest of Christendom had agreed
+to adopt the Alexandrian computation. Great names were
+found on both sides of the controversy: Columbanus,
+Fintan, and Aidan, for adhering exactly to the rule of
+St. Patrick; Cummian, the White, Laserian and Adamnan,
+in favour of strict agreement with Rome and the East.
+Monks of the same Monastery and Bishops of the same
+Province maintained opposite opinions with equal ardour
+and mutual charity. It was a question of discipline, not
+a matter of faith; but it involved a still greater
+question, whether national churches were to plead the
+inviolability of their local usages, even on points of
+discipline, against the sense and decision of the Universal
+Church.
+
+In the year of our Lord 630, the Synod of Leighlin was
+held, under the shelter of the ridge of Leinster, and
+the presidency of St. Laserian. Both parties at length
+agreed to send deputies to Rome, as "children to their
+mother," to learn her decision. Three years later, that
+decision was made known, and the midland and southern
+dioceses at once adopted it. The northern churches,
+however, still held out, under the lead of Armagh and
+the influence of Iona, nor was it till a century later
+that this scandal of celebrating Easter on two different
+days in the same church was entirely removed. In
+justification of the Roman rule, St. Cummian, about the
+middle of the seventh century, wrote his famous epistle
+to Segenius, Abbot of Iona, of the ability and learning
+of which all modern writers from Archbishop Usher to
+Thomas Moore, speak in terms of the highest praise. It
+is one of the few remaining documents of that controversy.
+A less vital question of discipline arose about the
+tonsure. The Irish shaved the head in a semicircle from
+temple to temple, while the Latin usage was to shave the
+crown, leaving an external circle of hair to typify the
+crown of thorns. At the conference of Whitby (A.D. 664)
+this was one of the subjects of discussion between the
+clergy of Iona, and those who followed the Roman method--but
+it never assumed the importance of the Easter controversy.
+
+In the following century an Irish Missionary, Virgilius,
+of Saltzburgh, (called by his countrymen "Feargal, the
+Geometer,") was maintaining in Germany against no less
+an adversary than St. Boniface, the sphericity of the
+earth and the existence of antipodes. His opponents
+endeavoured to represent him, or really believed him to
+hold, that there were other men, on our earth, for whom
+the Redeemer had not died; on this ground they appealed
+to Pope Zachary against him; but so little effect had
+this gross distortion of his true doctrine at Rome, when
+explanations were given, that Feargal was soon afterwards
+raised to the See of Saltzburgh, and subsequently canonized
+by Pope Gregory IX. In the ninth century we find an Irish
+geographer and astronomer of something like European
+reputation in Dicuil and Dungal, whose treatises and
+epistles have been given to the press. Like their
+compatriot, Columbanus, these accomplished men had passed
+their youth and early manhood in their own country, and
+to its schools are to be transferred the compliments paid
+to their acquirements by such competent judges as Muratori,
+Latronne, and Alexander von Humboldt. The origin of the
+scholastic philosophy--which pervaded Europe for nearly
+ten centuries--has been traced by the learned Mosheim to
+the same insular source. Whatever may now be thought of
+the defects or shortcomings of that system, it certainly
+was not unfavourable either to wisdom or eloquence, since
+among its professors may be reckoned the names of St.
+Thomas and St. Bernard.
+
+We must turn away our eyes from the contemplation of
+those days in which were achieved for Ireland the title
+of the land of saints and doctors. Another era opens
+before us, and we can already discern the long ships of
+the north, their monstrous beaks turned towards the holy
+Isle, their sides hung with glittering shields and their
+benches thronged with fair-haired warriors, chanting as
+they advance the fierce war songs of their race. Instead
+of the monk's familiar voice on the river banks we are
+to hear the shouts of strange warriors from a far-off
+country; and for matin hymn and vesper song, we are to
+be beset through a long and stormy period, with sounds
+of strife and terror, and deadly conflict.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE DANISH INVASION.
+
+Hugh VI., surnamed Ornie, succeeded to the throne vacant
+by the death of Donogh I. (A.D. 797), and reigned twenty-two
+years; Conor II. succeeded (A.D. 819), and reigned fourteen
+years; Nial III. (called from the place of his death Nial
+of Callan), reigned thirteen years; Malachy I. succeeded
+(A.D. 845), and reigned fifteen years; Hugh VII. succeeded
+and reigned sixteen years (dying A.D. 877); Flan (surnamed
+Flan of the Shannon) succeeded at the latter date, and
+reigned for thirty-eight years, far into the tenth century.
+Of these six kings, whose reigns average twenty years
+each, we may remark that not one died by violence, if we
+except perhaps Nial of Callan, drowned in the river of
+that name in a generous effort to save the life of one
+of his own servants. Though no former princes had ever
+encountered dangers equal to these--yet in no previous
+century was the person of the ruler so religiously
+respected. If this was evident in one or two instances
+only, it would be idle to lay much stress upon it; but
+when we find the same truth holding good of several
+successive reigns, it is not too much to attribute it to
+that wide diffusion of Christian morals, which we have
+pointed out as the characteristic of the two preceding
+centuries. The kings of this age owed their best protection
+to the purer ethics which overflowed from Armagh and
+Bangor and Lismore; and if we find hereafter the regicide
+habits of former times partially revived, it will only
+be after the new Paganism--the Paganism of interminable
+anti-Christian invasions--had recovered the land, and
+extinguished the beacon lights of the three first Christian
+centuries.
+
+The enemy, who were now to assault the religious and
+civil institutions of the Irish, must be admitted to
+possess many great military qualities. They certainly
+exhibit, in the very highest degree, the first of all
+military virtues--unconquerable courage. Let us say
+cheerfully, that history does not present in all its
+volumes a braver race of men than the Scandinavians of
+the ninth century. In most respects they closely resembled
+the Gothic tribes, who, whether starting into historic
+life on the Euxine or the Danube, or faintly heard of by
+the Latins from the far off Baltic, filled with constant
+alarm the Roman statesmen of the fourth century; nor can
+the invasions of what we may call the maritime Goths be
+better introduced to the reader than by a rapid sketch
+of the previous triumphs of their kindred tribes over
+the Roman Empire.
+
+It was in the year of our Lord 378 that these long-dreaded
+barbarians defeated the Emperor Valens in the plain of
+Adrianople, and as early as 404--twenty-six years after
+their first victory in Eastern Europe--they had taken
+and burned great Rome herself. Again and again--in 410,
+in 455, and in 472--they captured and plundered the
+Imperial City. In the same century they had established
+themselves in Burgundy, in Spain, and in Northern Africa;
+in the next, another branch of the Gothic stock twice
+took Rome; and yet another founded the Lombard Kingdom
+in Northern Italy. With these Goths thus for a time
+masters of the Roman Empire, whose genius and temper has
+entered so deeply into all subsequent civilization, war
+was considered the only pursuit worthy of men. According
+to their ideas of human freedom, that sacred principle
+was supposed to exist only in force and by force; they
+had not the faintest conception, and at first received
+with unbounded scorn the Christian doctrine of the unity
+of the human race, the privileges and duties annexed to
+Christian baptism, and the sublime ideal of the Christian
+republic. But they were very far from being so cruel or
+so faithless as their enemies represented them; they were
+even better than they cared to represent themselves. And
+they had amongst them men of the highest capacity and
+energy, well worthy to be the founders of new nations.
+Alaric, Attila, and Genseric, were fierce and unmerciful
+it is true; but their acts are not all written in blood;
+they had their better moments and higher purposes in the
+intervals of battle; and the genius for civil government
+of the Gothic race was in the very beginning demonstrated
+by such rulers as Theodoric in Italy and Clovis in Gaul.
+The rear guard of this irresistible barbaric invasion
+was now about to break in upon Europe by a new route;
+instead of the long land marches by which they had formerly
+concentrated from the distant Baltic and from the
+tributaries of the Danube, on the capital of the Roman
+empire; instead of the tedious expeditions striking across
+the Continent, hewing their paths through dense forests,
+arrested by rapid rivers and difficult mountains, the
+last northern invaders of Europe had sufficiently advanced
+in the arts of shipbuilding and navigation to strike
+boldly into the open sea and commence their new conquests
+among the Christian islands of the West. The defenders
+of Roman power and Christian civilization in the fifth
+and sixth centuries, were arrayed against a warlike but
+pastoral people encumbered with their women and children;
+the defenders of the same civilization, in the British
+Islands in the ninth and tenth centuries, were contending
+with kindred tribes, who had substituted maritime arts
+and habits for the pastoral arts and habits of the
+companions of Attila and Theodoric. The Gothic invasion
+of Roman territory in the earlier period was, with the
+single exception of the naval expeditions of Genseric
+from his new African Kingdom, a continental war; and
+notwithstanding the partiality of Genseric for his fleet,
+as an arm of offence and defence, his companions and
+successors abandoned the ocean as an uncongenial element.
+The only parallel for the new invasion, of which we are
+now to speak, is to be found in the history and fortunes
+of the Saxons of the fifth century, first the allies and
+afterwards the conquerors of part of Britain. But even
+their descendants in England had not kept pace, either
+in the arts of navigation or in thirst for adventure,
+with their distant relatives, who remained two centuries
+later among the friths and rocks of Scandinavia.
+
+The first appearance of these invaders on the Irish and
+British coasts occurred in 794. Their first descent on
+Ireland was at Rathlin island, which may be called the
+outpost of Erin, towards the north; their second attempt
+(A.D. 797) was at a point much more likely to arouse
+attention--at Skerries, off the coast of Meath (now
+Dublin); in 803, and again in 806, they attacked and
+plundered the holy Iona; but it was not until a dozen
+years later they became really formidable. In 818 they
+landed at Howth; and the same year, and probably the same
+party, sacked the sacred edifices in the estuary of the
+Slaney, by them afterwards called Wexford; in 820 they
+plundered Cork, and in 824--most startling blow of
+all--they sacked and burned the schools of Bangor. The
+same year they revisited Iona; and put to death many of
+its inmates; destroyed Moville; received a severe check
+in Lecale, near Strangford lough (one of their favourite
+stations). Another party fared better in a land foray
+into Ossory, where they defeated those who endeavoured
+to arrest their progress, and carried off a rich booty.
+In 830 and 831, their ravages were equally felt in
+Leinster, in Meath, and in Ulster, and besides many
+prisoners of princely rank, they plundered the primatial
+city of Armagh for the first time, in the year 832. The
+names of their chief captains, at this period, are
+carefully preserved by those who had so many reasons to
+remember them; and we now begin to hear of the Ivars,
+Olafs, and Sitricks, strangely intermingled with the
+Hughs, Nials, Connors, and Felims, who contended with
+them in battle or in diplomacy. It was not till the middle
+of this century (A.D. 837) that they undertook to fortify
+Dublin, Limerick, and some other harbours which they had
+seized, to winter in Ireland, and declare their purpose
+to be the complete conquest of the country.
+
+The earliest of these expeditions seem to have been annual
+visitations; and as the northern winter sets in about
+October, and the Baltic is seldom navigable before May,
+the summer was the season of their depredations. Awaiting
+the breaking up of the ice, the intrepid adventurers
+assembled annually upon the islands in the Cattegat or
+on the coast of Norway, awaiting the favourable moment
+of departure. Here they beguiled their time between the
+heathen rites they rendered to their gods, their wild
+bacchanal festivals, and the equipment of their galleys.
+The largest ship built in Norway, and probably in the
+north, before the eleventh century, had 34 banks of oars.
+The largest class of vessel carried from 100 to 120 men.
+The great fleet which invaded Ireland in 837 counted 120
+vessels, which, if of average size for such long voyages,
+would give a total force of some 6,000 men. As the whole
+population of Denmark, in the reign of Canute who died
+in 1035, is estimated at 800,000 souls, we may judge from
+their fleets how large a portion of the men were engaged
+in these piratical pursuits. The ships on which they
+prided themselves so highly were flat-bottomed craft,
+with little or no keel, the sides of wicker work, covered
+with strong hides. They were impelled either by sails or
+oars as the changes of the weather allowed; with favourable
+winds they often made the voyage in three days. As if to
+favour their designs, the north and north-west blast
+blows for a hundred days of the year over the sea they
+had to traverse. When land was made, in some safe estuary,
+their galleys were drawn up on shore, a convenient distance
+beyond highwater mark, where they formed a rude camp,
+watch-fires were lighted, sentinels set, and the fearless
+adventurers slept as soundly as if under their own roofs,
+in their own country. Their revels after victory, or on
+returning to their homes, were as boisterous as their
+lives. In food they looked more to quantity than quality,
+and one of their most determined prejudices against
+Christianity was that it did not sanction the eating of
+horse flesh. An exhilarating beer, made from heath, or
+from the spruce tree, was their principal beverage, and
+the recital of their own adventures, or the national
+songs of the Scalds, were their most cherished amusement.
+Many of the Vikings were themselves Scalds, and excelled,
+as might be expected, in the composition of war songs.
+
+The Pagan belief of this formidable race was in harmony
+with all their thoughts and habits, and the exact opposite
+of Christianity. In the beginning of time, according to
+their tradition, there was neither heaven nor earth, but
+only universal chaos and a bottomless abyss, where dwelt
+Surtur in an element of unquenchable fire. The generation
+of their gods proceeded amid the darkness and void, from
+the union of heat and moisture, until Odin and the other
+children of Asa-Thor, or the Earth, slew Ymer, or the
+Evil One, and created the material universe out of his
+lifeless remains. These heroic conquerors also collected
+the sparks of eternal fire flying about in the abyss,
+and fixed them as stars in the firmament. In addition,
+they erected in the far East, Asgard, the City of the
+Gods; on the extreme shore of the ocean stood Utgard,
+the City of Nor and his giants, and the wars of these
+two cities, of their gods and giants, fill the first and
+most obscure ages of the Scandinavian legend. The human
+race had as yet no existence until Odin created a man
+and woman, Ask and Embla, out of two pieces of wood (ash
+and elm), thrown upon the beach by the waves of the sea.
+
+Of all the gods of Asgard, Odin was the first in place
+and power; from his throne he saw everything that happened
+on the earth; and lest anything should escape his knowledge,
+two ravens, Spirit and Memory, sat on his shoulders, and
+whispered in his ears whatever they had seen in their
+daily excursions round the world. Night was a divinity
+and the father of Day, who travelled alternately throughout
+space, with two celebrated steeds called Shining-mane
+and Frost-mane. Friga was the daughter and wife of Odin;
+the mother of Thor, the Mars, and of the beautiful Balder,
+the Apollo, of Asgard. The other gods were of inferior
+rank to these, and answered to the lesser divinities of
+Greece and Rome. Niord was the Neptune, and Frega, daughter
+of Niord, was the Venus of the North. Heimdall, the
+watchman of Asgard, whose duty it was to prevent the
+rebellious giants scaling by surprise the walls of the
+celestial city, dwelt under the end of the rainbow; his
+vision was so perfect he could discern objects 100 leagues
+distant, either by night or day, and his ear was so fine
+he could hear the wool growing on the sheep, and the
+grass springing in the meadows.
+
+The hall of Odin, which had 540 gates, was the abode of
+heroes who had fought bravest in battle. Here they were
+fed with the lard of a wild boar, which became whole
+every night, though devoured every day, and drank endless
+cups of hydromel, drawn from the udder of an inexhaustible
+she-goat, and served out to them by the Nymphs, who had
+counted the slain, in cups which were made of the skulls
+of their enemies. When they were wearied of such
+enjoyments, the sprites of the Brave exercised themselves
+in single combat, hacked each other to pieces on the
+floor of Valhalla, resumed their former shape, and returned
+to their lard and their hydromel.
+
+Believing firmly in this system--looking forward with
+undoubting faith to such an eternity--the Scandinavians
+were zealous to serve their gods according to their creed.
+Their rude hill altars gave way as they increased in
+numbers and wealth, to spacious temples at Upsala, Ledra,
+Tronheim, and other towns and ports. They had three great
+festivals, one at the beginning of February, in honour
+of Thor, one in Spring, in honour of Odin, and one in
+Summer, in honour of the fruitful daughter of Niord. The
+ordinary sacrifices were animals and birds; but every
+ninth year there was a great festival at Upsala, at which
+the kings and nobles were obliged to appear in person,
+and to make valuable offerings. Wizards and sorcerers,
+male and female, haunted the temples, and good and ill
+winds, length of life, and success in war, were spiritual
+commodities bought and sold. Ninety-nine human victims
+were offered at the great Upsala festival, and in all
+emergencies such sacrifices were considered most acceptable
+to the gods. Captives and slaves were at first selected;
+but, in many cases, princes did not spare their subjects,
+nor fathers their own children. The power of a Priesthood,
+who could always enforce such a system, must have been
+unbounded and irresistible.
+
+The active pursuits of such a population were necessarily
+maritime. In their short summer, such crops as they
+planted ripened rapidly, but their chief sustenance was
+animal food and the fish that abounded in their waters.
+The artizans in highest repute among them were the
+shipwrights and smiths. The hammer and anvil were held
+in the highest honour; and of this class, the armorers
+held the first place. The kings of the North had no
+standing armies, but their lieges were summoned to war
+by an arrow in Pagan times, and a cross after their
+conversion. Their chief dependence was in infantry,
+which they formed into wedge-like columns, and so, clashing
+their shields and singing hymns to Odin, they advanced
+against their enemies. Different divisions were differently
+armed; some with a short two-edged sword and a heavy
+battle-axe; others with the sling, the javelin, and the
+bow. The shield was long and light, commonly of wood and
+leather, but for the chiefs, ornamented with brass, with
+silver, and even with gold. Locking the shields together
+formed a rampart which it was not easy to break; in bad
+weather the concave shield seems to have served the
+purpose of our umbrella; in sea-fights the vanquished
+often escaped by swimming ashore on their shields. Armour
+many of them wore; the Berserkers, or champions, were so
+called from always engaging, _bare_ of defensive armour.
+
+Such were the men, the arms, and the creed, against which
+the Irish of the ninth age, after three centuries of
+exemption from foreign war, were called upon to combat.
+A people, one-third of whose youth and manhood had embraced
+the ecclesiastical state, and all whose tribes now
+professed the religion of peace, mercy, and forgiveness,
+were called to wrestle with a race whose religion was
+one of blood, and whose beatitude was to be in proportion
+to the slaughter they made while on earth. The Northman
+hated Christianity as a rival religion, and despised it
+as an effeminate one. He was the soldier of Odin, the
+elect of Valhalla; and he felt that the offering most
+acceptable to his sanguinary gods was the blood of those
+religionists who denied their existence and execrated
+their revelation. The points of attack, therefore, were
+almost invariably the great seats of learning and religion.
+There, too, was to be found the largest bulk of the
+portable wealth of the country, in richly adorned altars,
+jewelled chalices, and shrines of saints. The ecclesiastical
+map is the map of their campaigns in Ireland. And it is
+to avenge or save these innumerable sacred places--as
+countless as the Saints of the last three centuries--that
+the Christian population have to rouse themselves year
+after year, hurrying to a hundred points at the same
+time. To the better and nobler spirits the war becomes
+a veritable crusade, and many of those slain in
+single-hearted defence of their altars may well be
+accounted martyrs--but a war so protracted and so
+devastating will be found, in the sequel, to foster and
+strengthen many of the worst vices as well as some of
+the best virtues of our humanity.
+
+The early events are few and ill-known. During the reign
+of Hugh VI., who died in 819, their hostile visits were few
+and far between; his successors, Conor II. and Nial III.,
+were destined to be less fortunate in this respect. During
+the reign of Conor, Cork, Lismore, Dundalk, Bangor and
+Armagh, were all surprised, plundered, and abandoned by
+"the Gentiles," as they are usually called in Irish
+annals; and with the exception of two skirmishes in which
+they were worsted on the coasts of Down and Wexford, they
+seem to have escaped with impunity. At Bangor they shook
+the bones of the revered founder out of the costly shrine
+before carrying it off; on their first visit to Kildare
+they contented themselves with taking the gold and silver
+ornaments of the tomb of St. Bridget, without desecrating
+the relics; their main attraction at Armagh was the same,
+but there the relics seemed to have escaped. When, in
+830, the brotherhood of Iona apprehended their return,
+they carried into Ireland, for greater safety, the relics
+of St. Columbkill. Hence it came that most of the memorials
+of SS. Patrick, Bridget, and Columbkill, were afterwards
+united at Downpatrick.
+
+While these deplorable sacrileges, too rapidly executed
+perhaps to be often either prevented or punished, were
+taking place, Conor the King had on his hand a war of
+succession, waged by the ablest of his contemporaries,
+Felim, King of Munster, who continued during this and
+the subsequent reign to maintain a species of rival
+monarchy in Munster. It seems clear enough that the
+abandonment of Tara, as the seat of authority, greatly
+aggravated the internal weakness of the Milesian
+constitution. While over-centralization is to be dreaded
+as the worst tendency of imperial power, it is certain
+that the want of a sufficient centralization has proved
+as fatal, on the other hand, to the independence of many
+nations. And anarchical usages once admitted, we see from
+the experience of the German Empire, and the Italian
+republics, how almost impossible it is to apply a remedy.
+In the case before us, when the Irish Kings abandoned
+the old mensal domain and betook themselves to their own
+patrimony, it was inevitable that their influence and
+authority over the southern tribes should diminish and
+disappear. Aileach, in the far North, could never be to
+them what Tara had been. The charm of conservatism, the
+halo of ancient glory, could not be transferred. Whenever,
+therefore, ambitious and able Princes arose in the South,
+they found the border tribes rife for backing their
+pretensions against the Northern dynasty. The Bards, too,
+plied their craft, reviving the memory of former times,
+when Heber the Fair divided Erin equally with Heremon,
+and when Eugene More divided it a second time with Con
+of the Hundred Battles. Felim, the son of Crimthan, the
+contemporary of Conor II. and Nial III., during the whole
+term of their rule, was the resolute assertor of these
+pretensions, and the Bards of his own Province do not
+hesitate to confer on him the high title of _Ard-Righ_.
+As a punishment for adhering to the Hy-Nial dynasty, or
+for some other offence, this Christian king, in rivalry
+with "the Gentiles," plundered Kildare, Burrow, and
+Clonmacnoise--the latter perhaps for siding with Connaught
+in the dispute as to whether the present county of Clare
+belonged to Connaught or Munster. Twice he met in conference
+with the monarch at Birr and at Cloncurry--at another
+time he swept the plain of Meath, and held temporary
+court in the royal rath of Tara. With all his vices lie
+united an extraordinary energy, and during his time, no
+Danish settlement was established on the Southern rivers.
+Shortly before his decease (A.D. 846) he resigned his
+crown and retired from the world, devoting the short
+remainder of his days to penance and mortification. What
+we know of his ambition and ability makes us regret that
+he ever appeared upon the scene, or that he had not been
+born of that dominant family, who alone were accustomed
+to give kings to the whole country.
+
+King Conor died (A.D. 833), and was succeeded by Nial III.,
+surnamed Nial of Callan. The military events of this last
+reign are so intimately bound up with the more brilliant
+career of the next ruler--Melaghlin, or Malachy I.--that
+we must reserve them for the introduction to the next
+chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+KINGS OF THE NINTH CENTURY (CONTINUED)--NIAL III.--
+MALACHY I.--HUGH VII.
+
+When, in the year 833, Nial III. received the usual homage
+and hostages, which ratified his title of _Ard-Righ_,
+the northern invasion had clearly become the greatest
+danger that ever yet had threatened the institutions of
+Erin. Attacks at first predatory and provincial had so
+encouraged the Gentile leaders of the second generation
+that they began to concert measures and combine plans
+for conquest and colonization. To the Vikings of Norway
+the fertile Island with which they were now so familiar,
+whose woods were bent with the autumnal load of acorns,
+mast, and nuts, and filled with numerous herds of
+swine--their favourite food--whose pleasant meadows were
+well stored with beeves and oxen, whose winter was often
+as mild as their northern summer, and whose waters were
+as fruitful in fish as their own Lofoden friths; to these
+men, this was a prize worth fighting for; and for it they
+fought long and desperately.
+
+King Nial inherited a disputed sovereignty from his
+predecessor, and the Southern annalists say he did homage
+to Felim of Munster, while those of the North--and with
+them the majority of historians--reject this statement
+as exaggerated and untrue. He certainly experienced
+continual difficulty in maintaining his supremacy, not
+only from the Prince of Cashel, but from lords of lesser
+grade--like those of Ossory and Ulidia; so that we may
+say, while he had the title of King of Ireland, he was,
+in fact, King of no more than Leath-Con, or the Northern
+half. The central Province, Meath, long deserted by the
+monarchs, had run wild into independence, and was parcelled
+out between two or three chiefs, descendants of the same
+common ancestor as the kings, but distinguished from them
+by the tribe-name of "the _Southern_ Hy-Nial." Of these
+heads of new houses, by far the ablest and most famous
+was Melaghlin, who dwelt near Mullingar, and lorded it
+over western Meath; a name with which we shall become
+better acquainted presently. It does not clearly appear
+that Melaghlin was one of those who actively resisted
+the prerogatives of this monarch, though others of the
+Southern Hy-Nial did at first reject his authority, and
+were severely punished for their insubordination, the
+year after his assumption of power.
+
+In the fourth year of Nial III. (A.D. 837), arrived the
+great Norwegian fleet of 120 sail, whose commanders first
+attempted, on a combined plan, the conquest of Erin.
+Sixty of the ships entered the Boyne; the other sixty
+the Liffey. This formidable force, according to all Irish
+accounts, was soon after united under one leader, who is
+known in our Annals as _Turgeis_ or _Turgesius_, but of
+whom no trace can be found, under that name, in the
+chronicles of the Northmen. Every effort to identify him
+in the records of his native land has hitherto failed--so
+that we are forced to conclude that he must have been
+one of those wandering sea-kings, whose fame was won
+abroad, and whose story, ending in defeat, yet entailing
+no dynastic consequences on his native land, possessed
+no national interest for the authors of the old Norse
+Sagas. To do all the Scandinavian chroniclers justice,
+in cases which come directly under their notice, they
+acknowledge defeat as frankly as they claim victory
+proudly. Equal praise may be given to the Irish annalists
+in recording the same events, whether at first or
+second-hand. In relation to the campaigns and sway of
+Turgesius, the difficulty we experience in separating
+what is true from what is exaggerated or false, is not
+created for us by the annalists, but by the bards and
+story-tellers, some of whose inventions, adopted by
+_Cambrensis_, have been too readily received by subsequent
+writers. For all the acts of national importance with
+which his name can be intelligibly associated, we prefer
+to follow in this as in other cases, the same sober
+historians who condense the events of years and generations
+into the shortest space and the most matter of fact
+expression.
+
+If we were to receive the chronology while rejecting the
+embellishments of the Bards, Turgesius must have first
+come to Ireland with one of the expeditions of the year
+820, since they speak of him as having been "the scourge
+of the country for seventeen years," before he assumed
+the command of the forces landed from the fleet of 837.
+Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that an accurate
+knowledge of the country, acquired by years of previous
+warfare with its inhabitants, may have been one of the
+grounds upon which the chief command was conferred on
+Turgesius. This knowledge was soon put to account; Dublin
+was taken possession of, and a strong fort, according to
+the Scandinavian method, was erected on the hill where
+now stands the Castle. This fort and the harbour beneath
+it were to be the _rendezvous_ and arsenal for all future
+operations against Leinster, and the foundation of foreign
+power then laid, continued in foreign hands, with two or
+three brief intervals, until transferred to the Anglo-Norman
+chivalry, three centuries and a half later. Similar
+lodgment was made at Waterford, and a third was attempted
+at Limerick, but at this period without success; the
+Danish fort at the latter point is not thought older than
+the year 855. But Turgesius--if, indeed, the independent
+acts of cotemporary and even rival chiefs be not too
+often attributed to him--was not content with fortifying
+the estuaries of some principal rivers; he established
+inland centres of operation, of which the cardinal one
+was on Lough Ree, the expansion of the Shannon, north of
+Athlone; another was at a point called Lyndwachill, on
+Lough Neagh. On both these waters were stationed fleets
+of boats, constructed for that service, and communicating
+with the forts on shore. On the eastern border of Lough
+Ree, in the midst of its meadows, stood Clonmacnoise,
+rich with the offerings and endowments of successive
+generations. Here, three centuries before, in the heart
+of the desert, St. Kieran had erected with his own hands
+a rude sylvan cell, where, according to the allegory of
+tradition, "the first monks who joined him," were the
+fox, the wolf, and the bear; but time had wrought wonders
+on that hallowed ground, and a group of churches--at one
+time, as many as ten in number--were gathered within two
+or three acres, round its famous schools, and presiding
+Cathedral. Here it was Turgesius made his usual home,
+and from the high altar of the Cathedral his unbelieving
+Queen was accustomed to issue her imperious mandates in
+his absence. Here, for nearly seven years, this conqueror
+and his consort exercised their far-spread and terrible
+power. According to the custom of their own country--a
+custom attributed to Odin as its author--they exacted
+from every inhabitant subject to their sway--a piece of
+money annually, the forfeit for the non-payment of which
+was the loss of the nose, hence called "nose-money."
+Their other exactions were a union of their own northern
+imposts, with those levied by the chiefs whose authority
+they had superseded, but whose prerogatives they asserted
+for themselves. Free quarters for their soldiery, and
+a system of inspection extending to every private relation
+of life, were the natural expedients of a tyranny so
+odious. On the ecclesiastical order especially their yoke
+bore with peculiar weight, since, although avowed Pagans,
+they permitted no religious house to stand, unless under
+an Abbot, or at least an _Erenach_ (or Treasurer) of
+their approval. Such is the complete scheme of oppression
+presented to us, that it can only be likened to a monstrous
+spider-web spread from the centre of the Island over its
+fairest and most populous districts. Glendalough, Ferns,
+Castle-Dermid, and Kildare in the east; Lismore, Cork,
+Clonfert, in the southern country; Dundalk, Bangor, Derry,
+and Armagh in the north; all groaned under this triumphant
+despot, or his colleagues. In the meanwhile King Nial
+seems to have struggled resolutely with the difficulties
+of his lot, and in every interval of insubordination to
+have struck boldly at the common enemy. But the tide of
+success for the first few years after 837 ran strongly
+against him. The joint hosts from the Liffey and the
+Boyne swept the rich plains of Meath, and in an engagement
+at Invernabark (the present Bray) gave such a complete
+defeat to the southern Hy-Nial clans as prevented them
+making head again in the field, until some summers were
+past and gone. In this campaign Saxolve, who is called
+"the chief of the foreigners," was slain; and to him,
+therefore, if to any commander-in-chief, Turgesius must
+have succeeded. The shores of all the inland lakes were
+favourite sites for Raths and Churches, and the beautiful
+country around Lough Erne shared the fiery ordeal which
+blazed on Lough Ree and Lough Neagh. In 839 the men of
+Connaught also suffered a defeat equal to that experienced
+by those of Meath in the previous campaign; but more
+unfortunate than the Methians, they lost their leader
+and other chiefs on the field. In 840, Ferns and Cork
+were given to the flames, and the fort at Lyndwachill,
+or Magheralin, poured out its ravages in every direction
+over the adjacent country, sweeping off flocks, herds,
+and prisoners, laymen and ecclesiastics, to their ships.
+The northern depredators counted among their captives
+"several Bishops and learned men," of whom the Abbot of
+Clogher and the Lord of Galtrim are mentioned by name.
+Their equally active colleagues of Dublin and Waterford
+took captive, Hugh, Abbot of Clonenagh, and Foranan,
+Archbishop of Armagh, who had fled southwards with many
+of the relics of the Metropolitan Church, escaping from
+one danger only to fall into another a little farther
+off. These prisoners were carried into Munster, where
+Abbot Hugh suffered martyrdom at their hands, but the
+Archbishop, after being carried to their fleet at Limerick,
+seems to have been rescued or ransomed, as we find him
+dying in peace at Armagh in the next reign. The martyrs
+of these melancholy times were very numerous, but the
+exact particulars being so often unrecorded it is impossible
+to present the reader with an intelligible account of
+their persons and sufferings. When the Anglo-Normans
+taunted the Irish that their Church had no martyrs to
+boast of, they must have forgotten the exploits of their
+Norse kinsmen about the middle of this century.
+
+But the hour of retribution was fast coming round, and
+the native tribes, unbound, divided, confused, and long
+unused to foreign war, were fast recovering their old
+martial experience, and something like a politic sense
+of the folly of their border feuds. Nothing perhaps so
+much tended to arouse and combine them together as the
+capture of the successor of Saint Patrick, with all his
+relics, and his imprisonment among a Pagan host, in Irish
+waters. National humiliation could not much farther go,
+and as we read we pause, prepared for either alternative
+--mute submission or a brave uprising. King Nial seems
+to have been in this memorable year, 843, defending as
+well as he might his ancestral province--Ulster--against
+the ravagers of Lough Neagh, and still another party
+whose ships flocked into Lough Swilly. In the ancient
+plain of Moynith, watered by the little river Finn, (the
+present barony of Raphoe,) he encountered the enemy, and
+according to the Annals, "a countless number fell"--victory
+being with Nial. In the same year, or the next, Turgesius
+was captured by Melaghlin, Lord of Westmeath, apparently
+by stratagem, and put to death by the rather novel process
+of drowning. The Bardic tale told to _Cambrensis_, or
+parodied by him from an old Greek legend, of the death
+by which Turgesius died, is of no historical authority.
+According to this tale, the tyrant of Lough Ree conceived
+a passion for the fair daughter of Melaghlin, and demanded
+her of her father, who, fearing to refuse, affected to
+grant the infamous request, but despatched in her stead,
+to the place of assignation, twelve beardless youths,
+habited as maidens, to represent his daughter and her
+attendants; by these maskers the Norwegian and his boon
+companions were assassinated, after they had drank to
+excess and laid aside their arms and armour. For all this
+superstructure of romance there is neither ground-work
+nor license in the facts themselves, beyond this, that
+Turgesius was evidently captured by some clever stratagem.
+We hear of no battle in Meath or elsewhere against him
+immediately preceding the event; nor, is it likely that
+a secondary Prince, as Melaghlin then was, could have
+hazarded an engagement with the powerful master of Lough
+Ree. If the local traditions of Westmeath may be trusted,
+where _Cambrensis_ is rejected, the Norwegian and Irish
+principals in the tragedy of Lough Owel were on visiting
+terms just before the denouement, and many curious
+particulars of their peaceful but suspicious intercourse
+used to be related by the modern story-tellers around
+Castle-pollard. The anecdote of the rookery, of which
+Melaghlin complained, and the remedy for which his visitor
+suggested to be "to cut down the trees and the rooks
+would fly," has a suspicious look of the "tall poppies"
+of the Roman and Grecian legend; two things only do we
+know for certain about the matter: _firstly_, that
+Turgesius was taken and drowned in Lough Owel in the year
+843 or 844; and _secondly_, that this catastrophe was
+brought about by the agency and order of his neighbour,
+Melaghlin.
+
+The victory of Moynith and the death of Turgesius were
+followed by some local successes against other fleets
+and garrisons of the enemy. Those of Lough Ree seem to
+have abandoned their fort, and fought their way (gaining
+in their retreat the only military advantage of that
+year) towards Sligo, where some of their vessels had
+collected to bear them away. Their colleagues of Dublin,
+undeterred by recent reverses, made their annual foray
+southward into Ossory, in 844, and immediately we find
+King Nial moving up from the north to the same scene of
+action. In that district he met his death in an effort
+to save the life of a _gilla_, or common servant. The
+river of Callan being greatly swollen, the _gilla_, in
+attempting to find a ford, was swept away in its turbid
+torrent. The King entreated some one to go to his rescue,
+but as no one obeyed he generously plunged in himself
+and sacrificed his own life in endeavouring to preserve
+one of his humblest followers. He was in the 55th year
+of his age and the 13th of his reign, and in some traits
+of character reminded men of his grandfather, the devout
+Nial "of the Showers." The Bards have celebrated the
+justice of his judgments, the goodness of his heart, and
+the comeliness of his "brunette-bright face." He left a
+son of age to succeed him, (and who ultimately did become
+_Ard-Righ_,) yet the present popularity of Melaghlin of
+Meath triumphed over every other interest, and he was
+raised to the monarchy--the first of his family who had
+yet attained that honour. Hugh, the son of Nial, sank
+for a time into the rank of a Provincial Prince, before
+the ascendant star of the captor of Turgesius, and is
+usually spoken of during this reign as "Hugh of Aileach."
+He is found towards its close, as if impatient of the
+succession, employing the arms of the common enemy to
+ravage the ancient mensal land of the kings of Erin, and
+otherwise harassing the last days of his successful rival.
+
+Melaghlin, or Malachy I. (sometimes called "of the
+Shannon," from his patrimony along that river), brought
+back again the sovereignty to the centre, and in happier
+days might have become the second founder of Tara. But
+it was plain enough then, and it is tolerably so still,
+that this was not to be an age of restoration. The kings
+of Ireland after this time, says the quaint old translator
+of the Annals of Clonmacnoise, "had little good of it,"
+down to the days of King Brian. It was, in fact, a
+perpetual struggle for self-preservation--the first duty
+of all governments, as well as the first law of all
+nature. The powerful action of the Gentile forces, upon
+an originally ill-centralized and recently much abused
+Constitution, seemed to render it possible that every
+new Ard-Righ would prove the last. Under the pressure
+of such a deluge all ancient institutions were shaken to
+their foundations; and the venerable authority of Religion
+itself, like a Hermit in a mountain torrent, was contending
+for the hope of escape or existence. We must not, therefore,
+amid the din of the conflicts through which we are to
+pass, condemn without stint or qualification those Princes
+who were occasionally driven--as some of them _were_
+driven--to that last resort, the employment of foreign
+mercenaries (and those mercenaries often anti-Christians,)
+to preserve some show of native government and kingly
+authority. Grant that in some of them the use of such
+allies and agents cannot be justified on any plea or
+pretext of state necessity; where base ends or unpatriotic
+motives are clear or credible, such treason to country
+cannot be too heartily condemned; but it is indeed far
+from certain that such were the motives in _all_ cases,
+or that such ought to be our conclusion in any, in the
+absence of sufficient evidence to that effect.
+
+Though the Gentile power had experienced towards the
+close of the last reign such severe reverses, yet it was
+not in the nature of the men of Norway to abandon a prize
+which was once so nearly being their own. The fugitives
+who escaped, as well as those who remained within the
+strong ramparts of Waterford and Dublin, urged the fitting
+out of new expeditions, to avenge their slaughtered
+countrymen and prosecute the conquest. But defeat still
+followed on defeat; in the first year of Malachy, they
+lost 1,200 men in a disastrous action near Castle Dermot,
+with Olcobar the Prince-bishop of Cashel; and in the same
+or the next season they were defeated with the loss of
+700 men, by Malachy, at Forc, in Meath. In the third year
+of Malachy, however, a new northern expedition arrived
+in 140 vessels, which, according to the average capacity
+of the long-ships of that age, must have carried with
+them from 7,000 to 10,000 men. Fortunately for the
+assailed, this fleet was composed of what they called
+_Black_-Gentiles, or Danes, as distinguished from their
+predecessors, the _Fair_-Gentiles, or Norwegians. A
+quarrel arose between the adventurers of the two nations
+as to the possession of the few remaining fortresses,
+especially of Dublin; and an engagement was fought along
+the Liffey, which "lasted for three days;" the Danes
+finally prevailed, driving the Norwegians from their
+stronghold, and cutting them off from their ships. The
+new Northern leaders are named Anlaf, or Olaf, Sitrick
+(Sigurd?) and Ivar; the first of the Danish Earls, who
+established themselves at Dublin, Waterford and Limerick
+respectively. Though the immediate result of the arrival
+of the great fleet of 847 relieved for the moment the
+worst apprehensions of the invaded, and enabled them to
+rally their means of defence, yet as Denmark had more
+than double the population of Norway, it brought them
+into direct collision with a more formidable power than
+that from which they had been so lately delivered. The
+tactics of both nations were the same. No sooner had they
+established themselves on the ruins of their predecessors
+in Dublin, than the Danish forces entered East-Meath,
+under the guidance of Kenneth, a local lord, and overran
+the ancient mensal, from the sea to the Shannon. One of
+their first exploits was burning alive 260 prisoners in
+the tower of Treoit, in the island of Lough Gower, near
+Dunshaughlin. The next year, his allies having withdrawn
+from the neighbourhood, Kenneth was taken by King Malachy's
+men, and the traitor himself drowned in a sack, in the
+little river Nanny, which divides the two baronies of
+Duleek. This death-penalty by drowning seems to have been
+one of the useful hints which the Irish picked up from
+their invaders.
+
+During the remainder of this reign the Gentile war resumed
+much of its old local and guerrilla character, the
+Provincial chiefs, and the Ard-Righ, occasionally employing
+bands of one nation of the invaders to combat the other,
+and even to suppress their native rivals. The only pitched
+battle of which we hear is that of "the Two Plains" (near
+Coolestown, King's County), in the second last year of
+Malachy (A.D. 859), in which his usual good fortune
+attended the king. The greater part of his reign was
+occupied, as always must be the case with the founder of
+a new line, in coercing into obedience his former peers.
+On this business he made two expeditions into Munster,
+and took hostages from all the tribes of the Eugenian
+race. With the same object he held a conference with all
+the chiefs of Ulster, Hugh of Aileach only being absent,
+at Armagh, in the fourth year of his reign, and a General
+_Feis_, or Assembly of all the Orders of Ireland, at
+Rathugh, in West-Meath, in his thirteenth year (A.D.
+857). He found, notwithstanding his victories and his
+early popularity, that there are always those ready to
+turn from the setting to the rising sun, and towards the
+end of his reign he was obliged to defend his camp, near
+Armagh, by force, from a night assault of the discontented
+Prince of Aileach; who also ravaged his patrimony, almost
+at the moment he lay on his death-bed. Malachy I. departed
+this life on the 13th day of November, (A.D. 860), having
+reigned sixteen years. "Mournful is the news to the Gael!"
+exclaims the elegiac Bard! "Red wine is spilled into the
+valley! Erin's monarch has died!" And the lament contrasts
+his stately form as "he rode the white stallion," with
+the striking reverse when, "his only horse this day"--that
+is the bier on which his body was borne to the
+churchyard--"is drawn behind two oxen."
+
+The restless Prince of Aileach now succeeded as Hugh VII.,
+and possessed the perilous honour he so much coveted for
+sixteen years, the same span that had been allotted to
+his predecessor. The beginning of this reign was remarkable
+for the novel design of the Danes, who marched out in
+great force, and set themselves busily to breaking open
+the ancient mounds in the cemetery of the Pagan kings,
+beside the Boyne, in hope of finding buried treasure.
+The three Earls, Olaf, Sitrick, and Ivar, are said to
+have been present, while their gold-hunters broke into
+in succession the mound-covered cave of the wife of Goban,
+at Drogheda, the cave of "the Shepherd of Elcmar," at
+Dowth, the cave of the field of Aldai, at New Grange,
+and the similar cave at Knowth. What they found in these
+huge cairns of the old _Tuatha_ is not related; but Roman
+coins of Valentinian and Theodosius, and torques and
+armlets of gold, have been discovered by accident within
+their precincts, and an enlightened modern curiosity has
+not explored them in vain, in the higher interests of
+history and science.
+
+In the first two years of his reign, Hugh VII. was occupied
+in securing the hostages of his suffragans; in the third
+he swept the remaining Danish and Norwegian garrisons
+out of Ulster, and defeated a newly arrived force on the
+borders of Lough Foyle; the next the Danish Earls went
+on a foray into Scotland, and no exploit is to be recorded;
+in his sixth year, Hugh, with 1,000 chosen men of his
+own tribe and the aid of the Sil-Murray (O'Conor's) of
+Connaught, attacked and defeated a force of 5,000 Danes
+with their Leinster allies, near Dublin at a place supposed
+to be identical with Killaderry. Earl Olaf lost his son,
+and Erin her _Roydamna_, or heir-apparent, on this field,
+which was much celebrated by the Bards of Ulster and of
+Connaught. Amongst those who fell was Flan, son of Conaing,
+chief of the district which included the plundered
+cemeteries, fighting on the side of the plunderers. The
+mother of Flan was one of those who composed quatrains
+on the event of the battle, and her lines are a natural
+and affecting alternation from joy to grief--joy for the
+triumph of her brother and her country, and grief for
+the loss of her self-willed, warlike son. Olaf, the Danish
+leader, avenged in the next campaign the loss of his son,
+by a successful descent on Armagh, once again rising from
+its ruins. He put to the sword 1,000 persons, and left
+the primatial city lifeless, charred, and desolate. In
+the next ensuing year the monarch chastised the Leinster
+allies of the Danes, traversing their territory with fire
+and sword from Dublin to the border town of Gowran. This
+seems to have been the last of his notable exploits in
+arms. He died on the 20th of November, 876, and is
+lamented by the Bards as "a generous, wise, staid man."
+These praises belong--if at all deserved--to his old age.
+
+Flan, son of Malachy I. (and surnamed like his father
+"of the Shannon"), succeeded in the year 877, of the
+Annals of the Four Masters, or more accurately the year
+879 of our common era. He enjoyed the very unusual reign
+of thirty-eight years. Some of the domestic events of
+his time are of so unprecedented a character, and the
+period embraced is so considerable, that we must devote
+to it a separate chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+REIGN OF FLAN "OF THE SHANNON" (A.D. 879 TO 916).
+
+Midway in the reign we are called upon to contemplate,
+falls the centenary of the first invasion of Ireland by
+the Northmen. Let us admit that the scenes of that
+century are stirring and stimulating; two gallant races
+of men, in all points strongly contrasted, contend for
+the most part in the open field, for the possession of
+a beautiful and fertile island. Let us admit that the
+Milesian-Irish, themselves invaders and conquerors of an
+older date, may have had no right to declare the era of
+colonization closed for their country, while its best
+harbours were without ships, and leagues of its best land
+were without inhabitants; yet what gives to the contest
+its lofty and fearful interest, is, that the foreigners
+who come so far and fight so bravely for the prize, are
+a Pagan people, drunk with the evil spirit of one of the
+most anti-Christian forms of human error. And what is
+still worse, and still more to be lamented, it is becoming,
+after the experience of a century, plainer and plainer,
+that the Christian natives, while defending with unfaltering
+courage their beloved country, are yet descending more
+and more to the moral level of their assailants, without
+the apology of their Paganism. Degenerate civilisation
+may be a worse element for truth to work in than original
+barbarism; and, therefore, as we enter on the second
+century of this struggle, we begin to fear for the
+Christian Irish, _not_ from the arms or the valour, but
+from the contact and example of the unbelievers. This,
+it is necessary to premise, before presenting to the
+reader a succession of Bishops who lead armies to battle,
+of Abbots whose voice is still for war, of treacherous
+tactics and savage punishments; of the almost total
+disruption of the last links of that federal bond, which,
+"though light as air were strong as iron," before the
+charm of inviolability had been taken away from the
+ancient constitution.
+
+We begin to discern in this reign that royal marriages
+have much to do with war and politics. Hugh, the late
+king, left a widow, named Maelmara ("follower of Mary"),
+daughter to Kenneth M'Alpine, King of the Caledonian
+Scots: this lady Flan married. The mother of Flan was
+the daughter of Dungal, Prince of Ossory, so that to the
+cotemporary lords of that borderland the monarch stood
+in the relation of cousin. A compact seems to have been
+entered into in the past reign, that the _Roydamna_, or
+successor, should be chosen alternately from the Northern
+and Southern Hy-Nial; and, subsequently, when Nial, son
+of his predecessor, assumed that onerous rank, Flan gave
+him his daughter Gormley, celebrated for her beauty, her
+talents, and her heartlessness, in marriage. From these
+several family ties, uniting him so closely with Ossory,
+with the Scots, and with his successor, much of the wars
+and politics of Flan Siona's reign take their cast and
+complexion. A still more fruitful source of new
+complications was the co-equal power, acquired through
+a long series of aggressions, by the kings of Cashel.
+Their rivalry with the monarchy, from the beginning of
+the eighth till the end of the tenth century, was a
+constant cause of intrigues, coalitions, and wars,
+reminding us of the constant rivalry of Athens with
+Sparta, of Genoa with Venice. This kingship of Cashel,
+according to the Munster law of succession, "the will of
+Olild," ought to have alternated regularly between the
+descendants of his sons, Eugene More and Cormac Cas--the
+Eugenians and Dalcassians. But the families of the former
+kindred were for many centuries the more powerful of the
+two, and frequently set at nought the testamentary law
+of their common ancestor, leaving the tribe of Cas but
+the border-land of Thomond, from which they had sometimes
+to pay tribute to Cruachan, and at others to Cashel. In
+the ninth century the competition among the Eugenian
+houses--of which too many were of too nearly equal
+strength--seems to have suggested a new expedient, with
+the view of permanently setting aside the will of Olild.
+This was, to confer the kingship when vacant, on whoever
+happened to be Bishop of Emly or of Cashel, or on some
+other leading ecclesiastical dignitary, always provided
+that he was of Eugenian descent; a qualification easily
+to be met with, since the great sees and abbacies were
+now filled, for the most part, by the sons of the
+neighbouring chiefs. In this way we find Cenfalad, Felim,
+and Olcobar, in this century, styled Prince-Bishops or
+Prince-Abbots. The principal domestic difficulty of Flan
+Siona's reign followed from the elevation of Cormac, son
+of Cuillenan, from the see of Emly to the throne of Cashel.
+
+Cormac, a scholar, and, as became his calling, a man of
+peace, was thus, by virtue of his accession, the
+representative of the old quarrel between his predecessors
+and the dominant race of kings. All Munster asserted that
+it was never the intention of their common ancestors to
+subject the southern half of Erin to the sway of the
+north; that Eber and Owen More had resisted such pretensions
+when advanced by Eremhon and Conn of the Hundred Battles;
+that the _esker_ from Dublin to Galway was the true
+division, and that, even admitting the title of the
+Hy-Nial king as Ard-Righ, all the tribes south of the
+_esker_, whether in Leinster or Connaught, still owed
+tribute by ancient right to Cashel. Their antiquaries
+had their own version in of "the Book of Rights," which
+countenanced these claims to co-equal dominion, and their
+Bards drew inspiration from the same high pretensions.
+Party spirit ran so high that tales and prophecies were
+invented to show how St. Patrick had laid his curse on
+Tara, and promised dominion to Cashel and to Dublin in
+its stead. All Leinster, except the lordship of Ossory--
+identical with the present diocese of the same name-was
+held by the _Brehons_ of Cashel to be tributary to their
+king; and this _Borooa_ or tribute, abandoned by the
+monarchs at the intercession of Saint Moling, was claimed
+for the Munster rulers as an inseparable adjunct of their
+southern kingdom.
+
+The first act of Flan Siona, on his accession, was to
+dash into Munster, demanding hostages at the point of
+the sword, and sweeping over both Thomond and Desmond
+with irresistible force, from Clare to Cork. With equal
+promptitude he marched through every territory of Ulster,
+securing, by the pledges of their heirs and _Tanists_,
+the chiefs of the elder tribes of the Hy-Nial. So
+effectually did he consider his power established over
+the provinces, that he is said to have boasted to one of
+his hostages, that he would, with no other attendants
+than his own servants, play a game of chess on Thurles
+Green, without fear of interruption. Carrying out this
+foolish wager, he accordingly went to his game at Thurles,
+and was very properly taken prisoner for his temerity,
+and made to pay a smart ransom to his captors. So runs
+the tale, which, whether true or fictitious, is not
+without its moral. Flan experienced greater difficulty
+with the tribes of Connaught, nor was it till the thirteenth
+year of his reign (892) that Cathal, their Prince, "came
+into his house," in Meath, "under the protection of the
+clergy" of Clonmacnoise, and made peace with him. A brief
+interval of repose seems to have been vouchsafed to this
+Prince, in the last years of the century; but a storm
+was gathering over Cashel, and the high pretensions of
+the Eugenian line were again to be put to the hazard of
+battle.
+
+Cormac, the Prince-Bishop, began his rule over Munster
+in the year 900 of our common era, and passed some years
+in peace, after his accession. If we believe his
+panegyrists, the land over which he bore sway, "was filled
+with divine grace and worldly prosperity," and with order
+so unbroken, "that the cattle needed no cowherd, and the
+flocks no shepherd, so long as he was king." Himself an
+antiquary and a lover of learning, it seems but natural
+that "many books were written, and many schools opened,"
+by his liberality. During this enviable interval,
+councillors of less pacific mood than their studious
+master were not wanting to stimulate his sense of kingly
+duty, by urging him to assert the claim of Munster to
+the tribute of the southern half of Erin. As an antiquary
+himself, Cormac must have been bred up in undoubting
+belief in the justice of that claim, and must have given
+judgment in favour of its antiquity and validity, before
+his accession. These _dicta_ of his own were now quoted
+with emphasis, and he was besought to enforce, by all
+the means within his reach, the learned judgments he
+himself had delivered. The most active advocate of a
+recourse to arms was Flaherty, Abbot of Scattery, in the
+Shannon, himself an Eugenian, and the kinsman of Cormac.
+After many objections, the peaceful Prince-Bishop allowed
+himself to be persuaded, and in the year 907 he took up
+his line of march, "in the fortnight of the harvest,"
+from Cashel toward Gowran, at the head of all the armament
+of Munster. Lorcan, son of Lactna, and grandfather of
+Brian, commanded the Dalcassians, under Cormac; and Oliol,
+lord of Desies, and the warlike Abbot of Scattery, led
+on the other divisions. The monarch marched southward to
+meet his assailants, with his own proper troops, and the
+contingents of Connaught under Cathel, Prince of that
+Province, and those of Leinster under the lead of Kerball,
+their king. Both armies met at Ballaghmoon, in the southern
+corner of Kildare, not far from the present town of
+Carlow, and both fought with most heroic bravery. The
+Munster forces were utterly defeated; the Lords of Desies,
+of Fermoy, of Kinalmeaky, and of Kerry, the Abbots of
+Cork and Kennity, and Cormac himself, with 6,000 men,
+fell on the ensanguined field. The losses of the victors
+are not specified, but the 6,000, we may hope, included
+the total of the slain on both sides. Flan at once improved
+the opportunity of victory by advancing into Ossory, and
+establishing his cousin Dermid, son of Kerball, over that
+territory. This Dermid, who appears to have been banished
+by Munster intrigues, had long resided with his royal
+cousin, previous to the battle, from which he was probably
+the only one that derived any solid advantage. As to the
+Abbot Flaherty, the instigator of this ill-fated expedition,
+he escaped from the conquerors, and, safe in his island
+sanctuary, gave himself up for a while to penitential
+rigours. The worldly spirit, however, was not dead in
+his breast, and after the decease of Cormac's next
+successor, he emerged from his cell, and was elevated to
+the kingship of Cashel.
+
+In the earlier and middle years of this long reign, the
+invasions from the Baltic had diminished both in force
+and in frequency. This is to be accounted for from the
+fact, that during its entire length it was contemporaneous
+with the reign of Harold, "the Fair-haired" King of
+Norway, the scourge of the sea-kings. This more fortunate
+Charles XII., born in 853, died at the age of 81, after
+sixty years of almost unbroken successes, over all his
+Danish, Swedish, and insular enemies. It is easy to
+comprehend, by reference to his exploits upon the Baltic,
+the absence of the usual northern force from the Irish
+waters, during his lifetime, and that of his cotemporary,
+Flan of the Shannon. Yet the race of the sea-kings was
+not extinguished by the fair-haired Harold's victories
+over them, at home. Several of them permanently abandoned
+their native coasts never to return, and recruited their
+colonies, already so numerous, in the Orkneys, Scotland,
+England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. In 885, Flan was
+repulsed in an attack on Dublin, in which repulse the
+Abbots of Kildare and Kildalkey were slain; in the year
+890, Aileach was surprised and plundered by Danes, for
+the first time, and Armagh shared its fate; in 887, 888,
+and 891, three minor victories were gained over separate
+hordes, in Mayo, at Waterford, and in Ulidia (Down). In
+897, Dublin was taken for the first time in sixty years,
+its chiefs put to death, while its garrison fled in their
+ships beyond sea. But in the first quarter of the tenth
+century, better fortune begins to attend the Danish cause.
+A new generation enters on the scene, who dread no more
+the long arm of the age-stricken Harold, nor respect the
+treaties which bound their predecessors in Britain to
+the great Alfred. In 912, Waterford received from sea a
+strong reinforcement, and about the same date, or still
+earlier, Dublin, from which they had been expelled in
+897, was again in their possession. In 913, and for
+several subsequent years, the southern garrisons continued
+their ravages in Munster, where the warlike Abbot of
+Scattery found a more suitable object for the employment
+of his valour than that which brought him, with the
+studious Cormac, to the fatal field of Ballaghmoon.
+
+The closing days of Flan of the Shannon were embittered
+and darkened by the unnatural rebellion of his sons,
+Connor and Donogh, and his successor, Nial, surnamed
+_Black-Knee_ (_Glundubh_), the husband of his daughter,
+Gormley. These children were by his second marriage with
+Gormley, daughter of that son of Conaing, whose name has
+already appeared in connection with the plundered sepulchres
+upon the Boyne. At the age of three score and upwards
+Flan is frequently obliged to protect by recourse to arms
+his mensal lands in Meath-their favourite point of
+attack-or to defend some faithful adherent whom these
+unnatural Princes sought to oppress. The daughter of
+Flan, thus wedded to a husband in arms against her father,
+seems to have been as little dutiful as his sons. We have
+elegiac stanzas by her on the death of two of her husbands
+and of one of her sons, but none on the death of her
+father: although this form of tribute to the departed,
+by those skilled in such compositions, seems to have been
+as usual as the ordinary prayers for the dead.
+
+At length, in the 37th year of his reign, and the 68th
+of his age, King Flan was at the end of his sorrows. As
+became the prevailing character of his life, he died
+peacefully, in a religious house at Kyneigh, in Kildare,
+on the 8th of June, in the year 916, of the common era.
+The Bards praise his "fine shape" and "august mien," as
+well as his "pleasant and hospitable" private habits.
+Like all the kings of his race he seems to have been
+brave enough: but he was no lover of war for war's-sake,
+and the only great engagement in his long reign was
+brought on by enemies who left him no option but to fight.
+His munificence rebuilt the Cathedral of Clonmacnoise,
+with the co-operation of Colman, the Abbot, the year
+after the battle of Ballaghmoon (908); for which age, it
+was the largest and finest stone Church in Ireland. His
+charity and chivalry both revolted at the cruel excesses
+of war, and when the head of Cormac of Cashel was presented
+to him after his victory, he rebuked those who rejoiced
+over his rival's fall, kissed reverently the lips of the
+dead, and ordered the relics to be delivered, as Cormac
+had himself willed it, to the Church of Castledermot,
+for Christian burial. These traits of character, not less
+than his family afflictions, and the generally peaceful
+tenor of his long life, have endeared to many the memory
+of Flan of the Shannon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+KINGS OF THE TENTH CENTURY; NIAL IV.; DONOGH II.;
+CONGAL III.; DONALD IV.
+
+Nial IV. (surnamed _Black-Knee_) succeeded his
+father-in-law, Flan of the Shannon (A.D. 916), and in
+the third year of his reign fell in an assault on Dublin;
+Donogh II., son of Flan Siona, reigned for twenty-five
+years; Congal III. succeeded, and was slain in an ambush
+by the Dublin Danes, in the twelfth year of his reign
+(A.D. 956); Donald IV., in the twenty-fourth year of his
+reign, died at Armagh, (A.D. 979); which four reigns
+bring us to the period of the accession of Malachy II.
+as _Ard-Righ_, and the entrance of Brian Boru, on the
+national stage, as King of Cashel, and competitor for
+the monarchy.
+
+The reign of Nial _Black-Knee_ was too brief to be
+memorable for any other event than his heroic death in
+battle. The Danes having recovered Dublin, and strengthened
+its defences, Nial, it is stated, was incited by his
+confessor, the Abbot of Bangor, to attempt their
+re-expulsion. Accordingly, in October, 919, he marched
+towards Dublin, with a numerous host; Conor, son of the
+late king and _Roydamna_; the lords of Ulidia (Down),
+Oriel (Louth), Breagh (East-Meath), and other chiefs,
+with their clans accompanying him. Sitrick and Ivar, sons
+of the first Danish leaders in Ireland, marched out to
+meet them, and near Rathfarnham, on the Dodder, a battle
+was fought, in which the Irish were utterly defeated and
+their monarch slain. This Nial left a son named Murkertach,
+who, according to the compact entered into between the
+Northern and Southern Hy-Nial, became the _Roydamna_ of
+the next reign, and the most successful leader against
+the Danes, since the time of Malachy I. He was the step-son
+of the poetic Lady Gormley, whose lot it was to have been
+married in succession to the King of Munster, the King
+of Leinster, and the Monarch. Her first husband was
+Cormac, son of Cuilenan, before he entered holy orders;
+her second, Kerball of Leinster, and her third, Nial
+_Black-Knee_. She was an accomplished poetess, besides
+being the daughter, wife, and mother of king's, yet after
+the death of Nial she "begged from door to door," and no
+one had pity on her fallen state. By what vices she had
+thus estranged from her every kinsman, and every dependent,
+we are left to imagine; but that such was her misfortune,
+at the time her brother was monarch, and her step-son
+successor, we learn from the annals, which record her
+penance and death, under the date of 948.
+
+The defeat sustained near Rathfarnham, by the late king,
+was amply avenged in the first year of the new _Ard-Righ_
+(A.D. 920), when the Dublin Danes, having marched out,
+taken and burned Kells, in Meath, were on their return
+through the plain of Breagh, attacked and routed with
+unprecedented slaughter. "There fell of the nobles of
+the Norsemen here," say the old Annalists, "as many as
+fell of the nobles and plebeians of the Irish, at
+Ath-Cliath" (Dublin). The Northern Hydra, however, was
+not left headless. Godfrey, grandson of Ivar, and Tomar,
+son of Algi, took command at Dublin, and Limerick, infusing
+new life into the remnant of their race. The youthful
+son of the late king, soon after at the head of a strong
+force (A.D. 921), compelled Godfrey to retreat from
+Ulster, to his ships, and to return by sea to Dublin.
+This was Murkertach, fondly called by the elegiac Bards,
+"the Hector of the West," and for his heroic achievements,
+not undeserving to be named after the gallant defender
+of Troy. Murkertach first appears in our annals at the
+year 921, and disappears in the thick of the battle in
+938. His whole career covers seventeen years; his position
+throughout was subordinate and expectant--for King Donogh
+outlived his heir: but there are few names in any age of
+the history of his country more worthy of historical
+honour than his. While Donogh was king in name, Murkertach
+was king in fact; on him devolved the burden of every
+negotiation, and the brunt of every battle. Unlike his
+ancestor, Hugh of Aileach, in his opposition to Donogh's
+ancestor, Malachy I., he never attempts to counteract
+the king, or to harass him in his patrimony. He rather
+does what is right and needful himself, leaving Donogh
+to claim the credit, if he be so minded. True, a coolness
+and a quarrel arises between them, and even "a challenge
+of battle" is exchanged, but better councils prevail,
+peace is restored, and the king and the _Roydamna_ march
+as one man against the common enemy. It has been said of
+another but not wholly dissimilar form of government,
+that Crown-Princes are always in opposition; if this
+saying holds good of father and son, as occupant and
+expectant of a throne, how much more likely is it to be
+true of a successor and a principal, chosen from different
+dynasties, with a view to combine, or at worst to balance,
+conflicting hereditary interests? In the conduct of
+Murkertach, we admire, in turn, his many shining personal
+qualities, which even tasteless panegyric cannot hide,
+and the prudence, self-denial, patience, and preservance
+with which he awaits his day of power. Unhappily, for
+one every way so worthy of it, that day never arrived!
+
+At no former period,--not even at the height of the
+tyranny of Turgesius,--was a capable Prince more needed
+in Erin. The new generation of Northmen were again upon
+all the estuaries and inland waters of the Island. In
+the years 923-4 and 5, their light armed vessels swarmed
+on Lough Erne, Lough Ree, and other lakes, spreading
+flame and terror on every side. Clonmacnoise and Kildare,
+slowly recovering from former pillage, were again left
+empty and in ruins. Murkertach, the base of whose early
+operations was his own patrimony in Ulster, attacked near
+Newry a Northern division under the command of the son
+of Godfrey (A.D. 926), and left 800 dead on the field.
+The escape of the remnant was only secured by Godfrey
+marching rapidly to their relief and covering the retreat.
+His son lay with the dead. In the years 933, at Slieve
+Behma, in his own Province, Murkertach won a third victory;
+and in 936, taking political advantage of the result of
+the great English battle of Brunanburgh, which had so
+seriously diminished the Danish strength, the Roydamna,
+in company with the King, assaulted Dublin, expelled its
+garrison, levelled its fortress, and left the dwellings
+of the Northmen in ashes. From Dublin they proceeded
+southward, through Leinster and Munster, and after taking
+hostages of every tribe, Donogh returned to his Methian
+home and Murkertach to Aileach. While resting in his own
+fort (A.D. 939), he was surprised by a party of Danes,
+and carried off to their ships, but, says the old translator
+of the Annals of Clonmacnoise, "he made a good escape
+from them, as it was God's will." The following season
+he redoubled his efforts against the enemy. Attacking
+them on their own element, he ravaged their settlements
+on the Scottish coasts and among the isles of Insi-Gall
+(the Hebrides), returned laden with spoils, and hailed
+with acclamations as the liberator of his people.
+
+Of the same age with Murkertach, the reigning Prince at
+Cashel was Kellachan, one of the heroes of the latter
+Bards and Story-tellers of the South. The romantic tales
+of his capture by the Danes, and captivity in their fleet
+at Dundalk, of the love which Sitrick's wife bore him,
+and of his gallant rescue by the Dalcassians and Eugenians,
+have no historical sanction. He was often both at war
+and at peace with the foreigners of Cork and Limerick,
+and did not hesitate more than once to employ their arms
+for the maintenance of his own supremacy; but his only
+authentic captivity was, as a hostage, in the hands of
+Murkertach. While the latter was absent, on his expedition
+to Insi-Gall, Kellachan fell upon the Deisi and Ossorians,
+and inflicted severe chastisement upon them-alleging, as
+his provocation, that they had given hostages to Murkertach,
+and acknowledged him as _Roydamna_ of all Erin, in contempt
+of the co-equal rights of Cashel. When Murkertach returned
+from his Scotch expedition, and heard what had occurred,
+and on what pretext Kellachan had acted, he assembled at
+Aileach all the branches of the Northern Hy-Nial, for
+whom this was cause, indeed. Out of these he selected
+1000 chosen men, whom he provided, among other equipments,
+with those "leathern coats," which lent a _soubriquet_
+to his name; and with these "ten hundred heroes," he set
+out--strong in his popularity and his alliances--to make
+a circuit of the entire island (A.D. 940). He departed
+from Aileach, says his Bard, whose Itinerary we have,
+"keeping his left hand to the sea;" Dublin, once more
+rebuilt, acknowledged his title, and Sitrick, one of its
+lords, went with him as hostage for Earl Blacair and his
+countrymen; Leinster surrendered him Lorcan, its King;
+Kellachan, of Cashel, overawed by his superior fortune,
+advised his own people not to resist by force, and
+consented to become himself the hostage for all Munster.
+In Connaught, Conor, (from whom the O'Conors take their
+family name), son of the Prince, came voluntarily to his
+camp, and was received with open arms. Kellachan alone
+was submitted to the indignity of wearing a fetter. With
+these distinguished hostages, Murkertach and his
+leather-cloaked "ten hundred" returned to Aileach, where,
+for five months, they spent a season of unbounded rejoicing.
+In the following year, the _Roydamna_ transferred the
+hostages to King Donogh, as his _suzerain_, thus setting
+the highest example of obedience from the highest place.
+He might now look abroad over all the tribes of Erin,
+and feel himself without a rival among his countrymen.
+He stood at the very summit of his good fortune, when
+the Danes of Dublin, reinforced from abroad, after his
+"Circuit," renewed their old plundering practices. They
+marched north, at the close of winter, under Earl Blacair,
+their destination evidently being Armagh. Murkertach,
+with some troops hastily collected, disputed their passage
+at the ford of Ardee. An engagement ensued on Saturday,
+the 4th of March, 943, in which the noble _Roydamna_
+fell. King Donogh, to whose reign his vigorous spirit
+has given its main historical importance, survived him
+but a twelvemonth; the Monarch died in the bed of repose;
+his destined successor in the thick of battle.
+
+The death of the brave and beloved Murkertach filled all
+Erin with grief and rage, and as King Donogh was too old
+to avenge his destined successor, that duty devolved on
+Congal, the new _Roydamna_. In the year after the fatal
+action at Ardee, Congal, with Brann, King of Leinster,
+and Kellach, heir of Leinster, assaulted and took Dublin,
+and wreaked a terrible revenge for the nation's loss.
+The "women, children, and plebeians," were carried off
+captive; the greater part of the garrison were put to
+the sword; but a portion escaped in their vessels to
+their fortress on Dalkey, an island in the bay of Dublin.
+This was the third time within a century that Dublin had
+been rid of its foreign yoke, and yet as the Gaelic-Irish
+would not themselves dwell in fortified towns, the site
+remained open and unoccupied, to be rebuilt as often as
+it might be retaken. The gallant Congal, the same year,
+succeeded on the death of Donogh to the sovereignty, and,
+so soon as he had secured his seat, and surrounded it
+with sufficient hostages, he showed that he could not
+only avenge the death, but imitate the glorious life of
+him whose place he held. Two considerable victories in
+his third and fourth years increased his fame, and rejoiced
+the hearts of his countrymen: the first was won at Slane,
+aided by the Lord of Breffni (O'Ruarc), and by Olaf the
+Crooked, a northern chief. The second was fought at Dublin
+(947), in which Blacair, the victor at Ardee, and 1,600
+of his men were slain. Thus was the death of Murkertach
+finally avenged.
+
+It is very remarkable that the first conversions to
+Christianity among the Danes of Dublin should have taken
+place immediately after these successive defeats--in 948.
+Nor, although quite willing to impute the best and most
+disinterested motives to these first neophytes, can we
+shut our eyes to the fact that no change of life, such
+as we might reasonably look for, accompanied their change
+of religion. Godfrid, son of Sitrick, and successor of
+Blacair, who professed himself a Christian in 948,
+plundered and destroyed the churches of East-Meath in
+949, burnt 150 persons in the oratory of Drumree, and
+carried off as captives 3,000 persons. If the tree is to
+be judged by its fruits, this first year's growth of the
+new faith is rather alarming. It compels us to disbelieve
+the sincerity of Godfrid, at least, and the fighting men
+who wrought these outrages and sacrileges. It forces us
+to rank them with the incorrigible heathens who boasted
+that they had twenty times received the Sacrament of
+Baptism, and valued it for the twenty white robes which
+had been presented to them on those occasions. Still, we
+must endeavour hereafter, when we can, to distinguish
+Christian from Pagan Danes, and those of Irish birth,
+sons of the first comers, from the foreign-born kinsmen
+of their ancestors. Between these two classes there grew
+a gulf of feeling and experience, which a common language
+and common dangers only partially bridged over. Not seldom
+the interests and inclinations of the Irish-born Dane,
+especially if a true Christian, were at open variance
+with the interests and designs of the new arrivals from
+Denmark, and it is generally, if not invariably, with
+the former, that the Leinster and other Irish Princes
+enter into coalitions for common political purposes.
+The remainder of the reign of Congal is one vigorous
+battle. The Lord of Breffni, who had fought beside him
+on the hill of Slane, advanced his claim to be recognised
+_Roydamna_, and this being denied, broke out into rebellion
+and harassed his patrimony. Donald, son of Murkertach,
+and grandson of Nial, (the first who took the name of
+_Uai-Nial_, or O'Neill), disputed these pretensions of
+the Lord of Breffni; carried his boats overland from
+Aileach to Lough Erne in Fermanagh, and Lough Oughter in
+Cavan; attacked the lake-islands, where the treasure and
+hostages of Breffni were kept, and carried them off to
+his own fortress. The warlike and indefatigable king was
+in the field summer and winter enforcing his authority
+on Munster and Connaught, and battling with the foreign
+garrisons between times. No former Ard-Righ had a severer
+struggle with the insubordinate elements which beset him
+from first to last. His end was sudden, but not inglorious.
+In returning from the chariot-races at the Curragh of
+Kildare, he was surprised and slain in an ambuscade laid
+for him by Godfrid at a place on the banks of the Liffey
+called Tyraris or Teeraris house. By his side, fighting
+bravely, fell the lords of Teffia and Ferrard, two of
+his nephews, and others of his personal attendants and
+companions. The Dublin Danes had in their turn a day of
+rejoicing and of revenge for the defeats they had suffered
+at Congal's hands.
+
+This reign is not only notable for the imputed first
+conversion of the Danes to Christianity, but also for
+the general adoption of family names. Hitherto, we have
+been enabled to distinguish clansmen only by tribe-names
+formed by prefixing _Hy_, _Kinnel_, _Sil_, _Muintir_,
+_Dal_, or some synonymous term, meaning race, kindred,
+sept, district, or part, to the proper name of a remote
+common ancestor, as Hy-Nial, Kinnel-Connel, Sil-Murray,
+Muintir-Eolais, Dal-g Cais, and Dal-Riada. But the great
+tribes now begin to break into families, and we are
+hereafter to know particular houses, by distinct hereditary
+surnames, as O'Neill, O'Conor, MacMurrough, and McCarthy.
+Yet, the whole body of relatives are often spoken of by
+the old tribal title, which, unless exceptions are named,
+is supposed to embrace all the descendants of the old
+connection to whom it was once common. At first this
+alternate use of tribe and family names may confuse the
+reader--for it _is_ rather puzzling to find a MacLoughlin
+with the same paternal ancestor as an O'Neill, and a
+McMahon of Thomond as an O'Brien, but the difficulty
+disappears with use and familiarity, and though the number
+and variety of newly-coined names cannot be at once
+committed to memory, the story itself gains in distinctness
+by the change.
+
+In the year 955, Donald O'Neill, son of the brave and
+beloved Murkertach, was recognised as Ard-Righ, by the
+required number of Provinces, without recourse to coercion.
+But it was _not_ to be expected that any Ard-Righ should,
+at this period of his country's fortunes, reign long in
+peace. War was then the business of the King; the first
+art he had to learn, and the first to practise. Warfare
+in Ireland had not been a stationary science since the
+arrival of the Norwegians and their successors, the Danes.
+Something they may have acquired from the natives, and
+in turn the natives were not slow to copy whatever seemed
+most effective in their tactics. Donald IV. was the
+first to imitate their habit of employing armed boats on
+the inland lakes. He even improved on their example, by
+carrying these boats with him overland, and launching
+them wherever he needed their co-operation; as we have
+already seen him do in his expedition against Breffni,
+while _Roydamna_, and as we find him doing again, in the
+seventh year of his reign, when he carried his boats
+overland from Armagh to West-Meath in order to employ
+them on Loch Ennell, near Mullingar. He was at this time
+engaged in making his first royal visitation of the
+Provinces, upon which he spent two months in Leinster,
+with all his forces, coerced the Munster chiefs by fire
+and sword into obedience, and severely punished the
+insubordination of Fergal O'Ruarc, King of Connaught.
+His fleet upon Loch Ennell, and his severities generally
+while in their patrimony, so exasperated the powerful
+families of the Southern Hy-Nial (the elder of which was
+now known as O'Melaghlin), that on the first opportunity
+they leagued with the Dublin Danes, under their leader,
+Olaf "the Crooked" (A.D. 966), and drove King Donald out
+of Leinster and Meath, pursuing him across Slieve-Fuaid,
+almost to the walls of Aileach. But the brave tribes of
+Tyrconnell and Tyrowen rallied to his support, and he
+pressed south upon the insurgents of Meath and Dublin;
+West-Meath he rapidly overran, and "planted a garrison
+in every cantred from the Shannon to Kells," In the
+campaigns which now succeeded each other, without truce
+or pause, for nearly a dozen years, the Leinster people
+generally sympathised with and assisted those of West-Meath,
+and Olaf, of Dublin, who recruited his ranks by the
+junction of the Lagmans, a warlike tribe, from Insi-Gall
+(the Hebrides). Ossory, on the other hand, acted with
+the monarch, and the son of its Tanist (A.D. 974) was
+slain before Dublin, by Olaf and his Leinster allies,
+with 2,600 men, of Ossory and Ulster. The campaign of
+978 was still more eventful: the Leinster men quarrelled
+with their Danish allies, who had taken their king captive,
+and in an engagement at Belan, near Athy, defeated their
+forces, with the loss of the heir of Leinster, the lords
+of Kinsellagh, Lea and Morett, and other chiefs. King
+Donald had no better fortune at Killmoon, in Meath, the
+same season, where he was utterly routed by the same
+force, with the loss of Ardgal, heir of Ulidia, and
+Kenneth, lord of Tyrconnell. But for the victories gained
+about the same period in Munster, by Mahon and Brian,
+the sons of Kennedy, over the Danes of Limerick, of which
+we shall speak more fully hereafter, the balance of
+victory would have strongly inclined towards the Northmen
+at this stage of the contest.
+
+A leader, second in fame and in services only to Brian,
+was now putting forth his energies against the common
+enemy, in Meath. This was Melaghlin, better known afterwards
+as Malachy II., son of Donald, son of King Donogh, and,
+therefore, great-grandson to his namesake, Malachy I. He
+had lately attained to the command of his tribe--and he
+resolved to earn the honours which were in store for him,
+as successor to the sovereignty. In the year 979, the
+Danes of Dublin and the Isles marched in unusual strength
+into Meath, under the command of Rannall, son of Olaf
+the Crooked, and Connail, "the Orator of Ath-Cliath,"
+(Dublin). Malachy, with his allies, gave them battle near
+Tara, and achieved a complete victory. Earl Rannall and
+the Orator were left dead on the field, with, it is
+reported, 5,000 of the foreigners. On the Irish side fell
+the heir of Leinster, the lord of Morgallion and his son;
+the lords of Fertullagh and Cremorne, and a host of their
+followers. The engagement, in true Homeric spirit, had
+been suspended on three successive nights, and renewed
+three successive days. It was a genuine pitched battle--a
+trial of main strength, each party being equally confident
+of victory. The results were most important, and most
+gratifying to the national pride. Malachy, accompanied
+by his friend, the lord of Ulidia (Down), moved rapidly
+on Dublin, which, in its panic, yielded to all his demands.
+The King of Leinster and 2,000 other prisoners were given
+up to him without ransom. The Danish Earls solemnly
+renounced all claims to tribute or fine from any of the
+dwellers without their own walls. Malachy remained in
+the city three days, dismantled its fortresses, and
+carried off its hostages and treasure. The unfortunate
+Olaf the Crooked fled beyond seas, and died at Iona, in
+exile, and a Christian. In the same year, and in the
+midst of universal rejoicing, Donald IV. died peacefully
+and piously at Armagh, in the 24th year of his reign. He
+was succeeded by Malachy, who was his sister's son, and
+in whom all the promise of the lamented Murkertach seemed
+to revive.
+
+The story of Malachy II. is so interwoven with the
+still-more illustrious career of Brian _Borooa_, that it
+will not lose in interest by being presented in detail.
+But before entering on the rivalry of these great men,
+we must again remark on the altered position which the
+Northmen of this age hold to the Irish from that which
+existed formerly. A century and a half had now elapsed
+since their first settlement in the seaports, especially
+of the eastern and southern Provinces. More than one
+generation of their descendants had been born on the
+banks of the Liffey, the Shannon, and the Suir. Many of
+them had married into Irish families, had learned the
+language of the country, and embraced its religion. When
+Limerick was taken by Brian, Ivar, its Danish lord, fled
+for sanctuary to Scattery Island, and when Dublin was
+taken by Malachy II., Olaf the Crooked fled to Iona.
+Inter-marriages with the highest Gaelic families became
+frequent, after their conversion to Christianity. The
+mother of Malachy, after his father's death, had married
+Olaf of Dublin, by whom she had a son, named _Gluniarran
+(Iron-Knee_, from his armour), who was thus half-brother
+to the King. It is natural enough to find him the ally
+of Malachy, a few years later, against Ivar of Waterford;
+and curious enough to find Ivar's son called
+Gilla-Patrick--servant of Patrick. Kellachan of Cashel
+had married a Danish, and Sitrick "of the Silken beard,"
+an Irish lady. That all the Northmen were not, even in
+Ireland, converted in one generation, is evident. Those
+of Insi-Gall were still, perhaps, Pagans; those of the
+Orkneys and of Denmark, who came to the battle of Clontarf
+in the beginning of the next century, chose to fight on
+Good Friday under the advice of their heathen Oracles.
+The first half of the eleventh century, the age of Saint
+Olaf and of Canute, is the era of the establishment of
+Christianity among the Scandinavians, and hence the
+necessity for distinguishing between those who came to
+Ireland, direct from the Baltic, from those who, born in
+Ireland and bred up in the Christian faith, had as much
+to apprehend from such an invasion, as the Celts themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+REIGN OF MALACHY II. AND RIVALRY OF BRIAN.
+
+Melaghlin, or Malachy II., fifth in direct descent from
+Malachy I. (the founder of the Southern Hy-Nial dynasty),
+was in his thirtieth year when (A.D. 980) he succeeded
+to the monarchy. He had just achieved the mighty victory
+of Tara when the death of his predecessor opened his way
+to the throne; and seldom did more brilliant dawn usher
+in a more eventful day than that which Fate held in store
+for this victor-king. None of his predecessors, not even
+his ancestor and namesake, had ever been able to use the
+high language of his "noble Proclamation," when he
+announced on his accession--"Let all the Irish who are
+suffering servitude in the land of the stranger return
+home to their respective houses and enjoy themselves in
+gladness and in peace." In obedience to this edict, and
+the power to enforce it established by the victory at
+Tara, 2,000 captives, including the King of Leinster and
+the Prince of Aileach, were returned to their homes.
+
+The hardest task of every Ard-Righ of this and the previous
+century had been to circumscribe the ambition of the
+kings of Cashel within Provincial bounds. Whoever ascended
+the southern throne--whether the warlike Felim or the
+learned Cormac--we have seen the same policy adopted by
+them all. The descendants of Heber had tired of the long
+ascendancy of the race of Heremon, and the desertion of
+Tara, by making that ascendancy still more strikingly
+Provincial, had increased their antipathy. It was a
+struggle for supremacy between north and south; a contest
+of two geographical parties; an effort to efface the real
+or fancied dependency of one-half the island on the will
+of the other. The Southern Hy-Nial dynasty, springing up
+as a third power upon the Methian bank of the Shannon,
+and balancing itself between the contending parties,
+might perhaps have given a new centre to the whole system;
+Malachy II. was in the most favourable position possible
+to have done so, had he not had to contend with a rival,
+his equal in battle and superior in council, in the person
+of Brian, the son of Kennedy, of Kincorra.
+
+The rise to sovereign rank of the house of Kincorra (the
+O'Briens), is one of the most striking episodes of the
+tenth century. Descending, like most of the leading
+families of the South, from Olild, the Clan Dalgais had
+long been excluded from the throne of Cashel, by successive
+coalitions of their elder brethren, the Eugenians. Lactna
+and Lorcan, the grandfather and father of Kennedy, intrepid
+and able men, had strengthened their tribe by wise and
+vigorous measures, so that the former was able to claim
+the succession, apparently with success. Kennedy had
+himself been a claimant for the same honour, the alternate
+provision in the will of Olild, against Kellachan Cashel
+(A.D. 940-2), but at the Convention held at Glanworth,
+on the river Funcheon, for the selection of king, the
+aged mother of Kellachan addressed his rival in a quatrain,
+beginning--
+
+ "Kennedi Cas revere the law!"
+
+which induced him to abandon his pretensions. This Prince,
+usually spoken of by the Bards as "the chaste Kennedy,"
+died in the year 950, leaving behind him four or five
+out of twelve sons, with whom he had been blessed. Most
+of the others had fallen in Danish battles--three in the
+same campaign (943), and probably in the same field.
+There appear in after scenes, Mahon, who became King of
+Cashel; Echtierna, who was chief of Thomond, under Mahon;
+Marcan, an ecclesiastic, and Brian, born in 941, the
+Benjamin of the household. Mahon proved himself, as Prince
+and Captain, every way worthy of his inheritance. He
+advanced from victory to victory over his enemies, foreign
+and domestic. In 960 he claimed the throne of Munster,
+which claim he enforced by royal visitation five years
+later. In the latter year, he rescued Clonmacnoise from
+the Danes, and in 968 defeated the same enemy, with a
+loss of several thousand men at Sulchoid. This great blow
+he followed up by the sack of Limerick, from which "he
+bore off a large quantity of gold, and silver, and jewels."
+In these, and all his expeditions, from a very early age,
+he was attended by Brian, to whom he acted not only as
+a brother and prince, but as a tutor in arms. Fortune
+had accompanied him in all his undertakings. He had
+expelled his most intractable rival--Molloy, son of
+Bran, lord of Desmond; his rule was acknowledged by the
+Northmen of Dublin and Cork, who opened their fortresses
+to him, and served under his banner; he carried "all the
+hostages of Munster to his house," which had never before
+worn so triumphant an aspect. But family greatness begets
+family pride, and pride begets envy and hatred. The
+Eugenian families who now found themselves overshadowed
+by the brilliant career of the sons of Kennedy, conspired
+against the life of Mahon, who, from his too confiding
+nature, fell easily into their trap. Molloy, son of Bran,
+by the advice of Ivar, the Danish lord of Limerick,
+proposed to meet Mahon in friendly conference at the
+house of Donovan, an Eugenian chief, whose rath was at
+Bruree, on the river Maigue. The safety of each person
+was guaranteed by the Bishop of Cork, the mediator on
+the occasion. Mahon proceeded unsuspiciously to the
+conference, where he was suddenly seized by order of his
+treacherous host, and carried into the neighbouring
+mountains of Knocinreorin. Here a small force, placed
+for the purpose by the conspirators, had orders promptly
+to despatch their victim. But the foul deed was not done
+unwitnessed. Two priests of the Bishop of Cork followed
+the Prince, who, when arrested, snatched up "the Gospel
+of St. Barry," on which Molloy was to have sworn his
+fealty. As the swords of the assassins were aimed at his
+heart, he held up the Gospel for a protection, and his
+blood spouting out, stained the Sacred Scriptures. The
+priests, taking up the blood-stained volume, fled to
+their Bishop, spreading the horrid story as they went.
+The venerable successor of St. Barry "wept bitterly, and
+uttered a prophecy concerning the future fate of the
+murderers;" a prophecy which was very speedily fulfilled.
+
+This was in the year 976, three or four years before the
+battle of Tara and the accession of Malachy. When the
+news of his noble-hearted brother's murder was brought
+to Brian, at Kinkora, he was seized with the most violent
+grief. His favourite harp was taken down, and he sang
+the death-song of Mahon, recounting all the glorious
+actions of his life. His anger flashed out through his
+tears, as he wildly chanted
+
+ "My heart shall burst within my breast,
+ Unless I avenge this great king;
+ They shall forfeit life for this foul deed
+ Or I must perish by a violent death."
+
+But the climax of his lament was, that Mahon "had not
+fallen in battle behind the shelter of his shield, rather
+than trust in the treacherous words of Donovan." Brian
+was now in his thirty-fifth year, was married, and had
+several children. Morrogh, his eldest, was able to bear
+arms, and shared in his ardour and ambition. "His first
+effort," says an old Chronicle, "was directed against
+Donovan's allies, the Danes of Limerick, and he slew Ivar
+their king, and two of his sons." These conspirators,
+foreseeing their fate, had retired into the holy isle of
+Scattery, but Brian slew them between "the horns of the
+altar." For this violation of the sanctuary, considering
+his provocation, he was little blamed. He next turned
+his rage against Donovan, who had called to his aid the
+Danish townsmen of Desmond. "Brian," says the Annalist
+of Innisfallen, "gave them battle where Auliffe and his
+Danes, and Donovan and his Irish forces, were all cut
+off." After that battle, Brian sent a challenge to Molloy,
+of Desmond, according to the custom of that age, to meet
+him in arms near Macroom, where the usual coalition,
+Danes and Irish, were against him. He completely routed
+the enemy, and his son Morrogh, then but a lad, "killed
+the murderer of his uncle Mahon with his own hand." Molloy
+was buried on the north side of the mountain where Mahon
+was murdered and interred; on Mahon the southward sun
+shone full and fair; but on the grave of his assassin,
+the black shadow of the northern sky rested always. Such
+was the tradition which all Munster piously believed.
+After this victory over Molloy, son of Bran (A.D. 978),
+Brian was universally acknowledged King of Munster, and
+until Malachy had won the battle of Tara, was justly
+considered the first Irish captain of his age.
+
+Malachy, in the first year of his reign, having received
+the hostages of the Danes of Dublin, having liberated
+the Irish prisoners and secured the unity of his own
+territory, had his attention drawn, naturally enough,
+towards Brian's movements. Whether Brian had refused
+him homage, or that his revival of the old claim to the
+half-kingdom was his offence, or from whatever immediate
+cause, Malachy marched southwards, enforcing homage as
+he went. Entering Thomond he plundered the Dalcassians,
+and marching to the mound at Adair, where, under an old
+oak, the kings of Thomond had long been inaugurated, he
+caused it to be "dug from the earth with its roots," and
+cut into pieces. This act of Malachy's certainly bespeaks
+an embittered and aggressive spirit, and the provocation
+must, indeed, have been grievous to palliate so barbarous
+an action. But we are not informed what the provocation
+was. At the time Brian was in Ossory enforcing his tribute;
+the next year we find him seizing the person of
+Gilla-Patrick, Lord of Ossory, and soon after he burst
+into Meath, avenging with fire and sword the wanton
+destruction of his ancestral oak.
+
+Thus were these two powerful Princes openly embroiled
+with each other. We have no desire to dwell on all the
+details of their struggle, which continued for fully
+twenty years. About the year 987, Brian was practically
+king of half Ireland, and having the power, (though not
+the title,) he did not suffer any part of it to lie waste.
+His activity was incapable of exhaustion; in Ossory, in
+Leinster, in Connaught, his voice and his arm were felt
+everywhere. But a divided authority was of necessity so
+favourable to invasion, that the Danish power began to
+loom up to its old proportions. Sitrick, "with the silken
+beard," one of the ablest of Danish leaders, was then at
+Dublin, and his occasional incursions were so formidable,
+that they produced (what probably nothing else could have
+done) an alliance between Brian and Malachy, which lasted
+for three years, and was productive of the best
+consequences. Thus, in 997, they imposed their yoke on
+Dublin, taking "hostages and jewels" from the foreigners.
+Reinforcements arriving from the North, the indomitable
+Danes proceeded to plunder Leinster, but were routed by
+Brian and Malachy at Glen-Mama, in Wicklow, with the loss
+of 6,000 men and all their chief captains. Immediately
+after this victory the two kings, according to the Annals,
+"entered into Dublin, and the fort thereof, and there
+remained seven nights, and at their departure took all
+the gold, silver, hangings, and other precious things
+that were there with them, burnt the town, broke down
+the fort, and banished Sitrick from thence" (A.D. 999).
+
+The next three years of Brian's life are the most complex
+in his career. After resting a night in Meath, with
+Malachy, he proceeded with his forces towards Armagh,
+nominally on a pilgrimage, but really, as it would seem,
+to extend his party. He remained in the sacred city a
+week, and presented ten ounces of gold, at the Cathedral
+altar. The Archbishop Marian received him with the
+distinction due to so eminent a guest, and a record of
+his visit, in which he is styled "Imperator of the Irish,"
+was entered in the book of St. Patrick. He, however, got
+no hostages in the North, but on his march southward, he
+learned that the Danes had returned to Dublin, were
+rebuilding the City and Fort, and were ready to offer
+submission and hostages to him, while refusing both to
+Malachy. Here Brian's eagerness for supremacy misled him.
+He accepted the hostages, joined the foreign forces to
+his own, and even gave his daughter in marriage to Sitrick
+of "the silken beard." Immediately he broke with Malachy,
+and with his new allies and son-in-law, marched into
+Meath in hostile array. Malachy, however, stood to his
+defence; attacked and defeated Brian's advance guard of
+Danish horse, and the latter, unwilling apparently to
+push matters to extremities, retired as he came, without
+"battle, or hostage, or spoil of any kind."
+
+But his design of securing the monarchy was not for an
+instant abandoned, and, by combined diplomacy and force,
+he effected his end. His whole career would have been
+incomplete without that last and highest conquest over
+every rival. Patiently but surely he had gathered
+influence and authority, by arms, by gifts, by connections
+on all sides. He had propitiated the chief families of
+Connaught by his first marriage with More, daughter of
+O'Heyne, and his second marriage with Duvchalvay, daughter
+of O'Conor. He had obtained one of the daughters of
+Godwin, the powerful Earl of Kent, for his second son;
+had given a daughter to the Prince of Scots, and another
+to the Danish King of Dublin.
+
+Malachy, in diplomatic skill, in foresight, and in tenacity
+of purpose, was greatly inferior to Brian, though in
+personal gallantry and other princely qualities, every
+way his equal. He was of a hospitable, out-spoken,
+enjoying disposition, as we gather from many characteristic
+anecdotes. He is spoken of as "being generally computed
+the best horseman in those parts of Europe;" and as one
+who "delighted to ride a horse that was never broken,
+handled, or ridden, until the age of seven years." From
+an ancient story, which represents him as giving his
+revenues for a year to one of the Court Poets and then
+fighting him with a "headless staff" to compel the Poet
+to return them, it would appear that his good humour and
+profusion were equal to his horsemanship. Finding Brian's
+influence still on the increase west of the Shannon,
+Malachy, in the year of our Lord 1000, threw two bridges
+across the Shannon, one at Athlone, the other at the
+present Lanesborough. This he did with the consent and
+assistance of O'Conor, but the issue was as usual--he
+made the bridges, and Brian profited by them. While
+Malachy was at Athlone superintending the work, Brian
+arrived with a great force recruited from all quarters
+(except Ulster), including Danish men-in-armour. At
+Athlone was held the conference so memorable in our
+annals, in which Brian gave his rival the alternative of
+a pitched battle, within a stated time, or abdication.
+According to the Southern Annalists, first a month, and
+afterwards a year, were allowed the Monarch to make his
+choice. At the expiration of the time Brian marched into
+Meath, and encamped at Tara, where Malachy, having vainly
+endeavoured to secure the alliance of the Northern Hy-Nial
+in the interval, came and submitted to Brian without
+safeguard or surety. The unmade monarch was accompanied
+by a guard "of twelve score horsemen," and on his arrival,
+proceeded straight to the tent of his successor. Here
+the rivals contended in courtesy, as they had often done
+in arms, and when they separated, Brian, as Lord Paramount,
+presented Malachy as many horses as he had horsemen in
+his train when he came to visit him. This event happened
+in the year 1001, when Brian was in his 60th and Malachy
+in his 53rd year. There were present at the Assembly all
+the princes and chiefs of the Irish, except the Prince
+of Aileach, and the Lords of Oriel, Ulidia, Tyrowen and
+Tyrconnell, who were equally unwilling to assist Malachy
+or to acknowledge Brian. What is still more remarkable
+is, the presence in this national assembly of the Danish
+Lords of Dublin, Carmen (Wexford), Waterford and Cork,
+whom Brian, at this time, was trying hard to conciliate
+by gifts and alliances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+BRIAN, ARD-RIGH--BATTLE OF CLONTARF.
+
+By the deposition of Malachy II., and the transfer of
+supreme power to the long-excluded line of Heber, Brian
+completed the revolution which Time had wrought in the
+ancient Celtic constitution. He threw open the sovereignty
+to every great family as a prize to be won by policy or
+force, and no longer an inheritance to be determined by
+usage and law. The consequences were what might have been
+expected. After his death the O'Conors of the west competed
+with both O'Neills and O'Briens for supremacy, and a chronic
+civil war prepared the path for Strongbow and the Normans.
+The term "Kings with Opposition" is applied to nearly all
+who reigned between Brian's time and Roderick O'Conor's,
+meaning, thereby, kings who were unable to secure general
+obedience to their administration of affairs.
+
+During the remainder of his life, Brian wielded with
+accustomed vigour the supreme power. The Hy-Nials were,
+of course, his chief difficulty. In the year 1002, we
+find him at Ballysadare, in Sligo, challenging their
+obedience; in 1004, we find him at Armagh "offering twenty
+ounces of gold on Patrick's altar," staying a week there
+and receiving hostages; in 1005, he marched through
+Connaught, crossed the river Erne at Ballyshannon,
+proceeded through Tyrconnell and Tyrowen, crossed the
+Bann into Antrim, and returned through Down and Dundalk,
+"about Lammas," to Tara. In this and the two succeeding
+years, by taking similar "circuits," he subdued Ulster,
+without any pitched battle, and caused his authority to
+be feared and obeyed nearly as much at the Giant's Causeway
+as at the bridge of Athlone. In his own house of Kinkora,
+Brian entertained at Christmas 3,000 guests, including
+the Danish Lords of Dublin and Man, the fugitive Earl of
+Kent, the young King of Scots, certain Welsh Princes,
+and those of Munster, Ulster, Leinster and Connaught,
+beside his hostages. At the same time Malachy, with the
+shadow, of independence, kept his unfrequented court in
+West-Meath, amusing himself with wine and chess and the
+taming of unmanageable horses, in which last pursuit,
+after his abdication, we hear of his breaking a limb. To
+support the hospitalities of Kinkora, the tributes of
+every province were rendered in kind at his gate, on the
+first day of November. Connaught sent 800 cows and 800
+hogs; Ulster alone 500 cows, and as many hogs, and "sixty
+loads of iron;" Leinster 300 bullocks, 300 hogs, and 300
+loads of iron; Ossory, Desmond, and the smaller territories,
+in proportion; the Danes of Dublin 150 pipes of wine, and
+the Danes of Limerick 365 of red wine. The Dalcassians,
+his own people, were exempt from all tribute and taxation
+--while the rest of Ireland was thus catering for Kinkora.
+
+The lyric Poets, in then nature courtiers and given to
+enjoyment, flocked, of course, to this bountiful palace.
+The harp was seldom silent night or day, the strains of
+panegyric were as prodigal and incessant as the falling
+of the Shannon over Killaloe. Among these eulogiums none
+is better known than that beautiful allegory of the poet
+McLaig, who sung that "a young lady of great beauty,
+adorned with jewels and costly dress, might perform
+unmolested a journey on foot through the Island, carrying
+a straight wand, on the top of which might be a ring of
+great value." The name of Brian was thus celebrated as
+in itself a sufficient protection of life, chastity, and
+property, in every corner of the Island. Not only the
+Poets, but the more exact and simple Annalists applaud
+Brian's administration of the laws, and his personal
+virtues. He laboured hard to restore the Christian
+civilization, so much defaced by two centuries of Pagan
+warfare. To facilitate the execution of the laws he
+enacted the general use of surnames, obliging the clans
+to take the name of a common ancestor, with the addition
+of "Mac," or "O"--words which signify "of," or "son of,"
+a forefather. Thus, the Northern Hy-Nials divided into
+O'Neils, O'Donnells, McLaughlins, &c.; the Sil-Murray
+took the name of O'Conor, and Brian's own posterity became
+known as O'Briens. To justice he added munificence, and
+of this the Churches and Schools of the entire Island
+were the recipients. Many a desolate shrine he adorned,
+many a bleak chancel he hung with lamps, many a long
+silent tower had its bells restored. Monasteries were
+rebuilt, and the praise of God was kept up perpetually
+by a devoted brotherhood. Roads and bridges were repaired
+and several strong stone fortresses were erected, to
+command the passes of lakes and rivers. The vulnerable
+points along the Shannon, and the Suir, and the lakes,
+as far north as the Foyle, were secured by forts of clay
+and stone. Thirteen "royal houses" in Munster alone are
+said to have been by him restored to their original uses.
+What increases our respect for the wisdom and energy thus
+displayed, is the fact, that the author of so many
+improvements, enjoyed but five short years of peace,
+after his accession to the Monarchy. His administrative
+genius must have been great when, after a long life of
+warfare, he could apply himself to so many works of
+internal improvement and external defence.
+
+In the five years of peace just spoken of (from 1005 to
+1010), Brian lost by death his second wife, a son called
+Donald, and his brother Marcan, called in the annals
+"head of the clergy of Munster;" Hugh, the son of Mahon,
+also died about the same period. His favourite son and
+heir, Morrogh, was left, and Morrogh had, at this time,
+several children. Other sons and daughters were also left
+him, by each of his wives, so that there was every prospect
+that the posterity for whom he had so long sought the
+sovereignty of Ireland, would continue to possess it for
+countless generations. But God disposes of what man only
+proposes!
+
+The Northmen had never yet abandoned any soil on which
+they had once set foot, and the policy of conciliation
+which the veteran King adopted in his old age, was not
+likely to disarm men of their stamp. Every intelligence
+of the achievements of their race in other realms stimulated
+them to new exertions and shamed them out of peaceful
+submission. Rollo and his successors had, within Brian's
+lifetime, founded in France the great dukedom of Normandy;
+while Sweyn had swept irresistibly over England and Wales,
+and prepared the way for a Danish dynasty. Pride and
+shame alike appealed to their warlike compatriots not to
+allow the fertile Hibernia to slip from their grasp, and
+the great age of its long-dreaded king seemed to promise
+them an easier victory than heretofore was possible. In
+1012 we find Brian at Lough Foyle repelling a new Danish
+invasion, and giving "freedom to Patrick's Churches;"
+the same year, an army under Morrogh and another under
+Malachy was similarly engaged in Leinster and Meath; the
+former carrying his arms to Kilmainham, on the south side
+of Dublin, the other to Howth, on the north; in this year
+also "the Gentiles," or Pagan Northmen, made a descent
+on Cork, and burned the city, but were driven off by the
+neighbouring chiefs.
+
+The great event, however, of the long war which had now
+been waged for full two hundred years between the men of
+Erin and the men of Scandinavia was approaching. What
+may fairly be called the last field day of Christianity
+and Paganism on Irish soil, was near at hand. A taunt
+thrown out over a game of chess, at Kinkora, is said to
+have hastened this memorable day. Maelmurra, Prince of
+Leinster, playing or advising on the game, made, or
+recommended, a false move, upon which Morrogh, son of
+Brian, observed, it was no wonder his friends, the Danes,
+(to whom he owed his elevation,) were beaten at Glen-Mama,
+if he gave them advice like that. Maelmurra, highly
+incensed by this allusion--all the more severe for its
+bitter truth--arose, ordered his horse, and rode away in
+haste. Brian, when he heard it, despatched a messenger
+after the indignant guest, begging him to return, but
+Maelmurra was not to be pacified, and refused. We next
+hear of him as concerting with certain Danish agents,
+always open to such negotiations, those measures which
+led to the great invasion of the year 1014, in which the
+whole Scanian race, from Anglesea and Man, north to
+Norway, bore an active share.
+
+These agents passing over to England and Man, among the
+Scottish isles, and even to the Baltic, followed up the
+design of an invasion on a gigantic scale. Suibne, Earl
+of Man, entered warmly into the conspiracy, and sent the
+"war arrow" through all those "out-islands" which obeyed
+him as Lord. A yet more formidable potentate, Sigurd, of
+the Orkneys, next joined the league. He was the fourteenth
+Earl of Orkney of Norse origin, and his power was, at
+this period, a balance to that of his nearest neighbour,
+the King of Scots. He had ruled since the year 996, not
+only over the Orkneys, Shetland, and Northern Hebrides,
+but the coasts of Caithness and Sutherland, and even Ross
+and Moray rendered him homage and tribute. Eight years
+before the battle of Clontarf, Malcolm II., of Scotland,
+had been feign to purchase his alliance, by giving him
+his daughter in marriage, and the Kings of Denmark and
+Norway treated with him on equal terms. The hundred
+inhabited isles which lie between Yell and Man,--isles
+which after their conversion contained "three hundred
+churches and chapels"--sent in their contingents, to
+swell the following of the renowned Earl Sigurd. As his
+fleet bore southward from Kirkwall it swept the subject
+coast of Scotland, and gathered from every lough its
+galleys and its fighting men. The rendezvous was the Isle
+of Man, where Suibne had placed his own forces under the
+command of Brodar or Broderick, a famous leader against
+the Britons of Wales and Cornwall. In conjunction with
+Sigurd, the Manxmen sailed over to Ireland, where they
+were joined, in the Liffey, by Carl Canuteson, Prince of
+Denmark, at the head of 1400 champions clad in armour.
+Sitrick of Dublin stood, or affected to stand, neutral
+in these preparations, but Maelmurra of Leinster had
+mustered all the forces he could command for such an
+expedition. He was himself the head of the powerful family
+of O'Byrne, and was followed in his alliances by others
+of the descendants of Cahir More. O'Nolan and O'More,
+with a truer sense of duty, fought on the patriotic side.
+
+Brian had not been ignorant of the exertions which were
+made during the summer and winter of the year 1013, to
+combine an overwhelming force against him. In his
+exertions to meet force with force, it is gratifying to
+every believer in human excellence to find him actively
+supported by the Prince whom he had so recently deposed.
+Malachy, during the summer of 1013, had, indeed, lost
+two sons in skirmishes with Sitrick and Maelmurra, and
+had, therefore, his own personal wrongs to avenge; but
+he cordially co-operated with Brian before those
+occurrences, and now loyally seconded all his movements.
+The Lords of the southern half-kingdom--the Lords of
+Desies, Fermoy, Inchiquin, Corca-Baskin, Kinalmeaky,
+Kerry, and the Lords of Hy-Many and Hy-Fiachra, in
+Connaught, hastened to his standard. O'More and O'Nolan
+of Leinster, and Donald, Steward of Marr, in Scotland,
+were the other chieftains who joined him before Clontarf,
+besides those of his own kindred. None of the Northern
+Hy-Nial took part in the battle--they had submitted to
+Brian, but they never cordially supported him.
+
+Clontarf, the lawn or meadow of bulls, stretches along
+the crescent-shaped north strand of Dublin harbour, from
+the ancient salmon-weir at Ballyboght bridge, towards
+the promontory of Howth. Both horns of the crescent were
+held by the enemy, and communicated with his ships: the
+inland point terminating in the roofs of Dublin, and the
+seaward marked by the lion-like head of Howth. The meadow
+land between sloped gently upward and inward from the
+beach, and for the myriad duels which formed the ancient
+battle, no field could present less positive vantage-ground
+to combatants on either side. The invading force had
+possession of both wings, so that Brian's army, which
+had first encamped at Kilmainham, must have crossed the
+Liffey higher up, and marched round by the present
+Drumcondra in order to reach the appointed field. The
+day seems to have been decided on by formal challenge,
+for we are told Brian did not wish to fight in the last
+week of Lent, but a Pagan oracle having assured victory
+to Brodar, one of the northern leaders, if he engaged on
+a Friday, the invaders insisted on being led to battle
+on that day. And it so happened that, of all Fridays in
+the year, it fell on the Friday before Easter: that awful
+anniversary when the altars of the Church are veiled
+throughout Christendom, and the dark stone is rolled to
+the door of the mystic sepulchre.
+
+The forces on both sides could not have fallen short of
+twenty thousand men. Under Carl Canuteson fought "the
+ten hundred in armour," as they are called in the Irish
+annals, or "the fourteen hundred," as they are called in
+northern chronicles; under Brodar, the Manxmen and the
+Danes of Anglesea and Wales; under Sigurd, the men of
+Orkney and its dependencies; under Maelmurra, of Leinster,
+his own tribe, and their kinsmen of Offally and Cullen
+--the modern Kildare and Wicklow; under Brian's son,
+Morrogh, were the tribes of Munster; under the command
+of Malachy, those of Meath; under the Lord of Hy-Many,
+the men of Connaught; and the Stewart of Marr had also
+his command. The engagement was to commence with the
+morning, so that, as soon as it was day, Brian, Crucifix
+in hand, harangued his army. "On this day Christ died
+for _you_!" was the spirit-stirring appeal of the venerable
+Christian King. At the entreaty of his friends, after
+this review, he retired to his tent, which stood at some
+distance, and was guarded by three of his aids. Here, he
+alternately prostrated himself before the Crucifix, or
+looked out from the tent door upon the dreadful scene
+that lay beyond. The sun rose to the zenith and took his
+way towards the west, but still the roar of the battle
+did not abate. Sometimes as their right hands swelled
+with the sword-hilts, well-known warriors might be seen
+falling back to bathe them, in a neighbouring spring,
+and then rushing again into the melee. The line of the
+engagement extended from the salmon-weir towards Howth,
+not less than a couple of miles, so that it was impossible
+to take in at a glance the probabilities of victory. Once
+during the heat of the day one of his servants said to
+Brian, "A vast multitude are moving towards us." "What
+sort of people are they?" inquired Brian. "They are
+green-naked people." said the attendant. "Oh!" replied
+the king, "they are the Danes in armour!" The utmost fury
+was displayed on all sides. Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, fell
+by Thurlogh, grandson of Brian; and Anrud, one of the
+captains of the men in armour, by the hand of his father,
+Morrogh; but both father and son perished in the dreadful
+conflict; Maelmurra of Leinster, with his lords, fell on
+one side, and Conaing, nephew of Brian, O'Kelly, O'Heyne,
+and the Stewart of Marr, on the other. Hardly a nobly-born
+man escaped, or sought to escape. The ten hundred in
+armour, and three thousand others of the enemy, with
+about an equal number of the men of Ireland, lay dead
+upon the field. One division of the enemy were, towards
+sunset, retreating to their ships, when Brodar, the
+Viking, perceiving the tent of Brian, standing apart,
+without a guard, and the aged king on his knees before
+the Crucifix, rushed in, cut him down with a single blow,
+and then continued his flight. But he was overtaken by
+the guard, and despatched by the most cruel death they
+could devise. Thus, on the field of battle, in the act
+of prayer, on the day of our Lord's Crucifixion, fell
+the Christian King in the cause of native land and Holy
+Cross. Many elegies have been dedicated to his memory,
+and not the least noble of these strains belong to his
+enemies. In death as in life he was still Brian "of the
+tributes."
+
+The deceased hero took his place at once in history,
+national and foreign. On hearing of his death, Maelmurra,
+Archbishop of Armagh, came with his clergy to Swords, in
+Meath, and conducted the body to Armagh, where, with his
+son and nephew and the Lord of Desies, he was solemnly
+interred "in a new tomb." The fame of the event went out
+through all nations. The chronicles of Wales, of Scotland,
+and of Man; the annals of Ademar and Marianus; the Sagas
+of Denmark and the Isles all record the event. In "the
+Orcades" of Thormodus Torfaeus, a wail over the defeat
+of the Islesmen is heard, which they call
+
+ "Orkney's woe and Randver's bane."
+
+The Norse settlers in Caithness saw terrific visions of
+Valhalla "the day after the battle." In the NIALA SAGA
+a Norwegian prince is introduced as asking after his men,
+and the answer is, "they were all killed." Malcolm of
+Scotland rejoiced in the defeat and death of his dangerous
+and implacable neighbour. "Brian's battle," as it is
+called in the Sagas, was, in short, such a defeat as
+prevented any general northern combination for the
+subsequent invasion of Ireland. Not that the country was
+entirely free from their attacks till the end of the
+eleventh century, but from the day of Clontarf forward,
+the long cherished Northern idea of a conquest of Ireland,
+seems to have been gloomily abandoned by that indomitable
+people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+EFFECTS OF THE RIVALRY OF BRIAN AND MALACHY ON THE
+ANCIENT CONSTITUTION.
+
+If a great battle is to be accounted lost or won, as it
+affects principles rather than reputations, then Brian
+lost at Clontarf. The leading ideas of his long and
+political life were, evidently, centralization and an
+hereditary monarchy. To beat back foreign invasion, to
+conciliate and to enlist the Irish-born Danes under his
+standard, were preliminary steps. For Morrogh, his
+first-born, and for Morrogh's descendants, he hoped to
+found an hereditary kinship after the type universally
+copied throughout Christendom. He was not ignorant of
+what Alfred had done for England, Harold for Norway,
+Charlemagne for France, and Otho for Germany; and it was
+inseparable from his imperial genius to desire to reign
+in his posterity, long after his own brief term of sway
+should be for ever ended. A new centre of royal authority
+should be established on the banks of the great middle
+river of the island--itself the best bond of union, as
+it was the best highway of intercourse; the Dalgais
+dynasty should there flourish for ages, and the descendants
+of Brian of the Tributes, through after centuries, eclipse
+the glory of the descendants of Nial of the Hostages. It
+is idle enough to call the projector of such a change an
+usurper and a revolutionist. Usurper he clearly was not,
+since he was elevated to power by the action of the old
+legitimate electoral principle; revolutionist he was not,
+because his design was defeated at Clontarf, in the death
+of his eldest son and grandson. Not often have three
+generations of Princes of the same family been cut off
+on the same field; yet at Clontarf it so happened. Hence,
+when Brian fell, and his heir with him, and his heir's
+heir, the projected Dalgais dynasty, like the Royal Oak
+at Adair, was cut down and its very roots destroyed. For
+a new dynasty to be left suddenly without indisputable
+heirs is ruinous to its pretensions and partizans. And
+in this the event of the battle proved destructive to
+the Celtic Constitution. Not from the Anglo-Norman
+invasion, but from the day of Clontarf we may date the
+ruin of the old electoral monarchy. The spell of ancient
+authority was effectually broken and a new one was to be
+established. Time, which was indispensable, was not given.
+No Prince of the blood of Brian succeeded immediately to
+himself. On Clontarf Morrogh, and Morrogh's heir fell,
+in the same day and hour. The other sons of Brian had no
+direct title to the succession, and, naturally enough,
+the deposed Malachy resumed the rank of monarch, without
+the consent of Munster, but _with_ the approval of all
+the Princes, who had witnessed with ill-concealed envy
+the sudden ascendancy of the sons of Kennedy. While McLaig
+was lamenting for Brian, by the cascade of Killaloe, the
+Laureat of Tara, in an elegy over a lord of Breffni, was
+singing--
+
+ "Joyful are the race of Conn after Brian's
+ Fall, in the battle of Clontarf."
+
+A new dynasty is rarely the work of one able man. Designed
+by genius, it must be built up by a succession of politic
+Princes, before it becomes an essential part of the
+framework of the State. So all history teaches--and Irish
+history, after the death of Brian, very clearly illustrates
+that truth. Equally true is it that when a nation breaks
+up of itself, or from external forces, and is not soon
+consolidated by a conqueror, the most natural result is
+the aggrandizement of a few great families. Thus it was
+in Rome when Julius was assassinated, and in Italy, when
+the empire of the west fell to pieces of its own weight.
+The kindred of the late sovereign will be sure to have
+a party, the chief innovators will have a party, and
+there is likely to grow up a third or moderate party. So
+it fell out in Ireland. The Hy-Nials of the north, deprived
+of the succession, rallied about the Princes of Aileach
+as their head. Meath, left crownless, gave room to the
+ambition of the sons of Malachy, who, under the name of
+O'Melaghlin, took provincial rank. Ossory, like Issachar,
+long groaning beneath the burdens of Tara and of Cashel,
+cruelly revenged on the Dalgais, returning from Clontarf,
+the subjection to which Mahon and Brian had forcibly
+reduced that borderland. The Eugenians of Desmond withdrew
+in disgust from the banner of Donogh O'Brien, because he
+had openly proclaimed his hostility to the alternate
+succession, and left his surviving clansmen an easy prey
+to the enraged Ossorians. Leinster soon afterwards passed
+from the house of O'Byrne to that of McMurrogh. The
+O'Briens maintained their dominant interest in the south;
+as, after many local struggles, the O'Conors did in the
+west. For a hundred and fifty years, after the death of
+Malachy II., the history of Ireland is mainly the history
+of these five families, O'Neils, O'Melaghlins, McMurroghs,
+O'Briens and O'Conors. And for ages after the Normans
+enter on the scene, the same provincialized spirit, the
+same family ambitions, feuds, hates, and coalitions, with
+some exceptional passages, characterize the whole history.
+Not that there will be found any want of heroism, or
+piety, or self-sacrifice, or of any virtue or faculty,
+necessary to constitute a state, save and except the
+_power of combination_, alone. Thus, judged by what came
+after him, and what was happening in the world abroad,
+Brian's design to re-centralize the island, seems the
+highest dictate of political wisdom, in the condition to
+which the Norwegian and Danish wars had reduced it,
+previous to his elevation to the monarchy. Malachy II.
+--of the events of whose second reign some mention will
+be made hereafter--held the sovereignty after Brian's
+death, until the year 1023, when he died an edifying
+death in one of the islands of Lough Ennel, near the
+present Mullingar. He is called, in the annals of
+Clonmacnoise, "the last king of Ireland, of Irish blood,
+that had the crown." An ancient quatrain, quoted by
+Geoffrey Keating, is thus literally translated:
+
+ "After the happy Melaghlin
+ Son of Donald, son of Donogh,
+ Each noble king ruled his own tribe
+ But Erin owned no sovereign Lord."
+
+The annals of the eleventh and twelfth centuries curiously
+illustrate the workings of this "anarchical
+constitution"--to employ a phrase first applied to the
+Germanic Confederation. "After Malachy's death," says
+the quaint old Annalist of Clonmacnoise, "this kingdom
+was without a king 20 years, during which time the realm
+was governed by two learned men; the one called Con
+O'Lochan, a well learned temporal man, and chief poet of
+Ireland; the other Corcran Claireach, a devout and holy
+man that was anchorite of all Ireland, whose most abiding
+was at Lismore. The land was governed like a free state,
+and not like a monarchy by them." Nothing can show the
+headlessness of the Irish Constitution in the eleventh
+century clearer than this interregnum. No one Prince
+could rally strength enough to be elected, so that two
+Arbitrators, an illustrious Poet and a holy Priest, were
+appointed to take cognizance of national causes. The
+associating together of a Priest and a layman, a southerner
+and a northerner, is conclusive proof that the bond of
+Celtic unity, frittered away during the Danish period,
+was never afterwards entirely restored. Con O'Lochan
+having been killed in Teffia, after a short jurisdiction,
+the holy Corcran exercised his singular jurisdiction,
+until his decease, which happened at Lismore, (A.D.
+1040.) His death produced a new paroxysm of anarchy, out
+of which a new organizer arose among the tribes of
+Leinster. This was Dermid, son of Donogh, who died (A.D.
+1005), when Dermid must have been a mere infant, as he
+does not figure in the annals till the year 1032, and
+the acts of young Princes are seldom overlooked in Gaelic
+Chronicles. He was the first McMurrogh who became King
+of Leinster, that royalty having been in the O'Byrne
+family, until the son of Maelmurra, of Clontarf, was
+deposed by O'Neil in 1035, and retired to a monastery in
+Cologne, where he died in 1052. In 1036 or 1037 Dermid
+captured Dublin and Waterford, married the grand-daughter
+of Brian, and by '41 was strong enough to assume the rank
+of ruler of the southern half-kingdom. This dignity he
+held with a strong and warlike hand thirty years, when
+he fell in battle, at Ova, in Meath. He must have been
+at that time full threescore years and ten. He is described
+by the elegiac Bards as of "ruddy complexion," "with
+teeth laughing in danger," and possessing all the virtues
+of a warrior-king; "whose death," adds the lamentation,
+"brought scarcity of peace" with it, so that "there will
+not be peace," "there will not be armistice," between
+Meath and Leinster. It may well be imagined that every
+new resort to the two-third test, in the election of
+Ard-Righ, should bring "scarcity of peace" to Ireland.
+We can easily understand the ferment of hope, fear,
+intrigue, and passion, which such an occasion caused
+among the great rival families. What canvassing there
+was in Kinkora and Cashel, at Cruachan and Aileach, and
+at Fernamore! What piecing and patching of interests,
+what libels on opposing candidates, what exultation in
+the successful, what discontent in the defeated camp!
+
+The successful candidate for the southern half-kingdom
+after Dermid's death was Thorlogh, grandson of Brian,
+and foster-son of the late ruler. In his reign, which
+lasted thirty-three years, the political fortunes of his
+house revived. He died in peace at Kinkora (A.D. 1087),
+and the war of succession again broke out. The rival
+candidates at this period were Murrogh O'Brien, son of
+the late king, whose ambition was to complete the design
+of Brian, and Donald, Prince of Aileach, the leader of
+the Northern Hy-Nials. Two abler men seldom divided a
+country by their equal ambition. Both are entered in the
+annals as "Kings of Ireland," but it is hard to discover
+that, during all the years of their contest, either of
+them submitted to the other. To chronicle all the incidents
+of the struggle would take too much space here; and, as
+was to be expected, a third party profited most by it;
+the West came in, in the person of O'Conor, to lord it
+over both North and South, and to add another element to
+the dynastic confusion.
+
+This brief abstract of our civil affairs after the death
+of Brian, presents us with the extraordinary spectacle
+of a country without a constitution working out the
+problem of its stormy destiny in despite of all internal
+and external dangers. Everything now depended on individual
+genius and energy; nothing on system, usage, or
+prescription. Each leading family and each province
+became, in turn, the head of the State. The supreme title
+seems to have been fatal for a generation to the family
+that obtained it, for in no case is there a lineal descent
+of the crown. The prince of Aileach or Kinkora naturally
+preferred his permanent patrimony to an uncertain tenure
+of Tara; an office not attached to a locality became, of
+course, little more than an arbitrary title. Hence, the
+titular King of Ireland might for one lifetime reign by
+the Shannon, in the next by the Bann, in a third, by
+Lough Corrib. The supremacy, thus came to be considered
+a merely personal appurtenance, was carried about in the
+old King's tent, or on the young King's crupper,
+deteriorating and decaying by every transposition it
+underwent. Herein, we have the origin of Irish disunion
+with all its consequences, good, bad, and indifferent.
+
+Are we to blame Brian for this train of events against
+which he would have provided a sharp remedy in the
+hereditary principle? Or, on the other hand, are we to
+condemn Malachy, the possessor of legitimate power, if
+he saw in that remedy only the ambition of an aspiring
+family already grown too great? Theirs was in fact the
+universal struggle of reform and conservatism; the reformer
+and the heirs of his work were cut off on Clontarf; the
+abuses of the elective principle continued unrestrained
+by ancient salutary usage and prejudice, and the land
+remained a tempting prey to such Adventurers, foreign or
+native, as dare undertake to mould power out of its
+chaotic materials.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+LATTER DAYS OF THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND.
+
+Though Ireland dates the decay of Scandinavian power from
+Good Friday, 1014, yet the North did not wholly cease to
+send forth its warriors, nor were the shores of the
+Western Island less tempting to them than before. The
+second year after the battle of Clontarf, Canute founded
+his Danish dynasty in England, which existed in no little
+splendour during thirty-seven years. The Saxon line was
+restored by Edward "the Confessor;" in the forty-third
+year of the century, only to be extinguished for ever by
+the Norman conquest twenty-three years later. Scotland,
+during the same years was more than once subject to
+invasion from the same ancient enemy. Malcolm II., and
+the brave usurper Macbeth, fought several engagements
+with the northern leaders, and generally with brilliant
+success. By a remarkable coincidence, the Scottish
+chronicles also date the decadence of Danish power on
+their coasts from 1014, though several engagements were
+fought in Scotland after that year.
+
+Malachy II. had promptly followed up the victory of
+Clontarf by the capture of Dublin, the destruction of
+its fort, and the exemplary chastisement of the tribes
+of Leinster, who had joined Maelmurra as allies of the
+Danes. Sitrick himself seems to have eluded the suspicions
+and vengeance of the conquerors by a temporary exile, as
+we find in the succession of the Dublin Vikings, "one
+Hyman, an usurper," entered as ruling "part of a year
+while Sitrick was in banishment." His family interest,
+however, was strong among the native Princes, and whatever
+his secret sympathies may have been, he had taken no
+active part against them in the battle of Clontarf. By
+his mother, the Lady Gormley of Offally, he was a half
+O'Conor; by marriage he was son-in-law of Brian, and
+uterine brother of Malachy. After his return to Dublin,
+when, in 1018, Brian, son of Maelmurra, fell prisoner
+into his hands, as if to clear himself of any lingering
+suspicion of an understanding with that family, he caused
+his eyes to be put out--a cruel but customary punishment
+in that age. This act procured for him the deadly enmity
+of the warlike mountaineers of Wicklow, who, in the year
+1022, gave him a severe defeat at Delgany. Even this he
+outlived, and died seven years later, the acknowledged
+lord of his town and fortress, forty years after his
+first accession to that title. He was succeeded by his
+son, grandson, and great-grandson during the remaining
+half century.
+
+The kingdom of Leinster, in consequence of the defeat of
+Maelmurra, the incapacity of Brian, and the destruction
+of other claimants of the same family, passed to the
+family of McMurrogh, another branch of the same ancestry.
+Dermid, the first and most distinguished King of Leinster
+of this house, took Waterford (A.D. 1037), and so reduced
+its strength, that we find its hosts no longer formidable
+in the field. Those of Limerick continued their homage
+to the house of Kinkora, while the descendants of Sitrick
+recognised Dermid of Leinster as their sovereign. In
+short, all the Dano-Irish from thenceforward began to
+knit themselves kindly to the soil, to obey the neighbouring
+Princes, to march with them to battle, and to pursue the
+peaceful calling of merchants, upon sea. The only peculiarly
+_Danish_ undertaking we hear of again, in our Annals,
+was the attempt of a united fleet, equipped by Dublin,
+Wexford, and Waterford, in the year 1088, to retake Cork
+from the men of Desmond, when they were driven with severe
+loss to their ships. Their few subsequent expeditions
+were led abroad, into the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, or
+Wales, where they generally figure as auxiliaries or
+mercenaries in the service of local Princes. They appear
+in Irish battles only as contingents to the native
+armies--led by their own leaders and recognized as a
+separate, but subordinate force. In the year 1073, the
+Dublin Danes did homage to the monarch Thorlogh, and from
+1095, until his death (A.D. 1119), they recognized no
+other lord but Murkertach More O'Brien; this king, at
+their own request, had also nominated one of his family
+as Lord of the Danes and Welsh of the Isle of Man.
+
+The wealth of these Irish-Danes, before and after the
+time of Brian, may be estimated by the annual tribute
+which Limerick paid to that Prince--a pipe of red wine
+for every day in the year. In the year 1029, Olaf, son
+of Sitrick, of Dublin, being taken prisoner by O'Regan,
+the Lord of East-Meath, paid for his ransom--"twelve
+hundred cows, seven score British horses, three score
+ounces of gold!" sixty ounces of white silver as his
+"fetter-ounce;" the sword of Carlus, besides the usual
+legal fees, for recording these profitable formalities.
+
+Being now Christians, they also began to found and endow
+churches, with the same liberality with which their Pagan
+fathers had once enriched the temples of Upsala and
+Trondheim. The oldest religious foundations in the
+seaports they possessed owe their origin to them; but
+even as Christians, they did not lose sight of their
+nationality. They contended for, and obtained Dano-Irish
+Bishops, men of their own race, speaking their own speech,
+to preside over the sees of Dublin, Waterford, and
+Limerick. When the Irish Synods or Primates asserted over
+them any supervision which they were unwilling to
+admit--except in the case of St. Malachy--they usually
+invoked the protection of the See of Canterbury, which,
+after the Norman conquest of England, became by far the
+most powerful Archbishopric in either island.
+
+In the third quarter of this century there arose in the
+Isle of Man a fortunate leader, who may almost be called
+the last of the sea kings. This was Godard _Crovan_ (the
+white-handed), son of an Icelandic Prince, and one of
+the followers of Harald Harfagar and Earl Tosti, in their
+invasion of Northumbria (A.D. 1066). Returning from the
+defeat of his chiefs, Godard saw and seized upon Man as
+the centre of future expeditions of his own, in the course
+of which he subdued the Hebrides, divided them with the
+gallant Somerled (ancestor of the MacDonalds of the
+Isles), and established his son Lagman (afterwards put
+to death by King Magnus _Barefoot_) as his viceroy in
+the Orkneys and Shetlands. The weakened condition of the
+Danish settlement at Dublin attracted his ambition, and
+where he entered as a mediator he remained as a master.
+In the succession of the Dublin Vikings he is assigned
+a reign of ten years, and his whole course of conquest
+seems to have occupied some twenty years (A.D. 1077 to
+1098). At length the star of this Viking of the Irish
+sea paled before the mightier name of a King of Norway,
+whose more brilliant ambition had a still shorter span.
+The story of this _Magnus_ (called, it is said, from his
+adoption of the Scottish kilt, Magnus _Barefoot_) forms
+the eleventh Saga in "the Chronicles of the Kings of
+Norway." He began to reign in the year 1093, and soon
+after undertook an expedition to the south, "with many
+fine men, and good shipping." Taking the Orkneys on his
+way, he sent their Earls prisoners to Norway, and placed
+his own son, Sigurd, in their stead. He overran the
+Hebrides, putting Lagman, son of Godard Crovan, to death.
+He spared only "the holy Island," as Iona was now called,
+even by the Northmen, and there, in after years, his own
+bones were buried. The Isles of Man and Anglesea, and
+the coast of Wales, shared the same fate, and thence he
+retraced his course to Scotland, where, borne in his
+galley across the Isthmus of Cantyre, to fulfil an old
+prophecy, he claimed possession of the land on both sides
+of Loch Awe. It was while he wintered in the Southern
+Hebrides, according to the Saga, that he contracted his
+son Sigurd with the daughter of Murkertach O'Brien, called
+by the Northmen "Biadmynia." In summer he sailed homeward,
+and did not return southward till the ninth year of his
+reign (A.D. 1102), when his son, Sigurd, had come of age,
+and bore the title of "King of the Orkneys and Hebrides."
+"He sailed into the west sea," says the Saga, "with the
+finest men who could be got in Norway. All the powerful
+men of the country followed him, such as Sigurd Hranesson,
+and his brother Ulf, Vidkunner Johnsson, Dag Eliffsson,
+Sorker of Sogn, Eyvind Olboge, the king's marshal, and
+many other great men." On the intelligence of this fleet
+having arrived in Irish waters, according to the annals,
+Murkertach and his allies marched in force to Dublin,
+where, however, Magnus "made peace with them for one
+year," and Murkertach "gave his daughter to Sigurd, with
+many jewels and gifts." That winter Magnus spent with
+Murkertach at Kinkora, and "towards spring both kings
+went westward with their army all the way to Ulster."
+This was one of those annual visitations which kings,
+whose authority was not yet established, were accustomed
+to make. The circuit, as usual, was performed in about
+six weeks, after which the Irish monarch returned home,
+and Magnus went on board his fleet at Dublin, to return
+to Norway. According to the Norse account he landed again
+on the coast of Ulidia (Down), where he expected "cattle
+for ship-provision," which Murkertach had promised to
+send him, but the Irish version would seem to imply that
+he went on shore to seize the cattle perforce. It certainly
+seems incredible that Murkertach should send cattle to
+the shore of Strangford Lough, from the pastures of
+Thomond, when they might be more easily driven to Dublin,
+or the mouth of the Boyne. "The cattle had not made their
+appearance on the eve of Bartholomew's Mass" (August
+23rd, A.D. 1103), says the Saga, so "when the sun rose
+in the sky, King Magnus himself went on shore with the
+greater part of his men. King Magnus," continues the
+scald, "had a helmet on his head; a red shield, in which
+was inlaid a gilded lion; and was girt with the sword
+Legbiter, of which the hilt was of ivory, and the hand
+grip wound about with gold thread; and the sword was
+extremely sharp. In his hand he had a short spear, and
+a red silk short cloak over his coat, on which both before
+and behind was embroidered a lion, in yellow silk; and
+all men acknowledged that they had never seen a brisker,
+statelier man." A dust cloud was seen far inland, and
+the Northmen fell into order of battle. It proved, however,
+by their own account to be the messengers with the promised
+supply of cattle; but, after they came up, and while
+returning to the shore, they were violently assailed on
+all sides by the men of Down. The battle is described,
+with true Homeric vigour, by Sturleson. "The Irish," he
+says, "shot boldly; and although they fell in crowds,
+there came always two in place of one." Magnus, with most
+of his nobles, were slain on the spot, but Vidkunner
+Johnsson escaped to the shipping, "with the King's banner
+and the sword Legbiter." And the Saga of Magnus Barefoot
+concludes thus: "Now when King Sigurd heard that his
+father had fallen, he set off immediately, leaving the
+Irish King's daughter behind, and proceeded in autumn,
+with the whole fleet directly to Norway." The annalists
+of Ulster barely record the fact, that "Magnus, King of
+Lochlan and the Isles, was slain by the Ulidians, with
+a slaughter of his people about him, while on a predatory
+excursion." They place the event in the year 1104.
+
+Our account with the Northmen may here be closed. Borne
+along by the living current of events, we leave them
+behind, high up on the remoter channels of the stream.
+Their terrible ravens shall flit across our prospect no
+more. They have taken wing to their native north, where
+they may croak yet a little while over the cold and
+crumbling altars of Odin and Asa Thor. The bright light
+of the Gospel has penetrated even to those last haunts
+of Paganism, and the fierce but not ungenerous race, with
+which we have been so long familiar, begin to change
+their natures under its benign influence.
+
+Although both the scalds and chroniclers of the North
+frequently refer to Ireland as a favourite theatre of
+their heroes, we derive little light from those of their
+works which have yet been made public. All connection
+between the two races had long ceased, before the first
+scholars of the North began to investigate the earlier
+annals of their own country, and then they were content
+with a very vague and general knowledge of the western
+Island, for which their ancestors had so, fiercely
+contended throughout so many generations. The oldest
+maps, known in Scandinavia, exhibit a mere outline of
+the Irish coast, with a few points in the interior;
+fiords, with Norse names, are shown, answering to Loughs
+Foyle, Swilly, Larne, Strang_ford_, and Carling_ford_;
+the Provincial lines of Ulster and of Connaught are rudely
+traced; and the situation of Enniskillen, Tara, Dublin,
+Glendaloch, Water_ford_, Limer_ick_, and Swer_wick_,
+accurately laid down. It is thought that all those places
+ending in _wick_ or _ford_, on the Irish map, are of
+Scandinavian origin; as well as the names of the islets,
+Skerries, Lambey, and Saltees. Many noble families, as
+the Plunkets, McIvers, Archbolds, Harolds, Stacks,
+Skiddies, Cruises, and McAuliffes, are derived from the
+same origin.
+
+During the contest we have endeavoured to describe, three
+hundred and ten years had passed since the warriors of
+Lochlin first landed on the shores of Erin. Ten generations,
+according to the measured span of adult life, were born,
+and trained to arms and marshalled in battle, since the
+enemy, "powerful on sea," first burst upon the shield-shaped
+Isle of Saints. At the close of the eighth century we
+cast back a grateful retrospect on the Christian ages of
+Ireland. Can we do so now, at the close of the eleventh?
+Alas! far from it. Bravely and in the main successfully
+as the Irish have borne themselves, they come out of that
+cruel, treacherous, interminable war with many rents and
+stains in that vesture of innocence in which we saw them
+arrayed at the close of their third Christian century.
+Odin has not conquered, but all the worst vices of
+warfare--its violence, its impiety, discontent,
+self-indulgence, and contempt for the sweet paths of
+peace and mild counsels of religion--these must and did
+remain, long after Dane and Norwegian have for ever
+disappeared!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK III.
+
+WAR OF SUCCESSION.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FORTUNES OF THE FAMILY OF BRIAN.
+
+The last scene of the Irish monarchy, before it entered
+on the anarchical period, was not destitute of an
+appropriate grandeur. It was the death-bed scene of the
+second Malachy, the rival, ally, and successor of the
+great Brian. After the eventful day of Clontarf he resumed
+the monarchy, without opposition, and for eight years he
+continued in its undisturbed enjoyment. The fruitful
+land of Meath again gave forth its abundance, unscourged
+by the spoiler, and beside its lakes and streams the
+hospitable Ard-Righ had erected, or restored, three
+hundred fortified houses, where, as his poets sung,
+shelter was freely given to guests from the king of the
+elements. His own favourite residence was at Dunnasciath
+("the fort of shields"), in the north-west angle of Lough
+Ennel, in the present parish of Dysart. In the eighth
+year after Clontarf--the summer of 1022--the Dublin Danes
+once again ventured on a foray into East-Meath, and the
+aged monarch marched to meet them. At Athboy he encountered
+the enemy, and drove them, routed and broken, out of the
+ancient mensal land of the Irish kings.
+
+Thirty days after that victory he was called on to confront
+the conqueror of all men, even Death. He had reached the
+age of seventy-three, and he prepared to meet his last
+hour with the zeal and humility of a true Christian. To
+Dunnasciath repaired Amalgaid, Archbishop of Armagh, the
+Abbots of Clonmacnoise and of Durrow, with a numerous
+train of the clergy. For greater solitude, the dying king
+was conveyed into an island of the lake opposite his
+fort--then called Inis-Cro, now Cormorant Island--and
+there, "after intense penance," on the fourth of the
+Nones of September precisely, died Malachy, son of Donald,
+son of Donogh, in the fond language of the bards, "the
+pillar of the dignity and nobility of the western world:"
+and "the seniors of all Ireland sung masses, hymns,
+psalms, and canticles for the welfare of his soul."
+
+"This," says the old Translator of the Clonmacnoise
+Annals, "was the last king of Ireland of Irish blood,
+that had the crown; yet there were seven kings after
+without crown, before the coming in of the English." Of
+these seven subsequent kings we are to write under the
+general title of "the War of Succession." They are called
+Ard-Righ _go Fresabra_, that is, kings opposed, or
+unrecognised, by certain tribes, or Provinces. For it
+was essential to the completion of the title, as we have
+before seen, that when the claimant was of Ulster, he
+should have Connaught and Munster, or Leinster and Munster,
+in his obedience: in other words, he should be able to
+command the allegiance of two-thirds of his suffragans.
+If of Munster, he should be equally potent in the other
+Provinces, in order to rank among the recognised kings
+of Erin. Whether some of the seven kings subsequent to
+Malachy II., who assumed the title, were not fairly
+entitled to it, we do not presume to say; it is our
+simpler task to narrate the incidents of that brilliant
+war of succession, which occupies almost all the interval
+between the Danish and Anglo-Norman invasions. The chaunt
+of the funeral Mass of Malachy was hardly heard upon
+Lough Ennel, when Donogh O'Brien despatched his agents,
+claiming the crown from the Provincial Princes. He was
+the eldest son of Brian by his second marriage, and his
+mother was an O'Conor, an additional source of strength
+to him, in the western Province. It had fallen to the
+lot of Donogh, and his elder brother, Teigue or Thaddeus,
+to conduct the remnant of the Dalcassians from Clontarf
+to their home. Marching through Ossory, by the great
+southern road, they were attacked in their enfeebled
+state by the lord of that brave little border territory,
+on whom Brian's hand had fallen with heavy displeasure.
+Wounded as many of them were, they fought their way
+desperately towards Cashel, leaving 150 men dead in one
+of their skirmishes. Of all who had left the Shannon side
+to combat with the enemy, but 850 men lived to return to
+their homes.
+
+No sooner had they reached Kinkora, than a fierce dispute
+arose, between the friends of Teigue and Donogh, as to
+which should reign over Munster. A battle ensued, with
+doubtful result, but by the intercession of the Clergy
+this unnatural feud was healed, and the brothers reigned
+conjointly for nine years afterwards, until Teigue fell
+in an engagement in Ely (Queen's County), as was charged
+and believed, by the machinations of his colleague and
+brother. Thorlogh, son of Teigue, was the foster-son,
+and at this time the guest or hostage of Dermid of
+Leinster, the founder of the McMurrogh family, which had
+now risen into the rank justly forfeited by the traitor
+Maelmurra. When he reached man's age he married the
+daughter of Dermid, and we shall soon hear of him again
+asserting in Munster the pretensions of the eldest
+surviving branch of the O'Brien family.
+
+The death of his brother and of Malachy within the same
+year, proved favourable to the ambition of Donogh O'Brien.
+All Munster submitted to his sway; Connaught was among
+the first to recognise his title as Ard-Righ. Ossory and
+Leinster, though unwillingly, gave in their adhesion.
+But Meath refused to recognise him, and placed its
+government in commission, in the hands of Con O'Lochan,
+the arch-poet, and Corcran, the priest, already more than
+once mentioned. The country, north of Meath, obeyed
+Flaherty O'Neil, of Aileach, whose ambition, as well as
+that of all his house, was to restore the northern
+supremacy, which had continued unbroken, from the fourth
+to the ninth century. This Flaherty was a vigorous, able,
+and pious Prince, who held stoutly on to the northern
+half-kingdom. In the year 1030 he made the frequent but
+adventurous pilgrimage to Rome, from which he is called,
+in the pedigree of his house, _an Trostain_, or the
+cross-bearer.
+
+The greatest obstacle, however, to the complete ascendency
+of Donogh, arose in the person of his nephew, now advanced
+to manhood. Thorlogh O'Brien possessed much of the courage
+and ability of his grandfather, and he had at his side,
+a faithful and powerful ally in his foster-father, Dermid,
+of Leinster. Rightly or wrongly, on proof or on suspicion,
+he regarded his uncle as his father's murderer, and he
+pursued his vengeance with a skill and constancy worthy
+of _Hamlet_. At the time of his father's death, he was
+a mere lad--in his fourteenth year. But, as he grew
+older, he accompanied his foster-father in all his
+expeditions, and rapidly acquired a soldier's fame. By
+marriage with Dervorgoil, daughter of the Lord of Ossory,
+he strengthened his influence at the most necessary point;
+and what, with so good a cause and such fast friends as
+he made in exile, his success against his uncle is little
+to be wondered at. Leinster and Ossory, which had
+temporarily submitted to Donogh's claim, soon found good
+pretexts for refusing him tribute, and a border war,
+marked by all the usual atrocities, raged for several
+successive seasons. The contest, is relieved, however,
+of its purely civil character, by the capture of Waterford,
+still Danish, in 1037, and of Dublin, in 1051. On this
+occasion, Dermid, of Leinster, bestowed the city on his
+son Morrogh (grandfather of Strongbow's ally), to whom
+the remnant of its inhabitants, as well as their kinsmen
+in Man, submitted for the time with what grace they could.
+
+The position of Donogh O'Brien became yearly weaker.
+His rival had youth, energy, and fortune on his side.
+The Prince of Connaught finally joined him, and thus, a
+league was formed, which overcame all opposition. In the
+year 1058, Donogh received a severe defeat at the base
+of the Galtees; and although he went into the house of
+O'Conor the same year, and humbly submitted to him, it
+only postponed his day of reckoning. Three years after
+O'Conor took Kinkora, and Dermid, of Leinster, burned
+Limerick, and took hostages as far southward as Saint
+Brendan's hill (Tralee). The next year Donogh O'Brien,
+then fully fourscore years of age, weary of life and of
+the world, took the cross-staff, and departed on a
+pilgrimage to Rome, where he died soon after, in the
+monastery of St. Stephen. It is said by some writers that
+Donogh brought with him to Rome and presented to the
+Pope, Alexander II., the crown of his father--and from
+this tradition many theories and controversies have
+sprung. It is not unlikely that a deposed monarch should
+have carried into exile whatever portable wealth he still
+retained, nor that he should have presented his crown to
+the Sovereign Pontiff before finally quitting the world.
+But as to conferring with the crown, the sovereignty of
+which it was once an emblem, neither reason nor religion
+obliges us to believe any such hypothesis.
+
+Dermid of Leinster, upon the banishment of Donogh, son
+of Brian (A.D. 1063), became actual ruler of the southern
+half-kingdom and nominal Ard-Righ, "with opposition."
+The two-fold antagonism to this Prince, came, as might
+be expected from Conor, son of Malachy, the head of the
+southern Hy-Nial dynasty, and from the chiefs of the
+elder dynasty of the North. Thorlogh O'Brien, now King
+of Cashel, loyally repaid, by his devoted adherence, the
+deep debt he owed in his struggles and his early youth
+to Dermid. There are few instances in our Annals of a
+more devoted friendship than existed between these brave
+and able Princes through all the changes of half a century.
+No one act seems to have broken the life-long intimacy
+of Dermid and Thorlogh; no cloud ever came between them;
+no mistrust, no distrust. Rare and precious felicity of
+human experience! How many myriads of men have sighed
+out their souls in vain desire for that best blessing
+which Heaven can bestow, a true, unchanging, unsuspecting
+friend!
+
+To return: Conor O'Melaghlin could not see, without
+deep-seated discontent, a Prince of Leinster assume the
+rank which his father and several of his ancestors had
+held. A border strife between Meath and Leinster arose
+not unlike that which had been waged a few years before
+for the deposition of Donogh, between Leinster and Ossory
+on the one part, and Munster on the other. Various were
+the encounters, whose obscure details are seldom preserved
+to us. But the good fortune of Dermid prevailed in all,
+until, in the year 1070, he lost Morrogh, his heir, by
+a natural death at Dublin, and Gluniarn, another son,
+fell in battle with the men of Meath. Two years later,
+in the battle of Ova, in the same territory, and against
+the same enemy, Dermid himself fell, with the lord of
+Forth, and a great host of Dublin Danes and Leinster men.
+The triumph of the son of Malachy, and the sorrow and
+anger of Leinster, were equally great. The bards have
+sung the praise of Dermid in strains which history accepts:
+they praise his ruddy aspect and laughing teeth; they
+remember how he upheld the standard of war, and none
+dared contend with him in battle; they denounce vengeance
+on Meath as soon as his death-feast is over--a vengeance
+too truly pursued.
+
+As a picture of the manners and habits of thought in
+those tunes, the fate of Conor, son of Melaghlin, and
+its connection with the last illness and death of Thorlogh
+O'Brien, are worthy of mention. Conor was treacherously
+slain, the year after the battle of Ova, in a parley with
+his own nephew, though the parley was held under the
+protection of the _Bachall-Isa_, or Staff, of Christ,
+the most revered relic of the Irish Church. After his
+death, his body was buried in the great Church of
+Clonmacnoise, in his own patrimony. But Thorlogh O'Brien
+perhaps, from his friendship for Dermid, carried off his
+head, as the head of an enemy, to Kinkora. When it was
+placed in his presence in his palace, a mouse ran out
+from the dead man's head, and under the king's mantle,
+which occasioned him such a fright that he grew suddenly
+sick, his hair fell off, and his life was despaired of.
+It was on Good Friday that the buried head was carried
+away, and on Easter Sunday, it was tremblingly restored
+again, with two rings of gold as a peace offering to the
+Church. Thus were God and Saint Kieran vindicated.
+Thorlogh O'Brien slowly regained his strength, though
+Keating, and the authors he followed, think he was never
+the same man again, after the fright he received from
+the head of Conor O'Melaghlin. He died peaceably and full
+of penitence, at Kinkora, on the eve of the Ides of July,
+A.D. 1086, after severe physical suffering. He was in
+the 77th year of his age, the 32nd of his rule over
+Munster, and the 13th--since the death of Dermid of
+Leinster--in his actual sovereignty of the southern half,
+and nominal rule of the whole kingdom. He was succeeded
+by his son Murkertach, or Murtogh, afterwards called
+_More_, or the great.
+
+We have thus traced to the third generation the political
+fortunes of the family of Brian, which includes so much
+of the history of those times. That family had become,
+and was long destined to remain, the first in rank and
+influence in the southern half-kingdom. But internal
+discord in a great house, as in a great state, is fatal
+to the peaceable transmission of power. That "acknowledged
+right of birth" to which a famous historian attributes
+"the peaceful successions" of modern Europe, was too
+little respected in those ages, in many countries of
+Christendom--and had no settled prescription in its favour
+among the Irish. Primogeniture and the whole scheme of
+feudal dependence seems to have been an essential
+preparative for modern civilization: but as Ireland had
+escaped the legions of Rome, so she existed without the
+circle of feudal organization. When that system did at
+length appear upon her soil it was embodied in an invading
+host, and patriot zeal could discern nothing good, nothing
+imitable in the laws and customs of an enemy, whose armed
+presence in the land was an insult to its inhabitants.
+Thus did our Island twice lose the discipline which
+elsewhere laid the foundation of great states: once in
+the Roman, and again in the Feudal era.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE CONTEST BETWEEN THE NORTH AND SOUTH--RISE OF THE
+FAMILY OF O'CONOR.
+
+Four years before the death of Thorlogh O'Brien, a Prince
+destined to be the life-long rival of his great son, had
+succeeded to the kingship of the northern tribes. This
+was Donald, son of Ardgall, Prince of Aileach, sometimes
+called "O" and sometimes "Mac" Laughlin. Donald had
+reached the mature age of forty when he succeeded in the
+course of nature to his father, Ardgall, and was admitted
+the first man of the North, not only in station but for
+personal graces and accomplishments; for wisdom, wealth,
+liberality, and love of military adventure.
+
+Murkertach, or Murtogh O'Brien, was of nearly the same
+age as his rival, and his equal, if not superior in
+talents, both for peace and war. During the last years
+of his father's reign and illness, he had been the real
+ruler of the south, and had enforced the claims of Cashel
+on all the tribes of Leath Mogha, from Dublin to Galway.
+In the year 1094, by mutual compact, brought about through
+the intercession of the Archbishop of Armagh and the
+great body of the clergy, north and south--and still more
+perhaps by the pestilence and famine which raged at
+intervals during the last years of the eleventh century
+--this ancient division of the midland _asker_, running
+east and west, was solemnly restored by consent of both
+parties, and Leath Mogha and Leath Conn became for the
+moment independent territories. So thoroughly did the
+Church enter into the arrangement, that, at the Synod of
+Rath-Brazil, held a few years later, the seats of the
+twelve Bishops of the southern half were grouped round
+the Archbishop of Cashel, while the twelve of the northern
+half were ranged round the Archbishop of Armagh. The
+Bishops of Meath, the ancient mensal of the monarchy,
+seem to have occupied a middle station between the benches
+of the north and south.
+
+Notwithstanding the solemn compact of 1094, Murtogh did
+not long cease to claim the title, nor to seek the hostages
+of all Ireland. As soon as the fearful visitations with
+which the century had closed were passed over, he resumed
+his warlike forays, and found Donald of Aileach nothing
+loath to try again the issue of arms. Each prince, however,
+seems to have been more anxious to coerce or interest
+the secondary chiefs in his own behalf than to meet his
+rival in the old-style pitched battle. Murtogh's annual
+march was usually along the Shannon, into Leitrim, thence
+north by Sligo, and across the Erne and Finn into Donegal
+and Derry. Donald's annual excursion led commonly along
+the Bann, into Dalriada and Ulidia, Whence by way of
+Newry, across the Boyne, into Meath, and from West-Meath
+into Munster. In one of these forays, at the very opening
+of the twelfth century, Donald surprised Kinkora in the
+absence of its lord, razed the fort and levelled the
+buildings to the earth. But the next season the southern
+king paid him back in kind, when he attacked and demolished
+Aileach, and caused each of his soldiers to carry off a
+stone of the ruin in his knapsack. "I never heard of
+the billeting of grit stones," exclaims a bard of those
+days, "though I have heard of the billeting of soldiers:
+but now we see the stones of Aileach billeted on the
+horses of the King of the West!"
+
+Such circuits of the Irish kings, especially in days of
+opposition, were repeated with much regularity. They seem
+to have set out commonly in May--or soon after the festival
+of Easter--and when the tour of the island was made, they
+occupied about six weeks in duration. The precise number
+of men who took part in these visitations is nowhere
+stated, but in critical times no prince, claiming the
+perilous honour of _Ard-Righ_, would be likely to march
+with less than from five to ten thousand men. The
+movements of such a multitude must have been attended
+with many oppressions and inconveniences; their encampment
+for even a week in any territory must have been a serious
+burthen to the resident inhabitants, whether hostile or
+hospitable. Yet this was one inevitable consequence of
+the breaking up of the federal centre at Tara. In earlier
+days, the _Ard-Righ_, on his election, or in an emergency,
+made an armed procession through the island. Ordinarily,
+however, his suffragans visited him, and not he them;
+all Ireland went up to Tara to the _Feis_, or to the
+festivals of Baaltine and Samhain. Now that there was no
+Tara to go to, the monarch, or would-be monarch, found
+it indispensable to show himself often, and to exercise
+his authority in person, among every considerable tribe
+in the island. To do justice to Murtogh O'Brien, he does
+not appear to have sought occasions of employing force
+when on these expeditions, but rather to have acted the
+part of an armed negotiator. On his return from the
+demolition of Aileach (A.D. 1101), among other acts of
+munificence, he, in an assembly of the clergy of Leath
+Mogha, made a solemn gift of the city of Cashel, free of
+all rents and dues, to the Archbishop and the Clergy,
+for ever. His munificence to churches, and his patronage
+of holy men, were eminent traits in this Prince's character.
+And the clergy of that age were eminently worthy of the
+favours of such Princes. Their interposition frequently
+brought about a truce between the northern and southern
+kings. In the year 1103, the hostages of both were placed
+in custody with Donald, Archbishop of Armagh, to guarantee
+a twelvemonth's peace. But the next season the contest
+was renewed. Murtogh besieged Armagh for a week, which
+Donald of Aileach successfully defended, until the siege
+was abandoned. In a subsequent battle the northern force
+defeated one division of Murtogh's allies in Iveagh,
+under the Prince of Leinster, who fell on the field, with
+the lords of Idrone, Ossory, Desies, Kerry, and the Dublin
+Danes. Murtogh himself, with another division of his
+troops, was on an incursion into Antrim when he heard of
+this defeat. The northern visitors carried off among
+other spoils the royal tent and standard, a trophy which
+gave new bitterness on the one side, and new confidence
+on the other. Donald, the good Archbishop, the following
+year (A.D. 1105) proceeded to Dublin, where Murtogh was,
+or was soon expected, to renew the previous peace between
+North and South, but he fell suddenly ill soon after his
+arrival, and caused himself to be carried homewards in
+haste. At a church by the wayside, not far from Dublin,
+he was anointed and received the viaticum. He survived,
+however, to reach Armagh, where he expired on the 12th
+day of August. Kellach, latinized Celsus, his saintly
+successor, was promoted to the Primacy, and solemnly
+consecrated on Saint Adamnan's day following--the 23rd
+of September, 1105.
+
+Archbishop Celsus, whose accession was equally well
+received in Munster as in Ulster, followed in the footsteps
+of his pious predecessor, in taking a decided part with
+neither Leath Mogha nor Leath Conn. When, in the year
+1110, both parties marched to Slieve-Fuaid, with a view
+to a challenge of battle, Celsus interposed between them
+the _Bachall-Isa_--and a solemn truce followed; again,
+three years later, when they confronted each other in
+Iveagh, in Down, similar success attended a similar
+interposition. Three years later Murtogh O'Brien was
+seized with so severe an illness, that he became like to
+a living skeleton, and though he recovered sufficiently
+to resume the exercise of authority he never regained
+his full health. He died in a spiritual retreat, at
+Lismore, on the 4th of the Ides of March, A.D. 1119, and
+was buried at Killaloe. His great rival, Donald of Leath
+Conn, did not long survive him: he died at Derry, also
+in a religious house, on the 5th of the Ides of February,
+A.D. 1121.
+
+While these two able men were thus for more than a quarter
+of a century struggling for the supremacy, a third power
+was gradually strengthening itself west of the Shannon,
+destined to profit by the contest, more than either of
+the principals. This was the family of O'Conor, of
+Roscommon, who derived their pedigree from the same stock
+as the O'Neils, and their name from Conor, an ancestor,
+who ruled over Connaught, towards the end of the ninth
+century. Two or three of their line before Conor had
+possessed the same rank and title, but it was by no means
+regarded as an adjunct of the house of Rathcrogan, before
+the time at which we have arrived. Their co-relatives,
+sometimes their rivals, but oftener their allies, were
+the O'Ruarcs of Breffny, McDermots of Moylurg, the
+O'Flahertys of _Iar_ or West Connaught, the O'Shaughnessys,
+O'Heynes, and O'Dowdas. The great neighbouring family
+of O'Kelly had sprung from a different branch of the
+far-spreading Gaelic tree. At the opening of the twelfth
+century, Thorlogh More O'Conor, son of Ruari of the Yellow
+Hound, son of Hugh of the Broken Spear, was the recognised
+head of his race, both for valour and discretion. By
+some historians he is called the half-brother of Murtogh
+O'Brien, and it is certain that he was the faithful ally
+of that powerful prince. In the early stages of the recent
+contest between North and South, Donald of Aileach had
+presented himself at Rathcrogan, the residence of O'Conor,
+who entertained him for a fortnight, and gave him hostages;
+but Connaught finally sided with Munster, and thus, by
+a decided policy, escaped being ground to powder, as corn
+is ground between the mill-stones. But the nephew and
+successor of Murtogh was not prepared to reciprocate to
+Connaught the support it had rendered to Munster, but
+rather looked for its continuance to himself. Conor
+O'Brien, who became King of Munster in 1120, resisted
+all his life the pretensions of any house but his own to
+the southern half-kingdom, and against a less powerful
+or less politic antagonist, his energy and capacity would
+have been certain to prevail. The posterity of Malachy
+in Meath, as well as the Princes of Aileach, were equally
+hostile to the designs of the new aspirant. One line had
+given three, another seven, another twenty kings to
+Erin--but who had ever heard of an _Ard-Righ_ coming out
+of Connaught? 'Twas so they reasoned in those days of
+fierce family pride, and so they acted. Yet Thorlogh,
+son of Ruari, son of Hugh, proved himself in the fifteen
+years' war, previous to his accession (1021 to 1136),
+more than a match for all his enemies. He had been chief
+of his tribe since the year 1106, and from the first had
+begun to lay his far forecasting plans for the sovereignty.
+He had espoused the cause of the house of O'Brien, and
+had profited by that alliance. Nor were all his thoughts
+given to war. He had bridged the river Suca at Ballinasloe,
+and the Shannon at Athlone and Shannon harbour, and the
+same year these works were finished (1120 or '21) he
+celebrated the ancient games at Tailtean, in assertion
+of his claim to the monarchy. His main difficulty was
+the stubborn pride of Munster, and the valour and enterprise
+of Conor O'Brien, surnamed Conor "of the fortresses." Of
+the years following his assertion of his title, few passed
+without war between those Provinces. In 1121 and 1127,
+Thorlogh triumphed in the south, took hostages from
+Lismore to Tralee, and returned home exultingly; a few
+years later the tide turned, and Conor O'Brien was equally
+victorious against him, in the heart of his own country.
+Thorlogh played off in the south the ancient jealousy of
+the Eugenian houses against the Dalcassians, and thus
+weakened both, to his own advantage. In the year 1126 he
+took Dublin and raised his son to the lordship, as Dermid
+of Leinster, and Thorlogh O'Brien had done formerly:
+marching southward he encamped in Ormond, from Lammas to
+St. Bridget's day, and overran Munster with his troops
+in all directions, taking Cork, Cashel, Ardfinnan, and
+Tralee. Celsus, the holy Primate of Armagh, deploring
+the evils of this protracted year, left his peaceful
+city, and spent thirteen months in the south and west,
+endeavouring to reconcile, and bind over to the peace,
+the contending kings. In these days the Irish hierarchy
+performed, perhaps, their highest part--that of peacemakers
+and preachers of good will to men. When in 1132 and '33
+the tide had temporarily turned against Thorlogh, and
+Conor O'Brien had united Munster, Leinster, and Meath,
+against him, the Archbishop of Tuam performed effectually
+the office of mediator, preserving not only his own
+Province, but the whole country from the most sanguinary
+consequences. In the year 1130, the holy Celsus had
+rested from his labours, and Malachy, the illustrious
+friend of St. Bernard, was nominated as his successor.
+At the time he was absent in Munster, as the Vicar of
+the aged Primate, engaged in a mission of peace, when
+the crozier and the dying message of his predecessor were
+delivered to him. He returned to Armagh, where he found
+that Maurice, son of Donald, had been intruded as Archbishop
+in the _interim_, to this city peace, order, and unity,
+were not even partially restored, until two years
+later--A.D., 1132.
+
+The reign of Thorlogh O'Conor over Leath Mogha, or as
+Ard-Righ "with opposition," is dated by the best authorities
+from the year 1136. He was then in his forty-eighth year,
+and had been chief of his tribe from the early age of
+eighteen. He afterwards reigned for twenty years, and
+as those years, and the early career of his son Roderick
+are full of instruction, in reference to the events which
+follow, we must relate them somewhat in detail. We again
+beg the reader to observe the consequences of the
+destruction of the federal bond among the Irish; how
+every province has found an ambitious dynasty of its own,
+which each contends shall be supreme; how the ambition
+of the great families grows insatiable as the ancient
+rights and customs decay; how the law of Patrick enacted
+in the fifth century is no longer quoted or regarded;
+how the law of the strong hand alone decides the quarrel
+of these proud, unyielding Princes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THORLOGH MORE O'CONOR--MURKERTACH OF AILEACH--ACCESSION
+OF RODERICK O'CONOR.
+
+The successful ambition of Thorlogh O'Conor had thus
+added, as we have seen in the last chapter, a fifth
+dynasty to the number of competitors for the sovereignty.
+And if great energy and various talents could alone
+entitle a chief to rule over his country, this Prince
+well merited the obedience of his cotemporaries. He is
+the first of the latter kings who maintained a regular
+fleet at sea; at one time we find these Connaught galleys
+doing service on the coast of Cork, at another co-operating
+with his land forces, in the harbour of Derry. The year
+of his greatest power was the fifteenth of his reign
+(A.D. 1151), when his most signal success was obtained
+over his most formidable antagonists. Thorlogh O'Brien,
+King of Munster, successor to Conor of the fortresses,
+had on foot, in that year, an army of three battalions
+(or _caths_), each battalion consisting of 3,000 men,
+with which force he overawed some, and compelled others
+of the southern chiefs to withdraw their homage from his
+western namesake. The latter, uniting to his own the
+forces of Meath, and those of Leinster, recently reconciled
+to his supremacy, marched southward, and, encamping at
+Glanmire, received the adhesion of such Eugenian families
+as still struggled with desperation against the ascendency
+of the O'Briens. With these forces he encountered, at
+Moanmore, the army of the south, and defeated them, with
+the enormous loss of 7,000 men--a slaughter unparalleled
+throughout the war of succession. Every leading house in
+North Munster mourned the loss of either its chief or
+its tanist; some great families lost three, five, or
+seven brothers on that sanguinary day. The household of
+Kinkora was left without an heir, and many a near kinsman's
+seat was vacant in its hospitable hall. The O'Brien
+himself was banished into Ulster, where, from Murkertach,
+Prince of Aileach, he received the hospitality due to
+his rank and his misfortunes, not without an ulterior
+politic view on the part of the Ulster Prince. In this
+battle of Moanmore, Dermid McMurrogh, King of Leinster,
+of whom we shall hear hereafter, fought gallantly on the
+side of the victor. In the same year--but whether before
+or after the Munster campaign is uncertain--an Ulster
+force having marched into Sligo, Thorlogh met them near
+the Curlew mountains, and made peace with their king. A
+still more important interview took place the next year
+in the plain, or _Moy_, between the rivers Erne and
+Drowse, near the present Ballyshannon. On the _Bachall-Isa_
+and the relics of Columbkill, Thorlogh and Murkertach
+made a solemn peace, which is thought to have included
+the recognition of O'Conor's supremacy. A third meeting
+was had during the summer in Meath, where were present,
+beside the Ard-Righ, the Prince of Aileach, Dermid of
+Leinster, and other chiefs and nobles. At this conference
+they divided Meath into east and west, between two branches
+of the family of Melaghlin. Part of Longford and South
+Leitrim were taken from Tiernan O'Ruarc, lord of Breffni,
+and an angle of Meath, including Athboy and the hill of
+Ward, was given him instead. Earlier in the same year,
+King Thorlogh had divided Munster into three parts, giving
+Desmond to MacCarthy, Ormond to Thaddeus O'Brien, who
+had fought under him at Moanmore, and leaving the remainder
+to the O'Brien, who had only two short years before
+competed with him for the sovereignty. By these subdivisions
+the politic monarch expected to weaken to a great degree
+the power of the rival families of Meath and Munster.
+It was an arbitrary policy which could originate only on
+the field of battle, and could be enforced only by the
+sanction of victory. Thorlogh O'Brien, once King of all
+Munster, refused to accept a mere third, and carrying
+away his jewels and valuables, including the drinking
+horn of the great Brian, he threw himself again on the
+protection of Murkertach of Aileach. The elder branch
+of the family of O'Melaghlin were equally indisposed to
+accept half of Meath, where they had claimed the whole
+from the Shannon to the sea. To complicate still more
+this tangled web, Dermid, King of Leinster, about the
+same time (A.D. 1153), eloped with Dervorgoil, wife of
+O'Ruarc of Breffni, and daughter of O'Melaghlin, who both
+appealed to the monarch for vengeance on the ravager. Up
+to this date Dermid had acted as a steadfast ally of
+O'Conor, but when compelled by the presence of a powerful
+force on his borders to restore the captive, or partner
+of his guilt, he conceived an enmity for the aged king,
+which he extended, with increased virulence, to his son
+and successor.
+
+What degree of personal criminality to attach to this
+elopement it is hard to say. The cavalier in the case
+was on the wintry side of fifty, while the lady had
+reached the mature age of forty-four. Such examples have
+been, where the passions of youth, surviving the period
+most subject to their influence, have broken out with
+renewed frenzy on the confines of old age. Whether the
+flight of Dermid and Dervorgoil arose from a mere criminal
+passion, is not laid down with certainty in the old
+Annals, though national and local tradition strongly
+point to that conclusion. The Four Masters indeed state
+that after the restoration of the lady she "returned to
+O'Ruarc," another point wanting confirmation. We know
+that she soon afterwards retired to the shelter of
+Mellifont Abbey, where she ended her days towards the
+close of the century, in penitence and alms-deeds.
+
+Murtogh of Aileach now became master of the situation.
+Thorlogh was old and could not last long; Dermid of
+Leinster was for ever estranged from him; the new arbitrary
+divisions, though made with the general consent, satisfied
+no one. With a powerful force he marched southward,
+restored to the elder branch of the O'Melaghlins the
+whole of Meath, defeated Thaddeus O'Brien, obliterated
+Ormond from the map, restored the old bounds of Thomond
+and Desmond, and placed his guest, the banished O'Brien,
+on the throne of Cashel. A hostile force, under Roderick
+O'Conor, was routed, and retreated to their own territory.
+The next year (A.D. 1154) was signalized by a fierce
+naval engagement between the galleys of King Thorlogh
+and those of Murtogh, on the coast of Innishowen. The
+latter, recruited by vessels hired from the Gael and
+Galls of Cantire, the Arran Isles, and Man, were under
+the command of MacScellig; the Connaught fleet was led
+by O'Malley and O'Dowda. The engagement, which lasted
+from the morning till the evening, ended in the repulse
+of the Connaught fleet, and the death of O'Dowda. The
+occurrence is remarkable as the first general sea-fight
+between vessels in the service of native Princes, and as
+reminding us forcibly of the lessons acquired by the
+Irish during the Danish period.
+
+During the two years of life--which remained to King
+Thorlogh O'Conor, he had the affliction of seeing the
+fabric of power, which had taken him nearly half a century
+to construct, abridged at many points, by his more vigorous
+northern rival. Murtogh gave law to territories far
+south of the ancient _esker_. He took hostages from the
+Danes of Dublin, and interposed in the affairs of Munster.
+In the year 1156, the closing incidents which signalized
+the life of Thorlogh More, was a new peace which he made
+between the people of Breffni, Meath, and Connaught, and
+the reception of hostages from his old opponent, the
+restored O'Brien. While this new light of prosperity was
+shining on his house, he passed away from this life, on
+the 13th of the Kalends of June, in the 68th year of his
+age, and the 50th of his government. By his last will he
+bequeathed to the clergy numerous legacies, which are
+thus enumerated by Geoffrey Keating: "namely, four hundred
+and forty ounces of gold, and forty marks of silver; and
+all the other valuable treasures he possessed, both cups
+and precious stones, both steeds and cattle and robes,
+chess-boards, bows, quivers, arrows, equipments, weapons,
+armour, and utensils." He was interred beside the high
+altar of the Cathedral of Clonmacnoise, to which he had
+been in life and in death a munificent benefactor.
+
+The Prince of Aileach now assumed the title of Monarch,
+and after some short-lived opposition from Roderick
+O'Conor, his sovereignty was universally acknowledged.
+From the year 1161 until his death, he might fairly be
+called Ard-Righ, without opposition, since the hostages
+of all Ireland were in those last five years in his hands.
+These hostages were retained at the chief seat of power
+of the northern dynasty, the fortress of Aileach, which
+crowns a hill nearly a thousand feet high, at the head
+of Lough Swilly. To this stronghold the ancestor of
+Murtogh had removed early in the Danish period, from the
+more exposed and more ancient Emania, beside Armagh. On
+that hill-summit the ruins of Aileach may still be traced,
+with its inner wall twelve feet thick, and its three
+concentric ramparts, the first enclosing one acre, the
+second four, and the last five acres. By what remains we
+can still judge of the strength of the stronghold which
+watched over the waters of Lough Swilly like a sentinel
+on an outpost. No Prince of the Northern Hy-Nial had
+for two centuries entered Aileach in such triumph or with
+so many nobles in his train, as did Murtogh in the year
+1161, But whether the supreme power wrought a change for
+the worse in his early character, or that the lords of
+Ulster had begun to consider the line of Conn as equals
+rather than sovereigns, he was soon involved in quarrels
+with his own Provincial suffragans which ended in his
+defeat and death. Most other kings of whom we have read
+found their difficulties in rival dynasties and provincial
+prejudices; but this ruler, when most freely acknowledged
+abroad, was disobeyed and defeated at home. Having taken
+prisoner the lord of Ulidia (Down), with whom he had
+previously made a solemn peace, he ordered his eyes to
+be put out, and three of his principal relatives to be
+executed. This and other arbitrary acts so roused the
+lords of Leath Conn, that they formed a league against
+him, at the head of which stood Donogh O'Carroll, lord
+of Oriel, the next neighbour to the cruelly ill-treated
+chief of Ulidia. In the year 1166, this chief, with
+certain tribes of Tyrone and North Leitrim, to the number
+of three battalions (9,000 men), attacked the patrimony
+of the monarch--that last menace and disgrace to an Irish
+king. Murtogh with his usual valour, but not his usual
+fortune, encountered them in the district of the Fews,
+with an Inferior force, chiefly his own tribesmen. Even
+these deserted him on the eve of the battle, so that he
+was easily surprised and slain, only thirteen men falling
+in the affray. This action, of course, is unworthy the
+name of a battle, but resulting in the death of the
+monarch, it became of high political importance.
+
+Roderick O'Conor, son of Thorlogh More, was at this period
+in the tenth year of his reign over Connaught, and the
+fiftieth year of his age. Rathcrogan, the chief seat of
+his jurisdiction, had just attained to the summit of its
+glory. The site of this now almost forgotten palace is
+traceable in the parish of Elphin, within three miles of
+the modern village of Tulsk. Many objects contributed to
+its interest and importance in Milesian times. There were
+the _Naasteaghna_, or place of assembly of the clans of
+Connaught, "the Sacred Cave," which in the Druidic era
+was supposed to be the residence of a god, and the _Relig
+na Righ_-the venerable cemetery of the Pagan kings of
+the West, where still the red pillar stone stood over
+the grave of Dathy, and many another ancient tomb could
+be as clearly distinguished. The relative importance of
+Rathcrogan we may estimate by the more detailed descriptions
+of the extent and income of its rivals--Kinkora and
+Aileach. In an age when Roscommon alone contained 470
+fortified _duns_, over all which the royal rath presided;
+when half the tributes of the island were counted at its
+gate, it must have been the frequent _rendezvous_ of
+armies, the home of many guests, the busy focus of
+intrigue, and the very elysium of bards, story-tellers,
+and mendicants. In an after generation, Cathal, the
+red-handed O'Conor, from some motive of policy or pleasure,
+transferred the seat of government to the newly-founded
+Ballintober: in the lifetime of Thorlogh More, and the
+first years of Roderick, when the fortunes of the O'Conors
+were at their full, Rathcrogan was the co-equal in strength
+and in splendour of Aileach and Kinkora.
+
+Advancing directly from this family seat, on the first
+tidings of Murtogh's death, Roderick presented himself
+before the walls of Dublin, which opened its gates,
+accepted his stipend of four thousand head of cattle,
+and placed hostages for its fidelity in his hands. He
+next marched rapidly to Drogheda, with an auxiliary force
+of Dublin Danes, and there O'Carroll, lord of Oriel
+(Louth), came into his camp, and rendered him homage.
+Retracing his steps he entered Leinster, with an augmented
+force, and demanded hostages from Dermid McMurrogh.
+Thirteen years had passed since his father had taken up
+arms to avenge the rape of Dervorgoil, and had earned
+the deadly hatred of the abductor. That hatred, in the
+interim, had suffered no decrease, and sooner than submit
+to Roderick, the ravager burned his own city of Ferns to
+the ground, and retreated into his fastnesses. Roderick
+proceeded southward, obtained the adhesion of Ossory and
+Munster; confirming Desmond to McCarthy, and Thomond to
+O'Brien. Returning to Leinster, he found that Tiernan
+O'Ruarc had entered the province, at the head of an
+auxiliary army, and Dermid, thus surrounded, deserted by
+most of his own followers, outwitted and overmatched,
+was feign to seek safety in flight beyond seas (A.D.
+1168). A solemn sentence of banishment was publicly
+pronounced against him by the assembled Princes, and
+Morrogh, his cousin, commonly called Morrogh _na Gael_,
+or "of the Irish," to distinguish him from Dermid _na
+Gall_, or "of the Stranger," was inaugurated in his stead.
+From Morrogh _na Gael_ they took seventeen hostages, and
+so Roderick returned rejoicing to Rathcrogan, and O'Ruarc
+to Breffni, each vainly imagining that he had heard the
+last of the dissolute and detested King of Leinster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING AMONG THE IRISH, PREVIOUS
+TO THE ANGLO-NORMAN INVASION.
+
+At the end of the eighth century, before entering on the
+Norwegian and Danish wars, we cast a backward glance on
+the Christian ages over which we had passed; and now
+again we have arrived at the close of an era, when a
+rapid retrospect of the religious and social condition
+of the country requires to be taken.
+
+The disorganization of the ancient Celtic constitution
+has already been sufficiently described. The rise of the
+great families, and their struggles for supremacy, have
+also been briefly sketched. The substitution of the clan
+for the race, of pedigree for patriotism, has been
+exhibited to the reader. We have now to turn to the inner
+life of the people, and to ascertain what substitutes
+they found in their religious and social condition, for
+the absence of a fixed constitutional system, and the
+strength and stability which such a system confers.
+
+The followers of Odin, though they made no proselytes to
+their horrid creed among the children of St. Patrick,
+succeeded in inflicting many fatal wounds on the Irish
+Church. The schools, monasteries, and nunneries, situated
+on harbours or rivers, or within a convenient march of
+the coast, were their first objects of attack; teachers
+and pupils were dispersed, or, if taken, put to death,
+or, escaping, were driven to resort to arms in self-defence.
+Bishops could no longer reside in their sees, nor anchorites
+in their cells, unless they invited martyrdom; a fact
+which may, perhaps, in some degree account for the large
+number of Irish ecclesiastics, many of them in episcopal
+orders, who are found, in the ninth century, in Gaul arid
+Germany, at Rheims, Mentz, Ratisbon, Fulda, Cologne, and
+other places, already Christian. But it was not in the
+banishment of masters, the destruction of libraries and
+school buildings, the worst consequences of the Gentile
+war were felt. Their ferocity provoked retaliation in
+kind, and effaced, first among the military class, and
+gradually from among all others, that growing gentleness
+of manners and clemency of temper, which we can trace in
+such princes as Nial of the Showers and Nial of Callan.
+"A change in the national spirit is the greatest of all
+revolutions;" and this change the Danish and Norwegian
+wars had wrought, in two centuries, among the Irish.
+
+The number of Bishops in the early Irish Church was
+greatly in excess of the number of modern dioceses. From
+the eighth to the twelfth century we hear frequently of
+_Episcopi Vagantes_, or itinerant, and _Episcopi Vacantes_,
+or unbeneficed Bishops; the Provincial Synods of England
+and Gaul frequently had to complain of the influx of such
+Bishops into their country. At the Synod held near the
+Hill of Usny, in the year 1111, fifty Bishops attended,
+and at the Synod of Rath-Brazil, seven years later,
+according to Keating, but twenty-five were present. To
+this period, then, when Celsus was Primate and Legate of
+the Holy See, we may attribute the first attempted
+reduction of the Episcopal body to something like its
+modern number; but so far was this salutary restriction
+from being universally observed that, at the Synod of
+Kells (A.D. 1152), the hierarchy had again risen to
+thirty-four, exclusive of the four Archbishops. Three
+hundred priests, and three thousand ecclesiastics are
+given as the number present at the first-mentioned Synod.
+
+The religious orders, probably represented by the above
+proportion of three thousand ecclesiastics to three
+hundred [secular] priests had also undergone a remarkable
+revolution. The rule of all the early Irish monasteries
+and convents was framed upon an original constitution,
+which St. Patrick had obtained in France from St. Martin
+of Tours, who in turn had copied after the monachism of
+Egypt and the East. It is called by ecclesiastical writers
+the Columban rule, and was more rigid in some particulars
+than the rule of St. Benedict, by which it was afterwards
+supplanted. Amongst other restrictions it prohibited the
+admission of all unprofessed persons within the precincts
+of the monastery--a law as regards females incorporated
+in the Benedictine constitution; and it strictly enjoined
+silence on the professed--a discipline revived by the
+brethren of La Trappe. The primary difference between
+the two orders lay perhaps in this, that the Benedictine
+made study and the cultivation of the intellect subordinate
+to manual labour and implicit obedience, while the Columban
+Order attached more importance to the acquisition of
+knowledge and missionary enterprise. Not that this was
+their invariable, but only their peculiar characteristic:
+a deep-seated love of seclusion and meditation often,
+intermingled with this fearless and experimental zeal.
+It was not to be expected in a century like the ninth,
+especially when the Benedictine Order was overspreading
+the West, that its milder spirit should not act upon the
+spirit of the Columban rule. It was, in effect, more
+social, and less scientific, more a wisdom to be acted
+than to be taught. Armed with the syllogism, the Columbites
+issued out of their remote island, carrying their strongly
+marked personality into every controversy and every
+correspondence. In Germany and Gaul, their system blazed
+up in Virgilius, in Erigena, and Macarius, and then
+disappeared in the calmer, slower, but safer march of
+the Benedictine discipline. By a reform of the same
+ancient order, its last hold on native soil was loosened
+when, under the auspices of St. Malachy, the Cistercian
+rule was introduced into Ireland the very year of his
+first visit to Clairvaux (A.D. 1139). St. Mary's Abbey,
+Dublin, was the first to adopt that rule, and the great
+monastery of Mellifont, placed under the charge of the
+brother of the Primate, sprung up in Meath, three years
+later. The Abbeys of Bective, Boyle, Baltinglass, and
+Monasternenagh, date from the year of Malachy's second
+journey to Rome, and death at Clairvaux--A.D. 1148.
+Before the end of the century, the rule was established
+at Fermoy, Holycross, and Odorney; at Athlone and Knockmoy;
+at Newry and Assaroe, and in almost every tribe-land of
+Meath and Leinster. It is usually but erroneously supposed
+that the Cistercian rule came in with the Normans; for
+although many houses owed their foundation to that race,
+the order itself had been naturalized in Ireland a
+generation before the first landing of the formidable
+allies of Dermid on the coast of Wexford. The ancient
+native order had apparently fulfilled its mission, and
+long rudely lopped and shaken by civil commotions and
+Pagan war, it was prepared to give place to a new and
+more vigorous organization of kindred holiness and energy.
+
+As the horrors of war disturbed continually the clergy
+from their sacred calling, and led many of them, even
+Abbots and Bishops, to take up arms, so the yoke of
+religion gradually loosened and dropped from the necks
+of the people. The awe of the eighth century for a Priest
+or Bishop had already disappeared in the tenth, when
+Christian hands were found to decapitate Cormac of Cashel,
+and offer his head as a trophy to the Ard-Righ. In the
+twelfth century the Archbishop and Bishops of Connaught,
+bound to the Synod of Trim, were fallen upon by the Kern
+of Carbre the Swift, before they could cross the Shannon,
+their people beaten and dispersed and two of them killed.
+In the time of Thorlogh More O'Conor, a similar outrage
+was offered by Tiernan O'Ruarc to the Archbishop of
+Armagh, and one of his ecclesiastics was killed in the
+assault. Not only for the persons of ministers of religion
+had the ancient awe and reverence disappeared, but even
+for the sacred precincts of the Sanctuary. In the second
+century of the war with the Northmen we begin to hear of
+churches and cloisters plundered by native chiefs, who
+yet called themselves Christians, though in every such
+instance our annalists are careful to record the vengeance
+of Heaven following swift on sacrilege. Clonmacnoise,
+Kildare, and Lismore, were more than once rifled of their
+wealth by impious hands, and given over to desolation
+and burning by so-called Christian nobles and soldiers!
+It is some mitigation of the dreadful record thus presented
+to be informed--as we often are--especially in the annals
+of the twelfth century, that the treasures so pillaged
+were not the shrines of saints nor the sacred ornaments
+of the altar, but the temporal wealth of temporal
+proprietors, laid up in churches as places of greatest
+security.
+
+The estates of the Church were, in most instances, farmed
+by laymen, called _Erenachs_, who, in the relaxation of
+all discipline, seem to have gradually appropriated the
+lands to themselves, leaving to the Clergy and Bishops
+only periodical dues and the actual enclosure of the
+Church. This office of Erenach was hereditary, and must
+have presented many strong temptations to its occupants.
+It is indeed certain that the Irish Church was originally
+founded on the broadest voluntaryism, and that such was
+the spirit of all its most illustrious fathers. "Content
+with food and raiment," says an ancient Canon attributed
+to St. Patrick, "reject the gifts of the wicked beside,
+seeing that the lamb takes only that with which it is
+fed." Such, to the letter, was the maxim which guided
+the conduct of Colman and his brethren, of whom Bede
+makes such honourable mention, in the third century after
+the preaching of St. Patrick. But the munificence of
+tribes and Princes was not to be restrained, and to
+obviate any violation of the revered canons of the apostle,
+laymen, as treasurers and stewards over the endowments
+of the Church, were early appointed. As those possessions
+increased, the desire of family aggrandizement proved
+too much for the Erenachs not only of Armagh, but of most
+other sees, and left the clergy as practically dependent
+on free-will offerings, as if their Cathedrals or Convents
+had never been endowed with an acre, a mill, a ferry, or
+a fishery. The free offerings were, however, always
+generous, and sometimes munificent. When Celsus, on his
+elevation to the Primacy, made a tour of the southern
+half-kingdom, he received "seven cows and seven sheep,
+and half an ounce of silver from every cantred [hundred]
+in Munster." The bequests were also a fruitful source of
+revenue to the principal foundations; of the munificence
+of the monarchs we may form some opinion by what has been
+already recorded of the gifts left to churches by Thorlogh
+More O'Conor.
+
+The power of the clerical order, in these ages of Pagan
+warfare, had very far declined from what it was, when
+Adamnan caused the law to be enacted to prevent women
+going to battle, when Moling obtained the abolition of
+the Leinster tribute, and Columbkill the recognition of
+Scottish independence. Truces made in the presence of
+the highest dignitaries, and sworn to on the most sacred
+relics, were frequently violated, and often with impunity.
+Neither excommunication nor public penance were latterly
+inflicted as an atonement for such perjury: a fine or
+offering to the Church was the easy and only mulct on
+the offender. When we see the safeguard of the Bishop of
+Cork so flagrantly disregarded by the assassins of Mahon,
+son of Kennedy, and the solemn peace of the year 1094 so
+readily broken by two such men as the Princes of the
+North and the South, we need no other proofs of the
+decadence of the spiritual authority in that age of Irish
+history.
+
+And the morals of private life tell the same sad tale.
+The facility with which the marriage tie was contracted
+and dissolved is the strongest evidence of this degeneracy.
+The worst examples were set in the highest stations, for
+it is no uncommon incident, from the ninth century
+downwards, to find our Princes with more than one wife
+living, and the repudiated wife married again to a person
+of equal or superior rank. We have the authority of Saint
+Anselm and Saint Bernard, for the existence of grave
+scandal and irregularities of life among the clergy, and
+we can well believe that it needed a generation of Bishops,
+with all the authority and all the courage of Saint
+Celsus, Saint Malachy, and Saint Lawrence, to rescue from
+ruin a Priesthood and a people, so far fallen from the
+bright example of their ancestors. That the reaction
+towards a better life had strongly set in, under their
+guidance, we may infer from the horror with which, in
+the third quarter of the twelfth century, the elopement
+of Dermid and Dervorgoil was regarded by both Princes
+and People. A hundred years earlier, that event would
+have been hardly noticed in the general disregard of the
+marriage tie, but the frequent Synods, and the holy lives
+of the reforming Bishops, had already revived the zeal
+that precedes and ensures reformation.
+
+Primate Malachy died at Clairvaulx, in the arms of Saint
+Bernard, in the year 1148, after having been fourteen
+years Archbishop of Armagh and ten years Bishop of Down
+and Conor. His episcopal life, therefore, embraced the
+history of that remarkable second quarter of the century,
+in which the religious reaction fought its first battles
+against the worst abuses. The attention of Saint Bernard,
+whose eyes nothing escaped, from Jerusalem to the farthest
+west, was drawn ten years before to the Isle of Saints,
+now, in truth, become an Isle of Sinners. The death of
+his friend, the Irish Primate, under his own roof, gave
+him a fitting occasion for raising his accusing voice--a
+voice that thrilled the Alps and filled the Vatican--against
+the fearful degeneracy of that once fruitful mother of
+holy men and women. The attention of Rome was thoroughly
+aroused, and immediately after the appearance of the Life
+of Saint Malachy, Pope Eugenius III.--himself a monk of
+Clairvaulx--despatched Cardinal Papiron, with legantine
+powers, to correct abuses, and establish a stricter
+discipline. After a tour of great part of the Island,
+the Legate, with whom was associated Gilla-Criost, or
+Christianus, Bishop of Lismore, called the great Synod
+of Kells, early in the year after his arrival (March,
+1152), at which simony, usury, concubinage, and other
+abuses, were formally condemned, and tithes were first
+decreed to be paid to the secular clergy. Two new
+Archbishoprics, Dublin and Tuam, were added to Armagh
+and Cashel, though not without decided opposition from
+the Primates both of Leath Mogha and Leath Conn, backed
+by those stern conservatives of every national usage,
+the Abbots of the Columban Order. The _pallium_, or Roman
+cape, was, by this Legate, presented to each of the
+Archbishops, and a closer conformity with the Roman ritual
+was enacted. The four ecclesiastical Provinces thus
+created were in outline nearly identical with the four
+modern Provinces. Armagh was declared the metropolitan
+over all; Dublin, which had been a mere Danish borough-see,
+gained most in rank and influence by the new arrangement,
+as Glendalough, Ferns, Ossory, Kildare and Leighlin, were
+declared subject to its presidency.
+
+We must always bear in mind the picture drawn of the
+Irish Church by the inspired orator of Clairvaulx, when
+judging of the conduct of Pope Adrian IV., who, in the
+year 1155--the second of his Pontificate--granted to King
+Henry II. of England, then newly crowned, his Bull
+authorising the invasion of Ireland. The authenticity of
+that Bull is now universally admitted; and both its
+preamble and conditions show how strictly it was framed
+in accordance with St. Bernard's accusation. It sets
+forth that for the eradication of vice, the implanting
+of virtue, and the spread of the true faith, the Holy
+Father solemnly sanctions the projected invasion; and it
+attaches as a condition, the payment of Peter's pence,
+for every house in Ireland. The bearer of the Bull, John
+of Salisbury, carried back from Rome a gold ring, set
+with an emerald stone, as a token of Adrian's friendship,
+or it may be, his subinfeudation of Henry. As a title,
+however powerless in modern times such a Bull might prove,
+it was a formidable weapon of invasion with a Catholic
+people, in the twelfth century. We have mainly referred
+to it here, however, as an illustration of how entirely
+St. Bernard's impeachment of the Irish Church and nation
+was believed at Rome, even after the salutary decrees of
+the Synod of Kells had been promulgated.
+
+The restoration of religion, which was making such rapid
+progress previous to the Norman invasion, was accompanied
+by a relative revival of learning. The dark ages of
+Ireland are not those of the rest of Europe--they extend
+from the middle of the ninth century to the age of Brian
+and Malachy II. This darkness came from the North, and
+cleared away rapidly after the eventful day of Clontarf.
+The first and most natural direction which the revival
+took was historical investigation, and the composition
+of Annals. Of these invaluable records, the two of highest
+reputation are those of Tigernach (Tiernan) O'Broin,
+brought down to the year of his own death, A.D. 1088,
+and the chronicle of Marianus Scotus, who died at Mentz,
+A.D. 1086. Tiernan was abbot of Clonmacnoise, and Marian
+is thought to have been a monk of that monastery, as he
+speaks of a superior called Tigernach, under whom he had
+lived in Ireland. Both these learned men quote accurately
+the works of foreign writers; both give the dates of
+eclipses, in connection with historical events for several
+centuries before their own time; both show a familiarity
+with Greek and Latin authors. _Marianus_ is the first
+writer by whom the name _Scotia Minor_ was given to the
+Gaelic settlement in Caledonia, and his chronicle was an
+authority mainly relied on in the disputed Scottish
+succession in the time of Edward I. of England. With
+_Tigernach_, he may be considered the founder of the
+school of Irish Annalists, which flourished in the shelter
+of the great monasteries, such as Innisfallen, Boyle and
+Multifernan; and culminated in the great compilation made
+by "the Four Masters" in the Abbey of Donegal.
+
+Of the Gaelic metrical chroniclers, Flann of the Monastery,
+and Gilla-Coeman; of the Bards McLiag and McCoisse; of
+the learned professors and lectors of Lismore and
+Armagh--now restored for a season to studious days and
+peaceful nights, we must be content with the mention of
+their names. Of Lismore, after its restoration, an old
+British writer has left us this pleasant and happy picture.
+"It is," he says, "a famous and holy city, half of which
+is an asylum, into which no woman dares enter; but it is
+full of cells and monasteries; and religious men in great
+abundance abide there."
+
+Such was the promise of better days, which cheered the
+hopes of the Pastors of the Irish, when the twelfth
+century had entered on its third quarter. The pious old
+Gaelic proverb, which says, "on the Cross the face of
+Christ was looking westwards--," was again on the lips
+and in the hearts of men, and though much remained to be
+done, much had been already done, and done under
+difficulties greater than any that remained to conquer.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE IRISH PREVIOUS TO THE NORMAN
+INVASION.
+
+
+The total population of Ireland, when the Normans first
+entered it, can only be approximated by conjecture.
+Supposing the whole force with which Roderick and his
+allies invested the Normans in Dublin, to be, as stated
+by a cotemporary writer, some 50,000 men, and that that
+force included one-fourth of all the men of the military
+age in the country; and further, supposing the men of
+military age to bear the proportion of one-fifth to the
+whole number of inhabitants, this would give a total
+population of about one million. Even this conjecture is
+to be taken with great diffidence and distrust, but, for
+the sake of clearness, it is set down as a possible Irish
+census, towards the close of the twelfth century.
+
+This population was divided into two great classes, the
+_Saer-Clanna_, or free tribes, chiefly, if not exclusively,
+of Milesian race; and the _Daer-Clanna_, or unfree tribes,
+consisting of the descendants of the subjugated older
+races, or of clans once free, reduced to servitude by
+the sword, or of the posterity of foreign mercenary
+soldiers. Of the free clans, the most illustrious were
+those of whose Princes we have traced the record--the
+descendants of Nial in Ulster and Meath, of Cathaeir More
+in Leinster, of Oliold in Munster, and of Eochaid in
+Connaught. An arbitrary division once limited the free
+clans to six in the southern half-kingdom, and six in
+the north; and the unfree also to six. But Geoffrey
+Keating, whose love of truth was quite as strong as his
+credulity in ancient legends--and that is saying
+much--disclaimed that classification, and collected his
+genealogies from principal heads--branching out into
+three families of tribes, descended from Eber Finn, one
+from Ir, and four from Eremhon, sons of Milesians of
+Spain; and ninth tribe sprung from Ith, granduncle to
+the sons of Milesius. The principal Eberian families'
+names were McCarthy, O'Sullivan, O'Mahony, O'Donovan,
+O'Brien, O'Dea, O'Quin, McMahon (of Clare), McNamara,
+O'Carroll (of Ely), and O'Gara; the Irian families were
+Magennis, O'Farrall, and O'Conor (of Kerry); the posterity
+of Eremhon branched out into the O'Neils, O'Donnells,
+O'Dohertys, O'Gallahers, O'Boyles, McGeoghegans, O'Conors
+(of Connaught), O'Flahertys, O'Heynes, O'Shaughnessys,
+O'Clerys, O'Dowdas, McDonalds (of Antrim), O'Kellys,
+Maguires, Kavanaghs, Fitzpatricks, O'Dwyers, and O'Conors
+(of Offally). The chief families of Ithian origin were
+the O'Driscolls, O'Learys, Coffeys, and Clancys. Out of
+the greater tribes many subdivisions arose from time to
+time, when new names were coined for some intermediate
+ancestor; but the farther enumeration of these may be
+conveniently dispensed with.
+
+The _Daer-Clanna_, or unfree tribes, have left no history.
+Under the despotism of the Milesian kings, it was high
+treason to record the actions of the conquered race; so
+that the Irish Belgae fared as badly in this respect, at
+the hands of the Milesian historians, as the latter fared
+in after times from the chroniclers of the Normans. We
+only know that such tribes were, and that their numbers
+and physical force more than once excited the apprehension
+of the children of the conquerors. What proportion they
+bore to the _Saer-Clanna_ we have no positive data to
+determine. A fourth, a fifth, or a sixth, they may have
+been; but one thing is certain, the jealous policy of
+the superior race never permitted them to reascend the
+plane of equality, from which they had been hurled, at
+the very commencement of the Milesian ascendency.
+
+In addition to the enslaved by conquest and the enslaved
+by crime, there were also the enslaved by purchase. From
+the earliest period, slave dealers from Ireland had
+frequented Bristol, the great British slave market, to
+purchase human beings. Christian morality, though it may
+have mitigated the horrors of this odious traffic, did
+not at once lead to its abolition. In vain Saint Wulfstan
+preached against it in the South, as Saint Aidan had done
+long before him in the North of England. Files of
+fair-haired Saxon slaves, of both sexes, yoked together
+with ropes, continued to be shipped at Bristol, and
+bondmen and bondwomen continued to be articles of
+value--exchanged between the Prince and his subordinates,
+as stipend or tribute. The King of Cashel alone gave to
+the chief of the Eugenians, as part of his annual stipend,
+ten bondmen and ten women; to the lord of Bruree, seven
+pages and seven bondwomen; to the lord of Deisi, eight
+slaves of each sex, and seven female slaves to the lord
+of Kerry; among the items which make up the tribute from
+Ossory to Cashel are ten bondmen and ten grown women;
+and from the Deisi, eight bondmen and eight "brown-haired"
+women. The annual exchanges of this description, set down
+as due in the Book of Rights, would require the transfer
+of several hundreds of slaves yearly, from one set of
+masters to another. Cruelties and outrages must have been
+inseparable from the system, and we can hardly wonder at
+the sweeping decree by which the Synod of Armagh (A.D.
+1171) declared all the English slaves in Ireland free to
+return to their homes, and anathematized the whole inhuman
+traffic. The fathers of that council looked upon the
+Norman invasion as a punishment from Heaven on the slave
+trade; for they believed in their purity of heart, that
+power _is_ transferred from one nation to another, because
+of injustices, oppressions, and divers deceits.
+
+The purchased slaves and unfree tribes tilled the soil,
+and practised the mechanic arts. Agriculture seems first
+to have been lifted into respectability by the Cistercian
+Monks, while spinning, weaving, and almost every mechanic
+calling, if we except the scribe, the armorer, and the
+bell-founder, continued down to very recent tunes to be
+held in contempt among the Gael. A brave man is mentioned
+as having been a "weaving woman's son," with much the
+same emphasis as Jeptha is spoken of as the son of an
+Harlot. Mechanic wares were disposed of at those stated
+gatherings, which combined popular games, chariot races
+for the nobles, and markets for the merchants. A Bard of
+the tenth or eleventh century, in a desperate effort to
+vary the usual high-flown descriptions of the country,
+calls it "Erin of the hundred fair greens,"--a very
+graphic, if not a very poetic illustration.
+
+The administration of justice was an hereditary trust,
+committed to certain judicial families, who held their
+lands, as the Monks did, by virtue of their profession.
+When the posterity of the Brehon, or Judge failed, it
+was permitted to adopt from the class of students, a male
+representative, in whom the judicial authority was
+perpetuated: the families of O'Gnive and O'Clery in the
+North, of O'Daly in Meath, O'Doran in Leinster, McEgan
+in Munster, Mulconry or Conroy in Connaught, were the
+most distinguished Brehon houses. Some peculiarities of
+the Brehon law, relating to civil succession and
+sovereignty, such as the institution of Tanistry, and
+the system of stipends and tributes, have been already
+explained; parricide and murder were in latter ages
+punished with death; homicide and rape by _eric_ or fine.
+There were, besides, the laws of gavelkind or division
+of property among the members of the clan; laws relating
+to boundaries; sumptuary laws regulating the dress of
+the various castes into which society was divided; laws
+relating to the planting of trees, the trespass of cattle,
+and billeting of troops. These laws were either written
+in detail, or consisted of certain acknowledged ancient
+maxims of which the Brehon made the application in each
+particular case, answering to what we call "Judge-made
+law." Of such ancient tracts as composed the Celtic code,
+an immense number have, fortunately survived, even to
+this late day, and we may shortly expect a complete digest
+of all that are now known to exist, in a printed and
+imperishable form, from the hands of native scholars,
+every way competent to the task.
+
+The commerce of the country, in the eleventh and twelfth
+centuries, was largely in the hands of the Christian
+Hiberno-Danes, of the eastern and southern coast. By them
+the slave trade with Bristol was mostly maintained, and
+the Irish oak, with which William Rufus roofed Westminster
+Abbey, was probably rafted by them in the Thames. The
+English and Welsh coasts, at least, were familiar to
+their pilots, and they combined, as was usual in that
+age, the military with the mercantile character. In 1142,
+and again in 1165, a troop of Dublin Danes fought under
+Norman banners against the brave Britons of Cambria, and
+in the camps of their allies, sung the praises of the
+fertile island of the west. The hundred fairs of Erin--
+after their conversion and submission to native authority
+--afforded them convenient markets for disposing of the
+commodities they imported from abroad.
+
+The Gaelic mind, long distracted by the din of war from
+the purifying and satisfying influences of a Christian
+life, naturally fell back upon the abandoned, half-forgotten
+superstitions of the Pagan period. Preceding every fresh
+calamity, we hear of signs and wonders, of migratory
+lakes disappearing in a night, of birds and wolves speaking
+with human voices, of showers of blood falling in the
+fields, of a whale with golden teeth stranded at
+Carlingford, of cloud ships, with their crews, seen
+plainly sailing in the sky. One of the marvels of this
+class is thus gravely entered in our Annals, under the
+year 1054--"A steeple of fire was seen in the air over
+Rossdala, on the Sunday of the festival of St. George,
+for the space of five hours; innumerable black birds
+passed into and out of it, and one large bird in the
+middle of them; and the little birds went under his wings
+when they went into the steeple. They came out and raised
+up a greyhound that was in the middle of the town aloft
+in the air, and let it drop down again, so that it died
+immediately; and they took up three cloaks and two shirts,
+and let them drop down in the same manner. The wood on
+which these birds perched fell under them; and the oak
+tree on which they perched shook with its roots in the
+earth." In many other superstitions of the same age we
+see the latent moral sentiment, as well as the over-excited
+imagination of the people. Such is the story of the stolen
+jewels of Clonmacnoise, providentially recovered in the
+year 1130. The thief in vain endeavoured to escape out
+of the country, from Cork, Lismore, and Waterford, "but
+no ship into which he entered found a wind to sail, while
+all the other ships did." And the conscience stricken
+thief declared, in his dying confession, that he used to
+see Saint Kieran "stopping with his crozier, every ship
+into which he entered." It was also an amiable popular
+illusion that abundant harvests followed the making of
+peace, the enacting of salutary laws, and the accession
+of a King who loved justice; and careful entry is made
+in our chronicles of every evidence of this character.
+
+The literature of the masses of the people was pretty
+equally composed of the legends of the Saints and the
+older Ossianic legend, so much misunderstood and distorted
+by modern criticism. The legends of the former class
+were chiefly wonders wrought by the favourite Saints of
+the district or the island, embellished with many quaint
+fancies and tagged out with remnants of old Pagan
+superstition. St. Columbkill and St. Kieran were, most
+commonly, the heroes of those tales, which, perhaps, were
+never intended by their authors to be seriously believed.
+Such was the story of the great founder of Iona having
+transformed the lady and her maid, who insulted him on
+his way to Drom-Keth, into two herons, who are doomed to
+hover about the neighbouring ford till the day of doom;
+and such that other story of "the three first monks" who
+joined St. Kieran in the desert, being a fox, a badger,
+and a bear, all endowed with speech, and all acting a
+part in the legend true to their own instincts. Of higher
+poetic merit is the legend of the voyage of St. Brendan
+over the great sea, and how the birds which sung vespers
+for him in the groves of the Promised Land were inhabited
+by human souls, as yet in a state of probation waiting
+for their release!
+
+In the Ossianic legend we have the common stock of Oriental
+ideas--the metamorphosis of guilty wives and haughty
+concubines into dogs and birds; the speaking beasts and
+fishes; the enchanted swans, originally daughters of Lir;
+the boar of Ben Bulben, by which the champion, Diarmid,
+was slain; the Phoenix in the stork of Inniskea, of which
+there never was but one, yet that one perpetually reproduced
+itself; the spirits of the wood, and the spirits inhabiting
+springs and streams; the fairy horse; the sacred trees;
+the starry influences. Monstrous and gigantic human
+shapes, like the Jinns of the Arabian tales, occasionally
+enter into the plot, and play a midnight part, malignant
+to the hopes of good men. At their approach the earth is
+troubled, the moon is overcast, gusts of storm are shaken
+out from the folds of their garments, the watch dogs and
+the war dogs cower down, in camp and rath, and whine
+piteously, as if in pain.
+
+The variety of grace, and peculiarities of organization,
+with which, if not the original, certainly the Christianized
+Irish imagination, endowed and equipped the personages
+of the fairy world, were of almost Grecian delicacy.
+There is no personage who rises to the sublime height of
+Zeus, or the incomparable union of beauty and wisdom in
+Pallas Athene: what forms Bel, or Crom, or Bride, the
+queen of Celtic song, may have worn to the pre-Christian
+ages we know not, nor can know; but the minor creations
+of Grecian fancy, with which they peopled their groves
+and fountains, are true kindred of the brain, to the
+innocent, intelligent, and generally gentle inhabitants
+of the Gaelic Fairyland. The _Sidhe_, a tender, tutelary
+spirit, attached herself to heroes, accompanied them in
+battle, shrouded them with invisibility, dressed their
+wounds with more than mortal skill, and watched over them
+with more than mortal love; the _Banshee_, a sad,
+Cassandra-like spirit, shrieked her weird warning in
+advance of death, but with a prejudice eminently Milesian,
+watched only over those of pure blood, whether their
+fortunes abode in hovel or hall. The more modern and
+grotesque personages of the Fairy world are sufficiently
+known to render description unnecessary.
+
+Two habitual sources of social enjoyment and occupation
+with the Irish of those days were music and chess. The
+harp was the favourite instrument, but the horn or trumpet,
+and the pibroch or bagpipe, were also in common use. Not
+only professional performers, but men and women of all
+ranks, from the humblest to the highest, prided themselves
+on some knowledge of instrumental music. It seems to have
+formed part of the education of every order, and to have
+been cherished alike in the palace, the shieling, and
+the cloister. "It is a poor church that has no music,"
+is a Gaelic proverb, as old, perhaps, as the establishment
+of Christianity in the land; and no house was considered
+furnished without at least one harp. Students from other
+countries, as we learn from _Giraldus_, came to Ireland
+for their musical education in the twelfth century, just
+as our artists now visit Germany and Italy with the same
+object in view.
+
+The frequent mention of the game of chess, in ages long
+before those at which we have arrived, shows how usual
+was that most intellectual amusement. The chess board
+was called in Irish _fithcheall_, and is described in
+the Glossary of Cormac, of Cashel, composed towards the
+close of the ninth century, as quadrangular, having
+straight spots of black and white. Some of them were
+inlaid with gold and silver, and adorned with gems.
+Mention is made in a tale of the twelfth century of a
+"man-bag of woven brass wire." No entire set of the
+ancient men is now known to exist, though frequent mention
+is made of "the brigade or family of chessmen," in many
+old manuscripts. Kings of bone, seated in sculptured
+chairs, about two inches in height, have been found, and
+specimens of them engraved in recent antiquarian
+publications.
+
+It only remains to notice, very briefly, the means of
+locomotion which bound and brought together this singular
+state of society. Five great roads, radiating from Tara,
+as a centre, are mentioned in our earliest record; the
+road _Dala_ leading to Ossory, and so on into Munster;
+the road _Assail_, extending western through Mullingar
+towards the Shannon; the road _Cullin_, extending towards
+Dublin and Bray; the exact route of the northern road,
+_Midhluachra_, is undetermined; _Slighe Mor_, the great
+western road, followed the course of the _esker_, or
+hill-range, from Tara to Galway. Many cross-roads are
+also known as in common use from the sixth century
+downwards. Of these, the Four Masters mention, at various
+dates, not less than forty, under their different local
+names, previous to the Norman invasion. These roads were
+kept in repair, according to laws enacted for that purpose,
+and were traversed by the chiefs and ecclesiastics in
+_carbads_, or chariots; a main road was called a _slighe_
+(_sleigh_), because it was made for the free passage of
+two chariots--"i.e. the chariot of a King and the chariot
+of a Bishop." Persons of that rank were driven by an
+_ara_, or charioteer, and, no doubt, made a very imposing
+figure. The roads were legally to be repaired at three
+seasons, namely, for the accommodation of those going to
+the national games, at fair-time, and in time of war.
+Weeds and brushwood were to be removed, and water to be
+drained off; items of road-work which do not give us a
+very high idea of the comfort or finish of those ancient
+highways.
+
+Such, faintly seen from afar, and roughly sketched, was
+domestic life and society among our ancestors, previous
+to the Anglo-Norman invasion, in the reign of King Roderick
+O'Conor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+FOREIGN RELATIONS OF THE IRISH PREVIOUS TO THE ANGLO-NORMAN
+INVASION.
+
+The relations of the Irish with other nations,
+notwithstanding the injurious effects of their War of
+Succession on national unity and reputation, present
+several points of interest. After the defeat of Magnus
+Barefoot, we may drop the Baltic countries out of the
+map of the relations of Ireland. Commencing, therefore,
+at the north of the neighbouring island--which, in its
+entirety, they sometimes called _Inismore_--the most
+intimate and friendly intercourse was always upheld with
+the kingdom of Scotland. Bound together by early
+ecclesiastical and bardic ties, confronting together for
+so many generations a common enemy, those two countries
+were destined never to know an international quarrel.
+About the middle of the ninth century (A.D. 843), when
+the Scoto-Irish in Caledonia had completely subdued the
+Picts and other ancient tribes, the first national dynasty
+was founded by Kenneth McAlpine. The constitution given
+by this Prince to the whole country seems to have been
+a close copy of the Irish--it embraced the laws of Tanistry
+and succession, and the whole Brehon code, as administered
+in the parent state. The line of Kenneth may be said to
+close with Donald Bane, brother of Malcolm III., who died
+in 1094, and not only his dynasty but his system ended
+with that century. Edgar, Alexander I., and David I.,
+all sons of Malcolm III., were educated in England among
+the victorious Normans, and in the first third of the
+twelfth century, devoted themselves with the inauspicious
+aid of Norman allies, to the introduction of Saxon settlers
+and the feudal system, first into the lowlands, and
+subsequently into Moray-shire. This innovation on their
+ancient system, and confiscation of their lands, was
+stoutly resisted by the Scottish Gael. In Somerled, lord
+of the Isles, and ancestor of the Macdonalds, they found
+a powerful leader, and Somerled found Irish allies always
+ready to assist him, in a cause which appealed to all
+their national prejudices. In the year 1134, he led a
+strong force of Irish and Islesmen to the assistance of
+the Gaelic insurgents, but was defeated and slain, near
+Renfrew, by the royal troops, under the command of the
+Steward of Scotland. During the reigns of William the
+Lion, Alexander II., and Alexander III., the war of
+systems raged with all its fierceness, and in nearly all
+the great encounters Irish auxiliaries, as was to be
+expected, were found on the side of the Gaelic race and
+Gaelic rights. Nor did this contest ever wholly cease in
+Scotland, until the last hopes of the Stuart line were
+extinguished on the fatal field of Culloden, where Irish
+captains formed the battle, and Irish blood flowed freely,
+intermingled with the kindred blood of Highlanders and
+Islesmen.
+
+The adoption of Norman usages, laws, and tactics, by the
+Scottish dynasties of the twelfth and succeeding centuries,
+did not permanently affect the national relations of
+Ireland and Scotland. It was otherwise with regard to
+England. We have every reason to believe--we have the
+indirect testimony of every writer from Bede to Malmsbury
+--that the intercourse between the Irish and Saxons,
+after the first hostility engendered by the cruel treatment
+of the Britons had worn away, became of the most friendly
+character. The "Irish" who fought at Brunanburgh against
+Saxon freedom were evidently the natural allies of the
+Northmen, the Dano-Irish of Dublin, and the southern
+seaports. The commerce of intelligence between the islands
+was long maintained; the royalty of Saxon England had
+more than once, in times of domestic revolution, found
+a safe and desired retreat in the western island. The
+fair Elgiva and the gallant Harold had crossed the western
+waves in their hour of need. The fame of Edward the
+Confessor took such deep hold on the Irish mind that,
+three centuries after his death, his banner was unfurled
+and the royal leopards laid aside to facilitate the march
+of an English King, through the fastnesses of Leinster.
+The Irish, therefore, were not likely to look upon the
+establishment of a Norman dynasty, in lieu of the old
+Saxon line, as a matter of indifference. They felt that
+the Norman was but a Dane disguised in armour. It was
+true he carried the cross upon his banner, and claimed
+the benediction of the successor of St. Peter; true also
+he spoke the speech of France, and claimed a French
+paternity; but the lust for dominion, the iron self-will,
+the wily devices of strategy, bespoke the Norman of the
+twelfth, the lineal descendant of the Dane of the tenth
+century. When, therefore, tidings reached Ireland of the
+battle of Hastings and the death of Harold, both the
+apprehensions and the sympathies of the country were
+deeply excited. Intelligence of the coronation of William
+the Conqueror quickly followed, and emphatically announced
+to the Irish the presence of new neighbours, new dangers,
+and new duties.
+
+The spirit with which our ancestors acted towards the
+defeated Saxons, whatever we may think of its wisdom,
+was, at least, respectable for decision and boldness.
+Godwin, Edmund, and Magnus, sons of Harold, had little
+difficulty in raising in Ireland a numerous force to
+co-operate with the Earls Edwin and Morcar, who still
+upheld the Saxon banner. With this force, wafted over in
+sixty-six vessels, they entered the Avon, and besieged
+Bristol, then the second commercial city of the kingdom.
+But Bristol held out, and the Saxon Earls had fallen back
+into Northumberland, so the sons of Harold ran down the
+coast, and tried their luck in Somersetshire with a better
+prospect. Devonshire and Dorsetshire favoured their
+cause; the old Britons of Cornwall swelled their ranks,
+and the rising spread like flame over the west. Eadnoth,
+a renegade Saxon, formerly Harold's Master of Horse,
+despatched by William against Harold's sons, was defeated
+and slain. Doubling the Land's End, the victorious force
+entered the Tamar, and overran South Devon. The united
+garrisons of London, Winchester, and Salisbury, were sent
+against them, under the command of the martial Bishop of
+Coutances; while a second force advanced along the Tamar,
+under Brian, heir of the Earl of Brittany, who routed
+them with a loss of 2,000 men, English, Welsh, and Irish.
+The sons of Harold retreated to their vessels with all
+their booty, and returned again into Ireland, where they
+vanish from history. Such, in the vale of Tamar, was the
+first collision of the Irish and Normans, and as the race
+of Rolla never forgot an enemy, nor forewent a revenge,
+we may well believe that, even thus early, the invasion
+of Ireland was decided upon. Meredith Hanmer relates in
+his Chronicle that William Rufus, standing on a high
+rock, and looking towards Ireland said: "I will bring
+hither my ships, and pass over and conquer that land;"
+and on these words of the son of the Conqueror being
+repeated to Murkertach O'Brien, he replied: "Hath the
+King in his great threatening said _if it please God?_"
+and when answered "No;" "Then," said the Irish monarch,
+"I fear him not, since he putteth his trust in man and
+not in God."
+
+Ireland, however, was destined to be reached through
+Wales, and along that mountain coast we early find Norman
+castles and Norman ships. It was the special ambition of
+William Rufus to add the principality to the conquests
+of his father, and the active sympathy of the Welsh with
+the Saxons on their inland border gave him pretexts
+enough. A bitter feud between North and South Wales
+hastened an invasion, in which Robert Fitz-Aymon and his
+companions played, by anticipation, the parts of Strongbow
+and Fitz-Stephen, in the invasion of Ireland.
+
+The struggle, commenced under them, was protracted through
+the reign of Rufus, who led an army in person (A.D.
+1095) against the Welsh, but with little gain and less
+glory. As an after thought he adopted the device of his
+father, (followed, too, in Ireland by Henry II.,) of
+partitioning the country among the most enterprising
+nobles, gravely accepting their homage in advance of
+possession, and authorizing them to maintain troops at
+their own charges, for making good his grant of what
+never belonged to him. Robert Fitz-Aymon did homage for
+Glamorgan, Bernard Newmarch for Brecknock, Roger de
+Montgomery for Cardigan, and Gilbert de Clare for Pembroke:
+the best portions of North Wales were partitioned between
+the Mortimers, Latimers, De Lacys, Fitz-Alans, and
+Montgomerys. Rhys, Prince of Cambria, with many of his
+nobles, fell in battle defending bravely his native hills;
+but Griffith, son of Rhys, escaped into Ireland, from
+which he returned some twenty years later, and recovered
+by arms and policy a large share of his ancestral dominions.
+In the reign of Henry I. (A.D. 1110), a host of Flemings,
+driven from their own country by an inundation of the
+sea, were planted upon the Welsh marches, from which they
+soon swarmed into all the Cambrian glens and glades. The
+industry and economy of this new people, in peaceful
+times, seemed almost inconsistent with their stubborn
+bravery in battle; but they demonstrated to the Welsh,
+and afterwards to the Irish, that they could handle the
+halbert as well as throw the shuttle; that men of trade
+may on occasion prove themselves capable men of war.
+
+The Norman Kings of England were not insensible to the
+fact that the Cymric element in Wales, the Saxon element
+in England, and the Gaelic element in Scotland, were all
+more agreeable to the Irish than the race of Rollo and
+William. They were not ignorant that Ireland was a refuge
+for their victims and a recruiting ground for their
+enemies. They knew, furthermore, that most of the strong
+points on the Irish coast, from the Shannon to the Liffey,
+were possessed by Christian Northmen kindred to themselves.
+They knew that the land was divided within itself, weakened
+by a long war of succession; groaning under the ambition
+of five competitors for the sovereignty; and suffering
+in reputation abroad under the invectives of Saint Bernard,
+and the displeasure of Rome. More tempting materials for
+intrigue, or fairer opportunities of aggrandizement,
+nowhere presented themselves, and it was less want of
+will than of leisure from other and nearer contests,
+which deferred this new invasion for a century after the
+battle of Hastings.
+
+While that century was passing over their heads, an
+occasional intercourse, not without its pleasing incidents,
+was maintained between the races. In the first year of
+the twelfth, Arnulph de Montgomery, Earl of Chester,
+obtained a daughter of Murkertach O'Brien in marriage;
+the proxy on the occasion being Gerald, son of the
+Constable of Windsor, and ancestor of the Geraldines.
+Murkertach, according to Malmsbury, maintained a close
+correspondence with Henry I., for whose advice he professed
+great deference. He was accused of aiding the rebellion
+of the Montgomerys against that Prince; and if at one
+time he did so, seems to have abandoned their alliance,
+when threatened with reprisals on the Irish engaged in
+peaceful commerce with England. The argument used on this
+occasion seems to be embodied in the question of
+Malmsbury--and has since become familiar--"What would
+Ireland do," says the old historian, "if the merchandize
+of England were not carried to her shores?"
+
+The estimation in which the Irish Princes were held in
+the century preceding the invasion, at the Norman Court,
+may be seen in the style of Lanfranc and Anselm, when
+addressing the former King Thorlogh, and the latter King
+Murkertach O'Brien. The first generation of the conquerors
+had passed away before the second of these epistles was
+written. In the first, the address runs--"Lanfrancus, a
+sinner, and the unworthy Bishop of the Holy Church of
+Dover, to the illustrious Terdelvacus, King of Ireland,
+blessing," &c., &c.; and the epistle of Anselm is
+addressed--"To Muriardachus, by the grace of God, glorious
+King of Ireland, Anselm, servant of the Church of
+Canterbury, greeting health and salvation," &c., &c. This
+was the tone of the highest ecclesiastics in England
+towards the ruler of Ireland, in the reigns of William I.
+and Henry I., and equally obsequious were the replies of
+the Irish Princes.
+
+After the death of Henry I., nineteen years of civil war
+and anarchy diverted the Anglo-Normans from all other
+objects. In the year 1154, however, Henry of Anjou
+succeeded to the throne, on which he was destined to act
+so important a part. He was born in Anjou in the year
+1133, and married at eighteen the divorced wife of the
+King of France. Uniting her vast dominions to his own
+patrimony, he became the lord of a larger part of France
+than was possessed by the titular king. In his twenty-first
+year he began to reign in England, and in his thirty-fifth
+he received the fugitive Dermid of Leinster, in some camp
+or castle of Aquitaine, and took that outlaw, by his own
+act, under his protection. The centenary of the victory
+of Hastings had just gone by, and it needed only this
+additional agent to induce him to put into execution a
+plan which he must have formed in the first months of
+his reign, since the Bull he had procured from Pope
+Adrian, bears the date of that year--1154. The return
+from exile, and martyrdom of Beckett, disarranged and
+delayed the projects of the English King; nor was he able
+to lead an expedition into Ireland until four years after
+his reception of the Leinster fugitive in France.
+
+Throughout the rest of Christendom--if we except Rome--
+the name of Ireland was comparatively little known. The
+commerce of Dublin, Limerick, and Galway, especially in
+the article of wine, which was already largely imported,
+may have made those ports and their merchants somewhat
+known on the coasts of France and Spain. But we have no
+statistics of Irish commerce at that early period. Along
+the Rhine and even upon the Danube, the Irish missionary
+and the Irish schoolmaster were still sometimes found.
+The chronicle of Ratisbon records with gratitude the
+munificence of Conor O'Brien, King of Munster, whom it
+considers the founder of the Abbey of St. Peter in that
+city. The records of the same Abbey credit its liberal
+founder with having sent large presents to the Emperor
+Lothaire, in aid of the second crusade for the recovery
+of the Holy Land. Some Irish adventurers joined in the
+general European hosting to the plains of Palestine, but
+though neither numerous nor distinguished enough to occupy
+the page of history, their _glibs_ and _cooluns_ did not
+escape the studious eye of him who sang Jerusalem Delivered
+and Regained.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK IV.
+
+THE NORMANS IN IRELAND.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+DERMID McMURROGH'S NEGOTIATIONS AND SUCCESS--THE FIRST
+EXPEDITION OF THE NORMANS INTO IRELAND.
+
+The result of Dermid McMurrogh's interview with Henry II.,
+in Aquitaine, was a royal letter, addressed to all his
+subjects, authorizing such of them as would, to enlist
+in the service of the Irish Prince. Armed alone with
+this, the expelled adulterer, chafing for restoration
+and revenge, retraced his course to England. He was at
+this time some years beyond three score, but the snows
+of age had no effect in cooling his impetuous blood; his
+stature is described as almost gigantic; his voice loud
+and harsh; his features stern and terrible. His cruel
+and criminal character we already know. Yet it is but
+just here to recall that much of the horror and odium
+which has accumulated on his memory is posthumous and
+retrospective. Some of his cotemporaries were no better
+in their private lives than he was; but then they had no
+part in bringing in the Normans. Talents both for peace
+and war he certainly had, and there was still a feeling
+of attachment, or at least of regret, cherished towards
+him among the people of his patrimony.
+
+Dermid proceeded at once to seek the help he so sorely
+needed, upon the marches of Chester, in the city of
+Bristol, and at the court of the Prince of North Wales.
+At Bristol he caused King Henry's letter to be publicly
+read, and each reading was accompanied by ample promises
+of land and recompense to those disposed to join in the
+expedition--but all in vain. From Bristol he proceeded
+to make the usual pilgrimage to the shrine of St. David,
+the Apostle of Wales, and then he visited the Court of
+Griffith ap Rhys, Prince of North Wales, whose family
+ties formed a true Welsh triad among the Normans, the
+Irish, and the Welsh. He was the nephew of the celebrated
+Nest or Nesta, the Helen of the Welsh, whose blood flowed
+in the veins of almost all the first Norman adventurers
+in Ireland, and whose story is too intimately interwoven
+with the origin of many of the highest names of the
+Norman-Irish to be left untold.
+
+She was, in her day, the loveliest woman of Cambria, and
+perhaps of Britain, but the fabled mantle of Tregau,
+which, according to her own mythology, will fit none but
+the chaste, had not rested on the white shoulders of
+Nesta, the daughter of Rhys ap Tudor. Her girlish beauty
+had attracted the notice of Henry I., to whom she bore
+Robert Fitz-Roy and Henry Fitz-Henry, the former the
+famous Earl of Gloucester, and the latter the father of
+two of Strongbow's most noted companions. Afterwards,
+by consent of her royal paramour, she married Gerald,
+constable of Pembroke, by whom she had Maurice Fitzgerald,
+the common ancestor of the Kildare and Desmond Geraldines.
+While living with Gerald at Pembroke, Owen, son of Cadogan,
+Prince of Powis, hearing of her marvellous beauty at a
+banquet given by his father at the Castle of Aberteivi,
+came by night to Pembroke, surprised the Castle, and
+carried off Nesta and her children into Powis. Gerald,
+however, had escaped, and by the aid of his father-in-law,
+Rhys, recovered his wife and rebuilt his castle (A.D.
+1105). The lady survived this husband, and married a
+second time, Stephen, constable of Cardigan, by whom she
+had Robert Fitzstephen, and probably other children. One
+of her daughters, Angharad, married David de Barri, the
+father of Giraldus and Robert de Barri; another, named
+after herself, married Bernard of Newmarch, and became
+the father of the Fitz-Bernard, who accompanied Henry II.
+In the second and third generations this fruitful Cambrian
+vine, grafted on the Norman stock, had branched out into
+the great families of the Carews, Gerards, Fitzwilliams,
+and Fitzroys, of England and Wales, and the Geraldines,
+Graces, Fitz-Henries, and Fitz-Maurices, of Ireland.
+These names will show how entirely the expeditions of
+1169 and 1170 were joint-stock undertakings with most of
+the adventurers; Cambria, not England, sent them forth;
+it was a family compact; they were brothers in blood as
+well as in arms, those comely and unscrupulous sons,
+nephews, and grand-sons of Nesta!
+
+When the Leinster King reached the residence of Griffith
+ap Rhys, near St. David's, he found that for some personal
+or political cause he held in prison his near kinsman,
+Robert, son of Stephen, who had the reputation of being
+a brave and capable knight. Dermid obtained the release
+of Robert, on condition of his embarking in the Irish
+enterprise, and he found in him an active recruiting
+agent, alike among Welsh, Flemings, and Normans. Through
+him Maurice Fitzgerald, the de Barris, and Fitz-Henrys,
+and their dependents, were soon enlisted in the adventure.
+The son of Griffith ap Rhys, who may be mentioned along
+with these knights, his kinsmen, and whom the Irish
+annalists consider the most important person of the first
+expedition--their pillar of battle--also resolved to
+accompany them, with such forces as he could enlist.
+
+But a still more important ally waited to treat with
+Dermid, on his return to Bristol. This was Richard de
+Clare, called variously from his castles or his county,
+Earl of Strigul and Chepstow, or Earl of Pembroke. From
+the strength of his arms he was nicknamed Strongbow, and
+in our Annals he is usually called Earl Richard, by which
+title we prefer hereafter to distinguish him. His father,
+Gilbert de Clare, was descended from Richard of Normandy,
+and stood no farther removed in degree from that Duke
+than the reigning Prince. For nearly forty years under
+Henry I. and during the stormy reign of King Stephen, he
+had been Governor of Pembroke, and like all the great
+Barons played his game chiefly to his own advantage. His
+castle at Chepstow was one of the strongest in the west,
+and the power he bequeathed to his able and ambitious
+son excited the apprehensions of the astute and suspicious
+Henry II. Fourteen years of this King's reign had passed
+away, and Earl Richard had received no great employments,
+no new grants of land, no personal favours from his
+Sovereign. He was now a widower, past middle age, condemned
+to a life of inaction such as no true Norman could long
+endure. Arrived at Bristol, he read the letter of Henry,
+and heard from Dermid the story of his expulsion and the
+grounds on which he vested his hopes of restoration. A
+consultation ensued, at which it is probable the sons of
+Nesta assisted, as it was there agreed that the town of
+Wexford, with two cantreds of land adjoining it, should
+be given to them. The pay of the archers and men-at-arms,
+and the duration of their service, were also determined.
+Large grants of land were guaranteed to all adventurers
+of knightly rank, and Earl Richard was to marry the King's
+daughter and succeed him in the sovereignty of Leinster.
+
+Having by such lavish promises enlisted this powerful
+Earl and those adventurous knights, Dermid resolved to
+pass over in person with such followers as were already
+equipped, in order to rally the remnant of his adherents.
+The Irish Annals enter this return under the year 1167,
+within twelvemonths or thereabouts from the time of his
+banishment; by their account he came back, accompanied
+by a fleet of strangers whom they called Flemings, and
+who were probably hired soldiers of that race, then easily
+to be met with in Wales. The Welsh Prince already mentioned
+seems to have accompanied him personally, as he fell by
+his side in a skirmish the following year. Whatever this
+force may have amounted to, they landed at Glascarrig
+point, and wintered--probably spent the Christmas--at
+Ferns. The more generally received account of Dermid's
+landing alone, and disguised, and secretly preparing his
+plans, under shelter of the Austin Friary at Ferns, must
+be rejected, if we are still to follow those trite but
+trustworthy guides, whom we have so many reasons to
+confide in. The details differ in many very important
+particulars from those usually received, as we shall
+endeavour to make clear in a few words.
+
+Not only do they bring Dermid over with a fleet of
+Flemings, of whom the natives made "small account," but
+dating that event before the expiration of the year 1167,
+at least sixteen months must have elapsed between the
+return of the outlaw and the arrival of the Normans. By
+allowing two years instead of one for the duration of
+his banishment, the apparent difficulty as to time would
+be obviated, for his return and Fitzstephen's arrival
+would follow upon each other in the spring and winter of
+the same year. The difficulty, however, is more apparent
+than real. A year sufficed for the journey to Aquitaine
+and the Welsh negotiations. Another year seems to have
+been devoted with equal art and success to resuscitating
+a native Leinster party favourable to his restoration.
+For it is evident from our Annals that when Dermid showed
+himself to the people after his return, it was simply to
+claim his patrimony--Hy-Kinsellagh--and not to dispute
+the Kingdom of Leinster with the actual ruler, _Murrogh
+na Gael_. By this pretended moderation and humility, he
+disarmed hostility and lulled suspicion asleep. Roderick
+and O'Ruarc did indeed muster a host against him, and
+some of their cavalry and Kernes skirmished with the
+troops in his service at Kellistown, in Carlow, when six
+were killed on one side and twenty-five on the other,
+including the Welsh Prince already mentioned; afterwards
+Dermid emerged from his fastnesses, and entering the camp
+of O'Conor, gave him seven hostages for the ten cantreds
+of his patrimony; and to O'Ruarc he gave "one hundred
+ounces of gold for his _eineach_"--that is, as damages
+for his criminal conversation with Devorgoil. During the
+remainder of the year 1168, Dermid was left to enjoy
+unmolested the moderate territory which he claimed, while
+King Roderick was engaged in enforcing his claims on the
+North and South, founding lectorships at Armagh, and
+partitioning Meath between his inseparable colleague,
+O'Ruarc, and himself. He celebrated, in the midst of an
+immense multitude, the ancient national games at Tailtin,
+he held an assembly at Tara, and distributed magnificent
+gifts to his suffragans. Roderick might have spent the
+festival of Christmas, 1168, or of Easter, 1169, in the
+full assurance that his power was firmly established,
+and that a long succession of peaceful days were about
+to dawn upon Erin. But he was destined to be soon and
+sadly undeceived.
+
+In the month of May, a little fleet of Welsh vessels,
+filled with armed men, approached the Irish shore, and
+Robert Fitzstephen ran into a creek of the bay of Bannow,
+called by the adventurers, from the names of two of their
+ships, Bag-and-Bun. Fitzstephen had with him thirty
+knights, sixty esquires, and three hundred footmen. The
+next day he was joined by Maurice de Prendergast, a Welsh
+gentleman, with ten knights and sixty archers. After
+landing they reconnoitred cautiously, but saw neither
+ally nor enemy--the immediate coast seemed entirely
+deserted. Their messenger despatched to Dermid, then
+probably at Ferns, in the northern extremity of the
+county, must have been absent several anxious days, when,
+much to their relief, he returned with Donald, the son
+of Dermid, at the head of 500 horsemen. Uniting their
+troops, Donald and Fitzstephen set out for Wexford, about
+a day's march distant, and the principal town in that
+angle of the island which points towards Wales. The
+tradition of the neighbourhood says they were assailed
+upon the way by a party of the native population, who
+were defeated and dispersed. Within ten days or a
+fortnight of their landing, they were drawn up within
+sight of the walls of Wexford, where they were joined by
+Dermid, who obviously did not come unattended to such a
+meeting. What additional force he may have brought up is
+nowhere indicated; that he was not without followers or
+mercenaries, we know from the mention of the Flemings in
+his service, and the action of Kellistown in the previous
+year. The force that had marched from Bannow consisted,
+as we have seen, of 500 Irish horse under his son Donald,
+surnamed _Kavanagh_; 30 knights, 60 esquires, and 300
+men-at-arms under Fitzstephen; 10 knights and 60 archers
+under Prendergast; in all, nobles or servitors, not
+exceeding 1,000 men. The town, a place of considerable
+strength, could muster 2,000 men capable of bearing arms,
+nor is it discreditable to its Dano-Irish artizans and
+seamen that they could boast no captain equal to Fitzstephen
+or Donald Kavanagh. What a town multitude could do they
+did. They burned down an exposed suburb, closed their
+gates, and manned their walls. The first assault was
+repulsed with some loss on the part of the assailants,
+and the night past in expectation of a similar conflict
+on the morrow. In the early morning the townsmen could
+discern that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was being
+offered in the camp of their besiegers as a preparative
+for the dangers of the day. Within the walls, however,
+the clergy exercised all their influence to spare the
+effusion of blood, and to bring about an accommodation.
+Two Bishops who were in the town especially advised a
+surrender on honourable terms, and their advice was taken.
+Four of the principal citizens were deputed to Dermid,
+and Wexford was yielded on condition of its rights and
+privileges, hitherto existing, being respected. The
+cantreds immediately adjoining the town on the north and
+east were conferred on Fitzstephen according to the treaty
+made at Bristol, and he at once commenced the erection
+of a fortress on the rock of Carrig, at the narrowest
+pass on the river Slaney. Strongbow's uncle, Herve, was
+endowed with two other cantreds, to the south of the
+town, now known as the baronies of Forth and Bargey,
+where the descendants of the Welsh and Flemish settlers
+then planted are still to be found in the industrious
+and sturdy population, known as Flemings, Furlongs,
+Waddings, Prendergasts, Barrys, and Walshes. Side by
+side with them now dwell in peace the Kavanaghs, Murphys,
+Conors, and Breens, whose ancestors so long and so fiercely
+disputed the intrusion of these strangers amongst them.
+
+With some increase of force derived from the defenders
+of Wexford, Dermid, at the head of 3000 men, including
+all the Normans, marched into the adjoining territory of
+Ossory, to chastise its chief, Donogh Fitzpatrick, one
+of his old enemies. This campaign appears to have consumed
+the greater part of the summer of the year, and ended
+with the submission of Ossory, after a brave but unskilful
+resistance. The tidings of what was done at Wexford and
+in Ossory had, however, roused the apprehension of the
+monarch Roderick, who appointed a day for a national
+muster "of the Irish" at the Hill of Tara. Thither
+repaired accordingly the monarch himself, the lords of
+Meath, Oriel, Ulidia, Breffni, and the chiefs of the
+farther north. With this host they proceeded to Dublin,
+which they found as yet in no immediate danger of attack;
+and whether on this pretext or some other, the Ulster
+chiefs returned to their homes, leaving Roderick to
+pursue, with the aid of Meath and Breffni only, the
+footsteps of McMurrogh. The latter had fallen back upon
+Ferns, and had, under the skilful directions of Fitzstephen,
+strengthened the naturally difficult approaches to that
+ancient capital, by digging artificial pits, by felling
+trees, and other devices of Norman strategy. The season,
+too, must have been drawing nearly to a close, and the
+same amiable desire to prevent the shedding of Christian
+blood, which characterized all the clergy of this age,
+again subserved the unworthy purposes of the traitor and
+invader. Roderick, after a vain endeavour to detach
+Fitzstephen from Dermid and to induce him to quit the
+country, agreed to a treaty with the Leinster King, by
+which the latter acknowledged his supremacy as monarch,
+under the ancient conditions, for the fulfilment of which
+he surrendered to him his son Conor as hostage. By a
+secret and separate agreement Dermid bound himself to
+admit no more of the Normans into his service--an engagement
+which he kept as he did all others, whether of a public
+or a private nature. After the usual exchange of stipends
+and tributes, Roderick returned to his home in the west;
+and thus, with the treaty of Ferns, ended the comparatively
+unimportant but significant campaign of the year 1169.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE ARMS, ARMOUR AND TACTICS OF THE NORMANS AND IRISH.
+
+This would seem to be the proper place to point out the
+peculiarities in arms, equipment, and tactics, which gave
+the first Normans those military advantages over the
+Irish and Dano-Irish, which they had hitherto maintained
+over the Saxons, Welsh and Scots. In instituting such a
+comparison, we do not intend to confine it strictly to
+the age of Strongbow and Dermid; the description will
+extend to the entire period from the arrival of Fitzstephen
+to the death of Richard, Earl of Ulster--from 1169 to
+1333--a period of five or six generations, which we
+propose to treat of in the present book. After this Earl's
+decease, the Normans and Irish approximated more closely
+in all their customs, and no longer presented those marked
+contrasts which existed in their earlier intercourse and
+conflicts with each other. The armour of the first
+adventurers, both for man and horse, excited the wonder,
+the sarcasms, and the fears of the Irish. No such equipments
+had yet been seen in that country, nor indeed in any
+other, where the Normans were still strangers. As the
+Knights advanced on horseback, in their metal coating,
+they looked more like iron cylinders filled with flesh
+and blood, than like lithe and limber human combatants.
+The man-at-arms, whether Knight or Squire, was almost
+invariably mounted; his war-horse was usually led, while
+he rode a hackney, to spare the _destrier_. The body
+armour was a hauberk of netted iron or steel, to which
+were joined a hood, sleeves, breeches, hose and sabatons,
+or shoes, of the same material. Under the hauberk was
+worn a quilted gambeson of silk or cotton, reaching to
+the knees; over armour, except when actually engaged,
+all men of family wore costly coats of satin, velvet,
+cloth of gold or cloth of silver, emblazoned with their
+arms. The shields of the thirteenth century were of
+triangular form, pointed at the bottom; the helmet conical,
+with or without bars; the beaver, vizor and plate armour,
+were inventions of a later day. Earls, Dukes, and Princes,
+wore small crowns upon their helmets; lovers wore the
+favours of their mistresses; and victors the crests of
+champions they had overthrown. The ordinary weapons of
+these cavaliers were sword, lance, and knife; the
+demi-launce, or light horsemen, were similarly armed;
+and a force of this class, common in the Irish wars, was
+composed of mounted cross-bow men, and called from the
+swift, light _hobbies_ they rode, Hobiler-Archers. Besides
+many improvements in arms and manual exercise, the Normans
+perfected the old Roman machines and engines used in
+sieges. The scorpion was a huge cross-bow, the catapults
+showered stones to a great distance; the ballista discharged
+flights of darts and arrows. There were many other
+varieties of stone-throwing machinery; "the war-wolf"
+was long the chief of projectile machines, as the ram
+was of manual forces. The power of a battering-ram of
+the largest size, worked by a thousand men, has been
+proven to be equal to a point-blank shot from a thirty-six
+pounder. There were moveable towers of all sizes and of
+many names: "the sow" was a variety which continued in
+use in England and Ireland till the middle of the
+seventeenth century. The divisions of the cavalry were:
+first, the _Constable's_ command, some twenty-five men;
+next, the _Banneret_ was entitled to unfurl his own
+colours with consent of the Marshal, and might unite
+under his pennon one or more constabularies; the _Knight_
+led into the field all his retainers who held of him by
+feudal tenure, and sometimes the retainers of his squires,
+wards, or valets, and kinsmen. The laws of chivalry were
+fast shaping themselves into a code complete and coherent
+in all its parts, when these iron-clad, inventive and
+invincible masters of the art of war first entered on
+the invasion of Ireland.
+
+The body of their followers in this enterprise, consisting
+of Flemish, Welsh, and Cornish archers, may be best
+described by the arms they carried. The irresistible
+cross-bow was their main reliance. Its shot was so deadly
+that the Lateran Council, in 1139, strictly forbade its
+employment among Christian enemies. It combined with
+its stock, or bed, wheel, and trigger, almost all the
+force of the modern musket, and discharged square pieces
+of iron, leaden balls, or, in scarcity of ammunition,
+flint stones. The common cross-bow would kill, point
+blank, at forty or fifty yards distance, and the best
+improved at fully one hundred yards. The manufacture of
+these weapons must have been profitable, since their cost
+was equal, in the relative value of money, to that of
+the rifle, in our times. In the reign of Edward II. each
+cross-bow, purchased for the garrison of Sherborne Castle,
+cost 3 shillings and 8 pence; and every hundred of
+_quarrels_--the ammunition just mentioned--1 shilling
+and 6 pence. Iron, steel, and wood, were the materials
+used in the manufacture of this weapon.
+
+The long-bow had been introduced into England by the
+Normans, who are said to have been more indebted to that
+arm than any other, for their victory at Hastings. To
+encourage the use of the long-bow many statutes were
+passed, and so late as the time of the Stuarts, royal
+commissions were issued for the promotion of this national
+exercise. Under the early statutes no archer was permitted
+to practise at any standing mark at less than "eleven
+score yards distant;" no archer under twenty-four years
+of age was allowed to shoot twice from the same stand-point;
+parents and masters were subject to a fine of 6 shillings
+and 8 pence if they allowed their youth, under the age
+of seventeen, "to be without a bow and two arrows for
+one month together;" the walled towns were required to
+set up their butts, to keep them in repair, and to turn
+out for target-practice on holidays, and at other convenient
+times. Aliens residing in England were forbidden the
+use of this weapon--a jealous precaution showing the
+great importance attached to its possession. The usual
+length of the bow--which was made of yew, witch-hazel,
+ash, or elm--was about six feet; and the arrow, about
+half that length. Arrows were made of ash, feathered with
+part of a goose's wing, and barbed with iron or steel.
+In the reign of Edward III., a painted bow cost 1 shilling
+and 6 pence, a white bow, 1 shilling; a sheaf of
+steel-tipped arrows (24 to the sheaf), 1 shilling and 2
+pence, and a sheaf of _non accerata_ (the blunt sort),
+1 shilling The range of the long-bow, at its highest
+perfection, was, as we have seen, "eleven score yards,"
+more than double that of the ordinary cross-bow. The
+common sort of both these weapons carried about the same
+distance--nearly 100 yards.
+
+The natural genius of the Normans for war had been
+sharpened and perfected by then: campaigns in France and
+England, but more especially in the first and second
+Crusades. All that was to be learned of military science
+in other countries--all that Italian skill, Greek subtlety,
+or Saracen invention could teach, they knew and combined
+into one system. Their feudal discipline, moreover, in
+which the youth who entered the service of a veteran as
+page, rose in time to the rank of esquire and
+bachelor-at-arms, and finally won his spurs on some
+well-contested field, was eminently favourable to the
+training and proficiency of military talents. Not less
+remarkable was the skill they displayed in seizing on
+the strong and commanding points of communication within
+the country, as we see at this day, from the sites of
+their old Castles, many of which must have been, before
+the invention of gunpowder, all but impregnable.
+
+The art of war, if art it could in their case be called,
+was in a much less forward stage among the Irish in the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries than amongst the Normans.
+Of the science of fortification they perhaps knew no more
+than they had learned in their long struggle with the
+Danes and Norwegians. To render roads impassable, to
+strengthen their islands by stockades, to hold the
+naturally difficult passes which connect one province or
+one district with another--these seem to have been their
+chief ideas of the aid that valour may derive from
+artificial appliances. The fortresses of which we hear
+so frequently, during and after the Danish period, and
+which are erroneously called _Danes'-forts_, were more
+numerous than formidable to such enemies as the Normans.
+Some of these earth-and-stone-works are older than the
+Milesian invasion, and of Cyclopean style and strength.
+Those of the Milesians are generally of larger size,
+contain much more earth, and the internal chambers are
+of less massive masonry. They are almost invariably of
+circular form, and the largest remaining specimens are
+the Giant's Ring, near Belfast; the fort at Netterville,
+which measures 300 paces in circumference round the top
+of the embankment; the Black Rath, on the Boyne, which
+measures 321 paces round the outer wall of circumvallation;
+and the King's Rath, at Tara, upwards of 280 in length.
+The height of the outer embankment in forts of this size
+varied from fifteen to twenty feet; this embankment was
+usually surrounded by a fosse; within the embankment
+there was a platform, depressed so as to leave a circular
+parapet above its level. Many of these military raths
+have been found to contain subterranean chambers and
+circular winding passages, supposed to be used as granaries
+and armories. They are accounted capable of containing
+garrisons of from 200 to 500 men; but many of the fortresses
+mentioned from age to age in our annals were mere private
+residences, enclosing within their outer and inner walls
+space enough for the immediate retainers and domestics
+of the chief. Although coats of mail are mentioned in
+manuscripts long anterior to the Norman invasion, the
+Irish soldiers seem seldom or never to have been completely
+clothed in armour. Like the northern _Berserkers_, they
+prided themselves in fighting, if not naked, in their
+orange coloured shirts, dyed with saffron. The helmet
+and the shield were the only defensive articles of dress;
+nor do they seem to have had trappings for their horses.
+Their favourite missile weapon was the dart or javelin,
+and in earlier ages the sling. The spear or lance, the
+sword, and the sharp, short-handled battle-axe, were
+their favourite manual weapons. Their power with the
+battle-axe was prodigious; _Giraldus_ says they sometimes
+lopped off a horseman's leg at a single blow, his body
+falling over on the other side. Their bridle-bits and
+spurs were of bronze, as were generally their spear heads
+and short swords. Of siege implements, beyond the torch
+and the scaling-ladder, they seem to have had no knowledge,
+and to have desired none. The Dano-Irish alone were
+accustomed to fortify and defend their towns, on the
+general principles, which then composed the sum of what
+was known in Christendom of military engineering. Quick
+to acquire in almost every department of the art, the
+native Irish continued till the last obstinately insensible
+to the absolute necessity of learning how modern
+fortifications are constructed, defended, and captured;
+a national infatuation, of which we find melancholy
+evidence in every recurring native insurrection.
+
+The two divisions of the Irish infantry were the
+_galloglass_, or heavily armed foot soldier, called
+_gall_, either as a mercenary, or from having been equipped
+after the Norman method, and the _kerne_, or light
+infantry. The horsemen were men of the free tribes, who
+followed their chief on terms almost of equality, and
+who, except his immediate retainers, equipped and foraged
+for themselves. The highest unit of this force was a
+_Cath_, or battalion of 3,000 men; but the subdivision
+of command and the laws which established and maintained
+discipline have yet to be recovered and explained. The
+old Spanish "right of insurrection" seems to have been
+recognized in every chief of a free tribe, and no Hidalgo
+of old Spain, for real or fancied slight, was ever more
+ready to turn his horse's head homeward than were those
+refractory lords, with whom Roderick O'Conor and his
+successors, in the front of the national battle, had to
+contend or to co-operate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE FIRST CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD--SIEGE OF DUBLIN--DEATH
+OF KING DERMID McMURROGH.
+
+The campaigns of 1168 and 1169 had ended prosperously
+for Dermid in the treaty of Ferns. By that treaty he had
+bound himself to bring no more Normans into the country,
+and to send those already in his service back to their
+homes. But in the course of the same autumn or winter,
+in which this agreement was solemnly entered into, he
+welcomed the arrival at Wexford--of Maurice Fitzgerald
+--son of the fair Nesta by her first husband--and
+immediately employed this fresh force, consisting of 10
+knights, 30 esquires, and 100 footmen, upon a hosting
+which harried the open country about Dublin, and induced
+the alarmed inhabitants to send hostages into his camp,
+bearing proffers of allegiance and amity. As yet he did
+not feel in force sufficient to attack the city, for, if
+he had been, his long cherished vengeance against its
+inhabitants would not have been postponed till another
+season.
+
+In the meantime he had written most urgent letters to
+Earl Richard to hasten his arrival, according to the
+terms agreed upon at Bristol. That astute and ambitious
+nobleman had been as impatiently biding his time as Dermid
+had been his coming. Knowing the jealous sovereign under
+whom he served, he had gone over to France to obtain
+Henry's sanction to the Irish enterprise, but had been
+answered by the monarch, in oracular phrases, which might
+mean anything or nothing. Determined, however, to interpret
+these doubtful words in his own sense, he despatched his
+vanguard early in the spring of the year 1170, under the
+command of his uncle Herve and a company of 10 knights
+and 70 archers, under Raymond, son of William, lord of
+Carew, elder brother of Maurice Fitzgerald, and grandson
+of Nesta. In the beginning of May, Raymond, nicknamed
+_le gros_, or the Fat, entered Waterford harbour, and
+landed eight miles below the city, under the rock of
+Dundonolf, on the east, or Wexford side. Here they rapidly
+threw up a camp to protect themselves against attack,
+and to hold the landing place for the convenience of the
+future expedition. A tumultuous body of natives, amounting,
+according to the Norman account, to 3,000 men, were soon
+seen swarming across the Suir to attack the foreigners.
+They were men of Idrone and Desies, under their chiefs,
+O'Ryan and O'Phelan, and citizens of Waterford, who now
+rushed towards the little fortress, entirely unprepared
+for the long and deadly range of the Welsh and Flemish
+crossbows. Thrown into confusion by the unexpected
+discharge, in which every shot from behind the ramparts
+of turf brought down its man, they wavered and broke;
+Raymond and Herve then sallied out upon the fugitives,
+who were fain to escape, as many as could, to the other
+side of the river, leaving 500 prisoners, including 70
+chief citizens of Waterford behind them. These were all
+inhumanly massacred, according to _Giraldus_, the eulogist
+of all the Geraldines, by the order of Herve, contrary
+to the entreaties of Raymond. Their legs were first
+violently broken, and they were then hurled down the
+rocks into the tide. Five hundred men could not well be
+so captured and put to death by less than an equal number
+of hands, and we may, therefore, safely set down that
+number as holding the camp of Dundonolf during the summer
+months of the year.
+
+Earl Richard had not completed his arrangements until
+the month of August--so that his uncle and lieutenant
+had to hold the post they had seized for fully three
+months, awaiting his arrival in the deepest anxiety. At
+last, leaving his castle in Pembroke, he marched with
+his force through North Wales, by way of St. David's to
+Milford Haven--"and still as he went he took up all the
+best chosen and picked men he could get." At Milford,
+just as he was about to embark, he received an order from
+King Henry forbidding the expedition. Wholly disregarding
+this missive he hastened on board with 200 knights and
+1,200 infantry in his company, and on the eve of St.
+Bartholomew's Day (August 23rd), landed safely under the
+earthwork of Dundonolf, where he was joyfully received
+by Raymond at the head of 40 knights, and a corresponding
+number of men-at-arms. The next day the whole force,
+under the Earl, "who had all things in readiness" for
+such an enterprise, proceeded to lay siege to Waterford.
+Malachy O'Phelan, the brave lord of Desies, forgetting
+all ancient enmity against his Danish neighbours, had
+joined the townsmen to assist in the defence. Twice the
+besieged beat back the assailants, until Raymond perceiving
+at an angle of the wall the wooden props upon which a
+house rested, ordered them to be cut away, on which the
+house fell to the ground, and a breach was effected. The
+men-at-arms then burst in, slaughtering the inhabitants
+without mercy. In the tower, long known as Reginald's,
+or the ring tower, O'Phelan and Reginald, the Dano-Irish
+chief, held out until the arrival of King Dermid, whose
+intercession procured them such terms as led to their
+surrender. Then, amid the ruins of the burning city, and
+the muttered malediction of its surviving inhabitants,
+the ill-omened marriage of Eva McMurrogh with Richard de
+Clare was gaily celebrated, and the compact entered into
+at Bristol three years before was perfected.
+
+The marriage revelry was hardly over when tidings came
+from Dublin that Asculph MacTorcall, its Danish lord,
+had, either by the refusal of the annual tribute, or in
+some other manner, declared his independence of Dermid,
+and invoked the aid of the monarch Roderick, in defence
+of that city. Other messengers brought news that Roderick
+had assumed the protection of Dublin, and was already
+encamped at the head of a large army at Clondalkin, with
+a view of intercepting the march of the invaders from
+the south. The whole Leinster and Norman force, with the
+exception of a troop of archers left to garrison Waterford,
+were now put in motion for the siege of the chief city
+of the Hibernicized descendants of the Northmen. Informed
+of Roderick's position, which covered Dublin on the south
+and west, Dermid and Richard followed boldly the mountain
+paths and difficult roads which led by the secluded city
+of Glendalough, and thence along the coast road from Bray
+towards the mouth of the Liffey, until they arrived
+unexpectedly within the lines of Roderick, to the amazement
+and terror of the townsmen.
+
+The force which now, under the command-in-chief of Dermid,
+sat down to the siege of Dublin, was far from being
+contemptible. For a year past he had been recognized in
+Leinster as fully as any of his predecessors, and had so
+strengthened his military position as to propose nothing
+short of the conquest of the whole country. His choice
+of a line of march sufficiently shows how thoroughly he
+had overcome the former hostility of the stubborn
+mountaineers of Wicklow. The exact numbers which he
+encamped before the gates of Dublin are nowhere given,
+but on the march from Waterford, the vanguard, led by
+Milo de Cogan, consisted of 700 Normans and "an Irish
+battalion," which, taken literally, would mean 3,000 men,
+under Donald _Kavanagh_; Raymond the Fat followed "with
+800 British;" Dermid led on "the chief part of the Irish"
+(number not given), in person; Richard commanded the
+rear-guard, "300 British and 1,000 Irish soldiers."
+Altogether, it is not exorbitant to conjecture that the
+Leinster Prince led to the siege of Dublin an army of
+about 10,000 native troops, 1,500 Welsh and Flemish
+archers, and 250 knights. Except the handful who remained
+with Fitzstephen to defend his fort at Carrick, on the
+Slaney, and the archers left in Waterford, the entire
+Norman force in Ireland, at this time, were united in
+the siege. Of the foreign knights many were eminent for
+courage and capacity, both in peace and war. The most
+distinguished among them were Maurice Fitzgerald, the
+common ancestor of the Geraldines of Desmond and Kildare;
+Raymond the Fat, ancestor of the Graces of Ossory; the
+two Fitz-Henries, grandsons of Henry I., and the fair
+Nesta; Walter de Riddlesford, first Baron of Bray; Robert
+de Quincy, son-in-law and standard-bearer to Earl Richard;
+Herve, uncle to the Earl, and Gilbert de Clare, his son;
+Milo de Cogan, the first who entered Dublin by assault,
+and its first Norman governor; the de Barries, and de
+Prendergast. Other founders of Norman-Irish houses, as
+the de Lacies, de Courcies, le Poers, de Burgos, Butlers,
+Berminghams, came not over until the landing of Henry II.,
+or still later, with his son John.
+
+The townsmen of Dublin had every reason, from their
+knowledge of Dermid's cruel character, to expect the
+worst at his hands and those of his allies. The warning
+of Waterford was before them, but besides this they had
+a special cause of apprehension, Dermid's father having
+been murdered in their midst, and his body ignominiously
+interred with the carcase of a dog. Roderick having
+failed to intercept him, the citizens, either to gain
+time or really desiring to arrive at an accommodation,
+entered into negotiations. Their ambassador for this
+purpose was Lorcan, or Lawrence O'Toole, the first
+Archbishop of the city, and its first prelate of Milesian
+origin. This illustrious man, canonized both by sanctity
+and patriotism, was then in the thirty-ninth year of his
+age, and the ninth of his episcopate. His father was
+lord of Imayle and chief of his clan; his sister had been
+wife of Dermid and mother of Eva, the prize-bride of Earl
+Richard. He himself had been a hostage with Dermid in
+his youth, and afterwards Abbot of Glendalough, the most
+celebrated monastic city of Leinster. He stood, therefore,
+to the besieged, being their chief pastor, in the relation
+of a father; to Dermid, and strangely enough to Strongbow
+also, as brother-in-law and uncle by marriage. A fitter
+ambassador could not be found.
+
+Maurice Regan, the "_Latiner_," or Secretary of Dermid,
+had advanced to the walls, and summoned the city to
+surrender, and deliver up "30 pledges" to his master,
+their lawful Prince. Asculph, son of Torcall, was in
+favour of the surrender, but the citizens could not agree
+among themselves as to hostages. No one was willing to
+trust himself to the notoriously untrustworthy Dermid.
+The Archbishop was then sent out on the part of the
+citizens to arrange the terms in detail. He was received
+with all reverence in the camp, but while he was
+deliberating with the commanders without, and the townsmen
+were anxiously awaiting his return, Milo de Cogan and
+Raymond the Fat, seizing the opportunity, broke into the
+city at the head of their companies, and began to put
+the inhabitants ruthlessly to the sword. They were soon
+followed by the whole force eager for massacre and pillage.
+The Archbishop hastened back to endeavour to stay the
+havoc which was being made of his people. He threw
+himself before the infuriated Irish and Normans, he
+threatened, he denounced, he bared his own breast to the
+swords of the assassins. All to little purpose; the blood
+fury exhausted itself before peace settled over the city.
+Its Danish chief, Asculph, with many of his followers,
+escaped to their ships, and fled to the Isle of Man and
+the Hebrides in search of succour and revenge. Roderick,
+unprepared to besiege the enemy who had thus outmarched
+and outwitted him at that season of the year--it could
+not be earlier than October--broke up his encampment at
+Clondalkin, and retired to Connaught. Earl Richard having
+appointed de Cogan his governor of Dublin, followed on
+the rear of the retreating _Ard-Righ_, at the instigation
+of McMurrogh, burning and plundering the churches of
+Kells, Clonard and Slane, and carrying off the hostages
+of East-Meath.
+
+Though Dermid seemed to have forgotten altogether the
+conditions of the treaty of Ferns, yet not so Roderick.
+When he reached Athlone he caused Conor, son of Dermid,
+and the son of Donald _Kavanagh_, and the son of Dermid's
+fosterer, who had been given him as hostages for the
+fulfilment of that treaty, so grossly violated in every
+particular, to be beheaded. Dermid indulged in impotent
+vows of vengeance against Roderick, when he heard of
+these executions which his own perjuries had provoked;
+he swore that nothing short of the conquest of Connaught
+in the following spring would satisfy his revenge, and
+he sent the Ard-Righ his defiance to that purport. Two
+other events of military consequence marked the close of
+the year 1170. The foreign garrison of Waterford was
+surprised and captured by Cormac McCarthy, Prince of
+Desmond, and Henry II. having prohibited all intercourse
+between his lieges and his disobedient subject, Earl
+Richard, the latter had despatched Raymond the Fat, with
+the most humble submission of himself and his new
+possessions to his Majesty's decision. And so with Asculph,
+son of Torcall, recruiting in the isles of Insi-Gall,
+Lawrence, the Archbishop, endeavouring to unite the proud
+and envious Irish lords into one united phalanx, and
+Roderick, preparing for the new year's campaign, the
+winter of 1170-'71, came, and waned, and went.
+
+One occurrence of the succeeding spring may most
+appropriately be dismissed here--the death of the wretched
+and odious McMurrogh. This event happened, according to
+_Giraldus_, in the kalends of May. The Irish Annals
+surround his death-bed with all the horrors appropriate
+to such a scene. He became, they say, "putrid while
+living," through the miracles of St. Columbcille and St.
+Finian, whose churches he had plundered; "and he died at
+Fernamore, without making a will, without penance, without
+the body of Christ, without unction, as his evil deeds
+deserved." We have no desire to meditate over the memory
+of such a man. He, far more than his predecessor, whatever
+that predecessor's crimes might have been, deserved to
+have been buried with a dog.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SECOND CAMPAIGN OF EARL RICHARD--HENRY II. IN IRELAND.
+
+The campaign of the year 1171 languished from a variety
+of causes. At the very outset, the invaders lost their
+chief patron, who had been so useful to them. During the
+siege of Dublin, in the previous autumn, the townsmen of
+Wexford, who were in revolt, had, by stratagem, induced
+Robert Fitzstephen to surrender his fort at Carrick, and
+had imprisoned him in one of the islands of their harbour.
+Waterford had been surprised and taken by Cormac McCarthy,
+Prince of Desmond, and Strongbow, alarmed by the
+proclamation of Henry, knew hardly whether to consider
+himself outlaw, subject, or independent sovereign.
+
+Raymond the Fat had returned from his embassy to King
+Henry, with no comfortable tidings. He had been kept day
+after day waiting the pleasure of the King, and returned
+with sentences as dubious in his mouth, as those on which
+Earl Richard had originally acted. It was evidently not
+the policy of Henry to abandon the enterprise already so
+well begun, but neither was it his interest or desire
+that any subject should reap the benefit, or erect an
+independent power, upon his mere permission to embark in
+the service of McMurrogh. Herve, the Earl's uncle, had
+been despatched as ambassador in Raymond's place, but
+with no better success. At length, Richard himself, by
+the advice of all his counsellors, repaired to England,
+and waited on Henry at Newenham, in Gloucestershire. At
+first he was ignominiously refused an audience, but after
+repeated solicitations he was permitted to renew his
+homage. He then yielded in due form the city of Dublin,
+and whatever other conquests he claimed, and consented
+to hold his lands in Leinster, as chief tenant from the
+crown: in return for which he was graciously forgiven
+the success that had attended his adventure, and permitted
+to accompany the King's expedition, in the ensuing autumn.
+
+Before Strongbow's departure for England three unsuccessful
+attempts had been made for the expulsion of the Norman
+garrison from Dublin. They were unfortunately not undertaken
+in concert, but rather in succession. The first was an
+attempt at surprising the city by Asculph MacTorcall,
+probably relying on the active aid of the inhabitants of
+his own race. He had but "a small force," chiefly from
+the isles of Insi-Gall and the Orkneys. The Orcadians
+were under the command of a warrior called John the
+Furious or Mad, the last of those wild Berserkers of the
+North, whose valour was regarded in Pagan days as a
+species of divine frenzy. This redoubted champion, after
+a momentary success, was repulsed by Milo and Richard de
+Cogan, and finally fell by the hand of Walter de
+Riddlesford. Asculph was taken prisoner, and, avowing
+boldly his intention never to desist from attempting to
+recover the place, was put to death. The second attack
+has been often described as a regular investment by
+Roderick O'Conor, at the head of all the forces of the
+Island, which was only broken up in the ninth week of
+its duration, by a desperate sally on the part of the
+famished garrison. Many details and episodes, proper to
+so long a beleaguerment, are given by _Giraldus_, and
+reproduced by his copyists. We find, however, little
+warrant for these passages in our native annals, any more
+than for the antithetical speeches which the same partial
+historian places in the mouths of his heroes. The Four
+Masters limit the time to "the course of a fortnight."
+Roderick, according to their account, was accompanied by
+the lords of Breffni and Oriel only; frequent skirmishes
+and conflicts took place; an excursion was made against
+the Leinster Allies of the Normans, "to cut down and burn
+the corn of the Saxons." The surprise by night of the
+monarch's camp is also duly recorded; and that the enemy
+carried off "the provisions, armour, and horses of
+Roderick." By which sally, according to _Giraldus_, Dublin
+having obtained provisions enough for a year, Earl Richard
+marched to Wexford, "taking the higher way by Idrone,"
+with the hope to deliver Fitzstephen. But the Wexford
+men having burned their suburbs, and sent their goods
+and families into the stockaded island, sent him word
+that at the first attack they would put Fitzstephen and
+his companions to death. The Earl, therefore, held
+sorrowfully on his way to Waterford, where, leaving a
+stronger force than the first garrison, to which he had
+entrusted it, he sailed for England to make his peace
+with King Henry. The third attempt on Dublin was made by
+the lord of Breffni during the Earl's absence, and when
+the garrison were much reduced; it was equally unsuccessful
+with those already recorded. De Cogan displayed his usual
+courage, and the lord of Breffni lost a son and some of
+his best men in the assault.
+
+It was upon the marches of Wales that the Earl found King
+Henry busily engaged in making preparations for his own
+voyage into Ireland. He had levied on the landholders
+throughout his dominions an escutage or commutation for
+personal service, and the Pipe roll, which contains his
+disbursements for the year, has led an habitually cautious
+writer to infer "that the force raised for the expedition
+was much more numerous than has been represented by
+historians." During the muster of his forces he visited
+Pembroke, and made a progress through North Wales, severely
+censuring those who had enlisted under Strongbow, and
+placing garrisons of his own men in their castles. At
+Saint David's he made the usual offering on the shrine
+of the Saint and received the hospitalities of the Bishop.
+All things being in readiness, he sailed from Milford
+Haven, with a fleet of 400 transports, having on board
+many of the Norman nobility, 500 knights, and an army
+usually estimated at 4,000 men at arms. On the 18th of
+October, 1171, he landed safely at Crook, in the county
+of Waterford, being unable, according to an old local
+tradition, to sail up the river from adverse winds. As
+one headland of that harbour is called _Hook_, and the
+other _Crook_, the old adage, "by hook or by crook," is
+thought to have arisen on this occasion.
+
+In Henry's train, beside Earl Richard, there came over
+Hugh de Lacy, some time Constable of Chester; William,
+son of Aldelm, ancestor of the Clanrickardes; Theobald
+Walter, ancestor of the Butlers; Robert le Poer, ancestor
+of the Powers; Humphrey de Bohun, Robert Fitz-Barnard,
+Hugh de Gundeville, Philip de Hastings, Philip de Braos,
+and many other cavaliers whose names were renowned
+throughout France and England. As the imposing host formed
+on the sea side, a white hare, according to an English
+chronicler, leapt from a neighbouring hedge, and was
+immediately caught and presented to the King as an omen
+of victory. Prophecies, pagan and Christian--quatrains
+fathered on Saint Moling and triads attributed to
+Merlin--were freely showered in his path. But the true
+omen of his success he might read for himself, in a
+constitution which had lost its force, in laws which had
+ceased to be sacred, and in a chieftain race, brave indeed
+as mortal men could be, but envious, arrogant, revengeful,
+and insubordinate. For their criminal indulgence of
+these demoniacal passions a terrible chastisement was
+about to fall on them, and not only on them, but also,
+alas! on their poor people.
+
+The whole time passed by Henry II. in Ireland was from
+the 18th October, 1171, till the 17th of April following,
+just seven months. For the first politician of his age,
+with the command of such troops, and so much treasure,
+these seven months could not possibly be barren of
+consequences. Winter, the season of diplomacy, was seldom
+more industriously or expertly employed. The townsmen of
+Wexford, aware of his arrival as soon as it had taken
+place, hastened to make their submission and to deliver
+up to him their prisoner, Robert Fitzstephen, the first
+of the invaders. Henry, affecting the same displeasure
+towards Fitzstephen he did for all those who had anticipated
+his own expedition, ordered him to be fettered and
+imprisoned in Reginald's tower. At Waterford he also
+received the friendly overtures of the lords of Desies
+and Ossory, and probably some form of feudal submission
+was undergone by those chiefs. Cormac, Prince of Desmond,
+followed their example, and soon afterwards Donald O'Brien
+of Thomond met him on the banks of the Suir, not far from
+Cashel, made his peace, and agreed to receive a Norman
+garrison in his Hiberno-Danish city of Limerick. Having
+appointed commanders over these and other southern
+garrisons, Henry proceeded to Dublin, where a spacious
+cage-work palace, on a lawn without the city, was prepared
+for winter quarters. Here he continued those negotiations
+with the Irish chiefs, which we are told were so generally
+successful. Amongst others whose adhesion he received,
+mention is made of the lord of Breffni, the most faithful
+follower the Monarch Roderick could count. The chiefs of
+the Northern Hy-Nial remained deaf to all his overtures,
+and though Fitz-Aldelm and de Lacy, the commissioners
+despatched to treat with Roderick, are said to have
+procured from the deserted _Ard-Righ_ an act of submission,
+it is incredible that a document of such consequence
+should have been allowed to perish. Indeed, most of the
+confident assertions about submissions to Henry are to
+be taken with great caution; it is quite certain he
+himself, though he lived nearly twenty years after his
+Irish expedition, never assumed any Irish title whatever.
+It is equally true that his successor, Richard I., never
+assumed any such title, as an incident of the English
+crown. And although Henry in the year 1185 created his
+youngest son, John _Lackland_, "lord of Ireland," it was
+precisely in the same spirit and with as much ground of
+title as he had for creating Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath,
+or John de Courcy, Earl of Ulster. Of this question of
+title we shall speak more fully hereafter, for we do not
+recognize any English sovereign as _King_ of Ireland,
+previous to the year 1541; but it ought surely to be
+conclusive evidence, that neither had Henry claimed the
+crown, nor had the Irish chiefs acknowledged him as their
+_Ard-Righ_, that in the two authentic documents from his
+hand which we possess, he neither signs himself _Rex_
+nor _Dominus Hibernioe_. These documents are the Charter
+of Dublin, and the Concession of Glendalough, and their
+authenticity has never been disputed.
+
+After spending a right merry Christmas with Norman and
+Milesian guests in abundance at Dublin, Henry proceeded
+to that work of religious reformation, under plea of
+which he had obtained the Bill of Pope Adrian, seventeen
+years before, declaring such an expedition undertaken
+with such motives, lawful and praiseworthy. Early in the
+new year, by his desire, a synod was held at Cashel,
+where many salutary decrees were enacted. These related
+to the proper solemnization of marriage; the catechising
+of children before the doors of churches; the administration
+of baptism in baptismal or parish churches; the abolition of
+_Erenachs_ or lay Trustees of church property, and the
+imposition of tithes, both of corn and cattle. By most
+English writers this synod is treated as a National
+Council, and inferences are thence drawn of Henry's
+admitted power over the clergy of the nation. There is,
+however, no evidence that the Bishops of Ulster or
+Connaught were present at Cashel, but strong negative
+testimony to the contrary. We read under the date of the
+same year in the Four Masters, that a synod of the clergy
+and laity of Ireland was convened at Tuam by Roderick
+O'Conor and the Archbishop Catholicus O'Duffy. It is
+hardly possible that this meeting could be in continuation
+or in concord with the assembly convoked at the instance
+of Henry.
+
+Following quickly upon the Cashel Synod, Henry held a
+"Curia Regis" or Great Court at Lismore, in which he
+created the offices of Marshal, Constable, and Seneschal
+for Ireland. Earl Richard was created the first Lord
+Marshal; de Lacy, the first Lord Constable. Theobald,
+ancestor of the Ormond family, was already chief Butler,
+and de Vernon was created the first high Steward or
+Seneschal. Such other order as could be taken for the
+preservation of the places already captured, was not
+neglected. The surplus population of Bristol obtained a
+charter of Dublin to be held of Henry and his heirs,
+"with all the same liberties and free customs which they
+enjoyed at Bristol." Wexford was committed to the charge
+of Fitz-Aldelm, Waterford to de Bohun, and Dublin to de
+Lacy. Castles were ordered to be erected in the towns
+and at other points, and the politic king, having caused
+all those who remained behind to renew their homage in
+the most solemn form, sailed on Easter Monday from Wexford
+Haven, and on the same day, landed at Port-Finan in Wales.
+Here he assumed the Pilgrim's staff, and proceeded humbly
+on foot to St. David's, preparatory to meeting the Papal
+Commissioners appointed to inquire into Beckett's murder.
+
+It is quite apparent that had Henry landed in Ireland at
+any other period of his life except in the year of the
+martyrdom of the renowned Archbishop of Canterbury, while
+the wrath of Rome was yet hanging poised in the air,
+ready to be hurled against him, he would not have left
+the work he undertook but half begun. The nett result of
+his expedition, of his great fleet, mighty army, and
+sagacious counsels, was the infusion of a vast number of
+new adventurers (most of them of higher rank and better
+fortunes than their precursors), into the same old field.
+Except the garrisons admitted into Limerick and Cork,
+and the displacing of Strongbow's commandants by his own
+at Waterford, Wexford, and Dublin, there seems to have
+been little gained in a military sense. The decrees of
+the Synod of Cashel would, no doubt, stand him in good
+stead with the Papal legates as evidences of his desire
+to enforce strict discipline, even on lands beyond those
+over which he actually ruled. But, after all, harassed
+as he was with apprehensions of the future, perhaps no
+other Prince could have done more in a single winter in
+a strange country than Henry II. did for his seven months'
+sojourn in Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+FROM THE RETURN OF HENRY II. TO ENGLAND TILL THE DEATH
+OF EARL RICHARD AND HIS PRINCIPAL COMPANIONS.
+
+The Ard-Righ Roderick, during the period of Henry the
+Second's stay in Ireland, had continued west of the
+Shannon. Unsupported by his suffragans, many of whom
+made peace with the invader, he attempted no military
+operation, nor had Henry time sufficient to follow him
+into his strongholds. It was reserved for this ill-fated,
+and, we cannot but think, harshly judged monarch, to
+outlive the first generation of the invaders of his
+country, and to close a reign which promised so brightly
+at the beginning, in the midst of a distracted, war-spent
+people, having preserved through all vicissitudes the
+title of sovereign, but little else that was of value to
+himself or others.
+
+Among the guests who partook of the Christmas cheer of
+King Henry at Dublin, we find mention of Tiernan O'Ruarc,
+the lord of Breffni and East-Meath. For the Methian
+addition to his possessions, Tiernan was indebted to his
+early alliance with Roderick, and the success of their
+joint arms. Anciently the east of Meath had been divided
+between the four families called "the four tribes of
+Tara," whose names are now anglicized O'Hart, O'Kelly,
+O'Connelly, and O'Regan. Whether to balance the power of
+the great West-Meath family of O'Melaghlin, or because
+these minor tribes were unable to defend themselves
+successfully, Roderick, like his father, had partitioned
+Meath, and given the seaward side a new master in the
+person of O'Ruarc. The investiture of Hugh de Lacy by
+King Henry with the seignory of the same district, led
+to a tragedy, the first of its kind in our annals, but
+destined to be the prototype of an almost indefinite
+series, in which the gainers were sometimes natives, but
+much oftener Normans.
+
+O'Ruarc gave de Lacy an appointment at the hill of Ward,
+near Athboy, in the year 1173, in order to adjust their
+conflicting claims upon East-Meath. Both parties naturally
+guarded against surprise, by having in readiness a troop
+of armed retainers. The principals met apart on the
+summit of the hill, amid the circumvallations of its
+ancient fort; a single unarmed interpreter only was
+present. An altercation having arisen, between them,
+O'Ruarc lost his temper, and raised the battle-axe, which
+all our warriors carried in those days, as the gentlemen
+of the last century did their swords; this was the signal
+for both troops of guards to march towards the spot. De
+Lacy, in attempting to fly, had been twice felled to the
+earth, when his followers, under Maurice Fitzgerald and
+Griffith, his nephew, came to his rescue, and assailed
+the chief of Breffni. It was now Tiernan's turn to attempt
+escaping, but as he mounted his horse the spear of Griffith
+brought him to the earth mortally wounded, and his
+followers fled. His head was carried in triumph to Dublin,
+where it was spiked over the northern gate, and his body
+was gibbeted on the northern wall, with the feet uppermost.
+Thus, a spectacle of intense pity to the Irish, did these
+severed members of one of their most famous nobles remain
+exposed on that side of the stronghold of the stranger
+which looks towards the pleasant plains of Meath and the
+verdant uplands of Cavan.
+
+The administration of de Lacy was now interrupted by a
+summons to join his royal master, sore beset by his own
+sons in Normandy. The Kings of France and Scotland were
+in alliance with those unnatural Princes, and their
+mother, Queen Eleanor, might he called the author of
+their rebellion. As all the force that could be spared
+from Ireland was needed for the preservation of Normandy,
+de Lacy hastened to obey the royal summons, and Earl
+Richard, by virtue of his rank of Marshal, took for the
+moment the command in chief. Henry, however, who never
+cordially forgave that adventurer, first required his
+presence in France, and when alarmed by ill news from
+Ireland, he sent him back to defend the conquests already
+made, he associated with him in the supreme command--though
+not apparently in the civil administration--the gallant
+Raymond _le gros_. And it was full time for the best head
+and the bravest sword among the first invaders to return
+to their work--a task not to be so easily achieved as
+many confident persons then believed, and as many
+ill-informed writers have since described it.
+
+During the early rule of de Lacy, Earl Richard had
+established himself at Ferns, assuming, to such of the
+Irish as adhered to him, the demeanour of a king. After
+Dermid's death, he styled himself, in utter disregard of
+Irish law, "Prince of Leinster," in virtue of his wife.
+He proceeded to create feudal dignitaries, placing at
+their head, as Constable of Leinster, Robert de Quincy,
+to whom he gave his daughter, by his first wife, in
+marriage. At this point the male representatives of King
+Dermid came to open rupture with the Earl. Donald
+_Kavanagh_, surnamed "the Handsome," and by the Normans
+usually spoken of as "Prince" Donald, could scarcely be
+expected to submit to an arrangement, so opposed to all
+ancient custom, and to his own interests. He had borne
+a leading part in the restoration of his father, but
+surely not to this end--the exclusion of the male
+succession. He had been one of King Henry's guests during
+the Christmas holidays of the year 1172, and had rendered
+him some sort of homage, as Prince of Leinster. Henry,
+ever ready to raise up rivals to Strongbow, seems to have
+received him into favour, until Eva, the Earl's wife,
+proved, both in Ireland and England, that Donald and his
+brother Enna, were born out of wedlock, and that there
+was no direct male heir of Dermid left, after the execution
+of Conor, the hostage put to death by King Roderick. To
+English notions this might have been conclusive against
+Donald's title, but to the Irish, among whom the electoral
+principle was the source of all chieftainry, it was not
+so. A large proportion of the patriotic Leinstermen--what
+might be called the native party--adhered to Donald
+_Kavanagh_, utterly rejecting the title derived through
+the lady Eva.
+
+Such conflicting interests could only be settled by a
+resort to force, and the bloody feud began by the Earl
+executing at Ferns one of Donald's sons, held by him as
+a hostage. In an expedition against O'Dempsey, who also
+refused to acknowledge his title, the Earl lost, in the
+campaign of 1173, his son-in-law, de Quincy, several
+other knights, and the "banner of Leinster." The following
+year we read in the Anglo-Irish Annals of Leinster, that
+King Donald's men, being moved against the Earl's men,
+made a great slaughter of English. Nor was this the worst
+defeat he suffered in the same year--1174. Marching into
+Munster he was encountered in a pitched battle at Thurles
+by the troops of the monarch Roderick, under command of
+his son, Conor, surnamed _Moinmoy_, and by the troops of
+Thomond, under Donald More O'Brien. With Strongbow were
+all who could be spared of the garrison of Dublin,
+including a strong detachment of Danish origin. Four
+knights and seven hundred (or, according to other accounts,
+seventeen hundred) men of the Normans were left dead on
+the field. Strongbow retreated with the remnant of his
+force to Waterford, but the news of the defeat having
+reached that city before him, the townspeople ran to arms
+and put his garrison of two hundred men to the sword.
+After encamping for a month on an island without the
+city, and hearing that Kilkenny Castle was taken and
+razed by O'Brien, he was feign to return to Dublin as
+best he could.
+
+His fortunes at the close of this campaign, were at their
+lowest ebb. The loss of de Quincy and the defeat of
+Thurles had sorely shaken his military reputation. His
+jealousy of that powerful family connexion, the Geraldines,
+had driven Maurice Fitzgerald and Raymond the Fat to
+retire in disgust into Wales. Donald Kavanagh, O'Dempsey,
+and the native party in Leinster, set him at defiance,
+and his own troops refused to obey the orders of his
+uncle Herve, demanding to be led by the more popular and
+youthful Raymond. To add to his embarrassments, Henry
+summoned him to France in the very crisis of his troubles,
+and he dared not disobey that jealous and exacting master.
+He was, however, not long detained by the English King.
+Clothed with supreme authority, and with Raymond for his
+lieutenant, he returned to resume the work of conquest.
+To conciliate the Geraldines, he at last consented to
+give his sister Basilia in marriage to the brilliant
+captain, on whose sword so much depended. At the same
+time Alina, the widow of de Quincy, was married to the
+second son of Fitzgerald, and Nesta Fitzgerald was united
+to Raymond's former rival, Herve. Thus, bound together,
+fortune returned in full tide to the adventurers.
+Limerick, which had been taken and burned to the water's
+edge by Donald O'Brien after the battle of Thurles, was
+recaptured and fortified anew; Waterford was more strongly
+garrisoned than ever; Donald _Kavanagh_ was taken off,
+apparently by treachery (A.D. 1175), and all seemed to
+promise the enjoyment of uninterrupted power to the Earl.
+But his end was already come. An ulcer in his foot brought
+on a long and loathsome illness, which terminated in his
+death, in the month of May, 1176, or 1177. He was buried
+in Christ Church, Dublin, which he had contributed to
+enlarge, and was temporarily succeeded in the government
+of the Normans by his lieutenant and brother-in-law,
+Raymond. By the Lady Eva he left one daughter, Isabel,
+married at the age of fourteen to William Marshall, Earl
+of Pembroke, who afterwards claimed the proprietary of
+Leinster, by virtue of this marriage. Lady Isabel left
+again five daughters, who were the ancestresses of the
+Mortimers, Braces, and other historic families of England
+and Scotland. And so the blood of Earl Richard and his
+Irish Princess descended for many generations to enrich
+other houses and ennoble other names than his own.
+
+Strongbow is described by _Giraldus_, whose personal
+sketches, of the leading invaders form the most valuable
+part of his book, as less a statesman than a soldier,
+and more a soldier than a general. His complexion was
+freckled, his neck slender, his voice feminine and shrill,
+and his temper equable and uniform. His career in Ireland
+was limited to seven years in point of time, and his
+resources were never equal to the task he undertook.
+Had they been so, or had he not been so jealously
+counteracted by his suzerain, he might have founded a
+new Norman dynasty on as solid a basis as William, or as
+Rollo himself had done.
+
+Raymond and the Geraldines had now, for a brief moment,
+the supreme power, civil and military, in their own hands.
+In his haste to take advantage of the Earl's death, of
+which he had privately been informed by a message from
+his wife, Raymond left Limerick in the hands of Donald
+More O'Brien, exacting, we are told, a solemn oath from
+the Prince of Thomond to protect the city, which the
+latter broke before the Norman garrisons were out of
+sight of its walls. This story, like many others of the
+same age, rests on the uncertain authority of the vain,
+impetuous and passionate _Giraldus_. Whether the loss of
+Limerick discredited him with the king, or the ancient
+jealousy of the first adventurers prevailed in the royal
+councils, Henry, on hearing of Strongbow's death, at once
+despatched as Lord Justice, William Fitz-Aldelm de Burgo,
+first cousin to Hubert de Burgo, Chief Justiciary of
+England, and, like Fitz-Aldelm, descended from Arlotta,
+mother of William the Conqueror, by Harlowen de Burgo,
+her first husband. From him have descended the noble
+family of de Burgo, or Burke, so conspicuous in the after
+annals of our island. In the train of the new Justiciary
+came John de Courcy, another name destined to become
+historical, but before relating his achievements, we must
+conclude the narrative so far as regards the first set
+of adventurers.
+
+Maurice Fitzgerald, the common ancestor of the Earls of
+Desmond and Kildare, the Knights of Glyn, of Kerry, and
+of all the Irish Geraldines, died at Wexford in the year
+1177. Raymond the Fat, superseded by Fitz-Aldelm, and
+looked on coldly by the King, retired to his lands in
+the same county, and appears only once more in arms--in
+the year 1182--in aid of his uncle, Robert Fitzstephen.
+This premier invader had been entrusted by the new ruler
+with the command of the garrison of Cork, as Milo de
+Cogan had been with that of Waterford, and both had been
+invested with equal halves of the principality of Desmond.
+De Cogan, Ralph, son of Fitzstephen, and other knights
+had been cut off by surprise, at the house of one McTire,
+near Lismore, in 1182, and all Desmond was up in arms
+for the expulsion of the foreign garrisons. Raymond sailed
+from Wexford to the aid of his uncle, and succeeded in
+relieving the city from the sea. But Fitzstephen, afflicted
+with grief for the death of his son, and worn down with
+many anxieties, suffered the still greater loss of his
+reason. From thenceforth, we hear no more of either uncle
+or nephew, and we may therefore account this the last
+year of Robert Fitzstephen, Milo de Cogan, and Raymond
+_le gros_. Herve de Montmorency, the ancient rival of
+Raymond, had three years earlier retired from the world,
+to become a brother in the Monastery of the Holy Trinity,
+at Canterbury. His Irish estates passed to his brother
+Geoffrey, who subsequently became Justiciary of the
+Normans in Ireland, the successful rival of the Marshals,
+and founder of the Irish title of Mountmorres. The
+posterity of Raymond survived in the noble family of
+Grace, Barons of Courtstown, in Ossory. It is not,
+therefore, strictly true, what Geoffrey Keating and the
+authors he followed have asserted--that the first Normans
+were punished by the loss of posterity for the crimes
+and outrages they had committed, in their various
+expeditions.
+
+Let us be just even to these spoilers of our race. They
+were fair specimens of the prevailing type of Norman
+character. Indomitable bravery was not their only virtue.
+In patience, in policy, and in rising superior to all
+obstacles and reverses, no group of conquerors ever
+surpassed Strongbow and his companions. Ties of blood
+and brotherhood in arms were strong between them, and
+whatever unfair advantages they allowed themselves to
+take of their enemy, they were in general constant and
+devoted in then--friendships towards each other. Rivalries
+and intrigues were not unknown among them, but generous
+self-denial, and chivalrous self-reliance were equally
+as common. If it had been the lot of our ancestors to be
+effectually conquered, they could hardly have yielded to
+nobler foes. But as they proved themselves able to resist
+successfully the prowess of this hitherto invincible
+race, their honour is augmented in proportion to the
+energy and genius, both for government and war, brought
+to bear against them.
+
+Neither should we overstate the charge of impiety. If
+the invaders broke down and burned churches in the heat
+of battle, they built better and costlier temples out of
+the fruits of victory. Christ Church, Dublin, Dunbrody
+Abbey, on the estuary of Waterford, the Grey Friars'
+Abbey at Wexford, and other religious houses long stood,
+or still stand, to show that although the first Norman,
+like the first Dane, thirsted after spoil, and lusted
+after land, unlike the Dane, he created, he enriched, he
+improved, wherever he conquered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE LAST YEARS OF THE ARD-RIGH, RODERICK O'CONOR.
+
+The victory of Thurles, in the year 1174, was the next
+important military event, as we have seen, after the
+raising of the second siege of Dublin, in the first
+campaign of Earl Richard. It seems irreconcilable, with
+the consequences of that victory, that Ambassadors from
+Roderick should be found at the Court of Henry II. before
+the close of the following year: but events personal to
+both sovereigns will sufficiently explain the apparent
+anomaly.
+
+The campaign of 1174, so unfavourable to Henry's subjects
+in Ireland, had been most fortunate for his arms in
+Normandy. His rebellious sons, after severe defeats,
+submitted, and did him homage; the King of France had
+gladly accepted his terms of peace; the King of Scotland,
+while in duress, had rendered him fealty as his liege
+man; and Queen Eleanor, having fallen into his power,
+was a prisoner for life. Tried by a similar unnatural
+conspiracy in his own family, Roderick O'Conor had been
+less fortunate in coercing them into obedience. His
+eldest son, Murray, claimed, according to ancient custom,
+that his father should resign in his favour the patrimonial
+Province, contenting himself with the higher rank of King
+of Ireland. But Roderick well understood that in his
+days, with a new and most formidable enemy established
+in the old Danish strongholds, with the Constitution torn
+to shreds by the war of succession, his only real power
+was over his patrimony; he refused, therefore, the
+unreasonable request, and thus converted some of his own
+children into enemies. Nor were there wanting Princes,
+themselves fathers, who abetted this household treason,
+as the Kings of France and Scotland had done among the
+sons of Henry II. Soon after the battle of Thurles, the
+recovery of Limerick, and the taking of Kilkenny, Donald
+More O'Brien, lending himself to this odious intrigue,
+was overpowered and deposed by Roderick, but the year
+next succeeding having made submission he was restored
+by the same hand which had cast him down. It was, therefore,
+while harassed by the open rebellion of his eldest son,
+and while Henry was rejoicing in his late success, that
+Roderick despatched to the Court of Windsor Catholicus,
+Archbishop of Tuam, Concors, Abbot of St. Brendan's, and
+Laurence, Archbishop of Dublin, whose is styled in these
+proceedings, "Chancellor of the Irish King," to negotiate
+an alliance with Henry, which would leave him free to
+combat against his domestic enemies. An extraordinary
+treaty, agreed upon at Windsor, about the feast of
+Michaelmas, 1175, recognized Roderick's sovereignty over
+Ireland, the cantreds and cities actually possessed by
+the subjects of Henry excepted; it subinfeudated his
+authority to that of Henry, after the manner lately
+adopted towards William, King of Scotland; the payment
+of a merchantable hide of every tenth hide of cattle was
+agreed upon as an annual tribute, while the minor chiefs
+were to acknowledge their dependence by annual presents
+of hawks and hounds. This treaty, which proceeded on
+the wild assumption that the feudal system was of force
+among the free clans of Erin, was probably the basis of
+Henry's grant of the Lordship of Ireland to his son, John
+_Lackland_, a few years later; it was solemnly approved
+by a special Council, or Parliament, and signed by the
+representatives of both parties.
+
+Among the signers we find the name of the Archbishop of
+Dublin, who, while in England, narrowly escaped martyrdom
+from the hands of a maniac, while celebrating Mass at
+the tomb of St. Thomas. Four years afterwards, this
+celebrated ecclesiastic attended at Rome, with Catholicus
+of Tuam, and the Prelates of Lismore, Limerick, Waterford,
+and Killaloe, the third general council of Lateran, where
+they were received with all honour by Pope Alexander III.
+From Rome he returned with legantine powers which he used
+with great energy during the year 1180. In the autumn of
+that year, he was entrusted with the delivery to Henry II.
+of the son of Roderick O'Conor, as a pledge for the
+fulfilment of the treaty of Windsor, and with other
+diplomatic functions. On reaching England, he found the
+king had gone to France, and following him thither, he
+was seized with illness as he approached the Monastery
+of Eu, and with a prophetic foretaste of death, he
+exclaimed as he came in sight of the towers of the Convent,
+"Here shall I make my resting-place." The Abbot Osbert
+and the monks of the Order of St. Victor received him
+tenderly, and watched his couch for the few days he yet
+lingered. Anxious to fulfil his mission, he despatched
+David, tutor of the son of Roderick, with messages to
+Henry, and awaited his return with anxiety. David brought
+him a satisfactory response from the English King, and
+the last anxiety only remained. In death, as in life,
+his thoughts were with his country. "Ah, foolish and
+insensible people!" he exclaimed in his latest hours,
+"what will become of you? Who will relieve your miseries?
+Who will heal you?" When recommended to make his last
+will, he answered, with apostolic simplicity--"God knows,
+out of all my revenues, I have not a single coin to
+bequeath." And thus on the 11th day of November, 1180,
+in the 48th year of his age, under the shelter of a Norman
+roof, surrounded by Norman mourners, the Gaelic
+statesman-saint departed out of this life, bequeathing
+--one more canonized memory to Ireland and to Rome.
+
+The prospects of his native land were, at that moment,
+of a cast which might well disturb the death-bed of the
+sainted Laurence. Fitz-Aldelm, advanced to the command
+at Dublin in 1177, had shown no great capacity for
+following up the conquest. But there was one among his
+followers who, unaffected by his sluggish example, and
+undeterred by his jealous interference, resolved to push
+the outposts of his race into the heart of Ulster. This
+was John de Courcy, Baron of Stoke Courcy, in Somersetshire,
+a cavalier of fabulous physical strength, romantic courage,
+and royal descent. When he declared his settled purpose
+to be the invasion of Ulster, he found many spirits as
+discontented with Fitz-Aldelm's inaction as himself ready
+to follow his banner. His inseparable brother-in-arms,
+Sir Almaric of St. Laurence, his relative, Jourdain de
+Courcy, Sir Robert de la Poer, Sir Geoffrey and Walter
+de Marisco, and other Knights to the number of twenty,
+and five hundred men at arms, marched with him out of
+Dublin. Hardly had they got beyond sight of the city,
+when they were attacked by a native force, near Howth,
+where Saint Laurence laid in victory the foundation of
+that title still possessed by his posterity. On the
+fifth day, they came by surprise upon the famous
+ecclesiastical city of Downpatrick, one of the first
+objects of their adventure. An ancient prophecy had
+foretold that the place would be taken by a chief with
+birds upon his shield, the bearings of de Courcy, mounted
+on a white horse, which de Courcy happened to ride. Thus
+the terrors of superstition were added to the terrors of
+surprise, and the town being entirely open, the Normans
+had only to dash into the midst of its inhabitants. But
+the free clansmen of Ulidia, though surprised, were not
+intimidated. Under their lord Rory, son of Dunlevy, they
+rallied to expel the invader. Cardinal Vivian, the Papal
+Legate, who had just arrived from Man and Scotland, on
+the neighbouring coast, proffered his mediation, and
+besought de Courcy to withdraw from Down. His advice was
+peremptorily rejected, and then he exhorted the Ulidians
+to fight bravely for their rights. Five several battles
+are enumerated as being fought, in this and the following
+year, between de Courcy and the men of Down, Louth, and
+Antrim, sometimes with success, at others without it,
+always with heavy loss and obstinate resistance.
+
+The barony of Lecale, in which Downpatrick stands, is
+almost a peninsula, and the barony of the Ardes on the
+opposite shore of Strangford Lough is nearly insulated
+by Belfast Lough, the Channel, and the tides of Strangford.
+With the active co-operation from the sea of Godred, King
+of Man, (whose daughter Africa he had married), de Courcy's
+hold on that coast became an exceedingly strong one. A
+ditch and a few towers would as effectually enclose Lecale
+and the Ardes from any landward attack, as if they were
+a couple of well-walled cities. Hence, long after "the
+Pale" ceased to extend beyond the Boyne, and while the
+mountain passes from Meath into Ulster were all in native
+hands, these two baronies continued to be succoured and
+strengthened by sea, and retained as English possessions.
+Reinforced from Dublin and from Man after their first
+success, de Courcy's companions stuck to their
+castle-building about the shores of Strangford Lough,
+while he himself made incursions into the interior, by
+land or by sea, fighting a brisk succession of engagements
+at Newry, in Antrim, at Coleraine, and on the eastern
+shore of Lough Foyle.
+
+At the time these operations were going forward in Ulster,
+Milo de Cogan quitted Dublin on a somewhat similar
+expedition. We have already said that Murray, eldest
+son of Roderick, had claimed, according to ancient usage,
+the O'Conor patrimony, his father being Ard-Righ; and
+had his claim refused. He now entered into a secret
+engagement with de Cogan, whose force is stated by
+_Giraldus_ at 500 men-at-arms, and by the Irish annalists
+as "a great army." With the smaller force he left Dublin,
+but marching through Meath, was joined at Trim by men
+from the garrisons de Lacy had planted in East-Meath. So
+accompanied, de Cogan advanced on Roscommon, where he
+was received by the son of Roderick during the absence
+of the Ard-Righ on a visitation among the glens of
+Connemara. After three days spent in Roscommon, these
+allies marched across the plain of Connaught, directed
+their course on Tuam, burning as they went Elphin, Roskeen,
+and many other churches. The western clansmen everywhere
+fell back before them, driving off their herds and
+destroying whatever they could not remove. At Tuam they
+found themselves in the midst of a solitude without food
+or forage, with an eager enemy swarming from the west
+and the south to surround them. They at once decided to
+retreat, and no time was to be lost, as the Kern were
+already at their heels. From Tuam to Athleague, and from
+Athleague to their castles in East-Meath, fled the remnant
+of de Cogan's inglorious expedition. Murray O'Conor being
+taken prisoner by his own kinsmen, his eyes were plucked
+out as the punishment of his treason, and Conor Moinmoy,
+the joint-victor with Donald O'Brien over Strongbow at
+Thurles, became the _Roydamna_ or successor of his father.
+
+But fresh dissensions soon broke out between the sons
+and grandsons of Roderick, and the sons of his brother
+Thurlogh, in one of whose deadly conflicts sixteen Princes
+of the Sil-Murray fell. Both sides looked beyond Connaught
+for help; one drew friends from the northern O'Neills,
+another relied on the aid of O'Brien. Conor Moinmoy, in
+the year 1186, according to most Irish accounts, banished
+his father into Munster, but at the intercession of the
+Sil-Murray, his own clan allowed him again to return,
+and assigned him a single cantred of land for his
+subsistence. From this date we may count the unhappy
+Roderick's retirement from the world.
+
+Near the junction of Lough Corrib with Lough Mask, on
+the boundary line between Mayo and Galway, stands the
+ruins of the once populous monastery and village of Cong.
+The first Christian kings of Connaught had founded the
+monastery, or enabled St. Fechin to do so by their generous
+donations. The father of Roderick had enriched its shrine
+by the gift of a particle of the true Cross, reverently
+enshrined in a reliquary, the workmanship of which still
+excites the admiration of the antiquaries. Here Roderick
+retired in the 70th year of his age, and for twelve years
+thereafter--until the 29th day of November, 1198, here
+he wept and prayed, and withered away. Dead to the world,
+as the world to him, the opening of a new grave in the
+royal corner at Clonmacnoise was the last incident
+connected with his name, which reminded Connaught that
+it had lost its once prosperous Prince, and Ireland, that
+she had seen her last Ard-Righ, according to the ancient
+Milesian Constitution. Powerful Princes of his own and
+other houses the land was destined to know for many
+generations, before its sovereignty was merged in that
+of England, but none fully entitled to claim the
+high-sounding, but often fallacious title, of Monarch of
+all Ireland.
+
+The public character of Roderick O'Conor has been hardly
+dealt with by most modern writers. He was not, like his
+father, like Murkertach O'Brien, Malachy II., Brian,
+Murkertach of the leathern cloaks, or Malachy I., eminent
+as a lawgiver, a soldier, or a popular leader. He does
+not appear to have inspired love, or awe, or reverence,
+into those of his own household and patrimony, not to
+speak of his distant cotemporaries. He was probably a
+man of secondary qualities, engulfed in a crisis of the
+first importance. But that he is fairly chargeable with
+the success of the invaders--or that there was any very
+overwhelming success to be charged up to the time of his
+enforced retirement from the world--we have failed to
+discover. From Dermid's return until his retreat to Cong,
+seventeen years had passed away. Seventeen campaigns,
+more or less energetic and systematic, the Normans had
+fought. Munster was still in 1185--when John Lackland
+made his memorable exit and entrance on the scene--almost
+wholly in the hands of the ancient clans. Connaught was
+as yet without a single Norman garrison. Hugh de Lacy
+returning to the government of Dublin, in 1179, on
+Fitz-Aldelm's recall, was more than half _Hibernicized_
+by marriage with one of Roderick's daughters, and the
+Norman tide stood still in Meath. Several strong fortresses
+were indeed erected in Desmond and Leinster, by John
+Lackland and by de Courcy, in his newly won northern
+territory. Ardfinan, Lismore, Leighlin, Carlow,
+Castledermot, Leix, Delvin, Kilkay, Maynooth and Trim,
+were fortified; but considering who the Anglo-Normans
+were, and what they had done elsewhere, even these very
+considerable successes may be correctly accounted for
+without overcharging the memory of Roderick with folly
+and incapacity. That he was personally brave has not
+been questioned. That he was politic--or at least capable
+of conceiving the politic views of such a statesman as
+St. Laurence O'Toole, we may infer from the rank of
+Chancellor which he conferred, and the other negotiations
+which he entrusted to that great man. That he maintained
+his self-respect as a sovereign, both in abstaining from
+visiting Henry II. under pretence of hospitality at
+Dublin, and throughout all his difficult diplomacy with
+the Normans, we are free to conclude. With the Normans
+for foes--with a decayed and obsolete national constitution
+to patch up--with nominal subordinates more powerful than
+himself--with rebellion staring him in the face out of
+the eyes of his own children--Roderick O'Conor had no
+ordinary part to play in history. The fierce family
+pride of our fathers and the vices of their political
+system are to be deplored and avoided; let us not make
+the last of their national kings the scape-goat for all
+his cotemporaries and all his predecessors.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ASSASSINATION OF HUGH DE LACY--JOHN "LACKLAND" IN
+IRELAND--VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS OF JOHN DE COURCY--DEATH OF
+CONOR MOINMOY, AND RISE OF CATHAL, "THE RED-HANDED"
+O'CONOR--CLOSE OF THE CAREER OF DE COURCY AND DE BURGH.
+
+Hugh de Lacy, restored to the supreme authority on the
+recall of Fitz-Aldelm in 1179, began to conceive hopes,
+as Strongbow had done, of carving out for himself a new
+kingdom. After the assassination of O'Ruarc already
+related, he assumed without further parley the titles of
+Lord of Meath and Breffni. To these titles, he added
+that of Oriel or Louth, but his real strength lay in
+Meath, where his power was enhanced by a politic second
+marriage with Rose, daughter of O'Conor. Among the Irish
+he now began to be known as King of the foreigners, and
+some such assumption of royal authority caused his recall
+for a few months in the year 1180, and his substitution
+by de Courcy and Philip de Broasa, in 1184. But his great
+qualities caused his restoration a third time to the rank
+of Justiciary for Henry, or Deputy for John, whose title
+of "Lord of Ireland" was bestowed by his father, at a
+Parliament held at Oxford, in 1177.
+
+This founder of the Irish de Lacys is described by
+_Giraldus_, who knew him personally, as a man of Gallic
+sobriety, ambitious, avaricious, and lustful, of small
+stature, and deformed shape, with repulsive features,
+and dark, deep-set eyes. By the Irish of the midland
+districts he was bitterly detested as a sacrilegious
+spoiler of their churches and monasteries, and the most
+powerful among their invaders. The murder of O'Ruarc,
+whose title of Breffni he had usurped, was attributed to
+a deep-laid design; he certainly shared the odium with
+the advantage that ensued from it. Nor was his own end
+unlike that of his rival. Among other sites for castles,
+he had chosen the foundations of the ancient and much
+venerated monastery of Durrow, planted by Columbcille,
+seven centuries before, in the midst of the fertile region
+watered by the Brosna. This act of profanity was fated
+to be his last, for, while personally superintending the
+work, O'Meyey, a young man of good birth, and foster-brother
+to a neighbouring chief of Teffia, known as _Sionnach_,
+or "the Fox," struck off his head with a single blow of
+his axe and escaped into the neighbouring forest of
+Kilclare during the confusion which ensued. De Lacy left
+issue--two sons, Hugh and Walter, by his first wife, and
+a third, William _Gorm_, by his second--of whom, and of
+their posterity, we shall have many occasions to make
+mention.
+
+In one of the intervals of de Lacy's disfavour, Prince
+John, surnamed _Sans-terre_, or "lack-land," was sent
+over by his father to strengthen the English interest in
+Ireland. He arrived in Waterford, accompanied by a fleet
+of sixty ships, on the last of March, 1185, and remained
+in the country till the following November. If anything
+could excuse the levity, folly and misconduct of the
+Prince on this expedition, it would be his youth;--he
+was then only eighteen. But Henry had taken every precaution
+to ensure success to his favourite son. He was preceded
+into Ireland by Archbishop Cuming, the English successor
+of St. Laurence; the learned Glanville was his legal
+adviser; John de Courcy was his lieutenant, and the
+eloquent, but passionate and partial _Giraldus Cambrensis_,
+his chaplain and tutor. He had, however, other companions
+more congenial to his age and temper, young noblemen as
+froward and as extravagant as himself; yet, as he surpassed
+them all in birth and rank, so he did in wickedness and
+cruelty of disposition. For age he had no reverence, for
+virtue no esteem, neither truth towards man, nor decency
+towards woman. On his arrival at Waterford, the new
+Archbishop of Dublin, John de Courcy, and the principal
+Norman nobles, hastened to receive him. With them came
+also certain Leinster chiefs, desiring to live at peace
+with the new Galls. When, according to the custom of the
+country, the chiefs advanced to give John the kiss of
+peace, their venerable age was made a mockery by the
+young Prince, who met their proffered salutations by
+plucking at their beards. This appears to have been as
+deadly an insult to the Irish as it is to the Asiatics,
+and the deeply offended guests instantly quitted Waterford.
+Other follies and excesses rapidly transpired, and the
+native nobles began to discover that a royal army
+encumbered, rather than led by such a Prince, was not
+likely to prove itself invincible. In an idle parade from
+the Suir to the Liffey, from the Liffey to the Boyne,
+and in issuing orders for the erection of castles, (some
+of which are still correctly and others erroneously called
+King John's Castles,) the campaign months of the year
+were wasted by the King of England's son. One of these
+castles, to which most importance was attached, Ardfinan
+on the Suir, was no sooner built than taken by Donald
+More O'Brien, on midsummer day, when four knights and
+its other defenders were slain. Another was rising at
+Lismore, on the Blackwater, under the guardianship of
+Robert Barry, one of the brood of Nesta, when it was
+attacked and Barry slain. Other knights and castellans
+were equally unfortunate; Raymond Fitz-Hugh fell at
+Leighlin, another Raymond in Idrone, and Roger le Poer
+in Ossory. In Desmond, Cormac McCarthy besieged Theobald,
+ancestor of the Butlers in Cork, but this brave Prince
+--the worthy compeer of O'Brien--was cut off "in a parlee
+by them of Cork." The Clan-Colman, or O'Melaghlins, had
+risen in West-Meath to reclaim their own, when Henry,
+not an hour too soon, recalled his reckless son, and
+entrusted, for the last time, the command to Hugh de
+Lacy, whose fate has been already related.
+
+In the fluctuations of the power of the invaders after
+the death of de Lacy, and during the next reign in England,
+one steadfast name appears foremost among the adventurers
+--that of the gallant giant, de Courcy, the conqueror of
+the Ards of Down. Not only in prowess, but also in piety,
+he was the model of all the knighthood of his time. We
+are told that he always carried about his person a copy
+of the prophecies attributed to Columbcille, and when,
+in the year 1186, the relics of the three great saints,
+whose dust sanctifies Downpatrick, were supposed to be
+discovered by the Bishop of Down in a dream, he caused
+them to be translated to the altar-side with all suitable
+reverence. Yet all his devotions and pilgrimages did not
+prevent him from pushing on the work of conquest whenever
+occasion offered. His plantation in Down had time to take
+root from the unexpected death of Donald, Prince of
+Aileach, in an encounter with the garrison of one of the
+new castles, near Newry. (A.D. 1188.) The same year he
+took up the enterprise against Connaught, in which Milo
+de Cogan had so signally failed, and from which even de
+Lacy had, for reasons of his own, refrained. The feuds
+of the O'Conor family were again the pretext and the
+ground of hope with the invaders, but Donald More O'Brien,
+victorious on the Suir and the Shannon, carried his strong
+succours to Conor _Moinmoy_ on the banks of the Suca,
+near the present Ballinasloe, and both powers combined
+marched against de Courcy. Unprepared for this junction,
+the Norman retreated towards Sligo, and had reached
+Ballysadare, when Flaherty, Lord of Tyrconnell (Donegal),
+came against them from the opposite point, and thus placed
+between two fires, they were forced to fly through the
+rugged passes of the Curlieu mountains, skirmishing as
+they went. The only incidents which signalized this
+campaign on their side was the burning of Ballysadare
+and the plunder of Armagh; to the Irish it was creditable
+for the combinations it occasioned. It is cheering in
+the annals of those desultory wars to find a national
+advantage gained by the joint action of a Munster, a
+Connaught, and an Ulster force.
+
+The promise of national unity held out by the alliance
+of O'Brien and O'Conor, in the years 1188-'89, had been
+followed up by the adhesion of the lords of Breffni,
+Ulidia, or Down, the chiefs of the Clan-Colman, and
+McCarthy, Prince of Desmond. But the assassination of
+Conor Moinmoy, by the partizans of his cousins, extinguished
+the hopes of the country, and the peace of his own
+province. The old family feuds broke out with new fury.
+In vain the aged Roderick emerged from his convent, and
+sought with feeble hand to curb the fiery passions of
+his tribe; in vain the Archbishops of Armagh and of Tuam
+interposed their spiritual authority, A series of
+fratricidal contests, for which history has no memory
+and no heart, were fought out between the warring branches
+of the family during the last ten years of the century,
+until by virtue of the strong-arm, Cathal _Crovdearg_,
+son of Turlogh More, and younger brother of Roderick,
+assumed the sovereignty of Connaught about the year 1200.
+
+In the twelve years which intervened between the death
+of _Moinmoy_ and the establishment of the power of Cathal
+_Crovdearg_ O'Conor, the Normans had repeated opportunities
+for intervention in the affairs of Connaught. William de
+Burgh, a powerful Baron of the family of Fitz-Aldelm,
+the former Lord Justice, sided with the opponents of
+Cathal, while de Courcy, and subsequently the younger de
+Lacy, fought on his side. Once at least these restless
+Barons changed allies, and fought as desperately against
+their former candidate for the succession as they had
+before fought for him. In one of these engagements, the
+date assigned to which is the year 1190, Sir Armoric St.
+Laurence, founder of the Howth family, at the head of a
+numerous division, is said to have been cut off with all
+his troop. But the fortune of war frequently shifted
+during the contest. In the year 1199, Cathal _Crovdearg_,
+with his allies de Lacy and de Courcy, was utterly defeated
+at Kilmacduagh, in the present county of Galway, and were
+it not that the rival O'Conor was sorely defeated, and
+trodden to death in the route which ensued, three years
+later, Connaught might never have known the vigorous
+administration of her "red-handed" hero.
+
+The early career of this able and now triumphant Prince,
+as preserved to us by history and tradition, is full of
+romantic incidents. He is said to have been born out of
+wedlock, and that his mother, while pregnant of him, was
+subject to all the cruel persecutions and magical torments
+the jealous wife of his father could invent. No sooner
+was he born than he became an object of hatred to the
+Queen, so that mother and child, after being concealed
+for three years in the sanctuaries of Connaught, had to
+fly for their lives into Leinster. In this exile, though
+early informed of his origin, he was brought up among
+the labourers in the field, and was actually engaged,
+sickle in hand, cutting the harvest, when a travelling
+_Bollscaire_, or newsman from the west, related the events
+which enabled him to return to his native province.
+"Farewell sickle," he exclaimed, casting it from him
+--"now for the sword." Hence "Cathal's farewell to the
+rye" was long a proverbial expression for any sudden
+change of purpose or of condition. Fortune seems to have
+favoured him in most of his undertakings. In a storm upon
+Lough Ree, when a whole fleet foundered and its warrior
+crew perished, he was one of seven who were saved. Though
+in some of his early battles unsuccessful, he always
+recovered his ground, kept up his alliances, and returned
+to the contest. After the death of the celebrated Donald
+More O'Brien (A.D. 1194), he may certainly be considered
+the first soldier and first diplomatist among the Irish.
+Nor was his lot cast on more favoured days, nor was he
+pitted against less able men than those with whom the
+brave King of Munster--the stoutest defender of his
+fatherland--had so honourably striven. Fortunate it was
+for the renown of the Gael, that as one star of the race
+set over Thomond, another of equal brilliancy rose to
+guide them in the west.
+
+With the end of the century, the career of Cathal's
+allies, de Courcy and de Burgh, may be almost said to
+have ended. The obituary of the latter bears the date
+of 1204. He had obtained large grants from King John of
+lands in Connaught--if he could conquer them--which his
+vigorous descendants, the Burkes of Clanrickarde, did
+their best to accomplish. De Courcy, warring with the
+sons of de Lacy, and seeking refuge among the clansmen
+of Tyrone, disappears from the stage of Irish affairs.
+He is said to have passed on to England, and ended his
+days in prison, a victim to the caprice or jealousy of
+King John. Many tales are--told of his matchless
+intrepidity. His indirect descendants, the Barons of
+Kinsale, claim the right to wear their hats before the
+King in consequence of one of these legends, which
+represents him as the champion Knight of England, taken
+from, a dungeon to uphold her honour against a French
+challenger. Other tales as ill authenticated are founded
+on his career, which, however, in its literal truth, is
+unexcelled for hardihood and adventure, except, perhaps,
+by the cotemporaneous story of the lion-hearted Richard,
+whom he closely resembled. The title of Earl of Ulster,
+created for de Courcy in 1181, was transferred in 1205,
+by royal patent, to Walter de Lacy, whose only daughter
+Maud brought it in the year 1264 to Walter de Burgh, lord
+of Connaught, from whose fourth female descendant it
+passed in 1354, by her marriage with Lionel, Duke of
+Clarence, into the royal family of England.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY--THE NORMANS IN
+CONNAUGHT.
+
+Ireland, during the first three quarters of the thirteenth
+century, produced fewer important events, and fewer great
+men, than in the thirty last years of the century preceding.
+From the side of England, she was subjected to no imminent
+danger in all that interval. The reign of John ending in
+1216, and that of Henry III. extending till 1271, were
+fully occupied with the insurrections of the Barons, with
+French, Scotch, and Welsh wars, family feuds, the rise
+and fall of royal favourites, and all those other incidents
+which naturally, befall in a state of society where the
+King is weak, the aristocracy strong and insolent, and
+the commons disunited and despised. During this period
+the fusion of Norman, Saxon, and Briton went slowly on,
+and the next age saw for the first time a population
+which could be properly called English. "Do you take me
+for an Englishman?" was the last expression of Norman
+arrogance in the reign of King John; but the close of
+the reign of Henry III., through the action of commercial
+and political causes, saw a very different state of
+feeling growing up between the descendants of the races
+which contended for mastery under Harold and William.
+The strongly marked Norman characteristics lingered in
+Ireland half a century later, for it is usually the case
+that traits of caste survive longest in colonies and
+remote provinces. In Richard de Burgo, commonly called
+the Red Earl of Ulster, all the genius and the vices of
+the race of Rollo blazed out over Ireland for the last
+time, and with terrible effect.
+
+During the first three quarters of the century, our
+history, like that of England, is the history of a few
+great houses; nation there is, strictly speaking, none.
+It will be necessary, therefore, to group together the
+acts of two or three generations of men of the same name,
+as the only method of finding our way through the shifting
+scenes of this stormy period.
+
+The power of the great Connaught family of O'Conor, so
+terribly shaken by the fratricidal wars and unnatural
+alliances of the sons and grandsons of Roderick, was in
+great part restored by the ability and energy of Cathal
+_Crovdearg_. In his early struggles for power he was
+greatly assisted by the anarchy which reigned among the
+English nobles. Mayler Fitz-Henry, the last of Strongbow's
+companions, who rose to such eminence, being Justiciary
+in the first six years of the century, was aided by
+O'Conor to besiege William de Burgo in Limerick, and to
+cripple the power of the de Lacys in Meath. In the year
+1207, John Gray, Bishop of Norwich, was sent over, as
+more likely to be impartial than any ruler personally
+interested in the old quarrels, but during his first term
+of office, the interdict with which Innocent III. had
+smitten England, hung like an Egyptian darkness over the
+Anglo-Norman power in Ireland. The native Irish, however,
+were exempt from its enervating effects, and Cathal
+O'Conor, by the time King John came over in person--in
+the year 1210--to endeavour to retrieve the English
+interest, had warred down all his enemies, and was of
+power sufficient to treat with the English sovereign as
+independently as Roderick had done with Henry II.
+thirty-five years before. He personally conferred with
+John at Dublin, as the O'Neil and other native Princes
+did; he procured from the English King the condemnation
+of John de Burgo, who had maintained his father's claims
+on a portion of Connaught, and he was formally recognised,
+according to the approved forms of Norman diplomacy, as
+seized of the whole of Connaught, in his own right.
+
+The visit of King John, which lasted from the 20th of
+June till the 25th of August, was mainly directed to the
+reduction of those intractable Anglo-Irish Barons whom
+Fitz-Henry and Gray had proved themselves unable to cope
+with. Of these the de Lacys of Meath were the most
+obnoxious. They not only assumed an independent state,
+but had sheltered de Braos, Lord of Brecknock, one of
+the recusant Barons of Wales, and refused to surrender
+him on the royal summons. To assert his authority, and
+to strike terror into the nobles of other possessions,
+John crossed the channel with a prodigious fleet--in the
+Irish annals said to consist of 700 sail. He landed at
+Crook, reached Dublin, and prepared at once to subdue
+the Lacys. With his own army, and the co-operation of
+Cathal O'Conor, he drove out Walter de Lacy, Lord of
+Meath, who fled to his brother, Hugh de Lacy, since de
+Courcy's disgrace, Earl of Ulster. From Meath into Louth
+John pursued the brothers, crossing the lough at Carlingford
+with his ships, which must have coasted in his company.
+From Carlingford they retreated, and he pursued to
+Carrickfergus, and from that fortress, unable to resist
+a royal fleet and navy, they fled into Man or Scotland,
+and thence escaped in disguise into France. With their
+guest de Braos, they wrought as gardeners in the grounds
+of the Abbey of Saint Taurin Evreux, until the Abbot,
+having discovered by their manners the key to their real
+rank, negotiated successfully with John for their
+restoration to their estates. Walter agreed to pay a
+fine of 2,500 marks for his lordship in Meath, and Hugh
+4,000 marks for his possessions in Ulster. Of de Braos
+we have no particulars; his high-spirited wife and children
+were thought to have been starved to death by order of
+the unforgiving tyrant in one of his castles. The de
+Lacys, on their restoration, were accompanied to Ireland
+by a nephew of the Abbot of St. Taurin, on whom they
+conferred an estate and the honour of knighthood.
+
+The only other acts of John's sojourn in Ireland was his
+treaty with O'Conor, already mentioned, and the mapping
+out, on paper, of the intended counties of Oriel (or
+Louth), Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Kilkenny, Katherlough
+(or Carlow), Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Kerry, Limerick,
+and Tipperary, as the only districts in which those he
+claimed as his subjects had any possessions. He again
+installed the Bishop of Norwich as his justiciary or
+lieutenant, who, three years, later, was succeeded by
+Henry de Londres, the next Archbishop of Dublin, and he
+again (A.D. 1215), by Geoffrey de Marisco, the last of
+John's deputies. In the year 1216, Henry III., an infant
+ten years of age, succeeded to the English throne, and
+the next dozen years the history of the two islands is
+slightly connected, except by the fortunes of the family
+of de Burgh, whose head, Hubert de Burgh, the Chief
+Justiciary, from the accession of the new King, until
+the first third of the century had closed, was in reality
+the Sovereign of England. Among his other titles he held
+that of Lord of Connaught, which he conveyed to his
+relative, Richard de Burgo, the son or grandson of William
+Fitz-Aldelm de Burgo, about the year 1225. And this brings
+us to relate how the house of Clanrickarde rose upon the
+flank of the house of O'Conor, and after holding an almost
+equal front for two generations, finally overshadowed
+its more ancient rival.
+
+While Cathal _Crovdearg_ lived, the O'Conor's held their
+own, and rather more than their own, by policy or arms.
+Not only did his own power suffer no diminution, but he
+more than once assisted the Dalgais and the Eugenians to
+expel their invaders from North and South Munster, and
+to uphold their ancient rights and laws. During the last
+years of John's reign that King and his Barons were
+mutually too busy to set aside the arrangement entered
+into in 1210. In the first years of Henry it was also
+left undisturbed by the English court. In 1221 we read
+that the de Lacys, remembering, no doubt, the part he
+had played in their expulsion, endeavoured to fortify
+Athleague against him, but the veteran King, crossing
+the Shannon farther northward, took them in the rear,
+compelled them to make peace, and broke down their Castle.
+This was almost the last of his victories. In the year
+1213 we read in the Annals of "an awful and heavy shower
+which fell over Connaught," and was held to presage the
+death of its heroic King. Feeling his hour had come,
+this Prince, to whom are justly attributed the rare union
+of virtues, ardour of mind, chastity of body, meekness
+in prosperity, fortitude under defeat, prudence in civil
+business, undaunted bravery in battle, and a piety of
+life beyond all his cotemporaries--feeling the near
+approach of death, retired to the Abbey of Knockmoy,
+which he had founded and endowed, and there expired in
+the Franciscan habit, at an age which must have bordered
+on fourscore. He was succeeded by his son, Hugh O'Conor,
+"the hostages of Connaught being in his house" at the
+time of his illustrious father's death.
+
+No sooner was Cathal _Crovdearg_ deceased than Hubert de
+Burgo procured the grants of the whole Province, reserving
+only five cantreds about Athlone for a royal garrison to
+be made to Richard de Burgo, his nephew. Richard had
+married Hodierna, granddaughter to Cathal, and thus, like
+all the Normans, though totally against the Irish custom,
+claimed a part of Connaught in right of his wife. But in
+the sons of Cathal he found his equal both in policy and
+arms, and with the fall of his uncle at the English court
+(about the year 1233), Feidlim O'Conor, the successor of
+Hugh, taking advantage of the event, made interest at
+the Court of Henry III. sufficient to have his overgrown
+neighbour stripped of some of his strongholds by royal
+order. The King was so impressed with O'Conor's
+representations that he wrote peremptorily to Maurice
+Fitzgerald, second Lord Offally, then his deputy, "to
+root out that barren tree planted in Offally by Hubert
+de Burgh, in the madness of his power, and not to suffer
+it to shoot forth." Five years later, Feidlim, in return,
+carried some of his force, in conjunction with the deputy,
+to Henry's aid in Wales, though, as their arrival was
+somewhat tardy, Fitzgerald was soon after dismissed on
+that account.
+
+Richard de Burgo died in attendance on King Henry in
+France (A.D. 1243), and was succeeded by his son, Walter
+de Burgo, who continued, with varying fortunes, the
+contest for Connaught with Feidlim, until the death of
+the latter, in the Black Abbey of Roscommon, in the year
+1265. Hugh O'Conor, the son and successor of Feidlim,
+continued the intrepid guardian of his house and province
+during the nine years he survived his father. In the year
+1254, by marriage with the daughter of de Lacy, Earl of
+Ulster, that title had passed into the family of de Burgh,
+bringing with it, for the time, much substantial, though
+distant, strength. It was considered only a secondary
+title, and as the eldest son of the first de Lacy remained
+Lord of Meath, while the younger took de Courcy's forfeited
+title of Ulster, so, in the next generation, did the sons
+of this Walter de Burgh, until death and time reunited
+both titles in the same person. Walter de Burgh died in
+the year 1271, in the Castle of Galway; his great rival,
+Feidlim O'Conor, in 1274, was buried in the Abbey of
+Boyle. The former is styled King of the English of
+Connaught by the Irish Annalists, who also speak of
+Feidlim as "the most triumphant and the most feared (by
+the invaders) of any King that had been in Connaught
+before his time." The relative position of the Irish and
+English in that Province, towards the end of this century,
+may be judged by the fact, that of the Anglo-Normans
+summoned by Edward I. to join him in Scotland in 1299,
+but two, Richard de Burgo and Piers de Bermingham, Baron
+of Athenry, had then possessions in Connaught. There
+were Norman Castles at Athlone, at Athenry, at Galway,
+and perhaps at other points; but the natives still swayed
+supreme over the plains of Rathcrogan, the plains of
+Boyle, the forests and lakes of Roscommon, and the whole
+of _Iar_, or West Connaught, from Lough Corrib to the
+ocean, with the very important exception of the castle
+and port of Galway. A mightier de Burgo than any that
+had yet appeared was to see in his house, in the year
+1286, "the hostages of all Connaught;" but his life and
+death form a distinct epoch in our story and must be
+treated separately.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY--THE NORMANS IN MUNSTER
+AND LEINSTER.
+
+We have already told the tragic fate of the two
+adventurers--Fitzstephen and de Cogan--between whom the
+whole of Desmond was first partitioned by Henry II. But
+there were not wanting other claimants, either by original
+grant from the crown, by intermarriage with Irish, or
+Norman-Irish heiresses, or new-comers, favourites of John
+or of Henry III., or of their Ministers, enriched at the
+expense of the native population. Thomas, third son of
+Maurice Fitzgerald, claimed partly through his uncle
+Fitzstephen, and partly through his marriage with the
+daughter of another early adventurer, Sir William Morrie,
+whose vast estates on which his descendants were afterwards
+known as Earls of Desmond, the White Knight, the Knight
+of Glyn, and the Knight of Kerry. Robert de Carew and
+Patrick de Courcy claimed as heirs general to de Cogan.
+The de Mariscoes, de Barris, and le Poers, were not
+extinct; and finally Edward I., soon after his accession,
+granted the whole land of Thomond to Thomas de Clare,
+son of the Earl of Gloucester, and son-in-law of Maurice,
+third Baron of Offally. A contest very similar to that
+which was waged in Connaught between the O'Conors and de
+Burghs was consequently going on in Munster at the same
+time, between the old inhabitants and the new claimants,
+of all the three classes just indicated.
+
+The principality of Desmond, containing angles of Waterford
+and Tipperary, with all Cork and Kerry, seemed at the
+beginning of the thirteenth century in greatest danger
+of conquest. The O'Callaghans, Lords of Cinel-Aedha, in
+the south of Cork, were driven into the mountains of
+Duhallow, where they rallied and held their ground for
+four centuries; the O'Sullivans, originally settled along
+the Suir, about Clonmel, were forced towards the mountain
+seacoast of Cork and Kerry, where they acquired new vigour
+in the less fertile soil of Beare and Bantry. The native
+families of the Desies, from their proximity to the port
+of Waterford, were harassed and overrun, and the ports
+of Dungarvan, Youghal, and Cork, being also taken and
+garrisoned by the founder of the earldom of Desmond, easy
+entrance and egress by sea could always be obtained for
+his allies, auxiliaries, and supplies. It was when these
+dangers were darkening and menacing on every side that
+the family of McCarthy, under a succession of able and
+vigorous chiefs, proved themselves worthy of the headship
+of the Eugenian race. Cormac McCarthy, who had expelled
+the first garrison from Waterford, ere he fell in a parley
+before Cork, had defeated the first enterprises of
+Fitzstephen and de Cogan; he left a worthy son in Donald
+na Curra, who, uniting his own co-relations, and acting
+in conjunction with O'Brien and O'Conor, retarded by his
+many exploits the progress of the invasion in Munster.
+He recovered Cork and razed King John's castle at
+Knockgraffon on the Suir. He left two surviving sons, of
+whom the eldest, Donald _Gott_, or the Stammerer, took
+the title of _More_, or Great, and his posterity remained
+princes of Desmond, until that title merged in the earldom
+of Glencare (A.D. 1565); the other, Cormac, after taking
+his brother prisoner compelled him to acknowledge him as
+lord of the four baronies of Carbury. From this Cormac
+the family of McCarthy Reagh descended, and to them the
+O'Driscolls, O'Donovans, O'Mahonys, and other Eugenian
+houses became tributary. The chief residence of McCarthy
+Reagh was long fixed at Dunmanway; his castles were also
+at Baltimore, Castlehaven, Lough-Fyne, and in Inis-Sherkin
+and Clear Island. The power of McCarthy More extended at
+its greatest reach from Tralee in Kerry to Lismore in
+Waterford. In the year 1229, Dermid McCarthy had peaceable
+possession of Cork, and founded the Franciscan Monastery
+there. Such was his power, that, according to Hamner and
+his authorities, the Geraldines "dare not for twelve
+years put plough into the ground in Desmond." At last,
+another generation rose, and fierce family feuds broke
+out between the branches of the family. The Lord of
+Carbury now was Fineen, or Florence, the most celebrated
+man of his name, and one whose power naturally encroached
+upon the possession of the elder house. John, son of
+Thomas Fitzgerald of Desmond, seized the occasion to make
+good the enormous pretension of his family. In the
+expedition which he undertook for this purpose, in the
+year 1260, he was joined by the Justiciary, William Dene,
+by Walter de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, by Walter de
+Riddlesford, Baron of Bray, by Donnel Roe, a chief of
+the hostile house of McCarthy. The Lord of Carbury united
+under his standard the chief Eugenian families, not only
+of the Coast, but even of McCarthy More's principality,
+and the battle was fought with great ferocity at
+Callan-Glen, near Kenmare, in Kerry. There the Anglo-Normans
+received the most complete defeat they had yet experienced
+on Irish ground. John Fitz-Thomas, his son Maurice, eight
+barons, fifteen knights, and "countless numbers of common
+soldiers were slain." The Monastery of Tralee received
+the dead body of its founder and his son, while Florence
+McCarthy, following up his blow, captured and broke down
+in swift succession all the English castles in his
+neighbourhood, including those of Macroom, Dunnamark,
+Dunloe, and Killorglin. In besieging one of these castles,
+called Ringrone, the victorious chief, in the full tide
+of conquest, was cut off, and his brother, called the
+_Atheleireach_ (or suspended priest), succeeded to his
+possessions. The death of the victor arrested the panic
+of the defeat, but Munster saw another generation before
+her invaders had shaken off the depression of the battle
+of Callan-glen.
+
+Before the English interest had received this severe blow
+in the south, a series of events had transpired in
+Leinster, going to show that its aspiring barons had been
+seized with the madness which precedes destruction.
+William, Earl Marshal and Protector of England during
+the minority of Henry III., had married Isabella, the
+daughter of Strongbow and granddaughter of Dermid, through
+whom he assumed the title of Lord of Leinster. He procured
+the office of Earl Marshal of Ireland--originally conferred
+on the first de Lacy--for his own nephew, and thus
+converted the de Lacys into mortal enemies. His son and
+successor Richard, having made himself obnoxious, soon
+after his accession to that title, to the young King, or
+to Hubert de Burgh, was outlawed, and letters were
+despatched to the Justiciary, Fitzgerald, to de Burgo,
+de Lacy, and other Anglo-Irish lords, if he landed in
+Ireland, to seize his person, alive or dead, and send it
+to England. Strong in his estates and alliances, the
+young Earl came; while his enemies employed the wily
+Geoffrey de Mountmorres to entrap him into a conference,
+in order to his destruction. The meeting was appointed
+for the first day of April, 1234, and while the outlawed
+Earl was conversing with those who had invited him, an
+affray began among their servants by design, he himself
+was mortally wounded and carried to one of Fitzgerald's
+castles, where he died. He was succeeded in his Irish
+honours by three of his brothers, who all died without
+heirs male. Anselme, the last Earl Marshal of his family,
+dying in 1245, left five co-heiresses, Maud, Joan, Isabel,
+Sybil, and Eva, between whom the Irish estates--or such
+portions of them in actual possession--were divided. They
+married respectively the Earls of Norfolk, Suffolk,
+Gloucester, Ferrers, and Braos, or Brace, Lord of Brecknock,
+in whose families, for another century or more, the
+secondary titles were Catherlogh, Kildare, Wexford,
+Kilkenny, and Leix,--those five districts being supposed,
+most absurdly, to have come into the Marshal family, from
+the daughter of Strongbow. The false knights and dishonoured
+nobles concerned in the murder of Richard Marshal were
+disappointed of the prey which had been promised them--the
+partition of his estates. And such was the horror which
+the deed excited in England, that it hastened the fall
+of Hubert de Burgh, though Maurice Fitzgerald, of
+Offally--ancestor of the Kildare family--having cleared
+himself of all complicity in it by oath--was continued
+as Justiciary for ten years longer. In the year 1245,
+for his tardiness in joining the King's army in Wales,
+he was succeeded by the false-hearted Geoffrey de
+Mountmorres, who held the office till 1247. During the
+next twenty-five years, about half as many Justices were
+placed and displaced, according to the whim of the
+successive favourites at the English Court. In 1252,
+Prince Edward, afterwards Edward I., was appointed with
+the title of Lord Lieutenant, but never came over. Nor
+is there in the series of rulers we have numbered, with,
+perhaps, two exceptions, any who have rendered their
+names memorable by great exploits, or lasting legislation.
+So little inherent power had the incumbents of the highest
+office--unless when, they employed their own proper forces
+in their sovereign's name--that we read without surprise,
+how the bold mountaineers of Wicklow, at the opening of
+the century (A.D. 1209) slaughtered the Bristolians of
+Dublin, engaged at their archery in Cullenswood, and at
+the close of it, how "one of the Kavanaghs, of the blood
+of McMurrogh, living at Leinster," "displayed his standards
+within sight of the city." Yet this is commonly spoken
+of as a country overrun by a few score Norman Knights,
+in a couple of campaigns!
+
+The maintenance of the conquest was in these years less
+the work of the King's Justices than of the great houses.
+Of these, two principally profited, by the untimely
+felling of that great tree which overshadowed all others
+in Leinster, the Marshals. The descendants of the eldest
+son of Maurice Fitzgerald clung to their Leinster
+possessions, while their equally vigorous cousins pushed
+their fortunes in Desmond. Maurice, grandson of Maurice,
+and second Baron of Offally, from the year 1229 to the
+year 1246, was three times Lord Justice. "He was a valiant
+Knight, a very pleasant man, and inferior to none in the
+kingdom," by Matthew Paris's account. He introduced the
+Franciscan and Dominican orders into Ireland, built many
+castles, churches, and abbeys at Youghal, at Sligo, at
+Armagh, at Maynooth, and in other places. In the year
+1257, he was wounded in single combat by O'Donnell, Lord
+of Tyrconnell, near Sligo, and died soon after in the
+Franciscan habit in Youghal. He left his successor so
+powerful, that in the year 1264, there being a feud
+between the Geraldines and de Burghs, he seized the Lord
+Justice and the whole de Burgh party at a conference at
+Castledermot, and carried them to his own castles of Lea
+and Dunamase as prisoners. In 1272, on the accidental
+death of the Lord Justice Audley, by a fall from his
+horse, "the council" elected this the third Baron of
+Offally in his stead.
+
+The family of Butler were of slower growth, but of equal
+tenacity with the Geraldines. They first seem to have
+attached themselves to the Marshals, for whom they were
+indebted for their first holding in Kilkenny. At the
+Conference of Castledermot, Theobald Butler, the fourth
+in descent from the founder of the house, was numbered
+among the adherents of de Burgh, but a few years later
+we find him the ally of the Geraldines in the invasion
+of Thomond. In the year 1247, the title of Lord of Carrick
+had been conferred on him, which in 1315 was converted
+into Earl of Carrick, and this again into that of Ormond.
+The Butlers of this house, when they had attained their
+growth of power, became the hereditary rivals of the
+Kildare Geraldines, whose earldom dates from 1316, as
+that of Ormond does from 1328, and Desmond from 1329.
+
+The name of Maurice, the third Baron of Offally, and
+uncle of John, the first Earl of Kildare, draws our
+attention naturally to the last enterprise of his life
+--the attempt to establish his son-in-law, Thomas de
+Clare, in possession of Thomond. The de Clares, Earls of
+Gloucester, pretended a grant from Henry II. of the whole
+of Thomond, as their title to invade that principality;
+but their real grant was bestowed by Edward I., in the
+year 1275. The state of the renowned patrimony of Brian
+had long seemed to invite such an aggression. Murtogh,
+son of Donnell More, who succeeded his father in 1194,
+had early signalized himself by capturing the castles of
+Birr, Kinnetty, Ballyroane and Lothra, in Leix, and razing
+them to the ground. But these castles were reconstructed
+in 1213, when the feuds between the rival O'Briens--Murtogh
+and Donogh Cairbre--had paralyzed the defence force of
+Thomond. It was, doubtless, in the true divide-and-conquer
+spirit, that Henry the Third's advisers confirmed to
+Donogh the lordship of Thomond in 1220, leaving to his
+elder brother the comparatively barren title of King of
+Munster. Both brothers, by alternately working on their
+hopes and fears, were thus for many years kept in a state
+of dependence on the foreigner. One gleam of patriotic
+virtue illumines the annals of the house of O'Brien,
+during the first forty years of the century--when, in
+the year 1225, Donogh Cairbre assisted Felim O'Conor to
+resist the Anglo-Norman army, then pouring over Connaught,
+in the quarrel of de Burgh. Conor, the son of Donogh,
+who succeeded his father in the year 1242, animated by
+the example of his cotemporaries, made successful war
+against the invaders of his Province, more especially in
+the year 1257, and the next year; attended with O'Conor
+the meeting at Beleek, on the Erne, where Brian O'Neil
+was acknowledged, by both the Munster and the Connaught
+Prince, as _Ard-Righ_. The untimely end of this attempt
+at national union will be hereafter related; meantime,
+we proceed to mention that, in 1260, the Lord of Thomond
+defeated the Geraldines and their Welsh auxiliaries, at
+Kilbarran, in Clare. He was succeeded the following season
+by his son, Brian Roe, in whose time Thomas de Clare
+again put to the test of battle his pretensions to the
+lordship of Thomond.
+
+It was in the year 1277, that, supported by his
+father-in-law, the Kildare Fitzgerald, de Clare marched
+into Munster, and sought an interview with the O'Brien.
+The relation of gossip, accounted sacred among the Irish,
+existed between them, but Brien Roe, having placed himself
+credulously in the hands of his invaders, was cruelly
+drawn to pieces between two horses. All Thomond rose in
+arms, under Donogh, son of Brian, to revenge this infamous
+murder. Near Ennis the Normans met a terrible defeat,
+from which de Clare and Fitzgerald fled for safety into
+the neighbouring Church of Quin. But Donogh O'Brien burned
+the Church over their heads, and forced them to surrender
+at discretion. Strange to say they were held to ransom,
+on conditions, we may suppose, sufficiently hard. Other
+days of blood were yet to decide the claims of the family
+of de Clare. In 1287, Turlogh, then the O'Brien, defeated
+an invasion similar to the last, in which Thomas de Clare
+was slain, together with Patrick Fitzmaurice of Kerry,
+Richard Taafe, Richard Deriter, Nicholas Teeling, and
+other knights, and Gerald, the fourth Baron of Offally,
+brother-in-law to de Clare, was mortally wounded. After
+another interval, Gilbert de Clare, son of Thomas, renewed
+the contest, which he bequeathed to his brother Richard.
+This Richard, whose name figures more than his brother's
+in the events of his time, made a last effort, in the
+year 1318, to make good the claims of his family. On the
+5th of May, in that year, he fell in battle against
+McCarthy and O'Brien, and there fell with him Sir Thomas
+de Naas, Sir Henry Capell, Sir James and Sir John Caunton,
+with four other knights, and a proportion of men-at-arms.
+From thenceforth that proud offshoot of the house of
+Gloucester, which, at its first settling in Munster,
+flourished as bravely as the Geraldines themselves, became
+extinct in the land.
+
+Such were the varying fortunes of the two races in Leinster
+and Munster, and such the men who rose and fell. We must
+now turn to the contest as maintained at the same period
+in Meath and Ulster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+EVENTS OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY--THE NORMANS IN MEATH
+AND ULSTER.
+
+We may estimate the power of the de Lacy family in the
+second generation, from the fact that their expulsion
+required a royal army and navy, commanded by the King in
+person, to come from England. Although pardoned by John,
+the brothers took care never to place themselves in that
+cowardly tyrant's power, and they observed the same
+precaution on the accession of his son, until well assured
+that he did not share the antipathy of his father. After
+their restoration the Lacys had no rivals among the
+Norman-Irish except the Marshal family, and though both
+houses in half a century became extinct, not so those
+they had planted or patronized, or who claimed from them
+collaterally. In Meath the Tuites, Cusacks, Flemings,
+Daltons, Petits, Husseys, Nangles, Tyrrells, Nugents,
+Verdons, and Gennevilles, struck deep into the soil. The
+co-heiresses, Margaret and Matilda de Lacy, married Lord
+Theobald de Verdon and Sir Geoffrey de Genneville, between
+whom the estate of their father was divided; both these
+ladies dying without male issue, the lordship was, in
+1286, claimed by Richard de Burgo, Earl of Ulster, whose
+mother was their cousin-germain. But we are anticipating
+time.
+
+No portion of the island, if we except, perhaps, Wexford
+and the shores of Strangford Lough, was so thoroughly
+castellated as the ancient Meath from the sea to the
+Shannon. Trim, Kells and Durrow were the strongest holds;
+there were keeps or castles at Ardbraccan, Slane, Rathwyre,
+Navan, Skreen, Santry, Clontarf, and Castleknock--for
+even these places, almost within sight of Dublin, were
+included in de Lacy's original grant. None of these
+fortresses could have been more than a few miles distant
+from the next, and once within their thick-ribbed walls,
+the Norman, Saxon, Cambrian, or Danish serf or tenant
+might laugh at the Milesian arrows and battle-axes without.
+With these fortresses, and their own half-Irish origin
+and policy, the de Lacys, father and son, held Meath for
+two generations in general subjection. But the banishment
+of the brothers in 1210, and the death of Walter of Meath,
+presented the family of O'Melaghlin and the whole of the
+Methian tribes with opportunities of insurrection not to
+be neglected. We read, therefore, under the years 1211,
+'12 and '13, that Art O'Melaghlin and Cormac, his son,
+took the castles of Killclane, Ardinurcher, Athboy, and
+Smerhie, killing knights and wardens, and enriching
+themselves with booty; that the whole English of Ireland
+turned out _en masse_ to the rescue of their brethren in
+Meath; that the castles of Birr, Durrow, and Kinnetty
+were strengthened against Art, and a new one erected at
+Clonmacnoise. After ten years of exile, the banished de
+Lacys returned, and by alliance with O'Neil, no less than
+their own prowess, recovered all their former influence.
+Cormac, son of Art, left a son and successor also named
+Art, who, we read at the year 1264, gave the English of
+Meath a great defeat upon the Brosna, where he that was
+not slain was drowned. Following the blow, he burned
+their villages and broke the castles of the stranger
+throughout Devlin, Calry, and Brawny, and replaced in
+power over them the McCoghlans, Magawleys, and O'Breens,
+from whom he took hostages according to ancient custom.
+Two years afterwards he repulsed Walter de Burgh at
+Shannon harbour, driving his men into the river, where
+many of them perished. At his death (A.D. 1283) he is
+eulogized for having destroyed seven-and-twenty English
+castles in his lifetime. From these exploits he was called
+Art _na Caislean_, a remarkable distinction, when we
+remember that the Irish were, up to this time, wholly
+unskilled in besieging such strongholds as the Norman
+engineers knew so well how to construct. His only rival
+in Meath in such meritorious works of destruction was
+Conor, son of Donnell, and O'Melaghlin of East-Meath, or
+_Bregia_, whose death is recorded at the year 1277, "as
+one of the three men in Ireland" whom the midland English
+most feared.
+
+From the ancient mensal the transition is easy to the
+north. The border-land of Breffni, whose chief was the
+first of the native nobles that perished by Norman perfidy,
+was at the beginning of the century swayed by Ulgarg
+O'Rourke. Of Ulgarg we know little, save that in the year
+1231 he "died on his way to the river Jordan"--a not
+uncommon pilgrimage with the Irish of those days. Nial,
+son of Congal, succeeded, and about the middle of the
+century we find Breffni divided into two lordships, from
+the mountain of Slieve-an-eiran eastward, or Cavan, being
+given to Art, son of Cathal, and from the mountain
+westward, or Leitrim, to Donnell, son of Conor, son of
+Tiernan, de Lacy's victim. This subdivision conduced
+neither to the strengthening of its defenders nor to the
+satisfaction of O'Conor, under whose auspices it was
+made. Family feuds and household treasons were its natural
+results for two or three generations; in the midst of
+these broils two neighbouring families rose into greater
+importance, the O'Reillys in Cavan and the Maguires in
+Fermanagh. Still, strong in their lake and mountain
+region, the tribes of Breffni were comparatively unmolested
+by foreign enemies, while the stress of the northern
+battle fell upon the men of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, of
+Oriel and of the coast country, from Carlingford to the
+Causeway.
+
+The borders of Tyrconnell and Tyrone, like every other
+tribe-land, were frequently enlarged or contracted,
+according to the vigour or weakness of their chiefs or
+neighbours. In the age of which we now speak, Tyrconnell
+extended from the Erne to the Foyle, and Tyrone from the
+Foyle to Lough Neagh, with the exception of the extreme
+north of Berry and Antrim, which belonged to the O'Kanes.
+It was not till the fourteenth century that the O'Neils
+spread their power east of Lough Neagh, over those baronies
+of Antrim long known as north and south _Clan-Hugh-Buidhe_,
+(Clandeboy.) North Antrim was still known as Dalriada,
+and South Antrim and Down, as Ulidia. Oriel, which has
+been usually spoken of in this history as Louth, included
+angles of Monaghan and Armagh, and was anciently the most
+extensive lordship in Ulster. The chieftain families of
+Tyrconnell were the O'Donnells; of Tyrone, the O'Neils
+and McLaughlins; of Dalriada, O'Kanes, O'Haras, and
+O'Shields; of Ulidia, the Magennis of Iveagh and the
+Donlevys of Down; of Oriel, the McMahons and O'Hanlons.
+Among these populous tribes the invaders dealt some of
+their fiercest blows, both by land and sea, in the
+thirteenth century. But the north was fortunate in its
+chiefs; they may fairly contest the laurel with the
+O'Conors, O'Briens and McCarthys of the west and south.
+
+In the first third of the century, Hugh O'Neil, who
+succeeded to the lordship of Tyrone in 1198, and died in
+1230, was cotemporary with Donnell More O'Donnell, who,
+succeeding to the lordship of Tyrconnell in 1208, died
+in 1241, after an equally long and almost equally
+distinguished career. Melaghlin O'Donnell succeeded
+Donnell More from '41 to '47, Godfrey from '48 to '57,
+and Donnell Oge from 1257 to 1281, when he was slain in
+battle. Hugh O'Neil was succeeded in Tyrone by Donnell
+McLaughlin, of the rival branch of the same stock, who
+in 1241 was subdued by O'Donnell, and the ascendancy of
+the family of O'Neil established in the person of Brian,
+afterwards chosen King of Ireland, and slain at Down.
+Hugh Boy, or the Swarthy, was elected O'Neil on Brian's
+death, and ruled till the year 1283, when he was slain
+in battle, as was his next successor, Brian, in the year
+1295. These names and dates are worthy to be borne in
+mind, because on these two-great houses mainly devolved
+the brunt of battle in their own province.
+
+These northern chiefs had two frontiers to guard or to
+assail: the north-eastern, extending from the glens of
+Antrim to the hills of Mourne, and the southern stretching
+from sea to sea, from Newry to Sligo. This country was
+very assailable by sea; to those whose castles commanded
+its harbours and rivers, the fleets of Bristol, Chester,
+Man, and Dublin could always carry supplies and
+reinforcements. By the interior line one road threaded
+the Mourne mountains, and deflected towards Armagh, while
+another, winding through west Breffni, led from Sligo
+into Donegal by the cataract of Assaroe,--the present
+Ballyshannon. Along these ancient lines of communication,
+by fords, in mountain passes, and near the landing places
+for ships, the struggle for the possession of that end
+of the Island went on, at intervals, whenever large bodies
+of men could be spared from garrisons and from districts
+already occupied.
+
+In the year 1210, we find that there was an English Castle
+at Cael-uisge, now Castle-Caldwell, on Lough Erne, and
+that it was broke down and its defenders slain by Hugh
+O'Neil and Donald More O'Donnell acting together. After
+this event we have no trace of a foreign force in the
+interior of Ulster for several years. Hugh O'Neil, who
+died in 1230, is praised by the Bards for "never having
+given hostages, pledges, or tributes to English or Irish,"
+which seems a compliment well founded. During several
+years following that date the war was chiefly centred in
+Connaught, and the fighting men of the north who took
+part in it were acting as allies to the O'Conors. Donald
+More O'Donnell had married a daughter of Cathal Crovdearg,
+so that ties of blood, as well as neighbouring interests,
+united these two great families. In the year 1247, an
+army under Maurice Fitzgerald, then Lord Justice, crossed
+the Erne in two divisions, one above and the other at
+Ballyshannon. Melaghlin O'Donnell was defending the
+passage of the river when he was taken unexpectedly in
+the rear by those who had crossed higher up, and thus
+was defeated and slain. Fitzgerald then ravaged Tyrconnell,
+set up a rival chief O'Canavan, and rebuilt the Castle
+at Cael-uisge, near Beleek. Ten years afterwards Godfrey
+O'Donnell, the successor of Melaghlin, avenged the defeat
+at Ballyshannon, in the sanguinary battle of Credran,
+near Sligo, where engaging Fitzgerald in single combat,
+he gave him his death-stroke. From wounds received at
+Credran, Godfrey himself, after lingering twelve months
+in great suffering, died. But his bodily afflictions did
+not prevent him discharging all the duties of a great
+Captain; he razed a second time the English Castle on
+Lough Erne, and stoutly protected his own borders against
+the pretensions of O'Neil, being carried on his bier in
+the front of the battle of Lough Swilly in 1258.
+
+It was while Tyrconnell was under the rule of this heroic
+soldier that the unfortunate feud arose between the
+O'Neils and O'Donnells. Both families, sprung from a
+common ancestor, of equal antiquity and equal pride,
+neither would yield a first place to the other. "Pay me
+my tribute," was O'Neil's demand; "I owe you no tribute,
+and if I did---" was O'Donnell's reply. The O'Neil at
+this time--Brian--aspiring to restore the Irish sovereignty
+in his own person, was compelled to begin the work of
+exercising authority over his next neighbour. More than
+one border battle was the consequence, not only with
+Godfrey, but with Donnell Oge, his successor. In the year
+1258, Brian was formally recognized by O'Conor and O'Brien
+as chief of the kingdom, in the conference of Cael-uisge,
+and two years later, at the battle of Down, gallantly
+laid down his life, in defence of the kingdom he claimed
+to govern. In this most important battle no O'Donnell is
+found fighting with King Brian, though immediately
+afterwards we find Donnell Oge of Tyrconnell endeavouring
+to subjugate Tyrone, and active afterwards in the aid of
+his cousins, the grandsons of Cathal Crovdearg, in
+Connaught.
+
+The Norman commander in this battle was Stephen de
+Longespay, then Lord Justice, Earl of Salisbury in
+England, and Count de Rosman in France. His marriage with
+the widow of Hugh de Lacy and daughter of de Riddlesford
+connected him closely with Irish affairs, and in the
+battle of Down he seems to have had all the Anglo-Irish
+chivalry, "in gold and iron," at his back. With King
+Brian O'Neil fell, on that crimson day, the chiefs of
+the O'Hanlons, O'Kanes, McLaughlins, O'Gormlys, McCanns,
+and other families who followed his banner. The men of
+Connaught suffered hardly less than those of Ulster.
+McDermott, Lord of Moylurgh, Cathal O'Conor, O'Gara,
+McDonogh, O'Mulrony, O'Quinn, and other chiefs were among
+the slain. In Hugh _Bwee_ O'Neil the only hope of the
+house of Tyrone seemed now to rest; and his energy and
+courage were all taxed to the uttermost to retain the
+place of his family in the Province, beating back rapacious
+neighbours on the one hand, and guarding against foreign
+enemies on the other. For twelve years, Hugh _Bwee_
+defended his lordship against all aggressors. In 1283,
+he fell at the hands of the insurgent chiefs of Oriel
+and Breffni, and a fierce contest for the succession
+arose between his son Brian and Donald, son of King Brian
+who fell at Down. A contest of twelve years saw Donald
+successful over his rival (A.D. 1295), and his rule
+extended from that period until 1325, when he died at
+Leary's lake, in the present diocese of Clogher.
+
+It was this latter Donnell or Donald O'Neil, who, towards
+the end of his reign, addressed to Pope John XXII. (elected
+to the pontificate in 1316) that powerful indictment
+against the Anglo-Normans, which has ever since remained
+one of the cardinal texts of our history. It was evidently
+written after the unsuccessful attempt, in which Donald
+was himself a main actor, to establish Edward Bruce on
+the throne of Ireland. That period we have not yet
+reached, but the merciless character of the warfare waged
+against the natives of the country could hardly have been
+aggravated by Bruce's defeat. "They oblige us by open
+force," says the Ulster Prince, "to give up to them our
+houses and our lands, and to seek shelter like wild beasts
+upon the mountains, in woods, marshes, and caves. Even
+there we are not secure against their fury; they even
+envy us those dreary and terrible abodes; they are
+incessant and unremitting in their pursuit after us,
+endeavouring to chase us from among them; they lay claim
+to every place in which they can discover us with
+unwarranted audacity and injustice; they allege that the
+whole kingdom belongs to them of right, and that an
+Irishman has no longer a right to remain in his own
+country."
+
+After specifying in detail the proofs of these and other
+general charges, the eloquent Prince concludes by uttering
+the memorable vow that the Irish "will not cease to fight
+against and among their invaders until the day when they
+themselves, for want of power, shall have ceased to do
+us harm, and that a Supreme Judge shall have taken just
+vengeance on their crimes, which we firmly hope will
+sooner or later come to pass."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+RETROSPECT OF THE NORMAN PERIOD IN IRELAND--A GLANCE AT
+THE MILITARY TACTICS OF THE TIMES--NO CONQUEST OF THE
+COUNTRY IN THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+Though the victorious and protracted career of Richard
+de Burgh, the "Red Earl" of Ulster, might, without
+overstraining, be included in the Norman period, yet, as
+introductory to the memorable advent and election of King
+Edward Bruce, we must leave it for the succeeding book.
+Having brought down the narrative, as regards all the
+provinces, to the end of the first century, from the
+invasion, we must now cast a backward glance on the events
+of that hundred years before passing into the presence
+of other times and new combinations.
+
+"There were," says _Giraldus Cambriensis_, "three sundry
+sorts of servitors which served in the realm of Ireland,
+Normans, Englishmen, and the Cambrians, which were the
+first conquerors of the land: the first were in most
+credit and estimation, the second next, but the last were
+not accounted or regarded of." "The Normans," adds the
+author, "were very fine in their apparel, and delicate
+in their diets; they could not feed but upon dainties,
+neither could their meat digest without wine at each
+meal; yet would they not serve in the marches or any
+remote place against the enemy, neither would they lie
+in garrison to keep any remote castle or fort, but, would
+be still about their lord's side to serve and guard his
+person; they would be where they might be full and have
+plenty; they could talk and brag, swear, and stare, and,
+standing in their own reputation, disdain all others."
+This is rather the language of a partizan than of an
+historian; of one who felt and spoke for those, his own
+kinsmen many of them, who, he complains, although the
+first to enter on the conquest, were yet held in contempt
+and disdain, "and only new-comers called to council."
+
+The Normans were certainly the captains in every campaign
+from Robert Fitzstephen to Stephen de Longespay. They
+made the war, and they maintained it. In the rank and
+file, and even among the knighthood, men of pure Welsh,
+English, and Flemish and Danish blood, may be singled
+out, but each host was marshalled by Norman skill, and
+every defeat was borne with Norman fortitude. It may seem
+strange, then, that these greatest masters of the art of
+war, as waged in the middle ages, invincible in England,
+France, Italy, and the East, should, after a hundred
+years, be no nearer to the conquest of Ireland than they
+were at the end of the tenth year.
+
+The main causes of the fluctuations of the war were, no
+doubt, the divided military command, and the frequent
+change of their civil authorities. They had never marched
+or colonized before without their Duke or King at their
+head, and in their midst. One supreme chief was necessary
+to keep to any common purpose the minds of so many proud,
+intractable nobles. The feuds of the de Lacys with the
+Marshals, of the Geraldines with the de Burghs, broke
+out periodically during the thirteenth century, and were
+naturally seized upon, by the Irish as opportunities for
+attacking either or both. The secondary nobles and all
+the adventurers understood their danger and its cause,
+when they petitioned Henry II. and Henry III. so often
+and so urgently as they did, that a member of the royal
+family might reside permanently in Ireland, to exercise
+the supreme authority, military and civil.
+
+The civil administration of the colonists passing into
+different hands every three or four years, suffered from
+the absence of permanent authority. The law of the marches
+was, of necessity, the law of the strong hand, and no
+other. But _Cambrensis_, whose personal prejudices are
+not involved in this fact, describes the walled towns as
+filled with litigation in his time. "There was," he says,
+"such _lawing_ and vexation, that the veteran was more
+troubled in _lawing_ within the town than he was in peril
+at large with the enemy." This being the case, we must
+take with great caution the bold assertions so often made
+of the zeal with which the natives petitioned the Henrys
+and Edwards that the law of England might be extended to
+them. Certain Celts whose lands lay within or upon the
+marches, others who compounded with their Norman invaders,
+a chief or prince, hard pressed by domestic enemies, may
+have wished to be in a position to quote Norman law
+against Norman spoilers, but the popular petitions which
+went to England, beseeching the extension of its laws to
+Ireland, went only from the townsmen of Dublin, and the
+new settlers in Leinster or Meath, harassed and impoverished
+by the arbitrary jurisdiction of manorial courts, from
+which they had no appeal. The great mass of the Irish
+remained as warmly attached to their Brehon code down to
+the seventeenth century as they were before the invasion
+of Norman or Dane. It may sound barbarous to our ears
+that, according to that code, murder should be compounded
+by an _eric_, or fine; that putting out the eyes should
+be the usual punishment of treason; that maiming should
+be judiciously inflicted for sundry offences; and that
+the land of a whole clan should be equally shared between
+the free members of that clan. We are not yet in a position
+to form an intelligent opinion upon the primitive
+jurisprudence of our ancestors, but the system itself
+could not have been very vicious which nourished in the
+governed such a thirst for justice, that, according to
+one of their earliest English law reformers, they were
+anxious for its execution, even against themselves.
+
+The distinction made in the courts of the adventurers
+against natives of the soil, even when long domiciled
+within their borders, was of itself a sufficient cause
+of war between the races. In the eloquent letter of the
+O'Neil to Pope John XXII.--written about the year 1318--we
+read, that no man of Irish origin could sue in an English
+court; that no Irishman, within the marches, could make
+a legal will; that his property was appropriated by his
+English neighbours; and that the murder of an Irishman
+was not even a felony punishable by fine. This latter
+charge would appear incredible, if we had not the record
+of more than one case where the homicide justified his
+act by the plea that his victim was a mere native, and
+where the plea was held good and sufficient.
+
+A very vivid picture of Hiberno-Norman town-life in those
+days is presented to us in an old poem, on the "Entrenchment
+of the Town of Ross," in the year 1265. We have there
+the various trades and crafts-mariners, coat-makers,
+fullers, cloth-dyers and sellers, butchers, cordwainers,
+tanners, hucksters, smiths, masons, carpenters, arranged
+by guilds, and marching to the sound of flute and tabor,
+under banners bearing a fish and platter, a painted ship,
+and other "rare devices." On the walls, when finished,
+cross-bows hung, with store of arrows ready to shoot;
+when the city horn sounded twice, burgess and bachelor
+vied with each other in warlike haste. In time of peace
+the stranger was always welcome in the streets; he was
+free to buy and sell without toll or tax, and to admire
+the fair dames who walked the quiet ramparts, clad in
+mantles of green, or russet, or scarlet. Such is the
+poetic picture of the town of Ross in the thirteenth
+century; the poem itself is written in Norman-French,
+though evidently intended for popular use, and the author
+is called "Friar Michael of Kildare." It is pretty evident
+from this instance, which is not singular, that a century
+after the first invasion, the French language was still
+the speech of part, if not the majority, of these
+Hiberno-Norman townsmen.
+
+So walls, and laws, and language arose, a triple barrier
+between the races. That common religion which might be
+expected to form a strong bond between them had itself
+to adopt a twofold organization. Distinctions of nationality
+were carried into the Sanctuary and into the Cloister.
+The historian _Giraldus_, in preaching at Dublin against
+the alleged vices of the native Clergy, sounded the first
+note of a long and bitter controversy. He was promptly
+answered from the same pulpit on the next occasion by
+Albin O'Mulloy, the patriot Abbot of Baltinglass. In
+one of the early Courts or Parliaments of the Adventurers,
+they decreed that no Monastery in those districts of
+which they had possession, should admit any but natives
+of England, as novices,--a rule which, according to
+O'Neil's letter, was faithfully acted upon by English
+Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, and regular canons.
+Some of the great Cistercian houses on the marches, in
+which the native religious predominated, adopted a
+retaliatory rule, for which they were severely censured
+by the general Chapter of their Order. But the length to
+which this feud was carried may be imagined by the sweeping
+charge O'Neil brings against "Brother Symon, a relative
+of the Bishop of Coventry," and other religious of his
+nation, who openly maintained, he says, that the killing
+of a mere Irishman was no murder.
+
+When this was the feeling on one side, or was believed
+to be the feeling, we cannot wonder that the war should
+have been renewed as regularly as the seasons. No sooner
+was the husbandman in the field than the knight was upon
+the road. Some peculiarities of the wars of those days
+gleam out at intervals through the methodic indifference
+to detail of the old annals, and reveal to us curious
+conditions of society. In the Irish country, where
+castle-building was but slowly introduced, we see, for
+example, that the usual storage for provisions, in time
+of war, was in churches and churchyards. Thus de Burgh,
+in his expedition to Mayo, in 1236, "left neither rick
+nor basket of corn in the large churchyard of Mayo, or
+in the yard of the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel,
+and carried away eighty baskets out of the churches
+themselves." When we read, therefore, as we frequently
+do, of both Irish and Normans plundering churches in the
+land of their enemies, we are not to suppose the plunder
+of the sanctuary. Popularly this seizing the supplies of
+an enemy on consecrated ground was considered next to
+sacrilege; and well it was for the fugitives in the
+sanctuary in those iron times that it should be so
+considered. Yet not the less is it necessary for us to
+distinguish a high-handed military measure from actual
+sacrilege, for which there can be no apology, and hardly
+any earthly atonement.
+
+In their first campaigns the Irish had one great advantage
+over the Normans in their familiarity with the country.
+This helped them to their first victories. But when the
+invaders were able to set up rival houses against each
+other, and to secure the co-operation of natives, the
+advantage was soon equalized. Great importance was attached
+to the intelligence and good faith of the guides, who
+accompanied every army, and were personally consulted by
+the leaders in determining their march. A country so
+thickly studded with the ancient forest, and so netted
+with rivers (then of much greater volume than since they
+have been stripped of their guardian woods), afforded
+constant occasion for the display of minute local knowledge.
+To miss a pass or to find a ford might determine a
+campaign, almost as much as the skill of the chief, or
+the courage of the battalion.
+
+The Irish depended for their knowledge of the English
+towns and castles on their daring _spies_, who continually
+risked their necks in acquiring for their clansmen such
+needful information. This perilous duty, when undertaken
+by a native for the benefit of his country, was justly
+accounted highly honourable. Proud poets, educated in
+all the mysteries of their art, and even men of chieftain
+rank, did not hesitate to assume disguises and act the
+patriot spy. One of the most celebrated spies of this
+century was Donogh Fitzpatrick, son of the Lord of Ossory,
+who was slain by the English in 1250. He was said to be
+"one of the three men" most feared by the English in his
+day. "He was in the habit of going about to reconnoitre
+their market towns," say the Annalists, "in various
+disguises." An old quatrain gives us a list of some of
+the parts he played when in the towns of his enemies--
+
+ "He is a carpenter, he is a turner.
+ My nursling is a bookman.
+ He is selling wine and hides
+ Where he sees a gathering."
+
+An able captain, as well as an intrepid spy, he met his
+fate in acting out his favourite part, "which," adds our
+justice-loving Four Masters, "was a retaliation due to
+the English, for, up to that time, he had killed, burned,
+and destroyed many of them."
+
+Of the equipments and tactics of the belligerents we get
+from our Annals but scanty details. The Norman battalion,
+according to the usage of that people, led by the marshal
+of the field, charged, after the archers had delivered
+their fire. But these wars had bred a new mounted force,
+called hobiler-archers, who were found so effective that
+they were adopted into all the armies of Europe. Although
+the bow was never a favourite weapon with the Irish,
+particular tribes seem to have been noted for its use.
+We hear in the campaigns of this century of the archers
+of Breffni, and we may probably interpret as referring
+to the same weapon, Felim O'Conor's order to his men, in
+his combat with the sons of Roderick at Drumraitte (1237),
+"not to shoot but to come to a close fight." It is
+possible, however, that this order may have reference to
+the old Irish weapon, the javelin or dart. The pike, the
+battle-axe, the sword, and skein, or dagger, both parties
+had in common, though their construction was different.
+The favourite tactique, on both sides, seems to have been
+the old military expedient of outflanking an enemy, and
+attacking him simultaneously in front and rear. Thus, in
+the year 1225, in one of the combats of the O'Conors,
+when the son of Cathal _Crovdearg_ endeavoured to surround
+Turlogh O'Conor, the latter ordered his recruits to the
+van, and Donn Oge Magheraty, with some Tyronian and other
+soldiers to cover the rear, "by which means they escaped
+without the loss of a man." The flank movement by which
+the Lord Justice Fitzgerald carried the passage of the
+Erne (A.D. 1247) against O'Donnell, according to the
+Annalists, was suggested to Fitzgerald by Cormac, the
+grandson of Roderick O'Conor. By that period in their
+intercourse the Normans and Irish had fought so often
+together that their stock of tactical knowledge must have
+been, from experience, very much common property. In the
+eyes of the Irish chiefs and chroniclers, the foreign
+soldiers who served with them were but hired mercenaries.
+They were sometimes repaid by the plunder of the country
+attacked, but usually they received fixed wages for the
+length of time they entered. "Hostages for the payment
+of wages" are frequently referred to, as given by native
+nobles to these foreign auxiliaries. The chief expedient
+for subsisting an army was driving before them herds and
+flocks; free quarters for men and horses were supplied
+by the tenants of allied chiefs within their territory,
+and for the rest, the simple outfit was probably not very
+unlike that of the Scottish borderers described by
+Froissart, who cooked the cattle they captured in their
+skins, carrying a broad plate of metal and a little bag
+of oatmeal trussed up behind the saddle.
+
+One inveterate habit clung to the ancient race, even
+until long after the times of which we now speak--their
+unconquerable prejudice against defensive armour. Gilbride
+McNamee, the laureate to King Brian O'Neil, gives due
+prominence to this fact in his poem on the death of his
+patron in the battle of Down (A.D. 1260). Thus sings the
+northern bard--
+
+ "The foreigners from London,
+ The hosts from Port-Largy *
+ Came in a bright green body,
+ In gold and iron armour.
+
+ "Unequal they engage in the battle,
+ The foreigners and the Gael of Tara,
+ _Fine linen shirts on the race of Conn_,
+ And the strangers _one mass of iron_."
+
+ [Footnote: Port-Largy, Waterford.]
+
+With what courage they fought, these scorners of armour,
+their victories of Ennis, of Callanglen, and of Credran,
+as well as their defeats at the Erne and at Down, amply
+testify. The first hundred years of war for native land,
+with their new foes, had passed over, and three-fourths
+of the _Saer Clanna_ were still as free as they had ever
+been. It was not reserved even for the Norman race--the
+conquest of Innisfail!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+STATE OF SOCIETY AND LEARNING IN IRELAND DURING THE NORMAN
+PERIOD.
+
+We have already spoken of the character of the war waged
+by and against the Normans on Irish soil, and as war was
+then almost every man's business, we may be supposed to
+have described all that is known of the time in describing
+its wars. What we have to add of the other pursuits of
+the various orders of men into which society was divided,
+is neither very full nor very satisfactory.
+
+The rise, fall, and migrations of some of the clans have
+been already alluded to. In no age did more depend on
+the personal character of the chief than then. When the
+death of the heroic Godfrey left the free clansmen of
+Tyrconnell without a lord to lead them to battle, or rule
+them in peace, the Annalists represent them to us as
+meeting in great perplexity, and engaged "in making
+speeches" as to what was to be done, when suddenly, to
+their great relief, Donnell Oge, son of Donnell More,
+who had been fostered in Alba (Scotland), was seen
+approaching them. Not more welcome was Tuathal, the
+well-beloved, the restorer of the Milesian monarchy,
+after the revolt of the _Tuatha_. He was immediately
+elected chief, and the emissaries of O'Neil, who had been
+waiting for an answer to his demand of tribute, were
+brought before him. He answered their proposition by a
+proverb expressed in the Gaelic of Alba, which says that
+"every man should possess his own country," and Tyrconnell
+armed to make good this maxim.
+
+The Bardic order still retained much of their ancient
+power, and all their ancient pride. Of their most famous
+names in this period we may mention Murray O'Daly of
+Lissadil, in Sligo, Donogh O'Daly of Finvarra, sometimes
+called Abbot of Boyle, and Gilbride McNamee, laureate to
+King Brian O'Neil. McNamee, in lamenting the death of
+Brian, describes himself as defenceless, and a prey to
+every spoiler, now that his royal protector is no more.
+He gave him, he tells us, for a poem on one occasion,
+besides gold and raiment, a gift of twenty cows. On
+another, when he presented him a poem, he gave in return
+twenty horned cows, and a gift still more lasting, "the
+blessing of the King of Erin." Other chiefs, who fell in
+the same battle, and to one of whom, named Auliffe
+O'Gormley, he had often gone "on a visit of pleasure,"
+are lamented with equal warmth by the bard. The poetic
+Abbot of Boyle is himself lamented in the Annals as the
+Ovid of Ireland, as "a poet who never had and never will
+have an equal." But the episode which best illustrates
+at once the address and the audacity of the bardic order
+is the story of Murray O'Daly of Lissadil, and Donnell
+More O'Donnell, Lord of Tyrconnell.
+
+In the year 1213, O'Donnell despatched Finn O'Brollaghan,
+his _Aes graidh_ or Steward, to collect his tribute in
+Connaught, and Finn, putting up at the house of O'Daly,
+near Drumcliff, and being a plebeian who knew no better,
+began to wrangle with the poet. The irritable master of
+song, seizing a sharp axe, slew the steward on the spot,
+and then to avoid O'Donnell's vengeance fled into
+Clanrickarde. Here he announced himself by a poem addressed
+to de Burgh, imploring his protection, setting forth the
+claims of the Bardic order on all high-descended heroes,
+and contending that his fault was but venial, in killing
+a clown, who insulted him. O'Donnell pursued the fugitive
+to Athenry, and de Burgh sent him away secretly into
+Thomond. Into Thomond, the Lord of Tyrconnell marched,
+but O'Brien sent off the Bard to Limerick. The enraged
+Ulsterman appeared at the gates of Limerick, when O'Daly
+was smuggled out of the town, and "passed from hand to
+hand," until he reached Dublin. The following spring
+O'Donnell appeared in force before Dublin, and demanded
+the fugitive, who, as a last resort, had been sent for
+safety into Scotland. From the place of his exile he
+addressed three deprecatory poems to the offended Lord
+of Tyrconnell, who finally allowed him to return to
+Lissadil in peace, and even restored him to his friendship.
+
+The introduction of the new religious orders--Dominicans,
+Franciscans, and the order for the redemption of Captives
+into Ireland, in the first quarter of this century
+gradually extinguished the old Columban and Brigintine
+houses. In Leinster they made way most rapidly; but Ulster
+clung with its ancient tenacity to the Columban rule.
+The Hierarchy of the northern half-kingdom still exercised
+a protectorate, over Iona itself, for we read, in the
+year 1203, how Kellagh, having erected a monastery in
+the middle of Iona, in despite of the religious, that
+the Bishops of Derry and Raphoe, with the Abbots of Armagh
+and Derry and numbers of the Clergy of the North of
+Ireland, passed over to Iona, pulled down the unauthorized
+monastery, and assisted at the election of a new Abbot.
+This is almost the last important act of the Columban
+order in Ireland. By the close of the century, the
+Dominicans had some thirty houses, and the Franciscans
+as many more, whether in the walled towns or the open
+country. These monasteries became the refuge of scholars,
+during the stormy period we have passed, and in other
+days full as troubled, which were to come. Moreover, as
+the Irish student, like all others in that age, desired
+to travel from school to school, these orders admitted
+him to the ranks of widespread European brotherhoods,
+from whom he might always claim hospitality. Nor need we
+reject as anything incredible the high renown for
+scholarship and ability obtained in those times by such
+men as Thomas Palmeran of Naas, in the University of
+Paris; by Peter and Thomas Hibernicus in the University
+of Naples, in the age of Aquinas; by Malachy of Ireland,
+a Franciscan, Chaplain to King Edward II. of England,
+and Professor at Oxford; by the Danish Dominican, Gotofrid
+of Waterford; and above all, by John Scotus of Down, the
+subtle doctor, the luminary of the Franciscan schools,
+of Paris and Cologne. The native schools of Ireland had
+lost their early ascendancy, and are no longer traceable
+in our annals; but Irish scholarship, when arrested in
+its full development at home, transferred its efforts to
+foreign Universities, and there maintained the ancient
+honour of the country among the studious "nations" of
+Christendom. Among the "nations" involved in the college
+riots at Oxford, in the year 1274, we find mention of
+the Irish, from which fact it is evident there must have
+been a considerable number of natives of that country,
+then frequenting the University.
+
+The most distinguished native ecclesiastics of this
+century were Matthew O'Heney, Archbishop of Cashel,
+originally a Cistercian monk, who died in retirement at
+Holy Cross in 1207; Albin O'Mulloy, the opponent of
+_Giraldus_, who died Bishop of Ferns in 1222; and Clarus
+McMailin, Erenach of Trinity Island, Lough Key-if an
+_Erenach_ may be called an ecclesiastic. It was O'Heney
+made the Norman who said the Irish Church had no martyrs,
+the celebrated answer, that now men had come into the
+country who knew so well how to make martyrs, that reproach
+would soon be taken away. He is said to have written a
+life of Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, and we know that
+he had legantine powers at the opening of the century.
+The _Erenach_ of Lough Key, who flourished in its second
+half, plays an important part in all the western feuds
+and campaigns; his guarantee often preserved peace and
+protected the vanquished. Among the church-builders of
+his age, he stands conspicuous. The ordinary churches
+were indeed easily built, seldom exceeding 60 or 70 feet
+in length, and one half that width, and the material
+still most in use was, for the church proper, timber.
+The towers, cashels, or surrounding walls, and the cells
+of the religious, as well as the great monasteries and
+collegiate and cathedral churches, were of stone, and
+many of them remain monuments of the skill and munificence
+of their founders.
+
+Of the consequences of the abolition of slavery by the
+Council of Armagh, at the close of the twelfth century,
+we have no tangible evidence. It is probable that the
+slave trade, rather than domestic servitude, was abolished
+by that decree. The cultivators of the soil were still
+divided into two orders--Biataghs and Brooees. "The
+former," says O'Donovan, "who were comparatively few in
+number, would appear to have held their lands free of
+rent, but were obliged to entertain travellers, and the
+chief's soldiers when on their march in his direction;
+and the latter (the Brooees) would appear to have been
+subject to a stipulated rent and service." From "the Book
+of Lecan," a compilation of the fourteenth century, we
+learn that the Brooee was required to keep an hundred
+labourers, and an hundred of each kind of domestic animals.
+Of the rights or wages of the labourers, we believe,
+there is no mention made.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK V.
+
+THE ERA OF KING EDWARD BRUCE.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE RISE OF "THE RED EARL"--RELATIONS OF IRELAND AND
+SCOTLAND.
+
+During the half century which comprised the reigns of
+Edward I. and II. in England (A.D. 1272 to 1327), Scotland
+saw the last of her first race of Kings, and the elevation
+of the family of Bruce, under whose brilliant star Ireland
+was, for a season, drawn into the mid-current of Scottish
+politics. Before relating the incidents of that revolution
+of short duration but long enduring consequences, we must
+note the rise to greatness of the one great Norman name,
+which in that era mainly represented the English interest
+and influence in Ireland.
+
+Richard de Burgh, called from his ruddy complexion "the
+Red Earl" of Ulster, nobly bred in the court of Henry III.
+of England, had attained man's age about the period when
+the de Lacys, the Geraldines, de Clares, and other great
+Anglo-Irish, families, either through the fortune of war
+or failure of issue, were deprived of most of their
+natural leaders. Uniting in his own person the blood of
+the O'Conors, de Lacys, and de Burghs, his authority was
+great from the beginning in Meath and Connaught. In his
+inroads on West-Meath he seems to have been abetted by
+the junior branches of the de Lacys, who were with his
+host in the year 1286, when he besieged Theobald de Verdon
+in Athlone, and advanced his banner as far eastward as
+the strong town of Trim, upon the Boyne. Laying claim to
+the possessions of the Lord of Meath, which touched the
+Kildare Geraldines at so many points, he inevitably came
+into contact with that powerful family. In 1288, in
+alliance with Manus O'Conor, they compelled him to retreat
+from Roscommon into Clanrickarde, in Mayo. De Verdon,
+his competitor for West-Meath, naturally entered into
+alliance with the Kildare Geraldine, and in the year
+1294, after many lesser conflicts, they took the Red Earl
+and his brother William prisoners, and carried them in
+fetters to the Castle of Lea, in Offally. This happened
+on the 6th day of December; a Parliament assembled at
+Kilkenny on the 12th of March following, ordered their
+release; and a peace was made between these powerful
+houses. De Burgh gave his two sons as hostages to
+Fitzgerald, and the latter surrendered the Castle of
+Sligo to de Burgh. From the period of this peace the
+power of the last named nobleman outgrew anything that
+had been known since the Invasion. In the year 1291, he
+banished the O'Donnell out of his territory, and set up
+another of his own choosing; he deposed one O'Neil and
+raised up another; he so straitened O'Conor in his
+patrimony of Roscommon, that that Prince also entered
+his camp at Meelick, and gave him hostages. He was thus
+the first and only man of his race who had ever had in
+his hand the hostages both of Ulster and Connaught. When
+the King of England sent writs into Ireland, he usually
+addressed the Red Earl, before the Lord Justice or Lord
+Deputy--a compliment which, in that ceremonious age,
+could not be otherwise than flattering to the pride of
+de Burgh. Such was the order of summons, in which, in
+the year 1296, he was required by Edward I. to attend
+him into Scotland, which was then experiencing some of
+the worst consequences of a disputed succession. As
+Ireland's interest in this struggle becomes in the sequel
+second only to that of Scotland, we must make brief
+mention of its origin and progress.
+
+By the accidental death of Alexander III., in 1286, the
+McAlpine, or Scoto-Irish dynasty, was suddenly terminated.
+Alexander's only surviving child, Margaret, called from
+her mother's country, "the Maid of Norway," soon followed
+her father; and no less than eight competitors, all
+claiming collateral descent from the former Kings, appeared
+at the head of as many factions to contest the succession.
+This number was, however, soon reduced to two men--John
+Baliol and Robert Bruce--the former the grandson of the
+eldest, the latter the son of the second daughter of King
+David I. After many bickerings these powerful rivals were
+induced to refer their claims to the decision of Edward I.
+of England, who, in a Great Court held at Berwick in the
+year 1292, decided in favour of Baliol, not in the
+character of an indifferent arbitrator, but as lord
+paramount of Scotland. As such, Baliol there and then
+rendered him feudal homage, and became, in the language
+of the age, "his man." This sub-sovereignty could not
+but be galling to the proud and warlike nobles of Scotland,
+and accordingly, finding Edward embroiled about his French
+possessions, three years after the decision, they caused
+Baliol to enter into an alliance, offensive and defensive,
+with Philip IV. of France, against his English suzerain.
+The nearer danger compelled Edward to march with 40,000
+men, which he had raised for the war in France, towards
+the Scottish border, whither he summoned the Earl of
+Ulster, the Geraldines, Butlers, de Verdons, de Genvilles,
+Berminghams, Poers, Purcells, de Cogans, de Barrys, de
+Lacys, d'Exeters, and other minor nobles, to come to him
+in his camp early in March, 1296. The Norman-Irish obeyed
+the call, but the pride of de Burgh would not permit him
+to embark in the train of the Lord Justice Wogan, who
+had been also summoned; he sailed with his own forces in
+a separate fleet, having conferred the honour of knighthood
+on thirty of his younger followers before embarking at
+Dublin. Whether these forces arrived in time to take part
+in the bloody siege of Berwick, and the panic-route at
+Dunbar, does not appear; they were in time, however, to
+see the strongest places in Scotland yielded up, and John
+Baliol a prisoner on his way to the Tower of London. They
+were sumptuously entertained by the conqueror in the
+Castle of Roxburgh, and returned to their western homes
+deeply impressed with the power of England, and the
+puissance of her warrior-king.
+
+But the independence of Scotland was not to be trodden
+out in a single campaign. During Edward's absence in
+France, William Wallace and other guerilla chiefs arose,
+to whom were soon united certain patriot nobles and
+bishops. The English deputy de Warrane fought two
+unsuccessful campaigns against these leaders, until his
+royal master, having concluded peace with France, summoned
+his Parliament to meet him at York, and his Norman-Irish
+lieges to join him in his northern camp, with all their
+forces, on the 1st of March, 1299. In June the English
+King found himself at Roxburgh, at the head of 8,000
+horse, and 80,000 foot, "chiefly Irish and Welsh." With
+this immense force he routed Wallace at Falkirk on the
+22nd of July, and reduced him to his original rank of a
+guerilla chief, wandering with his bands of partizans
+from one fastness to another. The Scottish cause gained
+in Pope Boniface VII. a powerful advocate soon after,
+and the unsubdued districts continued to obey a Regency
+composed of the Bishop of St. Andrews, Robert Bruce,
+and John Comyn. These regents exercised their authority
+in the name of Baliol, carried on negotiations with France
+and Rome, convoked a Parliament, and, among other military
+operations, captured Stirling Castle. In the documentary
+remains of this great controversy, it is curious to find
+Edward claiming the entire island of Britain in virtue
+of the legend of Brute the Trojan, and the Scots rejecting
+it with scorn, and displaying their true descent and
+origin from Scota, the fabled first mother of the Milesian
+Irish. There is ample evidence that the claims of kindred
+were at this period keenly felt by the Gael of Ireland,
+for the people of Scotland, and men of our race are
+mentioned among the companions of Wallace and the allies
+of Brace. But the Norman-Irish were naturally drawn to
+the English banner, and when, in 1303, it was again
+displayed north of the Tweed, the usual noble names are
+found among its followers. In 1307 Scotland lost her most
+formidable foe, by the death of Edward, and at the same
+time began to recognize her appointed deliverer in the
+person of Robert Bruce. But we must return to "the Red
+Earl," the central figure in our own annals during this
+half century.
+
+The new King, Edward II., compelled by his English barons
+to banish his minion, Gaveston, Earl of Cornwall, had
+created him his lieutenant of Ireland, endowed him with
+a grant of the royalties of the whole island, to the
+prejudice of the Earl and other noblemen. The sojourn of
+this brilliant parasite in Ireland lasted but a year--from
+June, 1308, till the June following. He displayed both
+vigour and munificence, and acquired friends. But the
+Red Earl, sharing to the full the antipathy of the great
+barons of England, kept apart from his court, maintained
+a rival state at Trim, as Commander-in-Chief, conferring
+knighthood, levying men, and imposing taxes at his own
+discretion. A challenge of battle is said to have passed
+between him and the Lieutenant, when the latter was
+recalled into England by the King, where he was three
+years later put to death by the barons, into whose hands
+he had fallen. Sir John Wogan and Sir Edmund Butler
+succeeded him in the Irish administration; but the real
+power long remained with Richard de Burgh. He was appointed
+plenipotentiary to treat with Robert Brace, on behalf of
+the King of England, "upon which occasion the Scottish
+deputies waited on him in Ireland." In the year 1302
+Brace had married his daughter, the Lady Ellen, while of
+his other daughters one was Countess of Desmond, and
+another became Countess of Kildare in 1312. A thousand
+marks--the same sum at which the town and castle of Sligo
+were then valued-was allowed by the Earl for the marriage
+portion of his last-mentioned daughter. His power and
+reputation, about the period of her marriage, were at
+the full. He had long held the title of Commander of the
+Irish forces, "in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Gascony;"
+he had successfully resisted Gaveston in the meridian of
+his court favour; the father-in-law of a King, and of
+Earls of almost royal power, lord paramount of half the
+island-such a subject England had not seen on Irish ground
+since the Invasion. This prodigious power he retained,
+not less by his energy than his munificence. He erected
+castles at Carlingford, at Sligo, on the upper Shannon,
+and on Lough Foyle. He was a generous patron of the
+Carmelite Order, for whom he built the Convent of Loughrea.
+He was famed as a princely entertainer, and before retiring
+from public affairs, characteristically closed his career
+with a magnificent banquet at Kilkenny, where the whole
+Parliament were his guests. Having reached an age
+bordering upon fourscore he retired to the Monastery of
+Athassil, and there expired within sight of his family
+vault, after half a century of such sway as was rarely
+enjoyed in that age, even by Kings. But before that
+peaceful close he was destined to confront a storm the
+like of which had not blown over Ireland during the long
+period since he first began to perform his part in the
+affairs of that kingdom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE NORTHERN IRISH ENTER INTO ALLIANCE WITH KING ROBERT
+BRUCE--ARRIVAL AND FIRST CAMPAIGN OF EDWARD BRUCE.
+
+No facts of the ages over which we have already passed
+are better authenticated than the identity of origin and
+feeling which existed between the Celts of Erin and of
+Albyn. Nor was this sympathy of race diminished by their
+common dangers from a common enemy. On the eve of the
+Norman invasion we saw how heartily the Irish were with
+Somerled and the men of Moray in resisting the feudal
+polity of the successors of Malcolm _Caen-More_. As the
+Plantagenet Princes in person led their forces against
+Scotland, the interest of the Irish, especially those of
+the North, increased, year by year, in the struggles of
+the Scots. Irish adherents followed the fortunes of
+Wallace to the close; and when Robert Bruce, after being
+crowned and seated in the chair of the McAlpin line, on
+the summit of the hill of Scone, had to flee into exile,
+he naturally sought refuge where he knew he would find
+friends. Accompanied by three of his brothers, several
+adherents, and even by some of the females of his family,
+he steered, in the autumn of 1306, for the little island
+of Rathlin--seven miles long by a mile wide--one point
+of which is within three miles of the Antrim beach. In
+its most populous modern day Rathlin contained not above
+1,000 souls, and little wonder if its still smaller
+population, five centuries ago, fled in terror at the
+approach of Bruce. They were, however, soon disarmed of
+their fears, and agreed to supply the fugitive King daily
+with provisions for 300 persons, the whole number who
+accompanied or followed him into exile. His faithful
+adherents soon erected for him a castle, commanding one
+of the few landing places on the island, the ruins of
+which are still shown to strangers as "Bruce's Castle."
+Here he passed in perfect safety the winter of 1306,
+while his emissaries were recruiting in Ulster, or passing
+to and fro, in the intervals of storm, among the western
+islands. Without waiting for the spring to come round
+again, they issued from their retreat in different
+directions; one body of 700 Irish sailed under Thomas
+and Alexander, the King's brothers, for the Clyde, while
+Robert and Edward took the more direct passage towards
+the coast of Argyle, and, after many adventures, found
+themselves strong enough to attack the foreign forces in
+Perth and Ayrshire. The opportune death of Edward of
+England the same summer, and the civil strife bred by
+his successor's inordinate favour towards Gaveston,
+enabled the Bruces gradually to root out the internal
+garrisons of their enemies; but the party that had sailed,
+under the younger brothers, from Rathlin, were attacked
+and captured in Loch Ryan by McDowell, and the survivors
+of the engagement, with Thomas and Alexander Bruce, were
+carried prisoners to Carlisle and there put to death.
+
+The seven years' war of Scottish independence was drawn
+to a close by the decisive campaign of 1314. The second
+Edward prepared an overwhelming force for this expedition,
+summoning, as usual, the Norman-Irish Earls, and inviting
+in different language his "beloved" cousins, the native
+Irish Chiefs, not only such as had entered into English
+alliances at any time, but also notorious allies of Bruce,
+like O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Kane. These writs were
+generally unheeded; we have no record of either Norman-Irish
+or native-Irish Chief having responded to Edward's summons,
+nor could nobles so summoned have been present without
+some record remaining of the fact. On the contrary all
+the wishes of the old Irish went with the Scots, and the
+Normans were more than suspected of leaning the same way.
+Twenty-one clans, Highlanders and Islemen, and many
+Ulstermen, fought on the side of Bruce, on the field of
+Bannockburn; the grant of "Kincardine-O'Neil," made by
+the victor-King to his Irish followers, remains a striking
+evidence of their fidelity to his person, and their
+sacrifices in his cause. The result of that glorious day
+was, by the testimony of all historians, English as well
+as Scottish, received with enthusiasm on the Irish side
+of the channel.
+
+Whether any understanding had been come to between the
+northern Irish and Bruce, during his sojourn in Rathlin,
+or whether the victory of Bannockburn suggested the
+design, Edward Bruce, the gallant companion of all his
+brother's fortunes and misfortunes, was now invited to
+place himself at the head of the men of Ulster, in a war
+for Irish independence. He was a soldier of not inferior
+fame to his brother for courage and fortitude, though he
+had never exhibited the higher qualities of general and
+statesman which crowned the glory of King Robert. Yet as
+he had never held a separate command of consequence, his
+rashness and obstinacy, though well known to his intimates,
+were lost sight of, at a distance, by those who gazed
+with admiration on the brilliant achievements, in which
+he had certainly borne the second part. The chief mover
+in the negotiation by which this gallant soldier was
+brought to embark his fortunes in an Irish war, was
+Donald, Prince of Ulster. This Prince, whose name is so
+familiar from his celebrated remonstrance addressed to
+Pope John XXII., was son of King Brian of the battle of
+Down, who, half a century before, at the Conference of
+Caeluisge, was formally chosen Ard-Righ, by the nobles
+of three Provinces. He had succeeded to the principality
+--not without a protracted struggle with the Red Earl
+--some twenty years before the date of the battle of
+Bannockburn. Endued with an intensely national spirit,
+he seems to have fully adopted the views of Nicholas
+McMaelisa, the Primate of Armagh, his early cotemporary.
+This Prelate--one of the most resolute opponents of the
+Norman conquest--had constantly refused to instal any
+foreigner in a northern diocese. When the Chapter of
+Ardagh delayed their election, he nominated a suitable
+person to the Holy See; when the See of Meath was distracted
+between two national parties he installed his nominee;
+when the Countess of Ulster caused Edward I. to issue
+his writ for the installation of John, Bishop of Conor,
+he refused his acquiescence. He left nearly every See
+in his Province, at the time of his decease (the year
+1303), under the administration of a native ecclesiastic;
+a dozen years before he had established a formal
+"association" among the Prelates at large, by which they
+bound themselves to resist the interference of the Kings
+of England in the nomination of Bishops, and to be subject
+only to the sanction of the See of Rome. In the Provinces
+of Cashel and Tuam, in the fourteenth century, we do not
+often find a foreign born Bishop; even in Leinster double
+elections and double delegations to Rome, show how deeply
+the views of the patriotic Nicholas McMaelisa had seized
+upon the clergy of the next age. It was Donald O'Neil's
+darling project to establish a unity of action against
+the common enemy among the chiefs, similar to that which
+the Primate had brought about among the Bishops. His own
+pretensions to the sovereignty were greater than that of
+any Prince of his age; his house had given more monarchs
+to the island than any other; his father had been
+acknowledged by the requisite majority; his courage,
+patriotism, and talents, were admittedly equal to the
+task. But he felt the utter impossibility of conciliating
+that fatal family pride, fed into extravagance by Bards
+and Senachies, which we have so often pointed out as the
+worst consequence of the Celtic system. He saw chiefs,
+proud of their lineage and their name, submit to serve
+a foreign Earl of Ulster, who refused homage to the native
+Prince of Ulster; he saw the seedlings of a vice of which
+we have seen the fruit--that his countrymen would submit
+to a stranger rather than to one of themselves, and he
+reasoned, not unnaturally, that, by the hand of some
+friendly stranger, they might be united and liberated.
+The attempt of Edward Bruce was a failure, and was followed
+by many disasters; but a more patriotic design, or one
+with fairer omens of success, could not have entered the
+mind or heart of a native Prince, after the event of the
+battle at Bannockburn. Edward of England, having
+intelligence of the negotiations on foot between the
+Irish and Scots, after his great defeat, summoned over
+to Windsor during the winter, de Burgh, Fitzgerald, de
+Verdon, and Edmund Butler, the Lord Deputy. After conferring
+with them, and confirming Butler in his office, they were
+despatched back in all haste to defend their country.
+Nor was there time to lose. Edward Bruce, with his usual
+impetuosity, without waiting for his full armament, had
+sailed from Ayr with 6,000 men in 300 galleys, accompanied
+by Thomas Randolph, Earl of Moray, Sir John Stuart, Sir
+Philip Moubray, Sir Fergus of Ardrossan, and other
+distinguished knights. He landed on the 25th day of May,
+1315, in the Glendun river, near Glenarm, and was promptly
+joined by Donald O'Neil, and twelve other chiefs. Their
+first advance was from the coast towards that angle of
+Lough Neagh, near which stands the town of Antrim. Here,
+at Rathmore, in the plain of Moylinny, they were attacked
+by the Mandevilles and Savages of the Ards of Down, whom
+they defeated. From Antrim they continued their route
+evidently towards Dublin, taking Dundalk and Ardee, after
+a sharp resistance. At Ardee they were but 35 miles
+north of Dublin, easy of conquest, if they had been
+provided with siege trains--which it seemed they were not.
+
+While Bruce and O'Neil were coming up from the north,
+Hugh O'Donnell, lord of Tyrconnell, as if to provide
+occupation for the Earl of Ulster, attacked and sacked
+the castle and town of Sligo, and wasted the adjacent
+country. The Earl, on hearing of the landing of the Scots,
+had mustered his forces at Athlone, and compelled the
+unwilling attendance of Felim O'Conor, with his clansmen.
+From Athlone he directed his march towards Drogheda,
+where he arrived with "20 cohorts," about the same time
+that the Lord Deputy Butler came up with "30 cohorts."
+Bruce, unprepared to meet so vast a force--taken together
+some 25,000 or 30,000 men--retreated slowly towards his
+point of debarkation. De Burgh, who, as Commander-in-Chief,
+took precedence in the field of the Lord Deputy, ordered
+the latter to protect Meath and Leinster, while he pursued
+the enemy. Bruce, having despatched the Earl of Moray to
+his brother, was now anxious to hold some northern position
+where they could most easily join him. He led de Burgh,
+therefore, into the North of Antrim, thence across the
+Bann at Coleraine, breaking down the bridge at that point.
+Here the armies encamped for some days, separated by the
+river, the outposts occasionally indulging in a "shooting
+of arrows." By negotiation, Bruce and O'Neil succeeded
+in detaching O'Conor from de Burgh. Under the plea--which
+really had sufficient foundation--of suppressing an
+insurrection headed by one of his rivals, O'Conor returned
+to his own country. No sooner had he left than Bruce
+assumed the offensive, and it was now the Red Earl's turn
+to fall back. They retreated towards the castle of Conyre
+(probably Conor, near Ballymena, in Antrim), where an
+engagement was fought, in which de Burgh was defeated,
+his brother William, Sir John Mandeville, and several
+other knights being taken prisoners. The Earl continued
+his retreat through Meath towards his own possession;
+Bruce followed, capturing in succession Granard, Fenagh,
+and Kells, celebrating his Christmas at Loughsweedy, in
+West-Meath, in the midst of the most considerable chiefs
+of Ulster, Meath, and Connaught. It was probably at this
+stage of his progress that he received the adhesion of
+the junior branches of the Lacys--the chief Norman family
+that openly joined his standard.
+
+This termination of his first campaign on Irish soil
+might be considered highly favourable to Bruce. More than
+half the clans had risen, and others were certain to
+follow their example; the clergy were almost wholly with
+him; and his heroic brother had promised to lead an army
+to his aid in the ensuing spring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+BRUCE'S SECOND CAMPAIGN, AND CORONATION AT DUNDALK--THE
+RISING IN CONNAUGHT--BATTLE OF ATHENRY-ROBERT BRUCE IN
+IRELAND.
+
+From Loughsweedy, Bruce broke up his quarters, and marched
+into Kildare, encamping successively at Naas, Kildare,
+and Rathangan. Advancing in a southerly direction, he
+found an immense, but disorderly Anglo-Irish host drawn
+out, at the moat of Ardscull, near Athy, to dispute his
+march. They were commanded by the Lord Justice Butler,
+the Baron of Offally, the Lord Arnold Poer, and other
+magnates; but so divided were these proud Peers, in
+authority and in feeling, that, after a severe skirmish
+with Bruce's vanguard, in which some knights were killed
+on both sides, they retreated before the Hiberno-Scottish
+army, which continued its march unmolested, and took
+possession of Castledermot.
+
+Animated by these successes, won in their midst, the
+clans of Leinster began in succession to raise their
+heads. The tribes of Wicklow, once possessors of the
+fertile plains to the east and west, rallied in the
+mountain glens to which they had been driven, and commenced
+that long guerilla war, which centuries only were to
+extinguish. The McMurroghs along the ridge of Leinster,
+and all their kindred upon the Barrow and the Slaney,
+mustered under a chief, against whom the Lord Justice
+was compelled to march in person, later in the campaign
+of 1316. The Lord of Dunamase was equally sanguine, but
+800 men of the name of O'Moore, slain in one disastrous
+encounter, crippled for the time the military strength
+of that great house. Having thus kindled the war, in the
+very heart of Leinster, Bruce retraced his march through
+Meath and Louth, and held at Dundalk that great assembly
+in which he was solemnly elected King of Ireland. Donald
+O'Neil, by letters patent, as son of Brian "of the battle
+of Down," the last acknowledged native king, formally
+resigned his right, in favour of Bruce, a proceeding which
+he defends in his celebrated letter to Pope John XXII.,
+where he speaks of the new sovereign as the illustrious
+Earl of Carrick, Edward de Bruce, a nobleman descended
+from the same ancestors with themselves, whom they had
+called to their aid, and freely chosen as their king and
+lord. The ceremony of inauguration seems to have been
+performed in the Gaelic fashion, on the hill of
+Knocknemelan, within a mile of Dundalk, while the solemn
+consecration took place in one of the churches of the
+town. Surrounded by all the external marks of royalty,
+Bruce established his court in the castle of Northburgh
+(one of de Courcy's or de Verdon's fortresses), adjoining
+Dundalk, where he took cognizance of all pleas that were
+brought before him. At that moment his prospects compared
+favourably with those of his illustrious brother a few
+years earlier. The Anglo-Irish were bitterly divided
+against each other; while, according to their joint
+declaration of loyalty, signed before de Hothun, King
+Edward's special agent, "all the Irish of Ireland, several
+great lords, and many English people," had given in their
+adhesion to Bruce. In Ulster, except Carrickfergus, no
+place of strength remained in the hands of any subject
+of Edward of England. The arrival of supplies from Scotland
+enabled Bruce to resume that siege in the autumn of 1316,
+and the castle, after a heroic defence by Sir Thomas de
+Mandeville, was surrendered in mid-winter. Here, in the
+month of February, 1317, the new King of Ireland had the
+gratification of welcoming his brother of Scotland, at
+the head of a powerful auxiliary force, and here, according
+to Barbour's _Chronicle_, they feasted for three days,
+in mirth and jollity, before entering on the third campaign
+of this war.
+
+We have before mentioned that one of the first successes
+obtained by Bruce was through the withdrawal of Felim
+O'Conor from the Red Earl's alliance. The Prince thus
+won over to what may be fairly called the national cause,
+had just then attained his majority, and his martial
+accomplishments reflected honour on his fosterer, McDermott
+of Moylurg, while they filled with confidence the hearts
+of his own clansmen. After his secession from de Burgh
+at Coleraine, he had spent a whole year in suppressing
+the formidable rival who had risen to dispute his title.
+Several combats ensued between their respective adherents,
+but at length Roderick, the pretender, was defeated and
+slain, and Felim turned all his energies to co-operate
+with Bruce, by driving the foreigner out of his own
+province. Having secured the assistance of all the chief
+tribes of the west, and established the ancient supremacy
+of his house over Breffni, he first attacked the town of
+Ballylahen, in Mayo, the seat of the family of de Exeter,
+slew Slevin de Exeter, the lord de Cogan, and other
+knights and barons, and plundered the town. At the
+beginning of August in the same year, in pursuance of
+his plan, Felim mustered the most numerous force which
+Connaught had sent forth, since the days of Cathal More.
+Under his leadership marched the Prince of Meath, the
+lords of Breffni, Leyny, Annally, Teffia, Hy-Many, and
+Hy-Fiachra, with their men. The point of attack was the
+town of Athenry, the chief fortified stronghold of the
+de Burghs and Berminghams in that region. Its importance
+dated from the reign of King John; it had been enriched
+with convents and strengthened by towers; it was besides
+the burial place of the two great Norman families just
+mentioned, and their descendants felt that before the
+walls of Athenry their possessions were to be confirmed
+to them by their own valour, or lost for ever. A decisive
+battle was fought on St. Laurence's day--the 10th of
+August--in which the steel-clad Norman battalion once
+more triumphed over the linen-shirted clansmen of the
+west. The field was contested with heroic obstinacy; no
+man gave way; none thought of asking or giving quarter.
+The standard bearer, the personal guard, and the Brehon
+of O'Conor fell around him. The lords of Hy-Many, Teffia,
+and Leyny, the heir of the house of Moylurg, with many
+other chiefs, and, according to the usual computation,
+8,000 men were slain. Felim O'Conor himself, in the
+twenty-third year of his age, and the very morning of
+his fame, fell with the rest, and his kindred, the
+Sil-Murray, were left for a season an easy prey to William
+de Burgh and John de Bermingham, the joint commanders in
+the battle. The spirit of exaggeration common in most
+accounts of killed and wounded, has described this day
+as fatal to the name and race of O'Conor, who are
+represented as cut off to a man in the conflict; the
+direct line which Felim represented was indeed left
+without an immediate adult representative; but the
+offshoots of that great house had spread too far and
+flourished too vigorously to be shorn away, even by so
+terrible a blow as that dealt at Athenry. The very next
+year we find chiefs of the name making some figure in
+the wars of their own province, but it is observable that
+what may be called the national party in Connaught for
+some time after Athenry, looked to McDermott of Moylurg
+as their most powerful leader.
+
+The moral effect of the victory of Athenry was hardly to
+be compensated for by the capture of Carrickfergus the
+next winter. It inspired the Anglo-Irish with new courage.
+De Bermingham was created commander-in-chief. The citizens
+of Dublin burned their suburbs to strengthen their means
+of defence. Suspecting the zeal of the Red Earl, so
+nearly connected with the Bruces by marriage, their Mayor
+proceeded to Saint Mary's abbey, where he lodged, arrested
+and confined him to the castle. To that building the
+Bermingham tower was added about this time, and the
+strength of the whole must have been great when the
+skilful leaders, who had carried Stirling and Berwick,
+abandoned the siege of Dublin as hopeless. In Easter
+week, 1317, Roger Mortimer, afterwards Earl of March,
+nearly allied to the English King on the one hand, and
+maternally descended from the Marshals and McMurroghs on
+the other, arrived at Youghal, as Lord Justice, released
+the Earl of Ulster on reaching Dublin, and prepared to
+dispute the progress of the Bruces towards the South.
+
+The royal brothers had determined, according to their
+national Bard, to take their way with all their host,
+from one cud of Ireland to the other. Their destination
+was Munster, which populous province had not yet ratified
+the recent election. Ulster and Meath were with them;
+Connaught, by the battle of Athenry, was rendered incapable
+of any immediate effort, and therefore Edward Bruce, in
+true Gaelic fashion, decided to proceed on his royal
+visitation, and so secure the hostages of the southern
+half-kingdom. At the head of 20,000 men, in two divisions,
+the brothers marched from Carrickfergus; meeting, with
+the exception of a severe skirmish in a wood near Slane,
+with no other molestation till they approached the very
+walls of Dublin. Finding the place stronger than they
+expected, or unwilling to waste time at that season of
+the year, the Hiberno-Scottish army, after occupying
+Castleknock, turned up the valley of the Liffey, and
+encamped for four days by the pleasant waterfall of
+Leixlip. From Leixlip to Naas they traversed the estates
+of one of their active foes, the new made Earl of Kildare,
+and from Naas they directed their march to Callan in
+Ossory, taking special pleasure, according to Anglo-Irish
+Annals, in harrying the lands of another enemy, the Lord
+Butler, afterwards Earl of Ormond. From Callan their
+route lay to Cashel and Limerick, at each of which they
+encamped two or three days without seeing the face of an
+enemy. But if they encountered no enemies in Minister,
+neither did they make many friends by their expedition.
+It seems that on further acquaintance rivalries and
+enmities sprung up between the two nations who composed
+the army; that Edward Bruce, while styling himself King
+of Ireland, acted more like a vigorous conqueror exhausting
+his enemies, than a prudent Prince careful for his friends
+and adherents. His army is accused, in terms of greater
+vehemence than are usually employed in our cautious
+chronicles, of plundering churches and monasteries, and
+even violating the tombs of the dead in search of buried
+treasure. The failure of the harvest, added to the effect
+of a threefold war, had so diminished the stock of food
+that numbers perished of famine, and this dark, indelible
+remembrance was, by an arbitrary notion of cause and
+effect, inseparably associated in the popular mind, both
+English and Irish, with the Scottish invasion. One fact
+is clear, that the election of Dundalk was not popular
+in Munster, and that the chiefs of Thomond and Desmond
+were uncommitted, if not hostile towards Bruce's
+sovereignty. McCarthy and O'Brien seized the occasion,
+indeed, while he was campaigning in the North, to root
+out the last representative of the family of de Clare,
+as we have already related, when tracing the fortunes of
+the Normans in Munster. But of the twelve reguli, or
+Princes in Bruce's train, none are mentioned as having
+come from the Southern provinces.
+
+This visitation of Munster occupied the months of February
+and March. In April, the Lord Justice Mortimer summoned
+a Parliament at Kilkenny, and there, also, the whole
+Anglo-Irish forces, to the number of 30,000 men, were
+assembled. The Bruces on their return northward might
+easily have been intercepted, or the genius which triumphed
+at Bannockburn might have been as conspicuously signalized
+on Irish ground. But the military authorities were waiting
+orders from the Parliament, and the Parliament were at
+issue with the new Justice, and so the opportunity was
+lost. Early in May, the Hiberno-Scottish army re-entered
+Ulster, by nearly the same route as they had taken going
+southwards, and King Robert soon after returned into
+Scotland, promising faithfully to rejoin his brother, as
+soon as he disposed of his own pressing affairs. The King
+of England in the meantime, in consternation at the news
+from Ireland, applied to the Pope, then at Avignon, to
+exercise his influence with the Clergy and Chiefs of
+Ireland, for the preservation of the English interest in
+that country. It was in answer to the Papal rescripts so
+procured that Donald O'Neil despatched his celebrated
+Remonstrance, which the Pontiff enclosed to Edward II.,
+with an urgent recommendation that the wrongs therein
+recited might be atoned for, and avoided in the future.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+BATTLE OF FAUGHARD AND DEATH OF KING EDWARD BRUCE--
+CONSEQUENCES OF HIS INVASION--EXTINCTION OF THE EARLDOM
+OF ULSTER--IRISH OPINION OF EDWARD BRUCE.
+
+It is too commonly the fashion, as well with historians
+as with others, to glorify the successful and censure
+severely the unfortunate. No such feeling actuates us
+in speaking of the character of Edward Bruce, King of
+Ireland. That he was as gallant a knight as any in that
+age of gallantry, we know; that he could confront the
+gloomiest aspect of adversity with cheerfulness, we also
+know. But the united testimony, both of history and
+tradition, in his own country, so tenacious of its
+anecdotical treasures, describes him as rash, headstrong,
+and intractable, beyond all the captains of his time.
+And in strict conformity with this character is the
+closing scene of his Irish career.
+
+The harvest had again failed in 1317, and enforced a
+melancholy sort of truce between all the belligerents.
+The scarcity was not confined to Ireland, but had severely
+afflicted England and Scotland, compelling their rulers
+to bestow a momentary attention on the then abject class,
+the tillers of the soil. But the summer of 1318 brightened
+above more prosperous fields, from which no sooner had
+each party snatched or purchased his share of the produce,
+than the war-note again resounded through all the four
+Provinces. On the part of the Anglo-Irish, John de
+Bermingham was confirmed as Commander-in-Chief, and
+departed from Dublin with, according to the chronicles
+of the Pale, but 2,000 chosen troops, while the Scottish
+biographer of the Bruces gives him "20,000 trapped horse."
+The latter may certainly be considered an exaggerated
+account, and the former must be equally incorrect. Judged
+by the other armaments of that period, from the fact that
+the Normans of Meath, under Sir Miles de Verdon and Sir
+Richard Tuit, were in his ranks, and that he then held
+the rank of Commander-in-Chief of all the English forces
+in Ireland, it is incredible that de Bermingham should
+have crossed the Boyne with less than eight or ten thousand
+men. Whatever the number may have been, Bruce resolved
+to risk the issue of battle contrary to the advice of
+all his officers, and without awaiting the reinforcements
+hourly expected from Scotland, and which shortly after
+the engagement did arrive. The native chiefs of Ulster,
+whose counsel was also to avoid a pitched battle, seeing
+their opinions so lightly valued, are said to have
+withdrawn from Dundalk. There remained with the iron-headed
+King the Lords Moubray, de Soulis, and Stewart, with the
+three brothers of the latter; MacRory, lord of the Isles,
+and McDonald, chief of his clan. The neighbourhood of
+Dundalk, the scene of his triumphs and coronation, was
+to be the scene of this last act of Bruce's chivalrous
+and stormy career.
+
+On the 14th of October, 1318, at the hill of Faughard,
+within a couple of miles of Dundalk, the advance guard
+of the hostile armies came into the presence of each
+other, and made ready for battle. Roland de Jorse, the
+foreign Archbishop of Armagh--who had not been able to
+take possession of his see, though appointed to it seven
+years before--accompanied the Anglo-Irish, and moving
+through their ranks, gave his benediction to their banners.
+But the impetuosity of Bruce gave little time for
+preparation. At the head of the vanguard, without waiting
+for the whole of his company to come up, he charged the
+enemy with impetuosity. The action became general, and
+the skill of de Bermingham as a leader was again
+demonstrated. An incident common to the warfare of that
+age was, however, the immediate cause of the victory.
+Master John de Maupas, a burgher of Dundalk, believing
+that the death of the Scottish leader would be the signal
+for the retreat of his followers, disguised as a jester
+or fool, sought him throughout the field. One of the
+royal esquires, named Gilbert Harper, wearing the surcoat
+of his master, was mistaken for him, and slain; but the
+true leader was at length found by de Maupas, and struck
+down with the blow of a leaden plummet or slung-shot.
+After the battle, when the field was searched for his
+body, it was found under that of de Maupas, who had
+bravely yielded up life for life. The Hiberno-Scottish
+forces dispersed in dismay, and when King Robert of
+Scotland landed a day or two afterwards, he was met by
+the fugitive men of Carrick, under their leader Thompson,
+who informed him of his brother's fate. He returned at
+once into his own country, carrying off the few Scottish
+survivors. The head of the impetuous Edward was sent to
+London; but the body was interred in the churchyard of
+Faughard, where, within living memory, a tall pillar
+stone was pointed out by every peasant of the neighbourhood
+as marking the grave of "King Bruce."
+
+The fortunes of the principal actors, native and Norman,
+in the invasion of Edward Bruce, may be briefly recounted
+before closing this book of our history, John de Bermingham,
+created for his former victory Baron of Athenry, had now
+the Earldom of Louth conferred on him with a royal pension.
+He promptly followed up his blow at Faughard by expelling
+Donald O'Neil, the mainspring of the invasion, from
+Tyrone; but Donald, after a short sojourn among the
+mountains of Fermanagh, returned during the winter and
+resumed his lordship, though he never wholly recovered
+from the losses he had sustained. The new Earl of Louth
+continued to hold the rank of Commander-in-Chief in
+Ireland, to which he added in 1322 that of Lord Justice.
+He was slain in 1329, with some 200 of his personal
+adherents, in an affair with the natives of his new
+earldom, at a place called Ballybeagan. He left by a
+daughter of the Earl of Ulster three daughters; the title
+was perpetuated in the family of his brothers.
+
+In 1319, the Earls of Kildare and Louth, and the Lord
+Arnold le Poer, were appointed a commission to inquire
+into all treasons committed in Ireland during Bruce's
+invasion. Among other outlawries they decreed those of
+the three de Lacys, the chiefs of their name, in Meath
+and Ulster. That illustrious family, however, survived
+even this last confiscation, and their descendants,
+several centuries later, were large proprietors in the
+midland counties.
+
+Three years after the battle of Faughard, died Roland de
+Jorse, Archbishop of Armagh, it was said, of vexations
+arising out of Bruce's war, and other difficulties which
+beset him in taking possession of his see. Adam, Bishop
+of Ferns, was deprived of his revenues for taking part
+with Bruce, and the Friars Minor of the Franciscan order,
+were severely censured in a Papal rescript for their zeal
+on the same side.
+
+The great families of Fitzgerald and Butler obtained
+their earldoms of Kildare, Desmond, and Ormond, out of
+this dangerous crisis, but the premier earldom of Ulster
+disappeared from our history soon afterwards. Richard,
+the Red Earl, having died in the Monastery of Athassil,
+in 1326, was succeeded by his son, William, who, seven
+years later, in consequence of a family feud, instigated
+by one of his own female relatives, Gilla de Burgh, wife
+of Walter de Mandeville, was murdered at the Fords, near
+Carrickfergus, in the 21st year of his age. His wife,
+Maud, daughter of Henry Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster,
+fled into England with her infant, afterwards married to
+Lionel, Duke of Clarence, son of King Edward III., who
+thus became personally interested in the system which he
+initiated by the odious Statute of Kilkenny. But the
+misfortunes of the Red Earl's posterity did not end with
+the murder of his immediate successor. Edmond, his
+surviving son, five years subsequently, was seized by
+his cousin, Edmond, the son of William, and drowned in
+Lough Mask, with a stone about his neck. The posterity
+of William de Burgh then assumed the name of McWilliam,
+and renounced the laws, language, and allegiance of
+England. Profiting by their dissensions, Turlogh O'Conor,
+towards the middle of the century, asserted supremacy
+over them, thus practising against the descendants the
+same policy which the first de Burghs had successfully
+employed among the sons of Roderick.
+
+We must mention here a final consequence of Edward Bruce's
+invasion seldom referred to,--namely, the character of
+the treaty between Scotland and England, concluded and
+signed at Edinburgh, on St. Patrick's Day, 1328. By this
+treaty, after arranging an intermarriage between the
+royal families, it was stipulated in the event of a
+rebellion against Scotland, in Skye, Man, or the Islands,
+or against England, in Ireland, that the several Kings
+would not abet or assist each other's rebel subjects.
+Remembering this article, we know not what to make of
+the entry in our own Annals, which states that Robert
+Bruce landed at Carrickfergus in the same year, 1328,
+"and sent word to the Justiciary and Council, that he
+came to make peace between Ireland and Scotland, and that
+he would meet them at Green Castle; but that the latter
+failing to meet him, he returned to Scotland." This,
+however, we know: high hopes were entertained, and immense
+sacrifices were made, for Edward Bruce, but were made in
+vain. His proverbial rashness in battle, with his total
+disregard of the opinion of the country into which he
+came, alienated from him those who were at first disposed
+to receive him with enthusiasm. It may be an instructive
+lesson to such as look to foreign leaders and foreign
+forces for the means of national deliverance to read the
+terms in which the native Annalists record the defeat
+and death of Edward Bruce: "No achievement had been
+performed in Ireland, for a long time," say the Four
+Masters, "from which greater benefit had accrued to the
+country than from this." "There was not a better deed
+done in Ireland since the banishment of the Formorians,"
+says the Annalist of Clonmacnoise! So detested may a
+foreign liberating chief become, who outrages the feelings
+and usages of the people he pretends, or really means to
+emancipate!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VI.
+
+THE NATIVE, THE NATURALIZED, AND "THE ENGLISH INTEREST."
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CIVIL WAR IN ENGLAND--ITS EFFECTS ON THE ANGLO-IRISH--
+THE KNIGHTS OF SAINT JOHN--GENERAL DESIRE OF THE ANGLO-IRISH
+TO NATURALIZE THEMSELVES AMONG THE NATIVE POPULATION--
+A POLICY OF NON-INTERCOURSE BETWEEN THE RACES RESOLVED ON
+IN ENGLAND.
+
+The closing years of the reign of Edward II. of England
+were endangered by the same partiality for favourites
+which, had disturbed its beginning. The de Spensers,
+father and son, played at this period the part which
+Gaveston had performed twenty years earlier. The Barons,
+who undertook to rid their country of this pampered
+family, had, however, at their head Queen Isabella, sister
+of the King of France, who had separated from her husband
+under a pretended fear of violence at his hands, but in
+reality to enjoy more freely her criminal intercourse
+with her favourite, Mortimer. With the aid of French and
+Flemish mercenaries, they compelled the unhappy Edward
+to fly from London to Bristol, whence he was pursued,
+captured, and after being confined for several months in
+different fortresses, was secretly murdered in the autumn
+of 1327, by thrusting a red hot iron into his bowels.
+His son, Edward, a lad of fifteen years of age, afterwards
+the celebrated Edward III., was proclaimed King, though
+the substantial power remained for some years longer with
+Queen Isabella, and her paramour, now elevated to the
+rank of Earl of March. In the year 1330, however, their
+guilty prosperity was brought to a sudden close; Mortimer
+was seized by surprise, tried by his peers, and executed
+at Tyburn; Isabella was imprisoned for life, and the
+young King, at the age of eighteen, began in reality that
+reign, which, through half a century's continuance, proved
+so glorious and advantageous for England.
+
+It will be apparent that during the last few years of
+the second, and under the minority of the third Edward,
+the Anglo-Irish Barons would be left to pursue undisturbed
+their own particular interests and enmities. The renewal
+of war with Scotland, on the death of King Robert Bruce,
+and the subsequent protracted wars with France, which
+occupied, with some intervals of truce, nearly thirty
+years of the third Edward's reign, left ample time for
+the growth of abuses of every description among the
+descendants of those who had invaded Ireland, under the
+pretext of its reformation, both in morals and government.
+The contribution of an auxiliary force to aid him in his
+foreign wars was all the warlike King expected from his
+lords of Ireland, and at so cheap a price they were well
+pleased to hold their possessions under his guarantee.
+At Halidon hill the Anglo-Irish, led by Sir John Darcy,
+distinguished themselves against the Scots in 1333; and
+at the siege of Calais, under the Earls of Kildare and
+Desmond, they acquired additional reputation in 1347.
+From this time forward it became a settled maxim of
+English policy to draft native troops out of Ireland for
+foreign service, and to send English soldiers into it in
+times of emergency.
+
+In the very year when the tragedy of Edward the Second's
+deposition and death was enacted in England, a drama of
+a lighter kind was performed among his new made earls in
+Ireland. The Lord Arnold le Poer gave mortal offence to
+Maurice, first Earl of Desmond, by calling him "a Rhymer,"
+a term synonymous with poetaster. To make good his
+reputation as a Bard, the Earl summoned his allies, the
+Butlers and Berminghams, while le Poer obtained the aid
+of his maternal relatives, the de Burghs, and several
+desperate conflicts took place between them. The Earl of
+Kildare, then deputy, summoned both parties to meet him
+at Kilkenny, but le Poer and William de Burgh fled into
+England, while the victors, instead of obeying the deputy's
+summons, enjoyed themselves in ravaging his estate. The
+following year (A.D. 1328), le Poer and de Burgh returned
+from England, and were reconciled with Desmond and Ormond
+by the mediation of the new deputy, Roger Outlaw, Prior
+of the Knights of the Hospital at Kilmainham. In honour
+of this reconciliation de Burgh gave a banquet at the
+castle, and Maurice of Desmond reciprocated by another
+the next day, in St. Patrick's Church, though it was
+then, as the Anglo-Irish Annalist remarks, the penitential
+season of Lent. A work of peace and reconciliation,
+calculated to spare the effusion of Christian blood, may
+have been thought some justification for this irreverent
+use of a consecrated edifice.
+
+The mention of the Lord Deputy, Sir Roger Outlaw, the
+second Prior of his order though not the last, who wielded
+the highest political power over the English settlements,
+naturally leads to the mention of the establishment in
+Ireland, of the illustrious orders of the Temple and the
+Hospital. The first foundation of the elder order is
+attributed to Strongbow, who erected for them a castle
+at Kilmainham, on the high ground to the south of the
+Liffey, about a mile distant from the Danish wall of old
+Dublin. Here, the Templars flourished, for nearly a
+century and a half, until the process for their suppression
+was instituted under Edward II., in 1308. Thirty members
+of the order were imprisoned and examined in Dublin,
+before three Dominican inquisitors--Father Richard Balbyn,
+Minister of the Order of St. Dominick in Ireland, Fathers
+Philip de Slane and Hugh de St. Leger. The decision
+arrived at was the same as in France and England; the
+order was condemned and suppressed; and their Priory of
+Kilmainham, with sixteen benefices in the diocese of
+Dublin, and several others, in Ferns, Meath, and Dromore,
+passed to the succeeding order, in 1311. The state
+maintained by the Priors of Kilmainham, in their capacious
+residence, often rivalled that of the Lords Justices.
+But though their rents were ample, they did not collect
+them without service. Their house might justly be regarded
+as an advanced fortress on the south side of the city,
+constantly open to attacks from the mountain tribes of
+Wicklow. Although their vows were for the Holy Land, they
+were ever ready to march at the call of the English
+Deputies, and their banner, blazoned with the _Agnus
+Dei_, waved over the bloodiest border frays of the
+fourteenth century. The Priors of Kilmainham sat as Barons
+in the Parliaments of "the Pale," and the office was
+considered the first in ecclesiastical rank among the
+regular orders.
+
+During the second quarter of this century, an extraordinary
+change became apparent in the manners and customs of the
+descendants of the Normans, Flemings, and Cambrians,
+whose ancestors an hundred years earlier were strangers
+in the land. Instead of intermarrying exclusively among
+themselves, the prevailing fashion became to seek for
+Irish wives, and to bestow their daughters on Irish
+husbands. Instead of clinging to the language of Normandy
+or England, they began to cultivate the native speech of
+the country. Instead of despising Irish law, every nobleman
+was now anxious to have his Brehon, his Bard, and his
+Senachie. The children of the Barons were given to be
+fostered by Milesian mothers, and trained in the early
+exercises so minutely prescribed by Milesian education.
+Kildare, Ormond, and Desmond, adopted the old military
+usages of exacting "coyne and livery"--horse meat and
+man's meat--from their feudal tenants. The tie of Gossipred,
+one of the most fondly cherished by the native population,
+was multiplied between the two races, and under the wise
+encouragement of a domestic dynasty might have become a
+powerful bond of social union. In Connaught and Munster
+where the proportion of native to naturalized was largest,
+the change was completed almost in a generation, and
+could never afterwards be wholly undone. In Ulster the
+English element in the population towards the end of this
+century was almost extinct, but in Meath and Leinster,
+and that portion of Munster immediately bordering on
+Meath and Leinster, the process of amalgamation required
+more time than the policy of the Kings of England allowed
+it to obtain.
+
+The first step taken to counteract their tendency to
+_Hibernicize_ themselves, was to bestow additional honours
+on the great families. The baronry of Offally was enlarged
+into the earldom of Kildare; the lordship of Carrick into
+the earldom of Ormond; the title of Desmond was conferred
+on Maurice Fitz-Thomas Fitzgerald, and that of Louth on
+the Baron de Bermingham. Nor were they empty honours;
+they were accompanied with something better. The "royal
+liberties" were formally conceded, in no less than nine
+great districts, to their several lords. Those of Carlow,
+Wexford, Kilkenny, Kildare, and Leix, had been inherited
+by the heirs of the Earl Marshal's five daughters; four
+other counties Palatine were now added--Ulster, Meath,
+Ormond, and Desmond. "The absolute lords of those
+palatinates," says Sir John Davis, "made barons and
+knights, exercised high justice within all their
+territories; erected courts for civil and criminal causes,
+and for their own revenues, in the same form in which
+the king's courts were established at Dublin; they
+constituted their own judges, seneschals, sheriffs,
+coroners, and escheators." So that the king's writs did
+not run in their counties, which took up more than two
+parts of the English colony; but ran only in the
+church-lands lying within the same, which was therefore
+called THE CROSSE, wherein the Sheriff was nominated by
+the King. By "high justice" is meant the power of life
+and death, which was hardly consistent with even a
+semblance of subjection. No wonder such absolute lords
+should be found little disposed to obey the summons of
+deputies, like Sir Ralph Ufford and Sir John Morris, men
+of merely knightly rank, whose equals they had the power
+to create, by the touch of their swords.
+
+For a season their new honours quickened the dormant
+loyalty of the recipients. Desmond, at the head of 10,000
+men, joined the lord deputy, Sir John Darcy, to suppress
+the insurgent tribes of South Leinster; the Earls of
+Ulster and Ormond united their forces for an expedition
+into West-Meath against the brave McGeoghegans and their
+allies; but even these services--so complicated were
+public and private motives in the breasts of the actors
+--did not allay the growing suspicion of what were commonly
+called "the old English," in the minds of the English
+King and his council. Their resolution seems to have been
+fixed to entrust no native of Ireland with the highest
+office in his own country; in accordance with which
+decision Sir Anthony Lucy was appointed, (1331;) Sir John
+Darcy, (1332-34; again in 1341;) and Sir Ralph Ufford,
+(1343-1346.) During the incumbency of these English
+knights, whether acting as justiciaries or as deputies,
+the first systematic attempts were made to prevent, both
+by the exercise of patronage or by penal legislation,
+the fusion of races, which was so universal a tendency
+of that age. And although these attempts were discontinued
+on the recommencement of war with France in 1345, the
+conviction of their utility had seized too strongly on
+the tenacious will of Edward III. to be wholly abandoned.
+The peace of Bretigni in 1360 gave him leisure to turn
+again his thoughts in that direction. The following year
+he sent over his third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence and
+Earl of Ulster, (in right of his wife,) who boldly
+announced his object to be the total separation, into
+hostile camps, of the two populations.
+
+This first attempt to enforce non-intercourse between
+the natives and the naturalized deserves more particular
+mention. It appears to have begun in the time of Sir
+Anthony Lucy, when the King's Council sent over certain
+"Articles of Reform," in which it was threatened that if
+the native nobility were not more attentive in discharging
+their duties to the King, his Majesty would resume into
+his own hands all the grants made to them by his royal
+ancestors or himself, as well as enforce payment of debts
+due to the Crown which had been formerly remitted. From
+some motive, these articles were allowed, after being
+made public, to remain a dead letter, until the
+administration of Darcy, Edward's confidential agent in
+many important transactions, English and Irish. They were
+proclaimed with additional emphasis by this deputy, who
+convoked a Parliament or Council, at Dublin, to enforce
+them as law. The same year, 1342, a new ordinance came
+from England, prohibiting the public employment of men
+born or married, or possessing estates in Ireland, and
+declaring that all offices of state should be filled in
+that country by "fit Englishmen, having lands, tenements,
+and benefices in England." To this sweeping proscription
+the Anglo-Irish, as well townsmen as nobles, resolved to
+offer every resistance, and by the convocation of the
+Earls of Desmond, Ormond, and Kildare, they agreed to
+meet for that purpose at Kilkenny. Accordingly, what is
+called Darcy's Parliament, met at Dublin in October,
+while Desmond's rival assembly gathered at Kilkenny in
+November. The proceedings of the former, if it agreed to
+any, are unrecorded, but the latter despatched to the
+King, by the hands of the Prior of Kilmainham, a
+Remonstrance couched in Norman-French, the court language,
+in which they reviewed the state of the country; deplored
+the recovery of so large a portion of the former conquest
+by the old Irish; accused, in round terms, the successive
+English officials sent into the land, with a desire
+suddenly to enrich themselves at the expense both of
+sovereign and subject; pleaded boldly their own loyal
+services, not only in Ireland, but in the French and
+Scottish wars; and finally, claimed the protection of
+the Great Charter, that they might not be ousted of their
+estates, without being called in judgment. Edward, sorely
+in need of men and subsidies for another expedition to
+France, returned them a conciliatory answer, summoning
+them to join him in arms, with their followers, at an
+early day; and although a vigorous effort was made by
+Sir Ralph Ufford to enforce the articles of 1331, and
+the ordinance of 1341, by the capture of the Earls of
+Desmond and Kildare, and by military execution on some
+of their followers, the policy of non-intercourse was
+tacitly abandoned for some years after the Remonstrance
+of Kilkenny. In 1353, under the lord deputy, Rokeby, an
+attempt was made to revive it, but it was quickly abandoned;
+and two years later, Maurice, Earl of Desmond, the leader
+of the opposition, was appointed to the office of Lord
+Justice for life! Unfortunately that high-spirited nobleman
+died the year of his appointment, before its effects
+could begin to be felt. The only legal concession which
+marked his period was a royal writ constituting the
+"Parliament" of the Pale the court of last resort for
+appeals from the decisions of the King's courts in that
+province. A recurrence to the former favourite policy
+signalized the year 1357, when a new set of ordinances
+were received from London, denouncing the penalties of
+treason against all who intermarried, or had relations
+of fosterage with the Irish; and proclaiming war upon
+all kernes and idle men found within the English districts.
+Still severer measures, in the same direction, were soon
+afterwards decided upon, by the English King and his
+council.
+
+Before relating the farther history of this penal code
+as applied to race, we must recall the reader's attention
+to the important date of the Kilkenny Remonstrance, 1342.
+From that year may be distinctly traced the growth of
+two parties among the subjects of the English Kings in
+Ireland. At one time they are distinguished as "the old
+English" and "the new English," at another, as "English
+by birth" and "English by blood." The new English, fresh
+from the Imperial island, seem to have usually conducted
+themselves with a haughty sense of superiority; the old
+English, more than half _Hibernicized_, confronted these
+strangers with all the self-complacency of natives of
+the soil on which they stood. In their frequent visits
+to the Imperial capital, the old English were made sensibly
+to feel that their country was not there; and as often
+as they went, they returned with renewed ardour to the
+land of their possessions and their birth. Time, also,
+had thrown its reverent glory round the names of the
+first invaders, and to be descended from the companions
+of Earl Richard, or the captains who accompanied King
+John, was a source of family pride, second only to that
+which the native princes cherished, in tracing up their
+lineage to Milesius of Spain. There were many reasons,
+good, bad, and indifferent, for the descendants of the
+Norman adventurers adopting Celtic names, laws, and
+customs, but not the least potent, perhaps, was the
+fostering of family pride and family dependence, which,
+judged from our present stand-points, were two of the
+worst possible preparations for our national success in
+modern times.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+LIONEL, DUKE OF CLARENCE, LORD LIEUTENANT--THE PENAL CODE
+OF RACE--"THE STATUTE OF KILKENNY," AND SOME OF ITS
+CONSEQUENCES.
+
+While the grand experiment for the separation of the
+population of Ireland into two hostile camps was being
+matured in England, the Earls of Kildare and Ormond were,
+for four or five years, alternately entrusted with the
+supreme power. Fresh ordinances, in the spirit of those
+despatched to Darcy, in 1342, continued annually to
+arrive. One commanded all lieges of the English King,
+having grants upon the marches of the Irish enemy, to
+reside upon and defend them, under pain of revocation.
+By another entrusted to the Earl of Ormond for promulgation,
+"no mere Irishman" was to be made a Mayor or bailiff, or
+other officer of any town within the English districts;
+nor was any mere Irishman "thereafter, under any pretence
+of kindred, or from any other cause, to be received into
+holy orders, or advanced to any ecclesiastical benefice."
+A modification of this last edict was made the succeeding
+year, when a royal writ explained that exception was
+intended to be made of such Irish clerks as had given
+individual proofs of their loyalty.
+
+Soon after the peace of Bretigni had been solemnly ratified
+at Calais, in 1360, by the Kings of France and England,
+and the latter had returned to London, it was reported
+that one of the Princes would be sent over to exercise
+the supreme power at Dublin. As no member of the royal
+family had visited Ireland since the reign of John--though
+Edward I., when Prince, had been appointed his father's
+lieutenant--this announcement naturally excited unusual
+expectations. The Prince chosen was the King's third son,
+Lionel, Duke of Clarence; and every preparation was made
+to give _eclat_ and effect to his administration. This
+Prince had married, a few years before, Elizabeth de
+Burgh, who brought him the titles of Earl of Ulster and
+Lord of Connaught, with the claims which they covered.
+By a proclamation, issued in England, all who held
+possessions in Ireland were commanded to appear before
+the King, either by proxy or in person, to take measures
+for resisting the continued encroachments of the Irish
+enemy. Among the absentees compelled to contribute to
+the expedition accompanying the Prince, are mentioned
+Maria, Countess of Norfolk, Agnes, Countess of Pembroke,
+Margery de Boos, Anna le Despenser, and other noble
+ladies, who, by a strange recurrence, represented in this
+age the five co-heiresses of the first Earl Marshal,
+granddaughters of Eva McMurrogh. What exact force was
+equipped from all these contributions is not mentioned;
+but the Prince arrived in Ireland with no more than 1,500
+men, under the command of Ralph, Earl of Strafford, James,
+Earl of Ormond, Sir William Windsor, Sir John Carew, and
+other knights. He landed at Dublin on the 15th of September,
+1361, and remained in office for three years. On landing
+he issued a proclamation, prohibiting natives of the
+country, of all origins, from approaching his camp or
+court, and having made this hopeful beginning he marched
+with his troops into Munster, where he was defeated by
+O'Brien, and compelled to retreat. Yet by the flattery
+of courtiers he was saluted as the conqueror of Clare,
+and took from the supposed fact, his title of _Clarence_.
+But no adulation could blind him to the real weakness of
+his position: he keenly felt the injurious consequences
+of his proclamation, revoked it, and endeavoured to remove
+the impression he had made, by conferring knighthood on
+the Prestons, Talbots, Cusacks, De la Hydes, and members
+of other families, not immediately connected with the
+Palatine Earls. He removed the Exchequer from Dublin to
+Carlow, and expended 500 pounds--a large sum for that
+age--in fortifying the town. The barrier of Leinster was
+established at Carlow, from which it was removed, by an
+act of the English Parliament ten years afterwards; the
+town and castle were retaken in 1397, by the celebrated
+Art McMurrogh, and long remained in the hands of his
+posterity.
+
+In 1364, Duke Lionel went to England, leaving de Windsor
+as his deputy, but in 1365, and again in 1367, he twice
+returned to his government. This latter year is memorable
+as the date of the second great stride towards the
+establishment of a Penal Code of race, by the enactment
+of the "Statute of Kilkenny." This memorable Statute was
+drawn with elaborate care, being intended to serve as
+the corner stone of all future legislation, and its
+provisions are deserving of enumeration. The Act sets
+out with this preamble: "Whereas, at the conquest of the
+land of Ireland, and for a long time after, the English
+of the said land used the English language, mode of
+riding, and apparel, and were governed and ruled, both
+they and their subjects, called Betaghese (villeins),
+according to English law, &c., &c.,--but now many English
+of the said land, forsaking the English language, manners,
+mode of riding, laws, and usages, live, and govern
+themselves according to the manners, fashion, and language
+of the Irish enemies, and also have made divers marriages
+and alliances between themselves and the Irish enemies
+aforesaid--it is therefore enacted, among other provisions,
+that all intermarriages, fosterings, gossipred, and buying
+or selling with the 'enemie,' shall be accounted
+treason--that English names, fashions, and manners shall
+be resumed under penalty of the confiscation of the
+delinquent's lands--that March-law and Brehon-law are
+illegal, and that there shall be no law but English
+law--that the Irish shall not pasture their cattle on
+English lands--that the English shall not entertain Irish
+rhymers, minstrels, or newsmen; and, moreover, that no
+'mere Irishmen' shall be admitted to any ecclesiastical
+benefice, or religious house, situated within the English
+districts."
+
+All the names of those who attended at this Parliament
+of Kilkenny are not accessible to us; but that the Earls
+of Kildare, Ormond, and Desmond, were of the number need
+hardly surprise us, alarmed as they all were by the late
+successes of the native princes, and overawed by the
+recent prodigious victories of Edward III. at Cressy and
+Poictiers. What does at first seem incomprehensible is
+that the Archbishop not only of Dublin, but of Cashel
+and Tuam--in the heart of the Irish country--and the
+Bishops of Leighlin, Ossory, Lismore, Cloyne, and Killala,
+should be parties to this statute. But on closer inspection
+our surprise at their presence disappears. Most of these
+prelates were at that day nominees of the English King,
+and many of them were English by birth. Some of them
+never had possession of their sees, but dwelt within the
+nearest strong town, as pensioners on the bounty of the
+Crown, while the dioceses were administered by native
+rivals, or tolerated vicars. Le Reve, Bishop of Lismore,
+was Chancellor to the Duke in 1367; Young, Bishop of
+Leighlin, was Vice-Treasurer; the Bishop of Ossory, John
+of Tatendale, was an English Augustinian, whose appointment
+was disputed by Milo Sweetman, the native Bishop elect;
+the Bishop of Cloyne, John de Swasham, was a Carmelite
+of Lyn, in the county of Norfolk, afterwards Bishop of
+Bangor, in Wales, where he distinguished himself in the
+controversy against Wycliffe; the Bishop of Killala we
+only know by the name of Robert--at that time very unusual
+among the Irish. The two native names are those of the
+Archbishops of Cashel and Tuam, Thomas O'Carrol and John
+O'Grady. The former was probably, and the latter certainly,
+a nominee of the Crown. We know that Dr. O'Grady died an
+exile from his see--if he ever was permitted to enter
+it--in the city of Limerick, four years after the sitting
+of the Parliament of Kilkenny. Shortly after the enactment
+of this law, by which he is best remembered, the Duke of
+Clarence returned to England, leaving to Gerald, fourth
+Earl of Desmond, the task of carrying it into effect. In
+the remaining years of this reign the office of Lord
+Lieutenant was held by Sir William de Windsor, during
+the intervals of whose absence in England the Prior of
+Kilmainham, or the Earl of Kildare or of Ormond, discharged
+the duties with the title of Lord Deputy or Lord Justice.
+
+It is now time that we should turn to the native annals
+of the country to show how the Irish princes had carried
+on the contest during the eventful half century which the
+reign of Edward III. occupies in the history of England.
+
+In the generation which elapsed from the death of the
+Earl of Ulster, or rather from the first avowal of the
+policy of proscription in 1342, the native tribes had on
+all sides and continuously gained on the descendants of
+their invaders. In Connaught, the McWilliams, McWattins,
+and McFeoriss retained part of their estates only by
+becoming as Irish as the Irish. The lordships of Leyny
+and Corran, in Sligo and Mayo, were recovered by the
+heirs of their former chiefs, while the powerful family
+of O'Conor Sligo converted that strong town into a
+formidable centre of operations. Rindown, Athlone,
+Roscommon, and Bunratty, all frontier posts fortified
+by the Normans, were in 1342, as we learn from the
+Remonstrance of Kilkenny, in the hands of the elder race.
+
+The war, in all the Provinces, was in many respects a
+war of posts. Towards the north Carrickfergus continued
+the outwork till captured by Neil O'Neil, when Downpatrick
+and Dundalk became the northern barriers. The latter
+town, which seems to have been strengthened after Bruce's
+defeat, was repeatedly attacked by Neil O'Neil, and at
+last entered into conditions, by which it procured his
+protection. At Downpatrick also, in the year 1375, he
+gained a signal victory over the English of the town and
+their allies, under Sir James Talbot of Malahide, and
+Burke of Camline, in which both these commanders were
+slain. This O'Neil, called from his many successes Neil
+_More_, or the Great, dying in 1397, left the borders of
+Ulster more effectually cleared of foreign garrisons than
+they had been for a century and a half before. He enriched
+the churches of Armagh and Deny, and built a habitation
+for students resorting to the primatial city, on the site
+of the ancient palace of Emania, which had been deserted
+before the coming of St. Patrick.
+
+The northern and western chiefs seem in this age to have
+made some improvements in military equipments, and tactics.
+_Cooey-na-gall_, a celebrated captain of the O'Kanes, is
+represented on his tomb at Dungiven as clad in complete
+armour--though that may be the fancy of the sculptor.
+Scottish gallowglasses--heavy-armed infantry, trained
+in Bruce's campaigns, were permanently enlisted in their
+service. Of their leaders the most distinguished were
+McNeil _Cam_, or the Crooked, and McRory, in the service
+of O'Conor, and McDonnell, McSorley, and McSweeney, in
+the service of O'Neil, O'Donnell, and O'Conor Sligo. The
+leaders of these warlike bands are called the Constables
+of Tyr-Owen, of North Connaught, or of Connaught, and
+are distinguished in all the warlike encounters in the
+north and west.
+
+The midland country--the counties now of Longford,
+West-Meath, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, King's and Queen's,
+were almost constantly in arms, during the latter half
+of this century. The lords of Annally, Moy-Cashel, Carbry,
+Offally, Ely, and Leix, rivalled each other in enterprise
+and endurance. In 1329, McGeoghegan of West-Meath defeated
+and slew Lord Thomas Butler, with the loss of 120 men at
+Mullingar; but the next year suffered an equal loss from
+the combined forces of the Earls of Ormond and Ulster;
+his neighbour, O'Farrell, contended with even better
+fortune, especially towards the close of Edward's reign
+(1372), when in one successful foray he not only swept
+their garrisons out of Annally, but rendered important
+assistance to the insurgent tribes of Meath. In Leinster,
+the house of O'Moore, under Lysaght their Chief, by a
+well concerted conspiracy, seized in one night (in 1327)
+no less than eight castles, and razed the fort of Dunamase,
+which they despaired of defending. In 1346, under Conal
+O'Moore, they destroyed the foreign strongholds of Ley
+and Kilmehedie; and though Conal was slain by the English,
+and Rory, one of their creatures, placed in his stead,
+the tribe put Rory to death as a traitor in 1354, and
+for two centuries thereafter upheld their independence.
+Simultaneously, the O'Conors of Offally, and the O'Carrolls
+of Ely, adjoining and kindred tribes, so straightened
+the Earl of Kildare on the one hand, and the Earl of
+Ormond on the other, that a cess of 40 pence on every
+carucate (140 acres) of tilled land, and of 40 pence on
+chattels of the value of six pounds, was imposed on all
+the English settlements, for the defence of Kildare,
+Carlow, and the marches generally. Out of the amount
+collected in Carlow, a portion was paid to the Earl of
+Kildare, "for preventing the O'Moores from burning the
+town of Killahan." The same nobleman was commanded, by
+an order in Council, to strengthen his Castles of Rathmore,
+Kilkea, and Ballymore, under pain of forfeiture. These
+events occurred in 1856, '7, and '8.
+
+In the south the same struggle for supremacy proceeded
+with much the same results. The Earl of Desmond, fresh
+from his Justiceship in Dublin, and the penal legislation
+of Kilkenny, was, in 1370, defeated and slain near Adare,
+by Brian O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, with several knights
+of his name, and "an indescribable number of others."
+Limerick was next assailed, and capitulated to O'Brien,
+who created Sheedy McNamara, Warden of the City. The
+English burghers, however, after the retirement of O'Brien,
+rose, murdered the new Warden, and opened the gates to
+Sir William de Windsor, the Lord Lieutenant, who had
+hastened to their relief. Two years later the whole
+Anglo-Irish force, under the fourth Earl of Kildare, was,
+summoned to Limerick, in order to defend it against
+O'Brien. So desperate now became the contest, that William
+de Windsor only consented to return a second time as Lord
+Lieutenant in 1374, on condition that he was to act
+strictly on the defensive, and to receive annually the
+sum of 11,213 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence--a sum exceeding
+the whole revenue which the English King derived from
+Ireland at that period; which, according to Sir John
+Davies, fell short of 11,000 pounds. Although such was
+the critical state of the English interest, this lieutenant
+obtained from the fears of successive Parliaments annual
+subsidies of 2,000 pounds and 3,000 pounds. The deputies
+from Louth having voted against his demand, were thrown
+into prison; but a direct petition from the Anglo-Irish
+to the King brought an order to de Windsor not to enforce
+the collection of these grants, and to remit in favour
+of the petitioners the scutage "on all those lands of
+which the Irish enemy had deprived them."
+
+In the last year of Edward III. (1376), he summoned the
+magnates and the burghers of towns to send representatives
+to 'London to consult with him on the state of the English
+settlements in Ireland. But those so addressed having
+assembled together, drew up a protest, setting forth that
+the great Council of Ireland had never been accustomed
+to meet out of that kingdom, though, saving the rights
+of their heirs and successors, they expressed their
+willingness to do so, for the King's convenience on that
+occasion. Richard Dene and William Stapolyn were first
+sent over to England to exhibit the evils of the Irish
+administration; the proposed general assembly of
+representatives seems to have dropped. The King ordered
+the two delegates just mentioned to be paid ten pounds
+out of the Exchequer for their expenses.
+
+The series of events, however, which most clearly exhibits
+the decay of the English interest, transpired within the
+limits of Leinster, almost within sight of Dublin. Of
+the actors in these events, the most distinguished for
+energy, ability, and good fortune, was Art McMurrogh,
+whose exploits are entitled to a separate and detailed
+account.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ART McMURROGH, LORD OF LEINSTER--FIRST EXPEDITION OF
+RICHARD II., OF ENGLAND, TO IRELAND.
+
+Whether Donald Kavanagh McMurrogh, son of Dermid, was
+born out of wedlock, as the Lady Eva was made to depose,
+in order to create a claim of inheritance for herself as
+sole heiress, this, at least, is certain, that his
+descendants continued to be looked upon by the kindred
+clans of Leinster as the natural lords of that principality.
+Towards the close of the thirteenth century, in the third
+or fourth generation, after the death of their immediate
+ancestor, the Kavanaghs of Leighlin and Ballyloughlin
+begin to act prominently in the affairs of their Province,
+and then--chief is styled both by Irish and English "the
+McMurrogh." In the era of King Edward Bruce, they were
+sufficiently formidable to call for an expedition of the
+Lord Justice into their patrimony, by which they are said
+to have been defeated. In the next age, in 1335, Maurice,
+"the McMurrogh," was granted by the Anglo-Irish Parliament
+or Council, the sum of 80 marks annually, for keeping
+open certain roads and preserving the peace within its
+jurisdiction. In 1358, Art, the successor of Maurice,
+and Donald Revagh, were proclaimed "rebels" in a Parliament
+held at Castledermot, by the Lord Deputy Sancto Amando,
+the said Art being further branded with deep ingratitude
+to Edward III., who had acknowledged him as "the Mac-Murch."
+To carry on a war against him the whole English interest
+was assessed with a special tax. Louth contributed 20
+pounds; Meath and Waterford, 2 shillings on every carucate
+(140 acres) of tilled land; Kilkenny the same sum, with
+the addition of 6 pence in the pound on chattels. This
+Art captured the strong castles of Kilbelle, Galbarstown,
+Rathville, and although his career was not one of invariable
+success, he bequeathed to his son, also called Art, in
+1375, an inheritance, extending over a large portion--
+perhaps one-half--of the territory ruled by his ancestors
+before the invasion.
+
+Art McMurrogh, or Art Kavanagh, as he is more commonly
+called, was born in the year 1357, and from the age of
+sixteen and upwards was distinguished by his hospitality,
+knowledge, and feats of arms. Like the great Brian, he
+was a younger son, but the fortune of war removed one by
+one those who would otherwise have preceded him in the
+captaincy of his clan and connections. About the year
+1375--while he was still under age--he was elected
+successor to his father, according to the Annalists, who
+record his death in 1417, "after being forty-two years
+in the government of Leinster." Fortunately he attained
+command at a period favourable to his genius and enterprise.
+His own and the adjoining tribes were aroused by tidings
+of success from other Provinces, and the partial victories
+of their immediate predecessors, to entertain bolder
+schemes, and they only waited for a chief of distinguished
+ability to concentrate their efforts. This chief they
+found, where they naturally looked for him, among the
+old ruling family of the Province. Nor were the English
+settlers ignorant of his promise. In the Parliament held
+at Castledermot in 1377, they granted to him the customary
+annual tribute paid to his house, the nature of which
+calls for a word of explanation. This tribute was granted,
+"as the late King had done to his ancestors;" it was
+again voted in a Parliament held in 1380, and continued
+to be paid so late as the opening of the seventeenth
+century (A.D. 1603). Not only was a fixed sum paid out
+of the Exchequer for this purpose--inducing the native
+chiefs to grant a right of way through their territories
+--but a direct tax was levied on the inhabitants of
+English origin for the same privilege. This tax, called
+"black mail," or "black rent," was sometimes differently
+regarded by those who paid and those who received it.
+The former looked on it as a stipend, the latter as a
+tribute; but that it implied a formal acknowledgment of
+the local jurisdiction of the chief cannot be doubted.
+Two centuries after the time of which we speak, Baron
+Finglas, in his suggestions to King Henry VIII. for
+extending his power in Ireland, recommends that "no black
+rent be paid to any Irishman _for the four shires_"--of
+the Pale--"and any black rent they had afore this time
+be paid to them for ever." At that late period "the
+McMurrogh" had still his 80 marks annually from the
+Exchequer, and 40 pounds from the English settled in
+Wexford; O'Carroll of Ely had 40 pounds from the English
+in Kilkenny, and O'Conor of Offally 20 pounds from those
+of Kildare, and 300 pounds from Meath. It was to meet
+these and other annuities to more distant chiefs, that
+William of Windsor, in 1369, covenanted for a larger
+revenue than the whole of the Anglo-Irish districts then
+yielded, and which led him besides to stipulate that he
+was to undertake no new expeditions, but to act entirely
+on the defensive. We find a little later, that the
+necessity of sustaining the Dublin authorities at an
+annual loss was one of the main motives which induced
+Richard II. of England to transport two royal armies
+across the channel, in 1394 and 1399.
+
+Art McMurrogh, the younger, not only extended the bounds
+of his own inheritance and imposed tribute on the English
+settlers in adjoining districts, during the first years
+of his rule, but having married a noble lady of the
+"Pale," Elizabeth, heiress to the barony of Norragh, in
+Kildare, which included Naas and its neighbourhood, he
+claimed her inheritance in full, though forfeited under
+"the statute of Kilkenny," according to English notions.
+So necessary did it seem to the Deputy and Council of
+the day to conciliate their formidable neighbour, that
+they addressed a special representation to King Richard,
+setting forth the facts of the case, and adding that
+McMurrogh threatened, until this lady's estates were
+restored and the arrears of tribute due to him fully
+discharged, he should never cease from war, "but would
+join with the Earl of Desmond against the Earl of Ormond,
+and afterwards return with a great force out of Minister
+to ravage the country." This allusion most probably refers
+to James, second Earl of Ormond, who, from being the
+maternal grandson of Edward I., was called the noble
+Earl, and was considered in his day the peculiar
+representative of the English interest. In the last
+years of Edward III., and the first of his successor, he
+was constable of the Castle of Dublin, with a fee of 18
+pounds 5 shillings per annum. In 1381--the probable date
+of the address just quoted--he had a commission to treat
+with certain rebels, in order to reform them and promote
+peace. Three years later he died, and was buried in the
+Cathedral of St. Canice, Kilkenny, the place of sepulture
+of his family.
+
+When, in the year 1389, Richard II., having attained his
+majority, demanded to reign alone, the condition of the
+English interest was most critical. During the twelve
+years of his minority the Anglo-Irish policy of the
+Council of Regency had shifted and changed, according to
+the predominance of particular influences. The Lord
+Lieutenancy was conferred on the King's relatives, Edward
+Mortimer, Earl of March (1379), and continued to his son,
+Roger Mortimer, a minor (1381); in 1383, it was transferred
+to Philip de Courtenay, the King's cousin. The following
+year, de Courtenay having been arrested and fined for
+mal-administration, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, the
+special favourite of Richard, was created Marquis of
+Dublin and Duke of Ireland, with a grant of all the powers
+and authority exercised at any period in Ireland by that
+King or his predecessors. This extraordinary grant was
+solemnly confirmed by the English Parliament, who, perhaps
+willing to get rid of the favourite at any cost, allotted
+the sum of 30,000 marks due from the King of France, with
+a guard of 500 men-at-arms and 1,000 archers for de Vere's
+expedition. But that favoured nobleman never entered into
+possession of the principality assigned him; he experienced
+the fate of the Gavestons and de Spencers of a former
+reign; fleeing, for his life, from the Barons, he died
+in exile in the Netherlands. The only real rulers of the
+Anglo-Irish in the years of the King's minority, or
+previous to his first expedition in 1394, (if we except
+Sir John Stanley's short terms of office in 1385 and
+1389,) were the Earls of Ormond, second and third, Colton,
+Dean of Saint Patrick's, Petit, Bishop of Meath, and
+White, Prior of Kilmainham. For thirty years after the
+death of Edward III., no Geraldine was entrusted with
+the highest office, and no Anglo-Irish layman of any
+other family but the Butlers. In 1393, Thomas of Woodstock,
+Duke of Gloucester, uncle to Richard, was appointed Lord
+Lieutenant, and was on the point of embarking, when a
+royal order reached him announcing the determination of
+the King to take command of the forces in person.
+
+The immediate motives for Richard's expedition are
+variously stated by different authors. That usually
+assigned by the English--a desire to divert his mind from
+brooding over the loss of his wife, "the good Queen Anne,"
+seems wholly insufficient. He had announced his intention
+a year before her death; he had called together, before
+the Queen fell ill, the Parliament at Westminster, which
+readily voted him "a tenth" of the revenues of all their
+estates for the expedition. Anne's sickness was sudden,
+and her death took place in the last week of July.
+Richard's preparations at that date were far advanced
+towards completion, and Sir Thomas Scroope had been
+already some months in Dublin to prepare for his reception.
+The reason assigned by Anglo-Irish writers is more
+plausible: he had been a candidate for the Imperial Crown
+of Germany, and was tauntingly told by his competitors
+to conquer Ireland before he entered the lists for the
+highest political honour of that age. This rebuke, and
+the ill-success of Ms arms against France and Scotland,
+probably made him desirous to achieve in a new field some
+share of that military glory which was always so highly
+prized by his family:
+
+Some events which immediately preceded Richard's expedition
+may help us to understand the relative positions of the
+natives and the naturalized to the English interest in
+the districts through which he was to march. By this time
+the banner of Art McMurrogh floated over all the castles
+and raths, on the slope of the Ridge of Leinster, or the
+steps of the Blackstair hills; while the forests along
+the Barrow and the Upper Slaney, as well as in the plain
+of Carlow and in the South-western angle of Wicklow (now
+the barony of Shillelagh), served still better his purposes
+of defensive warfare; So entirely was the range of country
+thus vaguely defined under native sway that John Griffin,
+the English Bishop of Leighlin, and Chancellor of the
+Exchequer, obtained a grant in 1389 of the town of
+Gulroestown, in the county of Dublin, "near the marches
+of O'Toole, seeing he could not live within his own see
+for the rebels." In 1390, Peter Creagh, Bishop of Limerick,
+on his way to attend an Anglo-Irish Parliament, was taken
+prisoner in that region, and in consequence the usual
+fine was remitted in his favour. In 1392, James, the
+third Earl of Ormond, gave McMurrogh a severe check at
+Tiscoffin, near Shankill, where 600 of his clansmen were
+left dead among the hills.
+
+This defeat, however, was thrown into the shade by the
+capture of New Boss, on the very eve of Richard's arrival
+at Waterford. In a previous chapter we have described
+the fortifications erected round this important seaport
+towards the end of the thirteenth century. Since that
+period its progress had been steadily onward. In the
+reign of Edward III. the controversy which had long
+subsisted between the merchants of Ross and those of
+Waterford, concerning the trade monopolies claimed by
+the latter, had been decided in favour of Ross. At this
+period it could muster in its own defence 363 cross-bowmen,
+1,200 long-bowmen, 1,200 pikemen, and 104 horsemen--a
+force which would seem to place it second to Dublin in
+point of military strength. The capture of so important
+a place by McMurrogh was a cheering omen to his followers.
+He razed the walls and towers, and carried off gold,
+silver, and hostages.
+
+On the 2nd of October, 1394, the royal fleet of Richard
+arrived from Milford Haven, at Waterford. To those who
+saw Ireland for the first time, the rock of Dundonolf,
+famed for Raymond's camp, the abbey of Dunbrody, looking
+calmly down on the confluence of the three rivers, and
+the half-Danish, half-Norman port before them, must have
+presented scenes full of interest. To the townsmen the
+fleet was something wonderful. The endless succession
+of ships of all sizes and models, which had wafted over
+30,000 archers and 4,000 men-at-arms; the royal galley
+leading on the fluttering pennons of so many great nobles,
+was a novel sight to that generation. Attendant on the
+King were his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, the young
+Earl of March, heir apparent, Thomas Mowbray, Earl of
+Nottingham, the Earl of Rutland, the Lord Thomas Percy,
+afterwards Earl of Westmoreland, and father of Hotspur,
+and Sir Thomas Moreley, heir to the last Lord Marshal of
+the "Pale." Several dignitaries of the English Church,
+as well Bishops as Abbots, were also with the fleet.
+Immediately after landing, a _Te Deum_ was sung in the
+Cathedral, where Earl Richard had wedded the Princess
+Eva, where Henry II. and John had offered up similar
+thanksgivings.
+
+Richard remained a week at Waterford; gave splendid
+_fetes_, and received some lords of the neighbouring
+country, Le Poers, Graces, and Butlers. He made gifts to
+churches, and ratified the charter given by John to the
+abbey of Holy Cross in Munster. He issued a summons to
+Gerald, Earl of Desmond, to appear before him by the
+feast of the Purification "in whatever part of Ireland
+he should then be," to answer to the charge of having
+usurped the manor, revenues, and honour of Dungarvan.
+Although it was then near the middle of October, he took
+the resolution of marching to Dublin, through the country
+of McMurrogh, and knowing the memory of Edward the
+Confessor to be popular in Leinster, he furled the royal
+banner, and hoisted that of the saintly Saxon king, which
+bore "a cross patence, or, on a field gules, with four
+doves argent on the shield." His own proper banner bore
+lioncels and fleur-de-lis. His route was by Thomastown
+to Kilkenny, a city which had risen into importance with
+the Butlers. Nearly half a century before, this family
+had brought artizans from Flanders, who established the
+manufacture of woollens, for which the town was ever
+after famous. Its military importance was early felt and
+long maintained. At this city Richard was joined by Sir
+William de Wellesley, who claimed to be hereditary
+standard-bearer for Ireland, and by other Anglo-Irish
+nobles. From thence he despatched his Earl Marshal into
+"Catherlough" to treat with McMurrogh. On the plain of
+Ballygorry, near Carlow, Art, with his uncle, Malachy,
+O'Moore, O'Nolan, O'Byrne, MacDavid, and other chiefs,
+met the Earl Marshal. The terms proposed were almost
+equivalent to extermination. They were, in effect, that
+the Leinster chieftains, under fines of enormous amount,
+payable into the Apostolic chamber, should, before the
+first Sunday of Lent, surrender to the English King "the
+full possession of all their lands, tenements, castles,
+woods, and forts, which by them and all other of the
+Kenseologhes, their companions, men, or adherents, late
+were occupied within the province of Leinster." And the
+condition of this surrender was to be, that they should
+have unmolested possession of any and all lands they
+could conquer from the King's other Irish enemies elsewhere
+in the kingdom. To these hard conditions some of the
+minor chiefs, overawed by the immense force brought
+against them, would, it seems, have submitted, but Art
+sternly refused to treat, declaring that if he made terms
+at all, it should be with the King and not with the Earl
+Marshal; and that instead of yielding his own lands, his
+wife's patrimony in Kildare should be restored. This
+broke up the conference, and Mowbray returned discomfitted
+to Kilkenny.
+
+King Richard, full of indignation, put himself at the
+head of his army and advanced against the Leinster clans.
+But his march was slow and painful: the season and the
+forest fought against him; he was unable to collect by
+the way sufficient fodder for the horses or provisions
+for the men. McMurrogh swept off everything of the nature
+of food--took advantage of his knowledge of the country
+to burst upon the enemy by night, to entrap them into
+ambuscades, to separate the cavalry from the foot, and
+by many other stratagems to thin their ranks and harass
+the stragglers. At length Richard, despairing of dislodging
+him from his fastnesses in Idrone, or fighting a way out
+of them, sent to him another deputation of "the English
+and Irish of Leinster," inviting him to Dublin to a
+personal interview. This proposal was accepted, and the
+English king continued his way to Dublin, probably along
+the sea coast by Bray and the white strand, over Killiney
+and Dunleary. Soon after his arrival at Dublin, care was
+taken to repair the highway which ran by the sea, towards
+Wicklow and Wexford.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+SUBSEQUENT PROCEEDINGS OF RICHARD II.--LIEUTENANCY AND
+DEATH OF THE EARL OF MARCH--SECOND EXPEDITION OF RICHARD
+AGAINST ART McMURROGH--CHANGE OF DYNASTY IN ENGLAND.
+
+At Dublin, Richard prepared to celebrate the festival of
+Christmas, with all the splendour of which he was so
+fond. He had received letters from his council in England
+warmly congratulating him on the results of his "noble
+voyage" and his successes against "his rebel Make Murgh."
+Several lords and chiefs were hospitably entertained by
+him during the holidays--but the greater magnates did
+not yet present themselves--unless we suppose them to
+have continued his guests at Dublin, from Christmas till
+Easter, which is hardly credible.
+
+The supplies which he had provided were soon devoured by
+so vast a following. His army, however, were paid their
+wages weekly, and were well satisfied. But whatever the
+King or his flatterers might pretend, the real object of
+all the mighty preparations made was still in the distance,
+and fresh supplies were needed for the projected campaign
+of 1395. To raise the requisite funds, he determined to
+send to England his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester.
+Gloucester carried a letter to the regent, the Duke of
+York, countersigned "Lincolne," and dated from Dublin,
+"Feb. 1, 1395." The council, consisting of the Earls of
+Derby, Arundel, de Ware, Salisbury, Northumberland, and
+others, was convened, and they "readily voted a tenth
+off the clergy, and a fifteenth off the laity, for the
+King's supply." This they sent with a document, signed
+by them all, exhorting him to a vigorous prosecution of
+the war, and the demolition of all forts belonging to
+"MacMourgh [or] le grand O'Nel." They also addressed him
+another letter, complimentary of his valour and discretion
+in all things.
+
+While awaiting supplies from England, Richard made a
+progress as far northward as Drogheda, where he took up
+his abode in the Dominican Convent of St. Mary Magdalen.
+On the eve of St. Patrick's Day, O'Neil, O'Donnell,
+O'Reilly, O'Hanlon, and MacMahon, visited and exchanged
+professions of friendship with him. It is said they made
+"submission" to him as their sovereign lord, but until
+the Indentures, which have been spoken of, but never
+published, are exhibited, it will be impossible to
+determine what, in their minds and in his, were the exact
+relations subsisting between the native Irish princes
+and the King of England at that time. O'Neil, and other
+lords of Ulster, accompanied him back to Dublin, where
+they found O'Brien, O'Conor, and McMurrogh, lately arrived.
+They were all lodged in a fair mansion, according to the
+notion of Master Castide, Froissart's informant, and were
+under the care of the Earl of Ormond and Castide himself,
+both of whom spoke familiarly the Irish language.
+
+The glimpse we get through Norman spectacles of the
+manners and customs of these chieftains is eminently
+instructive, both as regards the observers and the
+observed. They would have, it seems, very much to the
+disedification of the English esquire, "their minstrels
+and principal servants sit at the same table and eat from
+the same dish." The interpreters employed all their
+eloquence in vain to dissuade them from this lewd habit,
+which they perversely called "a praiseworthy custom,"
+till at last, to get rid of importunities, they consented
+to have it ordered otherwise, during their stay as King
+Richard's guests.
+
+On the 24th of March the Cathedral of Christ's Church
+beheld the four kings devoutly keeping the vigil preparatory
+to knighthood. They had been induced to accept that honour
+from Richard's hand. They had apologized at first, saying
+they were all knighted at the age of seven. But the
+ceremony, as performed in the rest of Christendom, was
+represented to them as a great and religious custom,
+which made the simplest knight the equal of his sovereign,
+which added new lustre to the crowned head, and fresh
+honour to the victorious sword. On the Feast of the
+Annunciation they went through the imposing ceremony,
+according to the custom obtaining among their entertainers.
+
+While the native Princes of the four Provinces were thus
+lodged together in one house, it was inevitable that
+plans of co-operation for the future should be discussed
+between them. Soon after the Earl of Ormond, who knew
+their language, appeared before Richard as the accuser
+of McMurrogh, who was, on his statement, committed to
+close confinement in the Castle. He was, however, soon
+after set at liberty, though O'Moore, O'Byrne, and John
+O'Mullain were retained in custody, probably as hostages,
+for the fulfilment of the terms of his release. By this
+time the expected supplies had arrived from England, and
+the festival of Easter was happily passed. Before breaking
+up from his winter quarters Richard celebrated with great
+pomp the festival of his namesake, St. Richard, Bishop
+of Chichester, and then summoned a parliament to meet
+him at Kilkenny on the 12th of the month. The acts of
+this parliament have not seen the light; an obscurity
+which they share in common with all the documents of this
+Prince's progress in Ireland. The same remark was made
+three centuries ago by the English chronicler, Grafton,
+who adds with much simplicity, that as Richard's voyage
+into Ireland "was nothing profitable nor honourable to
+him, therefore the writers think it scant worth the
+noting."
+
+Early in May a deputation, at the head of which was the
+celebrated William of Wyckham, arrived from England,
+invoking the personal presence of the King to quiet the
+disturbances caused by the progress of Lollardism. With
+this invitation he decided at once to comply, but first
+he appointed the youthful Earl of March his lieutenant
+in Ireland, and confirmed the ordinance of Edward III.,
+empowering the chief governor in council to convene
+parliament by writ, which writ should be of equal obligation
+with the King's writ in England. He ordained that a fine
+of not less than fifty marks, and not more than one
+hundred, should be exacted of every representative of a
+town or shire, who, being elected as such, neglected or
+refused to attend. He reformed the royal courts, and
+appointed Walter de Hankerford and William Sturmey, two
+Englishmen, "well learned in the law" as judges, whose
+annual salaries were to be forty pounds each. Having made
+these arrangements, he took an affectionate leave of his
+heir and cousin, and sailed for England, whither he was
+accompanied by most of the great nobles who had passed
+over with him to the Irish wars. Little dreamt they of
+the fate which impended over many of their heads. Three
+short years and Gloucester would die by the assassin's
+hand, Arundel by the executioner's axe, and Mowbray, Earl
+Marshal, the ambassador at Ballygorry, would pine to
+death in Italian banishment. Even a greater change than
+any of these--a change of dynasty--was soon to come over
+England.
+
+The young Earl of March, now left in the supreme direction
+of affairs, so far as we know, had no better title to
+govern than that he was heir to the English throne, unless
+it may have been considered an additional recommendation
+that he was sixth in descent from the Lady Eva McMurrogh.
+To his English title, he added that of Earl of Ulster
+and Lord of Connaught, derived from his mother, the
+daughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and those of Lord
+of Trim and Clare, from other relations. The counsellors
+with whom he was surrounded included the wisest statesmen
+and most experienced soldiers of "the Pale." Among them
+were Almaric, Baron Grace, who, contrary to the statute
+of Kilkenny, had married an O'Meagher of Ikerrin, and
+whose family had intermarried with the McMurroghs; the
+third Earl of Ormond, an indomitable soldier, who had
+acted as Lord Deputy, in former years of this reign;
+Cranley, Archbishop of Dublin, and Roche, the Cistercian
+Abbot of St. Mary's, lately created Lord Treasurer of
+Ireland; Stephen Bray, Chief Justice; and Gerald, fifth
+Earl of Kildare. Among his advisers of English birth were
+Roger Grey, his successor; the new Judges Hankerford and
+Sturmey, and others of less pacific reputation. With
+the dignitaries of the Church, and the innumerable priors
+and abbots, in and about Dublin, the court of the
+Heir-Presumptive must have been a crowded and imposing
+one for those times, and had its external prospects been
+peaceful, much ease and pleasure might have been enjoyed
+within its walls.
+
+In the three years of this administration, the struggle
+between the natives, the naturalized, and the English
+interest knew no cessation in Leinster. Some form of
+submission had been wrung from McMurrogh before his
+release from Dublin Castle, in the spring of 1395, but
+this engagement extorted under duress, from a guest
+towards whom every rite of hospitality had been violated,
+he did not feel bound by after his enlargement. In the
+same year an attempt was made to entrap him at a banquet
+given in one of the castles of the frontier, but warned
+by his bard, he made good his escape "by the strength of
+his arm, and by bravery." After this double violation of
+what among his countrymen, even of the fiercest tribes,
+was always held sacred, the privileged character of a
+guest, he never again placed himself at the mercy of
+prince or peer, but prosecuted the war with unfaltering
+determination. In 1396, his neighbour, the chief of
+Imayle, carried off from an engagement near Dublin, six
+score heads of the foreigners: and the next year--an
+exploit hardly second in its kind to the taking of Ross
+--the strong castle and town of Carlow were captured by
+McMurrogh himself. In the campaign of 1398, on the 20th
+of July, was fought the eventful battle of Kenlis, or
+Kells, on the banks of the stream called "the King's
+river," in the barony of Kells, and county of Kilkenny.
+Here fell the Heir-Presumptive to the English crown,
+whose premature removal was one of the causes which
+contributed to the revolution in England, a year or two
+later. The tidings of this event filled "the Pale" with
+consternation, and thoroughly aroused the vindictive
+temper of Richard. He at once despatched to Dublin his
+half-brother, Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, recently
+created Duke of Surrey. To this duke he made a gift of
+Carlow castle and town, to be held (if taken) by knights'
+service. He then, as much, perhaps, to give occupation
+to the minds of his people, as to prosecute his old
+project of subduing Ireland, began to make preparations
+for his second expedition thither. Death again delayed
+him. John of Ghent, Duke of Lancaster, his uncle, and
+one of the most famous soldiers of the time, suddenly
+sickened, and died. As Henry, his son, was in banishment,
+the King, under pretence of appropriating his vast wealth
+to the service of the nation, seized it into his own
+hands, and despite the warnings of his wisest counsellors
+as to the disturbed state of the kingdom, again took up
+his march for Milford Haven.
+
+A French knight, named Creton, had obtained leave with
+a brother-in-arms to accompany this expedition, and has
+left us a very vivid account of its progress. Quitting
+Paris they reached London just as King Richard was about
+"to cross the sea on account of the injuries and grievances
+that his mortal enemies had committed against him in
+Ireland, where they had put to death many of his faithful
+friends." Wherefore they were further told, "he would
+take no rest until he had avenged himself upon MacMore,
+who called himself most excellent King and Lord of great
+Ireland; where he had but little territory of any kind."
+
+They at once set out for Milford, where, "waiting for
+the north wind," they remained "ten whole days." Here
+they found King Richard with a great army, and a
+corresponding fleet. The clergy were taxed to supply
+horses, waggons, and money--the nobles, shires, and towns,
+their knights, men-at-arms, and archers-the seaports,
+from Whitehaven to Penzance, were obliged, by an order
+in council, dated February 7th, to send vessels rated at
+twenty-five tons and upwards to Milford, by the octave
+of Easter. King's letters were issued whenever the usual
+ordinances failed, and even the press-gang was resorted
+to, to raise the required number of mariners. Minstrels
+of all kinds crowded to the camp, enlivening it by their
+strains, and enriching themselves the while. The wind
+coming fair, the vessels "took in their lading of bread,
+wine, cows and calves, salt meat and plenty of water,"
+and the King taking leave of his ladies, they set sail.
+
+In two days they saw "the tower of Waterford." The
+condition to which the people of this English stronghold
+had been reduced by the war was pitiable in the extreme.
+Some were in rags, others girt with ropes, and their
+dwellings seemed to the voyagers but huts and holes. They
+rushed into the tide up to their waists, for the speedy
+unloading of the ships, especially attending to those
+that bore the supplies of the army. Little did the proud
+cavaliers and well-fed yeomen, who then looked on, imagine,
+as they pitied the poor wretches of Waterford, that before
+many weeks were over, they would themselves be reduced
+to the like necessity--even to rushing into the sea to
+contend for a morsel of food.
+
+Six days after his arrival, which was on the 1st of June,
+King Richard marched from Waterford "in close order to
+Kilkenny." He had now the advantage of long days and warm
+nights, which in his first expedition he had not. His
+forces were rather less than in 1394; some say twenty,
+some twenty-four thousand in all. The Earl of Rutland,
+with a reinforcement in one hundred ships, was to have
+followed him, but this unfaithful courtier did not greatly
+hasten his preparations to overtake his master. With the
+King were the Lord Steward of England, Sir Thomas Percy;
+the Duke of Exeter; De Spencer, Earl of Gloucester; the
+Lord Henry of Lancaster, afterwards King Henry V.; the
+son of the late Duke of Gloucester; the son of the Countess
+of Salisbury; the Bishop of Exeter and London; the Abbot
+of Westminster, and a gallant Welsh gentleman, afterwards
+known to fame as Owen Glendower. He dropped the subterfuge
+of bearing Edward the Confessor's banner, and advanced
+his own standard, which bore leopards and flower de luces.
+In this order, "riding boldly," they reached Kilkenny,
+where Richard remained a fortnight awaiting news of the
+Earl of Rutland from Waterford. No news, however, came.
+But while he waited, he received intelligence from Kildare
+which gratified his thirst for vengeance. Jenico d'Artois,
+a Gascon knight of great discretion and valour, who had
+come over the preceding year with the Duke of Surrey,
+marching towards Kilkenny, had encountered some bands of
+the Irish in Kildare (bound on a like errand to their
+prince), whom he fought and put to flight, leaving two
+hundred of them dead upon the field. This Jenico, relishing
+Irish warfare more than most foreign soldiers of his age,
+continued long after to serve in Ireland--married one of
+his daughters to Preston, Baron of Naas, and another to
+the first Lord Portlester.
+
+On the 23rd of June, "the very vigil of St. John," a
+saint to whom the King was very much devoted, Richard,
+resolving to delay no longer, left Kilkenny, and marched
+directly towards Catherlough. He sent a message in advance
+to McMurrogh, "who would neither submit nor obey him in
+anyway; but affirmed that he was the rightful King of
+Ireland, and that he would never cease from war and the
+defence of his country until his death; and said that
+the wish to deprive him of it by conquest was unlawful."
+
+Art McMurrogh, now some years beyond middle age, had with
+him in arms "three thousand hardy men," "who did not
+appear," says our French knight, "to be much afraid of
+the English." The cattle and corn, the women and the
+helpless, he had removed into the interior of the
+fastnesses, while he himself awaited, in Idrone, the
+approach of the enemy.
+
+This district, which lies north and south between the
+rivers Slaney and Barrow, is of a diversified and broken
+soil, watered with several small streams, and patched
+with tracts of morass and marsh. It was then half covered
+with wood, except in the neighbourhood of Old Leighlin,
+and a few other places where villages had grown up around
+the castles, raths, and monasteries of earlier days. On
+reaching the border of the forest, King Richard ordered
+all the habitations in sight to be set on fire; and then
+"two thousand five hundred of the well affected people,"
+or, as others say, prisoners, "began to hew a highway
+into the woods."
+
+When the first space was cleared, Richard, ever fond of
+pageantry, ordered his standard to be planted on the new
+ground, and pennons and banners arrayed on every side.
+Then he sent for the sons of the Dukes of Gloucester and
+Lancaster, his cousins, and the son of the Countess of
+Salisbury and other bachelors-in-arms, and there knighted
+them with all due solemnity. To young Lancaster, he said,
+"My fair cousin, henceforth, be preux and valiant, for
+you have some valiant blood to conquer." The youth to
+whom he made this address was little more than a boy,
+but tall of his age, and very vigorous. He had been a
+hard student at Oxford, and was now as unbridled as a
+colt new loosed into a meadow. He was fond of music, and
+afterwards became illustrious as the Fifth Henry of
+English history. Who could have foreseen, when first he
+put on his spurs by the wood's side, in Catherlough, that
+he would one day inherit the throne of England and make
+good the pretensions of all his predecessors to the throne
+of France?
+
+Richard's advance was slow and wearisome in the forests
+of Idrone. His route was towards the eastern coast.
+McMurrogh retreated before him, harassing him dreadfully,
+carrying off everything fit for food for man or beast,
+surprising and slaying his foragers, and filling his camp
+nightly with alarm and blood. The English archers got
+occasional shots at his men, "so that they did not all
+escape;" and they in turn often attacked the rear-guard,
+"and threw their darts with such force that they pierced
+haubergeon and plates through and through." The Leinster
+King would risk no open battle so long as he could thus
+cut off the enemy in detail. Many brave knights fell,
+many men-at-arms and archers; and a deep disrelish for
+the service began to manifest itself in the English camp.
+
+A party of Wexford settlers, however, brought one day to
+his camp Malachy McMurrogh, uncle to Art, a timid,
+treaty-making man. According to the custom of that
+century--observed by the defenders of Stirling and the
+burgesses of Calais--he submitted with a _wythe_ about
+his neck, rendering up a naked sword. His retinue,
+bareheaded and barefoot, followed him into the presence
+of Richard, who received them graciously. "Friends,"
+said he to them, "as to the evils and wrongs that you
+have committed against me, I pardon you on condition that
+each of you will swear to be faithful to me for the time
+to come." Of this circumstance he made the most, as our
+guide goes on to tell in these words: "Then every one
+readily complied with his demand; and took the oath. When
+this was done he sent word to MacMore, who called himself
+Lord and King of Ireland, (_that country_,) where he has
+many a wood but little cultivated land, that if he would
+come straightways to him with a rope about _his_ neck,
+as his uncle had done, he would admit him to mercy, and
+elsewhere give him castles and lands in abundance." The
+answer of King Art is thus reported: "MacMore told the
+King's people he would do no such thing for all the
+treasures of the sea or on this side, (the sea,) but
+would continue to fight and harass him."
+
+For eleven days longer Richard continued his route in
+the direction of Dublin, McMurrogh and his allies falling
+back towards the hills and glens of Wicklow. The English
+could find nothing by the way but "a few green oats" for
+the horses, which being exposed night and day, and so
+badly fed, perished in great numbers. The general discontent
+now made itself audible even to the ears of the King.
+For many days five or six men had but a "single loaf."
+Even gentlemen, knights and squires, fasted in succession;
+and our chivalrous guide, for his part, "would have been
+heartily glad to have been penniless at Poitiers or
+Paris." Daily deaths made the camp a scene of continued
+mourning, and all the minstrels that had come across the
+sea to amuse their victor countrymen, like the poet who
+went with Edward II. to Bannockburn to celebrate the
+conquest of the Scots, found their gay imaginings turned
+to a sorrowful reverse.
+
+At last, however, they came in sight of the sea-coast,
+where vessels laden with provisions, sent from Dublin,
+were awaiting them. So eager were the famished men for
+food, that "they rushed into the sea as eagerly as they
+would into their straw." All their money was poured into
+the hands of the merchants; some of them even fought in
+the water about a morsel of food, while in their thirst
+they drank all the wine they could lay hands on. Our
+guide saw full a thousand men drunk that day on "the wine
+of Ossey and Spain." The scene of this extraordinary
+incident is conjectured to have been at or near Arklow,
+where the beach is sandy and flat, such as it is not at
+any point of Wicklow north of that place.
+
+The morning after the arrival of these stores, King
+Richard again set forward for Dublin, determining to
+penetrate Wicklow by the valleys that lead from the
+Meeting of the Waters to Bray. He had not proceeded far
+on his march, when a Franciscan friar reached his camp
+as Ambassador from the Leinster King. This unnamed
+messenger, whose cowl history cannot raise, expressed
+the willingness of his lord to treat with the King,
+through some accredited agent--"some lord who might be
+relied upon"--"so that _their_ anger (Richard's and his
+own), that had long been cruel, might now be extinguished."
+The announcement spread "great joy" in the English camp.
+A halt was ordered, and a council called. After a
+consultation, it was resolved that de Spencer, Earl of
+Gloucester, should be empowered to confer with Art. This
+nobleman, now but 26 years of age, had served in the
+campaign of 1394. He was one of the most powerful peers
+of England, and had married Constance, daughter of the
+Duke of York, Richard's cousin. From his possessions in
+Wales, he probably knew something of the Gaelic customs
+and speech. He was captain of the rearguard on this
+expedition, and now, with 200 lances, and 1,000 archers,
+all of whom were chosen men, he set out for the conference.
+The French knight also went with him, as he himself
+relates in these words:
+
+"Between two woods, at some distance from the sea, I
+beheld MacMore and a body of the Irish, more than I can
+number, descend the mountain. He had a horse, without
+housing or saddle, which was so fine and good, that it
+had cost him, they said, four hundred cows; for there is
+little money in the country, wherefore their usual traffic
+is only with cattle. In coming down, it galloped so
+hard, that, in my opinion, I never saw hare, deer, sheep,
+or any other animal, I declare to you for a certainty,
+run with such speed as it did. In his right hand he bore
+a great long dart, which he cast with much skill. * * *
+His people drew up in front of the wood. These two
+(Gloucester and the King), like an out-post, met near a
+little brook. There MacMore stopped. He was a fine large
+man--wondrously active. To look at him, he seemed very
+stern and savage, and an able man. He and the Earl spake
+of their doings, recounting the evil and injury that
+MacMore had done towards the King at sundry times; and
+how they all foreswore their fidelity when wrongfully,
+without judgment or law, they most mischievously put to
+death the courteous Earl of March. Then they exchanged
+much discourse, but did not come to agreement; they took
+short leave, and hastily parted. Each took his way apart,
+and the Earl returned towards King Richard."
+
+This interview seems to have taken place in the lower
+vale of Ovoca, locally called Glen-Art, both from the
+description of the scenery, and the stage of his march
+at which Richard halted. The two woods, the hills on
+either hand, the summer-shrunken river, which, to one
+accustomed to the Seine and the Thames naturally looked
+no bigger than a brook, form a picture, the original of
+which can only be found in that locality. The name
+itself, a name not to be found among the immediate chiefs
+of Wicklow, would seem to confirm this hypothesis.
+
+The Earl on his return declared, "he could find nothing
+in him, (Art,) save only that he would ask for _pardon_,
+truly, upon condition of having _peace without reserve_,
+free from any molestation or imprisonment; otherwise, he
+will never come to agreement as long as he lives; and,
+(he said,) 'nothing venture, nothing have.' This speech,"
+says the French knight, "was not agreeable to the King;
+it appeared to me that his face grew pale with anger; he
+swore in great wrath by St. Edward, that, no, never would
+he depart from Ireland, till, alive or dead, he had him
+in his power."
+
+The King, notwithstanding, was most anxious to reach
+Dublin. He at once broke up his camp, and marched on
+through Wicklow, "for all the shoutings of the enemie."
+What other losses he met in those deep valleys our guide
+deigns not to tell, but only that they arrived at last
+in Dublin "more than 30,000" strong, which includes, of
+course, the forces of the Anglo-Irish lords that joined
+them on the way. There "the whole of their ills were
+soon forgotten, and their sorrow removed." The provost
+and sheriffs feasted them sumptuously, and they were all
+well-housed and clad. After the dangers they had undergone,
+these attentions were doubly grateful to them. But for
+long years the memory of this doleful march lived in the
+recollection of the English on both sides the Irish sea,
+and but once more for above a century did a hostile army
+venture into the fastnesses of Idrone and Hy-Kinsellah.
+
+When Richard arrived in Dublin, still galled by the memory
+of his disasters, he divided his force into three divisions,
+and sent them out in quest of McMurrogh, promising to
+whosoever should bring him to Dublin, alive or dead, "100
+marks, in pure gold." "Every one took care to remember
+these words," says Creton, "for it was a good hearing."
+And Richard, moreover, declared that if they did not
+capture him when the autumn came, and the trees were
+leafless and dry, he would burn "all the woods great and
+small," or find out that troublous rebel. The same day
+he sent out his three troops, the Earl of Rutland, his
+laggard cousin, arrived at Dublin with 100 barges. His
+unaccountable delay he submissively apologized for, and
+was readily pardoned. "Joy and delight" now reigned in
+Dublin. The crown jewels shone at daily banquets,
+tournaments, and mysteries. Every day some new pastime
+was invented, and thus six weeks passed, and August drew
+to an end. Richard's happiness would have been complete
+had any of his soldiers brought in McMurrogh's head: but
+far other news was on the way to him. Though there was
+such merriment in Dublin, a long-continued storm swept
+the channel. When good weather returned, a barge arrived
+from Chester, bearing Sir William Bagot, who brought
+intelligence that Henry of Lancaster, the banished Duke,
+had landed at Ravenspur, and raised a formidable
+insurrection amongst the people, winning over the Archbishop
+of Canterbury, the Duke of York, and other great nobles.
+Richard was struck with dismay. He at once sent the Earl
+of Salisbury into Wales to announce his return, and then,
+taking the evil counsel of Rutland, marched himself to
+Waterford, with most part of his force, and collected
+the remainder on the way. Eighteen days after the news
+arrived he embarked for England, leaving Sir John Stanley
+as Lord Lieutenant in Ireland. Before quitting Dublin,
+he confined the sons of the Dukes of Lancaster and
+Gloucester, in the strong fortress of Trim, from which
+they were liberated to share the triumph of the successful
+usurper, Henry IV.
+
+It is beyond our province to follow the after-fate of
+the monarch, whose Irish campaigns we have endeavoured
+to restore to their relative importance. His deposition
+and cruel death, in the prison of Pontefract, are familiar
+to readers of English history. The unsuccessful
+insurrections suppressed during his rival's reign, and
+the glory won by the son of that rival, as Henry V., seem
+to have established the house of Lancaster firmly on the
+throne; but the long minority of Henry VI.--who inherited
+the royal dignity at nine months old--and the factions
+among the other members of that family, opened
+opportunities, too tempting to be resisted, to the rival
+dynasty of York. During the first sixty years of the
+century on which we are next to enter, we shall find the
+English interest in Ireland controlled by the house of
+Lancaster; in the succeeding twenty-five years the
+partizans of the house of York are in the ascendant;
+until at length, after the victory of Bosworth field
+(A.D. 1485), the wars of the roses are terminated by the
+coronation of the Earl of Richmond as Henry VII., and
+his politic marriage with the Princess Elizabeth-the
+representative of the Yorkist dynasty. It will be seen
+how these rival houses had their respective factions
+among the Anglo-Irish; how these factions retarded two
+centuries the establishment of English power in Ireland;
+how the native lords and chiefs took advantage of the
+disunion among the foreigners to circumscribe more and
+more the narrow limits of the Pale; and lastly, how the
+absence of national unity alone preserved the power so
+reduced from utter extinction. In considering all these
+far extending consequences of the deposition of Richard II.,
+and the substitution of Henry of Lancaster in his stead,
+we must give due weight to his unsuccessful Irish wars
+as proximate causes of that revolution. The death of the
+Heir-Presumptive in the battle of Kells; the exactions
+and ill-success of Richard in his wars; the seizure of
+John of Ghent's estates and treasures; the absence of
+the sovereign at the critical moment: all these are causes
+which operated powerfully to that end. And of these all
+that relate to Irish affairs were mainly brought about
+by the heroic constancy, in the face of enormous odds,
+the unwearied energy, and high military skill exhibited
+by one man--Art McMurrogh.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+PARTIES WITHIN "THE PALE"--BATTLES OF KILMAINHAM AND
+KILLUCAN-SIR JOHN TALBOT'S LORD LIEUTENANCY.
+
+One leading fact, which we have to follow in all its
+consequences through the whole of the fifteenth century,
+is the division of the English and of the Anglo-Irish
+interest into two parties, Lancasterians and Yorkists.
+This division of the foreign power will be found to have
+produced a corresponding sense of security in the minds
+of the native population, and thus deprived them of that
+next best thing to a united national action, the combining
+effects of a common external danger.
+
+The new party lines were not drawn immediately upon the
+English revolution of 1399, but a very few years sufficed
+to infuse among settlers of English birth or descent the
+partizan passions which distracted the minds of men in
+their original country. The third Earl of Ormond, although
+he had received so many favours from the late King and
+his grandfather, yet by a common descent of five generations
+from Edward I., stood in relation of cousinship to the
+Usurper. On the arrival of the young Duke of Lancaster
+as Lord Lieutenant, in 1402, Ormond became one of his
+first courtiers, and dying soon after, he chose the Duke
+guardian to his heir, afterwards the fourth Earl. This
+heir, while yet a minor (1407), was elected or appointed
+deputy to his guardian, the Lord Lieutenant; during almost
+the whole of the short reign of Henry V. (1413-1421) he
+resided at the English Court, or accompanied the King in
+his French campaigns, thus laying the foundations of that
+influence which, six several times during the reign of
+Henry VI., procured his appointment to office as Lord
+Deputy, Lord Justice, or Lord Lieutenant. At length, in
+the mid-year of the century, his successor was created
+Earl of Wiltshire, and entrusted with the important duties
+of one of the Commissioners for the fleet, and Lord
+Treasurer of England; favours and employments which
+sufficiently account for how the Ormond family became
+the leaders of the Lancaster party among the Anglo-Irish.
+
+The bestowal of the first place on another house tended
+to estrange the Geraldines, who, with some reason, regarded
+themselves as better entitled to such honours. During
+the first official term of the Duke of Lancaster, no
+great feeling was exhibited, and on his departure in
+1405, the fifth Earl of Kildare was, for a year, entrusted
+with the office of Deputy. On the return of the Duke,
+in August, 1408, the Earl rode out to meet him, but was
+suddenly arrested with three other members of his family,
+and imprisoned in the Castle, His house in Dublin was
+plundered by the servants of the Lord Lieutenant, and
+the sum of 300 marks was exacted for his ransom. Such
+injustice and indignity, as well as the subsequent arrest
+of the sixth Earl, in 1418, "for having communicated with
+the Prior of Kilmainham"--still more than their rivalry
+with the Ormonds, drove the Kildare family into the ranks
+of the adherents of the Dukes of York. We shall see in
+the sequel the important reacting influence of these
+Anglo-Irish combinations upon the fortunes of the white
+rose and the red.
+
+To signalize his accession and remove the reproach of
+inaction which had been so often urged against his
+predecessor, Henry IV, was no sooner seated on the throne
+than he summoned the military tenants of the Crown to
+meet him in arms upon the Tyne, for the invasion of
+Scotland. It seems probable that he summoned those of
+Ireland with the rest, as we find in that year (1400)
+that an Anglo-Irish fleet, proceeding northwards from
+Dublin, encountered a Scottish, fleet in Strangford Lough,
+where a fierce engagement was fought, both sides claiming
+the victory. Three years later the Dubliners landed at
+Saint Ninians, and behaved valiantly, as their train
+bands did the same summer against the mountain tribes of
+Wicklow. Notwithstanding the personal sojourn of the
+unfortunate Richard, and his lavish expenditure among
+them, these warlike burghers cordially supported the new
+dynasty. Some privileges of trade were judiciously extended
+to them, and, in 1407, Henry granted to the Mayors of
+the city the privilege of having a gilded sword carried
+before them, in the same manner as the Mayors of London.
+
+At the period when these politic favours were bestowed
+on the citizens of Dublin, Henry was contending with a
+formidable insurrection in Wales, under the leadership
+of Owen Glendower, who had learned in the fastnesses of
+Idrone, serving under King Richard, how brave men, though
+not formed to war in the best schools, can defend their
+country against invasion. In the struggle which he
+maintained so gallantly during this and the next reign,
+though the fleet of Dublin at first assisted his enemies,
+he was materially aided afterwards by the constant
+occupation furnished them by the clans of Leinster. The
+early years of the Lancasterian dynasty were marked by
+a series of almost invariable defeats in the Leinster
+counties. Art McMurrogh, whose activity defied the chilling
+effects of age, poured his cohorts through Sculloge gap,
+on the garrisons of Wexford, taking in rapid possession
+in one campaign (1406) the castles of Camolin, Ferns,
+and Enniscorthy. Returning northward he retook Castledermot,
+and inflicted chastisement on the warlike Abbot of Conal,
+near Naas, who shortly before attacked some Irish forces
+on the Curragh of Kildare, slaying two hundred men.
+Castledermot was retaken by the Lord Deputy Scrope the
+next year, with the aid of the Earls of Ormond and Desmond,
+and the Prior of Kilmainham, at the head of his Knights.
+These allies were fresh from a Parliament in Dublin,
+where the Statute of Kilkenny had been, according to
+custom, solemnly re-enacted as the only hope of the
+English interest, and they naturally drew the sword in
+maintenance of their palladium. Within six miles of
+Callan, in "McMurrogh's country," they encountered that
+chieftain and his clansmen. In the early part of the day
+the Irish are stated to have had the advantage, but some
+Methian captains coming up in the afternoon turned the
+tide in favour of the English. According to the chronicles
+of the Pale, they won a second victory before nightfall
+at the town of Callan, over O'Carroll of Ely, who was
+marching to the aid of McMurrogh. But so confused and
+unsatisfactory are the accounts of this twofold engagement
+on the same day, in which the Deputy in person, and such
+important persons as the Earls of Desmond, of Ormond,
+and the Prior of Kilmainham commanded, that we cannot
+reconcile it with probability. The Irish Annals simply
+record the fact that a battle was gained at Callan over
+the Irish of Munster, in which O'Carroll was slain. Other
+native authorities add that 800 of his followers fell
+with O'Carroll, but no mention whatever is made of the
+battle with McMurrogh. The English accounts gravely add,
+that the evening sun stood still, while the Lord Deputy
+rode six miles, from the place of the first engagement
+to that of the second. This was the last campaign of
+Sir Stephen Scrope; he died soon after by the pestilence
+which swept over the island, sparing neither rich nor
+poor.
+
+The Duke of Lancaster resumed the Lieutenancy, arrested
+the Earl of Kildare as before related, convoked a Parliament
+at Dublin, and with all the forces he could muster,
+determined on an expedition southwards. But McMurrogh
+and the mountaineers of Wicklow now felt themselves strong
+enough to take the initiative. They crossed the plain
+which lies to the north of Dublin, and encamped at
+Kilmainham, where Roderick when he besieged the city,
+and Brien before the battle of Clontarf, had pitched
+their tents of old. The English and Anglo-Irish forces,
+under the eye of their Prince, marched out to dislodge
+them, in four divisions. The first was led by the Duke
+in person; the second by the veteran knight, Jenico
+d'Artois, the third by Sir Edward Perrers, an English
+knight, and the fourth by Sir Thomas Butler, Prior of
+the Order of Saint John, afterwards created by Henry V.,
+for his distinguished service, Earl of Kilmain. With
+McMurrogh were O'Byrne, O'Nolan, and other chiefs, besides
+his sons, nephews, and relatives. The numbers on each
+side could hardly fall short of ten thousand men, and
+the action may be fairly considered one of the most
+decisive of those times. The Duke was carried back wounded
+into Dublin; the slopes of Inchicore and the valley of
+the Liffey were strewn with the dying and the dead; the
+river at that point obtained from the Leinster Irish the
+name of _Athcroe_, or the ford of slaughter; the widowed
+city was filled with lamentation and dismay. In a petition
+addressed to King Henry by the Council, apparently during
+his son's confinement from the effects of his wound, they
+thus describe the Lord Lieutenant's condition: "His
+soldiers have deserted him; the people of his household
+are on the point of leaving him; and though they were
+willing to remain, our lord is not able to keep them
+together; our said lord, your son, is so destitute of
+money, that he hath not a penny in the world, nor a penny
+can he get credit for."
+
+One consequence of this battle of Kilmainham was, that
+while Art McMurrogh lived, no further attacks were made
+upon his kindred or country. He died at Ross, on the
+first day of January, 1417, in the 60th year of his age.
+His Brehon, O'Doran, having also died suddenly on the
+same day, it was supposed they were both poisoned by a
+drink prepared for them by a woman of the town. "He was,"
+say our impartial _Four Masters_, who seldom speak so
+warmly of any Leinster Prince, "a man distinguished for
+his hospitality, knowledge, and feats of arms; a man full
+of prosperity and royalty; a founder of churches and
+monasteries by his bounty and contributions," and one
+who had defended his Province from the age of sixteen to
+sixty.
+
+On his recovery from the effects of his wound, the Duke
+of Lancaster returned finally to England, appointing
+Prior Butler his Deputy, who filled that office for five
+consecutive years. Butler was an illegitimate son of
+the late Earl of Ormond, and naturally a Lancasterian:
+among the Irish he was called Thomas _Baccagh_, on account
+of his lameness. He at once abandoned South Leinster as
+a field of operations, and directed all his efforts to
+maintain the Pale in Kildare, Meath, and Louth. His chief
+antagonist in this line of action was Murrogh or Maurice
+O'Conor, of Offally. This powerful chief had lost two or
+three sons, but had gamed as many battles over former
+deputies. He was invariably aided by his connexions and
+neighbours, the MacGeoghegans of West-Heath. Conjointly
+they captured the castles and plundered the towns of
+their enemies, holding their prisoners to ransom or
+carrying off their flocks. In 1411 O'Conor held to ransom
+the English Sheriff of Meath, and somewhat later defeated
+Prior Butler in a pitched battle. His greatest victory
+was the battle of Killucan, fought on the 10th day of
+May, 1414. In this engagement MacGeoghegan was, as usual,
+his comrade. All the power of the English Pale was arrayed
+against them. Sir Thomas Mereward, Baron of Screen, "and
+a great many officers and common soldiers were slain,"
+and among the prisoners were Christopher Fleming, son of
+the Baron of Slane, for whom a ransom of 1,400 marks was
+paid, and the ubiquitous Sir Jenico d'Artois, who, with
+some others, paid "twelve hundred marks, beside a reward
+and fine for intercession." A Parliament which sat at
+Dublin for thirteen weeks, in 1413, and a foray into
+Wicklow, complete the notable acts of Thomas _Baccagh's_
+viceroyalty. Soon after the accession of Henry V. (1413),
+he was summoned to accompany that warlike monarch into
+France, and for a short interval the government was
+exercised by Sir John Stanley, who died shortly after
+his arrival, and by the Archbishop of Dublin, as
+Commissioner. On the eve of St. Martin's Day, 1414, Sir
+John Talbot, afterwards so celebrated as first Earl of
+Shrewsbury, landed at Dalkey, with the title of Lord
+Lieutenant.
+
+The appointment of this celebrated Captain, on the brink
+of a war with France, was an admission of the desperate
+strait to which the English interest had been reduced.
+And if the end could ever justify the means, Henry V.,
+from his point of view, might have defended on that ground
+the appointment of this inexorable soldier. Adopting the
+system of Sir Thomas Butler, Talbot paid little or no
+attention to South Leinster, but aimed in the first place
+to preserve to his sovereign, Louth and Meath. His most
+southern point of operation, in his first Lieutenancy,
+was Leix, but his continuous efforts were directed against
+the O'Conors of Offally and the O'Hanlons and McMahons
+of Oriel. For three succeeding years he made circuits
+through these tribes, generally by the same route, west
+and north, plundering chiefs and churches, sparing "neither
+saint nor sanctuary." On his return to Dublin after these
+forays, he exacted with a high hand whatever he wanted
+for his household. When he returned to England, 1419, he
+carried along with him, according to the chronicles of
+the Pale--"the curses of many, because he, being run much
+in debt for victuals, and divers other things, would pay
+little or nothing at all." Among the natives he left a
+still worse reputation. The plunder of a bard was regarded
+by them as worse, if possible, than the spoliation of a
+sanctuary. One of Talbot's immediate predecessors was
+reputed to have died of the malediction of a bard of
+West-Meath, whose property he had appropriated; but as
+if to show his contempt of such superstition, Talbot
+suffered no son of song to escape him. Their satires fell
+powerless on his path. Not only did he enrich himself,
+by means lawful and unlawful, but he created interest,
+which, a few years afterwards, was able to checkmate the
+Desmonds and Ormonds. The see of Dublin falling vacant
+during his administration, he procured the appointment
+of his brother Richard as Archbishop, and left him, at
+his departure, in temporary possession of the office of
+Lord Deputy. Branches of his family were planted at
+Malahide, Belgarde, and Talbotstown, in Wicklow, the
+representatives of which survive till this day.
+
+One of this Lieutenant's most acceptable offices to the
+State was the result of stratagem rather than of arms.
+The celebrated Art McMurrogh was succeeded, in 1417, by
+his son, Donogh, who seems to have inherited his valour,
+without his prudence. In 1419, in common with the O'Conor
+of Offally, his father's friend, he was entrapped into
+the custody of Talbot. O'Conor, the night of his capture,
+escaped with his companions, and kept up the war until
+his death: McMurrogh was carried to London and confined
+in the Tower. Here he languished for nine weary years.
+At length, in 1428, Talbot, having "got license to make
+the best of him," held him to ransom. The people of his
+own province released him, "which was joyful news to the
+Irish."
+
+But neither the aggrandizement of new nor the depression
+of old families effected any cardinal change in the
+direction of events. We have traced for half a century,
+and are still farther to follow out, the natural
+consequences of the odious _Statute of Kilkenny_. Although
+every successive Parliament of the Pale recited and
+re-enacted that statute, every year saw it dispensed in
+particular cases, both as to trading, intermarriage, and
+fostering with the natives. Yet the virus of national
+proscription outlived all the experience of its futility.
+In 1417, an English petition was presented to the English
+Parliament, praying that the law, excluding Irish
+ecclesiastics from Irish benefices, should be strictly
+enforced; and the same year they prohibited the influx
+of fugitives from Ireland, while the Pale Parliament
+passed a corresponding act against allowing any one to
+emigrate without special license. At a Parliament held
+at Dublin in 1421, O'Hedian, Archbishop of Cashel, was
+impeached by Gese, Bishop of Waterford, the main charges
+being that he loved none of the English nation; that he
+presented no Englishman to a living; and that he designed
+to make himself King of Minister. This zealous assembly
+also adopted a petition of grievances to the King, praying
+that as the Irish, who had done homage to King Richard,
+"had long since taken arms against the government
+notwithstanding their recognizances payable in the
+Apostolic chamber, his Highness the King would lay their
+conduct before the Pope, and prevail on the Holy Father
+to publish _a crusade against them_, to follow up the
+intention of his predecessor's grant to Henry II.!"
+
+In the temporal order, as we have seen, the policy of
+hatred brought its own punishment. "The Pale," which may
+be said to date from the passing of the _Statute of
+Kilkenny_ (1367), was already abridged more than one-half.
+The Parliament of Kilkenny had defined it as embracing
+"Louth, Meath, Dublin, Kildare, Catherlough, Kilkenny,
+Wexford, Waterford, and Tipperary," each governed by
+Seneschals or Sheriffs. In 1422 Dunlavan and Ballymore
+are mentioned as the chief keys of Dublin and Kildare
+--and in the succeeding reign Callan in Oriel is set down
+as the chief key of that part. Dikes to keep out the
+enemy were made from Tallaght to Tassagard, at Rathconnell
+in Meath, and at other places in Meath and Kildare.
+These narrower limits it long retained, and the usual
+phrase in all future legislation by which the assemblies
+of the Anglo-Irish define their jurisdiction is "the four
+shires." So completely was this enclosure isolated from
+the rest of the country that, in the reign at which we
+have now arrived, both the Earls of Desmond and Ormond
+were exempted from attending certain sittings of Parliament,
+and the Privy Council, on the ground that they could not
+do so without marching through the enemy's country at
+great risk and inconvenience. It is true occasional
+successes attended the military enterprises of the
+Anglo-Irish, even in these days of their lowest fortunes.
+But they had chosen to adopt a narrow, bigoted, unsocial
+policy; a policy of exclusive dealing and perpetual
+estrangement from their neighbours dwelling on the same
+soil, and they had their reward. Their borders were
+narrowed upon them; they were penned up in one corner of
+the kingdom, out of which they could not venture a league
+without license and protection, from the free clansmen
+they insincerely affected to despise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ACTS OF THE NATIVE PRINCES--SUBDIVISION OF TRIBES AND
+TERRITORIES--ANGLO-IRISH TOWNS UNDER NATIVE
+PROTECTION--ATTEMPT OF THADDEUS O'BRIEN, PRINCE OF THOMOND,
+TO RESTORE THE MONARCHY--RELATIONS OF THE RACES IN THE
+FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
+
+The history of "the Pale" being recounted down to the
+period of its complete isolation, we have now to pass
+beyond its entrenched and castellated limits, in order
+to follow the course of events in other parts of the
+kingdom.
+
+While the highest courage was everywhere exhibited by
+chiefs and clansmen, no attempt was made to bring about
+another National Confederacy, after the fall of Edward
+Bruce. One result of that striking _denouement_ of a
+stormy career--in addition to those before mentioned--was
+to give new life to the jealousy which had never wholly
+subsided, between the two primitive divisions of the
+Island. Bruce, welcomed, sustained, and lamented by the
+Northern Irish, was distrusted, avoided, and execrated
+by those of the South. There may have been exceptions,
+but this was the rule. The Bards and Newsmen of subsequent
+times, according to their Provincial bias, charged the
+failure of Bruce upon the Eugenian race, or justified
+his fate by aspersing his memory and his adherents of
+the race of Conn. This feeling of irritation, always most
+deep-seated when driven in by a consciousness of
+mismanagement or of self-reproach, goes a great way to
+account for the fact, that more than one generation was
+to pass away, before any closer union could be brought
+about between the Northern and Southern Milesian Irish.
+
+We cannot, therefore, in the period embraced in our
+present book, treat the Provinces otherwise than as
+estranged communities, departing farther and farther from
+the ancient traditions of one central legislative council
+and one supreme elective chief. Special, short-lived
+alliances between lords of different Provinces are indeed
+frequent; but they were brought about mostly by ties of
+relationship or gossipred, and dissolved with the
+disappearance of the immediate danger. The very idea of
+national unity, once so cherished by all the children of
+_Miledh Espaigne_, seems to have been as wholly lost as
+any of those secrets of ancient handiwork, over which
+modern ingenuity puzzles itself in vain. In the times to
+which we have descended, it was every principality and
+every lordship for itself. As was said of old in Rome,
+"Antony had his party, Octavius had his party, but the
+Commonwealth had none."
+
+Not alone was the greater unity wholly forgotten, but no
+sooner were the descendants of the Anglo-Normans driven
+into their eastern enclosure, or thoroughly amalgamated
+in language, laws and costume with themselves, than the
+ties of particular clans began to loose their binding
+force, and the tendency to subdivide showed itself on
+every opportunity. We have already, in the book of the
+"War of Succession," described the subdivisions of Breffni
+and of Meath as measures of policy, taken by the O'Conor
+Kings, to weaken their too powerful suffragans. But that
+step, which might have strengthened the hands of a native
+dynasty, almost inevitably weakened the tribes themselves
+in combating the attacks of a highly organized foreign
+power. Of this the O'Conors themselves became afterwards
+the most striking example. For half a century following
+the Red Earl's death, they had gained steadily on the
+foreigners settled in Connaught. The terrible defeat of
+Athenry was more than atoned for by both other victories.
+At length the descendants of the vanquished on that day
+ruled as proudly as ever did their ancestors in their
+native Province. The posterity of the victors were merely
+tolerated on its soil, or anxiously building up new houses
+in Meath and Louth. But in an evil hour, on the death of
+their last King (1384), the O'Conors agreed to settle
+the conflicting claims of rival candidates for the
+succession by dividing the common inheritance. From this
+date downwards we have an O'Conor Don and an O'Conor Roe
+in the Annals of that Province, each rallying a separate
+band of partizans; and according to the accidents of age,
+minority, alliance, or personal reputation, infringing,
+harassing, or domineering over the other. Powerful lords
+they long continued, but as Provincial Princes we meet
+them no more.
+
+This fatal example--of which there had been a faint
+foreshadowing in the division of the McCarthys in the
+preceding century--in the course of a generation or two,
+was copied by almost every great connection, north and
+south. The descendants of yellow Hugh O'Neil in Clandeboy
+claimed exemption from the supremacy of the elder family
+in Tyrone; the O'Farells, acknowledged two lords of
+Annally; the McDonoghs, two lords of Tirerril; there was
+McDermott of the Wood claiming independence of McDermott
+of the Rock; O'Brien of Ara asserted equality with O'Brien
+of Thomond; the nephews of Art McMurrogh contested the
+superiority of his sons; and thus slowly but surely the
+most powerful clans were hastening the day of their own
+dissolution.
+
+A consequence of these subdivisions was the necessity
+which arose for new and opposite alliances, among those
+who had formerly looked on themselves as members of one
+family, with common dangers and common enemies. The pivot
+of policy now rested on neighbourhood rather than on
+pedigree; a change in its first stages apparently unnatural
+and deplorable, but in the long run not without its
+compensating advantages. As an instance of these new
+necessities, we may adduce the protection and succour
+steadily extended by the O'Neils of Clandeboy, to the
+McQuillans, Bissets, of the Antrim coast, and the McDonnells
+of the Glens, against the frequent attacks of the O'Neils
+of Tyrone. The latter laid claim to all Ulster, and long
+refused to acknowledge these foreigners, though men of
+kindred race and speech. Had it not been that the interest
+of Clandeboy pointed the other way, it is very doubtful
+if either the Welsh or Scottish settlers by the bays of
+Antrim could have made a successful stand against the
+overruling power of the house of Dungannon. The same
+policy, adopted by native chiefs under similar
+circumstances, protected the minor groups of settlers of
+foreign origin in the most remote districts--like the
+Barretts and other Welsh people of Tyrawley--long after
+the Deputies of the Kings of England had ceased to consider
+them as fellow-subjects, or to be concerned for their
+existence.
+
+In like manner the detached towns, built by foreigners,
+of Welsh, Flemish, Saxon, or Scottish origin, were now
+taken "under the protection" of the neighbouring chief,
+or Prince, and paid to him or to his bailiff an annual
+tax for such protection. In this manner Wexford purchased
+protection of McMurrogh, Limerick from O'Brien, and
+Dundalk from O'Neil. But the yoke was not always borne
+with patience, nor did the bare relation of tax-gatherer
+and tax-payer generate any very cordial feeling between
+the parties. Emboldened by the arrival of a powerful
+Deputy, or a considerable accession to the Colony, or
+taking advantage of contested elections for the chieftaincy
+among their protectors, these sturdy communities sometimes
+sought by force to get rid of their native masters. Yet
+in no case at this period were such town risings ultimately
+successful. The appearance of a menacing force, and the
+threat of the torch, soon brought the refractory burgesses
+to terms. On such an occasion (1444) Dundalk paid Owen
+O'Neil the sum of 60 marks and two tuns of wine to avert
+his indignation. On another, the townsmen of Limerick
+agreed about the same period to pay annually for ever to
+O'Brien the sum of 60 marks. Notwithstanding the precarious
+tenure of their existence, they all continued jealously
+to guard their exclusive privileges. In the oath of office
+taken by the Mayor of Dublin (1388) he is sworn to guard
+the city's franchises, so that no Irish rebel shall
+intrude upon the limits. Nicholas O'Grady, Abbot of a
+Monastery in Clare, is mentioned in 1485 as "the twelfth
+Irishman that ever possessed the freedom of the city of
+Limerick" up to that time. A special bye-law, at a still
+later period, was necessary to admit Colonel William
+O'Shaughnessy, of one of the first families in that
+county, to the freedom of the Corporation of the town of
+Galway. Exclusiveness on the one side, and arbitrary
+taxation on the other, were ill means of ensuring the
+prosperity of these new trading communities; Freedom and
+Peace have ever been as essential to commerce as the
+winds and waves are to navigation.
+
+The dissolution and reorganization of the greater clans
+necessarily included the removal of old, and the formation
+of new boundaries, and these changes frequently led to
+border battles between the contestants. The most striking
+illustration of the struggles of this description, which
+occurs in our Annals in the fifteenth century, is that
+which was waged for three generations between a branch
+of the O'Conors established at Sligo, calling themselves
+"lords of Lower Connaught," and the O'Donnells of Donegal.
+The country about Sligo had anciently been subject to
+the Donegal chiefs, but the new masters of Sligo, after
+the era of Edward Bruce, not only refused any longer to
+pay tribute, but endeavoured by the strong hand to extend
+their sway to the banks of the Drowse and the Erne. The
+pride not less than the power of the O'Donnells was
+interested in resisting this innovation, for, in the
+midst of the debateable land rose the famous mountain of
+Ben Gulban (now Benbulben), which bore the name of the
+first father of their tribe. The contest was, therefore,
+bequeathed from father to son, but the family of Sligo,
+under the lead of their vigorous chiefs, and with the
+advantage of actual possession, prevailed in establishing
+the exemption of their territory from the ancient tribute.
+The Drowse, which carries the surplus waters of the
+beautiful Lough Melvin into the bay of Donegal, finally
+became the boundary between Lower Connaught and Tyrconnell.
+
+We have already alluded to the loss of the arts of
+political combination among the Irish in the Middle Ages.
+This loss was occasionally felt by the superior minds
+both in church and state. It was felt by Donald More
+O'Brien and those who went with him into the house of
+Conor Moinmoy O'Conor, in 1188; it was felt by the nobles
+who, at Cael-uisge, elected Brian O'Neil in 1258; it was
+felt by the twelve reguli who, in 1315, invited Edward
+Bruce, "a man of kindred blood," to rule over them; it
+was imputed as a crime to Art McMurrogh in 1397, that he
+designed to claim the general sovereignty; and now in
+this century, Thaddeus O'Brien, Prince of Thomond, with
+the aid of the Irish of the southern half-kingdom, began
+(to use the phrase of the last Antiquary of Lecan) "working
+his way to Tara." This Prince united all the tribes of
+Munster in his favour, and needing, according to ancient
+usage, the suffrages of two other Provinces to ensure
+his election, he crossed the Shannon in the summer of
+1466 at the head of the largest army which had followed
+any of his ancestors since the days of King Brian. He
+renewed his protection to the town of Limerick, entered
+into an alliance with the Earl of Desmond--which alliance
+seems to have cost Desmond his head--received in his camp
+the hostages of Ormond and Ossory, and gave gifts to the
+lords of Leinster. Simultaneously, O'Conor of Offally
+had achieved a great success over the Palesmen, taking
+prisoner the Earl of Desmond, the Prior of Trim, the
+Lords Barnwall, Plunkett, Nugent, and other Methian
+magnates--a circumstance which also seems to have some
+connection with the fate of Desmond and Plunkett, who
+were the next year tried for treason and executed at
+Drogheda, by order of the Earl of Worcester, then Deputy.
+The usual Anglo-Irish tales, as to the causes of Desmond's
+losing the favour of Edward IV., seem very like
+after-inventions. It is much more natural to attribute
+that sudden change to some connection with the attempt
+of O'Brien the previous year--since this only makes
+intelligible the accusation against him of "_alliance_,
+fosterage, and alterage with the King's Irish enemies."
+
+From Leinster O'Brien recrossed the Shannon, and overran
+the country of the Clan-William Burke. But the ancient
+jealousy of Leath-Conn would not permit its proud chiefs
+to render hostage or homage to a Munster Prince, of no
+higher rank than themselves. Disappointed in his hopes
+of that union which could alone restore the monarchy in
+the person of a native ruler, the descendant of Brian
+returned to Kinkora, where he shortly afterwards fell
+ill of fever and died. "It was commonly reported," says
+the Antiquary of Lecan, "that the multitudes' envious
+eyes and hearts shortened his days."
+
+The naturalized Norman noble spoke the language of the
+Gael, and retained his Brehons and Bards like his Milesian
+compeer. For generations the daughters of the elder race
+had been the mothers of his house; and the milk of Irish
+foster-mothers had nourished the infancy of its heirs.
+The Geraldines, the McWilliams, even the Butlers, among
+their tenants and soldiers, were now as Irish as the
+Irish. Whether allies or enemies, rivals or as relatives,
+they stood as near to their neighbours of Celtic origin
+as they did to the descendants of those who first landed
+at Bannow and at Waterford. The "Statute of Kilkenny"
+had proclaimed the eternal separation of the races, but
+up to this period it had failed, and the men of both
+origins were left free to develop whatever characteristics
+were most natural to them. What we mean by being left
+free is, that there was no general or long-sustained
+combination of one race for the suppression of the other
+from the period of Richard the Second's last reverses
+(A.D. 1399) till the period of the Reformation. Native
+Irish life, therefore, throughout the whole of the
+fifteenth, and during the first half of the sixteenth
+century, was as free to shape and direct itself, to ends
+of its own choosing, as it had been at almost any former
+period in our history. Private wars and hereditary
+blood-feuds, next after the loss of national unity, were
+the worst vices of the nation. Deeds of violence and acts
+of retaliation were as common as the succession of day
+and night. Every free clansman carried his battle-axe to
+church and chase, to festival and fairgreen. The strong
+arm was prompt to obey the fiery impulse, and it must be
+admitted in solemn sadness, that almost every page of
+our records at this period is stained with human blood.
+But though crimes of violence are common, crimes of
+treachery are rare. The memory of a McMahon, who betrayed
+and slew his guest, is execrated by the same stoical
+scribes, who set down, without a single expression of
+horror, the open murder of chief after chief. Taking
+off by poison, so common among their cotemporaries, seems
+to have been altogether unknown, and the cruelties of
+the State Prisons of the Middle Ages undreamt of by our
+fierce, impetuous, but not implacable ancestors. The
+facts which go to affix the imputation of cruelty on
+those ages are, the frequent entries which we find of
+deposed chiefs, or conspicuous criminals, having their
+eyes put out, or being maimed in their members. By these
+barbarous punishments they lost caste, if not life; but
+that indeed must have been a wretched remnant of existence
+which remained to the blinded lover, or the maimed warrior,
+or the crippled tiller of the soil. Of the social and
+religious relations existing between the races, we shall
+have occasion to speak more fully before closing the
+present book.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+CONTINUED DIVISION AND DECLINE OF "THE ENGLISH INTEREST"--
+RICHARD, DUKE OF YORK, LORD LIEUTENANT--CIVIL WAR AGAIN
+IN ENGLAND--EXECUTION OF THE EARL OF DESMOND--ASCENDANCY
+OF THE KILDARE GERALDINES.
+
+We have already described the limits to which "the Pale"
+was circumscribed at the beginning of the fourteenth
+century. The fortunes of that inconsiderable settlement
+during the following century hardly rise to the level of
+historical importance, nor would the recital of them be
+at all readable but for the ultimate consequences which
+ensued from the preservation of those last remains of
+foreign power in the island. On that account, however,
+we have to consult the barren annals of "the Pale" through
+the intermediate period, that we may make clear the
+accidents by which it was preserved from destruction,
+and enabled to play a part in after-times, undreamt of
+and inconceivable, to those who tolerated its existence
+in the ages of which we speak.
+
+On the northern coasts of Ireland the co-operation of
+the friendly Scots with the native Irish had long been
+a source of anxiety to the Palesmen. In the year 1404,
+Dongan, Bishop of Derry, and Sir Jenico d'Artois, were
+appointed Commissioners by Henry IV., to conclude a
+permanent peace with McDonald, Lord of the Isles, but,
+notwithstanding that form was then gone through during
+the reigns of all the Lancasterian Kings, evidence of
+the Hiberno-Scotch alliance being still in existence,
+constantly recurs. In the year 1430 an address or petition
+of the Dublin Council to the King sets forth "that the
+enemies and rebels, _aided by the Scots_, had conquered
+or rendered tributary almost every part of the country,
+_except the county of Dublin_." The presence of Henry V.
+in Ireland had been urgently solicited by his lieges in
+that kingdom, but without effect. The hero of Agincourt
+having set his heart upon the conquest of France, left
+Ireland to his lieutenants and their deputies. Nor could
+his attention be aroused to the English interest in that
+country, even by the formal declaration of the Speaker
+of the English Parliament, that "the greater part of the
+lordship of Ireland" had been "conquered" by the natives.
+
+The comparatively new family of Talbot, sustained by the
+influence of the great Earl of Shrewsbury, now Seneschal
+of France, had risen to the highest pitch of influence.
+When on the accession of Henry VI., Edward Mortimer, Earl
+of March, was appointed Lord Lieutenant, and Dantsey,
+Bishop of Meath, his deputy, Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin,
+and Lord Chancellor, refused to acknowledge Dantsey's
+pretensions because his commission was given under the
+private seal of Lord Mortimer. Having effected his object
+in this instance, the Archbishop directed his subsequent
+attacks against the House of Ormond, the chief favourites
+of the King, or rather of the Council, in that reign. In
+1441, at a Dublin Parliament, messengers were appointed
+to convey certain articles to the King, the purport of
+which was to prevent the Earl of Ormond from being made
+Lord Lieutenant, alleging against him many misdemeanours
+in his former administration, and praying that some
+"mighty lord of England" might be named to that office
+to execute the laws more effectually "than any Irishman
+ever did or ever will do."
+
+This attempt to destroy the influence of Ormond led to
+an alliance between that Earl and Sir James, afterwards
+seventh Earl of Desmond. Sir James was son of Gerald,
+fourth Earl (distinguished as "the Rhymer," or Magician),
+by the lady Eleanor Butler, daughter of the second Earl
+of Ormond. He stood, therefore, in the relation of cousin
+to the cotemporary head of the Butler family. When his
+nephew Thomas openly violated the Statute of Kilkenny,
+by marrying the beautiful Catherine McCormac, the ambitious
+and intriguing Sir James, anxious to enforce that statute,
+found a ready seconder in Ormond. Earl Thomas, forced to
+quit the country, died an exile at Rouen, in France, and
+Sir James, after many intrigues and negotiations, obtained
+the title and estates. For once the necessities of Desmond
+and Ormond united these houses, but the money of the
+English Archbishop of Dublin, backed by the influence of
+his illustrious brother, proved equal to them both. In
+the first twenty-five years of the reign of Henry VI.
+(1422-1447,) Ormond was five times Lieutenant or Deputy,
+and Talbot five times Deputy, Lord Justice, or Lord
+Commissioner. Their factious controversy culminated with
+"the articles" adopted in 1441, which altogether failed
+of the intended effect; Ormond was reappointed two years
+afterwards to his old office; nor was it till 1446, when
+the Earl of Shrewsbury was a third time sent over, that
+the Talbots had any substantial advantage over their
+rivals. The recall of the Earl for service in France,
+and the death of the Archbishop two years later, though
+it deprived the party they had formed of a resident
+leader, did not lead to its dissolution. Bound together
+by common interests and dangers, their action may be
+traced in opposition to the Geraldines, through the
+remaining years of Henry VI., and perhaps so late as the
+earlier years of Henry VII. (1485-1500).
+
+In the struggle of dynasties from which England suffered
+so severely during the fifteenth century, the drama of
+ambition shifted its scenes from London and York to Calais
+and Dublin. The appointment of Richard, Duke of York,
+as Lord Lieutenant, in 1449, presented him an opportunity
+of creating a Yorkist party among the nobles and people
+of "the Pale." This able and ambitious Prince possessed
+in his hereditary estate resources equal to great
+enterprises. He was in the first place the representative
+of the third son of Edward III.; on the death of his
+cousin the Earl of March, in 1424, he became heir to that
+property and title. He was Duke of York, Earl of March,
+and Earl of Rutland, in England; Earl of Ulster and Earl
+of Cork, Lord of Connaught, Clare, Meath, and Trim, in
+Ireland. He had been, twice Regent of France, during the
+minority of Henry, where he upheld the cause of the
+Plantagenet King with signal ability. By the peace
+concluded at Tours, between England, France, and Burgundy,
+in 1444, he was enabled to return to England, where the
+King had lately come of age, and begun to exhibit the
+weak though amiable disposition which led to his ruin.
+The events of the succeeding two or three years were
+calculated to expose Henry to the odium of his subjects
+and the machinations of his enemies. Town after town and
+province after province were lost in France; the Regent
+Somerset returned to experience the full force of this
+unpopularity; the royal favourite, Suffolk, was banished,
+pursued, and murdered at sea; the King's uncles, Cardinal
+Beaufort and the Duke of Gloucester, were removed by
+death--so that every sign and circumstance of the time
+whispered encouragement to the ambitious Duke. When,
+therefore, the Irish lieutenancy was offered, in order
+to separate him from his partizans, he at first refused
+it; subsequently, however, he accepted, on conditions
+dictated by himself, calculated to leave him wholly his
+own master. These conditions, reduced to writing in the
+form of an Indenture between the King and the Duke,
+extended his lieutenancy to a period of ten years; allowed
+him, besides the entire revenue of Ireland, an annual
+subsidy from England; full power to let the King's land,
+to levy and maintain soldiers, to place or displace all
+officers, to appoint a Deputy, and to return to England
+at his pleasure. On these terms the ex-Regent of France
+undertook the government of the English settlement in
+Ireland.
+
+Arrived at Dublin, _the_ Duke (as in his day he was always
+called,) employed himself rather to strengthen his party
+than to extend the limits of his government. Soon after
+his arrival a son was born to him, and baptized with
+great pomp in the Castle. James, fifth Earl of Ormond,
+and Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, were invited to stand
+as sponsors. In the line of policy indicated by this
+choice, he steadily persevered during his whole connection
+with Ireland--which lasted till his death, in 1460.
+Alternately he named a Butler and a Geraldine as his
+deputy, and although he failed ultimately to win the Earl
+of Ormond from the traditional party of his family, he
+secured the attachment of several of his kinsmen. Stirring
+events in England, the year after his appointment, made
+it necessary for him to return immediately. The unpopularity
+of the administration which had banished him had rapidly
+augmented. The French King had recovered the whole of
+Normandy, for four centuries annexed to the English Crown.
+Nothing but Calais remained of all the Continental
+possessions which the Plantagenets had inherited, and
+which Henry V. had done so much to strengthen and extend.
+Domestic abuses aggravated the discontent arising from
+foreign defeats. The Bishop of Chichester, one of the
+ministers, was set upon and slain by a mob at Portsmouth.
+Twenty thousand men of Kent, under the command of Jack
+Cade, an Anglo-Irishman, who had given himself out as a
+son of the last Earl of March, who died in the Irish
+government twenty-five years before, marched upon London.
+They defeated a royal force at Sevenoaks, and the city
+opened its gate at the summons of Cade. The Kentish men
+took possession of Southwark, while their Irish leader
+for three days, entering the city every morning, compelled
+the mayor and the judges to sit in the Guildhall, tried
+and sentenced Lord Say to death, who, with his son-in-law,
+Cromer, Sheriff of Kent, was accordingly executed. Every
+evening, as he had promised the citizens, he retired with
+his guards across the river, preserving the strictest
+order among them. But the royalists were not idle, and
+when, on the fourth morning Cade attempted as usual to
+enter London proper, he found the bridge of Southwark
+barricaded and defended by a strong force under the Lord
+Scales. After six hours' hard fighting his raw levies
+were repulsed, and many of them accepted a free pardon
+tendered to them in the moment of defeat. Cade retired
+with the remainder on Deptford and Rochester, but gradually
+abandoned by them, he was surprised, half famished in a
+garden at Heyfield, and put to death. His captor claimed
+and received the large reward of a thousand marks offered
+for his head. This was in the second week of July; on
+the 1st of September, news was brought to London that
+the Duke of York had suddenly landed from Ireland. His
+partizans eagerly gathered round him at his castle of
+Fotheringay, but for five years longer, by the repeated
+concessions of the gentle-minded Henry, and the
+interposition of powerful mediators, the actual war of
+the roses was postponed.
+
+It is beyond our province to follow the details of that
+ferocious struggle, which was waged almost incessantly
+from 1455 till 1471--from the first battle of St. Albans
+till the final battle at Tewksbury. We are interested in
+it mainly as it connects the fortunes of the Anglo-Irish
+Earls with one or other of the dynasties; and their
+fortunes again, with the benefit or disadvantage of their
+allies and relatives among our native Princes. Of the
+transactions in England, it may be sufficient to say that
+the Duke of York, after his victory at St. Albans in '55,
+was declared Lord Protector of the realm during Henry's
+imbecility; that the next year the King recovered and
+the Protector's office was abolished; that in '57 both
+parties stood at bay; in '58 an insecure peace was patched
+up between them; in '59 they appealed to arms, the Yorkists
+gained a victory at Bloreheath, but being defeated at
+Ludiford, Duke Richard, with one of his sons, fled for
+safety into Ireland.
+
+It was the month of November when the fugitive Duke
+arrived to resume the Lord Lieutenancy which he had
+formerly exercised. Legally, his commission, for those
+who recognized the authority of King Henry, had expired
+four months before--as it bore date from July 5th, 1449;
+but it is evident the majority of the Anglo-Irish received
+him as a Prince of their own election rather than as an
+ordinary Viceroy. He held, soon after his arrival, a
+Parliament at Dublin, which met by adjournment at Drogheda
+the following spring. The English Parliament having
+declared him, his duchess, sons, and principal adherents
+traitors, and writs to that effect having been sent over,
+the Irish Parliament passed a declaratory Act (1460)
+making the service of all such writs treason against
+_their_ authority--"it having been ever customary in
+their land to receive and entertain strangers with due
+respect and hospitality." Under this law, an emissary of
+the Earl of Ormond, upon whom English writs against the
+fugitives were found, was executed as a traitor. This
+independent Parliament confirmed the Duke in his office;
+made it high treason to imagine his death, and--taking
+advantage of the favourable conjuncture of affairs--they
+further declared that the inhabitants of Ireland could
+only be bound by laws made in Ireland; that no writs were
+of force unless issued under the great seal of Ireland;
+that the realm had of ancient right its own Lord Constable
+and Earl Marshal, by whom alone trials for treason alleged
+to have been committed in Ireland could be conducted. In
+the same busy spring, the Earl of Warwick (so celebrated
+as "the Kingmaker" of English history) sailed from Calais,
+of which he was Constable, with the Channel-fleet, of
+which he was also in command, and doubling the Land's
+End of England, arrived at Dublin to concert measures
+for another rising in England. He found the Duke at Dublin
+"surrounded by his Earls and homagers," and measures were
+soon concerted between them.
+
+An appeal to the English nation was prepared at this
+Conference, charging upon Henry's advisers that they had
+written to the French King to besiege Calais, and to the
+Irish Princes to expel the English settlers. The loyalty
+of the fugitive lords, and their readiness to prove their
+innocence before their sovereign, were stoutly asserted.
+Emissaries were despatched in every direction; troops
+were raised; Warwick soon after landed in Kent-always
+strongly pro-Yorkist-defeated the royalists at Northampton
+in July, and the Duke reaching London in October, a
+compromise was agreed to, after much discussion, in which
+Henry was to have the crown for life, while the Duke was
+acknowledged as his successor, and created president of
+his council.
+
+We have frequently remarked in our history the recurrence
+of conflicts between the north and south of the island.
+The same thing is distinctly traceable through the annals
+of England down to a quite recent period. Whether difference
+of race, or of admixture of race may not lie at the
+foundation of such long-living enmities, we will not here
+attempt to discuss; such, however, is the fact. Queen
+Margaret had fled northward after the defeat of Northampton
+towards the Scottish border, from which she now returned
+at the head of 20,000 men. The Duke advanced rapidly to
+meet her, and engaging with a far inferior force at
+Wakefield, was slain in the field, or beheaded after the
+battle. All now seemed lost to the Yorkist party, when
+young Edward, son of Duke Richard, advancing from the
+marches of Wales at the head of an army equal in numbers
+to the royalists, won, in the month of February, 1461,
+the battles of Mortimers-cross and Barnet, and was crowned
+at Westminster in March, by the title of Edward IV. The
+sanguinary battle of Towton, soon after his coronation,
+where 38,000 dead were reckoned by the heralds, confirmed
+his title and established his throne. Even the subsequent
+hostility of Warwick--though it compelled him once to
+surrender himself a prisoner, and once to fly the
+country--did not finally transfer the sceptre to his
+rival. Warwick was slain in the battle of Tewkesbury
+(1471), the Lancasterian Prince Edward was put to death
+on the field, and his unhappy father was murdered in
+prison. Two years later, Henry, Earl of Richmond, grandson
+of Catherine, Queen of Henry V. and Owen Ap Tudor, the
+only remaining leader capable of rallying the beaten
+party, was driven into exile in France, from which he
+returned fourteen years afterwards to contest the crown
+with Richard III.
+
+In these English wars, the only Irish nobleman who
+sustained the Lancasterian cause was James, fifth Earl
+of Ormond. He had been created by Henry, Earl of Wiltshire,
+during his father's lifetime, in the same year in which
+his father stood sponsor in Dublin for the son of the
+Duke. He succeeded to the Irish title and estates in
+1451: held a foremost rank in almost all the engagements
+from the battle of Saint Albans to that of Towton, in
+which he was taken prisoner and executed by order of
+Edward IV. His blood was declared attainted, and his
+estates forfeited; but a few years later both the title
+and property were restored to Sir John Butler, the sixth
+Earl. On the eve of the open rupture between the Roses,
+another name intimately associated with Ireland disappeared
+from the roll of the English nobility. The veteran Talbot,
+Earl of Shrewsbury, in the eightieth year of his age,
+accepted the command of the English forces in France,
+retook the city of Bordeaux, but fell in attack on the
+French camp at Chatillon, in the subsequent campaign-1453.
+His son, Lord Lisle, was slain at the same time, defending
+his father's body. Among other consequences which ensued,
+the Talbot interest in Ireland suffered from the loss of
+so powerful a patron at the English court. We have only
+to add that at Wakefield, and in most of the other
+engagements, there was a strong Anglo-Irish contingent
+in the Yorkist ranks, and a smaller one--chiefly tenants
+of Ormond--on the opposite side. Many writers complain
+that the House of York drained "the Pale" of its defenders,
+and thus still further diminished the resources of the
+English interest in Ireland.
+
+In the last forty years of the fifteenth century, the
+history of "the Pale" is the biography of the family of
+the Geraldines. We must make some brief mention of the
+remarkable men to whom we refer.
+
+Thomas, eighth Earl of Desmond, for his services to the
+House of York, was appointed Lord Deputy in the first
+years of Edward IV. He had naturally made himself obnoxious
+to the Ormond interest, but still more so to the Talbots,
+whose leader in civil contests was Sherwood, Bishop of
+Meath--for some years, in despite of the Geraldines, Lord
+Chancellor. Between him and Desmond there existed the
+bitterest animosity. In 1464, nine of the Deputy's men
+were slain in a broil in Fingall, by tenants or servants
+of the Bishop. The next year each party repaired to London
+to vindicate himself and criminate his antagonist. The
+Bishop seems to have triumphed, for in 1466, John Tiptoft,
+Earl of Worcester, called in England, for his barbarity
+to Lancasterian prisoners, "the Butcher," superseded
+Desmond. The movement of Thaddeus O'Brien, already related,
+the same year, gave Tiptoft grounds for accusing Desmond,
+Kildare, Sir Edward Plunkett, and others, of treason. On
+this charge he summoned them before him at Drogheda in
+the following February. Kildare wisely fled to England,
+where he pleaded his innocence successfully with the
+King. But Desmond and Plunkett, over-confident of their
+own influence, repaired to Drogheda, were tried, condemned,
+and beheaded. Their execution took place on the 15th day
+of February, 1467. It is instructive to add that Tiptoft,
+a few years later, underwent the fate in England, without
+exciting a particle of the sympathy felt for Desmond.
+
+Thomas, seventh Earl of Kildare, succeeded on his safe
+return from England to more than the power of his late
+relative. The office of Chancellor, after a sharp
+struggle, was taken from Bishop Sherwood, and confirmed
+to him for life by an act of the twelfth, Edward III. He
+had been named Lord Justice after Tiptoft's recall, in
+1467, and four years later exchanged the title for that
+of Lord Deputy to the young Duke of Clarence--the nominal
+Lieutenant. In 1475, on some change of Court favour, the
+supreme power was taken from him, and conferred on the
+old enemy of his House, the Bishop of Meath. Kildare died
+two years later, having signalized his latter days by
+founding an Anglo-Irish order of chivalry, called "the
+Brothers of St. George." This order was to consist of 13
+persons of the highest rank within the Pale, 120 mounted
+archers, and 40 horsemen, attended by 40 pages. The
+officers were to assemble annually in Dublin, on St.
+George's Day, to elect their Captain from their own
+number. After having existed twenty years the Brotherhood
+was suppressed by the jealousy of Henry VII., in 1494.
+
+Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare (called in the Irish Annals
+Geroit More, or "the Great"), succeeded his father in
+1477. He had the gratification of ousting Sherwood from
+the government the following year, and having it transferred
+to himself. For nearly forty years he continued the
+central figure among the Anglo-Irish, and as his family
+were closely connected by marriage with the McCarthys,
+O'Carrolls of Ely, the O'Conors of Offally, O'Neils and
+O'Donnells, he exercised immense influence over the
+affairs of all the Provinces. In his tune, moreover, the
+English interest, under the auspices of an undisturbed
+dynasty, and a cautious, politic Prince (Henry VII.),
+began by slow and almost imperceptible degrees to recover
+the unity and compactness it had lost ever since the Red
+Earl's death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE AGE AND RULE OF GERALD, EIGHTH EARL OF KILDARE--THE
+TIDE BEGINS TO TURN FOR THE ENGLISH INTEREST--THE YORKIST
+PRETENDERS, SIMNEL AND WARBECK--POYNING'S PARLIAMENT--
+BATTLES OF KNOCKDOE AND MONABRAHER.
+
+Perhaps no preface could better introduce to the reader
+the singular events which marked the times of Gerald,
+eighth Earl of Kildare, than a brief account of one of
+his principal partizans--Sir James Keating, Prior of the
+Knights of St. John. The family of Keating, of Norman-Irish
+origin, were most numerous in the fifteenth century in
+Kildare, from which they afterwards spread into Tipperary
+and Limerick. Sir James Keating, "a mere Irishman," became
+Prior of Kilmainham about the year 1461, at which time
+Sir Robert Dowdal, deputy to the Lord Treasurer, complained
+in Parliament, that being on a pilgrimage to one of the
+shrines of the Pale, he was assaulted near Cloniff, by
+the Prior, with a drawn sword, and thereby put in danger
+of his life. It was accordingly decreed that Keating
+should pay to the King a hundred pounds fine, and to Sir
+Robert a hundred marks; but, from certain technical errors
+in the proceedings, he successfully evaded both these
+penalties. When in the year 1478 the Lord Grey of Codner
+was sent over to supersede Kildare, he took the decided
+step of refusing to surrender to that nobleman the Castle
+of Dublin, of which he was Constable. Being threatened
+with an assault, he broke down the bridge and prepared
+his defence, while his Mend, the Earl of Kildare, called
+a Parliament at Naas, in opposition to Lord Grey's Assembly
+at Dublin. In 1480, after two years of rival parties and
+viceroys, Lord Grey was feign to resign his office, and
+Kildare was regularly appointed Deputy to Richard, Duke
+of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III. Two years later,
+Keating was deprived of his rank by Peter d'Aubusson,
+Grand Master of Rhodes, who appointed Sir Marmaduke
+Lumley, an English knight, in his stead. Sir Marmaduke
+landed soon after at Clontarf, where he was taken prisoner
+by Keating, and kept in close confinement until he had
+surrendered all the instruments of his election and
+confirmation. He was then enlarged, and appointed to the
+commandery of Kilseran, near Castlebellingham, in Louth.
+In the year 1488, Keating was one of those who took an
+active part in favour of the pretender Lambert Simnel,
+and although his pardon had been sternly refused by
+Henry VII., he retained possession of the Hospital until
+1491, when he was ejected by force, "and ended his
+turbulent life," as we are told, "in the most abject
+poverty and disgrace." All whom he had appointed to office
+were removed; an Act of Parliament was passed, prohibiting
+the reception of any "mere Irishman" into the Order for
+the future, and enacting that whoever was recognized as
+Prior by the Grand Master should be of English birth,
+and one having such a connection with the Order there as
+might strengthen the force and interest of the Kings of
+England in Ireland.
+
+The fact most indicative of the spirit of the times is,
+that a man of Prior Keating's disposition could, for
+thirty years, have played such a daring part as we have
+described in the city of Dublin. During the greater part
+of that period, he held the office of Constable of the
+Castle and Prior of Kilmainham, in defiance of English
+Deputies and English Kings; than which no farther evidence
+may be adduced to show how completely the English, interest
+was extinguished, even within the walls of Dublin, during
+the reign of the last of the Plantagenet Princes, and
+the first years of Henry VII.
+
+In 1485, Henry, Earl of Richmond, grandson of Queen
+Catherine and Owen ap Tudor, returned from his fourteen
+years' exile in France, and, by the victory of Bosworth,
+took possession of the throne. The Earl of Kildare,
+undisputed Deputy during the last years of Edward IV.,
+had been continued by Richard, and was not removed by
+Henry VII. Though a staunch Yorkist, he showed no outward
+opposition to the change of dynasty, for which he found
+a graceful apology soon afterwards. Being at Mass, in
+Christ's Church Cathedral, on the 2nd of February, 1486,
+he received intelligence of Henry's marriage with Elizabeth
+of York, which he at once communicated to the Archbishop
+of Dublin, and ordered an additional Mass for the King
+and Queen. Yet, from the hour of that union of the houses
+of York and Lancaster, it needed no extraordinary wisdom
+to foresee that the exemption of the Anglo-Irish nobles
+from the supremacy of their nominal King must come to an
+end, and the freedom of the old Irish from any formidable
+external danger must also close. The union of the Roses,
+so full of the promise of peace for England, was to form
+the date of a new era in her relations with Ireland. The
+tide of English power was at that hour at its lowest ebb;
+it had left far in the interior the landmarks of its
+first irresistible rush; it might be said, without
+exaggeration, that Gaelic children now gathered shells
+and pebbles where that tide once rolled, charged with
+all its thunders; it was now about to turn; the first
+murmuring menace of new encroachments began to be heard
+under Henry VII.; as we listen they grow louder on the
+ear; the waves advance with a steady, deliberate march,
+unlike the first impetuous onslaught of the Normans; they
+advance and do not recede, till they recover all the
+ground they had abandoned. The era which we dated from
+the Red Earl's death, in 1333, has exhausted its resources
+of aggression and assimilation; a new era opens with the
+reign of Henry VII.--or more distinctly still, with that
+of his successor, Henry VIII. We must close our account
+with the old era, before entering upon the new.
+
+The contest between the Earl of Kildare and Lord Grey
+for the government (1478-1480) marks the lowest ebb of
+the English power. We have already related how Prior
+Keating shut the Castle gates on the English deputy, and
+threatened to fire on his guard if he attempted to force
+them. Lord Portlester also, the Chancellor, and
+father-in-law to Kildare, joined that Earl in his Parliament
+at Naas with the great seal. Lord Grey, in his Dublin
+Assembly, declared the great seal cancelled, and ordered
+a new one to be struck, but after a two years' contest
+he was obliged to succumb to the greater influence of
+the Geraldines. Kildare was regularly acknowledged Lord
+Deputy, under the King's privy seal. It was ordained that
+thereafter there should be but one Parliament convoked
+during the year; that but one subsidy should be demanded,
+annually, the sum "not to exceed a thousand marks."
+Certain Acts of both Parliaments--Grey's and
+Kildare's--were by compromise confirmed. Of these were
+two which do not seem to collate very well with each
+other; one prohibiting the inhabitants of the Pale from
+holding any intercourse whatsoever with the mere Irish;
+the other extending to Con O'Neil, Prince of Tyrone, and
+brother-in-law of Kildare, the rights of a naturalized
+subject within the Pale. The former was probably Lord
+Grey's; the latter was Lord Kildare's legislation.
+
+Although Henry VII. had neither disturbed the Earl in
+his governments, nor his brother, Lord Thomas, as
+Chancellor, it was not to be expected that he could place
+entire confidence in the leading Yorkist family among
+the Anglo-Irish. The restoration of the Ormond estates,
+in favour of Thomas, seventh Earl, was both politic and
+just, and could hardly be objectionable to Kildare, who
+had just married one of his daughters to Pierce Butler,
+nephew and heir to Thomas. The want of confidence between
+the new King and his Deputy was first exhibited in 1486,
+when the Earl, being summoned to attend on his Majesty,
+called a Parliament at Trim, which voted him an address,
+representing that in the affairs about to be discussed,
+his presence was absolutely necessary. Henry affected to
+accept the excuse as valid, but every arrival of Court
+news contained some fresh indication of his deep-seated
+mistrust of the Lord Deputy, who, however, he dared not
+yet dismiss.
+
+The only surviving Yorkists who could put forward
+pretensions to the throne were the Earl of Lincoln,
+Richard's declared heir, and the young Earl of Warwick,
+son of that Duke of Clarence who was born in Dublin Castle
+in 1449. Lincoln, with Lord Lovell and others of his
+friends, was in exile at the court of the dowager Duchess
+of Burgundy, sister to Edward IV.; and the son of
+Clarence--a lad of fifteen years of age--was a prisoner
+in the Tower. In the year 1486, a report spread of the
+escape of this Prince, and soon afterwards Richard Symon,
+a Priest of Oxford, landed in Dublin with a youth of the
+same age, of prepossessing appearance and address, who
+could relate with the minutest detail the incidents of
+his previous imprisonment. He was at once recognized as
+the son of Clarence by the Earl of Kildare and his party,
+and preparations were made for his coronation by the
+title of Edward VI. Henry, alarmed, produced from the
+Tower the genuine Warwick, whom he publicly paraded
+through London, in order to prove that the pretender in
+Dublin was an impostor. The Duchess of Burgundy, however,
+fitted out a fleet, containing 2,000 veteran troops,
+under the command of Martin Swart, who, sailing up the
+channel, reached Dublin without interruption. With this
+fleet came the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Lovell, and the
+other English refugees, who all recognized the _protege_
+of Father Symon as the true Prince. Octavius, the Italian
+Archbishop of Armagh, then residing at Dublin, the Bishop
+of Clogher, the Butlers, and the Baron of Howth, were
+incredulous or hostile. The great majority of the
+Anglo-Irish lords, spiritual and temporal, favoured his
+cause, and he was accordingly crowned in Christ Church
+Cathedral, with a diadem taken from an image of our Lady,
+on the 24th of May, 1487; the Deputy, Chancellor, and
+Treasurer were present; the sermon was preached by Pain,
+Bishop of Meath. A Parliament was next convoked in his
+name, in which the Butlers and citizens of Waterford were
+proscribed as traitors. A herald from the latter city,
+who had spoken over boldly, was hanged by the Dubliners
+as a proof of their loyalty. The Council ordered a force
+to be equipped for the service of his new Majesty in
+England, and Lord Thomas Fitzgerald resigned the
+Chancellorship to take the command. This expedition--the
+last which invaded England from the side of Ireland
+--sailed from Dublin about the first of June, and landing
+on the Lancashire shore, at the pile of Foudray, marched
+to Ulverstone, where they were joined by Sir Thomas
+Broughton and other devoted Yorkists. From Ulverstone
+the whole force, about 8,000 strong, marched into Yorkshire,
+and from Yorkshire southwards into Nottingham. Henry,
+who had been engaged in making a progress through the
+southern counties, hastened to meet him, and both armies
+met at Stoke-upon-Trent, near Newark, on the 16th day of
+June, 1487. The battle was contested with the utmost
+obstinacy, but the English prevailed. The Earl of Lincoln,
+the Lords Thomas and Maurice Fitzgerald, Plunkett, son
+of Lord Killeen, Martin Swart, and Sir Thomas Broughton
+were slain; Lord Lovell escaped, but was never heard of
+afterwards; the pretended Edward VI. was captured, and
+spared by Henry only to be made a scullion in his kitchen.
+Father Symon was cast into prison, where he died, after
+having confessed that his _protege_ was Lambert Simnel,
+the son of a joiner at Oxford.
+
+Nothing shows the strength of the Kildare party, and the
+weakness of the English interest, more than that the
+deputy and his partizans were still continued in office.
+They despatched a joint letter to the King, deprecating
+his anger, which he was prudent enough to conceal. He
+sent over, the following spring, Sir Richard Edgecombe,
+Comptroller of his household, accompanied by a guard of
+500 men. Sir Richard first touched at Kinsale, where he
+received the homage of the Lords Barry and de Courcy; he
+then sailed to Waterford, where he delivered to the Mayor
+royal letters confirming the city in its privileges, and
+authorizing its merchants to seize and distress those of
+Dublin, unless they made their submission. After leaving
+Waterford, he landed at Malahide, passing by Dublin, to
+which he proceeded by land, accompanied with his guard.
+The Earl of Kildare was absent on a pilgrimage, from
+which he did not return for several days. His first
+interviews with Edgecombe were cold and formal, but
+finally on the 21st of July, after eight or ten days'
+disputation, the Earl and the other lords of his party
+did homage to King Henry, in the great chamber of his
+town-house in Thomas Court, and thence proceeding to the
+chapel, took the oath of allegiance on the consecrated
+host. With this submission Henry was fain to be content;
+Kildare, Portlester, and Plunkett were continued in
+office. The only one to whom the King's pardon was
+persistently refused was Sir James Keating, Prior of
+Kilmainham.
+
+In the subsequent attempts of Perkin Warbeck (1492-1499),
+in the character of Richard, Duke of York, one of the
+Princes murdered in the tower by Richard III., the
+Anglo-Irish took a less active part. Warbeck landed at
+Cork from Lisbon, and despatched letters to the Earls of
+Kildare and Desmond, to which they returned civil but
+evasive replies. At Cork he received an invitation from
+the King of France to visit that country, where he remained
+till the conclusion of peace between France and England.
+He then retired to Burgundy, where he was cordially
+received by the Duchess; after an unsuccessful descent
+on the coast of Kent, he took refuge in Scotland, where
+he married a lady closely allied to the crown. In 1497
+he again tried his fortune in the South of Ireland, was
+joined by Maurice, tenth Earl of Desmond, the Lord Barry,
+and the citizens of Cork. Having laid siege to Waterford,
+he was compelled to retire with loss, and Desmond having
+made his peace with Henry, Warbeck was forced again to
+fly into Scotland. In 1497 and '8, he made new attempts
+to excite insurrection in his favour in the north of
+England and in Cornwall. He was finally taken and put
+to death on the 16th of November, 1499. With him suffered
+his first and most faithful adherent, John Waters, who
+had been Mayor of Cork at his first landing from Lisbon,
+in 1492, and who is ignorantly or designedly called by
+Henry's partizan "O'Water." History has not yet positively
+established the fraudulency of this pretender. A late
+eminently cautious writer, with all the evidence which
+modern research has accumulated, speaks of him as "one
+of the most mysterious persons in English history;" and
+in mystery we must leave him.
+
+We have somewhat anticipated events, in other quarters,
+in order to dispose of both the Yorkist pretenders at
+the same time. The situation of the Earls of Kildare in
+this and the next reign, though full of grandeur, was
+also full of peril. Within the Pale they had one part to
+play, without the Pale another. Within the Pale they held
+one language, without it another. At Dublin they were
+English Earls, beyond the Boyne or the Barrow, they were
+Irish chiefs. They had to tread their cautious, and not
+always consistent way, through the endless complications
+which must arise between two nations occupying the same
+soil, with conflicting allegiance, language, laws, customs,
+and interests. While we frequently feel indignant at
+the tone they take towards the "Irish enemy" in their
+despatches to London--the pretended enemies being at that
+very time their confidants and allies-on farther reflection
+we feel disposed to make some allowance on the score of
+circumstance and necessity, for a duplicity which, in
+the end, brought about, as duplicity in public affairs
+ever does, its own punishment.
+
+In Ulster as well as in Leinster, the ascendency of the
+Earl of Kildare over the native population was widespread
+and long sustained. Con O'Neil, Lord of Tyrone, from 1483
+to 1491, and Turlogh, Con and Art, his sons and successors
+(from 1498 to 1548), maintained the most intimate relations
+with this Earl and his successors. To the former he was
+brother-in-law, and to the latter, of course, uncle; to
+all he seems to have been strongly attached. Hugh Roe
+O'Donnell, Lord of Tyrconnell (1450-1505), and his son
+and successor, Hugh Dhu O'Donnell, (1505-1530), were also
+closely connected with Kildare both by friendship and
+intermarriage. In 1491, O'Neil and O'Donnell mutually
+submitted their disputes to his decision, at his Castle
+of Maynooth, and though he found it impossible to reconcile
+them at the moment, we find both of these houses cordially
+united with him afterwards. In 1498, he took Dungannon
+and Omagh, "with great guns," from the insurgents against
+the authority of his grandson, Turlogh O'Neil, and restored
+them to Turlogh; the next year he visited O'Donnell, and
+brought his son Henry to be fostered among the kindly
+Irish of Tyrconnell. In the year 1500 he also placed
+the Castle of Kinnaird in the custody of Turlogh O'Neil.
+In Leinster, the Geraldine interest was still more entirely
+bound up with that of the native population. His son,
+Sir Oliver of Killeigh, married an O'Conor of Offally;
+the daughter of another son, Sir James of Leixlip,
+(sometimes called the Knight of the Valley) became the
+wife of the chief of Imayle. The Earl of Ormond, and
+Ulick Burke of Clanrickarde, were also sons-in-law of
+the eighth Earl, but in both these cases the old family
+feuds survived in despite of the new family alliances.
+
+In the fourth year after his accession, Henry VII.,
+proceeding by slow degrees to undermine Kildare's enormous
+power, summoned the chief Anglo-Irish nobles to his Court
+at Greenwich, where he reproached them with their support
+of Simnel, who, to their extreme confusion, he caused to
+wait on them as butler, at dinner. A year or two afterwards,
+he removed Lord Portlester, from the Treasurership, which
+he conferred on Sir James Butler, the bastard of Ormond.
+Plunkett, the Chief-Justice, was promoted to the
+Chancellorship, and Kildare himself was removed to make
+way for Fitzsymons, Archbishop of Dublin. This, however,
+was but a government _ad interim_, for in the year 1494,
+a wholly English administration was appointed. Sir Edward
+Poynings, with a picked force of 1,000 men, was appointed
+Lord Deputy; the Bishop of Bangor was appointed Chancellor,
+Sir Hugh Conway, an Englishman, was to be Treasurer; and
+these officials were accompanied by an entirely new bench
+of judges, all English, whom they were instructed to
+instal immediately on their arrival. Kildare had resisted
+the first changes with vigour, and a bloody feud had
+taken place between his retainers and those of Sir James
+of Ormond, on the green of Oxmantown--now Smithfield, in
+Dublin. On the arrival of Poynings, however, he submitted
+with the best possible grace, and accompanied that deputy
+to Drogheda, where he had summoned a Parliament to meet
+him. From Drogheda, they made an incursion into O'Hanlon's
+country (Orior in Armagh). On returning from Drogheda,
+Poynings, on a real or pretended discovery of a secret
+understanding between O'Hanlon and Kildare, arrested the
+latter, in Dublin, and at once placed him on board a
+barque "kept waiting for that purpose," and despatched
+him to England. On reaching London, he was imprisoned in
+the Tower, for two years, during which time his party in
+Ireland were left headless and dispirited.
+
+The government of Sir Edward Poynings, which lasted from
+1494 till Kildare's restoration, in August, 1496, is most
+memorable for the character of its legislation. He
+assembled a Parliament at Drogheda, in November, 1495,
+at which were passed the statutes so celebrated in our
+Parliamentary history as the "10th Henry VII." These
+statutes were the first enacted in Ireland in which the
+English language was employed. They confirmed the Provisions
+of the Statute of Kilkenny, except that prohibiting the
+use of the Irish language, which had now become so deeply
+rooted, even within the Pale, as to make its immediate
+abolition impracticable. The hospitable law passed in
+the time of Richard, Duke of York, against the arrest of
+refugees by virtue of writs issued in England, was
+repealed. The English acts, against provisors to Rome--
+ecclesiastics who applied for or accepted preferment
+directly from Rome--were adopted. It was also enacted
+that all offices should be held at the King's pleasure;
+that the Lords of Parliament should appear in their robes
+as the Lords did in England; that no one should presume
+to make peace or war except with license of the Governor;
+that no great guns should be kept in the fortresses except
+by similar license; and that men of English _birth_ only
+should be appointed Constables of the Castles of Dublin,
+Trim, Leixlip, Athlone, Wicklow, Greencastle, Carlingford,
+and Carrickfergus. But the most important measure of all
+was one which provided that thereafter no legislation
+whatever should be proceeded with in Ireland, unless the
+bills to be proposed were first submitted to the King
+and Council in England, and were returned, certified
+under the great seal of the realm. This is what is usually
+and specially called in our Parliamentary history "Poyning's
+Act," and next to the Statute of Kilkenny, it may be
+considered the most important enactment ever passed at
+any Parliament of the English settlers.
+
+The liberation of the Earl of Kildare from the Tower,
+and his restoration as Deputy, seems to have been hastened
+by the movements of Perkin Warbeck, and by the visit of
+Hugh Roe O'Donnell to James IV., King of Scotland.
+O'Donnell had arrived at Ayr in the month of August,
+1495, a few weeks after Warbeck had reached that court.
+He was received with great splendour and cordiality by
+the accomplished Prince, then lately come of age, and
+filled with projects natural to his youth and temperament.
+With O'Donnell, according to the Four Masters, he formed
+a league, by which they bound themselves "mutually to
+assist each other in all their exigencies." The knowledge
+of this alliance, and of Warbeck's favour at the Scottish
+Court, no doubt decided Henry to avail himself, if
+possible, of the assistance of his most powerful Irish
+subject. There was, moreover, another influence at work.
+The first countess had died soon after her husband's
+arrest, and he now married, in England, Elizabeth St.
+John, cousin to the King. Fortified in his allegiance
+and court favour by this alliance, he returned in triumph
+to Dublin, where he was welcomed with enthusiasm.
+
+In his subsequent conduct as Lord Deputy, an office which
+he continued to hold till his death in 1513, this powerful
+nobleman seems to have steadily upheld the English
+interest, which was now in harmony with his own. Having
+driven off Warbeck in his last visit to Ireland (1497),
+he received extensive estates in England, as a reward
+for his zeal, and after the victory of Knock-doe (1505),
+he was installed by proxy at Windsor as Knight of the
+Garter. This long-continued reign--for such in truth it
+may be called--left him without a rival in his latter
+years. He marched to whatever end of the island he would,
+pulling down and setting up chiefs and castles; his
+garrisons were to be found from Belfast to Cork, and
+along the valley of the Shannon, from Athleague to
+Limerick.
+
+The last event of national importance connected with the
+name of Geroit More arose out of the battle of KNOCK-DOE,
+("battle-axe hill"), fought within seven or eight miles
+of Galway town, on the 19th of August, 1504. Few of the
+cardinal facts in our history have been more entirely
+misapprehended and misrepresented than this. It is usually
+described as a pitched battle between English and Irish
+--the turning point in the war of races--and the second
+foundation of English power. The simple circumstances
+are these: Ulick III., Lord of Clanrickarde, had married
+and misused the lady Eustacia Fitzgerald, who seems to
+have fled to her father, leaving her children behind.
+This led to an embittered family dispute, which was
+expanded into a public quarrel by the complaint of William
+O'Kelly, whose Castles of Garbally, Monivea, and Gallagh,
+Burke had seized and demolished. In reinstating O'Kelly,
+Kildare found the opportunity which he sought to punish
+his son-in-law, and both parties prepared for a trial of
+strength. It so happened that Clanrickarde's alliances
+at that day were chiefly with O'Brien and the southern
+Irish, while Kildare's were with those of Ulster. From
+these causes, what was at first a family quarrel, and at
+most a local feud, swelled into the dimensions of a
+national contest between North and South--Leath-Moghda
+and Leath-Conn. Under these terms, the native Annalists
+accurately describe the belligerents on either side. With
+Kildare were the Lords of Tyrconnell, Sligo, Moylurg,
+Breffni, Oriel, and Orior; O'Farrell, Bishop of Ardagh,
+the Tanist of Tyrowen, the heir of Iveagh, O'Kelly of
+Hy-Many, McWilliam of Mayo, the Barons of Slane, Delvin,
+Howth, Dunsany, Gormanstown, Trimblestown, and John Blake,
+Mayor of Dublin, with the city militia. With Clanrickarde
+were Turlogh O'Brien, son of the Lord of Thomond, McNamara
+of Clare, O'Carroll of Ely, O'Brien of Ara, and O'Kennedy
+of Ormond. The battle was obstinate and bloody. Artillery
+and musketry, first introduced from Germany some twenty
+years before (1487), were freely used, and the ploughshare
+of the peasant has often turned up bullets, large and
+small, upon the hillside where the battle was fought.
+The most credible account sets down the number of the
+slain at 2,000 men--the most exaggerated at 9,000. The
+victory was with Kildare, who, after encamping on the
+field for twenty-four hours, by the advice of O'Donnell,
+marched next day to Galway, where he found the children
+of Clanrickarde, whom he restored to their injured mother.
+Athenry opened its gates to receive the conquerors, and
+after celebrating their victory in the stronghold of the
+vanquished, the Ulster chiefs returned to the North, and
+Kildare to Dublin.
+
+Less known is the battle of Monabraher, which may be
+considered the offset of Knock-doe. It was fought in
+1510--the first year of Henry VIII., who had just
+confirmed Lord Kildare in the government. The younger
+O'Donnell joined him in Munster, and after taking the
+Castles of Kanturk, Pallis, and Castelmaine, they marched
+to Limerick, where the Earl of Desmond, the McCarthys of
+both branches, and "the Irish of Meath and Leinster," in
+alliance with Kildare, joined them with their forces.
+The old allies, Turlogh O'Brien, Clanrickarde, and the
+McNamaras, attacked them at the bridge of Portrush, near
+Castleconnell, and drove them through Monabraher ("the
+friar's bog"), with the loss of the Barons Barnwall and
+Kent, and many of their forces; the survivors were feign
+to take refuge within the walls of Limerick.
+
+Three years later, Earl Gerald set out to besiege Leap
+Castle, in O'Moore's country; but it happened that as he
+was watering his horse in the little river Greese, at
+Kilkea, he was shot by one of the O'Moores: he was
+immediately carried to Athy, where shortly afterwards he
+expired. If we except the first Hugh de Lacy and the Red
+Earl of Ulster, the Normans in Ireland had not produced
+a more illustrious man than Gerald, eighth Earl of Kildare.
+He was, says Stainhurst, "of tall stature and goodly
+presence; very liberal and merciful; of strict piety;
+mild in his government; passionate, but easily appeased."
+And our justice-loving _Four Masters_ have described him
+as "a knight in valour, and princely and religious in
+his words and judgments."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+STATE OF IRISH AND ANGLO-IRISH SOCIETY DURING THE
+FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.
+
+The main peculiarities of social life among the Irish
+and Anglo-Irish during the fourteenth and fifteenth
+centuries are still visible to us. Of the drudges of the
+earth, as in all other histories, we see or hear little
+or nothing, but of those orders of men of whom the historic
+muse takes count, such as bards, rulers, builders, and
+religious, there is much information to be found scattered
+up and down our annals, which, if properly put together
+and clearly interpreted, may afford us a tolerably clear
+view of the men and their times.
+
+The love of learning, always strong in this race of men
+and women, revived in full force with their exemption
+from the immediate pressure of foreign invasion. The
+person of Bard and Brehon was still held inviolable; to
+the malediction of the Bard of Usnagh was attributed the
+sudden death of the Deputy, Sir John Stanley; to the
+murder of the Brehon McEgan is traced all the misfortunes
+which befell the sons of Irial O'Farrell. To receive the
+poet graciously, to seat him in the place of honour at
+the feast, to listen to him with reverence, and to reward
+him munificently, were considered duties incumbent on
+the princes of the land. And these duties, to do them
+justice, they never neglected. One of the O'Neils is
+specially praised for having given more gifts to poets,
+and having "a larger collection of poems" than any other
+man of his age. In the struggle between O'Donnell and
+O'Conor for the northern corner of Sligo, we find mention
+made of books accidentally burned in "the house of the
+manuscripts," in Lough Gill. Among the spoils carried
+off by O'Donnell, on another occasion, were two famous
+books--one of which, the Leahar Gear (Short Book), he
+afterwards paid back, as part of the ransom for the
+release of his friend, O'Doherty.
+
+The Bards and Ollams, though more dependent on their
+Princes than we have seen them in their early palmy days,
+had yet ample hereditary estates in every principality
+and lordship. If natural posterity failed, the incumbent
+was free to adopt some capable person as his heir. It
+was in this way the family of O'Clery, originally of
+Tyrawley, came to settle in Tyrconnell, towards the end
+of the fourteenth century. At that time O'Sgingin, chief
+Ollam to O'Donnell, offered his daughter in marriage to
+Cormac O'Clery, a young professor of both laws, in the
+monastery near Ballyshannon, on condition that the first
+male child born of the marriage should be brought up to
+his own profession. This was readily agreed to, and from
+this auspicious marriage descended the famous family,
+which produced three of the Four Masters of Donegal.
+
+The virtue of hospitality was, of all others, that which
+the old Irish of every degree in rank and wealth most
+cheerfully practised. In many cases it degenerated into
+extravagance and prodigality. But in general it is
+presented to us in so winning a garb that our objections
+on the score of prudence vanish before it. When we read
+of the freeness of heart of Henry Avery O'Neil, who
+granted all manner of things "that came into his hands,"
+to all manner of men, we pause and doubt whether such a
+virtue in such excess may not lean towards vice. But when
+we hear of a powerful lord, like William O'Kelly of
+Galway, entertaining throughout the Christmas holydays
+all the poets, musicians, and poor persons who choose to
+flock to him, or of the pious and splendid Margaret
+O'Carroll, receiving twice a year in Offally all the
+Bards of Albyn and Erin, we cannot but envy the professors
+of the gentle art their good fortune in having lived in
+such times, and shared in such assemblies. As hospitality
+was the first of social virtues, so inhospitality was
+the worst of vices; the unpopularity of a churl descended
+to his posterity through successive generations.
+
+The high estimation in which women were held among the
+tribes is evident from the particularity with which the
+historians record their obits and marriages. The maiden
+name of the wife was never wholly lost in that of her
+husband, and if her family were of equal standing with
+his before marriage, she generally retained her full
+share of authority afterwards. The Margaret O'Carroll
+already mentioned, a descendant and progenitress of
+illustrious women, rode privately to Trim, as we are
+told, with some English prisoners, taken by her husband,
+O'Conor of Offally, and exchanged them for others of
+equal worth lying in that fortress; and "this she did,"
+it is added, "without the knowledge of" her husband. This
+lady was famed not only for her exceeding hospitality
+and her extreme piety, but for other more unexpected
+works. Her name is remembered in connection with the
+erection of bridges and the making of highways, as well
+as the building of churches, and the presentation of
+missals and mass-books. And the grace she thus acquired
+long brought blessings upon her posterity, among whom
+there never were wanting able men and heroic women while
+they kept their place in the land. An equally celebrated
+but less amiable woman was Margaret Fitzgerald, daughter
+of the eighth Earl of Kildare, and wife of Pierce, eighth
+Earl of Ormond. "She was," says the Dublin Annalist, "a
+lady of such port that all the estates of the realm
+couched to her, so politique that nothing was thought
+substantially debated without her advice." Her decision
+of character is preserved in numerous traditions in and
+around Kilkenny, where she lies buried. Of her is told
+the story that when exhorted on her death-bed to make
+restitution of some ill-got lands, and being told the
+penalty that awaited her if she died impenitent, she
+answered, "it was better one old woman should burn for
+eternity than that the Butlers should be curtailed of
+their estates."
+
+The fame of virtuous deeds, of generosity, of peace-making,
+of fidelity, was in that state of society as easily
+attainable by women as by men. The Unas, Finolas, Sabias,
+Lasarinas, were as certain of immortality as the Hughs,
+Cathals, Donalds and Conors, their sons, brothers, or
+lovers. Perhaps it would be impossible to find any history
+of those or of later ages in which women are treated upon
+a more perfect equality with men, where their virtues
+and talents entitled them to such consideration.
+
+The piety of the age, though it had lost something of
+the simplicity and fervour of older times, was still
+conspicuous and edifying. Within the island, the pilgrimage
+of Saint Patrick's purgatory, the shrine of our Lady of
+Trim, the virtues of the holy cross of Raphoe, the miracles
+wrought by the _Baculum Christi_, and other relics of
+Christ Church, Dublin, were implicitly believed and
+piously frequented. The long and dangerous journeys to
+Rome and Jerusalem were frequently taken, but the favourite
+foreign vow was to Compostella, in Spain. Chiefs, Ladies,
+and Bards, are almost annually mentioned as having sailed
+or returned from the city of St. James; generally these
+pilgrims left in companies, and returned in the same way.
+The great Jubilee of 1450, so enthusiastically attended
+from every corner of Christendom, drew vast multitudes
+from our island to Rome. By those who returned tidings
+were first brought to Ireland of the capture of
+Constantinople by the Turks. On receipt of this
+intelligence, which sent a thrill through the heart of
+Europe, Tregury, Archbishop of Dublin, proclaimed a fast
+of three days, and on each day walked in sackcloth, with
+his clergy, through the streets of the city, to the
+Cathedral. By many in that age the event was connected
+with the mystic utterances of the Apocalypse, and the
+often-apprehended consummation of all Time.
+
+Although the Irish were then, as they still are, firm
+believers in supernatural influence working visibly among
+men, they do not appear to have ever been slaves to the
+terrible delusion of witchcraft. Among the Anglo-Irish
+we find the first instance of that mania which appears
+in our history, and we believe the only one, if we except
+the Presbyterian witches Of Carrickfergus, in the early
+part of the eighteenth century. The scene of the ancient
+delusion was Kilkenny, where Bishop Ledred accused the
+Lady Alice Kettel, and William her son, of practising
+black magic, in the year 1327. Sir Roger Outlaw, Prior
+of Kilmainham, and stepson to Lady Alice, undertook to
+protect her; but the fearful charge was extended to him
+also, and he was compelled to enter on his defence. The
+tribunal appointed to try the charge--one of the main
+grounds on which the Templars had been suppressed
+twenty-five years before--was composed of the Dean of
+St. Patrick's, the Prior of Christ Church, the Abbots of
+St. Mary's and St. Thomas's, Dublin, Mr. Elias Lawless,
+and Mr. Peter Willeby, lawyers. Outlaw was acquitted,
+and Ledred forced to fly for safety to England, of which
+he was a native. It is pleasant to remember that, although
+Irish credulity sometimes took shapes absurd and grotesque
+enough, it never was perverted into diabolical channels,
+or directed to the barbarities of witch-finding.
+
+About the beginning of the fifteenth century we meet with
+the first mention of the use of Usquebagh, or _Aqua
+Vitae_, in our Annals. Under the date of 1405 we read
+that McRannal, or Reynolds, chief of Muntireolais, died
+of a surfeit of it, about Christmas. A quaint Elizabethan
+writer thus descants on the properties of that liquor,
+as he found them, by personal experience: "For the rawness
+(of the air) they (the Irish) have an excellent remedy
+by their _Aqua Vitae_, vulgarly called _Usquebagh_, which
+binds up the belly and drieth up moisture more than our
+_Aqua Vitae_, yet inflameth not so much."
+
+And as the opening of the century may be considered
+notable for the first mention of _Usquebagh_, so its
+close is memorable for the first employment of fire-arms.
+In the year 1489, according to Anglo-Irish Annals, "six
+hand guns or musquets were sent to the Earl of Kildare
+out of Germany," which his guard bore while on sentry at
+Thomas Court--his Dublin residence. But two years earlier
+(1487) we have positive mention of the employment of guns
+at the siege of Castlecar, in Leitrim, by Hugh Roe
+O'Donnell. Great guns were freely used ten years later
+in the taking of Dungannon and Omagh, and contributed,
+not a little to the victory of Knock-doe--in 1505. About
+the same time we begin to hear of their employment by
+sea in rather a curious connection. A certain French
+Knight, returning from the pilgrimage of Lough Derg,
+visiting O'Donnell at Donegal, heard of the anxiety of
+his entertainer to take a certain Castle which stood by
+the sea, in Sligo. This Knight promised to send him, on
+Ms return to France, "a vessel carrying great guns,"
+which he accordingly did, and the Castle was in consequence
+taken. Nevertheless the old Irish, according to their
+habit, took but slowly to this wonderful invention, though
+destined to revolutionize the art to which they were
+naturally predisposed--the art of war.
+
+The dwellings of the chiefs, and of the wealthy among
+the proprietors, near the marches, were chiefly situated
+amid pallisaded islands, or on promontories naturally
+moated by lakes. The houses, in those circumstances,
+were mostly of framework, though the Milesian nobles, in
+less exposed districts, had castles of stone, after the
+Norman fashion. The Castle "bawn" was usually enclosed
+by one or more strong walls, the inner sides of which
+were lined with barns, stables, and the houses of the
+retainers. Not unfrequently the thatched roofs of these
+outbuildings taking fire, compelled the castle to surrender.
+The Castle "green," whether within or without the walls,
+was the usual scene of rural sports and athletic games,
+of which, at all periods, our ancestors were so fond. Of
+the interior economy of the Milesian rath, or dun, we
+know less than of the Norman tower, where, before the
+huge kitchen chimney, the heavy-laden spit was turned by
+hand, while the dining-hall was adorned with the glitter
+of the dresser, or by tapestry hangings;-the floors of
+hall and chambers being strewn with rushes and odorous
+herbs. We have spoken of the zeal of the Milesian Chiefs
+in accumulating MSS. and in rewarding Bards and Scribes.
+We are enabled to form some idea of the mental resources
+of an Anglo-Irish nobleman of the fifteenth century, from
+the catalogue of the library remaining in Maynooth Castle,
+in the reign of Henry VIII. Of Latin books, there were
+the works of several of the schoolmen, the dialogues of
+St. Gregory, Virgil, Juvenal, and Terence; the Holy Bible;
+Boethius' Consolations of Philosophy, and Saint Thomas's
+Summa; of French works, Froissart, Mandeville, two French
+Bibles, a French Livy and Caesar, with the most popular
+romances; in English, there were the Polychronicon,
+Cambrensis, Lyttleton's Tenures, Sir Thomas More's book
+on Pilgrimages, and several romances. Moreover, there
+were copies of the Psalter of Cashel, a book of Irish
+chronicles, lives of St. Beraghan, St. Fiech and St.
+Finian, with various religious tracts, and romantic tales.
+This was, perhaps, the most extensive private collection
+to be found within the Pale; we have every reason to
+infer, that, at least in Irish and Latin works, the
+Castles of the older race--lovers of learning and
+entertainers of learned men--were not worse furnished
+than Maynooth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING DURING THE FOURTEENTH
+AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.
+
+Although the English and Irish professed the same religion
+during these ages, yet in the appointment of Bishops,
+the administration of ecclesiastical property, and in
+all their views of the relation of the Church to the
+State, the two nations differed almost as widely as in
+their laws, language, and customs. The Plantagenet
+princes and their Parliaments had always exhibited a
+jealousy of the See of Rome, and statute upon, statute
+was passed, from the reign of Henry II. to that of Richard
+II., in order to diminish the power of the Supreme Pontiffs
+in nominating to English benefices. In the second Richard's
+reign, so eventful for the English interest in Ireland,
+it had been enacted that any of the clergy procuring
+appointments directly from Rome, or exercising powers so
+conferred, should incur the penalty of a praemunire--that
+is, the forfeiture of their lands and chattels, beside
+being liable to imprisonment during the King's pleasure.
+This statute was held to apply equally to Ireland, being
+confirmed by some of those petty conventions of "the
+Pale," which the Dublin Governors of the fourteenth
+century dignified with the name of Parliaments.
+
+The ancient Irish method of promotion to a vacant see,
+or abbacy, though modelled on the electoral principle
+which penetrated all Celtic usages, was undoubtedly open
+to the charge of favouring nepotism, down to the time of
+Saint Malachy, the restorer of the Irish Church. After
+that period, the Prelates elect were ever careful to
+obtain the sanction of the Holy See, before consecration.
+Such habitual submission to Rome was seldom found, except
+in cases of disputed election, to interfere with the
+choice of the clergy, and the custom grew more and more
+into favour, as the English method of nomination by the
+crown was attempted to be enforced, not only throughout
+"the Pale," but, by means of English agents at Rome and
+Avignon, in the appointment to sees, within the provinces
+of Armagh, Cashel, and Tuam. The ancient usage of farming
+the church lands, under the charge of a lay steward, or
+_Erenach_, elected by the clan, and the division of all
+the revenues into four parts--for the Bishop, the Vicar
+and his priests, for the poor, and for repairs of the
+sacred edifice, was equally opposed to the pretensions
+of Princes, who looked on their Bishops as Barons, and
+Church temporalities, like all other fiefs, as held
+originally of the crown. Even if there had not been those
+differences of origin, interest, and government which
+necessarily brought the two populations into collision,
+these distinct systems of ecclesiastical polity could
+not well have existed on the same soil without frequently
+clashing, one with the other.
+
+In our notice of the association promoted among the
+clergy, at the end of the thirteenth century, by the
+patriotic McMaelisa, ("follower of Jesus"), and in our
+own comments on the memorable letter of Prince Donald
+O'Neil to Pope John XXII., written in the year 1317 or
+'18, we have seen how wide and deep was the gulf then
+existing between the English and Irish churchmen. In
+the year 1324, an attempt to heal this unchristian breach
+was made by Philip of Slane, the Dominican who presided
+at the trial of the Knights Templars, who afterwards
+became Bishop of Cork, and rose into high favour with
+the Queen-Mother, Isabella. As her Ambassador, or in the
+name of King Edward III., still a minor, he is reported
+to have submitted to Pope John certain propositions for
+the promotion of peace in the Irish Church, some of which
+were certainly well calculated to promote that end. He
+suggested that the smaller Bishoprics, yielding under
+sixty pounds per annum, should be united to more eminent
+sees, and that Irish Abbots and Priors should admit
+English lay brothers to their houses, and English
+Superiors Irish brothers, in like manner. The third
+proposition, however, savours more of the politician
+than of the peacemaker; it was to bring under the bann
+of excommunication, with all its rigorous consequences
+in that age, those "disturbers of the peace" who invaded
+the authority of the English King in Ireland. As a
+consequence of this mission, a Concordat for Ireland
+seems to have been concluded at Avignon, embracing the
+two first points, but omitting the third, which was, no
+doubt, with the English Court, the main object of Friar
+Philip's embassy.
+
+During the fourteenth century, and down to the election
+of Martin V. (A.D. 1417), the Popes sat mainly at Avignon,
+in France. In the last forty years of that melancholy
+period, other Prelates sitting at Rome, or elsewhere in
+Italy, claimed the Apostolic primacy. It was in the midst
+of these troubles and trials of the Church that the
+powerful Kings of England, who were also sovereigns of
+a great part of France, contrived to extort from the
+embarrassed pontiffs concessions which, however gratifying
+to royal pride, were abhorrent to the more Catholic spirit
+of the Irish people. A constant struggle was maintained
+during the entire period of the captivity of the Popes
+in France between Roman and English influence in Ireland.
+There were often two sets of Bishops elected in such
+border sees as Meath and Louth, which were districts
+under a divided influence. The Bishops of Limerick, Cork,
+and Waterford, liable to have their revenues cut off,
+and their personal liberty endangered by sea, were almost
+invariably nominees of the English Court; those of the
+Province of Dublin were necessarily so; but the prelates
+of Ulster, of Connaught, and of Munster--the southern
+seaports excepted--were almost invariably native
+ecclesiastics, elected in the old mode, by the assembled
+clergy, and receiving letters of confirmation direct from
+Avignon or Italy.
+
+A few incidents in the history of the Church of Cashel
+will better illustrate the character of the contest
+between the native episcopacy and the foreign power.
+Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Archbishop
+McCarwill maintained with great courage the independence
+of his jurisdiction against Henry III. and Edward I.
+Having inducted certain Bishops into their sees without
+waiting for the royal letters, he sustained a long
+litigation in the Anglo-Irish courts, and was much harassed
+in his goods and person. Seizing from a usurer 400 pounds,
+he successfully resisted the feudal claim of Edward I.,
+as lord paramount, to pay over the money to the royal
+exchequer. Edward having undertaken to erect a prison
+--or fortress in disguise--in his episcopal city, the
+bold Prelate publicly excommunicated the Lord Justice
+who undertook the work, the escheator who supplied the
+funds, and all those engaged in its construction, nor
+did he desist from his opposition until the obnoxious
+building was demolished. Ralph O'Kelly, who filled the
+same see from 1345 to 1361, exhibited an equally dauntless
+spirit. An Anglo-Irish Parliament having levied a subsidy
+on all property, lay and ecclesiastical, within their
+jurisdiction, to carry on the war of races before described,
+he not only opposed its collection within the Province
+of Cashel, but publicly excommunicated Epworth, Clerk of
+the Council, who had undertaken that task. For this
+offence an information was exhibited against him, laying
+the King's damages at a thousand pounds; but he pleaded
+the liberties of the Church, and successfully traversed
+the indictment. Richard O'Hedian, Archbishop from 1406
+to 1440, was a Prelate of similar spirit to his
+predecessors. At a Parliament held in Dublin in 1421, it
+was formally alleged, among other enormities, that he
+made very much of the Irish and loved none of the English;
+that he presented no Englishman to a benefice, and advised
+other Prelates to do likewise; and that he made himself
+King of Munster--alluding, probably, to some revival at
+this time of the old title of Prince-Bishop, which had
+anciently belonged to the Prelates of Cashel. O'Hedian
+retained his authority, however, till his death, after
+which the see remained twelve years vacant, the
+temporalities being farmed by the Earl of Ormond.
+
+From this conflict of interests, frequently resulting in
+disputed possession and intrusive jurisdiction, religion
+must have suffered much, at least in its discipline and
+decorum. The English Archbishops of Dublin would not
+yield in public processions to the Irish Archbishops of
+Armagh, nor permit the crozier of St. Patrick to be borne
+publicly through their city; the English Bishop of
+Waterford was the public accuser of the Irish Archbishop
+of Cashel, last mentioned, before a lay tribunal--the
+knights and burgesses of "the Pale." The annual expeditions
+sent out from Dublin, to harass the nearest native clans,
+were seldom without a Bishop or Abbot, or Prior of the
+Temple or Hospital, in their midst. Scandals must have
+ensued; hatreds must have sprung up; prejudices, fatal
+to charity and unity, must have been engendered, both on
+the one side and the other. The spirit of party carried
+into the Church can be cherished in the presence of the
+Altar and Cross only by doing violence to the teachings
+of the Cross and the sanctity of the Altar.
+
+While such was the troubled state of the Church, as
+exemplified in its twofold hierarchy, the religious orders
+continued to spread, with amazing energy, among both
+races. The orders of Saint Francis and Saint Dominick,
+those twin giants of the thirteenth century, already
+rivalled the mighty brotherhood which Saint Bernard had
+consecrated, and Saint Malachy had introduced into the
+Irish Church. It is observable that the Dominicans, at
+least at first, were most favoured by the English and
+the Anglo-Irish; while the Franciscans were more popular
+with the native population. Exceptions may be found on
+both sides: but as a general rule this distinction can
+be traced in the strongholds of either order, and in the
+names of their most conspicuous members, down to that
+dark and trying hour when the tempest of "the Reformation"
+involved both in a common danger, and demonstrated their
+equal heroism. As elsewhere in Christendom, the sudden
+aggrandizement of these mendicant institutes excited
+jealousy and hostility among certain of the secular clergy
+and Bishops. This feeling was even stronger in England
+during the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II., when,
+according to the popular superstition, the Devil appeared
+at various places "in the form of a grey friar." The
+great champion of the secular clergy, in the controversy
+which ensued, was Richard, son of Ralph, a native of
+Dundalk, the Erasmus of his age. Having graduated at
+Oxford, where the Irish were then classed as one of "the
+four nations" of students, Fitz-Ralph achieved distinction
+after distinction, till he rose to the rank of Chancellor
+of the University, in 1333. Fourteen years afterwards
+he was consecrated, by provision of Pope Clement VI.,
+Archbishop of Armagh, and is by some writers styled
+"Cardinal of Armagh." Inducted into the chief see of his
+native Province and country, he soon commenced those
+sermons and writings against the mendicant orders which
+rendered him so conspicuous in the Church history of the
+fourteenth century. Summoned to Avignon, in 1350, to be
+examined on his doctrine, he maintained before the
+Consistory the following propositions: 1st, that our Lord
+Jesus Christ, as a man, was very poor, not that He loved
+poverty for itself; 2nd, that our Lord had never begged;
+3rd, that He never taught men to beg; 4th, that, on the
+contrary, He taught men not to beg; 5th, that man cannot,
+with prudence and holiness, confine himself by vow to a
+life of constant mendicity; 6th, that minor brothers are
+not obliged by their rule to beg; 7th, that the bull of
+Alexander IV., which condemns the Book of Masters, does
+not invalidate any of the aforesaid conclusions; 8th,
+that by those who, wishing to confess, exclude certain
+churches, their parish one should be preferred to the
+oratories of monks; and 9th, that, for auricular
+confession, the diocesan, bishop should be chosen in
+preference to friars.
+
+In a "defence of Parish Priests," and many other tracts,
+in several sermons, preached at London, Litchfield,
+Drogheda, Dundalk, and Armagh, he maintained the thesis
+until the year 1357, when the Superior of the Franciscans
+at Armagh, seconded by the influence of his own and the
+Dominican order, caused him to be summoned a second time
+before the Pope. Fitz-Ralph promptly obeyed the summons,
+but before the cause could be finally decided he died at
+Avignon in 1361. His body was removed from thence to
+Dundalk in 1370 by Stephen de Valle, Bishop of Meath.
+Miracles were said to have been wrought at his tomb; a
+process of inquiry into their validity was instituted by
+order of Boniface IX., but abandoned without any result
+being arrived at. The bitter controversy between the
+mendicant and other orders was revived towards the end
+of the century by Henry, a Cistercian monk of Baltinglass,
+who maintained opinions still more extreme than those of
+Fitz-Ralph; but he was compelled publicly and solemnly
+to retract them before Commissioners appointed for that
+purpose in the year 1382.
+
+The range of mental culture in Europe during the fourteenth
+century included only the scholastic philosophy and
+theology with the physics, taught in the schools of the
+Spanish Arabs. The fifteenth century saw the revival of
+Greek literature in Italy, and the general restoration
+of classical learning. The former century is especially
+barren of original _belles lettres_ writings; but the
+next succeeding ages produced Italian poetry, French
+chronicles, Spanish ballads, and all that wonderful
+efflorescence of popular literature, which, in our far
+advanced cultivation, we still so much envy and admire.
+In the last days of Scholasticism, Irish intelligence
+asserted its ancient equality with the best minds of
+Europe; but in the new era of national literature, unless
+there are buried treasures yet to be dug out of their
+Gaelic tombs, the country fell altogether behind England,
+and even Scotland, not to speak of Italy or France.
+Archbishop Fitz-Ralph, John Scotus of Down, William of
+Drogheda, Professor of both laws at Oxford, are respectable
+representatives among the last and greatest group of the
+School-men. Another illustrious name remains to be added
+to the roll of Irish Scholastics, that of Maurice O'Fihely,
+Archbishop of Tuam. He was a thorough Scotist in philosophy,
+which he taught at Padua, in discourses long afterwards
+printed at Venice. His Commentaries on _Scotus_, his
+Dictionary of the Sacred Scriptures, and other numerous
+writings, go far to justify the compliments of his
+cotemporaries, though the fond appellation of the "flower
+of the earth" given him by some of them sounds extravagant
+and absurd. Soon after arriving from Rome to take possession
+of his see he died at Tuam in 1513, in the fiftieth year
+of his age--an early age to have won so colossal a
+reputation.
+
+Beyond some meagre annals, compiled in monastic houses,
+and a few rhymed panegyrics, the muses of history and of
+poetry seem to have abandoned the island to the theologians,
+jurists, and men of science. The Bardic order was still
+one of the recognized estates, and found patrons worthy
+of their harps in the lady Margaret O'Carroll of Offally,
+William O'Kelley of Galway, and Henry Avery O'Neil. Full
+collections of the original Irish poetry of the Middle
+Ages are yet to be made public, but it is scarcely possible
+that if any composition of eminent merit existed, we should
+not have had editions and translations of it before now.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VII.
+
+UNION OF THE CROWNS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+IRISH POLICY OF HENRY THE EIGHTH DURING THE LIFETIME
+OF CARDINAL WOLSEY.
+
+Henry the Eighth of England succeeded his father on the
+throne, early in the year 1509. He was in the eighteenth
+year of his age, when he thus found himself master of a
+well-filled treasury and an united kingdom. Fortune, as
+if to complete his felicity, had furnished him from the
+outset of his reign with a minister of unrivalled talent
+for public business. This was Thomas Wolsey, successively
+royal Chaplain, Almoner, Archbishop of York, Papal Legate,
+Lord Chancellor, and Lord Cardinal. From the fifth to
+the twentieth year of King Henry, he was, in effect,
+sovereign in the state, and it is wonderful to find how
+much time he contrived to borrow from the momentous
+foreign affairs of that eventful age for the obscurer
+intrigues of Irish politics.
+
+Wolsey kept before his mind, more prominently than any
+previous English statesman, the design of making his
+royal master as absolute in Ireland as any King in
+Christendom. He determined to abolish every pretence to
+sovereignty but that of the King of England, and to this
+end he resolved to circumscribe the power of the Anglo-Irish
+Barons, and to win over by "dulce ways" and "politic
+drifts," as he expressed it, the Milesian-Irish Chiefs.
+This policy, continued by all the Tudor sovereigns till
+the latter years of Elizabeth, so far as it distinguished
+between the Barons and Chiefs always favoured the latter.
+The Kildares and Desmonds were hunted to the death, in the
+same age, and by the same authority, which carefully
+fostered every symptom of adhesion or attachment on the
+part of the O'Neils and O'Briens. Neither were these last
+loved or trusted for their own sakes, but the natural enemy
+fares better in all histories than the unnatural rebel.
+
+We must enumerate some of the more remarkable instances
+of Wolsey's twofold policy of concession and intimidation.
+In the third and fourth years of Henry, Hugh O'Donnell,
+lord of Tyrconnell, passing through England, on a pilgrimage
+to Rome, was entertained with great honour at Windsor
+and Greenwich for four months each time. He returned to
+Ulster deeply impressed with the magnificence of the
+young monarch and the resources of his kingdom. During
+the remainder of his life he cherished a strong predilection
+for England; he dissuaded James IV. of Scotland from
+leading a liberating expedition to Ireland in 1513--
+previous to the ill-fated campaign which ended on Flodden
+field, and he steadily resisted the influx of the Islesmen
+into Down and Antrim. In 1521 we find him described by
+the Lord Lieutenant, Surrey, as being of all the Irish
+chiefs the best disposed "to fall into English order."
+He maintained a direct correspondence with Henry until
+his death, 1537, when the policy he had so materially
+assisted had progressed beyond the possibility of defeat.
+Simultaneously with O'Donnell's adhesion, the same views
+found favour with the powerful chief of Tyrone. The
+O'Neils were now divided into two great septs, those of
+Tyrone, whose seat was at Dungannon, and those of Clandeboy,
+whose strongholds studded the eastern shores of Lough
+Neagh. In the year 1480, Con O'Neil, lord of Tyrone,
+married his cousin-germain, Lady Alice Fitzgerald, daughter
+of the Earl of Kildare. This alliance tended to establish
+an intimacy between Maynooth and Dungannon, which subserved
+many of the ends of Wolsey's policy. Turlogh, Art, and
+Con, sons of Lady Alice, and successively chiefs of
+Tyrone, adhered to the fortunes of the Kildare family,
+who were, however unwillingly, controlled by the superior
+power of Henry. The Clandeboy O'Neils, on the contrary,
+regarded this alliance as nothing short of apostasy, and
+pursued the exactly opposite course, repudiating English
+and cultivating Scottish alliances. Open ruptures and
+frequent collisions took place between the estranged and
+exasperated kinsmen; in the sequel we will find how the
+last surviving son of Lady Alice became in his old age
+the first Earl of Tyrone, while the House of Clandeboy
+took up the title of "the O'Neil." The example of the
+elder branch of this ancient royal race, and of the hardly
+less illustrious family of Tyrconnell, exercised a potent
+influence on the other chieftains of Ulster.
+
+An elaborate report on "the State of Ireland," with "a
+plan for its Reformation"--submitted to Henry in the year
+1515--gives us a tolerably clear view of the political
+and military condition of the several provinces. The only
+portions of the country in any sense subject to English
+law, were half the counties of Louth, Meath, Dublin,
+Kildare, and Wexford. The residents within these districts
+paid "black rent" to the nearest native chiefs. Sheriffs
+were not permitted to execute writs, beyond the bounds
+thus described, and even within thirty miles of Dublin,
+March-law and Brehon-law were in full force. Ten native
+magnates are enumerated in Leinster as "chief captains"
+of their "nations"--not one of whom regarded the English
+King as his Sovereign. Twenty chiefs in Munster, fifteen
+in Connaught, and three in West-Meath, maintained their
+ancient state, administered their own laws, and recognized
+no superiority, except in one another, as policy or custom
+compelled them. Thirty chief English captains, of whom
+eighteen resided in Munster, seven in Connaught, and the
+remainder in Meath, Down, and Antrim, are set down as
+"rebels" and followers of "the Irish order." Of these,
+the principal in the midland counties were the Dillons
+and Tyrrells, in the West the Burkes and Berminghams, in
+the South the Powers, Barrys, Roches--the Earl of Desmond
+and his relatives. The enormous growth of these Munster
+Geraldines, and their not less insatiable greed, produced
+many strange complications in the politics of the South.
+Not content with the moiety of Kerry, Cork, and Waterford,
+they had planted their landless cadets along the Suir
+and the Shannon, in Ormond and Thomond. They narrowed
+the dominions of the O'Briens on the one hand and the
+McCarthys on the other. Concluding peace or war with
+their neighbours, as suited their own convenience, they
+sometimes condescended to accept further feudal privileges
+from the Kings of England. To Maurice, tenth Earl, Henry
+VII. had granted "all the customs, cockets, poundage,
+prize wines of Limerick, Cork, Kinsale, Baltimore and
+Youghal, with other privileges and advantages." Yet Earl
+James, in the next reign, did not hesitate to treat with
+Francis of France and the Emperor of Germany, as an
+independent Prince, long before the pretence of resisting
+the Reformation could be alleged in his justification.
+What we have here to observe is, that this predominance
+of the Munster Geraldines drove first one and then another
+branch of the McCarthys, and O'Briens, into the meshes
+of Wolsey's policy. Cormac Oge, lord of Muskerry, and
+his cousin, the lord of Carbery, defeated the eleventh
+Earl (James), at Moore Abbey, in 1521, with a loss of
+1,500 foot and 500 or 600 horsemen. To strengthen himself
+against the powerful adversary so deeply wounded, Cormac
+sought the protection of the Lord Lieutenant, the Earl
+of Surrey, and of Pierce Roe, the eighth Earl of Ormond,
+who had common wrongs to avenge. In this way McCarthy
+became identified with the English interest, which he
+steadily adhered to till his death--in 1536. Driven by
+the same necessity to adopt the same expedient, Murrogh
+O'Brien, lord of Thomond, a few years later visited Henry
+at London, where he resigned his principality, received
+back his lands, under a royal patent conveying them to
+him as "Earl of Thomond, and Baron of Inchiquin." Henry
+was but too happy to have raised up such a counterpoise
+to the power of Desmond, at his own door, while O'Brien
+was equally anxious to secure foreign aid against such
+intolerable encroachments. The policy worked effectually;
+it brought the succeeding Earl of Desmond to London, an
+humble suitor for the King's mercy and favour, which were
+after some demur granted.
+
+The event, however, which most directly tended to the
+establishment of an English royalty in Ireland, was the
+depression of the family of Kildare in the beginning of
+this reign, and its all but extinction a few years later.
+Gerald, the ninth Earl of that title, succeeded his father
+in the office of Lord Deputy in the first years of Henry.
+He had been a ward at the court of the preceding King,
+and by both his first and second marriages was closely
+connected with the royal family. Yet he stood in the way
+of the settled plans of Wolsey, before whom the highest
+heads in the realm trembled. His father, as if to secure
+him against the hereditary enmity of the Butlers, had
+married his daughter Margaret to Pierce Roe, Earl of
+Ossory, afterwards eighth Earl of Ormond--the restorer
+of that house. This lady, however, entered heartily into
+the antipathies of her husband's family, and being of
+masculine spirit, with an uncommon genius for public
+affairs, helped more than any Butler had ever done to
+humble the overshadowing house of which she was born.
+The weight of Wolsey's influence was constantly exercised
+in favour of Ormond, who had the skill to recommend
+himself quite as effectually to Secretary Cromwell, after
+the Cardinal's disgrace and death. But the struggles of
+the house of Kildare were bold and desperate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE INSURRECTION OF SILKEN THOMAS--THE GERALDINE
+LEAGUE--ADMINISTRATION OF LORD LEONARD GRAY.
+
+The ninth and last _Catholic_ Earl of Kildare, in the
+ninth year of Henry VIII., had been summoned to London
+to answer two charges preferred against him by his
+political enemies: "1st, That he had enriched himself
+and his followers out of the crown lands and revenues.
+2nd, That he had formed alliances and corresponded with
+divers Irish enemies of the State." Pending these charges
+the Earl of Surrey, the joint-victor with his father at
+Flodden field, was despatched to Dublin in his stead,
+with the title of Lord Lieutenant.
+
+Kildare, by the advice of Wolsey, was retained in a sort
+of honourable attendance on the person of the King for
+nearly four years. During this interval he accompanied
+Henry to "the field of the cloth of Gold," so celebrated
+in French and English chronicles. On his return to Dublin,
+in 1523, he found his enemy, the Earl of Ormond, in his
+old office, but had the pleasure of supplanting him one
+year afterwards. In 1525, on the discovery of Desmond's
+correspondence with Francis of France, he was ordered to
+march into Munster and arrest that nobleman. But, though
+he obeyed the royal order, Desmond successfully evaded
+him, not, as was alleged, without his friendly connivance.
+The next year this evasion was made the ground of a fresh
+impeachment by the implacable Earl of Ormond; he was
+again summoned to London, and committed to the Tower.
+In 1530 he was liberated, and sent over with Sir William
+Skeffington, whose authority to some extent he shared.
+The English Knight had the title of Deputy, but Kildare
+was, in effect, Captain General, as the Red Earl had
+formerly been. Skeffington was instructed to obey him
+in the field, while it was expected that the Earl, in
+return, would sustain his colleague in the Council. A
+year had not passed before they were declared enemies,
+and Skeffington was recalled to England, where he added
+another to the number of Kildare's enemies. After a short
+term of undisputed power, the latter found himself, in
+1533, for the third time, an inmate of the Tower. It is
+clear that the impetuous Earl, after his second escape,
+had not conducted himself as prudently as one so well
+forewarned ought to have done. He played more openly than
+ever the twofold part of Irish Chief among the Irish,
+and English Baron within the Pale. His daughters were
+married to the native lords of Offally and Ely, and he
+frequently took part as arbitrator in the affairs of
+those clans. The anti-Geraldine faction were not slow to
+torture these facts to suit themselves. They had been
+strengthened at Dublin by three English officials,
+Archbishop Allan, his relative John Allan, afterwards
+Master of the Rolls, and Robert Cowley, the Chief Solicitor,
+Lord Ormond's confidential agent. The reiterated
+representations of these personages induced the suspicious
+and irascible King to order the Earl's attendance at
+London, authorizing him at the same time to appoint a
+substitute, for whose conduct he would be answerable.
+Kildare nominated his son, Lord Thomas, though not yet
+of man's age; after giving him many sage advices, he
+sailed for England, no more to return.
+
+The English interest at that moment had apparently reached
+the lowest point. The O'Briens had bridged the Shannon, and
+enforced their ancient claims over Limerick. So defenceless,
+at certain periods, was Dublin itself that Edmond Oge O'Byrne
+surprised the Castle by night, liberated the prisoners, and
+carried off the stores. This daring achievement, unprecedented
+even in the records of the fearless mountaineers of Wicklow,
+was thrown in to aggravate the alleged offences of Kildare.
+He was accused, moreover, of having employed the King's great
+guns and other munitions of war to strengthen his own Castles
+of Maynooth and Ley--a charge more direct and explicit than
+had been alleged against him at any former period.
+
+While the Earl lay in London Tower, an expedient very
+common afterwards in our history-the forging of letters
+and despatches-was resorted to by his enemies in Dublin,
+to drive the young Lord Thomas into some rash act which
+might prove fatal to his father and himself. Accordingly
+the packets brought from Chester, in the spring of 1534,
+repeated reports, one confirming the other, of the
+execution of the Earl in the Tower. Nor was there anything
+very improbable in such an occurrence. The cruel character
+of Henry had, in these same spring months, been fully
+developed in the execution of the reputed prophetess,
+Elizabeth Barton, and all her abettors. The most eminent
+layman in England, Sir Thomas More, and the most illustrious
+ecclesiastic, Bishop Fisher, had at the same time been
+found guilty of misprision of treason for having known
+of the pretended prophecies of Elizabeth without
+communicating their knowledge to the King. That an
+Anglo-Irish Earl, even of the first rank, could hope to
+fare better at the hands of the tyrant than his aged
+tutor and his trusted Chancellor, was not to be expected.
+When, therefore, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald flung down the
+sword of State on the Council table, in the hall of St.
+Mary's Abbey, on the 11th day of June, 1534, and formally
+renounced his allegiance to King Henry as the murderer
+of his father, although he betrayed an impetuous and
+impolitic temper, there was much in the events of the
+times to justify his belief in the rumours of his father's
+execution.
+
+This renunciation of allegiance was a declaration of open
+war. The chapter thus opened in the memoirs of the Leinster
+Geraldines closed at Tyburn on the 3rd of February, 1537.
+Within these three years, the policy of annexation was
+hastened by several events--but by none more than this
+unconcerted, unprepared, reckless revolt. The advice of
+the imprisoned Earl to his son had been "to play the
+gentlest part," but youth and rash counsels overcame the
+suggestions of age and experience. One great excess
+stained the cause of "Silken Thomas," while it was but
+six weeks old. Towards the end of July, Archbishop Allan,
+his father's deadly enemy, left his retreat in the Castle,
+and put to sea by night, hoping to escape into England.
+The vessel, whether by design or accident, ran ashore at
+Clontarf, and the neighbourhood being overrun by the
+insurgents, the Archbishop concealed himself at Artane.
+Here he was discovered, dragged from his bed, and murdered,
+if not in the actual presence, under the same roof with
+Lord Thomas. King Henry's Bishops hurled against the
+assassins the greater excommunication, with all its
+penalties; a terrific malediction, which was, perhaps,
+more than counterbalanced by the Papal Bull issued against
+Henry and Anne Boleyn on the last day of August--the
+knowledge of which must have reached Ireland before the
+end of the year. This Bull cited Henry to appear within
+ninety days in person, or by attorney, at Rome, to answer
+for his offences against the Apostolic See; failing which,
+he was declared excommunicated, his subjects were absolved
+from their allegiance, and commanded to take up arms
+against their former sovereign. The ninety days expired
+with the month of November, 1534.
+
+Lord Thomas, as he acted without consultation with others,
+so he was followed but by few persons of influence. His
+brothers-in-law, the chiefs of Ely and Offally, O'Moore
+of Leix, two of his five uncles, his relatives, the
+Delahides, mustered their adherents, and rallied to his
+standard. He held the castles of Carlow, Maynooth, Athy,
+and other strongholds in Kildare. He beseiged Dublin, and
+came to a composition with the citizens, by which they
+agreed to allow him free ingress to assail the Castle,
+into which his enemies had withdrawn. He despatched agents
+to the Emperor, Charles V., and the Pope, but before
+those agents could well have returned--March, 1535--
+Maynooth had been assaulted and taken by Sir William
+Skeffington--and the bands collected by the young lord
+had melted away. Lord Leonard Gray, his maternal uncle,
+assumed the command for the King of England, instead of
+Skeffington, disabled by sickness, and the abortive
+insurrection was extinguished in one campaign. Towards
+the end of August, 1535, the unfortunate Lord Thomas
+surrendered on the guarantee of Lord Leonard and Lord
+Butler; in the following year his five uncles--three of
+whom had never joined in the rising--were treacherously
+seized at a banquet given to them by Gray, and were all,
+with their nephew, executed at Tyburn, on the 3rd of
+February, 1537. The imprisoned Earl having died in the
+Tower on the 12th of December, 1534, the sole survivor
+of this historic house was now a child of twelve years
+of age, whose life was sought with an avidity equal to
+Herod's, but who was protected with a fidelity which
+defeated every attempt to capture him. Alternately the
+guest of his aunts married to the chiefs of Offally and
+Donegal, the sympathy everywhere felt for him led to a
+confederacy between the Northern and Southern Chiefs,
+which had long been wanting. A loose league was formed,
+including the O'Neils of both branches, O'Donnell, O'Brien,
+the Earl of Desmond, and the chiefs of Moylurg and Breffni.
+The lad, the object of so much natural and chivalrous
+affection, was harboured for a time in Munster, thence
+transported through Connaught into Donegal, and finally,
+after four years, in which he engaged more of the minds
+of statesmen than any other individual under the rank of
+royalty, was safely landed in France. We shall meet him
+again in another reign, under more fortunate auspices.
+
+Lord Leonard Gray continued in office as Deputy for nearly
+five years (1535-40). This interval was marked by several
+successes against detached clans and the parties to the
+Geraldine league, whom he was careful to attack only in
+succession. In his second campaign, O'Brien's bridge
+was carried and demolished, one O'Brien was set up against
+another, and one O'Conor against another; the next year
+the Castle of Dungannon was taken from O'Neil, and Dundrum
+from Magennis. In 1539, he defeated O'Neil and O'Donnell,
+at Bolahoe, on the borders of Farney, in Monaghan, with
+a loss of 400 men, and the spoils they had taken from
+the English of Navan and Ardee. The Mayors of Dublin and
+Drogheda were knighted on the field for the valour they
+had shown at the head of their train-bands. The same
+year, he made a successful incursion into the territory
+of the Earl of Desmond, receiving the homage of many of
+the inferior lords, and exonerating them from the exactions
+of those haughty Palatines. Recalled to England in 1540,
+he, too, in turn, fell a victim to the sanguinary spirit
+of King Henry, and perished on the scaffold.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+SIR ANTHONY ST. LEGER, LORD DEPUTY--NEGOTIATIONS OF THE
+IRISH CHIEFS WITH JAMES THE FIFTH OF SCOTLAND--FIRST
+ATTEMPTS TO INTRODUCE THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION--
+OPPOSITION OF THE CLERGY--PARLIAMENT OF 1541--THE PROCTORS
+OF THE CLERGY EXCLUDED--STATE OF THE COUNTRY--THE CROWNS
+UNITED--HENRY THE EIGHTH PROCLAIMED AT LONDON AND DUBLIN.
+
+Upon the disgrace of Lord Leonard Gray in 1540, Sir
+Anthony St. Leger was appointed Deputy. He had previously
+been employed as chief of the commission issued in 1537,
+to survey land subject to the King, to inquire into,
+confirm, or cancel titles, and abolish abuses which might
+have crept in among the Englishry, whether upon the
+marches or within the Pale. In this employment he had at
+his disposal a guard of 340 men, while the Deputy and
+Council were ordered to obey his mandates as if given by
+the King in person. The commissioners were further
+empowered to reform the Courts of Law; to enter as King's
+Counsel into both Houses of Parliament, there to urge
+the adoption of measures upholding English laws and
+customs, establishing the King's supremacy, in spirituals
+as in temporals, to provide for the defence of the marches,
+and the better collection of the revenues. In the three
+years which he spent at the head of this commission, St.
+Leger, an eminently able and politic person, made himself
+intimately acquainted with Irish affairs; as a natural
+consequence of which knowledge he was entrusted, upon
+the first vacancy, with their supreme directions. In this
+situation he had to contend, not only with the complications
+long existing in the system itself, but with the formidable
+disturbing influence exercised by the Court of Scotland,
+chiefly upon and by means of the Ulster Princes.
+
+Up to this period, the old political intimacy of Scotland
+and Ireland had known no diminution. The Scots in Antrim
+could reckon, soon after Henry's accession to the throne,
+2,000 fighting men. In 1513, in order to co-operate with
+the warlike movement of O'Donnell, the Scottish fleet,
+under the Earl of Arran, in his famous flagship, "the
+great Michael," captured Carrickfergus, putting its
+Anglo-Irish garrison to the sword. In the same Scottish
+reign (that of James IV.), one of the O'Donnells had a
+munificent grant of lands in Kirkcudbright, as other
+adventurers from Ulster had from the same monarch, in
+Galloway and Kincardine. In 1523, while hostilities raged
+between Scotland and England, the Irish Chiefs entered
+into treaty with Francis the First of France, who bound
+himself to land in Ireland 15,000 men, to expel the
+English from "the Pale," and to carry his arms across
+the channel in the quarrel of Richard de la Pole, father
+of the famous Cardinal, and at this time a formidable
+pretender to the English throne. The imbecile conduct of
+the Scottish Regent, the Duke of Albany, destroyed this
+enterprise, which, however, was but the forerunner, if
+it was not the model, of several similar combinations.
+When the Earl of Bothwell took refuge at the English
+Court, in 1531, he suggested to Henry VIII., among other
+motives for renewing the war with James V., that the
+latter was in league "with the Emperor, the Danish King,
+and O'Donnell." The following year, a Scottish force of
+4,000 men, under John, son of Alexander McDonald, Lord
+of the Isles, served, by permission of their King, under
+the banner of the Chieftain of Tyrconnell. An uninterrupted
+correspondence between the Ulster Chiefs and the Scottish
+Court may be traced through this reign, forming a curious
+chapter of Irish diplomacy. In 1535, we have a letter
+from O'Neil to James V., from which it appears that
+O'Neil's Secretary was then residing at the Scottish
+Court; and as the crisis of the contest for the Crown
+drew near, we find the messages and overtures from Ulster
+multiplying in number and earnestness. In that critical
+period, James V. was between twenty and thirty years old,
+and his powerful minister, Cardinal Beaton, was acting
+by him the part that Wolsey had played by Henry at a like
+age. The Cardinal, favouring the French and Irish alliances,
+had drawn a line of Scottish policy, in relation to both
+those countries, precisely parallel to Wolsey's. During
+the Geraldine insurrection, Henry was obliged to remonstrate
+with James on favours shown to his rebels of Ireland.
+This charge James' ministers, in their correspondence of
+the year 1535, strenuously denied, while admitting that
+some insignificant Islesmen, over whom he could exercise
+no control, might have gone privily thither. In the spring
+of 1540, Bryan Layton, one of the English agents at the
+Scottish Court, communicated to Secretary Cromwell that
+James had fitted out a fleet of 15 ships, manned by 2,000
+men, and armed with all the ordinance that he could
+muster; that his destination was Ireland, the Crown of
+which had been offered to him, the previous Lent, by
+"eight gentlemen," who brought him written tenders of
+submission "from all the great men of Ireland," with
+their seals attached; and, furthermore, that the King
+had declared to Lord Maxwell his determination to win
+such a prize as "never King of Scotland had before," or
+to lose his life in the attempt. It is remarkable that
+in this same spring of 1540-while such was understood to
+be the destination of the Scottish fleet-a congress of
+the Chiefs of all Ireland was appointed to be held at
+the Abbey of Fore, in West-Meath. To prevent this meeting
+taking place, the whole force of the Pale, with the
+judges, clergy, townsmen and husbandmen, marched out
+under the direction of the Lords of the Council (St.
+Leger not having yet arrived to replace Lord Gray), but
+finding no such assembly as they had been led to expect,
+they made a predatory incursion into Roscommon, and
+dispersed some armed bands belonging to O'Conor. The
+commander in this expedition was the Marshal Sir William
+Brereton, for the moment one of the Lords Justices. He
+was followed to the field by the last Prior of Kilmainham,
+Sir John Rawson, the Master of the Rolls, the Archbishop
+of Dublin, the Bishop of Meath, Mr. Justice Luttrell,
+and the Barons of the Exchequer-a strange medley of civil
+and military dignitaries.
+
+The prevention or postponement of the Congress at Fore
+must have exercised a decided influence on the expedition
+of James V. His great armada having put to sea, after
+coasting among the out-islands, and putting into a northern
+English port from stress of weather, returned home without
+achievement of any kind. Diplomatic intercourse was
+shortly renewed between him and Henry, but, in the
+following year, to the extreme displeasure of his royal
+kinsman, he assumed the much-prized title of "Defender
+of the Faith." Another rupture took place, when the Irish
+card was played over again with the customary effect. In
+a letter of July, 1541, introducing to the Irish Chiefs
+the Jesuit Fathers, Salmeron, Broet, and Capata, who
+passed through Scotland on their way to Ireland, James
+styles himself "Lord of Ireland"--another insult and
+defiance to Henry, whose newly-acquired kingly style was
+then but a few weeks old. By way of retaliation, Henry
+ordered the Archbishop of York to search the registers
+of that see for evidence of _his_ claim to the Crown of
+Scotland, and industriously cultivated the disaffected
+party amongst the Scottish nobility. At length these
+bickerings broke out into open war, and the short, but
+fatal campaign of 1542, removed another rival for the
+English King. The double defeat of Fala and of Solway
+Moss, the treason of his nobles, and the failure of his
+hopes, broke the heart of the high-spirited James V. He
+died in December, 1542, in the 33rd year of his age, a
+few hours after learning the birth of his daughter, so
+celebrated as Mary, Queen of Scots. In his last moments
+he pronounced the doom of the Stuart dynasty--"It came
+with a lass," he exclaimed, "and it will go with a lass,"
+And thus it happened that the image of Ireland, which
+unfolds the first scene of the War of the Roses, which
+is inseparable from the story of the two Bruces, and
+which occupies so much of the first and last years of
+the Tudor dynasty, stands mournfully by the deathbed of
+the last Stuart King who reigned in Scotland--the only
+Prince of his race that had ever written under his name
+the title of "_Dominus Hiberniae_."
+
+The premature death of James was hardly more regretted
+by his immediate subjects than by his Irish allies. All
+external events now conspired to show the hopelessness
+of resistance to the power of King Henry. From Scotland,
+destined to half a century of anarchy, no help could be
+expected. Wales, another ancient ally of the Irish, had
+been incorporated with England, in 1536, and was fast
+becoming reconciled to the rule of a Prince, sprung from
+a Welsh ancestry. Francis of France and Charles V., rivals
+for the leadership of the Continent, were too busy with
+their own projects to enter into any Irish alliance.
+The Geraldines had suffered terrible defeats; the family
+of Kildare was without an adult representative; the
+O'Neils and O'Donnells had lost ground at Bellahoe, and
+were dismayed by the unlooked-for death of the King of
+Scotland. The arguments, therefore, by which many of the
+chiefs might have justified themselves to their clans in
+1541, '2 and '3, for submitting to the inevitable laws
+of necessity in rendering homage to Henry VIII., were
+neither few nor weak. Abroad there was no hope of an
+alliance sufficient to counterbalance the immense resources
+of England; at home life-wasting private wars, the conflict
+of laws, of languages, and of titles to property, had
+become unbearable. That fatal family pride, which would
+not permit an O'Brien to obey an O'Neil, nor an O'Conor
+to follow either, rendered the establishment of a native
+monarchy--even if there had been no other obstacle--
+wholly impracticable. Among the clergy alone did the
+growing supremacy of Henry meet with any effective
+opposition.
+
+At its first presentation in Ireland, and during the
+whole of Henry's lifetime, the "Reformation" wore the
+guise of schism, as distinguished from heresy. To deny
+the supremacy of the Pope and admit the supremacy of the
+King were almost its sole tests of doctrine. All the
+ancient teaching in relation to the Seven Sacraments,
+the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Real Presence,
+Purgatory, and Prayers for the Dead, were scrupulously
+retained. Subsequently, the necessity of auricular
+confession, the invocation of Saints, and the celibacy
+of the clergy came to be questioned, but they were not
+dogmatically assailed during this reign. The common
+people, where English was understood, were slow in taking
+alarm at these masked innovations; in the Irish-speaking
+districts--three-fourths of the whole country--they were
+only heard of as rumours from afar, but the clergy,
+secular and regular, were not long left in doubt as to
+where such steps must necessarily lead.
+
+From 1534, the year of his divorce, until 1541, the year
+of his election, Henry attempted, by fits and starts, to
+assert his supremacy in Ireland. He appointed George
+Browne, a strenuous advocate of the divorce, some time
+Provincial of the order of St. Augustine in England,
+Archbishop of Dublin, vacant by the murder of Archbishop
+Allan. On the 12th of March, 1535, Browne was consecrated
+by Cranmer, whose opinions, as well as those of Secretary
+Cromwell, he echoed through life. He may be considered
+the first agent employed to introduce the Reformation
+into Ireland, and his zeal in that work seems to have
+been unwearied. He was destined, however, to find many
+opponents, and but few converts. Not only the Primate of
+Armagh, George Cromer, and almost all the episcopal order,
+resolutely resisted his measures, but the clergy and
+laity of Dublin refused to accept his new forms of prayer,
+or to listen to his strange teaching. He inveighs in his
+correspondence with Cromwell against Bassenet, Dean of
+St. Patrick's, Castele, Prior of Christ's Church, and
+generally against all the clergy. Of the twenty-eight
+secular priests in Dublin, but three could be induced to
+act with him; the regular orders he found equally
+intractable--more especially the Observantins, whose name
+he endeavoured to change to Conventuals. "The spirituality,"
+as he calls them, refused to take the oaths of abjuration
+and supremacy; refused to strike the name of the Bishop
+of Rome from their primers and mass-books, and seduced
+the rest into like contumacy. Finding persuasion of little
+avail, he sometimes resorted to harsher measures.
+
+Dr. Sall, a grey friar of Waterford, was brought to Dublin
+and imprisoned for preaching the new doctrines in the
+Spring of 1538; Thaddeus Byrne, another friar, was put
+in the pillory, and was reported to have committed suicide
+in the Castle, on the 14th of July of the same year; Sir
+Humfrey, parson of Saint Owens, and the suffragan Bishop
+of Meath, were "clapped in ward," for publicly praying
+for the Pope's weal and the King's conversion; another
+Bishop and friar were arrested and carried to Trim, for
+similar offences, but were liberated without trial, by
+Lord Deputy Gray; a friar of Waterford, in 1539, by order
+of the St. Leger Commission, was executed in the habit
+of his order, on a charge of "felony," and so left hanging
+"as a mirror for all his brethren." Yet, with all this
+severity, and all the temptations held out by the wealth
+of confiscated monasteries, none would abide the preaching
+of the new religion except the "Lord Butler, the Master
+of the Rolls (Allan), Mr. Treasurer (Brabazon), and one
+or two more of small reputation."
+
+The first test to which the firmness of the clergy had
+been put was in the Parliament convoked at Dublin by Lord
+Deputy Gray, in May, 1537. Anciently in such assemblies
+two proctors of each diocese, within the Pale, had been
+accustomed to sit and vote in the Upper House as
+representing their order, but the proposed tests of
+supremacy and abjuration were so boldly resisted by the
+proctors and spiritual peers on this occasion that the
+Lord Deputy was compelled to prorogue the Parliament
+without attaining its assent to those measures. During
+the recess a question was raised by the Crown lawyers as
+to the competency of the proctors to vote, while admitting
+their right to be present as councillors and assistants;
+this question, on an appeal to England, was declared in
+the negative, whereupon that learned body were excluded
+from all share in the future Irish legislation of this
+reign. Hence, whoever else are answerable for the election
+of 1541 the proctors of the clergy are not.
+
+Having thus reduced the clerical opposition in the Upper
+House, the work of monastic spoliation, covertly commenced
+two years before, under the pretence of reforming abuses,
+was more confidently resumed. In 1536, an act had been
+passed vesting the property of all religious houses in
+the Crown; at which time the value of their moveables
+was estimated at 100,000 pounds and their yearly value
+at 32,000 pounds. In 1537, eight abbeys were suppressed
+during the King's pleasure; in 1538, a commission issued
+for the suppression of monasteries; and in 1539, twenty-four
+great Houses, whose Abbots and Priors had been lords of
+Parliament, were declared "surrendered" to the King, and
+their late superiors were granted pensions for life.
+How these "surrenders" were procured we may judge from
+the case of Manus, Abbot of St. Mary's, Thurles, who was
+carried prisoner to Dublin, and suffered a long confinement
+for refusing to yield up his trust according to the
+desired formula. The work of confiscation was in these
+first years confined to the walled towns in English hands,
+the district of the Pale, and such points of the Irish
+country as could be conveniently reached. The great order
+of the Cistercians, established for more than four
+centuries at Mellifont, at Monastereven, at Bective, at
+Jerpoint, at Tintern, and at Dunbrody, were the first
+expelled from their cloisters and gardens. The Canons
+regular of St. Augustine at Trim, at Conal, at Athassel
+and at Kells, were next assailed by the degenerate
+Augustinian, who presided over the commission. The orders
+of St. Victor, of Aroacia, of St. John of Jerusalem, were
+extinguished wherever the arm of the Reformation could
+reach. The mendicant orders, spread into every district
+of the island, were not so easily erased from the soil;
+very many of the Dominican and Franciscan houses standing
+and flourishing far into the succeeding century.
+
+If the influence of the clergy counterbalanced the policy
+of the chiefs, the condition of the mass of the
+population--more especially of the inhabitants of the
+Pale and the marches--was such as to make them cherish
+the expectation that any governmental change whatever
+should be for the better. It was, under these circumstances,
+a far-reaching policy, which combined the causes and the
+remedy for social wrongs, with invectives against the
+old, and arguments in favour of the new religion. In
+order to understand what elements of discontent there
+were to be wrought to such conclusions, it is enough to
+give the merest glance at the social state of the lower
+classes under English authority. The St. Leger Commission
+represents the mixed population of the marches, and the
+Englishry of "the Pale" as burthened by accumulated
+exactions. Their lords quartered upon them at pleasure
+their horses, servants, and guests. They were charged
+with coin and livery--that is, horse-meat and man's-meat
+--when their lords travelled from place to place--with
+summer-oats, with providing for their cosherings, or
+feasts, at Christmas and Easter, with "black men and
+black money," for border defence, and with workmen and
+axemen from every ploughland, to work in the ditches, or
+to hew passages for the soldiery through the woods. Every
+aggravation of feudal wrong was inflicted on this harassed
+population. When a le Poer or a Butler married a daughter
+he exacted a sheep from every flock, and a cow from every
+village. When one of his sons went to England, a special
+tribute was levied on every village and ploughland to
+bear the young gentleman's travelling expenses. When the
+heads of any of the great houses hunted, their dogs were
+to be supplied by the tenants "with bread and milk, or
+butter." In the towns tailors, masons, and carpenters,
+were taxed for coin and livery; "mustrons" were employed
+in building halls, castles, stables, and barns, at the
+expense of the tenantry, for the sole use of the lord.
+The only effective law was an undigested jumble of the
+Brehon, the Civil, and the Common law; with the arbitrary
+ordinances of the marches, known as "the Statutes of
+Kilcash"--so called from a border stronghold near the
+foot of Slievenamon--a species of wild justice, resembling
+too often that administered by Robin Hood, or Rob Roy.
+
+Many circumstances concurring to promote plans so long
+cherished by Henry, St. Leger summoned a Parliament for
+the morrow after Trinity Sunday, being the 13th of the
+month of June, 1541. The attendance on the day named was
+not so full as was expected, so the opening was deferred
+till the following Thursday--being the feast of Corpus
+Christi. On that festival the Mass of the Holy Ghost was
+solemnly celebrated in St. Patrick's Cathedral, in which
+"two thousand persons" had assembled. The Lords of
+Parliament rode in cavalcade to the Church doors, headed
+by the Deputy. There were seen side by side in this
+procession the Earls of Desmond and Ormond, the Lords
+Barry, Roche and Bermingham; thirteen Barons of "the
+Pale," and a long train of Knights; Donogh O'Brien, Tanist
+of Thomond, the O'Reilly, O'Moore and McWilliam; Charles,
+son of Art Kavanagh, lord of Leinster, and Fitzpatrick,
+lord of Ossory. Never before had so many Milesian chiefs
+and Norman barons been seen together, except on the field
+of battle; never before had Dublin beheld marshalled in
+her streets what could by any stretch of imagination be
+considered a national representation. For this singularity,
+not less than for the business it transacted, the Parliament
+of 1541 will be held in lasting remembrance.
+
+In the sanctuary of St. Patrick's, two Archbishops and
+twelve Bishops assisted at the solemn mass, and the whole
+ceremony was highly imposing. "The like thereof," wrote
+St. Leger to Henry, "has not been seen here these many
+years." On the next day, Friday, the Commons elected Sir
+Thomas Cusack speaker, who, in "a right solemn proposition,"
+opened at the bar of the Lords' House the main business
+of the session--the establishment of King Henry's supremacy.
+To this address Lord Chancellor Allen--"well and prudentlie
+answered;" and the Commons withdrew to their own chamber.
+The substance of both speeches was "briefly and prudentlie"
+declared in the Irish language to the Gaelic Lords, by
+the Earl of Ormond, "greatly to their contentation." Then
+St. Leger proposed that Henry and his heirs should have
+the title of King, and caused the "bill devised for the
+same to be read." This bill having been put to the Lords'
+House, both in Irish and English, passed its three readings
+at the same sitting. In the Commons it was adopted with
+equal unanimity the next day, when the Lord Deputy most
+joyfully gave his consent. Thus on Saturday, June 19th,
+1541, the royalty of Ireland was first formally transferred
+to an English dynasty. On that day the triumphant
+St. Leger was enabled to write his royal master his
+congratulations on having added to his dignities "another
+imperial crown." On Sunday bonfires were made in honour
+of the event, guns fired, and wine on stoop was set in
+the streets. All prisoners, except those for capital
+offences, were liberated; _Te Deum_ was sung in St.
+Patrick's, and King Henry issued his proclamation, on
+receipt of the intelligence, for a general pardon throughout
+_all_ his dominions. The new title was confirmed with
+great formality by the English Parliament in their session
+of 1542. Proclamation was formally made of it in London,
+on the 1st of July of that year, when it was moreover
+declared that after that date all persons being lawfully
+convicted of opposing the new dignity should "be adjudged
+high traitors"--"and suffer the pains of death."
+
+Thus was consummated the first political union of Ireland
+with England. The strangely-constituted Assembly, which
+had given its sanction to the arrangement, in the language
+of the Celt, the Norman, and the Saxon, continued in
+session till the end of July, when they were prorogued
+till November. They enacted several statutes, in completion
+of the great change they had decreed; and while some
+prepared for a journey to the court of their new sovereign,
+others returned to their homes, to account as best they
+could for the part they had played at Dublin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+ADHESION OF O'NEIL, O'DONNELL AND O'BRIEN--A NEW
+ANGLO-IRISH PEERAGE--NEW RELATIONS OF LORD AND
+TENANT--BISHOPS APPOINTED BY THE CROWN--RETROSPECT.
+
+The Act of Election could hardly be considered as the
+Act of the Irish nation, so long as several of the most
+distinguished chiefs withheld their concurrence. With
+these, therefore, Saint Leger entered into separate
+treaties, by separate instruments, agreed upon, at various
+dates, during the years 1542 and 1543. Manus O'Donnell,
+lord of Tyrconnell, gave in his adhesion in August, 1541,
+Con O'Neil, lord of Tyrowen, Murrogh O'Brien, lord of
+Thomond, Art O'Moore, lord of Leix, and Ulick Burke, lord
+of Clanrickarde, 1542 and 1543; but, during the reign of
+Henry, no chief of the McCarthys, the O'Conors of Roscommon
+or of Offally, entered into any such engagement. The
+election, therefore, was far from unanimous, and Henry
+VIII. would perhaps be classed by our ancient Senachies
+among the "Kings with opposition," who figure so often
+in our Annals during the Middle Ages.
+
+Assuming, however, the title conferred upon him with no
+little complacency, Henry proceeded to exercise the first
+privilege of a sovereign, the creation of honours. Murrogh
+O'Brien, chief of his name, became Earl of Thomond, and
+Donogh, his nephew, Baron of Ibrackan; Ulick McWilliam
+Burke became Earl of Clanrickarde and Baron of Dunkellin;
+Hugh O'Donnell was made Earl of Tyrconnell; Fitzpatrick,
+became Baron of Ossory, and Kavanagh, Baron of Ballyan;
+Con O'Neil was made Earl of Tyrone, having asked, and
+been refused, the higher title of Earl of Ulster. The
+order of Knighthood was conferred on several of the
+principal attendants, and to each of the new peers the
+King granted a house in or near Dublin, for their
+accommodation, when attending the sittings of Parliament.
+
+The imposing ceremonial of the transformation of these
+Celtic chiefs into English Earls has been very minutely
+described by an eye-witness. One batch were made at
+Greenwich Palace, after High Mass on Sunday, the 1st of
+July, 1543. The Queen's closet "was richly hanged with
+cloth of arras and well strawed with rushes," for their
+robing room. The King received them under a canopy of
+state, surrounded by his Privy Council, the peers,
+spiritual and temporal, the Earl of Glencairn, Sir George
+Douglas, and the other Scottish Commissioners. The Earls
+of Derby and Ormond led in the new Earl of Thomond,
+Viscount Lisle carrying before them the sword. The
+Chamberlain handed his letters patent to the Secretary
+who read them down to the words _Cincturam gladii_, when
+the King girt the kneeling Earl, baldric-wise, with the
+sword, all the company standing. A similar ceremony was
+gone through with the others, the King throwing a gold
+chain having a cross hanging to it round each of their
+necks. Then, preceded by the trumpeters blowing, and the
+officers at arms, they entered the dining hall, where,
+after the second course, their titles were proclaimed
+aloud in Norman-French by Garter, King at Arms. Nor did
+Henry, who prided himself on his munificence, omit even
+more substantial tokens of his favour to the new Peers.
+Besides the town houses near Dublin, before mentioned,
+he granted to O'Brien all the abbeys and benefices of
+Thomond, bishoprics excepted; to McWilliam Burke, all
+the parsonages and vicarages of Clanrickarde, with
+one-third of the first-fruits, the Abbey of _Via Nova_
+and 30 pounds a year compensation for the loss of the
+customs of Galway; to Donogh O'Brien, the Abbey of
+Ellenegrane, the moiety of the Abbey of Clare, and an
+annuity of 20 pounds a year. To the new lord of Ossory
+he granted the monasteries of Aghadoe and Aghmacarte,
+with the right of holding court lete and market, every
+Thursday, at his town of Aghadoe. For these and other
+favours the recipients had been instructed to petition
+the King, and drafts of such petitions had been drawn up
+in anticipation of their arrival in England, by some
+official hand. The petitions are quoted by most of our
+late historians as their own proper act, but it is quite
+clear, though willing enough to present them and to accept
+such gifts, they had never dictated them.
+
+In the creation of this Peerage Henry proclaimed, in the
+most practical manner possible, his determination to
+assimilate the laws and institutions of Ireland to those
+of England. And the new made Earls, forgetting their
+ancient relations to their clans--forgetting, as O'Brien
+had answered St. Leger's first overtures three years
+before, "that though he was captain of his nation he was
+still but one man," by suing out royal patents for their
+lands, certainly consented to carry out the King's plans.
+The Brehon law was doomed from the date of the creation
+of the new Peers at Greenwich, for such a change entailed
+among its first consequences a complete abrogation of
+the Gaelic relations of clansman and chief.
+
+By the Brehon law every member of a free clan was as
+truly a proprietor of the tribe-land as the chief himself.
+He could sell his share, or the interest in it, to any
+other member of the tribe--the origin, perhaps, of what
+is now called tenant-right; he could not, however, sell
+to a stranger without the consent of the tribe and the
+chief. The stranger coming in under such an arrangement,
+held by a special tenure, yet if he remained during the
+time of three lords he became thereby naturalized. If
+the unnaturalized tenant withdrew of his own will from
+the land he was obliged to leave all his improvements
+behind; but if he was ejected he was entitled to get
+their full value. Those who were immediate tenants of
+the chief, or of the church, were debarred this privilege
+of tenant-right, and if unable to keep their holdings
+were obliged to surrender them unreservedly to the church
+or the chief. All the tribesmen, according to the extent
+of their possessions, were bound to maintain the chief's
+household, and to sustain him, with men and means, in
+his offensive and defensive wars. Such were, in brief,
+the land laws in force over three-fourths of the country
+in the sixteenth century; laws which partook largely of
+the spirit of an ancient patriarchal justice, but which,
+in ages of movement, exchange, and enterprise, would have
+been found the reverse of favourable to individual freedom
+and national strength. There were not wanting, we may be
+assured, many minds to whom this truth was apparent so
+early as the age of Henry VIII. And it may not be
+unreasonable to suppose that one of the advantages which
+the chief found in exchanging this patriarchal position
+for a feudal Earldom would be the greater degree of
+independence on the will of the tribe, which the new
+system conferred on him. With the mass of the clansmen,
+however, for the very same reason, the change was certain
+to be unpopular, if not odious. But a still more serious
+change--a change of religion--was evidently contemplated
+by those Earls who accepted the property of the confiscated
+religious houses. The receiver of such estates could hardly
+pretend to belong to the ancient religion of the country.
+
+It is impossible to understand Irish history from the
+reign of Henry VIII. till the fall of James II.--nearly
+two hundred years--without constantly keeping in mind
+the dilemma of the chiefs and lords between the requirements
+of the English Court on the one hand and of the native
+clans on the other. Expected to obey and to administer
+conflicting laws, to personate two characters, to speak
+two languages, to uphold the old, yet to patronize the
+new order of things; distrusted at Court if they inclined
+to the people, detested by the people if they leaned
+towards the Court--a more difficult situation can hardly
+be conceived. Their perilous circumstances brought forth
+a new species of Irish character in the Chieftain-Earls
+of the Tudor and Stuart times. Not less given to war than
+their forefathers, they were now compelled to study the
+politician's part, even more than the soldier's. Brought
+personally in contact with powerful Sovereigns, or pitted
+at home against the Sydneys, Mountjoys, Chichesters, and
+Straffords, the lessons of Bacon and Machiavelli found
+apt scholars in the halls of Dunmanway and Dungannon.
+The multitude, in the meanwhile, saw only the broad fact
+that the Chief had bowed his neck to the hated Saxon
+yoke, and had promised, or would be by and by compelled,
+to introduce foreign garrisons, foreign judges, and
+foreign laws, amongst the sons of the Gael. Very early
+they perceived this; on the adhesion of O'Donnell to the
+Act of Election, a part of his clansmen, under the lead
+of his own son, rose up against his authority. A rival
+McWilliam was at once chosen to the new Earl of
+Clanrickarde, in the West. Con O'Neil, the first of his
+race who had accepted an English title, was imprisoned
+by his son, John the Proud, and died of grief during his
+confinement. O'Brien found, on his return from Greenwich,
+half his territory in revolt; and this was the general
+experience of all Henry's electors. Yet such was the
+power of the new Sovereign that, we are told in our
+Annals, at the year 1547--the year of Henry's death
+--"no one dared give food or protection" to those few
+patriotic chiefs who still held obstinately out against
+the election of 1541.
+
+The creation of a new peerage coincided in point of time
+with the first unconditional nomination of new Bishops
+by the Crown. The Plantagenet Kings, in common with all
+feudal Princes, had always claimed the right of investing
+Bishops with their temporalities and legal dignities;
+while, at the same time, they recognized in the See of
+Rome the seat and centre of Apostolic authority. But
+Henry, excommunicated and incorrigible, had procured from
+the Parliament of "the Pale," three years before the Act
+of Election, the formal recognition of his spiritual
+supremacy, under which he proceeded, as often as he had
+an opportunity, to promote candidates for the episcopacy
+to vacant sees. Between 1537 and 1547, thirteen or fourteen
+such vacancies having occurred, he nominated to the
+succession whenever the diocese was actually within his
+power. In this way the Sees of Dublin, Kildare, Ferns,
+Ardagh, Emly, Tuam and Killaloe were filled up; while
+the vacancies which occurred about the same period in
+Armagh, Clogher, Clonmacnoise, Clonfert, Kilmore, and
+Down and Conor were supplied from Rome. Many of the latter
+were allowed to take possession of their temporalities
+--so far as they were within English power--by taking an
+oath of allegiance, specially drawn for them. Others,
+when prevented from so doing by the penalties of
+_praemunire_, delegated their authority to Vicars General,
+who contrived to elude the provisions of the statute. On
+the other hand, several of the King's Bishops, excluded
+by popular hostility from the nominal sees, never resided
+upon them; some of them spent their lives in Dublin, and
+others were entertained as suffragans by Bishops in
+England.
+
+In March, 1543, Primate Cromer, who had so resolutely
+led the early opposition to Archbishop Browne, died,
+whereupon Pope Paul III. appointed Robert Waucop, a
+Scotsman (by some writers called _Venantius_), to the
+See of Armagh. This remarkable man, though afflicted
+with blindness from his youth upwards, was a doctor of
+the Sorbonne, and one of the most distinguished Prelates
+of his age. He introduced the first Jesuit Fathers into
+Ireland, and to him is attributed the establishment of
+that intimate intercourse between the Ulster Princes and
+the See of Rome, which characterized the latter half of
+the century. He assisted at the Council of Trent from
+1545 to 1547, was subsequently employed as Legate in
+Germany, and died abroad during the reign of Edward VI.
+Simultaneously with the appointment of Primate Waucop,
+Henry VIII. had nominated to the same dignity George
+Dowdal, a native of Louth, formerly Prior of the crutched
+friars at Ardee, in that county. Though Dowdal accepted
+the nomination, he did so without acknowledging the King's
+supremacy in spirituals. On the contrary he remained
+attached to the Holy See, and held his claims in abeyance,
+during the lifetime of Waucop. On the death of the latter,
+he assumed his rank, but was obliged to fly into exile,
+during the reign of Edward. On the accession of Mary he
+was recalled from his place of banishment in Brabant,
+and his first official act on returning home was to
+proclaim a Jubilee for the public restoration of the
+Catholic worship.
+
+The King's Bishops during the last years of Henry, and
+the brief reign of Edward, were, besides Browne of Dublin,
+Edward Staples, Bishop of Meath, Matthew Saunders and
+Robert Travers, successively Bishops of Leighlin, William
+Miagh and Thomas Lancaster, successively Bishops of
+Kildare, and John Bale, Bishop of Ossory--all Englishmen.
+The only native names, before the reign of Elizabeth,
+which we find associated in any sense with the
+"reformation," are John Coyn, or Quin, Bishop of Limerick,
+and Dominick Tirrey, Bishop of Cork and Cloyne. Dr. Quin
+was promoted to the See in 1522, and resigned his charge
+in the year 1551. He is called a "favourer" of the new
+doctrines, but it is not stated how far he went in their
+support. His successor, Dr. William Casey, was one of
+the six Bishops deprived by Queen Mary on her accession
+to the throne. As Bishop Tirrey is not of the
+number--although he lived till the third year of Mary's
+reign--we may conclude that he became reconciled to the
+Holy See.
+
+The native population became, before Henry's death, fully
+aroused to the nature of the new doctrines, to which at
+first they had paid so little attention. The Commission
+issued in 1539 to Archbishop Browne and others for the
+destruction of images and relics, and the prevention of
+pilgrimages, as well as the ordering of English prayers
+as a substitute for the Mass, brought home to all minds
+the sweeping character of the change. Our native Annals
+record the breaking out of the English schism from the
+year 1537, though its formal introduction into Ireland
+may, perhaps, be more accurately dated from the issuing
+of the Ecclesiastical Commission of 1539. In their eyes
+it was the offspring of "pride, vain-glory, avarice, and
+lust," and its first manifestations were well calculated
+to make it for ever odious on Irish soil. "They destroyed
+the religious orders," exclaimed the Four Masters! "They
+broke down the monasteries, and sold their roofs and
+bells, from Aran of the Saints to the Iccian Sea!" "They
+burned the images, shrines, and relics of the Saints;
+they destroyed the Statue of our Lady of Trim, and the
+Staff of Jesus, which had been in the hand of St. Patrick!"
+Such were the works of that Commission as seen by the
+eyes of Catholics, natives of the soil. The Commissioners
+themselves, however, gloried in their work, and pointed
+with complacency to their success. The "innumerable
+images" which adorned the churches were dashed to pieces;
+the ornaments of shrines and altars, when not secreted
+in time, were torn from their places, and beaten into
+shapeless masses of metal. This harvest yielded in the
+first year nearly 3,000 pounds, on an inventory, wherein
+we find 1,000 lbs. weight of wax, manufactured into
+candles and tapers, valued at 20 pounds. Such was the
+return made to the revenue; what share of the spoil was
+appropriated by the agents employed may never be known.
+It would be absurd, however, to expect a scrupulous regard
+to honesty in men engaged in the work of sacrilege! And
+this work, it must be added, was carried on in the face
+of the stipulation entered into with the Parliament of
+1541, that "the Church of Ireland shall be free, and
+enjoy all its accustomed privileges."
+
+The death of Henry, in January, 1547, found the Reformation
+in Ireland at the stage just described. But though all
+attempts to diffuse a general recognition of his spiritual
+power had failed, his reign will ever be memorable as
+the epoch of the union of the English and Irish Crowns.
+Before closing the present Book of our History, in which
+we have endeavoured to account for that great fact, and
+to trace the progress of the negotiations which led to
+its accomplishment, we must briefly review the relations
+existing between the Kings of England and the Irish
+nation, from Henry II. to Henry VIII.
+
+If we are to receive a statement of considerable antiquity,
+a memorable compromise effected at the Council of Constance,
+between the ambassadors of France and England, as to who
+should take precedence, turned mainly on this very point.
+The French monarchy was then at its lowest, the English
+at its highest pitch, for Charles VI. was but a nominal
+sovereign of France, while the conqueror of Agincourt
+sat on the throne of England. Yet in the first assembly
+of the Prelates and Princes of Europe, we are told that
+the ambassadors of France raised a question of the right
+of the English envoys to be received as representing a
+nation, seeing that they had been conquered not only by
+the Romans, but by the Saxons. Their argument further
+was, that, "as the Saxons were tributaries to the German
+Empire, and never governed by native sovereigns, they
+[the English] should take place as a branch only of the
+German empire, and not as a free nation. For," argued
+the French, "it is evident from Albertus Magnus and
+Bartholomew Glanville, that the world is divided into
+three parts, Europe, Asia, and Africa;--that Europe is
+divided into four empires, the Roman, Constantinopolitan,
+the Irish, and the Spanish." "The English advocates," we
+are told, "admitting the force of these allegations,
+claimed their precedency and rank from Henry's being
+monarch of Ireland, and it was accordingly granted."
+
+If this often-told anecdote is of any historical value,
+it only shows the ignorance of the representatives of
+France in yielding their pretensions on so poor a quibble.
+Neither Henry V., nor any other English sovereign before
+him, had laid claim to the title of "Monarch of Ireland."
+The indolence or ignorance of modern writers has led
+them, it is true, to adopt the whole series of the
+Plantagenet Kings as sovereigns of Ireland--to set up in
+history a dynasty which never existed for us; to leave
+out of their accounts of a monarchical people all question
+of their crown; and to pass over the election of 1541
+without adequate, or any inquiry.
+
+It is certain that neither Henry II., nor Richard I.,
+ever used in any written instrument, or graven sign, the
+style of king, or even lord of Ireland; though in the
+Parliament held at Oxford in the year 1185, Henry conferred
+on his youngest son, John _lack-land_, a title which he
+did not himself possess, and John is thenceforth known
+in English history as "Lord of Ireland." This honour was
+not, however, of the exclusive nature of sovereignty,
+else John could hardly have borne it during the lifetime
+of his father and brother. And although we read that
+Cardinal Octavian was sent into England by Pope Urban
+III., authorized to consecrate John, _King_ of Ireland,
+no such consecration took place, nor was the lordship
+looked upon, at any period, as other than a creation of
+the royal power of England existing in Ireland, which
+could be recalled, transferred, or alienated, without
+detriment to the prerogative of the King.
+
+Neither had this original view of the relations existing
+between England and Ireland undergone any change at the
+time of the Council of Constance. Of this we have a
+curious illustration in the style employed by the Queen
+Dowager of Henry V., who, during the minority of her son,
+granted charters, as "Queen of England and France, and
+lady of Ireland." The use of different crowns in the
+coronations of all the Tudors subsequent to Henry VIII.
+shows plainly how the recent origin of their secondary
+title was understood and acknowledged during the remainder
+of the sixteenth century. Nothing of the kind was practised
+at the coronation of the Plantagenet Princes, nor were
+the arms of Ireland quartered with those of England
+previous to the period we have described--the memorable
+year, 1541.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK VIII.
+
+THE ERA OF THE REFORMATION.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+EVENTS OF THE REIGN OF EDWARD SIXTH.
+
+On the last day of January, 1547, Edward, son of Henry,
+by Lady Jane Seymour, was crowned by the title of Edward
+VI. He was then only nine years old, and was destined
+to wear the crown but for six years and a few months. No
+Irish Parliament was convened during his reign, but the
+Reformation was pushed on with great vigour, at first
+under the patronage of the Protector, his uncle, and
+subsequently of that uncle's rival, the Duke of
+Northumberland. Archbishop Cranmer suffered the zeal of
+neither of these statesmen to flag for want of stimulus,
+and the Lord Deputy Saint Leger, judging from the cause
+of his disgrace in the next reign, approved himself a
+willing assistant in the work.
+
+The Irish Privy Council, which exercised all the powers
+of government during this short reign, was composed
+exclusively of partizans of the Reformation. Besides
+Archbishop Browne and Staples, Bishop of Meath, its
+members were the Chancellor, Read, and the Treasurer,
+Brabazon, both English, with the Judges Aylmer, Luttrel,
+Bath, Cusack, and Howth--all proselytes, at least in
+form, to the new opinions. The Earl of Ormond, with
+sixteen of his household, having been poisoned at a
+banquet in Ely House, London, in October before Henry's
+death, the influence of that great house was wielded
+during the minority of his successor by Sir Francis Bryan,
+an English adventurer, who married the widowed countess.
+This lady being, moreover, daughter and heir general to
+James, Earl of Desmond, brought Bryan powerful connections
+in the South, which he was not slow to turn to a politic
+account. His ambition aimed at nothing less than the
+supreme authority, military and civil; but when at length
+he attained the summit of his hopes, he only lived to
+enjoy them a few months.
+
+To enable the Deputy and Council to carry out the work
+they had begun, an additional military force was felt to
+be necessary, and Sir Edward Bellingham was sent over,
+soon after Edward's accession, with a detachment of six
+hundred horse, four hundred foot, and the title of Captain
+General. This able officer, in conjunction with Sir
+Francis Bryan, who appears to have been everywhere,
+overran Offally, Leix, Ely and West-Meath, sending the
+chiefs of the two former districts as prisoners to London,
+and making advantageous terms with those of the latter.
+He was, however, supplanted in the third year of Edward
+by Bryan, who held successively the rank of Marshal of
+Ireland and Lord Deputy. To the latter office he was
+chosen on an emergency, by the Council, in December,
+1549, but died at Clonmel, on an expedition against the
+O'Carrolls, in the following February. His successes and
+those of Bellingham hastened the reduction of Leix and
+Offally into shire ground in the following reign.
+
+The total military force at the disposal of Edward's
+commanders was probably never less than 10,000 effective
+men. By the aid of their abundant artillery, they were
+enabled to take many strong places hitherto deemed
+impregnable to assault. The mounted men and infantry,
+were, as yet, but partially armed with musquetons, or
+firelocks--for the spear and the bow still found advocates
+among military men. The spearmen or lancers were chiefly
+recruited on the marches of Northumberland from the hardy
+race of border warriors; the mounted bowmen or hobilers
+were generally natives of Chester or North Wales. Between
+these new comers and the native Anglo-Irish troops many
+contentions arose from time to time, but in the presence
+of the common foe these bickerings were completely
+forgotten. The townsmen of Waterford marched promptly at
+a call, under their standard of the three galleys, and
+those of Dublin as cheerfully turned out under the
+well-known banner, decorated with three flaming towers.
+
+The _personnel_ of the administration, in the six years
+of Edward, was continually undergoing change. Bellingham,
+who succeeded St. Leger, was supplanted by Bryan, on
+whose death, St. Leger was reappointed. After another
+year Sir James Croft was sent over to replace St. Leger,
+and continued to fill the office until the accession of
+Queen Mary. But whoever rose or fell to the first rank
+in civil affairs, the Privy Council remained exclusively
+Protestant, and the work of innovation was not suffered
+to languish. A manuscript account, attributed to Adam
+Loftus, Browne's successor, assigns the year 1549 as the
+date when "the Mass was put down," in Dublin, "and divine
+service was celebrated in English." Bishop Mant, the
+historian of the Established Church in Ireland, does not
+find any account of such an alteration, nor does the
+statement appear to him consistent with subsequent facts
+of this reign. We observe, also, that in 1550, Arthur
+Magennis, the Pope's Bishop of Dromore, was allowed by
+the government to enter on possession of his temporalities
+after taking an oath of allegiance, while King's Bishops
+were appointed in that and the next two years to the
+vacant Sees of Kildare, Leighlin, Ossory, and Limerick.
+A vacancy having occurred in the See of Cashel, in 1551,
+it was unaccountably left vacant, as far as the Crown
+was concerned, during the remainder of this reign, while
+a similar vacancy in Armagh was filled, at least in name,
+by the appointment of Dr. Hugh Goodacre, chaplain to the
+Bishop of Winchester, and a favourite preacher with the
+Princess Elizabeth. This Prelate was consecrated, according
+to a new form, in Christ Church, Dublin, on 2nd of
+February, 1523, together with his countryman, John Bale,
+Bishop of Ossory. The officiating Prelates were Browne,
+Staples, and Lancaster of Kildare--all English. The Irish
+Establishment, however, does not at all times rest its
+argument for the validity of its episcopal Order upon
+these consecrations. Most of their writers lay claim to
+the Apostolic succession, through Adam Loftus, consecrated
+in England, according to the ancient rite, by Hugh Curwen,
+an Archbishop in communion with the See of Rome, at the
+time of his elevation to the episcopacy.
+
+In February, 1551, Sir Anthony St. Leger received the
+King's commands to cause the Scriptures translated into
+the English tongue, and the Liturgy and Prayers of the
+Church, also translated into English, to be read in all
+the churches of Ireland. To render these instructions
+effective, the Deputy summoned a convocation of the
+Archbishops, Bishops, and Clergy, to meet in Dublin on
+the 1st of March, 1551. In this meeting--the first of
+two in which the defenders of the old and of the new
+religion met face to face--the Catholic party was led by
+the intrepid Dowdal, Archbishop of Armagh, and the
+Reformers by Archbishop Browne. The Deputy, who, like
+most laymen of that age, had a strong theological turn,
+also took an active part in the discussion. Finally
+delivering the royal order to Browne, the latter accepted
+it in a set form of words, without reservation; the
+Anglican Bishops of Meath, Kildare, and Leighlin, and
+Coyne, Bishop of Limerick, adhering to his act; Primate
+Dowdal, with the other Bishops, having previously retired
+from the Conference. On Easter day following, the English
+service was celebrated for the first tune in Christ
+Church, Dublin, the Deputy, the Archbishop, and the Mayor
+of the city assisting. Browne preached from the text:
+"Open mine eyes that I may see the wonders of the law"
+--a sermon chiefly remarkable for its fierce invective
+against the new Order of Jesuits.
+
+Primate Dowdal retired from the Castle Conference to
+Saint Mary's Abbey, on the north side of the Liffey,
+where he continued while these things were taking place
+in the city proper. The new Lord Deputy, Sir James
+Crofts, on his arrival in May, addressed himself to the
+Primate, to bring about, if possible, an accommodation
+between the Prelates. Fearing, as he said, an "order ere
+long to alter church matters, as well in offices as in
+ceremonies," the new Deputy urged another Conference,
+which was accordingly held at the Primate's lodgings, on
+the 16th of June. At this meeting Browne does not seem
+to have been present, the argument on the side of the
+Reformers being maintained by Staples. The points discussed
+were chiefly the essential character of the Holy Sacrifice
+of the Mass, and the invocation of Saints. The tone
+observed on both sides was full of high-bred courtesy.
+The letter of the Sacred Scriptures and the authority of
+Erasmus in Church History were chiefly relied upon by
+Staples; the common consent and usage of all Christendom,
+the primacy of Saint Peter, and the binding nature of
+the oath taken by Bishops at their consecration, were
+pointed out by the Primate. The disputants parted, with
+expressions of deep regret that they could come to no
+agreement; but the Primacy was soon afterwards transferred
+to Dublin, by order of the Privy Council, and Dowdal fled
+for refuge into Brabant. The Roman Catholic and the
+Anglican Episcopacy have never since met in oral controversy
+on Irish ground, though many of the second order of the
+clergy in both communions have, from time to time, been
+permitted by their superiors to engage in such discussions.
+
+Whatever obstacles they encountered within the Church
+itself, the propagation of the new religion was not
+confined to moral means, nor was the spirit of opposition
+at all tunes restricted to mere argument. Bishop Bale
+having begun at Kilkenny to pull down the revered images
+of the Saints, and to overturn the Market Cross, was set
+upon by the mob, five of his servants, or guard, were
+slain, and himself narrowly escaped with his life by
+barricading himself in his palace. The garrisons in the
+neighbourhood of the ancient seats of ecclesiastical
+power and munificence were authorized to plunder their
+sanctuaries and storehouses. The garrison of Down sacked
+the celebrated shrines and tomb of Patrick, Bridget, and
+Columbkill; the garrison of Carrickfergus ravaged Rathlin
+Island and attacked Derry, from which, however, they were
+repulsed with severe loss by John the Proud. But the most
+lamentable scene of spoliation, and that which excited
+the profoundest emotions of pity and anger in the public
+mind, was the violation of the churches of St. Kieran--the
+renowned Clonmacnoise. This city of schools had cast its
+cross-crowned shade upon the gentle current of the Upper
+Shannon for a thousand years. Danish fury, civil storm,
+and Norman hostility had passed over it, leaving traces
+of their power in the midst of the evidences of its
+recuperation. The great Church to which pilgrims flocked
+from every tribe of Erin, on the 9th of September--St.
+Kieran's Day; the numerous chapels erected by the chiefs
+of all the neighbouring clans; the halls, hospitals,
+book-houses, nunneries, cemeteries, granaries-all still
+stood, awaiting from Christian hands the last fatal blow.
+In the neighbouring town of Athlone--seven or eight miles
+distant--the Treasurer, Brabazon, had lately erected a
+strong "Court" or Castle, from which, in the year 1552,
+the garrison sallied forth to attack "the place of the
+sons of the nobles,"--which is the meaning of the name.
+In executing this task they exhibited a fury surpassing
+that of Turgesius and his Danes. The pictured glass was
+torn from the window frames, and the revered images from
+their niches; altars were overthrown; sacred vessels
+polluted. "They left not," say the Four Masters, "a book
+or a gem," nor anything to show what Clonmacnoise had
+been, save the bare walls of the temples, the mighty
+shaft of the round tower, and the monuments in the
+cemeteries, with their inscriptions in Irish, in Hebrew,
+and in Latin. The Shannon re-echoed with their profane
+songs and laughter, as laden with chalices and crucifixes,
+brandishing croziers, and flaunting vestments in the air,
+their barges returned to the walls of Athlone.
+
+In all the Gaelic speaking regions of Ireland, the new
+religion now began to be known by those fruits which it
+had so abundantly produced. Though the southern and
+midland districts had not yet recovered from the exhaustion
+consequent upon the suppression of the Geraldine league
+and the abortive insurrection of Silken Thomas, the
+northern tribes were still unbroken and undismayed. They
+had deputed George Paris, a kinsman of the Kildare
+Fitzgeralds, as their agent to the French King, in the
+latter days of Henry VIII., and had received two ambassadors
+on his behalf at Donegal and Dungannon. These ambassadors,
+the Baron de Forquevaux, and the Sieur de Montluc, who
+subsequently became Bishop of Valence, crossing over from
+the west of Scotland, entered into a league, offensive
+and defensive, with "the princes" of Tyrconnell and
+Tyrowen, by which the latter bound themselves to recognize,
+on certain conditions, "whoever was King of France as
+King of Ireland likewise." This alliance, though prolonged
+into the reign of Edward, led to nothing definitive, and
+we shall see in the next reign how the hopes then turned
+towards France were naturally transferred to Spain.
+
+The only native name which rises into historic importance
+at this period is that of Shane, or John O'Neil, "the
+Proud." He was the legitimate son of that Con O'Neil who
+had been girt with the Earl's baldric by the hands of
+Henry VIII. His father had procured at the same time for
+an illegitimate son, Ferodach, or Mathew, of Dundalk,
+the title of Baron of Dungannon, with the reversion of
+the Earldom. When, however, John the Proud came of age,
+he centred upon himself the hopes of his clansmen, deposed
+his father, subdued the Baron, and assumed the title of
+O'Neil. In 1552 he defeated the efforts of Sir William
+Brabazon to fortify Belfast, and delivered Derry from
+its plunderers. From that time till his tragical death,
+in the ninth year of Queen Elizabeth, he stood
+unquestionably the first man of his race, both in lineage
+and action.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+EVENTS OF THE REIGN OF PHILIP AND MARY.
+
+The death of Edward VI. and the accession of the lady
+Mary were known in Dublin by the middle of July, 1553,
+and soon spread all over the kingdom. On the 20th of that
+month, the form of proclamation was received from London,
+in which the new Queen was forbidden to be styled "head
+of the church," and this was quickly followed by another
+ordinance, authorizing all who would to publicly attend
+Mass, but not compelling thereto any who were unwilling.
+A curious legal difficulty existed in relation to Mary's
+title to the Crown of Ireland. By the Irish Statute, 38.
+Hen. VIII., the Irish crown was entailed by name on the
+Lady Elizabeth, and that act had not been repealed. It
+was, however, held to have been superseded by the English
+Statute, 35. Hen. VIII., which followed the election of
+1541, and declared the Crown of Ireland "united and knit
+to the Imperial Crown of the Realm of England." Read in
+the light of the latter statute, the Irish sovereignty
+might be regarded a mere appurtenance of that of England,
+but Mary did not so consider it. At her coronation, a
+separate crown was used for Ireland, nor did she feel
+assured of the validity of her claim to wear it till she
+had obtained a formal dispensation to that effect from
+the Pope.
+
+The intelligence of the new Queen's accession, and the
+public restoration of the old religion, diffused a general
+joy throughout Ireland. Festivals and pageants were held
+in the streets, and eloquent sermons poured from all the
+pulpits. Archbishop Dowdal was called from exile, and
+the Primacy was restored to Armagh. Sir Anthony St. Leger,
+his ancient antagonist, had now conformed to the Court
+fashion, and was sent over to direct the establishment
+of that religion which he had been so many years engaged
+in pulling down. In 1554, Browne, Staples, Lancaster,
+and Travers, were formally deprived of their sees; Bale
+and Casey of Limerick fled beyond seas, without awaiting
+judgment. Married clergymen were invariably silenced,
+and the children of Browne were declared by statute
+illegitimate.
+
+What, however, gratified the public even more than these
+retributions was the liberation of the aged Chief of
+Offally from the Tower of London, at the earnest
+supplication of his heroic daughter, Margaret, who found
+her way to the Queen's presence to beg that boon; and
+the simultaneous restoration of the Earldom of Kildare,
+in the person of that Gerald, who had been so young a
+fugitive among the glens of Muskerry and Donegal, and
+had since undergone so many continental adventures. With
+O'Conor and young Gerald, the heirs of the houses of
+Ormond and of Upper Ossory were also allowed to return
+to their homes, to the great delight of the southern half
+of the kingdom. The subsequent marriage of Mary with
+Philip II. of Spain gave an additional security to the
+Irish Catholics for the future freedom of their religion.
+
+Great as was the change in this respect, it is not to be
+inferred that the national relations of Ireland and
+England were materially affected by such a change of
+sovereign. The maxims of conquest were not to be abandoned
+at the dictates of religion. The supreme power continued
+to be entrusted only to Englishmen; while the same
+Parliament (3rd and 4th Philip and Mary) which abolished
+the title of head of the Church, and restored the Roman
+jurisdiction in matters spiritual, divided Leix and
+Offally, Glenmalier and Slewmargy, into shire ground,
+subject to English law, under the name of King's and
+Queen's County. The new forts of Maryborough and
+Philipstown, as well as the county names, served to teach
+the people of Leinster that the work of conquest could
+be as industriously prosecuted by Catholic as by Protestant
+rulers. Nor were these forts established and maintained
+without many a struggle. St. Leger, and his still abler
+successor, the Earl of Sussex, and the new Lord Treasurer,
+Sir Henry Sidney, were forced to lead many an expedition
+to the relief of those garrisons, and the dispersion of
+their assailants. It was not in Irish human nature to
+submit to the constant pressure of a foreign power without
+seizing every possible opportunity for its expulsion.
+
+The new principle of primogeniture introduced at the
+commutation of chieftainries into earldoms was productive
+in this reign of much commotion and bloodshed. The seniors
+of the O'Briens resisted its establishment in Thomond,
+on the death of the first Earl; Calvagh O'Donnell took
+arms against his father, to defeat its introduction into
+Tyrconnell; John the Proud, as we have seen in the reign
+of Edward, had been one of its earliest opponents in
+Ulster. Being accused in the last year of Queen Mary of
+procuring the death of his illegitimate brother, the
+Baron of Dungannon, in order to remove him from his path,
+he was summoned to account for those circumstances before
+Sir Henry Sidney, then acting as Lord Justice. His plea
+has been preserved to us, and no doubt represents the
+prevailing opinion of the Gaelic-speaking population
+towards the new system. He answered, "that the surrender
+which his father had made to Henry VIII., and the
+restoration which Henry made to his father again were of
+no force; inasmuch as his father had no right to the
+lands which he surrendered to the King, except during
+his own life; that he (John) himself was the O'Neil by
+the law of Tanistry, and by popular election; and that
+he assumed no superiority over the chieftains of the
+North except what belonged to his ancestors." To these
+views he adhered to the last, accepting no English honours,
+though quite willing to live at peace with English
+sovereigns. When the title of Earl of Tyrone was revived,
+it was in favour of the son of the Baron, the celebrated
+Hugh O'Neil, the ally of Spain, and the most formidable
+antagonist of Queen Elizabeth.
+
+In the Irish Parliament already referred to (3rd and 4th
+Philip and Mary) an Act was passed declaring it a felony
+to introduce armed Scotchmen into Ireland, or to intermarry
+with them without a license under the great seal. This
+statute was directed against those multitudes of Islesmen
+and Highlanders who annually crossed the narrow strait
+which separates Antrim from Argyle to harass the English
+garrisons alongshore, or to enlist as auxiliaries in
+Irish quarrels. In 1556, under one of their principal
+leaders, James, son of Conal, they laid siege to
+Carrickfergus and occupied Lord Sussex some six weeks in
+the glens of Antrim. Their leader finally entered into
+conditions, the nature of which may be inferred from the
+fact that he received the honour of knighthood on their
+acceptance. John O'Neil had usually in his service a
+number of these mercenary troops, from among whom he
+selected sixty body-guards, the same number supplied by
+his own clan. In his first attempt to subject Tyrconnell
+to his supremacy in 1557, his camp near Raphoe was
+surprised at night by Calvagh O'Donnell, and his native
+and foreign guards were put to the sword, while he himself
+barely escaped by swimming the Mourne and the Finn.
+O'Donnell had frequently employed a similar force, in
+his own defence; and we read of the Lord of Clanrickarde
+driving back a host of them engaged in the service of
+his rivals, from the banks of the Moy, in 1558.
+
+Although the memory of Queen Mary has been held up to
+execration during three centuries as a bloody-minded and
+malignant persecutor of all who differed from her in
+religion, it is certain that in Ireland, where, if
+anywhere, the Protestant. minority might have been
+extinguished by such severities as are imputed to her,
+no persecution for conscience' sake took place. Married
+Bishops were deprived, and married priests were silenced,
+but beyond this no coercion was employed. It has been
+said there was not time to bring the machinery to bear;
+but surely if there was time to do so in England, within
+the space of five years, there was tune in Ireland also.
+The consoling truth--honourable to human nature and to
+Christian charity, is--that many families out of England,
+apprehending danger in their own country, sought and
+found a refuge from their fears in the western island.
+The families of Agar, Ellis, and Harvey, are descended
+from emigrants, who were accompanied from Cheshire by a
+clergyman of their own choice, whose ministrations they
+freely enjoyed during the remainder of this reign at
+Dublin. The story about Dr. Cole having been despatched
+to Ireland with a commission to punish heretics, and,
+losing it on the way, is unworthy of serious notice. If
+there had been any such determination formed there was
+ample time to put it into execution between 1553 and 1558.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ACCESSION OF QUEEN ELIZABETH--PARLIAMENT OF 1560--
+THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY--CAREER AND DEATH OF
+JOHN O'NEIL "THE PROUD."
+
+The daughter of Anna Boleyn was promptly proclaimed Queen
+the same day on which Mary died--the 17th of November,
+1558. Elizabeth was then in her 26th year, proud of her
+beauty, and confident in her abilities. Her great capacity
+had been cultivated by the best masters of the age, and
+the best of all ages, early adversity. Her vices were
+hereditary in her blood, but her genius for government
+so far surpassed any of her immediate predecessors as to
+throw her vices into the shade. During the forty-four
+years in which she wielded the English sceptre, many of
+the most stirring occurrences of our history took place;
+it could hardly have fallen out otherwise, under a
+sovereign of so much vigour, having the command of such
+immense resources.
+
+On the news of Mary's death reaching Ireland, the Lord
+Deputy Sussex returned to England, and Sir Henry Sidney,
+the Treasurer, was appointed his successor _ad interim_.
+As in England, so in Ireland, though for somewhat different
+reasons, the first months of the new reign were marked
+by a conciliating and temporizing policy. Elizabeth, who
+had not assumed the title of "Head of the Church,"
+continued to hear Mass for several months after her
+accession. At her coronation she had a High Mass sung,
+accompanied, it is true, by a Calvinistic sermon. Before
+proceeding with the work of "reformation," inaugurated
+by her father, and arrested by her sister, she proceeded
+cautiously to establish herself, and her Irish deputy
+followed in the same careful line of conduct. Having
+first made a menacing demonstration against John the
+Proud, he entered into friendly correspondence with him,
+and finally ended the campaign by standing godfather to
+one of his children. This relation of gossip among the
+old Irish was no mere matter of ceremony, but involved
+obligations lasting as life, and sacred as the ties of
+kindred blood. By seeking such a sponsor, O'Neil placed
+himself in Sidney's power, rather than Sidney in his,
+since the two men must have felt very differently bound
+by the connection into which they had entered. As an
+evidence of the Imperial policy of the moment, the incident
+is instructive.
+
+Bound the personal history of this splendid, but by no
+means stainless Ulster Prince, the events of the first
+nine years of Elizabeth's reign over Ireland naturally
+group themselves. Whether at her Majesty's council-board,
+or among the Scottish islands, or in hall or hut at home,
+the attention of all manner of men interested in Ireland
+was fixed upon the movements of John the Proud. In tracing
+his career, we therefore naturally gather all, or nearly
+all, the threads of the national story, during the first
+ten years of Queen Mary's successor.
+
+In the second year of Elizabeth, Lord Deputy Sussex, who
+returned fully possessed of her Majesty's views, summoned
+the Parliament to meet in Dublin on the 12th day of
+January, 1560. It is to be observed, however, that though
+the union of the crowns was now of twenty years' standing,
+the writs were not issued to the nation at large, but
+only to the ten counties of Dublin, Meath, Louth,
+West-Meath, Kildare, Carlow, Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford,
+and Tipperary, with their boroughs. The published
+instructions of Lord Sussex were "to make such statutes
+(concerning religion) as were made in England, _mutatis
+mutandis_." As a preparation for the legislature, St.
+Patrick's Cathedral and Christ Church were purified by
+paint; the niches of the Saints were for the second time
+emptied of their images; texts of Scripture were blazoned
+upon the walls, and the Litany was chanted in English.
+After these preparatory demonstrations, the Deputy opened
+the new Parliament, which sat for one short but busy
+month. The Acts of Mary's Parliament, re-establishing
+ecclesiastical relations with Rome, were the first thing
+repealed; then so much of the Act 33, Henry VIII., as
+related to the succession, was revived; all ecclesiastical
+jurisdiction was next declared vested in the Crown, and
+all "judges, justices, mayors, and temporal officers were
+declared bound to take tie oath of supremacy;" the penalty
+attached to the refusal of the oath, by this statute,
+being "forfeiture of office and promotion during life."
+Proceeding rapidly in the same direction, it was declared
+that commissioners in ecclesiastical causes should adjudge
+nothing as heresy which was not expressly so condemned
+by the Canonical Scriptures, the received General Councils,
+or by Parliament. The penalty of _praemunire_ was declared
+in force, and, to crown the work, the celebrated "Act of
+Uniformity" was passed. This was followed by other statutes
+for the restoration of first fruits and twentieths, and
+for the appointment of Bishops by the royal prerogative,
+or _conge d'elire_--elections by the chapter being declared
+mere "shadows of election, and derogatory to the
+prerogative." Such was, in brief, the legislation of that
+famous Parliament of ten counties--the often quoted
+statutes of the "2nd of Elizabeth." In the Act of
+Uniformity, the best known of all its statutes, there
+was this curious saving clause inserted: that whenever
+the "priest or common minister" could not speak English,
+he might still continue "to celebrate the service in the
+Latin tongue." Such other observances were to be had as
+were prescribed by the 2nd Edward VI., until her Majesty
+should "publish further ceremonies or rites." We have no
+history of the debates of this Parliament of a month,
+but there is ample reason to believe that some of these
+statutes were resisted throughout by a majority of the
+Upper House, still chiefly composed of Catholic Peers;
+that the clause saving the Latin ritual was inserted as
+a compromise with this opposition; that some of the other
+Acts were passed by stealth in the absence of many members,
+and that the Lord Deputy gave his solemn pledge the
+statute of Uniformity should be enforced, if passed. So
+severe was the struggle, and so little satisfied was
+Sussex with his success, that he hastily dissolved the
+Houses and went over personally to England to represent
+the state of feeling he had encountered. Finally, it is
+remarkable that no other Parliament was called in Ireland
+till nine years afterwards--a convincing proof of how
+unmanageable that body, even constituted as it was, had
+shown itself to be in matters affecting religion.
+
+The non-invitation of the Irish chiefs to this Parliament,
+contrary to the precedent set in Mary's reign and in
+1541, the laws enacted, and the commotion they excited
+in the minds of the clergy, were circumstances which
+could not fail to attract the attention of John O'Neil.
+Even if insensible to what transpired at Dublin, the
+indefatigable Sussex-one of the ablest of Elizabeth's
+able Court-did not suffer him long to misunderstand his
+relations to the new Queen. He might be Sidney's gossip,
+but he was not the less Elizabeth's enemy. He had been
+proclaimed "O'Neil" on the rath of Tullahoge, and had
+reigned at Dungannon, adjudging life and death. It was
+clear that two such jurisdictions as the Celtic and the
+Norman kingship could not stand long on the same soil,
+and the Ulster Prince soon perceived that he must establish
+his authority, by arms, or perish with it. We must also
+read all Irish events of the time of Elizabeth by the
+light of foreign politics; during the long reign of that
+sovereign, England was never wholly free from fears of
+invasion, and many movements which now seem inexplicable
+will be readily understood when we recollect that they
+took place under the menaces of foreign powers.
+
+The O'Neils had anciently exercised a high-handed
+superiority over all Ulster, and John the Proud was not
+the man to let his claim lie idle in any district of that
+wide-spread Province. But authority which has fallen
+into decay must be asserted only at a propitious time,
+and with the utmost tact; and here it was that Elizabeth's
+statesmen found their most effective means of attacking
+O'Neil. O'Donnell, who was his father-in-law, was studiously
+conciliated; his second wife, a lady of the Argyle family,
+received costly presents from the Queen; O'Reilly was
+created Earl of Breffni, and encouraged to resist the
+superiority to which the house of Dungannon laid claim.
+The natural consequences followed; John the Proud swept
+like a storm over the fertile hills of Cavan, and compelled
+the new-made Earl to deliver him tribute and hostages.
+O'Donnell, attended only by a few of his household, was
+seized in a religious house upon Lough Swilly, and
+subjected to every indignity which an insolent enemy
+could devise. His Countess, already alluded to, supposed
+to have been privy to this surprise of her husband, became
+the mistress of his captor and jailer, to whom she bore
+several children. What deepens the horror of this odious
+domestic tragedy is the fact that the wife of O'Neil,
+the daughter of O'Donnell, thus supplanted by her shameless
+stepmother, under her own roof, died soon afterwards of
+"horror, loathing, grief, and deep anguish," at the
+spectacle afforded by the private life of O'Neil, and
+the severities inflicted upon her wretched father. All
+the patriotic designs, and all the shining abilities of
+John the Proud, cannot abate a jot of our detestation of
+such a private life; though slandered in other respects
+as he was, by hostile pens, no evidence has been adduced
+to clear his memory of these indelible stains; nor after
+becoming acquainted with their existence can we follow
+his after career with that heartfelt sympathy with which
+the lives of purer patriots must always inspire us.
+
+The pledge given by Sussex, that the penal legislation
+of 1560 should lie a dead letter, was not long observed.
+In May of the year following its enactment, a commission
+was appointed to enforce the 2nd Elizabeth, in West-Meath;
+and in 1562 a similar commission was appointed for Meath
+and Armagh. By these commissioners Dr. William Walsh,
+Catholic Bishop of Meath, was arraigned and imprisoned
+for preaching against the new liturgy; a Prelate who
+afterwards died an exile in Spain. The primatial see was
+for the moment vacant, Archbishop Dowdal having died at
+London three months before Queen Mary-on the Feast of
+the Assumption, 1558. Terence, Dean of Armagh, who acted
+as administrator, convened a Synod of the English-speaking
+clergy of the Province in July, 1559, at Drogheda, but
+as this dignitary followed in the steps of his faithful
+predecessors, his deanery was conferred upon Dr. Adam
+Loftus, Chaplain of the Lord Lieutenant; two years
+subsequently the dignity of Archbishop of Armagh was
+conferred upon the same person. Dr. Loftus, a native of
+Yorkshire, had found favour in the eyes of the Queen at
+a public exhibition at Cambridge University; he was but
+28 years old, according to Sir James Ware, when consecrated
+Primate-but Dr. Mant thinks he must have attained at
+least the canonical age of 30. During the whole of this
+reign he continued to reside at Dublin, which see was
+early placed under his jurisdiction in lieu of the
+inaccessible Armagh. For forty years he continued one of
+the ruling spirits at Dublin, whether acting as Lord
+Chancellor, Lord Justice, Privy Councillor, or First
+Provost of Trinity College. He was a pluralist in Church
+and State, insatiable of money and honours; if he did
+not greatly assist in establishing his religion, he was
+eminently successful in enriching his family.
+
+Having subdued every hostile neighbour and openly assumed
+the high prerogative of Prince of Ulster, John the Proud
+looked around him for allies in the greater struggle
+which he foresaw could not be long postponed. Calvagh
+O'Donnell was yielded up on receiving a munificent ransom,
+but his infamous wife remained with her paramour. A
+negotiation was set on foot with the chiefs of the Highland
+and Island Scots, large numbers of whom entered into
+O'Neil's service. Emissaries were despatched to the French
+Court, where they found a favourable reception, as
+Elizabeth was known to be in league with the King of
+Navarre and the Huguenot leaders against Francis II. The
+unexpected death of the King at the close of 1560; the
+return of his youthful widow, Queen Mary, to Scotland;
+the vigorous regency of Catherine de Medicis during the
+minority of her second son; the ill-success of Elizabeth's
+arms during the campaigns of 1561-2-3, followed by the
+humiliating peace of April, 1564--these events are all
+to be borne in memory when considering the extraordinary
+relations which were maintained during the same years by
+the proud Prince of Ulster, with the still prouder Queen
+of England. The apparently contradictory tactics pursued
+by the Lord Deputy Sussex, between his return to Dublin
+in the spring of 1561, and his final recall in 1564, when
+read by the light of events which transpired at Paris,
+London, and Edinburgh, become easily intelligible. In
+the spring of the first mentioned year, it was thought
+possible to intimidate O'Neil, so Lord Sussex, with the
+Earl of Ormond as second in command, marched northwards,
+entered Armagh, and began to fortify the city, with a
+view to placing in it a powerful garrison. O'Neil, to
+remove the seat of hostilities, made an irruption into
+the plain of Meath, and menaced Dublin. The utmost
+consternation prevailed at his approach, and the Deputy,
+while continuing the fortification of Armagh, despatched
+the main body of his troops to press on the rear of the
+aggressor. By a rapid countermarch, O'Neil came up with
+this force, laden with spoils, in Louth, and after an
+obstinate engagement routed them with immense loss. On
+receipt of this intelligence, Sussex promptly abandoned
+Armagh, and returned to Dublin, while O'Neil erected his
+standard, as far South as Drogheda, within twenty miles
+of the capital. So critical at this moment was the aspect
+of affairs, that all the energies of the English interest
+were taxed to the utmost. In the autumn of the year,
+Sussex marched again from Dublin northward, having at
+his side the five powerful Earls of Kildare, Ormond,
+Desmond, Thomond, and Clanrickarde--whose mutual feuds
+had been healed or dissembled for the day. O'Neil prudently
+fell back before this powerful expedition, which found
+its way to the shores of Lough Foyle, without bringing
+him to an engagement, and without any military advantage.
+As the shortest way of getting rid of such an enemy, the
+Lord Deputy, though one of the wisest and most justly
+celebrated of Elizabeth's Counsellors, did not hesitate
+to communicate to his royal mistress the project of hiring
+an assassin, named Nele Gray, to take off the Prince of
+Ulster, but the plot, though carefully elaborated,
+miscarried. Foreign news, which probably reached him
+only on reaching the Foyle, led to a sudden change of
+tactics on the part of Sussex, and the young Lord
+Kildare--O'Neil's cousin-germain, was employed to negotiate
+a peace with the enemy they had set out to demolish.
+
+This Lord Kildare was Gerald, the eleventh Earl, the same
+whom we have spoken of as a fugitive lad, in the last
+years of Henry VIII., and as restored to his estates and
+rank by Queen Mary. Although largely indebted to his
+Catholicity for the protection he had received while
+abroad from Francis I., Charles V., the Duke of Tuscany
+and the Roman See--especially the Cardinals Pole and
+Farnese--and still more indebted to the late Catholic
+Queen for the restoration of his family honours, this
+finished courtier, now in the very midsummer of life,
+one of the handsomest and most accomplished persons of
+his time, did not hesitate to conform himself, at least
+outwardly, to the religion of the State. Shortly before
+the campaign of which we have spoken, he had been suspected
+of treasonable designs, but had pleaded his cause
+successfully with the Queen in person. From Lough Foyle,
+accompanied by the Lord Slane, the Viscount Baltinglass,
+and a suitable guard, Lord Kildare set out for John
+O'Neil's camp, where a truce was concluded between the
+parties, Lord Sussex undertaking to withdraw his wardens
+from Armagh, and O'Neil engaging himself to live in peace
+with her Majesty, and to serve "when necessary against
+her enemies." The cousins also agreed personally to visit
+the English Court the following year, and accordingly in
+January ensuing they went to England, from which they
+returned home in the latter end of May.
+
+The reception of John the Proud, at the Court of Elizabeth,
+was flattering in the extreme. The courtiers stared and
+smiled at his bareheaded body-guard, with their crocus-dyed
+vests, short jackets, and shaggy cloaks. But the
+broad-bladed battle-axe, and the sinewy arm which wielded
+it, inspired admiration for all the uncouth costume. The
+haughty indifference with which the Prince of Ulster
+treated every one about the Court, except the Queen, gave
+a keener edge to the satirical comments which were so
+freely indulged in at the expense of his style of dress.
+The wits proclaimed him "O'Neil the Great, cousin to
+Saint Patrick, friend to the Queen of England, and enemy
+to all the world besides!" O'Neil was well pleased with
+his reception by Elizabeth. When taxed upon his return
+with having made peace with her Majesty, he answered--"Yes,
+in her own bed-chamber." There were, indeed, many points
+in common in both their characters.
+
+Her Majesty, by letters patent dated at Windsor, on the
+15th of January, 1563, recognized in John the Proud "the
+name and title of O'Neil, with the like authority,
+jurisdiction, and pre-eminence, as any of his ancestors."
+And O'Neil, by articles, dated at Benburb, the 18th of
+November of the same year, reciting the letters patent
+aforesaid, bound himself and his suffragans to behave as
+"the Queen's good and faithful subjects against all
+persons whatever." Thus, so far as an English alliance
+could guarantee it, was the supremacy of this daring
+chief guaranteed in Ulster from the Boyne to the North Sea.
+
+In performing his part of the engagements thus entered
+into, O'Neil is placed in a less invidious light by
+English writers than formerly. They now describe him as
+scrupulously faithful to his word; as charitable to the
+poor, always carving and sending meat from his own table
+to the beggar at the gate before eating himself. Of the
+sincerity with which he carried out the expulsion of the
+Islesmen and Highlanders from Ulster, the result afforded
+the most conclusive evidence. It is true he had himself
+invited those bands into the Province to aid him against
+the very power with which he was now at peace, and,
+therefore, they might in their view allege duplicity and
+desertion against him. Yet enlisted as they usually were
+but for a single campaign, O'Neil expected them to depart
+as readily as they had come. But in this expectation he
+was disappointed. Their leaders, Angus, James, and Sorley
+McDonald, refused to recognize the new relations which
+had arisen, and O'Neil was, therefore, compelled to resort
+to force. He defeated the Scottish troops at Glenfesk,
+near Ballycastle, in 1564, in an action wherein Angus
+McDonald was slain, James died of his wounds, and Sorley
+was carried prisoner to Benburb. An English auxiliary
+force, under Colonel Randolph, sent round by sea, under
+pretence of co-operating against the Scots, took possession
+of Derry and began to fortify it. But their leader was
+slain in a skirmish with a party of O'Neil's people who
+disliked the fortress, and whether by accident or otherwise
+their magazine exploded, killing a great part of the
+garrison and destroying their works. The remnant took to
+their shipping and returned to Dublin.
+
+In the years 1565, '6 and '7, the internal dissensions
+of both Scotland and France, and the perturbations in
+the Netherlands giving full occupation to her foreign
+foes, Elizabeth had an interval of leisure to attend to
+this dangerous ally in Ulster. A second unsuccessful
+attempt on his life, by an assassin named Smith, was
+traced to the Lord Deputy, and a formal commission issued
+by the Queen to investigate the case. The result we know
+only by the event; Sussex was recalled, and Sir Henry
+Sidney substituted in his place! Death had lately made
+way in Tyrconnell and Fermanagh for new chiefs, and these
+leaders, more vigorous than their predecessors, were
+resolved to shake off the recently imposed and sternly
+exercised supremacy of Benburb. With these chiefs, Sidney,
+at the head of a veteran armament, cordially co-operated,
+and O'Neil's territory was now attacked simultaneously
+at three different points--in the year 1566. No considerable
+success was, however, obtained over him till the following
+year, when, at the very opening of the campaign, the
+brave O'Donnell arrested his march along the strand of
+the Lough Swilly, and the tide rising impetuously, as it
+does on that coast, on the rear of the men of Tyrone,
+struck them with terror, and completed their defeat.
+From 1,500 to 3,000 men perished by the sword or by the
+tide; John the Proud fled alone, along the river Swilly,
+and narrowly escaped by the fords of rivers and by solitary
+ways to his Castle on Lough Neagh. The Annalists of
+Donegal, who were old enough to have conversed with
+survivors of the battle, say that his mind became deranged
+by this sudden fall from the summit of prosperity to the
+depths of defeat. His next step would seem to establish
+the fact, for he at once despatched Sorley McDonald, the
+survivor of the battle of Glenfesk, to recruit a new
+auxiliary force for him amongst the Islesmen, whom he
+had so mortally offended. Then, abandoning his fortress
+upon the Blackwater, he set out with 50 guards, his
+secretary, and his mistress, the wife of the late O'Donnell,
+to meet these expected allies whom he had so fiercely
+driven off but two short years before. At Cushendun, on
+the Antrim coast, they met with all apparent cordiality,
+but an English agent, Captain Piers, or Pierce, seized
+an opportunity during the carouse which ensued to recall
+the bitter memories of Glenfesk. A dispute and a quarrel
+ensued; O'Neil fell covered with wounds, amid the exulting
+shouts of the avenging Islesmen. His gory head was
+presented to Captain Piers, who hastened with it to
+Dublin, where he received a reward of a thousand marks
+for his success. High spiked upon the towers of the
+Castle, that proud head remained and rotted; the body,
+wrapped in a Kerns saffron shirt, was interred where he
+fell, a spot familiar to all the inhabitants of the Antrim
+glens as "the grave of Shane O'Neil." And so may be said to
+close the first decade of Elizabeth's reign over Ireland!
+
+
+
+
+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 then:
+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 then--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,
+Alien, 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 Deny, 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 Deny.
+
+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 Ms 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, slaving 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 Ms
+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 hi 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 tune.
+
+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 tune 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 1816; 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, Deny, 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 tune 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
+then 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 then: 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, Deny, 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. Prom 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 _eclat_ 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.
+
+A week before James reached Dublin, Hamilton had beaten
+the rebels at Dromore, and driven them in on Coleraine,
+from before which he wrote urgently for reinforcements.
+On receipt of this communication, the Council exhibited,
+for the first time, those radical differences of opinion,
+amounting almost to factious opposition, which crippled
+all King James's movements at this period. One party
+strenuously urged that the King himself should march
+northward with such troops as could be spared; that his
+personal appearance before Derry, would immediately
+occasion the surrender of that city, and that he might
+in a few weeks, finish in person the campaign of Ulster.
+Another, at whose head was Tyrconnell, endeavoured to
+dissuade his Majesty from this course, but he at length
+decided in favour of the plan of Melfort and his friends.
+Accordingly, he marched out of Dublin, amid torrents of
+April rain, on the eighth of that month, intending to
+form a junction with Hamilton, at Strabane, and thence
+to advance to Derry. The march was a weary one through
+a country stripped bare of every sign of life, and desolate
+beyond description. A week was spent between Dublin and
+Omagh; at Omagh news of an English fleet on the Foyle
+caused the King to retrace his steps hastily to Charlemont.
+At Charlemont, however, intelligence of fresh successes
+gained by Hamilton and De Rosen, at Cladyford and Strabane,
+came to restore his confidence; he instantly set forward,
+despite the tempestuous weather, and the almost impassable
+roads, and on the eighteenth reached the Irish camp at
+Johnstown, within four or five miles of Derry.
+
+It was now four months since "the youthhood" of Derry
+had shut the Watergate against Lord Antrim's regiment,
+and established within their walls a strange sort of
+government, including eighteen clergymen and the town
+democracy. The military command remained with
+Lieutenant-Colonel Lundy, of Mountjoy's regiment, but
+the actual government of the town was vested, first, in
+"Governor" Baker, and afterwards in the Reverend George
+Walker, rector of Donaghmore, best known to us as _Governor_
+Walker. The Town Council had despatched Mr. Cairnes, and
+subsequently Captain Hamilton, founder of the Abercorn
+peerage, to England for succour, and had openly proclaimed
+William and Mary as King and Queen. Defensive works were
+added, where necessary, and on the very day of the affair
+of Cladyford, 480 barrels of gunpowder were landed from
+English ships and conveyed within the walls.
+
+As the Royalist forces concentrated towards Derry, the
+chiefs of the Protestant Association fell back before
+them, each bringing to its garrison the contribution of
+his own followers. From the valley of the Bann, over
+the rugged summits of Carntogher, from the glens of
+Donegal, and the western sea coast round to Mayo, troops
+of the fugitives hurried to the strong town of the London
+traders, as to a city of refuge. Enniskillen alone,
+resolute in its insular situation, and in a courage akin
+to that which actuated the defenders of Derry, stood as
+an outpost of the main object of attack, and delayed the
+junction of the Royalists under Mountcashel with those
+under Hamilton and De Rosen. Coleraine was abandoned.
+Captain Murray, the commander of Culmore, forced his way
+at the head of 1,500 men into Derry, contrary to the
+wishes of the vacillating and suspected Lundy, and, from
+the moment of his arrival, infused his own determined
+spirit into all ranks of the inhabitants.
+
+Those who had advised King James to present himself in
+person before the Protestant stronghold, had not acted
+altogether, upon presumption. It is certain that there
+were Jacobites, even in Derry. Lundy, the governor, either
+despairing of its defence, or undecided in his allegiance
+between James and William, had opened a correspondence
+with Hamilton and De Rosen. But the true answer of the
+brave townsmen, when the King advanced too near their
+walls, was a cannon shot which killed one of his staff,
+and the cry of "No Surrender" thundered from the walls.
+James, awakened from his self-complacent dream by this
+unexpected reception, returned to Dublin, to open his
+Parliament, leaving General Hamilton to continue the
+siege. Colonel Lundy, distrusted, overruled, and menaced,
+escaped over the walls by night, disguised as a common
+labourer, and the party of Murray, Baker, Walker, and
+Cairnes, reigned supreme.
+
+The story of the siege of Derry--of the heroic constancy
+of its defenders--of the atrocities of De Rosen and
+Galmoy--the clemency of Maumont--the forbearance of
+Hamilton--the struggles for supremacy among its
+magnates--the turbulence of the townsfolk--the joyful
+raising of the siege--all these have worthily employed
+some of the most eloquent pens in our language. The relief
+came by the breaking of the boom across the harbour's
+mouth on the last day of July; the bombardment had
+commenced on the 21st of April; the gates had been shut
+on the 7th of December. The actual siege had lasted above
+three months, and the blockade about three weeks. The
+destruction of life on both sides has never been definitely
+stated. The besieged admit a loss of 4,000 men; the
+besiegers of 6,000. The want of siege guns in the Jacobite
+camp is admitted by both parties, but, nevertheless, the
+defence of the place well deserves to be celebrated, as
+it has been by an imperial historian, "as the most
+memorable in British annals."
+
+Scarcely inferior in interest and importance to the siege
+of Derry, was the spirited defence of Enniskillen. That
+fine old town, once the seat of the noble family of
+Maguire, is naturally dyked and moated round about, by
+the waters of Lough Erne. In December, '88, it had closed
+its gates, and barricaded its causeways to keep out a
+Jacobite garrison. In March, on Lord Galmoy's approach,
+all the outlying garrisons, in Fermanagh and Cavan, had
+destroyed their posts, and gathered into Enniskillen.
+The cruel and faithless Galmoy, instead of inspiring
+terror into the united garrison, only increased their
+determination to die in the breach. So strong in position
+and numbers did they find themselves, with the absolute
+command of the lower Lough Erne to bring in their supplies,
+that in April they sent off a detachment to the relief
+of Derry, and in the months of May and June, made several
+successful forays to Ballincarrig, Omagh, and Belturbet.
+In July, provided with a fresh supply of ammunition from
+the fleet intended for the relief of Derry, they beat up
+the Duke of Berwick's quarters at Trellick, but were
+repulsed with some loss. The Duke being soon after recalled
+to join De Rosen, the siege of Enniskillen was committed
+to Lord Mountcashel, under whom, as commander of the
+cavalry, served Count Anthony Hamilton, author of the
+witty but licentious "Memoirs of Grammont," and other
+distinguished officers. Mountcashel's whole force consisted
+of three regiments of foot, two of dragoons, and some
+horse; but he expected to be joined by Colonel Sarsfield
+from Sligo, and Berwick from Derry. The besieged had
+drawn four regiments of foot from Cavan alone, and were
+probably twice that number in all; and they had, in
+Colonels Wolseley and Berry, able and energetic officers.
+The Enniskilleners did not await the attack within their
+fortress. At Lisnaskea, under Berry, they repulsed the
+advanced guard of the Jacobites under Anthony Hamilton;
+and the same day--the day of the relief of Derry--their
+whole force were brought into action with Mountcashel's
+at Newtown-Butler. To the cry of "No Popery," Wolseley
+led them into an action, the most considerable yet fought.
+The raw southern levies on the Royalist side, were routed
+by the hardy Enniskilleners long familiar with the use
+of arms, and well acquainted with every inch of the
+ground; 2,000 of them were left on the field; 400 prisoners
+were taken, among them dangerously, but not mortally
+wounded, was the Lieutenant-General himself.
+
+The month of August was a month of general rejoicing for
+the Williamites of Ulster, De Rosen and Berwick had
+retreated from Deny; Sarsfield, on his way to join
+Mountcashel, fell back to Sligo on hearing of his defeat
+at Newtown-Butler; Culmore, Coleraine, and Ballyshannon,
+were retaken and well supplied; fugitives returned
+triumphantly to their homes, in Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone,
+and Armagh. A panic created by false reports spread among
+his troops at Sligo, compelled Sarsfield to fall still
+further back to Athlone. Six months after his arrival,
+with the exception of the forts of Charlemont and
+Carrickfergus, King James no longer possessed a garrison
+in that province, which had been bestowed by his grandfather
+upon the ancestors of those who now unanimously rejected
+and resisted him.
+
+The fall of the gallant Dundee in the battle of
+Killicrankie, five days before the relief of Derry, freed
+King William from immediate anxiety on the side of
+Scotland, and enabled him to concentrate his whole
+disposable force on Ireland. On the 13th of August, an
+army of eighteen regiments of foot, and four or five of
+horse, under the Marshal Duke de Schomberg, with Count
+Solmes as second in command, sailed into Belfast Lough,
+and took possession of the town. On the 20th, the Marshal
+opened a fierce cannonade on Carrickfergus, defended by
+Colonels McCarthy More and Cormac O'Neil, while the fleet
+bombarded it from sea. After eight days' incessant
+cannonade, the garrison surrendered on honourable terms,
+and Schomberg faced southward towards Dublin. Brave, and
+long experienced, the aged Duke moved according to the
+cautious maxims of the military school in which he had
+been educated. Had he advanced rapidly on the capital,
+James must have fallen back, as De Rosen advised, on the
+line of the Shannon; but O'Regan, at Charlemont, and
+Berwick, at Newry, seemed to him obstacles so serious,
+that nearly a month was wasted in advancing from Belfast
+to Dundalk, where he entrenched himself in September,
+and went into whiter quarters. Here a terrible dysentery
+broke out among his troops, said to have been introduced
+by some soldiers from Derry, and so destructive were its
+ravages, that there were hardly left healthy men enough
+to bury the dead. Several of the French Catholics under
+his command, also, deserted to James, who, from his
+head-quarters at Drogheda, offered every inducement to
+the deserters. Others discovered in the attempt were
+tried and hanged, and others, still suspected of similar
+designs, were marched down to Carlingford, and shipped
+for England. In November, James returned from Drogheda
+to Dublin, much elated that Duke Schomberg, whose fatal
+camp at Dundalk he had in vain attempted to raise, had
+shrunk from meeting him in the field.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR--CAMPAIGN OF 1690--BATTLE OF
+THE BOYNE--ITS CONSEQUENCES--THE SIEGES OF ATHLONE
+AND LIMERICK.
+
+The armies now destined to combat for two kings on Irish
+soil were strongly marked by those distinctions of race
+and religion which add bitterness to struggles for power,
+while they present striking contrasts to the eye of the
+painter of military life and manners. King James's troops
+were chiefly Celtic and Catholic. There were four
+regiments commanded by O'Neils, two by O'Briens, two by
+O'Kellys, one each by McCarthy More, Maguire, O'More,
+O'Donnell, McMahon, and Magennis, principally recruited
+among their own clansmen. There were also the regiments
+of Sarsfield, Nugent, De Courcy, Fitzgerald, Grace, and
+Burke, chiefly Celts, in the rank and file. On the other
+hand, Schomberg led into the field the famous blue Dutch
+and white Dutch regiments; the Huguenot regiments of
+Schomberg, La Millinier, Du Cambon, and La Callimotte;
+the English regiments of Lords Devonshire, Delamere,
+Lovelace, Sir John Lanier, Colonels Langston, Villiers,
+and others; the Anglo-Irish regiments of Lords Meath,
+Roscommon, Kingston, and Drogheda; with the Ulstermen,
+under Brigadier Wolseley, Colonels Gustavus Hamilton,
+Mitchelburne, Loyd, White, St. Johns, and Tiffany. Some
+important changes had taken place on both sides during
+the winter months. D'Avaux and De Rosen had been recalled
+at James's request; Mountcashel, at the head of the first
+Franco-Irish brigade, had been exchanged for 6,000 French,
+under De Lauzan, who arrived the following March in the
+double character of general and ambassador. The report
+that William was to command in person in the next campaign,
+was, of itself, an indication pregnant with other changes
+to the minds of his adherents.
+
+Their abundant supplies of military stores from England,
+wafted from every port upon the channel, where James had
+not a keel afloat, enabled the Williamite army to take
+the initiative in the campaign of 1690. At Cavan, Brigadier
+Wolseley repulsed the Duke of Berwick, with the loss of
+200 men and some valuable officers. But the chief incident
+preceding William's arrival was the siege of Charlemont.
+This siege, which commenced apparently in the previous
+autumn, had continued during several months, till the
+garrison were literally starved out, in May. The famished
+survivors were kindly treated, by order of Schomberg,
+and their gallant and eccentric chief, O'Regan, was
+knighted by the King, for his persistent resistance. A
+month from the day on which Charlemont fell, (June 14th),
+William landed at Carrickfergus, accompanied by Prince
+George of Denmark, the Duke of Wurtemburg, the Prince of
+Hesse-Darmstadt, the second and last Duke of Ormond,
+Major-General Mackay, the Earls of Oxford, Portland,
+Scarborough, and Manchester, General Douglas, and other
+distinguished British and foreign officers. At Belfast,
+his first head-quarters, he ascertained the forces at
+his disposal to be upwards of 40,000 men, composed of "a
+strange medley of all nations"--Scandinavians, Swiss,
+Dutch, Prussians, Huguenot-French, English, Scotch,
+"Scotch-Irish," and Anglo-Irish. Perhaps the most
+extraordinary element in that strange medley was the
+Danish contingent of horse and foot. Irish tradition and
+Irish prophecy still teemed with tales of terror and
+predictions of evil at the hands of the Danes, while
+these hardy mercenaries observed, with grim satisfaction,
+that the memory of their fierce ancestors had not become
+extinct after the lapse of twenty generations. At the
+Boyne, and at Limerick, they could not conceal their
+exultation as they encamped on some of the very earthworks
+raised by men of their race seven centuries before, and
+it must be admitted they vindicated their descent, both
+by their courage and their cruelty.
+
+On the 16th of June, James, informed of William's arrival,
+marched northward at the head of 20,000 men, French and
+Irish, to meet him. On the 22nd, James was at Dundalk
+and William at Newry; as the latter advanced, the Jacobites
+retired, and finally chose their ground at the Boyne,
+resolved to hazard a battle, for the preservation of
+Dublin, and the safety of the province of Leinster.
+
+On the last day of June, the hostile forces confronted
+each other at the Boyne. The gentle, legendary river,
+wreathed in all the glory of its abundant foliage, was
+startled with the cannonade from the northern bank, which
+continued through the long summer's evening, and woke
+the early echoes of the morrow. William, strong in his
+veteran ranks, welcomed the battle; James, strong in his
+defensive position, and the goodness of his cause, awaited
+it with confidence. On the northern bank near to the ford
+of Oldbridge, William, with his chief officers, breakfasting
+on the turf, nearly lost his life from a sudden discharge
+of cannon; but he was quickly in the saddle, at all points
+reviewing his army. James, on the hill of Donore, looked
+down on his devoted defenders, through whose ranks rode
+Tyrconnell, lame and ill, the youthful Berwick, the
+adventurous Lauzan, and the beloved Sarsfield--everywhere
+received with cordial acclamations. The battle commenced
+at the ford of Oldbridge, between Sir Neil O'Neil, and
+the younger Schomberg; O'Neil fell mortally wounded, and
+the ford was forced. By this ford, William ordered his
+centre to advance under the elder Schomberg, as the hour
+of noon approached, while he himself moved with the left
+across the river, nearer to Drogheda. Lauzan, with
+Sarsfield's horse, dreading to be outflanked, had galloped
+to guard the bridge of Slane, five miles higher up the
+stream, where alone a flank movement was possible. The
+battle was now transferred from the gunners to the
+swordsmen and pikemen--from the banks to the fords and
+borders of the river, William, on the extreme left, swam
+his horse across, in imminent danger; Schomberg and
+Callimotte fell in the centre, mortally wounded. News
+was brought to William, that Dr. Walker--recently
+appointed to the See of Derry--had also fallen, "What
+brought him there?" was the natural comment of the
+soldier-prince. After seven hours' fighting the Irish
+fell back on Duleek, in good order. The assailants admitted
+five hundred killed, and as many wounded; the defenders
+were said to have lost from one thousand to fifteen
+hundred men--less than at Newtown-Butler. The carnage,
+compared with some great battles of that age, was
+inconsiderable, but the political consequences were
+momentous. The next day, the garrison of Drogheda, one
+thousand three hundred strong, surrendered; in another
+week, William was in Dublin, and James, terrified by the
+reports which had reached him, was _en route_ for France.
+It is hardly an exaggeration to say, that the fate of
+Europe was decided by the result of the battle of the
+Boyne. At Paris, at the Hague, at Vienna, at Rome, at
+Madrid, nothing was talked of but the great victory of
+the Prince of Orange over Louis and James. It is one of
+the strangest complications of history that the vanquished
+Irish Catholics seem to have been never once thought of
+by Spain, Austria, or the Pope. In the greater issues of
+the European coalition against France, their interests,
+and their very existence, were for the moment forgotten.
+
+The defeat at the Boyne, and the surrender of Dublin,
+uncovered the entire province of Leinster, Kilkenny,
+Wexford, Waterford, Duncannon, Clonmel, and other places
+of less importance, surrendered within six weeks. The
+line of the Shannon was fallen back upon by the Irish,
+and the points of attack and defence were now shifted to
+Athlone and Limerick. What Enniskillen and Derry had
+been, in the previous year, to the Williamite party in
+the north, cities of refuge, and strongholds of hope,
+these two towns upon the Shannon had now become, by the
+fortune of war, to King James's adherents.
+
+On the 17th of July, General Douglas appeared before
+Athlone, and summoned it to surrender. The veteran
+commandant, Colonel Richard Grace, a Confederate of 1641,
+having destroyed the bridge, and the suburbs on the
+Leinster side of the Shannon, replied by discharging his
+pistol over the head of the drummer who delivered the
+message. Douglas attempted to cross the river at
+Lanesborough, but found the ford strongly guarded by one
+of Grace's outposts; after a week's ineffectual bombardment,
+he withdrew from before Athlone, and proceeded to Limerick,
+ravaging and slaying as he went.
+
+Limerick had at first been abandoned by the French under
+Lauzan, as utterly indefensible. That gay intriguer
+desired nothing so much as to follow the King to Prance,
+while Tyrconnell, broken down with physical suffering
+and mental anxiety, feebly concurred in his opinion. They
+accordingly departed for Galway, leaving the city to its
+fate, and, happily for the national reputation, to bolder
+counsels than their own. De Boisseleau did not underrate
+the character of the Irish levies, who had retreated
+before twice their numbers at the Boyne; he declared
+himself willing to remain, and, sustained by Sarsfield,
+he was chosen as commandant. More than ten thousand foot
+had gathered "as if by instinct" to that city, and on
+the Clare side Sarsfield still kept together his cavalry,
+at whose head he rode to Galway and brought back.
+Tyrconnell. On the 9th of August, William, confident of
+an easy victory, appeared before the town, but more than
+twelve months were to elapse before all his power could
+reduce those mouldering walls, which the fugitive French
+ambassador had declared "might be taken with roasted
+apples."
+
+An exploit, planned and executed by Sarsfield the day
+succeeding William's arrival, saved the city for another
+year, and raised that officer to the highest pitch of
+popularity. Along the Clare side of the Shannon, under
+cover of the night, he galloped as fast as horse could
+carry him, at the head of his dragoons, and crossed the
+river at Killaloe. One Manus O'Brien, a Protestant of
+Clare, who had encountered the flying horsemen, and
+learned enough to suspect their design, hastened to
+William's camp with the news, but he was at first laughed
+at for his pains. William, however, never despising any
+precaution in war, despatched Sir John Lanier with 500
+horse to protect his siege-train, then seven miles in
+the rear, on the road between Limerick and Cashel.
+Sarsfield, however, was too quick for Sir John. The day
+after he had crossed at Killaloe he kept his men _perdu_
+in the hilly country, and the next night swooped down
+upon the convoy in charge of the siege-train, who were
+quietly sleeping round the ruined church of Ballanedy.
+The sentinels were sabred at their posts, the guards,
+half-dressed, fled in terror or were speedily killed.
+The gun-carriages were quickly yoked, and drawn together
+to a convenient place, where, planted in pits with
+ammunition, they were, with two exceptions, successfully
+blown to atoms. Lanier arrived within view of the terrific
+scene in time to feel its stunning effects. The ground
+for miles round shook as from an earthquake; the glare
+and roar of the explosion were felt in William's camp,
+and through the beleaguered city. On the morrow, all was
+known. Sarsfield was safely back in his old encampment,
+without the loss of a single man; Limerick was in an
+uproar of delight, while William's army, to the lowest
+rank, felt the depression of so unexpected a blow. A week
+later, however, the provident prince had a new siege-train
+of thirty-six guns and four mortars brought up from
+Waterford, pouring red-hot shot on the devoted city.
+Another week--on the 27th of August--a gap having been
+made in the walls near Saint John's gate, a storming
+party of the English guards, the Anglo-Irish, Prussians,
+and Danes, was launched into the breach. After an action
+of uncommon fierceness and determination on both sides,
+the besiegers retired with the loss of 30 officers, and
+800 men killed, and 1,200 wounded. The besieged admitted
+400 killed--their wounded were not counted. Four days
+later, William abandoned the siege, retreated to Waterford,
+and embarked for England, with Prince George of Denmark,
+the Dukes of Wurtemburg and Ormond, and others of his
+principal adherents. Tyrconnell, labouring with the
+illness of which he soon after died, took advantage of
+the honourable pause thus obtained, to proceed on his
+interrupted voyage to Prance, accompanied by the ambassador.
+Before leaving, however, the young Duke of Berwick was
+named in his stead as Commander-in-Chief; Fitton, Nagle,
+and Plowden, as Lords Justices; sixteen "senators" were
+to form a sort of Cabinet, and Sarsfield to be second in
+military command. His enemies declared that Tyrconnell
+retired from the contest because his early spirit and
+courage had failed him; he himself asserted that his
+object was to procure sufficient succours from King Louis,
+to give a decisive issue to the war. His subsequent
+negotiations at Paris proved that though his bodily health
+might be wretched, his ingenuity and readiness of resource
+had not deserted him. He justified himself both with
+James and Louis, outwitted Lauzan, propitiated Louvois,
+disarmed the prejudices of the English Jacobites, and,
+in short, placed the military relations of France and
+Ireland on a footing they had never hitherto sustained.
+The expedition of the following spring, under command of
+Marshal Saint Ruth, was mainly procured by his able
+diplomacy, and though he returned to Ireland to survive
+but a few weeks the disastrous day of Aughrim, it is
+impossible from the Irish point of view, not to recall
+with admiration, mixed indeed with alloy, but still with
+largely prevailing admiration, the extraordinary energy,
+buoyancy and talents of Richard, Duke of Tyrconnell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE WINTER OF 1690-91,
+
+The Jacobite party in England were not slow to exaggerate
+the extent of William's losses before Athlone and Limerick.
+The national susceptibility was consoled by the ready
+reflection, that if the beaten troops were partly English,
+the commanders were mainly foreigners. A native hero was
+needed, and was found in the person of Marlborough, a
+captain, whose name was destined to eclipse every other
+English reputation of that age. At his suggestion an
+expedition was fitted out against Cork, Kinsale, and
+other ports of the south of Ireland, and the command,
+though not without some secret unwillingness on William's
+part, committed to him. On the 23rd of September, at the
+head of 8,000 fresh troops, amply supplied with all
+necessary munitions, Marlborough assaulted Cork. After
+five days' bombardment, in which the Duke of Grafton,
+and other officers and men were slain, the Governor,
+McEligot, capitulated on conditions, which, in spite of
+all Marlborough's exertions, were flagrantly violated.
+The old town of Kinsale was at once abandoned as untenable
+the same day, and the new fort, at the entrance to the
+harbour, was surrendered after a fortnight's cannonade.
+Covered with glory from a five weeks' campaign, Marlborough
+returned to England to receive the acclamations of the
+people and the most gracious compliments of the prince.
+
+Berwick and Sarsfield on the one side and Ginkle and
+Lanier on the other, kept up the winter campaign till an
+advanced period, on both banks of the Shannon. About the
+middle of September, the former made a dash over the
+bridge of Banagher, against Birr, or Parsonstown, the
+family borough of the famous _Undertaker_. The English,
+in great force, under Lanier, Kirke, and Douglas, hastened
+to its relief, and the Irish fell back to Banagher. To
+destroy "that convenient pass" became now the object of
+one party, to protect it, of the other. After some
+skirmishing and manoeuvring on both sides, the disputed
+bridge was left in Irish possession, and the English fell
+back to the borough and castle of Sir Lawrence Parsons.
+During the siege of the new fort at Kinsale, Berwick and
+Sarsfield advanced as far as Kilmallock to its relief,
+but finding themselves so inferior in numbers to
+Marlborough, they were unwillingly compelled to leave
+its brave defenders to their fate,
+
+Although the Duke of Berwick was the nominal
+Commander-in-Chief, his youth, and the distractions
+incident to youth, left the more mature and popular
+Sarsfield the possession of real power, both civil and
+military. Every fortunate accident had combined to elevate
+that gallant cavalry officer into the position of national
+leadership.
+
+He was the son of a member of the Irish Commons, proscribed
+for his patriotism and religion in 1641, by Anna O'Moore,
+daughter of the organizer of the Catholic Confederation.
+He was a Catholic in religion, spoke Gaelic as easily as
+English, was brave, impulsive; handsome, and generous to
+a fault, like the men he led. In Tyrconnell's absence
+every sincere lover of the country came to him with
+intelligence, and looked to him for direction. Early in
+November he learned through his patriotic spies the
+intention of the Williamites to force the passage of the
+Shannon in the depth of winter. On the last day of
+December, accordingly, they marched in great force under
+Kirke and Lanier to Jonesboro', and under Douglas to
+Jamestown. At both points they found the indefatigable
+Sarsfield fully prepared for them, and after a fortnight's
+intense suffering from exposure to the weather, were glad
+to get back again to their snug quarters at Parsonstown.
+
+Early in February Tyrconnell landed at Limerick with a
+French fleet, escorted by three vessels of war, and laden
+with provisions, but bringing few arms and no
+reinforcements. He had brought over, however, 14,000
+golden louis, which were found of the utmost service in
+re-clothing the army, besides 10,000 more which he had
+deposited at Brest to purchase oatmeal for subsequent
+shipment. He also brought promises of military assistance
+on a scale far beyond anything France had yet afforded.
+It is almost needless to say he was received at Galway
+and Limerick with an enthusiasm which silenced, if it
+did not confute, his political enemies, both in Ireland
+and France.
+
+During his absence intrigues and factions had been rifer
+than ever in the Jacobite ranks. Sarsfield had discovered
+that the English movement on the Shannon in December was
+partly hastened by foolish or treacherous correspondence
+among his own associates. Lord Riverston and his brother
+were removed from the Senate, or Council of Sixteen--four
+from each province--and Judge Daly, ancestor of the
+Dunsandle family, was placed under arrest at Galway. The
+youthful Berwick sometimes complained that he was tutored
+and overruled by Sarsfield; but though the impetuous
+soldier may occasionally have forgotten the lessons
+learned in courts, his activity seems to have been the
+greatest, his information the best, his advice the most
+disinterested, and his fortitude the highest of any member
+of the council. By the time of Tyrconnell's return he
+had grown to a height of popularity and power, which
+could not well brook a superior either in the cabinet
+or the camp.
+
+On the arrival of the Lord Lieutenant, who was also
+Commander-in-Chief, the ambition of Sarsfield was gratified
+by the rank of Earl of Lucan, a title drawn from that
+pleasant hamlet, in the valley of the Liffey, where he
+had learned to lisp the catechism of a patriot at the
+knee of Anna O'Moore. But his real power was much
+diminished. Tyrconnell, Berwick, Sir Richard Nagle, who
+had succeeded the Earl of Melfort as chief secretary for
+King James, all ranked before him at the board, and when
+Saint Ruth arrived to take command-in-chief, he might
+fairly have complained that he was deprived of the chief
+reward to which he had looked forward.
+
+The weary winter and the drenching spring months wore
+away, and the Williamite troops, sorely afflicted by
+disease, hugged their tents and huts. Some relief was
+sent by sea to the Jacobite garrison of Sligo, commanded
+by the stout old Sir Teague O'Regan, the former defender
+of Charlemont. Athlone, too, received some succours, and
+the line of the Shannon was still unbroken from
+Slieve-an-iron to the sea. But still the promised French
+assistance was delayed. Men were beginning to doubt both
+King Louis and King James, when, at length at the beginning
+of May, the French ships were signalled from the cliffs
+of Kerry. On the 8th, the Sieur de Saint Ruth, with
+Generals D'Usson and De Tesse, landed at Limerick, and
+assisted at a solemn _Te Deum_ in St. Mary's Cathedral.
+They brought considerable supplies of clothes, provisions,
+and ammunitions, but neither veterans to swell the ranks,
+nor money to replenish the chest. Saint Ruth entered
+eagerly upon the discharge of his duties as generalissimo,
+while Sarsfield continued the nominal second in command.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR--CAMPAIGN OF 1691--BATTLE
+OF AUGHRIM--CAPITULATION OF LIMERICK.
+
+Saint Ruth, with absolute powers, found himself placed
+at the head of from 20,000 to 25,000 men, in the field
+or in garrison, regular or irregular, but all, with hardly
+an exception, Irish. His and Tyrconnell's recent supplies
+had sufficed to renew the clothing and equipment of the
+greater part of the number, but the whole contents of
+the army chest, the golden hinge on which war moves, was
+estimated in the beginning of May to afford to each
+soldier only "a penny a day for three weeks." He had
+under him some of the best officers that France could
+spare, or Ireland produce, and he had with him the hearts
+of nine-tenths of the natives of the country.
+
+A singular illustration of the popular feeling occurred
+the previous August. The Milesian Irish had cherished
+the belief ever since the disastrous day of Kinsale, that
+an O'Donnell from Spain, having on his shoulder a red
+mark (_ball derg_), would return to free them from the
+English yoke, in a great battle near Limerick. Accordingly,
+when a representative of the Spanish O'Donnells actually
+appeared at Limerick, bearing as we know many of his
+family have done, even to our day, the unmistakable red
+mark of the ancient Tyrconnell line, immense numbers of
+the country people who had held aloof from the Jacobite
+cause, obeyed the voice of prophecy, and flocked round
+the Celtic deliverer. From 7,000 to 8,000 recruits were
+soon at his disposal, and it was not without bitter
+indignation that the chief, so enthusiastically received,
+saw regiment after regiment drafted from among his
+followers, and transferred to other commanders. Bred up
+a Spanish subject--the third in descent from an Irish
+prince--it is not to be wondered at that he regarded the
+_Irish_ cause as all in all, and the interests of King
+James as entirely secondary. He could hardly consider
+himself as bound in allegiance to that king; he was in
+no way indebted to him or his family, and if we learn
+that when the war grew desperate, but before it was ended,
+he had entered into a separate treaty for himself and
+his adherents, with William's generals, we must remember,
+before we condemn him, that we are speaking of an
+Hiberno-Spaniard, to whom the house of Stuart was no more
+sacred than the house of Orange.
+
+The Williamite army rendezvoused at Mullingar towards
+the end of May, under Generals De Ginkle, Talmash and
+Mackay. On the 7th of June, they moved in the direction
+of Athlone, 18,000 strong, "the ranks one blaze of scarlet,
+and the artillery such as had never before been seen in
+Ireland." The capture of Ballymore Castle, in West-Meath,
+detained them ten days; on the 19th, joined by the Duke
+of Wurtemburg, the Prince of Hesse and the Count of
+Nassau, with 7,000 foreign mercenaries, the whole sat
+down before the English town of Athlone, which Saint
+Ruth, contrary to his Irish advisers, resolved to defend.
+In twenty-four hours those exposed outworks abandoned by
+the veteran Grace the previous year, fell, and the
+bombardment of the Irish town on the opposite or Connaught
+bank, commenced. For ten days--from the 20th to the 30th
+of June--that fearful cannonade continued. Storey, the
+Williamite chaplain, to whom we are indebted for many
+valuable particulars of this war, states that the besiegers
+fired above 12,000 cannon shot, 600 shells and many tons
+of stone, into the place. Fifty tons of powder were burned
+in the bombardment. The castle, an imposing but lofty
+and antique structure, windowed as much for a residence
+as a fortress, tumbled into ruins; the bridge was broken
+down and impassable; the town a heap of rubbish, where
+two men could no longer walk abreast. But the Shannon
+had diminished in volume as the summer advanced, and
+three Danes employed for that purpose found a ford above
+the bridge, and at six o'clock on the evening of the last
+day of June, 2,000 picked men, headed by Gustavus Hamilton's
+grenadiers, dashed into the ford at the stroke of a bell.
+At the same instant all the English batteries on the
+Leinster side opened on the Irish town, wrapping the
+river in smoke, and distracting the attention of the
+besiegers. Saint Ruth was, at this critical moment, at
+his camp two miles off, and D'Usson, the commandant, was
+also absent from his post. In half an hour the Williamites
+were masters of the heap of rubbish which had once been
+Athlone, with a loss of less than fifty men killed and
+wounded. For this bold and successful movement De Ginkle
+was created Earl of Athlone, and his chief officers were
+justly ennobled. Saint Ruth, over-confident, in a strange
+country, withdrew to Ballinasloe, behind the river Suck,
+and prepared to risk everything on the hazard of a pitched
+battle.
+
+De Ginkle moved slowly from Athlone in pursuit of his
+enemy. On the morning of the 11th of July, as the early
+haze lifted itself in wreaths from the landscape, he
+found himself within range of the Irish, drawn up, north
+and south, on the upland of Kilcommodan hill, with a
+morass on either flank, through which ran two narrow
+causeways--on the right, "the pass of Urrachree," on the
+left, the causeway leading to the little village of
+Aughrim. Saint Ruth's force must have numbered from 15,000
+to 20,000 men, with nine field-pieces; De Ginkle commanded
+from 25,000 to 30,000, with four batteries--two of which
+mounted six guns each. During the entire day, attack
+after attack, in the direction of Urrachree or of Aughrim
+was repulsed, and the assailants were about to retire in
+despair. As the sun sank low, a last desperate attempt
+was made with equal ill success. "Now, my children,"
+cried the elated Saint Ruth, "the day is ours! Now I
+shall drive them back to the walls of Dublin!" At that
+moment he fell by a cannon shot to the earth, and stayed
+the advancing tide of victory. The enemy marked the
+check, halted, rallied and returned. Sarsfield, who had
+not been entrusted with his leader's plan of action, was
+unable to remedy the mischief which ensued. Victory
+arrested was converted into defeat. The sun went down on
+Aughrim, and the last great Irish battle between the
+Reformed and Roman religions. Four thousand of the
+Catholics were killed and wounded, and three thousand of
+the Protestants littered the field. Above five hundred
+prisoners, with thirty-two pairs of colours, eleven
+standards, and a large quantity of small arms, fell into
+the hands of the victors. One portion of the fugitive
+survivors fled to Galway, the larger part, including all
+the cavalry, to Limerick.
+
+This double blow at Athlone and Aughrim shook to pieces
+the remaining Catholic power in Connaught. Galway
+surrendered ten days after the battle; Balldearg O'Donnell,
+after a vain attempt to throw himself into it in time,
+made terms with De Ginkle, and carried his two regiments
+into Flanders to fight on the side Spain and Rome had
+chosen to take in the European coalition. Sligo, the last
+western garrison, succumbed, and the brave Sir Teague
+O'Regan marched his 600 men, survivors, southward to
+Limerick.
+
+Thus once more all eyes and all hearts in the British
+Islands were turned towards the well-known city of the
+lower Shannon. There, on the 14th of August, Tyrconnell
+expired, stricken down by apoplexy. On the 25th, De
+Ginkle, reinforced by all the troops he could gather in
+with safety, had invested the place on three sides. Sixty
+guns, none of less than 12 pounds calibre, opened their
+deadly fire against it. An English fleet ascended the
+river, hurling its missiles right and left. On the 9th
+of September the garrison made an unsuccessful sally,
+with heavy loss; on the 10th, a breach, forty yards wide,
+was made in the wall overhanging the river; on the night
+of the 15th, through the treachery or negligence of
+Brigadier Clifford, on guard at the Clare side of the
+river, a pontoon bridge was laid, and a strong English
+division crossed over in utter silence. The Irish horse,
+which had hitherto kept open communications with the
+country on that side, fell back to Six Mile Bridge. On
+the 24th, a truce of three days was agreed upon, and on
+the 3rd of October the memorable "Treaty of Limerick"
+was signed by the Williamite and Jacobite commissioners.
+
+The _civil_ articles of Limerick will be mentioned farther
+on; the _military_ articles, twenty-nine in number,
+provided that all persons willing to expatriate themselves,
+as well officers and soldiers as rapparees and volunteers,
+should have free liberty to do so, to any place beyond
+seas, except England and Scotland; that they might depart
+in whole bodies, companies, or parties; that if plundered
+by the way, William's government should make good their
+loss; that fifty ships of 200 tons each should be provided
+for their transportation, besides two men-of-war for the
+principal officers; that the garrison of Limerick might
+march out with all their arms, guns and baggage, "colours
+flying, drums beating, and matches lighting!" It was also
+agreed, that those who so wished might enter the service
+of William, retaining their rank and pay; but though De
+Ginkle was most eager to secure for his master some of
+those stalwart battalions, only 1,000 out of the 13,000
+that marched out of Limerick filed to the left at King's
+Island, Two thousand others accepted passes and protections;
+4,500 sailed with Sarsfield from Cork, 4,700 with D'Usson
+and De Tesse, embarked in the Shannon on board a French
+fleet which arrived a week too late to prevent the
+capitulation; in English ships, 3,000 embarked with
+General Wauchop; all which, added to Mountcashel's brigade,
+over 5,000 strong, gave an Irish army of from 20,000 to
+25,000 men to the service of King Louis.
+
+As the ships from Ireland reached Brest and the ports of
+Brittany, James himself came down from Saint Germain to
+receive them. They were at once granted the rights of
+French citizenship without undergoing the forms of
+naturalization. Many of them rose to eminent positions
+in war and in diplomacy, became founders of distinguished
+families, or dying childless, left their hard-won gold
+to endow free bourses at Douay and Louvain, for poor
+Irish scholars destined for the service of the church,
+for which they had fought the good fight, in another
+sense, on the Shannon and the Boyne. The migration of
+ecclesiastics was almost as extensive as that of the
+military. They were shipped by dozens and by scores,
+from Dublin, Cork, and Galway. In seven years from the
+treaty, there remained but 400 secular and 800 regular
+clergy in the country. Nearly double that number, deported
+by threats or violence, were scattered over Europe,
+pensioners on the princes and bishops of their faith, or
+the institutions of their order. In Rome, 72,000 francs
+annually were allotted for the maintenance of the fugitive
+Irish clergy, and during the first three months of 1699,
+three remittances from the Holy Father, amounting to
+90,000 livres, were placed in the hands of the Nuncio at
+Paris, for the temporary relief of the fugitives in France
+and Flanders. It may also be added here, that till the
+end of the eighteenth century, an annual charge of 1,000
+Roman crowns was borne by the Papal treasury for the
+encouragement of Catholic Poor-schools in Ireland.
+
+The revolutionary war, thus closed, had cost King William,
+or rather the people of England, at least 10,000,000 of
+pounds sterling, and with the other wars of that reign,
+laid the foundation of the English national debt. As to
+the loss of life, the Williamite chaplain, Storey, places
+it "at 100,000, young and old, besides treble the number
+that are ruined and undone." The chief consolation of
+the vanquished in that struggle was, that they had wrung
+even from their adversaries the reputation of being "one
+of the most warlike of nations"--that they "buried the
+synagogue with honour."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+REIGN OF KING WILLIAM.
+
+From the date of the treaty of Limerick, William was
+acknowledged by all but the extreme Jacobites, at least
+_de facto_--King of Ireland. The prevailing party in
+Ulster had long recognized him, and the only expression
+of the national will then possible accepted his title,
+in the treaty signed at Limerick on the 3rd of October,
+1691. For three years Ireland had resisted his power,
+for twelve years longer she was to bear the yoke of
+his government.
+
+Though the history of William's twelve years' reign in
+Ireland is a history of proscription, the King himself
+is answerable only as a consenting party to such
+proscription. He was neither by temper nor policy a
+persecutor; his allies were Spain, Austria and Rome; he
+had thousands of Catholics in his own army, and he gave
+his confidence as freely to brave and capable men of one
+creed as of another. But the oligarchy, calling itself
+the "Protestant Ascendancy," which had grown so powerful
+under Cromwell and Charles II., backed as they once again
+were by all the religious intolerance of England, proved
+too strong for William's good intentions. He was, moreover,
+pre-occupied with the grand plans of the European coalition,
+in which Ireland, without an army, was no longer an
+element of calculation. He abandoned, therefore, not
+without an occasional grumbling protest, the vanquished
+Catholics to the mercy of that oligarchy, whose history,
+during the eighteenth century, forms so prominent a
+feature of the history of the kingdom.
+
+The civil articles of Limerick, which Sarsfield vainly
+hoped might prove the _Magna Charta_ of his co-religionists,
+were thirteen in number. Art. I. guaranteed to members
+of that denomination, remaining in the kingdom, "such
+privileges in the exercise of their religion as are
+consistent with the law of Ireland, or as they enjoyed
+in the reign of King Charles II.;" this article further
+provided, that "their majesties, as soon as their affairs
+will permit them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom,
+will endeavour to procure the said Roman Catholics such
+further security in that particular as may preserve them
+from any disturbance on account of their said religion."
+Art. II. guaranteed pardon and protection to all who
+had served King James, on taking the oath of allegiance
+prescribed in Art. IX., as follows:
+
+"I, A. B., do solemnly promise and swear that I will be
+faithful and bear true allegiance to their majesties,
+King William and Queen Mary; so help me God."
+
+Arts. III., IV., V. and VI. extended the provisions of
+Arts. I. and II. to merchants and other classes of men.
+Art. VII. permits "every nobleman and gentleman compromised
+in the said articles" to carry side arms and keep "a gun
+in their houses." Art. VIII. gives the right of removing
+goods and chattels without search. Art. IX. is as follows:
+
+"The oath to be administered to such Roman Catholics as
+submit to their majesties' government _shall be the oath
+aforesaid, and no other_."
+
+Art. X. guarantees that "no person or persons who shall
+at any time hereafter break these articles, or any of
+them, shall thereby make or cause any other person or
+persons to _forfeit or lose the benefit of them_."
+Arts. XI. and XII. relate to the ratification of the
+articles "within eight months or sooner." Art. XIII.
+refers to the debts of "Colonel John Brown, commissary
+of the Irish army, to several Protestants," and arranges
+for their satisfaction.
+
+These articles were signed before Limerick, at the well
+known "Treaty Stone," on the Clare side of the Shannon,
+by Lord Scravenmore, Generals Mackay, Talmash, and De
+Ginkle, and the Lords Justices Porter and Coningsby, for
+King William, and by Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan, Viscount
+Galmoy, Sir Toby Butler, and Colonels Purcell, Cusack,
+Dillon, and Brown, for the Irish. On the 24th of February
+following, royal letters patent confirmatory of the treaty
+were issued from Westminster, in the name of the King
+and Queen, whereby they declared, that "we do for us,
+our heirs, and successors, as far as in us lies, ratify
+and confirm the same and every clause, matter, and thing
+therein contained. And as to such parts thereof, for
+which an act of Parliament shall be found to be necessary,
+we shall recommend the same to be made good by Parliament,
+and shall give our royal assent to any bill or bills that
+shall be passed by our two Houses of Parliament to that
+purpose. And whereas it appears unto us, that it was
+agreed between the parties to the said articles, that
+after the words Limerick, Clare, Kerry, Cork, Mayo, or
+any of them, in the second of the said articles; which
+words having been casually omitted by the writer of the
+articles, the words following, viz.: 'And all such as
+are under their protection in the said counties' should
+be inserted, and be part of the said omission, was not
+discovered till after the said articles were signed, but
+was taken notice of before the second town was surrendered,
+and that our said justices and generals, or one of them,
+did promise that the said clause should be made good, it
+being within the intention of the capitulation, and
+inserted in the foul draft thereof: Our further will and
+pleasure is, and we do hereby ratify and confirm the said
+omitted words, viz., 'And all such as are under their
+protection in the said counties,' hereby for us, our
+heirs and successors, ordaining and declaring that all
+and every person and persons therein concerned shall and
+may have, receive, and enjoy the benefit thereof, in such
+and the same manner as if the said words had been inserted
+in their proper place in the said second article, any
+omission, defect, or mistake in the said second article
+in any wise notwithstanding. Provided always, and our
+will and pleasure is, that these our letters patent shall
+be enrolled in our Court of Chancery, in our said kingdom
+of Ireland, within the space of one year next ensuing."
+
+But the Ascendancy party were not to be restrained by
+the faith of treaties, or the obligations of the Sovereign.
+The Sunday following the return of the Lords Justices
+from Limerick, Dopping, Bishop of Meath, preached before
+them at Christ's church, on the crime of keeping faith
+with Papists. The grand jury of Cork, urged on by Cox,
+the Recorder of Kinsale, one of the historians of those
+times, returned in their inquest that the restoration of
+the Earl of Clancarty's estates "would be dangerous to
+the Protestant interest." Though both William and
+George I., interested themselves warmly for that noble
+family, the hatred of the new oligarchy proved too strong
+for the clemency of kings, and the broad acres of the
+disinherited McCarthys, remained to enrich an alien and
+bigoted aristocracy.
+
+In 1692, when the Irish Parliament met, a few Catholic
+peers, and a very few Catholic commoners took their seats.
+One of the first acts of the victorious majority was to
+frame an oath in direct contravention to the oath prescribed
+by the ninth civil article of the treaty, to be taken by
+members of both Houses. This oath solemnly and explicitly
+denied "that in the sacrament of the Lord's supper there
+is any transubstantiation of the elements;" and as solemnly
+affirmed, "that the invocation or adoration of the Virgin
+Mary, or any other saint, and the sacrifice of the mass,
+as they are now used in the church of Rome, are damnable
+and idolatrous." As a matter of course, the Catholic
+peers and commoners retired from both Houses, rather than
+take any such oath, and thus the Irish Parliament assumed,
+in 1692, that exclusively Protestant character which it
+continued to maintain, till its extinction in 1800. The
+Lord Justice Sydney, acting in the spirit of his original
+instructions, made some show of resistance to the
+proscriptive spirit thus exhibited. But to teach him how
+they regarded his interference, a very small supply was
+voted, and the assertion of the absolute control of the
+Commons over all supplies--a sound doctrine when rightly
+interpreted--was vehemently asserted. Sydney had the
+satisfaction of proroguing and lecturing the House, but
+they had the satisfaction soon after of seeing him recalled
+through their influence in England, and a more congenial
+Viceroy in the person of Lord Capel sent over.
+
+About the same time, that ancient engine of oppression,
+a Commission to inquire into estates forfeited, was
+established, and, in a short time, decreed that 1,060,792
+acres were escheated to the crown. This was almost the
+last fragment of the patrimony of the Catholic inhabitants.
+When King William died, there did not remain in Catholic
+hands "one-sixth part" of what their grandfathers held,
+even after the passage of the Act of Settlement.
+
+In 1695, Lord Capel opened the second Irish Parliament,
+summoned by King William, in a speech in which he assured
+his delighted auditors that the King was intent upon a
+firm settlement of Ireland upon a Protestant interest.
+Large supplies were at once voted to his majesty, and
+the House of Commons then proceeded to the appointment
+of a committee to consider what penal laws were already
+in force against the Catholics, not for the purpose of
+repealing them, but in order to add to their number. The
+principal penal laws then in existence were:
+
+1. An act, subjecting all who upheld the jurisdiction of
+the See of Rome, to the penalties of a _premunire_; and
+ordering the oath of supremacy to be a qualification for
+office of every kind, for holy orders, and for a degree
+in the university.
+
+2. An act for the uniformity of Common Prayer, imposing
+a fine of a shilling on all who should absent themselves
+from places of worship of the Established Church on
+Sundays.
+
+3. An act, allowing the Chancellor to name a guardian to
+the child of a Catholic.
+
+4. An act to prevent Catholics from becoming private
+tutors in families, without license from the ordinaries
+of their several parishes, and taking the oath of supremacy.
+
+To these, the new Parliament added, 1. An act to deprive
+Catholics of the means of educating their children at
+home or abroad, and to render them incapable of being
+guardians of their own or any other person's children;
+2. An act to disarm the Catholics; and, 3. Another to
+banish all the Catholic priests and prelates. Having thus
+violated the treaty, they gravely brought in a bill "to
+confirm the Articles of Limerick." "The very title of
+the bill," says Dr. Cooke Taylor, "contains evidence of
+its injustice." It is styled "A Bill for the Confirmation
+of Articles (not _the_ articles) made at the Surrender
+of Limerick." And the preamble shows that the little word
+_the_ was not accidentally omitted. It runs thus:--"That
+the said articles, or _so much of them as may consist
+with the safety and welfare of your majesty's subjects
+in these kingdoms_, may be confirmed," &c. The parts that
+appeared to these legislators inconsistent with "the
+safety and welfare of his majesty's subjects," were the
+first article, which provided for the security of the
+Catholics from all disturbances on account of their
+religion; those parts of the second article which confirmed
+the Catholic gentry of Limerick, Clare, Cork, Kerry, and
+Mayo, in the possession of their estates, and allowed
+all Catholics to exercise their trades and professions
+without obstruction; the fourth article, which extended
+the benefit of the peace to certain Irish officers then
+abroad; the seventh article, which allowed the Catholic
+gentry to ride armed; the ninth article, which provides
+that the oath of allegiance shall be the only oath required
+from Catholics; and one or two others of minor importance.
+All of these are omitted in the bill for "The confirmation
+of Articles made at the Surrender of Limerick."
+
+The Commons passed the bill without much difficulty. The
+House of Lords, however, contained some few of the ancient
+nobility, and some prelates, who refused to acknowledge
+the dogma, "that no faith should be kept with Papists,"
+as an article of their creed. The bill was strenuously
+resisted, and when it was at length carried, a strong
+protest against it was signed by Lords Londonderry,
+Tyrone, and Duncannon, the Barons of Ossory, Limerick,
+Killaloe, Kerry, Howth, Kingston, and Strabane, and, to
+their eternal honour be it said, the Protestant bishops
+of Kildare, Elphin, Derry, Clonfert, and Killala!
+
+The only other political incidents of this reign, important
+to Ireland, were the speech from the throne in answer to
+an address of the English Houses, in which William promised
+to discourage the woollen and encourage the linen
+manufacture in Ireland, and the publication of the famous
+argument for legislative independence, "The Case of
+Ireland Stated." The author of this tract, the bright
+precursor of the glorious succession of men, who, often
+defeated or abandoned by their colleagues, finally
+triumphed in 1782, was William Molyneux, member for the
+University of Dublin. Molyneux's book appeared in 1698,
+with a short, respectful, but manly dedication to King
+William. Speaking of his own motives in writing it, he
+says, "I am not at all concerned in wool or the wool
+trade. I am no ways interested in forfeitures or grants.
+I am not at all concerned whether the bishop or the
+society of Derry recover the lands they contest about."
+Such were the domestic politics of Ireland at that day;
+but Molyneux raised other and nobler issues when he
+advanced these six propositions, which lie supported with
+incontestible ability.
+
+"1. How Ireland became a kingdom _annexed_ to the crown
+of England. And here we shall at large give a faithful
+narrative of the first expedition of the Britons into
+this country, and King Henry II.'s arrival here, such as
+our best historians give us.
+
+"2. We shall inquire whether this expedition and the
+English settlement that afterwards followed thereon, can
+properly be called a _conquest_; or whether any victories
+obtained by the English in any succeeding ages in this
+kingdom, upon any rebellion, may be called a _conquest_
+thereof.
+
+"3. Granting that it were a _conquest_, we shall inquire
+what _title_ a conquest gives.
+
+"4. We shall inquire what _concessions_ have been from
+time to time made to Ireland, to take off what even the
+most rigorous asserters of a conqueror's title do pretend
+to. And herein we shall show by what degrees the English
+form of government, and the English statute laws, came
+to be received among us; and this shall appear to be
+wholly by the _consent_ of the people and the Parliament
+of Ireland.
+
+"5. We shall inquire into the precedents and opinions of
+the learned in the laws relating to this matter, with
+observations thereon.
+
+"6. We shall consider the reasons and arguments that may
+be further offered on one side and t'other; and we shall
+draw some general conclusions from the whole."
+
+The English Parliament took alarm at these bold doctrines,
+seldom heard across the channel since the days of Patrick
+Darcy and the Catholic Confederacy. They ordered the book
+to be burned by the hands of the common hangman, as of
+"dangerous tendency to the crown and people of England,
+by denying the power of the King and Parliament of England
+to bind the kingdom and people of Ireland, and the
+subordination and dependence that Ireland had, and ought
+to have, upon England, as being united and annexed to
+the imperial crown of England." They voted an address to
+the King in the same tone, and received an answer from
+his majesty, assuring them that he would enforce the laws
+securing the dependence of Ireland on the imperial crown
+of Great Britain.
+
+But William's days were already numbered. On the 8th of
+March, 1702, when little more than fifty years of age,
+he died from the effects of a fall from his horse. His
+reign over Ireland is synonymous to the minds of that
+people of disaster, proscription and spoliation; of
+violated faith and broken compacts; but these wrongs were
+done in his name rather than by his orders; often without
+his knowledge, and sometimes against his will. Rigid as
+that will was, it was forced to bend to the anti-Popery
+storm which swept over the British Islands after the
+abdication of King James; but the vices and follies of
+his times ought no more be laid to the personal account
+of William than of James or Louis, against whom he fought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+REIGN OF QUEEN ANNE.
+
+The reign of Queen Anne occupies twelve years (1702 to
+1714. The new sovereign, daughter of James by his first
+marriage, inherited the legacy of William's wars, arising
+out of the European coalition. Her diplomatists, and her
+troops, under the leadership of Marlborough, continued
+throughout her reign to combat against France, in Spain,
+Germany, and the Netherlands; the treaty of Utrecht being
+signed only the year before her majesty's decease. In
+domestic politics, the main occurrences were the struggle
+of the Whigs and Tories, immortalized for us in the pages
+of Swift, Steele, Addison, and Bolingbroke; the limitation
+of the succession to the descendants of the Electress
+Sophia, in the line of Hanover; and the abortive Jacobite
+movement on the Queen's death which drove Ormond and
+Atterbury into exile.
+
+In Ireland, this is the reign, _par excellence_, of the
+penal code. From the very beginning of the Queen's reign,
+an insatiate spirit of proscription dictated the councils
+of the Irish oligarchy. On the arrival of the second
+and last Duke of Ormond, in 1703, as Lord-Lieutenant,
+the Commons waited on him in a body, with a bill "for
+discouraging the further growth of Popery," to which the
+duke having signified his entire concurrence, it was
+accordingly introduced, and became law. The following
+are among the most remarkable clauses of this act: The
+third clause provides, that if the son of an estated
+Papist shall conform to the established religion, the
+father shall be incapacitated from selling or mortgaging
+his estate, or disposing of any portion of it by will.
+The fourth clause prohibits a Papist from being the
+guardian of his own child; and orders, that if at any
+time the child, though ever so young, pretends to be a
+Protestant, it shall be taken from its own father, and
+placed under the guardianship of the nearest Protestant
+relation. The sixth clause renders Papists incapable of
+purchasing any manors, tenements, hereditaments, or any
+rents or profits arising out of the same, or of holding
+any lease of lives, or other lease whatever, for any term
+exceeding thirty-one years. And with respect even to such
+limited leases, it further enacts, that if a Papist should
+hold a farm producing a profit greater than one-third of
+the amount of the rent, his right to such should immediately
+cease, and pass over entirely to the first Protestant
+who should discover the rate of profit. The seventh clause
+prohibits Papists from succeeding to the properties or
+estates of their Protestant relations. By the tenth
+clause, the estate of a Papist, not having a Protestant
+heir, is ordered to be gavelled, or divided in equal
+shares between all his children. The sixteenth and
+twenty-fourth clauses impose the oath of abjuration, and
+the sacramental test, as a qualification for office, and
+for voting at elections. The twenty-third clause deprives
+the Catholics of Limerick and Galway of the protection
+secured to them by the articles of the treaty of Limerick.
+The twenty-fifth clause vests in her majesty all advowsons
+possessed by Papists.
+
+Certain Catholic barristers, living under protection,
+not yet excluded from the practice of their profession,
+petitioned to be heard at the bar of the House of Commons.
+Accordingly, Mr. Malone, the ancestor of three generations
+of scholars and orators, Sir Stephen Rice, one of the
+most spotless characters of the age, formerly chief-justice
+under King James, and Sir Theobald Butler, were heard
+against the bill. The argument of Butler, who stood at
+the very head of his profession, remains to us almost in
+its entirety, and commands our admiration by its solidity
+and dignity. Never was national cause more worthily
+pleaded; never was the folly of religious persecution
+more forcibly exhibited. Alluding to the monstrous fourth
+clause of the bill, the great advocate exclaimed:--
+
+"It is natural for the father to love the child; but we
+all know that children are but too apt and subject,
+without any such liberty as this bill gives, to slight
+and neglect their duty to their parents; and surely such
+an act as this will not be an instrument of restraint,
+but rather encourage them more to it.
+
+"It is but too common with the son, who has a prospect
+of an estate, when once he arrives at the age of one and
+twenty, to think the old father too long in the way
+between him and it; and how much more will he be subject
+to it, when, by this act, he shall have liberty, before
+he comes to that age, to compel and force my estate from
+me, without asking my leave, or being liable to account
+with me for it, or out of his share thereof, to a moiety
+of the debts, portions, or other encumbrances, with which
+the estate might have been charged before the passing of
+this act!
+
+"Is not this against the laws of God and man? Against
+the rules of reason and justice, by which all men ought
+to be governed? Is not this the only way in the world to
+make children become undutiful? and to bring the grey
+head of the parent to the grave with grief and tears?
+
+"It would be hard from any man; but from a son, a child,
+the fruit of my body, whom I have nursed in my bosom,
+and tendered more dearly than my own life, to become my
+plunderer, to rob me of my estate, to cut my throat, and
+to take away my bread, is much more grievous than from
+any other, and enough to make the most flinty hearts to
+bleed to think on it. And yet this will be the case if
+this bill pass into a law; which I hope this honourable
+assembly will not think of, when they shall more seriously
+consider, and have weighed these matters.
+
+"For God's sake, gentlemen, will you consider whether
+this is according to the golden rule, to do as you would
+be done unto? And if not, surely you will not, nay, you
+cannot, without being liable to be charged with the most
+manifest injustice imaginable, take from us our birthrights,
+and invest them in others, before our faces."
+
+When Butler and Malone had closed, Sir Stephen Rice was
+heard, not in his character of council, but as one of
+the petitioners affected by the act. But neither the
+affecting position of that great jurist, who, from the
+rank of chief baron had descended to the outer bar, nor
+the purity of his life, nor the strength of his argument,
+had any effect upon the oligarchy who heard him. He was
+answered by quibbles and cavils, unworthy of record, and
+was finally informed that any rights which Papists
+"pretended to be taken from them by the Bill, was in
+their own power to remedy, by conforming, which in prudence
+they ought to do; and that they had none to blame but
+themselves." Next day the bill passed into law.
+
+The remnant of the clergy were next attacked. On the 17th
+of March, 1705, the Irish Commons resolved, that "informing
+against Papists was an honourable service to the
+government," and that all magistrates and others who
+failed to put the penal laws into execution, "were
+betrayers of the liberties of the kingdom." But even
+these resolutions, rewards, and inducements were
+insufficient to satisfy the spirit of persecution.
+
+A further act was passed, in 1709, imposing additional
+penalties. The first clause declares, that no Papist
+shall be capable of holding an annuity for life. The
+third provides, that the child of a Papist, on conforming,
+shall at once receive an annuity from his father; and
+that the Chancellor shall compel the father to discover,
+upon oath, the full value of his estate, real and personal,
+and thereupon make an order for the support of such
+conforming child or children, and for securing such a
+share of the property, after the father's death, as the
+court shall think fit. The fourteenth and fifteenth
+clauses secure jointures to Popish wives who shall conform.
+The sixteenth prohibits a Papist from teaching, even as
+assistant to a Protestant master. The eighteenth gives
+a salary of 30 pounds per annum to Popish priests who
+shall conform. The twentieth provides rewards for the
+discovery of Popish prelates, priests, and teachers,
+according to the following whimsical scale:--For discovering
+an archbishop, bishop, vicar-general, or other person,
+exercising any foreign ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 50
+pounds; for discovering each regular clergyman, and each
+secular clergyman, not registered, 20 pounds; and for
+discovering each Popish schoolmaster or usher, 10 pounds.
+The twenty-first clause empowers two justices to summon
+before them any Papist over eighteen years of age, and
+interrogate him when and where he last heard mass said,
+and the names of the persons present, and likewise touching
+the residence of any Popish priest or schoolmaster; and
+if he refuse to give testimony, subjects him to a fine
+of 20 pounds, or imprisonment for twelve months.
+
+Several other penal laws were enacted by the same
+Parliament, of which we can only notice one; it excluded
+Catholics from the office of sheriff, and from grand
+juries, and enacts, that, in trials upon any statute for
+strengthening the Protestant interest, the plaintiff
+might challenge a juror for being a Papist, which challenge
+the judge was to allow.
+
+By a royal proclamation of the same year, "all registered
+priests" were to take "the oath of abjuration before the
+25th of March, 1710," under penalty of _premunire_. Under
+this proclamation and the tariff of rewards just cited,
+there grew up a class of men, infamous and detestable,
+known by the nickname of "priest hunters." One of the
+most successful of these traffickers in blood was a
+Portuguese Jew, named Garcia, settled at Dublin. He was
+very skilful at disguises. "He sometimes put on the mien
+of a priest, for he affected to be one, and thus worming
+himself into the good graces of some confiding Catholic
+got a clue to the whereabouts of the clergy." In 1718,
+Garcia succeeded in arresting seven unregistered priests,
+for whose detection he had a sum equal to two or three
+thousand dollars of American money. To such an excess
+was this trade carried, that a reaction set in, and a
+Catholic bishop of Ossory, who lived at the time these
+acts were still in force, records that "the priest-catchers'
+occupation became exceedingly odious both to Protestants
+and Catholics," and that himself had seen "ruffians of
+this calling assailed with a shower of stones, flung by
+both Catholics and Protestants." But this creditable
+reaction only became general under George II., twenty
+years after the passage of the act of Queen Anne.
+
+We shall have to mention some monstrous additions made
+to the code during the first George's reign, and some
+attempts to repair and perfect its diabolical machinery,
+even so late as George III.; but the great body of the
+penal law received its chief accessions from the
+oligarchical Irish Parliament, under Queen Anne. Hitherto,
+we have often had to point out, how with all its
+constitutional defects--with the law of Poynings, obliging
+heads of bills to be first sent to England--fettering
+its freedom of initiative;--how, notwithstanding all
+defects, the Irish Parliament had asserted, at many
+critical periods, its own and the people's rights, with
+an energy worthy of admiration. But the collective bigots
+of this reign were wholly unworthy of the name of a
+parliament. They permitted the woollen trade to be
+sacrificed without a struggle,--they allowed the bold
+propositions of Molyneux, one of their own number, to be
+condemned and reprobated without a protest. The knotted
+lash of Jonathan Swift was never more worthily applied,
+than to "the Legion Club," which he has consigned to such
+an unenviable immortality. Swift's inspiration may have
+been mingled with bitter disappointment and personal
+revenge; but, whatever motives animated him, his fearless
+use of his great abilities must always make him the first
+political, as he was certainly the first literary character
+of Ireland at that day. In a country so bare and naked
+as he found it; with a bigotry so rampant and united
+before him; it needed no ordinary courage and capacity
+to evoke anything like public opinion or public spirit.
+Let us be just to that most unhappy man of genius; let
+us proclaim that Irish nationality, bleeding at every
+pore, and in danger of perishing by the wayside, found
+shelter on the breast of Swift, and took new heart from
+the example of that bold churchman, before whom the
+Parliament, the bench of Bishops, and the Viceroy,
+trembled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE IRISH SOLDIERS ABROAD DURING THE REIGNS OF
+WILLIAM AND ANNE.
+
+The close of the second reign from the siege of Limerick
+imposes the duty of casting our eyes over the map of
+Europe, in quest of those gallant exiles whom we have
+seen, in tens of thousands, submitting to the hard
+necessity of expatriation.
+
+Many of the Meath and Leinster Irish, under their native
+commanders, the Kavanaghs and Nugents, carried their
+swords into the service of William's ally, the Emperor
+of Austria, and distinguished themselves in all the
+campaigns of Prince Eugene. Spain attracted to her
+standard the Irish of the north-west, the O'Donnells,
+the O'Reillys, and O'Garas, whose regiments, during more
+than one reign, continued to be known by flames of Ulster
+origin. In 1707, the great battle of Almanza, which
+decided the Spanish succession, was determined by O'Mahony's
+foot and Fitzjames's Irish horse. The next year Spain
+had five Irish regiments in her regular army, three of
+foot and two of dragoons, under the command of Lacy,
+Lawless, Wogan, O'Reilly, and O'Gara. But it was in France
+that the Irish served in the greatest number, and made
+the most impressive history for themselves and their
+descendants.
+
+The recruiting agents of France had long been in the
+habit of crossing the narrow seas, and bringing back the
+stalwart sons of the western Island to serve their
+ambitious kings, in every corner of the continent. An
+Irish troop of horse served, in 1652, under Turenne,
+against the great Conde. In the campaigns of 1673, 1674
+and 1675, under Turenne, two or three Irish regiments
+were in every engagement along the Rhine. At Altenheim,
+their commander, Count Hamilton, was created a major-general
+of France. In 1690, these old regiments, with the six
+new ones sent over by James, were formed into a brigade,
+and from 1690 to 1693, they went through the campaigns
+of Savoy and Italy, under Marshal Catinat, against Prince
+Eugene. Justin McCarthy, Lord Mountcashel, who commanded
+them, died at Bareges of wounds received at Staffardo.
+At Marsiglia, they routed, in 1693, the allies, killing
+Duke Schomberg, son to the Huguenot general who fell at
+the Boyne.
+
+The "New" or Sarsfield's brigade was employed under
+Luxembourg, against King William, in Flanders, in 1692
+and 1693. At Namur and Enghien, they were greatly
+distinguished, and William more than once sustained heavy
+loss at their hands. Sarsfield, their brigadier, for
+these services, was made mareschal-de-camp. At Landen,
+on the 29th of July, '93, France again triumphed to the
+cry, "Remember Limerick!" Sarsfield, leading on the fierce
+pursuers, fell, mortally wounded. Pressing his hand upon
+the wound, he took it away dripping with blood, and only
+said, "Oh, that this was for Ireland!"
+
+In the war of the Spanish succession, the remnants of
+both brigades, consolidated into one, served under their
+favourite leader, the Marshal Duke of Berwick, through
+nearly all his campaigns in Belgium, Spain and Germany.
+The third Lord Clare, afterwards Field-Marshal Count
+Thomond, was by the Duke's side at Phillipsburg, in 1733,
+when he received his death-wound from the explosion of
+a mine. These exiled Clare O'Briens commanded for three
+generations their famous family regiment of dragoons.
+The first who followed King James abroad died of wounds
+received at the battle of Ramillies; the third, with
+better fortune, outlived for nearly thirty years the
+glorious day of Fontenoy. The Irish cavalry regiments in
+the service of France were Sheldon's, Galmoy's, Clare's,
+and Killmallock's; the infantry were known as the regiments
+of Dublin, Charlemont, Limerick, and Athlone. There were
+two other infantry regiments, known as Luttrel's and
+Dorrington's--and a regiment of Irish marines, of which
+the Grand Prior, Fitzjames, was colonel. During the latter
+years of Louis XIV., there could not have been less, at
+any one time, than from 20,000 to 30,000 Irish in his
+armies, and during the succeeding century, authentic
+documents exist to prove that 450,000 natives of Ireland
+died in the military service of France.
+
+In the dreary reigns of William, Anne, and the two first
+Georges, the pride and courage of the disarmed and
+disinherited population abiding at home, drew new life
+and vigour from the exploits of their exiled brethren.
+The channel smuggler and the vagrant ballad-singer kept
+alive their fame for the lower class of the population,
+while the memoirs of Marlborough and Eugene, issuing from
+the Dublin press, communicated authentic accounts of
+their actions, to the more prejudiced, or better educated.
+The blows they struck at Landen, at Cremona, and at
+Almanza, were sensibly felt by every British statesman;
+when, in the bitterness of defeat, an English King cursed
+"the laws that deprived him of such subjects," the doom
+of the penal code was pronounced.
+
+The high character of the famous captains of these brigades
+was not confined to the field of battle. At Paris, Vienna,
+and Madrid, their wit and courtesy raised them to the
+favour of princes, over the jealousy of all their rivals.
+Important civil and diplomatic offices were entrusted to
+them--embassies of peace and war--the government of
+provinces, and the highest administrative offices of the
+state. While their kinsmen in Ireland were declared
+incapable of filling the humblest public employments, or
+of exercising the commonest franchise, they met British
+ambassadors abroad as equals, and checked or countermined
+the imperial policy of Great Britain. It was impossible
+that such a contrast of situations should not attract
+the attention of all thinking men! It was impossible that
+such reputations should shine before all Europe without
+reacting powerfully on the fallen fortunes of Ireland!
+
+
+
+
+BOOK XI.
+
+FROM THE ACCESSION OF GEORGE I. TO THE LEGISLATIVE
+UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+ACCESSION OF GEORGE I.--SWIFT'S LEADERSHIP.
+
+The last years of Queen Anne had been years of intrigue
+and preparation with the Jacobite leaders throughout the
+three kingdoms. At their head stood Ormond, the second
+and last _Duke_ of his name, and with him were associated
+at one stage or another of his design, Bolingbroke,
+Orrery, Bishop Atterbury, and other influential persons.
+It was thought that had this party acted promptly on the
+death of the Queen, and proclaimed James III. (or "the
+Pretender," as he was called by the partisans of the new
+dynasty), the Act of Succession might have remained a
+dead letter, and the Stuarts recovered their ancient
+sovereignty. But the partisans of the elector were the
+first in the field, and King George was accordingly
+proclaimed, on the 1st of August, at London, and on the
+6th of August, at Dublin.
+
+In Dublin, where serious apprehensions of a Jacobite
+rising were entertained, the proclamation was made by
+the glare of torches at the extraordinary hour of midnight.
+Two or three arrests of insignificant persons were made,
+and letters to Swift being found on one of them, the Dean
+was thought by his friends to be in some danger. But it
+was not correct to say, as many writers have done, that
+he found it necessary to retire from Dublin. The only
+inconvenience he suffered was from the hootings and
+revilings of the Protestant rabble in the street, and a
+brutal threat of personal violence from a young nobleman,
+upon whom he revenged himself in a characteristic petition
+to the House of Lords "for protection against the said
+lord." Pretending not to be quite sure of his assailant,
+he proceeds to explain: "Your petitioner is informed that
+the person who spoke the words above mentioned is of your
+Lordships' House, under the style and title of Lord
+Blaney; whom your petitioner remembers to have introduced
+to Mr. Secretary Addison, in the Earl of Wharton's
+government, and to have done him other good offices at
+that time, because he was represented as a young man of
+some hopes and a broken fortune." The entire document is
+a curious picture of the insolence of the ascendancy
+party of that day, even towards dignitaries of their own
+church who refused to go all lengths in the only politics
+they permitted or tolerated.
+
+It was while smarting under these public indignities,
+and excluded from the society of the highest class in
+his own country, with two or three exceptions, that
+Swift laid the foundations of his own and his country's
+patriotism, among the educated middle class of the Irish
+capital. From the college and the clergy he drew Dr.
+Sheridan--ancestor of six generations of men and women
+of genius! Doctors Delaney, Jackson, Helsham, Walmsley,
+Stopford (afterwards Bishop of Cloyne), and the three
+reverend brothers Grattan. In the city he selected as
+his friends and companions four other Grattans, one of
+whom was Lord-Mayor, another physician to the castle,
+one a schoolmaster, the other a merchant. "Do you know
+the Grattans?" he wrote to the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord
+Carteret; "then pray obtain their acquaintance. The
+Grattans, my lord, can raise 10,000 men." Among the class
+represented by this admirable family of seven brothers,
+and in that of the tradesmen immediately below them, of
+which we may take his printers, Waters and Faulkner for
+types, Swift's haughty and indignant denunciations of
+the oligarchy of the hour produced striking effects.
+The humblest of the community began to raise their heads,
+and to fix their eyes steadily on public affairs and
+public characters. Questions of currency, of trade, of
+the administration of justice and of patronage, were
+earnestly discussed in the press and in society, and thus
+by slow but gradually ascending steps, a spirit of
+independence was promoted where hitherto only servility
+had reigned.
+
+The obligations of his cotemporaries to Swift are not to
+be counted simply by what he was able to originate or to
+advocate in their behalf--for not much could be done in
+that way, in such times, and in such a position as his
+--but rather in regard to the enemies and maligners of
+that people, whom he exposed and punished. To understand
+the value of his example and inspiration, we must read
+over again his castigations of Wharton, of Burnet, of
+Boulter, of Whitshed, of Allan, and all the leaders of
+the oligarchy, in the Irish Parliament. When we have done
+so, we shall see at once how his imperial reputation,
+his personal position, and every faculty of his powerful
+mind were employed alike to combat injustice and
+proscription, to promote freedom of opinion and of trade,
+to punish the abuses of judicial power, and to cultivate
+and foster a spirit of self reliance and economy among
+all classes--especially the humblest. In his times, and
+in his position, with a cassock "entangling his course,"
+what more could have been expected of him?
+
+The Irish Parliament met in 1715--elected, according to
+the then usage, for the lifetime of the King--commenced
+its career by an act of attainder against the Pretender,
+accompanied by a reward of 50,000 pounds for his
+apprehension. The Lords-Justices, the Duke of Grafton
+and the Earl of Galway, recommended in their speech to
+the Houses, that they should cultivate such unanimity
+among themselves as "at once to put an end to all other
+distinctions in Ireland, but that of Protestant and
+Papist." In the same speech, and in all the debates of
+that reign, the Catholics were spoken of as "the common
+enemy," and all who sympathized with them, as "enemies
+of the constitution." But far as this Parliament was from
+all our ideas of what a national legislature ought to
+be, it was precisely at this period, when the administration
+could not be worse, that the foundation was laid of the
+great contest for legislative independence, which was to
+continue through three generations, and to constitute
+the main staple of the Irish history of this century.
+
+In the year 1717, the English House of Lords entertained
+and decided, as a court of last resort, an appeal from
+the Irish courts, already passed on by the Irish Lords,
+in the famous real-estate case of Annesley _versus_
+Sherlock. The proceeding was novel, and was protested
+against in the English House at the time by the Duke of
+Leeds, and in the Irish, by the majority of the whole
+House. But the British Parliament, not content with
+claiming the power, proceeded to establish the principle,
+by the declaratory act--6th George I.--for securing the
+dependence of Ireland on the crown of Great Britain. This
+statute, even more objectionable than the law of Poynings,
+continued unrepealed till 1782, notwithstanding all the
+arguments and all the protests of the Irish patriot party.
+The Lords of Ireland, unsupported by the bigoted and
+unprincipled oligarchy in the Commons, were shorn of
+their appellate jurisdiction, and their journals for many
+years contain few entries of business done, beyond servile
+addresses to successive Viceroys, and motions of
+adjournment.
+
+In their session of 1723, the ascendancy party in the
+Commons proceeded to their last extreme of violence
+against the prostrate Catholics. An act was introduced
+founded on eight resolutions, "further to prevent the
+growth of Popery." One of these resolutions, regularly
+transmitted to England by the Viceroy-proposed that every
+priest, arrested within the realm, should suffer the
+penalty of _castration_! For the first time, a penal law
+was rejected with horror and indignation by the English
+Privy Council, and the whole elaborate edifice, overweighted
+with these last propositions, trembled to its base. But
+though badly shaken, it was yet far from coming down.
+
+"Do not the corruptions and villainies of men," said
+Swift to his friend Delaney, "eat your flesh and exhaust
+your spirits?" They certainly gnawed at the heart of the
+courageous Dean, but at the same time, they excited rather
+than exhausted his spirits. In 1720 he resumed his pen,
+as a political writer, in his famous proposal "for the
+universal use of Irish manufactures." Waters, the printer
+of this piece, was indicted for a seditious libel, before
+Chief-Justice Whitshed, the immortal "_coram nobis_" of
+the Dean's political ballads. The jury were detained
+eleven hours, and sent out nine times, to compel them to
+agree on a verdict. They at length finally declared they
+could not agree, and a _nol. pros_. was soon after
+entered by the crown. This trial of Swift's printer in
+1720, is the first of a long series of duels with the
+crown lawyers, which the Irish press has since maintained
+with as much firmness and self-sacrifice as any press
+ever exhibited. And it may be said that never, not even
+under martial law, was a conspicuous example of civic
+courage more necessary, or more dangerous. Browne, Bishop
+of Cork, had been in danger of deprivation for preaching
+a sermon against the well-known toast to the memory of
+King William; Swift was threatened, as we see, a few
+years earlier, with personal violence by a Whig lord,
+and pelted by a Protestant rabble, for his supposed
+Jacobitism; his friend, Dr. Sheridan, lost his Munster
+living for having accidentally chosen as his text, on
+the anniversary of King George's coronation, "sufficient
+for the day is the evil thereof." Such was the intolerance
+of the oligarchy towards their own clergy. What must it
+have been to others!
+
+The attempt to establish a National Bank, and the
+introduction of a debased copper coinage, for which a
+patent had been, granted to one William Wood, next employed
+the untiring pen of Swift. The halfpenny controversy,
+was not, as is often said, a small matter; it was nearly
+as important as the bank project itself. Of the 100,000
+pounds worth coined, the intrinsic value was shown to be
+not more than 6,000 pounds. Such was the storm excited
+against the patentee, that his Dublin agents were obliged
+to resign their connection with him, and the royal
+letters-patent were unwillingly cancelled. The bank
+project was also rejected by Parliament, adding another
+to the triumphs of the invincible Dean.
+
+During the last years of this reign, Swift was the most
+powerful and popular person in Ireland, and perhaps in
+the empire. The freedom with which he advised Carteret
+the Viceroy, and remonstrated with Walpole, the Premier,
+on the misrule of his country, was worthy of the ascendancy
+of his genius. No man of letters, no churchman, no
+statesman of any country in any age, ever showed himself
+more thoroughly independent, in his intercourse with men
+of office, than Swift. The vice of Ireland was exactly
+the other way, so that in this respect also, the patriot
+was the liberator.
+
+Rising with the rise of public spirit, the great churchman,
+in his fourth letter, in the assumed character of _M. B.
+Drapier_, confronted the question of legislative
+independence. Alluding to the pamphlet of Molyneux,
+published thirty years before, he pronounced its arguments
+invincible, and the contrary system "the very definition
+of slavery." "The remedy," he concludes, addressing the
+Irish people, "is wholly in your own hands, and therefore
+I have digressed a little, in order to refresh and continue
+that spirit so seasonably raised among you, and to let
+you see, that, by the laws of God, of nature, of nations,
+and of your country, _you are, and ought to be, as free
+a people as your brethren in England_." For this letter
+also, the printer, Harding, was indicted, but the Dublin
+grand jury, infected with the spirit of the times,
+unanimously ignored the bill. A reward of 300 pounds was
+then issued from the castle for the discovery of the
+author, but no informer could be found base enough to
+betray him. For a time, however, to escape the ovations
+he despised, and the excitement which tried his health,
+Swift retired to his friend Sheridan's cottage on the
+banks of Lough Ramor, in Cavan, and there recreated
+himself with long rides about the country, and the
+composition of the Travels of the immortal Gulliver.
+
+Sir Robert Walpole, alarmed at the exhibition of popular
+intelligence and determination evoked by Swift, committed
+the government of Ireland to his rival, Lord Carteret--whom
+he was besides not sorry to remove to a distance--and
+appointed to the See of Armagh, which fell vacant about
+the time of the currency dispute, Dr. Hugh Boulter, Bishop
+of Bristol, one of his own creatures. This prelate, a
+politician by taste and inclination, modelled his policy
+on his patron's, as far as his more contracted sphere
+and inferior talents permitted. To buy members in market
+overt, with peerages, or secret service money, was his
+chief means of securing a Parliamentary majority. An
+Englishman by birth and education; the head of the
+Protestant establishment in Ireland, it was inevitable
+that his policy should be English and Protestant, in
+every particular. To resist, depress, disunite, and
+defeat the believers in the dangerous doctrines of Swift
+and Molyneux, was the sole rule of his nearly twenty
+years' political supremacy in Irish affairs. (1724-1742.)
+The master of a princely income, endowed with strong
+passions, unlimited patronage, and great activity, he
+may be said to have reigned rather than led, even when
+the nominal viceroyalty was in the hands of such able
+and accomplished men as Lords Carteret, Dorset and
+Devonshire. His failure in his first state trial, against
+Harding the printer, nothing discouraged him; he had come
+into Ireland to secure the English interest, by uprooting
+the last vestiges of Popery and independence, and he
+devoted himself to those objects with persevering
+determination. In 1727--the year of George the First's
+decease--he obtained the disfranchisement of Catholic
+electors by a clause quietly inserted without notice in
+a Bill regulating elections; and soon after he laid the
+foundations of those nurseries of proselytism, "the
+Charter Schools."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+REIGN OF GEORGE II.--GROWTH OF PUBLIC SPIRIT--THE
+"PATRIOT" PARTY--LORD CHESTERFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION.
+
+The accession of King George II. in 1727, led to no
+considerable changes, either in England or Ireland. Sir
+Robert Walpole continued supreme in the one country, and
+Primate Boulter in the other. The Jacobites, disheartened
+by their ill success in 1715, and repelled rather than
+attracted by the austere character of him they called
+King James III., made no sign. The new King's first act
+was to make public the declaration he had addressed to
+the Privy Council, of his firm resolution to uphold the
+existing constitution "in church and state."
+
+The Catholic population, beginning once more to raise
+their heads, thought this a suitable occasion to present
+a humble and loyal address of congratulation to the Lords
+Justices, in the absence of the Viceroy. Lord Delvin and
+several of their number accordingly appeared at the
+Castle, and delivered their address, which they begged
+might be forwarded to the foot of the throne. No notice
+whatever was taken of this document, either at Dublin or
+London, nor were the class who signed it permitted by
+law to "testify their allegiance" to the sovereign, for
+fifty years later--down to 1778.
+
+The Duke of Dorset, who succeeded Lord Carteret as Viceroy
+in 1731, unlike his immediate predecessor, refrained from
+suggesting additional severities against the Catholics.
+His first term of office--two years--was almost entirely
+occupied with the fiercest controversy which had ever
+waged in Ireland between the Established Church and the
+Protestant Dissenters. The ground of the dispute was
+the sacramental test, imposed by law upon the members of
+both Houses, and all burgesses and councillors of corporate
+towns. By the operations of this law, when rigidly
+enforced, Presbyterians and other dissenters were as
+effectually excluded from political and municipal offices
+as Catholics themselves. Against this exclusion it was
+natural that a body so numerous, and possessed of so much
+property, especially in Ulster, should make a vigorous
+resistance. Relying on the great share they had in the
+revolution, they endeavoured, though ineffectually, to
+obtain under King William the repeal of the Test Act of
+King Charles II. Under Queen Anne they were equally
+unsuccessful, as we may still read with interest in the
+pages of Swift, De Foe, Tennison, Boyse, and King. Swift,
+especially, brought to the controversy not only the zeal
+of a churchman, but the prejudices of an Anglo-Irishman,
+against the new-comers in the north. He upbraids them in
+1708, as glad to leave then--barren hills of Lochaber
+for the fruitful vales of Down and Antrim, for their
+parsimony and their clannishness. He denied to them,
+with bitter scorn, the title they had assumed of "Brother
+Protestants," and as to the Papists, whom they affected
+to despise, they were, in his opinion, as much superior
+to the Dissenters, as a lion, though chained and clipped
+of its claws, is a stronger and nobler animal than an
+angry cat, at liberty to fly at the throats of true
+churchmen. The language of the Presbyterian champions
+was equally bold, denunciatory, and explicit. They broadly
+intimated, in a memorial to Parliament, that under the
+operation of the test, they would be unable to take up
+arms again, as they had done in 1688, for the maintenance
+of the Protestant succession; a covert menace of
+insurrection, which Swift and their other opponents did
+not fail to make the most of. Still farther to embarrass
+them, Swift got up a paper making out a much stronger
+case in favour of the Catholics than of "their brethren,
+the Dissenters," and the controversy closed, for that
+age, in the complete triumph of the established clergy.
+
+This iniquitous deprivation of equal civil rights,
+accompanied with the onerous burthen of tithes falling
+heaviest on the cultivators of the soil, produced the
+first great Irish exodus to the North American colonies.
+The tithe of agistment or pasturage, lately abolished,
+had made the tithe of tillage more unjust and unequal.
+Outraged in their dearest civil and religious rights,
+thousands of the Scoto-Irish of Ulster, and the Milesian
+and Anglo-Irish of the other provinces, preferred to
+encounter the perils of an Atlantic flitting rather than
+abide under the yoke and lash of such an oligarchy. In
+the year 1729, five thousand six hundred Irish landed at
+the single port of Philadelphia; in the next ten years
+they furnished to the Carolinas and Georgia the majority
+of their immigrants; before the end of this reign, several
+thousands of heads of families, all bred and married in
+Ireland, were rearing up a free posterity along the slopes
+of the Blue Ridge in Virginia and Maryland, and even as
+far north as the valleys of the Hudson and the Merrimac.
+In the ranks of the thirteen United Colonies, the
+descendants of those Nonconformists were to repeat, for
+the benefit of George III., the lesson and example their
+ancestors had taught to James II. at Enniskillen and
+at Derry.
+
+Swift, with all his services to his own order, disliked,
+and was disliked by them. Of the bishops he has recorded
+his utter contempt in some of the most cutting couplets
+that even he ever wrote. Boulter he detested; Narcissus
+Marsh he despised; with Dr. King of Dublin, Dr. Bolton
+of Cashel, and Dr. Horte of Tuam, he barely kept up
+appearances. Except Sterne, Bishop of Clogher, Berkely,
+Bishop of Cloyne, and Stopford, his successor, he
+entertained neither friendship nor respect for one of
+that order. And on their part, the right reverend prelates
+cordially reciprocated his antipathy. They resisted his
+being made a member of the Linen Board, a Justice of the
+Peace, or a Visitor of Trinity College. Had he appeared
+amongst them in Parliament as their peer, they would have
+been compelled to accept him as a master, or combine
+against him as an enemy. No wonder, then, that successive
+Viceroys shrank from nominating him to any of the mitres
+which death had emptied; "the original sin of his birth"
+was aggravated in their eyes by the actual sin of his
+patriotism. No wonder the sheets of paper that littered
+his desk, before he sunk into his last sad scene of
+dotage, were found scribbled all over with his favourite
+lines--
+
+ "Better we all were in our graves,
+ Than live in slavery to slaves."
+
+But the seeds of manly thought he had so broadly sown,
+though for a season hidden even from the sight of the
+sower, were not dead, nor undergoing decay. With something
+of the prudence of the founder, "the Patriot party," as
+the opposition to the Castle party began to be called,
+occupied themselves at first with questions of taxation
+and expenditure. In 1729, the Castle attempted to make
+it appear that there was a deficit--that in short "the
+country owed the government"--the large sum of 274,000
+pounds! The Patriots met this claim, by a motion for
+reducing the cost of all public establishments. This was
+the chosen ground of both parties, and a more popularly
+intelligible ground could not be taken. Between retrenchment
+and extravagance, between high taxes and low, even the
+least educated of the people could easily decide; and
+thenceforward for upwards of twenty years, no session
+was held without a spirited debate on the supplies, and
+the whole subject of the public expenditure.
+
+The Duke of Devonshire, who succeeded the Duke of Dorset
+as Viceroy in 1737, contributed by his private munificence
+and lavish hospitalities to throw a factitious popularity
+round his administration. No Dublin tradesman could find
+it in his heart to vote against the nominee of so liberal
+a nobleman, and the public opinion of Dublin was as yet
+the public opinion of Ireland. But the Patriot party,
+though unable to stem successfully the tide of corruption
+and seduction thus let loose, held their difficult position
+in the legislature with great gallantry and ability.
+New men had arisen during the dotage of Swift, who revered
+his maxims, and imitated his prudence. Henry Boyle,
+speaker of the House of Commons, afterwards Earl of
+Shannon; Anthony Malone--son of the _confrere_ of Sir
+Toby Butler, and afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+Sir Edward O'Brien, member for Clare, and his son, Sir
+Lucius, member for Ennis, were the pillars of the party.
+Out of doors, the most active spirit among the Patriots
+was Charles Lucas, a native of Clare, who, from his
+apothecary's shop in Dublin, attempted, not without both
+talents, zeal and energy, to play the part of Swift, at
+the press and among the people. His public writings,
+commenced in 1741, brought him at first persecution and
+exile, but they afterwards conducted him to the
+representation of the capital, and an honourable niche
+in his country's history.
+
+The great event which may be said to divide into two
+epochs the reign of George II. was the daring invasion
+of Scotland in 1745, by "the young Pretender"--Charles
+Edward. This brave and unfortunate Prince, whose adventures
+will live for ever in Scottish song and romance, was
+accompanied from France by Sir Thomas Sheridan, Colonel
+O'Sullivan, and other Irish refugees, still fondly attached
+to the house of Stuart. It is not to be supposed that
+these gentlemen would be without correspondents in Ireland,
+nor that the state of that country could be a matter of
+indifference to the astute advisers of King George. In
+reality, Ireland was almost as much their difficulty as
+Scotland, and their choice of a Viceroy, at this critical
+moment, showed at once their estimate of the importance
+of the position, and the talents of the man.
+
+Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, a great
+name in the world of fashion, in letters, and in diplomacy,
+is especially memorable to us for his eight months'
+viceroyalty over Ireland. That office had been long the
+object of his ambition, and he could hardly have attained
+it at a time better calculated to draw out his eminent
+administrative abilities. By temper and conviction opposed
+to persecution, he connived at Catholic worship under
+the very walls of the Castle. The sour and jaundiced
+bigotry of the local oligarchy he encountered with _bon
+mots_ and raillery. The only "dangerous Papist" he had
+seen in Ireland, he declared to the King on his return,
+was a celebrated beauty of that religion--Miss Palmer.
+Relying on the magical effect of doing justice to all
+classes, and seeing justice done, he was enabled to spare
+four regiments of troops for the war in Scotland, instead
+of demanding additions to the Irish garrisons. But
+whether to diminish the influence which his brilliant
+administration had created in England, or through the
+machinations of the oligarchy, still powerful at Dublin,
+within ten days from the decisive battle of Culloden, he
+was recalled. The fruits of his policy might be already
+observed, as he walked on foot, his countess on his arm,
+to the place of embarkation, amid the acclamations of
+all ranks and classes of the people, and their affectionate
+prayers for his speedy return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE LAST JACOBITE MOVEMENT--THE IRISH SOLDIERS ABROAD--
+FRENCH EXPEDITION UNDER THUROT, OR O'FARRELL.
+
+The mention of the Scottish insurrection of 1745 brings
+naturally with it another reference to the history of
+the Irish soldiers in the military service of France.
+This year was in truth the most eventful in the annals
+of that celebrated legion, for while it was the year of
+Fontenoy and victory on the one hand, it was on the other
+the year of Culloden and defeat.
+
+The decisive battle of Fontenoy, in which the Franco-Irish
+troops bore so decisive a part, was fought on the 11th
+of May, 1745. The French army, commanded by Saxe, and
+accompanied by King Louis, leaving 18,000 men to besiege
+Namur, and 6,000 to guard the Scheldt, took a position
+between that river and the allies, having their centre
+at the village of Fontenoy. The British and Dutch, under
+the King's favourite son, the Duke of Cumberland, were
+55,000 strong; the French 45,000. After a hard day's
+fighting, victory seemed to declare so clearly against
+France, that King Louis, who was present, prepared for
+flight. At this moment Marshal Saxe ordered a final charge
+by the seven Irish regiments under Counts Dillon and
+Thomond. The tide was turned, beyond expectation, to the
+cry of "Remember Limerick!" France was delivered, England
+checked, and Holland reduced from a first to a second-rate
+power upon that memorable day. But the victory was dearly
+bought. One-fourth of all the Irish officers, including
+Count Dillon, were killed, and one-third of all the men.
+The whole number slain on the side of France was set down
+at 7,000 by English accounts, while they admitted for
+themselves alone, 4,000 British and 3,300 Hanoverians
+and Dutch. "Foremost of all," says the just-minded Lord
+Mahon, "were the gallant brigade of Irish exiles." It
+was this defeat of his favourite son which wrung from
+King George II. the oft-quoted malediction on the laws
+which deprived him of such subjects.
+
+The expedition of Prince Charles Edward was undertaken
+and conducted by Irish aid, quite as much as by French
+or Scottish. The chief parties to it, besides the old
+Marquis of Tullibardine and the young Duke of Perth, were
+the Waterses, father and son, Irish bankers at Paris,
+who advanced one hundred and eighty thousand livres
+between them; Walsh, an Irish merchant at Nantz, who put
+a privateer of eighteen guns into the venture; Sir Thomas
+Geraldine, the Pretender's agent at Paris; Sir Thomas
+Sheridan, the prince's preceptor, who, with Colonels
+O'Sullivan and Lynch, Captain O'Neil, and other officers
+of the brigade, formed the staff, on which Sir John
+McDonald, a Scottish officer in the Spanish service, was
+also placed. Fathers Kelly and O'Brien volunteered in
+the expedition. On the 22nd of June, 1745, with seven
+friends, the prince embarked in Walsh's vessel, the
+Doutelle, at St. Nazaire, on the Loire, and on the 19th
+of July, landed on the northern coast of Scotland, near
+Moidart. The Scottish chiefs, little consulted or considered
+beforehand, came slowly and dubiously to the landing-place.
+Under their patriarchal control there were still in the
+kingdom about a hundred thousand men, and about one-twelfth
+of the Scottish population. Clanronald, Cameron of Lochiel,
+the Laird of McLeod, and a few others, having arrived,
+the royal standard was unfurled on the 19th of August at
+Glenfinin, where that evening twelve hundred men--the
+entire army so far--were formed into camp, under the
+orders of O'Sullivan. From that day until the day of
+Culloden, O'Sullivan seems to have manoeuvred the prince's
+forces. At Perth, at Edinburgh, at Preston, at Manchester,
+at Culloden, he took command in the field, or in garrison;
+and even after the sad result, he adhered to his sovereign's
+son with an honourable fidelity which defied despair.
+
+Charles, on his part, placed full confidence in his Irish
+officers. In his proclamation after the battle of Preston,
+he declared it was not his intention to enforce on the
+people of England, Scotland, or Ireland, "a religion they
+disliked." In a subsequent paper, he asks, "Have you
+found reason to love and cherish your governors as the
+fathers of the people of Great Britain and Ireland? Has
+a family upon whom a faction unlawfully bestowed the
+diadem of a rightful prince, retained a due sense of so
+great a trust and favour?" These and his other proclamations
+betrayed an Irish pen; probably Sir Thomas Sheridan's.
+One of Charles's English adherents, Lord Elcho, who kept
+a journal of the campaign, notes, complainingly, the
+Irish influence under which he acted. "The prince and
+his old governor, Sir Thomas Sheridan," are especially
+objected to, and the "Irish favourites" are censured in
+a body. While at Edinburgh, a French ship, containing
+some arms, supplies, and "Irish officers," arrived; at
+the same time efforts were made to recruit for the prince
+in Ireland; but the agents being taken in some cases,
+the channel narrowly watched, and the people not very
+eager to join the service, few recruits were obtained.
+
+The Irish in France, as if to cover the inaction of their
+countrymen at home, strained every nerve. The Waterses
+and O'Brien of Paris were liberal bankers to the expedition.
+Into their hands James "exhausted his treasury" to support
+his gallant son. At Fontainebleau, on the 23rd of October,
+Colonel O'Brien, on the part of the prince, and the
+Marquis D'Argeusson for Louis XV., formed a treaty of
+"friendship and alliance," one of the clauses of which
+was, that certain Irish regiments, and other French
+troops, should be sent to sustain the expedition. Under
+Lord John Drummond a thousand men were shipped from
+Dunkirk, and arrived at Montrose in the Highlands about
+the time Charles had penetrated as far south as Manchester.
+The officers, with the prince, here refused to advance
+on London with so small a force; a retreat was decided
+on; the sturdy defence of Carlisle, and victory of Falkirk,
+checked the pursuit; but the overwhelming force of the
+Duke of Cumberland compelled them to evacuate Edinburgh,
+Perth, and Glasgow--operations which consumed February,
+March, and the first half of April, 1746.
+
+The next plan of operations seems to have been to
+concentrate in the western Highlands, with Inverness for
+head-quarters. The town Charles easily got, but
+Fort-George, a powerful fortress, built upon the site of
+the castle where Macbeth was said to have murdered Duncan,
+commanded the Loch. Stapleton and his Irish, captured
+it, however, as well as the neighbouring Fort-Augustus.
+Joined by some Highlanders, they next attempted
+Fort-William, the last fortress of King George in the
+north, but on the 3rd of April were recalled to the
+main body.
+
+To cover Inverness, his head-quarters, Charles resolved
+to give battle. The ground chosen, flanked by the river
+Nairn, was spotted with marsh and very irregular; it was
+called Culloden, and was selected by O'Sullivan. Brigadier
+Stapleton and Colonel Kerr reported against it as a field
+of battle; but Charles adopted O'Sullivan's opinion of
+its fitness for Highland warfare. When the preparations
+for battle began, "many voices exclaimed, 'We'll give
+Cumberland another Fontenoy!'" The Jacobites were placed
+in position by O'Sullivan, "at once their adjutant and
+quarter-master-general," and, as the burghers of Preston
+thought, "a very likely fellow." He formed two lines,
+the great clans being in the first, the Ogilvies, Gordons,
+and Murrays; the French and Irish in the second. Four
+pieces of cannon flanked each wing, and four occupied
+the centre. Lord George Murray commanded the right wing,
+Lord John Drummond the left, and Brigadier Stapleton the
+reserve. They mustered in all less than five thousand
+men. The British formed in three lines, ten thousand
+strong, with two guns between every second regiment of
+the first and second line. The action commenced about
+noon of April 16th, and before evening half the troops
+of Prince Charles lay dead on the field, and the rest
+were hopelessly broken. The retreat was pell-mell, except
+where "a troop of the Irish pickets, by a spirited fire,
+checked the pursuit, which a body of dragoons commenced
+after the Macdonalds, and Lord Lewis Gordon's regiments
+did similar service." Stapleton conducted the French and
+Irish remnant to Inverness, and obtained for them by
+capitulation "fair quarter and honourable treatment."
+
+The unhappy prince remained on the field almost to the
+last. "It required," says Mr. Chambers, "all the
+eloquence, and, indeed, all the active exertion, of
+O'Sullivan to make Charles quit the field. A cornet in
+his service, when questioned on this subject at the point
+of death, declared he saw O'Sullivan, after using entreaties
+in vain, turn the head of the prince's horse and drag
+him away."
+
+From that night forth, O'Sullivan, O'Neil, and a poor
+sedan carrier of Edinburgh, called Burke, accompanied
+him in all his wanderings and adventures among the Scottish
+islands. At Long Island they were obliged to part company,
+the prince proceeding alone with Miss Flora McDonald. He
+had not long left, when a French cutter hove in sight
+and took off O'Sullivan, intending to touch at another
+point, and take in the prince and O'Neil. The same night
+she was blown off the coast, and the prince, after many
+other adventures, was finally taken off at Badenoch, on
+the 15th of September, 1746, by the L'Heureux, a French
+armed vessel, in which Captain Sheridan (son of Sir
+Thomas), Mr. O'Beirne, a lieutenant in the French army,
+"and two other gentlemen," had adventured in search of
+him. Poor O'Neil, in seeking to rejoin his master, was
+taken prisoner, carried to London, and is lost from the
+record. O'Sullivan reached France safely, where, with
+Stapleton, Lynch, and the Irish and Scotch officers, he
+was welcomed and honoured of all brave men.
+
+Such was the last struggle of the Stuarts. For years
+after, the popular imagination in both countries clung
+fondly to Prince Charles. But the cause was dead. As if
+to bury it for ever, Charles, in despair, grew dissipated
+and desponding. In 1755, "the British Jacobites" sent
+Colonel McNamara, as their agent, to induce him to put
+away his mistress, Miss Walsingham, a demand with which
+he haughtily refused to comply. In 1766, when James III.
+died at Avignon, the French king and the Pope refused to
+acknowledge the prince by the title of Charles III. When
+the latter died, in 1788, at Rome, Cardinal York contented
+himself with having a medal struck, with the inscription
+"Henricus IX., Anglae Rex." He was the last of the Stuarts.
+
+Notwithstanding the utter defeat of the Scottish expedition,
+and the scatterment of the surviving companies of the
+brigade on all sorts of service from Canada to India,
+there were many of the exiled Irish in France, who did
+not yet despair of a national insurrection against the
+house of Hanover. In the year 1759, an imposing expedition
+was fitted out at Brest under Admiral Conflaus, and
+another at Dunkirk, under Commodore Thurot, whose real
+name was O'Farrell. The former, soon after putting to
+sea, was encountered at Quiberon by the English under
+Hawke, and completely defeated; but the latter entered
+the British channel unopposed, and proceeded to the
+appointed _rendezvous_. While cruising in search of
+Conflaus, the autumnal equinox drove the intrepid Thurot
+into the Northern ocean, and compelled him to winter
+among the frozen friths of Norway and the Orkneys. One
+of his five frigates returned to France, another was
+never heard of, but with the remaining three he emerged
+from the Scottish Islands, and entered Lough Foyle early
+in 1760. He did not, however, attempt a landing at Derry,
+but appeared suddenly before Carrickfergus, on the 21st
+of February, and demanded its surrender. Placing himself
+at the head of his marines and sailors, he attacked the
+town, which, after a brave resistance by the commandant,
+Colonel Jennings, he took by assault. Here, for the first
+time, this earlier Paul Jones heard of the defeat of his
+admiral; after levying contributions on the rich burgesses
+and proprietors of Carrickfergus and Belfast, he again
+put to sea. His ships, battered by the wintry storms
+which they had undergone in northern latitudes, fell in
+near the Isle of Man with three English frigates, just
+out of port, under Commodore Elliott. A gallant action
+ensued, in which Thurot, or O'Farrell, and three hundred
+of his men were killed. The survivors struck to the
+victors, and the French ships were towed in a sinking
+state, into the port of Ramsey.
+
+The life thus lost in the joint service of France and
+Ireland, was a life illustrative of the Irish refugee
+class among whom he became a leader. Left an orphan in
+childhood, O'Farrell, though of a good family, had been
+bred in France in so menial a condition that he first
+visited England as a domestic servant. From that condition
+he rose to be a dexterous and successful captain in the
+contraband trade, so extensive in those times. In this
+capacity he visited almost every port of either channel,
+acquiring that accurate knowledge which, added to his
+admitted bravery and capacity, placed him at length at
+the head of a French squadron. "Throughout the expedition,"
+says Lord Mahon, "the honour and humanity of this brave
+adventurer are warmly acknowledged by his enemies." "He
+fought his ship," according to the same author, "until
+the hold was almost filled with water, and the deck
+covered with dead bodies."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+REIGN OF GEORGE II. (CONCLUDED)--MALONE'S LEADERSHIP.
+
+The Earl of Harrington, afterwards Duke of Devonshire,
+succeeded Lord Chesterfield in the government, in 1746.
+He was provided with a prime minister in the person of
+the new Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. George Stone, whose
+character, if he was not exceedingly calumniated by his
+cotemporaries, might be compared to that of the worst
+politicians of the worst ages of Europe. Originally, the
+son of the jailer of Winchester, he had risen by dint of
+talents, and audacity, to receive from the hands of his
+sovereign, the illustrious dignity of Primate of Ireland.
+But even in this exalted office, the abominable vices of
+his youth accompanied him. His house at Leixlip, was at
+once a tavern and a brothel, and crimes, which are
+nameless, were said to be habitual under his roof. "May
+the importation of Ganymedes into Ireland, be soon
+discontinued," was the public toast, which disguised
+under the transparent gauze of a mythological allusion,
+the infamies of which he was believed to be the patron.
+The prurient page of Churchill was not quite so scrupulous,
+and the readers of the satire entitled "The Times," will
+need no further key to the horrible charges commonly
+received on both sides of the channel, against Primate
+Stone.
+
+The viceroyalty of Ireland, which had become an object
+of ambition to the first men in the empire, was warmly
+contested by the Earl of Harrington and the Duke of
+Dorset. The former, through his Stanhope influence and
+connections, prevailed over his rival, and arrived in
+Ireland, warmly recommended by the popular Chesterfield.
+During his administration, Primate Stone, proceeding from
+one extreme to another, first put forward the dangerous
+theory, that all surplus revenue belonged of right to
+the crown, and might be paid over by the Vice-Treasurers,
+to his majesty's order, without authority of Parliament.
+At this period, notwithstanding the vicious system of
+her land tenures, and her recent losses by emigration,
+Ireland found herself in possession of a considerable
+surplus revenue.
+
+Like wounds and bruises in a healthy body, the sufferings
+and deprivations of the population rapidly disappeared
+under the appearance even of improvement in the government.
+The observant Chesterfield, who continued through life
+warmly attached to the country in which his name was
+remembered with so much affection, expresses to his
+friend, Chevenix, Bishop of Waterford, in 1751, his
+satisfaction at hearing "that Ireland improves daily,
+and that a spirit of industry spreads itself, to the
+great increase of trade and manufactures." This new-born
+prosperity the Primate and politicians of his school
+would have met by an annual depletion of the treasury,
+instead of assisting its march by the reduction of taxes,
+and the promotion of necessary public works. The surplus
+was naturally regarded, by the Patriot party, in the
+light of so much national capital; they looked upon it
+as an improvement fund, for the construction of canals,
+highways, and breakwaters, for the encouragement of the
+linen and other manufactures, and for the adornment of
+the capital with edifices worthy of the chief city of a
+flourishing kingdom.
+
+The leader of the Patriot party, Anthony Malone, was
+compared at this period, by an excellent authority, to
+"a great sea in a calm." He was considered, even by the
+fastidious Lord Shelburne, the equal, in oratory, of
+Chatham and Mansfield. He seems to have at all times,
+however, sunk the mere orator in the statesman, and to
+have used his great powers of argument even more in
+Council than in the arena. His position at the bar, as
+Prime Sergeant, by which he took precedence even of the
+Attorney-General, gave great weight to his opinions on
+all questions of constitutional law. The roystering
+country gentlemen, who troubled their heads but little
+with anything besides dogs and horses, pistols and claret,
+felt secure in their new-fledged patriotism, under the
+broad aegis of the law extended over them by the most
+eminent lawyer of his age. The Speaker of the Commons,
+Henry Boyle, aided and assisted Malone, and when left
+free to combat on the floor, his high spirit and great
+fortune gave additional force to his example and confidence
+to his followers. Both were men too cautious to allow
+their adversaries any parliamentary advantage over them,
+but not so their intrepid coadjutor out of doors, Apothecary
+Lucas. He, like Swift, rising from local and municipal
+grievances to questions affecting the constitution of
+Parliament itself, was in 1749, against all the efforts
+of his friends in the House of Commons, declared by the
+majority of that House to be "an enemy to his country,"
+and a reward was accordingly issued for his apprehension.
+For a time he was compelled to retire to England; but he
+returned, to celebrate in his Freeman's Journal the
+humiliation of the primate, and the defeat of the policy
+both of Lord Harrington, and his successor, the Duke of
+Dorset.
+
+This nobleman, resolved to cast his predecessor into the
+shade by the brilliancy of his success, proceeded to take
+vigorous measures against the patriots. In his first
+speech to Parliament in 1751, he informed them his Majesty
+"consented" to the appropriation of the surplus revenue,
+by the House of Commons, and a clause was added to the
+annual supply bill in the English Council, containing
+the same obnoxious word, "consent." On this occasion,
+not feeling themselves strong enough to throw out the
+bill, and there being no alternative but rejection or
+acceptance, the Patriots permitted it to pass under
+protest. But the next session, when a similar addition
+was made, the Commons rejected the supply bill altogether,
+by a majority of 122 to 117. This was a measure of almost
+revolutionary consequence, since it left every branch of
+the public service unprovided for, for the ensuing twelve
+months.
+
+Both the advisers of the King in England, and the Viceroy
+in Ireland, seemed by their insane conduct as if they
+desired to provoke such a collision. Malone's patent of
+precedence as Prime Sergeant was cancelled; the speaker
+was dismissed from the Privy Council, and the surplus
+revenue was withdrawn from the Vice-Treasurer, by a King's
+letter. The indignation of the Dubliners at these outrages
+rose to the utmost pitch. Stone, Healy, Hutchinson, and
+others of the Castle party, were waylaid and menaced in
+the streets, and the Viceroy himself hooted wherever he
+appeared. Had the popular leaders been men less cautious,
+or less influential, the year 1753 might have witnessed
+a violent revolutionary movement. But they planted
+themselves on the authority of the constitution, they
+united boldness with prudence, and they triumphed. The
+Primate and his creatures raised against them in vain
+the cuckoo cry of disloyalty, both in Dublin and London.
+The English Whigs, long engaged themselves in a similar
+struggle with the overgrown power of the crown, sympathized
+with the Irish opposition, and defended their motives
+both in society and in Parliament. The enemies of the
+Dorset family as naturally took their part, and the duke
+himself was obliged to go over to protect his interest
+at court, leaving the odious Primate as one of the
+Lords-Justices. At his departure his guards were hardly
+able to protect him from the fury of the populace, to
+that waterside to which Chesterfield had walked on foot,
+seven years before, amid the benedictions of the same
+people.
+
+The Patriots had at this crisis a great addition to their
+strength, in the accession of James, the twentieth Earl
+of Kildare, successively Marquis and Duke of Leinster.
+This nobleman, in the prime of life, married to the
+beautiful Emily Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond,
+followed Dorset to England, and presented to the King,
+with his own hand, one of the boldest memorials ever
+addressed to a sovereign by a subject. After reciting
+the past services of his family in maintaining the imperial
+connection, he declared himself the organ of several
+thousands of his Majesty's liege subjects, "as well the
+nobles as the clergy, the gentry, and the commonalty of
+the kingdom." He dwells on the peculation and extravagance
+of the administration, under "the Duumvirate" of the
+Viceroy and the Primate, which he compares with the league
+of Strafford and Laud. He denounces more especially Lord
+George Sackville, son to Dorset, for his intermeddling
+in every branch of administration. He speaks of Dr. Stone
+as "a greedy churchman, who affects to be a second Wolsey
+in the senate." This high-toned memorial struck with
+astonishment the English ministers, who did not hesitate
+to hint, that, in a reign less merciful, it would not
+have passed with impunity. In Ireland it raised the hardy
+earl to the pinnacle of popular favour. A medal was struck
+in his honour, representing him guarding a heap of treasure
+with a drawn sword, and the motto--"Touch not, says
+Kildare." At the opening of the next Parliament, he was
+a full hour making his way among the enthusiastic crowd,
+from his house in Kildare street to College Green. In
+little more than a year, the Duke of Dorset, whom English
+ministers had in vain endeavoured to sustain, was removed,
+and the Primate, by his Majesty's orders, was struck
+from the list of privy counsellors.
+
+Lord Harrington, now Duke of Devonshire, replaced the
+disgraced and defeated Dorset, and at once surrounded
+himself with advisers from the ranks of the opposition.
+The Earl of Kildare was his personal and political friend,
+and his first visit, on arriving, was paid at Carton.
+The Speaker, Mr. Boyle, the Earl of Bessborough, head of
+the popular family of the Ponsonbys, and Mr. Malone, were
+called to the Privy Council. Lucas, exalted rather than
+injured by years of exile, was elected one of the members
+for the city of Dublin, and the whole face of affairs
+promised a complete and salutary change of administration.
+
+After a year in office, Devonshire returned to England
+in ill-health, leaving Lord Kildare as one of the Justices,
+an office which he continued to fill, till the arrival
+in September, 1756, of John, fourth Duke of Bedford, as
+Lord-Lieutenant, with Mr. Rigby, "a good four bottle
+man," as chief secretary.
+
+The instructions of the Duke of Bedford, dictated by the
+genius and wisdom of Chatham, were, to employ "all
+softening and healing arts of government." His own desire,
+as a Whig, at the head of the Whig families of England,
+was to unite and consolidate the same party in Ireland,
+so as to make them a powerful auxiliary force to the
+English Whigs. Consistently with this design, lie wished
+well to the country he was sent to rule, and was sincerely
+desirous of promoting measures of toleration. But he
+found the Patriots distracted by success, and disorganized
+by the possession of power. The Speaker, who had struggled
+so successfully against his predecessors, was in the
+Upper House as Earl of Shannon, and the chair of the
+Commons was filled by John Ponsonby, of the Bessborough
+family. The Ponsonby following, and the Earl of Kildare's
+friends were at this period almost as much divided from
+each other in their views of public policy, as either
+were from the party of the Primate. The Ponsonby party,
+still directed by Malone, wished to follow up the recent
+victory on the money bills, by a measure of Catholic
+relief, a tax upon absentees, and a reduction of the
+pension list, shamelessly burthened beyond all former
+proportion. Lord Kildare and his friends were not then
+prepared to go such lengths, though that high spirited
+nobleman afterwards came into most of these measures.
+After endeavouring in vain to unite, these two interests,
+the Duke of Bedford found, or fancied himself compelled,
+in order to secure a parliamentary majority, to listen
+to the overtures of the, obsequious Primate, to restore
+him to the Council, and to leave him, together with his
+old enemy, Lord Shannon, in the situation of joint
+administrators, during his journey to England, in 1758.
+The Earl of Kildare, it should be remarked, firmly refused
+to be associated with Stone, on any terms, or for any
+time, long or short.
+
+The closing of this important reign is notable for the
+first Catholic meeting held since the reign of Queen
+Anne. In the spring of 1757, four hundred respectable
+gentlemen attended by mutual agreement, at Dublin, among
+whom were Lords Devlin, Taafe, and Fingal, the antiquary,
+Charles O'Conor, of Balanagar, the historian of the _Civil
+Wars_, Dr. Curry, and Mr. Wyse, a merchant of Waterford,
+the ancestor of a still better known labourer in the same
+cause. The then recent persecution of Mr. Saul, a Dublin
+merchant, of their faith, for having harboured a young
+lady whose friends wished to coerce her into a change of
+religion, gave particular significance to this assembly.
+It is true the proceedings were characterized by caution
+amounting almost to timidity, but the unanimous declaration
+of their loyal attachment to the throne, at a moment when
+French invasion was imminent, produced the best effect,
+and greatly strengthened the hands of the Clanbrassils,
+Ponsonbys, Malones, Dalys, and other advocates of an
+enlarged toleration in both Houses. It is true no immediate
+legislation followed, but the way was prepared for future
+ameliorations by the discretion and tact of the Catholic
+delegates of 1757. They were thenceforth allowed at least
+the right of meeting and petitioning, of which they had
+long been deprived, and the restoration of which marks
+the first step in their gradual recovery of their civil
+liberties.
+
+In 1759 a rumour broke out in Dublin that a legislative
+union was in contemplation by the Primate and his faction.
+On the 3rd of December, the citizens rose _en masse_,
+and surrounded the Houses of Parliament. They stopped
+the carriages of members, and obliged them to swear
+opposition to such a measure. Some of the Protestant
+bishops, and the Lord Chancellor were roughly handled;
+a privy counsellor was thrown into the river; the Attorney
+General was wounded and obliged to take refuge in the
+college; Lord Inchiquin was abused till he said his name
+was O'Brien, when the rage of the people "was turned into
+acclamations." The Speaker, Mr. Ponsonby, and the Chief
+Secretary, Mr. Rigby, had to appear in the porch of the
+House of Commons, solemnly to assure the citizens that
+no union was dreamed of, and if it was proposed, that
+they would be the first to resist it. Public spirit had
+evidently grown bold and confident, and we can well
+believe Secretary Rigby when he writes to the elder Pitt,
+that "the mob" declared, "since they have no chance of
+numbers in the House, they must have recourse to numbers
+out of doors."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+ACCESSION OF GEORGE III.--FLOOD'S LEADERSHIP--
+OCTENNIAL PARLIAMENTS ESTABLISHED.
+
+George III., grandson of the late king, commenced, in
+October, 1760, at the age of two and twenty, the longest
+reign in British history. Including the period of the
+regency, he reigned over his empire nearly sixty years
+--an extraordinary term of royal power, and quite as
+extraordinary for its events as for its extreme length.
+
+The great movement of the Irish mind, at the beginning
+of this reign, was the limitation of the duration of
+Parliament, hitherto elected for the King's life. This
+reform, long advocated out of doors, and by the more
+progressive members within the House, was reserved for
+the new Parliament under the new reign. To this Parliament
+were returned several men of great promise, men of a new
+generation, nurtured in the school of Swift and Malone,
+but going even beyond their masters in their determination
+to liberate the legislature of their country from the
+undue influence of the crown and the castle. Among those
+new members were three destined to national celebrity,
+Dr. Lucas, Mr. Hussey Burgh, and Mr. Dennis Bowes Daly;
+and one destined to universal reputation--Henry Flood.
+This gentleman, the son of a former Chief Justice,
+intermarried into the powerful oligarchical family of
+the Beresfords, was only in his 28th year when first
+elected member for Kilkenny; but, in point of genius and
+acquirements, he was even then the first man in Ireland,
+and one of the first in the empire. For a session or two
+he silently observed the forms of the House, preparing
+himself for the great contest to come; but when at last
+he obtained the ear of his party he was heard to some
+purpose. Though far from advocating extreme measures,
+he had abundant boldness; he was not open to the objection
+levelled against the leader of the past generation, Mr.
+Malone, of whom Grattan said, "he was a colony-bred man,
+and he feared to bring down England upon Ireland."
+
+The Duke of Bedford vacated the viceroyalty in 1761, and
+Lord Halifax took his place. In the first parliamentary
+session, Dr. Lucas introduced his resolutions limiting
+the duration of Parliament to seven years, a project
+which Flood afterwards adopted and mainly contributed to
+carry. The heads of the bill embodying these resolutions
+were transmitted to London by the Lord-Lieutenant, but
+never returned. In 1763, under the government of the
+Marquis of Hertford, similar resolutions were introduced
+and carried, but a similar fate awaited them. Again they
+were passed, and again rejected, the popular dissatisfaction
+rising higher and higher with every delay of the reform.
+At length, in the session of 1767, "the Septennial Bill,"
+as it was called, was returned from England, changed to
+octennial, and with this alteration it passed into law,
+in February, 1768. A new Parliament the same year was
+elected under the new act, to which all the friends of
+the measure were triumphantly returned. The faithful
+Lucas, however, survived his success little better than
+two years; he died amid the very sincere regrets of all
+men who were not enemies of their country. At his funeral
+the pall was borne by the Marquis of Kildare, Lord
+Charlemont, Mr. Flood, Mr. Hussey Burgh, Sir Lucius
+O'Brien, and Mr. Ponsonby.
+
+Lord Halifax, and his chief secretary, Mr. Hamilton (known
+to us as "the single-speech Hamilton," of literary
+history), received very graciously the loyal addresses
+presented by the Catholics, soon after his Majesty's
+accession. In a speech from the throne, the Viceroy
+proposed, but was obliged to abandon the proposition, to
+raise six regiments of Catholics, under their own officers,
+to be taken into the service of Portugal, the ally of
+Great Britain. His administration was otherwise remarkable
+neither for its length nor its importance; nor is there
+anything else of consequence to be mentioned of his
+lordship, except that his nephew, and chief secretary,
+had the honour to have Edmund Burke for his private
+secretary, and the misfortune to offend him.
+
+During the government of the Marquis of Hertford, and
+his successor, Lord Townsend (appointed in 1768), the
+Patriot party contended on the ground of rendering the
+judges independent, diminishing the pension list, and
+modifying the law of Poynings, requiring heads of bills
+to be sent into England, and certified by both Privy
+Councils, before they could be passed upon by the
+legislature. The question of supply, and that of the
+duration of Parliament, being settled, these reforms were
+the next objects of exertion. When we know that the late
+King's mistresses, the Queen Dowager of Prussia, Prince
+Ferdinand, and other connections of the royal family,
+equally alien to the country, were pensioners to the
+amount of thousands of pounds annually on the Irish
+establishment, we can understand more clearly the bitterness
+of the battle Mr. Flood and his colleagues were called
+upon to fight in assailing the old system. But they fought
+it resolutely and perseveringly. Death had removed their
+most unscrupulous enemy, Primate Stone, during the Hertford
+administration, and the improved tone and temper of public
+opinion would not tolerate any attempt to raise up a
+successor of similar character. Lord Townsend, an old
+campaigner and _bon vivant_, was expressly chosen as most
+capable of restoring the old system of government by
+closeting and corruption, but he found the Ireland of
+his day very materially altered from the defenceless
+province, which Stone and Dorset had attempted to cajole
+or to coerce, twenty years before.
+
+The Parliament of 1769--the first limited Parliament
+which Ireland had seen since the revolution--proved, in
+most respects, worthy of the expectations formed of it.
+John Ponsonby was chosen Speaker, and Flood regarded,
+around him, well-filled benches and cheering countenances.
+The usual supply bill was passed and sent up to the
+castle, but on its return from England was found to be
+altered--15,000 men, among other changes, being charged
+to the Irish military establishment, instead of 12,000,
+as formerly. The Commons, resolute to assert their rights,
+threw out the bill, as had been done in 1753, and the
+Lord Lieutenant, protesting in the House of Lords against
+their conduct, ordered them to be prorogued. Prorogation
+followed prorogation, till February, 1771, the interval
+being occupied in closeting and coquetting with members
+of the opposition, in the creation of new places, and
+the disposal of them to the relatives of those capable
+of being bought. No one was surprised, when the Houses
+reassembled, to find that a bare majority of the Commons
+voted a fulsome address of confidence to the Lord
+Lieutenant. But this address, Speaker Ponsonby indignantly
+refused to present. He preferred resignation to disgrace,
+and great was the amazement and indignation when his
+friend, Mr. Perry, elected by a bare majority, consented
+to take the post--no longer a post of honour. In justice
+to Mr, Perry, however, it must be added, that in the
+chair as on the floor of Parliament, he still continued
+the patriot--that if he advanced his own fortunes, it
+was not at the expense of the country--that some of the
+best measures passed by this and the subsequent Parliament,
+owed their final success, if not their first suggestion,
+to his far-seeing sagacity.
+
+The methods taken by Lord Townsend to effect his ends,
+not less than those ends themselves, aroused the spirit
+and combined the ranks of the Irish opposition. The press
+of Dublin teemed with philippics and satires, upon his
+creatures and himself. The wit, the scholarship, the
+elegant fancy, the irresistible torrent of eloquence, as
+well as the popular enthusiasm, were against him, and in
+1772, borne down by these combined forces, he confessed
+his failure by resigning the sword of state into the
+hands of Lord Harcourt.
+
+The new Viceroy, according to custom, began his reign by
+taking an exactly opposite course to his predecessor,
+and ended it by falling into nearly the same errors and
+abuses. He suggested an Absentee-tax, which was introduced
+by Flood, but rejected through the preponderating influence
+of the landed aristocracy. In preparing the tables of
+expenditure, he had caused arrears amounting to 265,000
+pounds, and an annual increase of 100,000 pounds, to be
+added to the estimates. Moreover, his supply bill was
+discovered, at the second reading, to extend over _two
+years_ instead of one--a discovery which occasioned the
+greatest indignation. Flood raised his powerful voice in
+warning, not unmingled with menace; Burgh declared, that
+if any member should again bring in such a bill, he would
+himself move his expulsion from the House; while George
+Ogle, member for Wexford, proposed that the bill itself
+should be burned before the porch, by the common hangman.
+He was reminded that the instrument bore the great seal;
+to which he boldly answered, that the seal would help to
+make it burn the better. It was not thought politic to
+take notice of this revolutionary retort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+FLOOD'S LEADERSHIP--STATE OF THE COUNTRY BETWEEN
+1760 AND 1776.
+
+England was engaged in two great wars during the period
+of Flood's supremacy in the Irish Parliament--the seven
+years' war, concluded by the peace of Paris in 1763, and
+the American war, concluded by the treaty of Versailles,
+in 1783. To each of these wars Ireland was the second
+largest contributor both as to men and money; and by both
+she was the severest sufferer, in her manufactures, her
+provision trade, and her general prosperity. While army
+contracts, and all sorts of military and naval expenditure
+in a variety of ways returned to the people of England
+the produce of their taxes, the Irish had no such
+compensation for the burdens imposed on their more limited
+resources. The natural result was, that that incipient
+prosperity which Chesterfield hailed with pleasure in
+1751, was arrested in its growth, and fears began to be
+seriously entertained that the country would be driven
+back to the lamentable condition from which it had slowly
+and laboriously emerged during the reign of George II.
+
+The absence of employment in the towns threw the labouring
+classes more and more upon the soil for sustenance, while
+the landlord legislation of the period threw them as
+helplessly back upon other pursuits than agriculture.
+Agrarian injustice was encountered by conspiracy, and
+for the first time in these pages, we have to record the
+introduction of the diabolical machinery of secret
+oath-bound associations among the Irish peasantry. Of
+the first of these combinations in the southern counties,
+a cotemporary writer gives the following account: "Some
+landlords in Munster," he says, "have let their lands to
+cotters far above their value, and, to lighten their
+burden, allowed commonange to their tenants by way of
+recompense: afterwards, in despite of all equity, contrary
+to all compacts, the landlords enclosed these commons,
+and precluded their unhappy tenants from the only means
+of making their bargains tolerable." The peasantry of
+Waterford, Cork, and other southern counties met in
+tumultuous crowds, and demolished the new enclosures.
+The oligarchical majority took their usual cue on such
+occasions: they pronounced, at once, that the cause of
+the riots was "treason against the state;" they even
+obtained a select committee to "inquire into the cause
+and progress of the Popish insurrection in Munster."
+Although the London Gazette, on the authority of royal
+commissioners, declared that the rioters "consisted
+indiscriminately of persons of different persuasions,"
+the Castle party would have it "another Popish plot."
+Even Dr. Lucas was carried away by the passions of the
+hour, and declaimed against all lenity, as cowardly and
+criminal.
+
+A large military force, under the Marquis of Drogheda,
+was accordingly despatched to the south. The Marquis
+fixed his head-quarters at Clogheen, in Tipperary, the
+parish priest of which was the Rev. Nicholas Sheehy. The
+magistracy of the county, especially Sir Thomas Maude,
+William Bagnel, John Bagwell, Daniel Toler, and Parson
+Hewitson, were among the chief maintainers of the existence
+of a Popish plot, to bring in the French and the Pretender.
+Father Sheehy had long been fixed upon as their victim:
+largely connected with the minor gentry, educated in
+France, young, popular, eloquent and energetic, a stern
+denouncer of the licentious lives of the squires, and of
+the exacting tithes of the parsons, he was particularly
+obnoxious. In 1763 he was arrested on a charge of high
+treason, for drilling and enrolling Whiteboys, but was
+acquitted. Towards the close of that year, Bridge, one
+of the late witnesses against him, suddenly disappeared.
+A charge of murder was then laid against the priest of
+Clogheen, and a prostitute named Dunlea, a vagrant lad
+named Lonergan, and a convicted horse stealer called
+Toohey, were produced in evidence against him, after he
+had lain nearly a year in prison, heavily fettered. On
+the 12th of March, 1765, he was tried at Clonmel, on this
+evidence; and notwithstanding an _alibi_ was proved, he
+was condemned, and beheaded on the third day afterwards.
+Beside the old ruined church of Shandraghan, his well-worn
+tomb remains till this day. He died in his thirty-eighth
+year. Two months later, Edward Sheehy, his cousin, and
+two respectable young farmers, named Buxton and Farrell,
+were executed under a similar charge, and upon the same
+testimony. All died with religious firmness and composure.
+The fate of their enemies is notorious; with a single
+exception, they met deaths violent, loathsome, and
+terrible. Maude died insane, Bagwell in idiocy, one of
+the jury committed suicide, another was found dead in a
+privy, a third was killed by his horse, a fourth was
+drowned, a fifth shot, and so through the entire list.
+Toohey was hanged for felony, the prostitute Dunlea fell
+into a cellar and was killed, and the lad Lonergan, after
+enlisting as a soldier, died of a loathsome disease in
+a Dublin infirmary.
+
+In 1767, an attempt to revive the plot was made by the
+Munster oligarchy, without success. Dr. McKenna, Bishop
+of Cloyne, was arrested but enlarged; Mr. Nagle, of
+Garnavilla (a relative of Edmund Burke), Mr. Robert
+Keating, and several respectable Catholic gentlemen, were
+also arrested. It appears that Edmund Burke was charged
+by the ascendancy party with having "sent his brother
+Richard, recorder of Bristol, and Mr. Nagle, a relation,
+on a mission to Munster, to levy money on the Popish body
+for the use of the Whiteboys, who were exclusively
+Papists." The fact was, that Burke did originate a
+subscription for the defence of the second batch of
+victims, who, through his and other exertions, were
+fortunately saved from the fate of their predecessors.
+
+Contemporaneous with the Whiteboys were the northern
+agrarians, called "Hearts of Steel," formed among the
+absentee Lord Downshire's tenants, in 1762; the "Oak
+Boys," so called from wearing oak leaves in their hats;
+and the "Peep o' Day Boys," the precursors of the Orange
+Association. The infection of conspiracy ran through all
+Ireland, and the disorder was neither short-lived nor
+trivial. Right-boys, Defenders, and a dozen other
+denominations descended from the same evil genius, whoever
+he was, that first introduced the system of signs, and
+passwords, and midnight meetings, among the peasantry of
+Ireland. The celebrated society of United Irishmen was
+the highest form which that principle, in our politics,
+ever reached. In its origin, it was mainly a Protestant
+organization.
+
+From the first, the Catholic bishops and clergy strenuously
+opposed these secret societies. The Bishop of Cloyne
+issued a reprobatory pastoral; Father Arthur O'Leary
+employed his facile pen against them; the Bishop of Ossory
+anathematized them in his diocese. Priests in Kildare,
+Kilkenny, and Munster, were often in personal danger from
+these midnight legislators; their chapels had been
+frequently nailed up, and their bishops had been often
+obliged to remove them from one neighbourhood to another
+to prevent worse consequences. The infatuation was not
+to be stayed; the evil was engrafted on society, and many
+a long year, and woeful scene, and blighted life, and
+broken heart, was to signalize the perpetuation of secret
+societies among the population.
+
+These startling symptoms of insubordination and lawlessness,
+while they furnished plausible pretexts to the advocates
+of repression, still further confirmed the Patriot party
+in their belief, that, nothing short of a free trade in
+exports and imports, and a thorough system of retrenchment
+in every branch of the public service, could save the
+nation from bankruptcy and ruin. This was Flood's opinion,
+and he had been long recognized as the leading spirit of
+the party. The aged Malone, true to his principles of
+conciliation and constitutionalism to the last, passed
+away from the scene, in the midst of the exciting events
+of 1776. For some years before his death, his former
+place had been filled by the younger and more vigorous
+member for Kilkenny, who, however, did not fail to consult
+him with all the deference due to his age, his services,
+and his wisdom. One of his last official acts was
+presiding over the committee of the whole House, which
+voted the American contingent, but rejected the admission
+of German troops to supply their place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GRATTAN'S LEADERSHIP--"FREE TRADE," AND THE VOLUNTEERS.
+
+The revolt of the American colonies against the oppressive
+legislation of the British Parliament, was the next
+circumstance that deeply affected the constitutional
+struggle, in which the Irish Parliament had so long been
+engaged. The similarity in the grievances of Ireland and
+the colonies, the close ties of kindred established
+between them, the extent of colonial commerce involved
+in the result, contributed to give the American Declaration
+of Independence more importance in men's eyes at Dublin,
+than anywhere else out of the colonies, except, perhaps,
+London.
+
+The first mention made of American affairs to the Irish
+legislature, was in Lord Townsend's message in 1775,
+calling for the despatch of 4,000 men from the Irish
+establishment, to America, and offering to supply their
+place by as many foreign Protestant (German) troops. The
+demand was warmly debated. The proposition to receive
+the proffered foreign troops was rejected by a majority
+of thirty-eight, and the contingent for America passed
+on a division, upon Flood's plea that they would go out
+merely as "4,000 armed negotiators." This expression of
+the great parliamentary leader was often afterwards quoted
+to his prejudice, but we must remember, that, at the time
+it was employed, no one on either side of the contest
+had abandoned all hopes of accommodation, and that the
+significance of the phrase was rather pointed against
+Lord North than against the colonies. The 4,000 men went
+out, among them Lord Rawdon (afterwards Lord Moira), Lord
+Edward Fitzgerald, and many others, both officers and
+men, who were certainly no enemies of liberty, or the
+colonies.
+
+Some slight relaxation of the commercial restrictions
+which operated so severely against Irish industry were
+made during the same year, but these were more than
+counterbalanced by the embargo on the export of provisions
+to America, imposed in February, 1776. This arbitrary
+measure--imposed by order in Council--was so near being
+censured by the Parliament then sitting, that the House
+was dissolved a month afterwards, and a new election
+ordered. To meet the new Parliament it was thought
+advisable to send over a new Viceroy, and accordingly
+Lord Buckinghamshire entered into office, with Sir Richard
+Heron as chief secretary.
+
+In the last session of the late Parliament, a young
+_protege_ of Lord Charlemont--he was only in his
+twenty-ninth year--had taken his seat for the borough of
+Charlemont. This was Henry Grattan, son of the Recorder
+of Dublin, and grandson of one of those Grattans who,
+according to Dean Swift, "could raise 10,000 men." The
+youth of Grattan had been neither joyous nor robust; in
+early manhood he had offended his father's conservatism;
+the profession of the law, to which he was bred, he found
+irksome and unsuited to his tastes; society, as then
+constituted, was repulsive to his over-sensitive spirit
+and high Spartan ideal of manly duty; no letters are
+sadder to read than the early correspondence of Grattan,
+till he had fairly found his inspiration in listening
+enraptured to the eloquent utterances of Chatham, or
+comparing political opinions with such a friend as Flood.
+At length he found a seat in the House of Commons, where,
+during his first session, he spoke on three or four
+occasions, briefly, modestly, and with good effect; there
+had been no sitting during 1776, nor before October of
+the following year; it was, therefore, in the sessions
+from '78 to '82 inclusive, that this young member raised
+himself to the head of the most eloquent men, in one of
+the most eloquent assemblies the world has ever seen.
+
+The fact of Mr. Flood, after fourteen years of opposition,
+having accepted office under Lord Harcourt's administration,
+and defended the American expedition and the embargo,
+had greatly lessened the popularity of that eminent man.
+There was indeed, no lack of ability still left in the
+ranks of the opposition--for Burgh, Daly, and Yelverton
+were there; but for a supreme spirit like Grattan--whose
+burning tongue was ever fed from his heart of fire--there
+is always room in a free senate, how many soever able
+and accomplished men may surround him.
+
+The fall of 1777 brought vital intelligence from America.
+General Burgoyne had surrendered at Saratoga, and France
+had decided to ally herself with the Americans. The effect
+in England and in Ireland was immense. When the Irish
+Houses met, Mr. Grattan moved an address to the King in
+favour of retrenchment, and against the pension list,
+and Mr. Daly moved and carried an address deploring the
+continuance of the American war, with a governmental
+amendment assuring his Majesty that he might still rely
+on the services of his faithful Commons. The second
+Catholic relief bill, authorizing Papists to loan money
+on mortgage, to lease lands for any period not exceeding
+999 years--to inherit and bequeath real property, so
+limited, passed, not without some difficulty, into law.
+The debate had been protracted, by adjournment after
+adjournment, over the greatest part of three months; the
+main motion had been further complicated by an amendment
+repealing the Test Act in favour of Dissenters, which
+was, fortunately, engrafted on the measure. The vote in
+the Commons, in favour of the bill so amended, was 127
+_yeas_ to 89 _nays_, and in the Lords, 44 _Contents_ to
+28 _Noncontents_.
+
+In the English House of Commons, Lord Nugent moved, in
+April, a series of resolutions raising the embargo on
+the Irish provision trade; abolishing, so far as Ireland
+was concerned, the most restrictive clauses of the
+Navigation Act, both as to exports and imports, with the
+exception of the article of tobacco. Upon this the
+manufacturing and shipping interest of England, taking
+the alarm, raised such a storm in the towns and cities
+that the ministry of the day were compelled to resist
+the proposed changes, with a few trifling exceptions.
+But Grattan had caught up, in the other island, the cry
+of "free trade," and the people echoed it after their
+orator, until the whole empire shook with the popular
+demand.
+
+But what gave pith and power to the Irish demands was
+the enrolment and arming of a numerous volunteer force,
+rendered absolutely necessary by the defenceless state
+of the kingdom. Mr. Flood had long before proposed a
+national militia, but being in opposition and in the
+minority, he had failed. To him and to Mr. Perry, as much
+as to Lord Charlemont and Mr. Grattan, the militia bill
+of 1778, and the noble army of volunteers equipped under
+its provisions, owed their origin. Whether this force
+was to be a regular militia, subject to martial law, or
+composed of independent companies, was for some months
+a subject of great anxiety at the castle; but necessity
+at length precipitated a decision in favour of volunteer
+companies, to be supplied with arms by the state, but
+drilled and clothed at their own expense, with power to
+elect their own officers. The official announcement of
+this decision once made, the organization spread rapidly
+over the whole kingdom. The Ulster corps, first organized,
+chose as their commander the Earl of Charlemont, while
+those of Leinster elected the Duke of Leinster.
+Simultaneously, resolutions against the purchase of
+English goods and wares were passed at public meetings,
+and by several of the corporate bodies. Lists of the
+importers of such goods were obtained at the custom
+houses, and printed in handbills, to the alarm of the
+importers. Swift's sardonic maxim, "to burn everything
+coming from England, _except the coals_," began to
+circulate as a toast in all societies, and the consternation
+of the Castle, at this resurrection of the redoubtable
+Dean, was almost equal to the apprehension entertained
+of him while living.
+
+While the Castle was temporizing with both the military
+and the manufacture movement, in a vague expectation to
+defeat both, the press, as is usual in such national
+crises, teemed with publications of great fervour and
+ability. Dr. Jebb, Mr. (afterwards Judge) Johnson, Mr.
+Pollock, Mr. Charles Sheridan, Father Arthur O'Leary,
+and Mr. Dobbs, M.P., were the chief workers in this
+department of patriotic duty. Cheered, instructed,
+restrained within due bounds by these writings and the
+reported debates of Parliament, the independent companies
+proceeded with their organization. In July, 1779, after
+all the resources of prevarication had been exhausted,
+arms were issued to the several recognized corps, and
+the Irish volunteers became in reality a national army
+for domestic protection and defence.
+
+When this point was reached, Mr. Grattan and his friends
+took anxious council as to their future movements.
+Parliament was to meet on the 12th of October, and in
+that sweet autumnal month, Grattan, Burgh, and Daly, met
+upon the sea-shore, near Bray, in view of one of the
+loveliest landscapes on earth, to form their plan for
+the session. They agreed on an amendment to the address
+in answer to the royal speech, demanding in explicit
+terms "free export and import" for Irish commerce. When
+Parliament met, and the address and amendment were moved,
+it was found that Flood, Burgh, Hutchinson, and Gardiner,
+though all holding offices of honour and emolument under
+government, would vote for it. Flood suggested to substitute
+the simple term "free trade," and with this and one other
+verbal alteration suggested by Burgh, the amendment passed
+with a single dissenting voice.
+
+The next day the Speaker, Mr. Perry, who was all along
+in the confidence of the movers of the amendment, Daly,
+Grattan, Burgh, Flood, Hutchinson, Ponsonby, Gardiner,
+and the whole House, went up with the amended address to
+the castle. The streets were lined with volunteers,
+commanded in person by the Duke of Leinster, who presented
+arms to the patriotic Commons as they passed. Most of
+the leading members wore the uniform of one or other of
+the national companies, and the people saw themselves at
+the same moment under the protection of a patriotic
+majority in the legislature, and a patriotic force in
+the field. No wonder their enthusiastic cheers rang
+through the corridors of the castle with a strangely
+jubilant and defiant emphasis. It was not simply the
+spectacle of a nation recovering its spirit, but recovering
+it with all military _eclat_ and pageantry. It was the
+disarmed armed and triumphant--a revolution not only in
+national feeling, but in the external manifestation of
+that feeling. A change so profound stirred sentiments
+and purposes even deeper than itself, and suggested to
+the ardent imagination of Grattan the establishment of
+entire national independence, saving always the rights
+of the crown.
+
+The next day, the Houses, not to be outdone in courtesy,
+voted their thanks to the volunteers for "their just and
+necessary exertions in defence of their country!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+GRATTAN'S LEADERSHIP--LEGISLATIVE AND JUDICIAL
+INDEPENDENCE ESTABLISHED.
+
+The task which Mr. Grattan felt called upon to undertake,
+was not _revolutionary_, in the usually accepted sense
+of the term. He was a Monarchist and a Whig in general
+politics; but he was an Irishman, proud and fond of his
+country, and a sincere lover of the largest religious
+liberty. With the independence of the judiciary and the
+legislature, with freedom of commerce and of conscience,
+he would be well content to stand by the British connection.
+"The sea," he said, in his lofty figurative language,
+"protests against union--the ocean against separation."
+But still, within certain legal limits, his task _was_
+revolutionary, and was undertaken under all the
+discouragements incident to the early stages of great
+constitutional reforms.
+
+Without awaiting the action of the English Parliament,
+in relation to free trade, a public-spirited citizen of
+Dublin, Alderman James Horan, demanded an entry at the
+custom house, for some parcels of Irish woollens, which
+he proposed exporting to Rotterdam, contrary to the
+prohibitory enactment, the 10th and 11th of William III.
+The commissioners of customs applied for instructions to
+the Castle, and the Castle to the Secretary of State,
+Franklin's friend, Lord Hillsborough. For the moment a
+collision similar to that which had taken place at Boston,
+on a not dissimilar issue, seemed imminent. A frigate
+was stationed off Howth, with instructions, it was said,
+to intercept the prohibited woollens, but Alderman Horan,
+by the advice of his friends, allowed his application to
+remain on the custom house files. It had served its
+purpose of bringing home practically to the people, the
+value of the principle involved in the demand for freedom
+of exports and imports. At the same time that this
+practical argument was discussed in every circle, Mr.
+Grattan moved in the House of Commons, in amendment to
+the supply bill, that, "At this time it is inexpedient
+to grant new taxes." The government divided the House,
+but to their mortification found only 47 supporters; for
+Grattan's amendment there were 170. A subsequent amendment
+against granting duties for the support of the loan fund,
+was also carried by 138 to 100.
+
+These adverse votes were communicated with great
+trepidation, by the Lord Lieutenant, to the British
+administration. At length Lord North thought it essential
+to make some concessions, and with this view he brought
+in resolutions, declaring the trade with the British
+colonies in America and Africa, and the free export of
+glass and woollens, open to the Irish merchant. A week
+later, similar resolutions were passed in the Irish
+Commons, and in February, 1780, "a free trade" in the
+sense in which it had been demanded, was established by
+law, placing Ireland in most respects, as to foreign and
+colonial commerce, on an equality with England.
+
+In February, the Viceroy again alarmed the British
+administration, with the reported movement for the repeal
+of "Poyning's law,"--the statute which required heads of
+bills to be transmitted to, and approved in England,
+before they could be legislated upon. He received in
+reply, the royal commands to resist by every means in
+his power, any attempted "change in the constitution,"
+and he succeeded in eliciting from the House of Lords,
+an address, strongly condemnatory of "the misguided men,"
+who sought to raise such "groundless jealousies," between
+the two kingdoms. But the Patriot Commoners were not to
+be so deterred. They declared the repeal of Poyning's
+act, and the 6th of George I., to be their ultimatum,
+and notices of motion to that effect were immediately
+placed on the journals of the House of Commons.
+
+In the early days of April, Grattan, who, more than any
+of our orators, except perhaps Burke, was sensitive to
+the aspects of external nature, and imbued with the poetry
+of her works, retired from the city, to his uncle Dean
+Marlay's house, Cellbridge Abbey, formerly the residence
+of Swift's ill-fated Vannessa. "Along the banks of that
+river," he said, many years afterwards, "amid the groves
+and bowers of Swift and Vannessa, I grew convinced that
+I was right; arguments, unanswerable, came to my mind,
+and what I then presaged, confirmed me in my determination
+to persevere." With an enthusiasm intensified and
+restrained--but wonderful in the fire and grandeur of
+its utterance--he rose in his place, on the 19th of the
+month, to move that "the King, Lords, and Commons of
+Ireland, are the only power competent to enact laws to
+bind Ireland." He was supported by Hussey Burgh, Yelverton,
+and Forbes; Flood favoured postponement, and laid the
+foundation of his future estrangement from Grattan; Daly
+was also for delay; Fitzgibbon, afterwards Lord Clare,
+Provost Hutchinson, and John Foster, afterwards Lord
+Oriel, resisted the motion. The Castle party moved in
+amendment that "there being an equivalent resolution
+already on the journals of the House"--alluding to one
+of the resolutions against Stafford's tyranny in 1641--a
+new resolution was unnecessary. This amendment was carried
+by 136 to 79, thus affirming the formula of independence
+adopted in 1641, but depriving Grattan of the honour of
+putting it, in his own words, on the record. The substantial
+result, however, was the same; the 19th of April was
+truly what Grattan described it, "a great day for Ireland."
+"It is with the utmost concern," writes the Viceroy next
+day to Lord Hillsborough, "I must acquaint your Lordship
+that although so many gentlemen expressed their concern
+that the subject had been introduced, the sense of the
+House _against_ the obligation of _any statutes_ of the
+Parliament of Great Britain, within this kingdom, is
+represented to me to have been almost unanimous."
+
+Ten days later, a motion of Mr. Yelverton's to repeal
+Poyning's law, as far as related to the Irish privy
+council's supervision of heads of bills, was negatived
+by 130 to 105.
+
+During the remainder of the session the battle of
+independence was fought on the Mutiny Bill. The Viceroy
+and the Chief Secretary, playing the game of power, were
+resolved that the influence of the crown should not be
+diminished, so far as the military establishments were
+concerned. Two justices of the peace in Sligo and Mayo,
+having issued writs of _habeas corpus_ in favour of
+deserters from the army, on the ground that neither the
+British Mutiny Act, nor any other British statute, was
+binding on Ireland, unless confirmed by an act of its
+own legislature, brought up anew the whole question. Lord
+North, who, with all his proverbial tact and good humour,
+in the House of Commons, always pursued the most arbitrary
+policy throughout the empire, proposed a perpetual Mutiny
+Bill for Ireland, instead of the Annual Bill, in force
+in England. It was introduced in the Irish House of
+Commons by Mr. Gervase Parker Bushe, and, by a vote of
+two to one, postponed for a fortnight. During the interval,
+the British authorities remained obdurate to argument
+and remonstrance. In vain, the majority of the Irish
+privy counsellors advised concession; in vain, Flood,
+who was consulted, pointed out the futility of attempting
+to force such a measure; it was forced, and, under the
+cry of loyalty, a draft bill was carried through both
+Houses, and remitted to England in June. Early in August
+it was returned; on the 12th it was read a first time;
+on the 16th, a second; and it was carried through Committee
+by 114 to 62. It was at this emergency the Volunteers
+performed the second act of their great drama of Ireland's
+liberation. A series of reviews were held, and significant
+addresses presented to Lord Camden (then on a visit to
+the country), Lord Charlemont, Mr. Flood, and Mr. Grattan.
+On the re-assembling of Parliament in August, when the
+bill was referred to, Mr. Grattan declared that he would
+resist it to the last; that if passed into law, he and
+his friends would _secede_, and would appeal to the people
+in "a formal instrument." A new series of corporation
+and county meetings was convened by the Patriot party,
+which warmly condemned the Perpetual Mutiny Act, and as
+warmly approved the repeal of Poyning's Act, and the 6th
+of George I.: questions which were all conceived to be
+intermixed together, and to flow from the assertion of
+a common principle. Parliament being prorogued in September,
+only threw the whole controversy back again into the
+furnace of popular agitation. The British Government
+tried a lavish distribution of titles and a change of
+Viceroys,--Lord Carlisle being substituted in December
+for Lord Buckingham--but the spirit abroad was too general
+and too earnest, to be quelled by the desertion of
+individuals, however numerous or influential. With Lord
+Carlisle, came, as Chief Secretary, Mr. Eden, afterwards
+Lord Auckland; he had been, with his chief, a peace
+commissioner to America, two years before, and had failed;
+he was an intriguing and accomplished man, but he proved
+himself as unequal as Heron or Rigby to combat the movement
+for Irish independence.
+
+Parliament was not again called together till the month
+of October, 1781; the interval being busily occupied on
+both sides with endeavours to create and sustain a party.
+Soon after the meeting, Mr. Grattan, seconded by Mr.
+Flood, moved for a limitation of the Mutiny Bill, which
+was lost; a little later, Mr. Flood himself introduced
+a somewhat similar motion, which was also outvoted two
+to one; and again, during the session, Mr. Yelverton,
+having abandoned his promised motion against Poyning's
+law, on news of Lord Cornwallis's surrender reaching
+Dublin, Flood took it up, moved it, and was defeated. A
+further measure of relief for Roman Catholics, introduced
+by Mr. Gardiner, author of the act of 1778, and warmly
+supported by Grattan, was resisted by Flood in the one
+House, and Lord Charlemont in the other. It miscarried,
+and left another deposit of disagreement between the
+actual and the former leader of the Patriot party.
+
+Still no open rupture had taken place between the two
+Patriot orators. When the convention of the volunteers
+was called at Dungannon for the 15th of February, 1782,
+they consulted at Charlemont House as to the resolutions
+to be passed. They were agreed on the constitutional
+question; Grattan, of his own generous free will, added
+the resolution in favour of emancipation. Two hundred
+and forty-two delegates, representing 143 corps, unanimously
+adopted the resolutions so drafted, as their own, and,
+from the old head-quarters of Hugh O'Neil, sent forth
+anew an unequivocal demand for civil and religious liberty.
+The example of Ulster soon spread through Ireland. A
+meeting of the Leinster volunteers, Mr. Flood in the
+chair, echoed it from Dublin; the Munster corps endorsed
+it unanimously at Cork; Lord Clanrickarde summoned together
+those of the western counties at Portumna--an historic
+spot, suggestive of striking associations. Strengthened
+by these demonstrations of public opinion, Mr. Grattan
+brought forward, on the 22nd of February, his motion
+declaratory of the rights of Ireland. An amendment in
+favour of a six months' postponement of the question was
+carried; but on the 16th of April, just two years from
+his first effort on the subject (the administration of
+Lord North having fallen in the meantime), the orator
+had the satisfaction of carrying his address declaratory
+of Irish legislative independence. It was on this occasion
+that he exclaimed: "I found Ireland on her knees; I
+watched over her with a paternal solicitude; I have traced
+her progress from injury to arms, and from arms to liberty.
+Spirit of Swift! Spirit of Molyneux! your genius has
+prevailed! Ireland is now a nation! in that new character
+I hail her! and bowing to her august presence, I say,
+_Esto perpetua!_"
+
+Never was a new nation more nobly heralded into existence!
+Never was an old nation more reverently and tenderly
+lifted up and restored! The Houses adjourned to give
+England time to consider Ireland's _ultimatum_. Within
+a month it was accepted by the new British administration,
+and on the 27th of May, the new Whig Viceroy, the Duke
+of Portland, was authorized to announce from the throne
+the establishment of the judicial and legislative
+independence of Ireland.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE--FIRST PERIOD.
+
+The accession of the Rockingham administration to power,
+in 1782, was followed by the recall of Lord Carlisle,
+and the substitution, as Viceroy, of one of the leading
+Lords of the Whig party. The nobleman selected to this
+office was William Henry, third Duke of Portland, afterwards
+twice prime minister; then in the prime of life, possessed
+of a very ample fortune, and uniting in his own person
+the two great Whig families of Bentinck and Cavendish.
+The policy he was sent to represent at Dublin was
+undoubtedly an imperial policy; a policy which looked as
+anxiously to the integrity of the empire as any Tory
+cabinet could have desired; but it was, in most other
+respects, a policy of conciliation and concession, dictated
+by the enlarged wisdom of Burke, and adopted by the
+magnanimous candour of Fox. Yet by a generous people,
+who always find it more difficult to resist a liberal
+than an illiberal administration, it was, in reality, a
+policy more to be feared than welcomed; for its almost
+certain effects were to divide their ranks into two
+sections--a moderate and an extreme party--between whom
+the national cause, only half established, might run
+great danger of being lost, almost as soon as it was won.
+
+With the Duke of Portland was associated, as Chief
+Secretary, Colonel Fitzpatrick, of the old Ossory family,
+one of those Irish wits and men of fashion, who form so
+striking a group in the middle and later years of King
+George III. As the personal and political friend of Flood,
+Charlemont, and Grattan, and the first Irish secretary
+for several administrations, he shared the brilliant
+ovation with which the Duke of Portland was received, on
+his arrival at Dublin; but for the reason already mentioned,
+the imperial, in so far as opposed to the national policy,
+found an additional advantage in the social successes
+and great personal popularity of the new secretary.
+
+The critical months which decided the contest for
+independence--April and May--passed over fortunately for
+Ireland. The firmness of the leaders in both Houses,
+the energy especially of Grattan, whose cry was "No time,
+no time!" and the imposing attitude of the volunteers,
+carried the question. Lord Rockingham and Mr. Fox by
+letter, the new Viceroy and Secretary in person, had
+urged every argument for adjournment and delay, but
+Grattan's _ultimatum_ was sent over to England, and
+finally and formally accepted. The demands were _five_.
+I. The repeal of the 6th of George I. II. The repeal of
+the Perpetual Mutiny Act. III. An Act to abolish the
+alteration or suppression of Bills. IV. An Act to establish
+the final jurisdiction of the Irish Courts and the Irish
+House of Lords. V. The repeal of Poyning's Law. This
+was the constitutional charter of 1782, which restored
+Ireland, for the first time in that century, to the rank
+and dignity of a free nation.
+
+Concession once determined on, the necessary bills were
+introduced in both Parliaments simultaneously, and carried
+promptly into law. On the 27th of May, the Irish Houses
+were enabled to congratulate the Viceroy that "no
+constitutional question any longer existed between the
+two countries." In England it was proclaimed no less
+explicitly by Fox and his friends, that the independency
+of the two legislatures "was fixed and ascertained for
+ever." But there was, unfortunately, one ground for
+dispute still left, and on that ground Henry Flood and
+Henry Grattan parted, never to be reconciled.
+
+The elder Patriot, whose conduct from the moment of his
+retirement from office, in consequence of his Free Trade
+vote and speech in '79, had been, with occasional
+exceptions, arising mostly from bodily infirmity, as
+energetic and consistent as that of Grattan himself, saw
+no sufficient constitutional guarantee in mere acts of
+Parliament repealing other acts. He demanded "express
+renunciation" of legislative supremacy on the part of
+England; while Grattan maintained the sufficiency of
+"simple repeal." It is possible even in such noble natures
+as these men had--so strangely are we constituted--that
+there was a latent sense of personal rivalry, which
+prompted them to grasp, each, at the larger share of
+patriotic honour. It is possible that there were other,
+and inferior men, who exasperated this latent personal
+rivalry. Flood had once reigned supreme, until Grattan
+eclipsed him in the sudden splendour of his career. In
+scholarship and in genius the elder Patriot was, taken
+all in all, the full peer of his successor; but Grattan
+had the national temperament, and he found his way more
+readily into the core of the national heart; he was the
+man of the later, the bolder, and the more liberal school;
+and such was the rapidity of his movements, that even
+Flood, from '79 to '82, seemed to be his follower, rather
+than his coadjutor. In the hopeful crisis of the struggle,
+the slower and more experienced statesman was for the
+moment lost sight of. The leading motions were all placed
+or left in the hands of Grattan by the consent of their
+leading friends; the bills repealing the Mutiny Act, the
+6th George I., and Poyning's law, were entrusted to Burgh,
+Yelverton, and Forbes; the thanks of the House were voted
+to Grattan alone after the victory, with the substantial
+addition of 50,000 pounds to purchase for him an estate,
+which should become an enduring monument of the national
+gratitude.
+
+The open rupture between the two great orators followed
+fast on the triumph of their common efforts. It was still
+the first month--the very honeymoon of independence. On
+the 13th of June, Mr. Grattan took occasion to notice in
+his place, that a late British act relating to the
+importation of sugars, was so generally worded as apparently
+to include Ireland; but this was explained to be a mere
+error of the clerk, the result of haste, and one which
+would be promptly corrected. Upon this Mr. Flood first
+took occasion to moot the insufficiency of "simple repeal,"
+and the necessity of "express renunciation," on the part
+of England. On the 19th, he moved a formal resolution on
+the subject, which was superseded by the order of the
+day; but on the 19th of July, he again moved, at great
+length, and with great power of logical and historical
+argument, for leave to bring in an Irish Bill of Rights,
+declaring "the sole and exclusive right of the Irish
+Parliament to make laws in all cases whatsoever, _external
+and internal_." He was supported by Sir Simon Bradstreet,
+Mr. English, and Mr. Walshe, and opposed by Grattan, who,
+in one of his finest efforts, proposed a counter resolution,
+"that the legislature of Ireland is independent; and that
+any person who shall, by writing or otherwise, maintain
+that a right in any other country, to make laws for
+Ireland, _internally_ or _externally_, exists or can be
+revived, _is inimical to the peace of both kingdoms_."
+This extreme proposition--pointing out all who differed
+from himself as public enemies--the mover, however,
+withdrew, and substituted in its stead the milder formula,
+that leave was refused to bring in the bill, because the
+sole and exclusive right of legislation in the Irish
+Parliament in all cases, whether externally or internally,
+hath been already asserted by Ireland, and fully, finally,
+and irrevocably acknowledged by the British Parliament.
+Upon this motion Flood did not think it advisable to
+divide the House, so it passed without a division.
+
+But the moot point thus voted down in Parliament disquieted
+and alarmed the minds of many out of doors. The volunteers
+as generally sided with Flood as the Parliament had sided
+with Grattan. The lawyer corps of the city of Dublin,
+containing all the great names of the legal profession,
+endorsed the constitutional law of the member for Kilkenny;
+the Belfast volunteers did likewise; and Grattan's own
+corps, in a respectful address, urged him to give his
+adherence to the views of "the best informed body of men
+in the kingdom,"--the lawyers' corps. Just at that moment
+Lord Abingdon, in the English House of Lords, gave notice
+of a mischievous motion to assert the external supremacy
+of the English Parliament; and Lord Mansfield, in the
+King's Bench, decided an Irish appeal case, notwithstanding
+the recent statute establishing the judicial independence
+of the Irish courts. It is true the case had been appealed
+before the statute was passed; and that Lord Abingdon
+withdrew his motion for want of a seconder; but the alarm
+was given, and the popular mind in Ireland, jealously
+watchful of its new-born liberties, saw in these attempts
+renewed cause for apprehension. In opposition to all
+this suddenly awakened suspicion and jealousy, Grattan,
+who naturally enough assumed his own interest in preserving
+the new constitution to be quite equal to those who cast
+doubts on its security, invariably held one language.
+The settlement already made, according to his view, was
+final; it was an international treaty; its maintenance
+must depend on the ability and disposition of the parties
+to uphold it, rather than on the multiplication of
+declaratory acts. Ireland had gone to England with a
+charter, not for a charter, and the nation which would
+insist upon the humiliation of another, was a foolish
+nation. This was the lofty light in which he viewed the
+whole transaction, and in this light, it must be added,
+he continued to view it till the last. Many of the chief
+English and Irish jurists of his time, Lord Camden, Lord
+Kenyon, Lord Erskine, Lord Kilwarden, Judges Chamberlain,
+Smith, and Kelly, Sir Samuel Rommilly, Sir Arthur Pigott,
+and several others, agreed fully in Grattan's doctrine,
+that the settlement of '82 was final and absolute, and
+"terminated all British jurisdiction over Ireland." But
+although these are all great names, the instinct of
+national self-preservation may be considered in such
+critical moments more than a counterpoise to the most
+matured opinions of the oracles of the law. Such must
+have been the conviction also of the English Parliament,
+for, immediately on their meeting in January, 1783, they
+passed the _Act of Renunciation_ (23rd George III.),
+expressly declaring their admission of the "exclusive
+rights of the Parliament and Courts of Ireland in matters
+of legislature and judicature." This was Flood's greatest
+triumph. Six months before his doctrine obtained but
+three supporters in the Irish Commons; now, at his
+suggestion, and on his grounds, he saw it unanimously
+affirmed by the British Parliament.
+
+On two other questions of the utmost importance these
+leading spirits also widely differed. Grattan was in
+favour of, and Flood opposed to, Catholic emancipation;
+while Flood was In favour of, and Grattan, at that moment,
+opposed to, a complete reform of parliamentary
+representation. The Catholic question had its next great
+triumph after Flood's death, as will be mentioned further
+on; but the history of the Irish reform movement of 1783,
+'84, and '85, may best be disposed of here.
+
+The Reformers were a new party rising naturally out of
+the popular success of 1782. They were composed of all
+but a few of the more aristocratic corps of the volunteers,
+of the townsmen, especially in the seaports and
+manufacturing towns, of the admirers of American example,
+of the Catholics who had lately acquired property and
+recognition, but not the elective franchise, of the gentry
+of the second and third degree of wealth, overruled and
+overshadowed by the greater lords of the soil. The
+substantial grievance of which they complained was, that
+of the 300 members of the House of Commons, only 72 were
+returned by the people; 53 Peers having the power to
+nominate 123 and secure the election of 10 others; while
+52 Commoners nominated 91 and controlled the choice of
+4 others. The constitution of what ought to have been
+the people's house was, therefore, substantially in the
+hands of an oligarchy of about a hundred great proprietors,
+bound together by the spirit of their class, by
+intermarriage, and by the hereditary possession of power.
+To reduce this exorbitant influence within reasonable
+bounds, was the just and wise design to which Flood
+dedicated all his energies, after the passage of the _Act
+of Renunciation_, and the success of which would certainly
+have restored him to complete equality with Grattan.
+
+In the beginning of 1783, the famous coalition ministry
+of Lord North and Mr. Pox was formed in England. They
+were at first represented at Dublin Castle, for a few
+months, by Lord Temple, who succeeded the Duke of Portland,
+and established the order of _Knights of Saint Patrick_;
+then by Lord Northington, who dissolved Parliament early
+in July. A general election followed, and the reform
+party made their influence felt in all directions. County
+meetings were held; conventions by districts and by
+provinces were called by the reforming Volunteers, in
+July, August, and September. The new Parliament was to
+be opened on the 14th of October, and the Volunteers
+resolved to call a convention of their whole body at
+Dublin, for the 10th of November.
+
+The Parliament met according to summons, but though
+searching retrenchment was spoken of, no promise was held
+out of a constitutional reform; the limitation of the
+regular troops to a fixed number was declared advisable,
+and a vote of thanks to the Volunteers was passed without
+demur. But the proceedings of the Houses were soon eclipsed
+by the portentous presence of the Volunteer Convention.
+One hundred and sixty delegates of corps attended on the
+appointed day. The Royal Exchange was too small to
+accommodate them, so they adjourned to the Rotunda,
+accompanied by mounted guards of honour. The splendid
+and eccentric Bishop of Derry (Earl of Bristol), had his
+dragoon guards; the courtly but anxious Charlemont had
+his troop of horse; Flood, tall, emaciated, and solemn
+to sadness, was hailed with popular acclamations; there
+also marched the popular Mr. Day, afterwards Judge; Robert
+Stewart, father of Lord Castlereagh; Sir Richard Musgrave,
+a reformer also, in his youth, who lived to confound
+reform with rebellion in his old age. The Earl of Charlemont
+was elected president of this imposing body, and for an
+entire month Dublin was divided between the extraordinary
+spectacle of two legislatures--one sitting at the Rotunda,
+and the other at College Green, many members of each
+being members of the other; the uniform of the volunteer
+sparkling in the Houses, and the familiar voices of both
+Houses being heard deliberating and debating among the
+Volunteers.
+
+At length, on the 29th of November, after three weeks'
+laborious gestation, Flood brought before Parliament the
+plan of reform agreed to by the Convention. It proposed
+to extend the franchise to every _Protestant_ freeholder
+possessed of a lease worth forty shillings yearly; to
+extend restricted borough constituencies by annexing to
+them neighbouring populous parishes; that the voting
+should be held on one and the same day; that pensioners
+of the crown should be incapable of election; that members
+accepting office should be subject to re-election; that
+a stringent bribery oath should be administered to
+candidates returned; and, finally, that the duration of
+Parliament should be limited to three years. It was,
+indeed, an excellent Protestant Reform Bill, for though
+the Convention had received Father Arthur O'Leary with
+military honours, and contained many warm friends of
+Catholic rights, the majority were still intolerant of
+_religious_ freedom. In this majority it is painful to
+have to record the names of Flood and Charlemont.
+
+The debate which followed the introduction of this proposed
+change in the constitution was stormy beyond all precedent.
+Grattan, who just one month before (Oct. 28th) had that
+fierce vituperative contest with Flood familiar to every
+school-boy, in its worst and most exaggerated form,
+supported the proposal. The law officers of the crown,
+Fitzgibbon, Yelverton, Scott, denounced it as an audacious
+attempt of armed men to dictate to the House its own
+constitution. The cry of privilege and prerogative was
+raised, and the measure was rejected by 157 to 77. Flood,
+weary in mind and body, retired to his home; the Convention,
+which outsat the House, adjourned, amid the bitter
+indignation of some, and the scarcely concealed relief
+of others. Two days later they met and adopted a striking
+address to the throne, and adjourned _sine die_. This
+was, in fact, the last important day of the Volunteers
+as a political institution. An attempt a month later to
+re-assemble the Convention was dexterously defeated by
+the President, Lord Charlemont. The regular army was next
+session increased to 15,000 men; 20,000 pounds were voted
+to clothe and equip a rival force--"the Militia"--and
+the Parliament, which had three times voted them its
+thanks, now began to look with satisfaction on their
+rapid disorganization and disbandment.
+
+This, perhaps, is the fittest place to notice the few
+remaining years of the public life of Henry Flood. After
+the session of 1785, in which he had been outvoted on
+every motion he proposed, he retired from the Irish
+Parliament, and allowed himself to be persuaded, at the
+age of fifty-three, to enter the English. He was elected
+for Winchester, and made his first essay on the new scene,
+on his favourite subject of representative reform. But
+his health was undermined; he failed, except on one or
+two occasions, to catch the ear of that fastidious
+assembly, and the figure he made there somewhat disappointed
+his friends. He returned to Kilkenny to die in 1791,
+bequeathing a large portion of his fortune to Trinity
+College, to enrich its MS. library, and to found a
+permanent professorship of the Irish language. "He was
+an oak of the forest," said Grattan, "too old to be
+transplanted at fifty." "He was a man," said one who also
+knew him well, Sir Jonah Barrington, "of profound abilities,
+high manners, and great experience in the affairs of
+Ireland. He had deep information, an extensive capacity,
+and a solid judgment." In his own magnificent "Ode to
+Fame," he has pictured his ideal of the Patriot-orator,
+who finds some consolation amid the unequal struggle with
+the enemies of his country, foreign and domestic, in a
+prophetic vision of his own renown. Unhappily, the works
+of this great man come down to us in as fragmentary a
+state as those of Chatham; but enough remains to enable
+us to class him amongst the greatest masters of our
+speech, and, as far as the drawbacks allowed, among the
+foremost statesmen of his country.
+
+It is painful to be left in doubt, as we are, whether he
+was ever reconciled to Grattan. The presumption, from
+the silence of their cotemporaries, is, that they never
+met again as friends. But it is consoling to remember
+that in his grave, the survivor rendered him that tribute
+of justice which almost takes the undying sting out of
+the philippic of 1783; it is well to know, also, that
+one of Grattan's latest wishes, thirty years after the
+death of Flood, when he felt his own last hours approaching,
+was, that it should be known that he "did not speak the
+vile abuse reported in the Debates" in relation to his
+illustrious rival. The best proof that what he did say
+was undeserved, is that that rival's reputation for
+integrity and public spirit has survived even his terrible
+onslaught.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE--SECOND PERIOD.
+
+The second period of the era of independence may be said
+to embrace the nine years extending from the dissolution
+of the last Volunteer Convention, at the end of 1784, to
+the passage of the Catholic Relief Bill of 1793. They
+were years of continued interest and excitement, both in
+the popular and parliamentary affairs of the country;
+but the events are, with the exception of the last named,
+of a more secondary order than those of the previous
+period.
+
+The session of 1785 was first occupied with debates
+relating to what might be called the cross-channel trade
+between England and Ireland. The question of trade brought
+with it, necessarily, the question of revenue; of the
+duties levied in both kingdoms; of the conflict of their
+commercial laws, and the necessity of their assimilation;
+of the appropriations to be borne by each, to the general
+expense of the army and navy; of the exclusive right of
+the English East India Company to the Indian trade;--in
+short, the whole of the fiscal and commercial relations
+of the two countries were now to be examined and adjusted,
+as their constitutional relations had been in previous
+years.
+
+The first plan came from the Castle, through Mr. Thomas
+Orde, then Chief Secretary, afterwards Lord Bolton. It
+consisted of eleven propositions, embracing every division
+of the subject. They had been arrived at by consultation
+with Mr. Joshua Pim, a most worthy Quaker merchant, the
+founder of an equally worthy family; Mr. Grattan, Mr.
+Foster, and others. They were passed as resolutions in
+Ireland, and sent by Mr. Orde to England to see whether
+they would be adopted there also, the second Pitt, then
+Chancellor of the Exchequer, gave his concurrence, but
+when he introduced to the English Parliament _his_
+resolutions--twenty in number--it was found that in
+several important respects they differed from the Irish
+propositions. On being taken up and presented to the
+Irish Parliament, in August, the administration found
+they could command, in a full House, only a majority of
+sixteen for their introduction, and so the whole arrangement
+was abandoned. No definite commercial treaty between the
+two kingdoms was entered into until the Union, and there
+can be little doubt that the miscarriage of the Convention
+of 1785 was one of the determining causes of that Union.
+
+The next session was chiefly remarkable for an unsuccessful
+attempt to reduce the Pension List. In this debate,
+Curran, who had entered the House in 1783, particularly
+distinguished himself. A fierce exchange of personalities
+with Mr. Fitzgibbon led to a duel between them, in which,
+fortunately, neither was wounded, but their public
+hostility was transferred to the arena of the courts,
+where some of the choicest _morceaux_ of genuine Irish
+wit were uttered by Curran, at the expense of his rival,
+first as Attorney-General, and subsequently as Chancellor.
+
+The session of 1787 was introduced by a speech from the
+throne, in which the usual paragraph in favour of the
+Protestant Charter Schools was followed by another advising
+the establishment of a general system of schools. This
+raised the entire question of education, one of the most
+difficult to deal with in the whole range of Irish
+politics. On the 10th of April, Mr. Orde--destined to
+be the author of just, but short-lived projects--introduced
+his plan of what might be called national education. He
+proposed to establish four great provincial academies,
+a second university in some north-western county, to
+reform the twenty-two diocesan schools, so richly endowed
+under the 28th Henry VIII., and to affiliate on Trinity
+College two principal preparatory schools, north and
+south. In 1784, and again in this very year, the humane
+John Howard had reported of the Irish Charter Schools,
+then half a century established, that they were "a disgrace
+to all society." Sir J. Fitzpatrick, the Inspector of
+Prisons, confirmed the general impression of Howard: he
+found the children in these schools "puny, filthy, ill
+clothed, without linen, indecent to look upon." A series
+of resolutions was introduced by Mr. Orde, as the basis
+of better legislation in the next session; but it is to
+be regretted that the proposed reform never went farther
+than the introduction and adoption of these resolutions.
+
+The session of 1788 was signalized by a great domestic
+and a great imperial discussion--the Tithe question, and
+the Regency question.
+
+The Tithe question had slumbered within the walls of
+Parliament since the days of Swift, though not in the
+lonely lodges of the secret agrarian societies. Very
+recent outbreaks of the old agrarian combinations against
+both excessive rents and excessive tithes, in the Leinster
+as well as in southern counties, had called general
+attention to the subject, when Grattan, in 1787, moved
+that, if it should appear, by the commencement of the
+following session, that tranquillity had been restored
+in the disturbed districts, the House would take into
+consideration the subject of tithes. Accordingly, very
+early in the next ensuing session, he moved for a committee
+on the subject, in a three hours' speech, which ranks
+among the very highest efforts of his own or any other
+age. He was seconded by Lord Kingsborough, one of the
+most liberal men of his order, and sustained by Curran
+and Brownlow; he was opposed by Attorney-General Fitzgibbon,
+and by Messrs. Hobart, Browne, and Parsons. The vote was,
+_for_ the Committee of Inquiry, 49; _against_ it, 121.
+A second attempt, a little later in the session, was
+equally unsuccessful, except for the moral effect produced
+out of doors by another of those speeches, which it is
+impossible to read even at this day, without falling into
+the attitude, and assuming the intonation, and feeling
+the heartfelt inspiration of the orator.
+
+The Regency question was precipitated upon both Parliaments
+by the mental disorder, which, for the second or third
+time, attacked George III., in 1788. The question was,
+whether the Prince of Wales should reign with as full
+powers as if his father were actually deceased; whether
+there should be restrictions or no restrictions. Mr. Pitt
+and his colleagues contended successfully for restrictions
+in England, while Mr. Fox and the opposition took the
+contrary position. The English Houses and people went
+with Pitt, but the Irish Parliament went for an
+unconditional regency. They resolved to offer the crown
+of Ireland to him they considered _de_ facto their
+Sovereign, as freely as they had rendered their allegiance
+to the incapable king; but the Lord Lieutenant--the
+Marquis of Buckingham--declined to transmit their
+over-zealous address, and by the time their joint delegation
+of both Houses reached London, George III. had recovered!
+They received the most gracious reception at Carlton
+House, but they incurred the implacable enmity of William
+Pitt, and created a second determining cause in his mind
+in favour of an early legislative union.
+
+The prospect of the accession of the Prince to power,
+wrought a wonderful and a salutary change, though temporary,
+in the Irish Commons. In the session of 1789, Mr Grattan
+carried, by 105 to 85, a two months', in amendment to a
+twelve-months' supply bill. Before the two months expired
+he brought in his police bill, his pension bill, and his
+bill to prevent officers of the revenue from voting at
+elections, but ere these reforms could be passed into
+law, the old King recovered, the necessary majority was
+reversed, and the measures, of course, defeated or delayed
+till better times. The triumph of the oligarchy was in
+proportion to their fright. The House having passed a
+vote of censure on Lord Buckingham, the Viceroy, for
+refusing to transmit their address to the Regent, a threat
+was now held out that every one who had voted for the
+censure, holding an office of honour or emolument in
+Ireland, would be made "the victim of his vote." In reply
+to this threat, a "Round Robin" was signed by the Duke
+of Leinster, the Archbishop of Tuam, eighteen peers, all
+the leading Whig commoners--the Ponsonbys, Langrishes,
+Grattan, Connolly, Curran, O'Neil, Day, Charles Francis
+Sheridan, Bowes Daly, George Ogle, etc., etc.--declaring
+that they would regard any such proscription as an attack
+on the independence of Parliament, and would jointly
+oppose any administration who should resort to such
+proscription. But the bold and domineering spirit of
+Fitzgibbon--the leader of the Castle party, then, and
+long afterwards--did not shrink before even so formidable
+a phalanx. The Duke of Leinster was dismissed from the
+honorary office of Master of the Rolls; the Earl of
+Shannon, from the Vice-Treasurership; William Ponsonby
+from the office of Postmaster-General; Charles Francis
+Sheridan, from that of Secretary at War, and ten or twelve
+other prominent members of the _Irish_ administration
+lost places and pensions to the value of 20,000 pounds
+a year, for their over-zeal for the Prince of Wales. At
+the same time, Mr. Fitzgibbon was appointed Lord Chancellor,
+a vacancy having opportunely occurred, by the death of
+Lord Lifford, in the very midst of the prescriptive
+crisis. This elevation transferred him to the Upper
+House, where, for the remaining years of the Parliament,
+he continued to dogmatize and domineer, as he had done
+in the Commons, often rebuked, but never abashed. Indeed,
+the milder manners of the patrician body were ill suited
+to resist this ermined demagogue, whose motto through
+life was _audacity, again audacity, and always audacity_.
+The names of Wolfe, Toler, Corry, Coote, Beresford, and
+Cooke, are also found among the promotions to legal and
+administrative office; names familiar to the last generation
+as the pillars of the oligarchical faction, before and
+after the Union. To swamp the opposition peers, the Earls
+of Antrim, Tyrone, and Hillsborough were made Marquises
+of Antrim, Waterford, and Downshire; the Viscounts
+Glenawley, Enniskillen, Erne, and Carysfort, were created
+Earls of Annesley, Enniskillen, Erne, and Carysfort. Then
+Judge Scott became Viscount Clonmel; then the Lordships
+of Loftus, Londonderry, Kilmaine, Cloncurry, Mountjoy,
+Glentworth, and Caledon, were founded for as many convenient
+Commoners, who either paid for their patents, in boroughs,
+or in hard cash. It was the very reign and carnival of
+corruption, over which presided the invulnerable
+Chancellor--a true "King of Misrule." In reference to
+this appalling spectacle, well might Grattan exclaim--"In
+a free country the path of public treachery leads to the
+block; but in a nation governed like a province, to the
+helm!" But the thunders of the orator fell, and were
+quenched in the wide spreading waters of corruption.
+
+The Whig Club--an out-of-door auxiliary of the opposition
+--was a creation of this year. It numbered the chief
+signers of the "Round Robin," and gained many adherents.
+It exercised very considerable influence in the general
+election of 1790, and for the few following years, until
+it fell to pieces in the presence of the more ardent
+politics which preceded the storm of 1798.
+
+Backed though he was by Mr. Pitt, both as his relative
+and principal, the Marquis of Buckingham was compelled
+to resign the government, and to steal away from Dublin,
+under cover of night, like an absconding debtor. The
+Chancellor and the Speaker--Fitzgibbon and Foster, Irishmen
+at least by birth and name--were sworn in as Justices,
+until the arrival of the Earl of Westmoreland, in the
+ensuing January.
+
+The last two Viceroys of the decade thus closed, form a
+marked contrast worthy of particular portraiture. The
+Duke of Rutland, a dashing profligate, was sent over, it
+was thought, to ruin public liberty by undermining private
+virtue, a task in which he found a willing helpmate in
+his beautiful but dissipated Duchess. During his three
+years' reign were sown the seeds of that reckless private
+expenditure, and general corruption of manners, which
+drove so many bankrupt lords and gentlemen into the market
+overt, where Lord Castlereagh and Secretary Cooke, a
+dozen years later, priced the value of their parliamentary
+cattle. Lord Rutland died of dissipation at little over
+thirty, and was succeeded by the Marquis of Buckingham
+(formerly Lord Temple), the founder of the Irish Order
+of Chivalry, a person of the greatest pretensions, as a
+reformer of abuses and an enemy of government by corruption.
+Yet with all his affected superiority to the base arts
+of his predecessor, the Marquis's system was still more
+opposite to every idea of just government than the Duke's.
+The one outraged public morals, the other pensioned and
+ennobled the betrayers of public trusts; the one naturalized
+the gaming-table and the keeping of mistresses as customs
+of Irish society; the other sold or allowed the highest
+offices and honours of the state--from a weighership in
+the butter market to an earl's coronet--to be put up at
+auction, and knocked down to the highest bidder. How
+cheering in contrast with the shameful honours, flaunted
+abroad in those shameful days, are even the negative
+virtues of the Whig patricians, and how splendid the
+heroic constancy of Charlemont, Grattan, Curran, and
+their devoted minority of honest legislators!
+
+With Lord Westmoreland was associated, as Chief Secretary,
+Mr. Hobart, formerly in the army, a man of gay, convivial
+habits, very accomplished, and, politically, very unprincipled.
+These gentlemen, both favourites of Pitt, adopted the counsellors,
+and continued the policy of the late Viceroy. In
+pursuance of this policy, a dissolution took place, and the
+general election of 1790 was ordered. We have already
+exhibited the influences which controlled the choice of members
+of the House of Commons. Of the one hundred and five great
+proprietors, who owned two-thirds of the seats, perhaps a
+fourth might be found in the ranks of the Whig club. The
+only other hope for the national party was in the boroughs,
+which possessed a class of freemen, engaged in trade, too
+numerous to be bought, or too public spirited to be dictated to.
+Both influences combined might hope to return a powerful
+minority, and, on this occasion (1790) they certainly did so.
+Grattan and Lord Henry Fitzgerald were elected for Dublin,
+over the Lord Mayor and one of the Aldermen, backed by the
+whole power of the Castle; Curran, Ponsonby, Brownlow,
+Forbes, and nearly all "the victims of their vote" were re-elected.
+To these old familiar names were now added others
+destined to equal, if not still wider fame--Arthur Wellesley,
+member for Trim; Arthur O'Conor, member for Phillipstown;
+Jonah Barrington, member for Tuam; and Robert Stewart,
+one of the members for the County Down, then only in his
+twenty-second year, and, next to Lord Edward Fitzgerald,
+lately elected for Athy, the most extreme reformer among the
+new members. Arthur O'Conor, on the other hand, commenced
+his career with the Court by moving the address in
+answer to the speech from the throne!
+
+The new Parliament, which met in July, 1790, unanimously
+re-elected Mr. Foster, Speaker; passed a very loyal
+address, and, after a fortnight's sitting, was prorogued
+till the following January. The session of '91 was marked
+by no event of importance, the highest opposition vote
+seems to have been from 80 to 90, and the ministerial
+majority never less than 50. The sale of Peerages, the
+East India trade, the Responsibility (for money warrants)
+Bill, the Barren Lands Bill, and the Pension Bill, were
+the chief topics. A committee to inquire into the best
+means of encouraging breweries, and discouraging the use
+of spirituous liquors, was also granted, and some curious
+facts elicited. Nothing memorable was done, but much that
+was memorable was said--for the great orator had still
+a free press, and a home audience to instruct and elevate.
+The truth is, the barrenness of these two sessions was
+due to the general prosperity of the country, more even
+than to the dexterous management of Major Hobart and the
+Cabinet balls of Lord Westmoreland. There was, moreover,
+hanging over the minds of men the electric pressure of
+the wonderful events with which France shook the Continent,
+and made the Islands tremble. There was hasty hope, or
+idle exultation, or pious fear, or panic terror, in the
+hearts of the leading spectators of that awful drama,
+according to the prejudices or principles they maintained.
+Over all the three kingdoms there was a preternatural
+calm, resembling that physical stillness which in other
+latitude precedes the eruption of volcanoes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE--THIRD PERIOD--
+CATHOLIC RELIEF BILL OF 1793.
+
+Before relating the consequences which attended the spread
+of French revolutionary opinions in Ireland, it is
+necessary to exhibit the new and very important position
+assumed by the Roman Catholic population at that period.
+
+The relief bills in 1774 and 1778, by throwing open to
+Catholics the ordinary means of acquiring property,
+whether moveable or immoveable, had enabled many of them
+to acquire fortunes, both in land and in trade. Of this
+class were the most efficient leaders in the formation
+of the Catholic Committee of 1790--John Keogh, Edward
+Byrne, and Richard McCormick. They were all men who had
+acquired fortunes, and who felt and cherished the
+independence of self-made men. They were not simply
+Catholic agitators claiming an equality of civil and
+religious rights with their Protestant fellow-countrymen;
+they were nationalists, in the broadest and most generous
+meaning of the term. They had contributed to the ranks
+and expenses of the Volunteers; they had swelled the
+chorus of Grattan's triumph, and borne their share of
+the cost in many a popular contest. The new generation
+of Protestant patriots--such men as the Hon. Simon Butler,
+Wolfe Tone, and Thomas Addis Emmet, were their intimate
+associates, shared their opinions, and regarded their
+exclusion from the pale of the constitution as a public
+calamity.
+
+There was another and a smaller, but not less important
+class--the remnant of the ancient Catholic peerage and
+landed gentry, who, through four generations, had preferred
+civil death to religious apostasy. It was impossible not
+to revere the heroic constancy of that class, and the
+personal virtues of many among them. But they were,
+perhaps, constitutionally, too timid and too punctilious
+to conduct a popular movement to a successful issue. They
+had, after much persuasion, lent their presence to the
+Committee, but on some alarm, which at that time seems
+to have been premature, of the introduction of French
+revolutionary principles among their associates, they
+seceded in a mass. A formal remonstrance against what
+remained, pretending to act for the Catholic body, was
+signed by Lord Kenmare and sixty-seven others, who
+withdrew. As a corrective, it was inadequate; as a
+preventive, useless. It no doubt hastened in the end the
+evil it deprecated in the beginning; it separated the
+Catholic gentry from the Catholic democracy, and thrust
+the latter more and more towards those liberal Protestants,
+mainly men of the middle class like themselves, who began
+about this time to club together at Belfast and Dublin,
+under the attractive title of "United Irishmen." Whatever
+they were individually, the union of so many hereditary
+Catholic names had been of very great service to the
+committee. So long as they stood aloof, the committee
+could not venture to speak for _all_ the Catholics; it
+could only speak for a part, though that part might be
+nine-tenths of the whole: this gave for a time a doubtful
+and hesitating appearance to their proceedings. So low
+was their political influence, in 1791, that they could
+not get a single member of Parliament to present their
+annual petition. When at last it was presented, it was
+laid on the table and never noticed afterwards. To their
+further embarrassment, Mr. McKenna and some others formed
+"the Catholic Society," with the nominal object of
+spreading a knowledge of Catholic principles, through
+the press, but covertly, to raise up a rival organization,
+under the control of the seceders. At this period John
+Keogh's talents for negotiation and diplomacy saved the
+Catholic body from another term of anarchical imbecility.
+
+A deputation of twelve having waited this year on the
+Chief Secretary with a list of the existing penal laws,
+found no intention, at the Castle, of further concession.
+They were "dismissed without an answer." Under these
+circumstances, the Committee met at Allen's Court. "It
+was their determination," says Keogh, "to give up the
+cause as desperate, lest a perseverance in what they
+considered an idle pursuit might not only prove ineffectual,
+but draw down a train of persecution on the body." Keogh
+endeavoured to rally them; proposed a delegation to
+London, to be sent at the expense of the Committee;
+offered, at last, to go at his own charge, if they
+authorized him. This proposal was accepted, and Keogh
+went. "I arrived in London," he adds, "without any
+introduction from this country, without any support, any
+assistance, any instructions." He remained three months,
+converted Mr. Dundas, brought back with him the son of
+Burke as Secretary, and a promise of four concessions:
+1st. The magistracy. 2nd. The grand juries. 3rd. The
+sheriffs of counties. 4th. The bar. It was in this
+interview that Keogh, after obtaining Mr. Dundas's express
+permission and promise not to be offended, said to him,
+according to Charles Butler's account, "Since you give
+me this permission, and your deliberate promise not to
+be offended, I beg leave to repeat, that there _is_ one
+thing which you ought to know, but which you don't suspect:
+you, Mr. Dundas, know nothing of Ireland." Mr. Dundas,
+as may be supposed, was greatly surprised; but, with
+perfect good humour, told Mr. Keogh that he believed
+this was not the case; it was true that he never had been
+in Ireland, but he had conversed with many Irishmen. "I
+have drunk," he said, "many a good bottle of wine with
+Lord Hillsborough, Lord Clare, and the Beresfords." "Yes,
+sir," said Mr. Keogh, "I believe you have; and that you
+drank many a good bottle of wine with them before you
+went to war with America."
+
+On the return of Keogh to Dublin, a numerous meeting was
+held to hear his report. At this meeting, the fair promises
+of the English ministers were contrasted with the hostility
+of the Castle. The necessity of a strong organization,
+to overcome the one and hasten the other, was felt by
+all: it was then decided to form the Committee into a
+Convention. By this plan, the Catholics in each county
+and borough were called on to choose, in a private manner,
+certain electors, who were to elect two or more delegates,
+to represent the town or county in the general meeting
+at Dublin, on the 3rd day of December following. A
+circular, signed by Edward Byrne, Chairman, and Richard
+McCormick, Secretary, explaining the plan and the mode
+of election, was issued on the 14th of January, and the
+Catholics everywhere prepared to obey it.
+
+The corporations of Dublin and other cities, the grand
+juries of Derry, Donegal, Leitrim, Roscommon, Limerick,
+Cork, and other counties, at once pronounced most strongly
+against the proposed Convention. They declared it
+"unconstitutional," "alarming," "most dangerous;" they
+denounced it as a copy of the National Assembly of France;
+they declared that they would "resist it to the utmost
+of their power;" they pledged "their lives and fortunes"
+to suppress it. The only answer of the Catholics was the
+legal opinion of Butler and Burton, two eminent lawyers,
+Protestants and King's counsellors, that the measure was
+entirely legal. They proceeded with their selection of
+delegates, and on the appointed day the Convention met.
+From the place of meeting', this Convention was popularly
+called "the Back Lane Parliament." Above 200 members were
+present.
+
+The Convention proceeded (Mr. Byrne in the chair) to
+declare itself the only body competent to speak for the
+Catholics of Ireland. They next discussed the substance
+of the proposed petition to the King. The debate on this
+subject, full of life and colour, has been preserved for
+us in the memoirs of Tone, who, although a Protestant,
+had been elected Secretary to the Catholic Committee.
+Great firmness was exhibited by Teeling of Antrim, Bellew
+of Galway, McDermott of Sligo, Devereux of Wexford, Sir
+Thomas French, and John Keogh. These gentlemen contended,
+and finally carried, without a division, though not
+without a two-days' debate, a petition, asking complete
+and unrestricted emancipation. With the addition of the
+Chairman and Secretary, they were appointed as deputies
+to proceed to London, there to place the Catholic ultimatum
+in the hands of King George.
+
+The deputies, whether by design or accident, took Belfast
+on their way to England. This great manufacturing town,
+at the head of the staple industry of the north, had been
+in succession the head-quarters of the Volunteers, the
+Northern Whigs, and the United Irishmen. Belfast had
+demanded in vain, for nearly a generation, that its 20,000
+inhabitants should no longer be disfranchised, while a
+dozen burgesses--creatures of Lord Donegal--controlled
+the representation. Community of disfranchisement had
+made the Belfastians liberal; the Catholic deputies were
+publicly received with bonfires and ringing of bells,
+their expenses were paid by the citizens, and their
+carriage drawn along in triumph, on the road to
+Port-Patrick.
+
+Arrived at London, after much negotiation and delay with
+ministers, a day was fixed for their introduction to the
+King. It was Wednesday, the 2nd of January, 1793; they
+were presented by Edmund Burke and the Home Secretary to
+George III., who "received them very graciously;" they
+placed in his hands the petition of their co-religionists,
+and, after some compliments, withdrew. In a few days,
+they were assured their case would be recommended to the
+attention of Parliament in the next royal speech, and
+so, leaving one of their number behind as "charge
+d'affaires," they returned to Dublin highly elated.
+
+The Viceroy, on their return, was all attention to the
+Catholics; the Secretary, who, a year before, would not
+listen to a petition, now laboured to fix a limit to
+concession. The demand of complete emancipation, was not
+maintained in this negotiation as firmly as in the December
+debates of "the Back Lane Parliament." The shock of the
+execution of the King of France; the efforts of the secret
+committee of the House of Lords to inculpate certain
+Catholic leaders in the United-Irish system, and as
+patrons of the Defenders; the telling argument, that to
+press all was to risk all,--these causes combined to
+induce the sub-committee to consent to less than the
+Convention had decided to insist upon. Negotiation was
+the strong ground of the government, and they kept it.
+Finally, the bill was introduced by the Chief Secretary,
+and warmly supported by Grattan, Curran, Ponsonby, Forbes,
+and Hutchinson, Provost of Trinity College. It was resisted
+in the Lower House by Mr. Speaker Foster, Mr. Ogle, and
+Dr. Duigenan, an apostate, who exhibited all the bitterness
+of his class; and in the Upper House, by the Chancellor,
+the son of an apostate, and the majority of the lords
+spiritual. On the 9th day of April, 1793, it became the
+law of Ireland. "By one comprehensive clause," says Tone,
+"all penalties, forfeitures, disabilities, and incapacities
+are removed; the property of the Catholic is completely
+discharged from the restraints and limitations of the
+penal laws, and their liberty, in a great measure,
+restored, by the restoration of the right of elective
+franchise, so long withheld, so ardently pursued. The
+right of self-defence is established by the restoration
+of the privilege to carry arms, subject to a restraint,
+which does not seem unreasonable, as excluding none but
+the very lowest orders. The unjust and unreasonable
+distinctions affecting Catholics, as to service on grand
+and petty juries, are done away; the army, navy, and all
+other offices and places of trust are opened to them,
+subject to exceptions hereafter mentioned. Catholics may
+be masters or fellows of any college hereafter to be
+founded, subject to two conditions, that such college be
+a member of the University, and that it be not founded
+exclusively for the education of Catholics. They may be
+members of any lay body corporate, except Trinity College,
+any law, statute, or bye-law of such corporation to the
+contrary notwithstanding. They may obtain degrees in the
+University of Dublin. These, and some lesser immunities
+and privileges, constitute the grant of the bill, the
+value of which will be best ascertained by referring to
+the petition."
+
+It is true, Catholics were still excluded from the high
+offices of Lord Lieutenant, Lord Deputy, and Lord
+Chancellor. What was much more important, they were
+excluded from sitting in Parliament--from exercising
+legislative and judicial functions, Still the franchise,
+the juries, the professions, and the University, were
+important concessions. Their first fruits were Daniel
+O'Connell and Thomas Moore!
+
+The Committee having met to return thanks to the
+parliamentary supporters of the bill, their own future
+operations came also under debate. Some members advised
+that they should add reform to their programme, as the
+remnant of the penal laws were not sufficient to interest
+and attract the people. Some would have gone much further
+than reform; some were well content to rest on their
+laurels. There were ultras, moderate men, and conservatives,
+even in the twelve. The latter were more numerous than
+Wolfe Tone liked or expected. That ardent revolutionist
+had, indeed, at bottom, a strong dislike of the Catholic
+religion; he united himself with that body because he
+needed a party; he remained with them because it gave
+him importance; but he chiefly valued the position as it
+enabled him to further an ulterior design--an Irish
+revolution and a republic on the French plan. The example
+of France had, however, grown by this time rather a terror
+than an attraction to more cautious men than Tone. Edward
+Byrne, Sir Thomas French, and other leading Catholics,
+were openly hostile to any imitation of it, and the dinner
+at Daly's, to celebrate the passage of the act, was
+strongly anti-Gallican in spirit and sentiment. Keogh,
+McCormick, and McNevin, however, joined the United
+Irishmen, and the two latter were placed on the Directory.
+Keogh withdrew, when, in 1795, that organization became
+a secret society.
+
+The Bishops, who had cheered on, rather than participated
+in the late struggle, were well satisfied with the new
+measure. They were, by education and conviction,
+conservatives. Dr. Plunkett of Meath, Dr. Egan of
+Waterford, Dr. Troy of Dublin, and Dr. Moylan of Cork,
+were the most remarkable for influence and ability at
+this period. Dr. Butler of Cashel, and his opponent, Dr.
+Burke of Ossory, the head of the resolute old ultramontane
+minority, were both recently deceased. With the exception
+of Dr. James Butler, Bishop of Cloyne and Ross, who
+deserted his faith and order on becoming unexpectedly
+heir to an earldom, the Irish prelates of the reign of
+George III. were a most zealous and devoted body. Lord
+Dunboyne's fall was the only cause of a reproach within
+their own ranks. That unhappy prelate made, many years
+afterwards, a death-bed repentance, was reconciled to
+his church, and bequeathed a large part of his inherited
+wealth to sustain the new national college, the founding
+of which, ever since the outbreak of the French revolution,
+the far-seeing Burke was urging upon Pitt and all his
+Irish correspondents.
+
+In 1794, the Irish Bishops, having applied for a "royal
+license" to establish academies and seminaries, were
+graciously received, and Lord Fitzwilliam's government
+the next session brought in the Act of Incorporation. It
+became law on the 5th of June, 1795, and the college was
+opened the following October with fifty students. Dr
+Hussey, afterwards Bishop of Waterford, the friend of
+Burke, who stood by his deathbed, was first President;
+some refugee French divines were appointed to
+professorships; and the Irish Parliament voted the very
+handsome sum of 8,000 pounds a year to the new foundation.
+Maynooth, whatever its after lot, was the creation in
+the first instance of the Irish Parliament. We have thus,
+in the third century after the reformation, after three
+great religious wars, after four confiscations, after
+the most ingenious, cruel, and unchristian methods of
+oppression and proselytism, had been tried and had failed,
+the grand spectacle of the Catholics of Ireland restored,
+if not fully, yet to the most precious of the civil and
+religious liberties of a people! So powerless against
+conscience is and ever must be coercion!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE ERA OF INDEPENDENCE--EFFECTS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
+IN IRELAND--SECESSION OF GRATTAN, CURRAN, AND THEIR
+FRIENDS, FROM PARLIAMENT, IN 1797.
+
+The era of independence which we have desired to mark
+distinctly to the reader's mind, may be said to terminate
+in 1797, with the hopeless secession of Grattan and his
+friends from Parliament. Did the events within and without
+the House justify that extreme measure? We shall proceed
+to describe them as they arose, leaving the decision of
+the question to the judgment of the reader.
+
+The session of 1793, which extended into July, was,
+besides the Catholic Relief Bill, productive of other
+important results. Under the plea of the spread of French
+principles, and the widespread organization of seditious
+associations--a plea not wanting in evidence--an Arms
+Act was introduced and carried, prohibiting the importation
+of arms and gunpowder, and authorizing domiciliary visits,
+at any hour of the night or day, in search of such arms.
+Within a month from the passage of this bill, bravely
+but vainly opposed by Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and the
+opposition generally, the surviving Volunteer corps, in
+Dublin and its vicinity, were disbanded, their arms,
+artillery, and ammunition taken possession of either by
+force or negotiation, and the very wreck of that once
+powerful patriot army swept away. In its stead, by nearly
+the same majority, the militia were increased to 16,000
+men, and the regulars from 12,000 to 17,000--thus placing
+at the absolute control of the Commander-in-Chief, and
+the chiefs of the oligarchy, a standing army of 33,000
+men. At the same period, Lord Clare (he had been made an
+earl in 1792), introduced his Convention Act, against
+the assemblage in convention of delegates purporting to
+represent the people. With Grattan only 27 of the Commons
+divided against this measure, well characterized as "the
+boldest step that ever yet was made to introduce military
+government." "If this bill had been law," Grattan added,
+"the independence of the Irish Parliament, the emancipation
+of the Catholics, and even the English revolution of
+1688, could never have taken place!" The teller in favour
+of the Convention Act was Major Wellesley, member for
+Trim, twenty years later--Duke of Wellington! It became
+and still remains the law of Ireland.
+
+Against this reactionary legislation we must credit the
+session of '93, besides the Catholic Relief Bill and the
+East India Trade Bill, with Mr. Grattan's Barren Lands
+Bill, exempting all newly reclaimed lands from the payment
+of tithes for a period of seven years; Mr. Forbes's
+Pension Bill, limiting the pension list to 80,000 pounds
+sterling per annum, and fixing the permanent civil list
+at 250,000 pounds per annum; and the excellent measure
+of the same invaluable member, excluding from Parliament
+all persons holding offices of profit under the crown,
+except the usual ministerial officers, and those employed
+in the _revenue service_. This last salvo was forced into
+the bill by the oligarchical faction, for whose junior
+branches the revenue had long been a fruitful source of
+provision.
+
+Parliament met next, on the 21st of January, '94, and
+held a short two-months' session. The most remarkable
+incidents of these two months were the rejection of Mr.
+George Ponsonby's annual motion for parliamentary reform,
+and the striking position taken by Grattan, Curran, and
+all but seven or eight of their friends, in favour of
+the war against the French republic. Mr. Ponsonby proposed,
+in the spirit of Flood's plan ten years earlier, to unite
+to the boroughs four miles square of the adjoining country,
+thus creating a counterpoise to the territorial aristocracy
+on the one hand, and the patrons of boroughs on the other;
+he also proposed to extend the suffrage to every tradesman
+who had served five years' apprenticeship, and gave each
+county _three_ instead of two members, leaving intact,
+of course, the forty-shilling freehold franchise. Not
+more than 44 members, however, divided in favour of the
+new project, while 142 voted against it! Had it passed,
+the parliamentary history of the next six years could
+never have been written.
+
+It was on this Reform bill, and on the debate on the
+address, that Grattan took occasion to declare his settled
+and unalterable hostility to those "French principles,"
+then so fashionable with all who called themselves friends
+of freedom, in the three kingdoms. In the great social
+schism which had taken place in Europe, in consequence
+of the French revolution of 1789-'91, those kingdoms,
+the favourite seat of free inquiry and free discussion,
+could not hope to escape. The effects were visible in
+every circle, among every order of men; in all the
+churches, workshops, saloons, professions, into which
+men were divided. Among publicists, most of all, the
+shock was most severely felt; in England it separated
+Burke and Windham from Fox, Erskine, Sheridan, and Grey;
+in Ireland it separated Grattan and Curran from Lord
+Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur O'Conor, Addis Emmet, Wolfe
+Tone, and all those ardent, able, and honest men, who
+hailed the French, as the forerunner of a complete series
+of European republics, in which Ireland should shine out,
+among the brightest and the best.
+
+Grattan, who agreed with and revered Burke, looked upon
+the "anti-Jacobin war," as a just and necessary war. It
+was not in his nature to do anything by halves, and he
+therefore cordially supported the paragraph in the address
+pledging Ireland's support to that war. He was a
+constitutionalist of the British, not of the French type.
+In the subsequent Reform debate he declared that he would
+always and ever resist those who sought to remodel the
+Irish constitution on a French original. He asserted,
+moreover, that great mischief had been already done by
+the advocates of such a design, "It"--this design--"has
+thrown back for the present the chance of any rational
+improvement in the representation of the people," he
+cried, "and has betrayed a good reform _to the hopes of
+a shabby insurrection_." Proceeding in his own condensed,
+crystalline antithesis, he thus enlarged on his own
+opinions: "There are two characters equally enemies to
+the reform of Parliament, and equally enemies to the
+government--the leveller of the constitution, and the
+friend of its abuses; they take different roads to arrive
+at the same end. The levellers propose to subvert the
+King and parliamentary constitution by a rank and
+unqualified democracy--the friends of its abuses propose
+to support the King and buy the Parliament, and in the
+end to overset both, by a rank and avowed corruption.
+They are both incendiaries; the one would destroy government
+to pay his court to liberty; the other would destroy
+liberty to pay his court to government; but the liberty
+of the one would be confusion, and the government of the
+other would be pollution."
+
+We can well understand that this language pleased as
+little the United Irishmen as the Castle. It was known
+that in private he was accustomed to say, that, "the
+wonder was not that Mr. Sheares should die on the scaffold,
+but that Lord Clare was not there beside him." He stood
+in the midst of the ways, crying aloud, with the wisdom
+of his age and his genius, but there were few to heed
+his warnings. The sanguine innovator sneered or pitied;
+the truculent despot scowled or menaced; to the one his
+authority was an impediment, to the other his reputation
+was a reproach. It was a public situation as full of
+conflict as man ever occupied, and we are not astonished,
+on a nearer view, that it led, after three years hoping
+against hope, to the despairing secession of 1797.
+
+A bright gleam of better things shot for an instant across
+the gloomy prospect, with which the year '94 closed for
+the country. Lord Westmoreland was recalled, and Lord
+Fitzwilliam, largely connected with Ireland by property,
+and one of the most just and liberal men in England, was
+to be his successor. The highest expectations were
+excited; the best men congratulated each other on the
+certain promise of better times close at hand; and the
+nation, ever ready to believe whatever it wished to
+believe, saw in prospect, the oligarchy restrained, the
+patriots triumphant, and the unfinished fabric of
+independence completed, and crowned with honour.
+
+This new reign, though one of the shortest, was one of
+the most important Ireland ever saw. Lord Fitzwilliam,
+the nephew of Lord Rockingham, the first to acknowledge
+the constitution of 1782, had married a Ponsonby; he was
+a Burke whig--one of those who, with the Duke of Portland,
+Earl Spencer, and Mr. Windham, had followed the "great
+Edmund," in his secession from the Fox-and-Sheridan
+majority of that party, in 1791. Pitt, anxious to conciliate
+these new allies, had brought them all into office in
+1794--Earl Fitzwilliam being placed in the dignified
+position of President of the Council. When spoken of
+for the Viceroyalty he wrote to Grattan, bespeaking his
+support, and that of "his friends, the Ponsonbys;" this
+letter and some others brought Grattan to London, where
+he had two or three interviews with Pitt, the Duke of
+Portland, and Lord Fitzwilliam. Better still, he made a
+pilgrimage to Beaconsfield, and had the benefit of the
+last advice of the aged Burke. With Pitt he was disappointed
+and dissatisfied, but he still hoped and expected great
+good from the appointment of Lord Fitzwilliam to the
+office of Viceroy. It seems to have been fully understood
+that the new Lord Lieutenant would have very full powers
+to complete the gracious work of Catholic emancipation:
+with this express understanding, Mr. Grattan was pressed
+to accept the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, but steadily
+declined; he upheld in that position Sir Henry Parnell,
+an old personal, rather than political friend, one of a
+family of whom Ireland has reason to retain a grateful
+recollection. He was, however, with Ponsonby, Curran,
+and others of his friends in both Houses, added to the
+Privy Council, where they were free to shape the measures
+of the new administration. At the King's levee, on the
+10th of December, when Lord Fitzwilliam was sworn in,
+the aged Burke, in deep mourning for his idolized son,
+attended; Grattan was so much spoken to by the King as
+to draw towards him particular attention; Mr. Pitt, the
+Duke of Portland, and other ministers, were present. All
+took and held the tone that complete emancipation was a
+thing settled: Burke congratulated Grattan on the event,
+and the new Viceroy was as jubilant and as confident as
+anybody, that the great controversy was at length to be
+finally closed under his auspices.
+
+On the 4th of January, Lord Fitzwilliam reached Dublin;
+and on the 25th of March he was recalled. The history of
+these three months--of this short-lived attempt to govern
+Ireland on the advice of Grattan--is full of instruction.
+The Viceroy had not for a moment concealed his intention
+of thoroughly reforming the Irish administration. On his
+arrival at the Castle, Mr. Cooke was removed from the
+Secretaryship, and Mr. Beresford from the Revenue Board.
+Great was the consternation, and unscrupulous the intrigues
+of the dismissed. When the Parliament met at the end of
+January, Grattan assumed the leadership of the House of
+Commons, and moved the address in answer to the speech
+from the throne. No opposition was offered--and it passed
+without a division. Immediately, a bill granting the
+Catholics complete emancipation--rendering them eligible
+even to the office of Chancellor, withheld in 1829--was
+introduced by Grattan. Then the oligarchy found their
+voices. The old cry of "the Church in danger" was raised,
+delegations proceeded to London, and every agency of
+influence was brought to bear on the King and the English
+cabinet. From the tenor of his letters, Lord Fitzwilliam
+felt compelled in honour to tell Mr. Pitt, that he might
+choose between him and the Beresfords. He did choose--but
+not till the Irish Parliament, in the exuberance of its
+confidence and gratitude, had voted the extraordinary
+subsidy of 20,000 men for the navy, and _a million, eight
+hundred thousand pounds, towards the expenses of the war
+with France!_ Then, the popular Viceroy was recalled amid
+the universal regrets of the people. The day of his
+departure from Dublin was a day of general mourning,
+except with the oligarchical clique, whose leaders he
+had so resolutely thrust aside. To them it was a day of
+insolent and unconcealed rejoicing; and, what is not at
+all uncommon under such circumstances, the infatuated
+partisans of the French revolution, rejoiced hardly less
+than the extremest Tories, at the sudden collapse of a
+government equally opposed to the politics of both.
+Grattan, than whom no public man was ever more free from
+unjust suspicion of others, always remained under the
+conviction that Pitt had made merely a temporary use of
+Lord Fitzwilliam's popularity, in order to cheat the
+Irish out of the immense supplies they had voted; and
+all the documents of the day, which have since seen the
+light, accord well with that view of the transaction.
+Lord Fitzwilliam was immediately replaced by Lord Camden,
+whose Viceroyalty extended into the middle of the year
+1798: a reign which embraced all that remains to us to
+narrate, of the Parliamentary politics of the era of
+Independence.
+
+The sittings of Parliament were resumed during April,
+May, and June, but the complete emancipation bill was
+rejected three to one--155 to 55; the debates were now
+marked, on the part of Toler, Duigenan, Johnson, and
+others, with the most violent anti-Catholic spirit. All
+this tended to inflame still more the exasperated feeling
+which already prevailed in the country between Orangemen
+and Defenders. Thus it came, that the High Court of
+Parliament, which ought to have been the chief school of
+public wisdom--the calm correcting tribunal of public
+opinion--was made a principal engine in the dissemination
+of those prejudices and passions, which drove honest men
+to despair of constitutional redress, and swelled the
+ranks of the secret political societies, till they became
+co-extensive with the population.
+
+The session of 1796 was even more hopeless than the
+immediately preceding one. A trade motion of Grattan's
+on the address commanded only 14 votes out of 140; in
+the next session his motion in favour of equal rights to
+persons of all religious creeds, obtained but 12 votes
+out of 160! From these figures it is clear that above a
+third of the members of the House no longer attended;
+that of those who did attend, the overwhelming and
+invariable majority--ten to one--were for all the measures
+of repression and coercion which marked these two sessions.
+The Insurrection Act, giving power to the magistrates of
+any county to proclaim martial law; the Indemnity Act,
+protecting magistrates from the consequences of exercising
+"a vigour beyond the law;" the Riot Act, giving authority
+to disperse any number of persons by force of arms without
+notice; the Suspension of the _habeas corpus_ (against
+which only 7 members out of a House of 164 voted)--all
+were evidences to. Grattan, that the usefulness of the
+House of Commons, as then constituted, was, for the tune,
+lost or destroyed. It is quite clear that he came to
+this conviction slowly and reluctantly; that he struggled
+against it with manly fortitude through three sessions;
+that he yielded to it at length, when there was no longer
+a possibility of resistance,--when to move or to divide
+the House, had become a wretched farce, humiliating to
+the country, and unworthy of his own earnest and
+enthusiastic patriotism.
+
+Under these circumstances, the powerless leader and his
+devoted staff resolved to withdraw, formally and openly,
+from further attendance on the House of Commons. The
+deplorable state of the country, delivered over to an
+irresponsible magistracy and all the horrors of martial
+law; the spread among the patriotic rising generation of
+French principles; the scarcely concealed design of the
+Castle to goad the people into insurrection, in order to
+deprive them of their liberties; all admonished the
+faithful few that the walls of Parliament were no longer
+their sphere of usefulness. One last trial was, however,
+made in May, 1797, for a reform of Parliament. Mr. George
+Ponsonby moved his usual motion, and Curran, Hardy, Sir
+Lawrence Parsons, Charles Kendall Bushe, and others, ably
+supported him. The division was 30 to 117. It was on this
+debate, that Grattan, whose mournful manner contrasted
+so strongly with his usual enthusiasm, concluded a solemn
+exposition of the evils the administration were bringing
+on the country, by these affecting words:--"We have
+offered you our measure--you will reject it; we deprecate
+yours--you will persevere; having no hopes left to persuade
+or to dissuade, and having discharged our duty, we shall
+trouble you no more, _and after this day shall not attend
+the House of Commons_." The secession thus announced was
+accomplished; at the general election, two months later,
+Grattan and his colleague, Lord Henry Fitzgerald, refused
+to stand again for Dublin; Curran, Lord Edward Fitzgerald,
+Arthur O'Conor, and others, followed his example. A few
+patriots, hoping against hope, were, however, returned,
+a sort of forlorn hope, to man the last redoubt of the
+Constitution. Of these was William Conyngham Plunkett,
+member for Charlemont, Grattan's old borough, a
+constitutionalist of the school of Edmund Burke, worthy
+to be named among the most illustrious of his disciples.
+
+In the same July, on the 7th of the month, on which the
+Irish elections were held, that celebrated Anglo-Irish
+statesman expired at Beaconsfield, in the sixty-seventh
+year of his age. His last thoughts--his last wishes, like
+his first--were with his native land. His regards continued
+fixed on the state of Ireland, while vision and faculty
+remained. His last efforts in writing and conversation
+were to plead for toleration, concession and conciliation
+towards Ireland. The magisterial gravity of Burke was
+not calculated to permit him to be generally popular with
+an impulsive people, but as years roll on, and education
+extends its dominion, his reputation rises and brightens
+above every other reputation of his age, British or Irish.
+Of him no less truly than powerfully did Grattan say in
+the Imperial Parliament, in 1815: "He read everything,
+he saw everything, he foresaw everything. His knowledge
+of history amounted to a power of foretelling; and when
+he perceived the wild work that was doing in France, that
+great political physician, intelligent of symptoms,
+distinguished between the access of fever and the force
+of health; and what other men conceived to be the vigour
+of her constitution, he knew to be no more than the
+paroxysm of her madness; and then, prophet-like, he
+denounced the destinies of France, and in his prophetic
+fury, admonished nations."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE UNITED IRISHMEN.
+
+Half measures of justice may satisfy the generation which
+achieves them, but their successors will look with other
+eyes, as well on what has been won as on that which is
+withheld. The part in possession will appear to their
+youthful sense of abstract right and wrong far less
+precious than the part in expectancy, for it is in the
+nature of the young to look forward, as it is of the old
+to turn their regards to the past. The very recollection
+of their fathers will stimulate the new generation to
+emulate their example, and will render them averse to
+being bound by former compromises. So necessary is it
+for statesmen, when they yield to a just demand long
+withheld, to yield gracefully and to yield all that is
+fairly due.
+
+The celebrated group known to us as "the United Irishmen,"
+were the birth of a new generation, entering together on
+the public stage. With few exceptions, the leading
+characters were all born within a few years of each other:
+Neilson in 1761, Tone, Arthur O'Conor and Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald in '62, McNevin in '63, Sampson and Thomas
+Addis Emmet in '64, and Russell in '67. They had emerged
+into manhood while the drums of the Volunteers were
+beating victorious marches, when the public hopes ran
+high, and the language of patriotism was the familiar
+speech of every-day life.
+
+In a settled state of society it would have been natural
+for the first minds of the new generation to carry their
+talents, gratefully and dutifully, into the service of
+the first reputations of the old; but Irish society, in
+the last years of the last century, was not in a settled
+condition; the fascination of French example, and the
+goading sense of national wrongs only half-righted,
+inflamed the younger generation with a passionate thirst
+for speedy and summary justice on their oppressors. We
+must not look, therefore, to see the Tones and Emmets
+continuing in the constitutional line of public conduct
+marked out by Burke in the one kingdom, and Grattan in
+the other. The new age was revolutionary, and the new
+men were filled with the spirit of the age. Their actions
+stand apart; they form an episode in the history of the
+century to which there may be parallels, but a chapter
+in the history of their own country original and alone.
+
+The United Irish Society sprung up at Belfast in October,
+1791. In that month, Theobold Wolf Tone, then in his 28th
+year, a native of Kildare, a member of the bar, and an
+excellent popular pamphleteer, on a visit to his friend
+Thomas Russell, in the northern capital, was introduced
+to Samuel Neilson, proprietor of the _Northern Star_
+newspaper, and several other kindred spirits, all staunch
+reformers, or "something more." Twenty of these gentlemen
+meeting together, adopted a programme prepared by Tone,
+which contained these three simple propositions: that
+"English influence" was the great danger of Irish liberty;
+that a reform of Parliament could alone create a
+counterpoise to that influence; and that such a reform
+to be just should include Irishmen of all religious
+denominations. On Tone's return to Dublin, early in
+November, a branch society was formed on the Belfast
+basis. The Hon. Simon Butler, a leading barrister, was
+chosen Chairman, and Mr. Napper Tandy, an active middle-aged
+merchant, with strong republican principles, was Secretary.
+The solemn declaration or oath, binding every member "to
+forward a brotherhood of affection, an identity of
+interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power
+among Irishmen of all religious persuasions," was drawn
+up by the Dublin club, and became the universal bond of
+organization. Though the Belfast leaders had been long
+in the habit of meeting in "secret committee," to direct
+and control the popular movements in their vicinage, the
+new society was not, in its inception, nor for three
+years afterwards, a secret society. When that radical
+change was proposed, we find it resisted by a considerable
+minority, who felt themselves at length compelled to
+retire from an association, the proceedings of which they
+could no longer approve. In justice to those who remained,
+adopting secrecy as their only shield, it must be said,
+that the freedom of the press and of public discussion
+had been repeatedly and frequently violated before they
+abandoned the original maxims and tactics of their body,
+which were all open, and above-board.
+
+In 1792, Simon Butler, and Oliver Bond--a prosperous
+Dublin merchant of northern origin--was summoned to the
+bar of the House of Lords, condemned to six months'
+imprisonment, and a fine of 500 pounds each, for having
+acted as Chairman and Secretary of one of the meetings,
+at which an address to the people, strongly reflecting
+on the corrupt constitution of Parliament, was adopted.
+In '94, Archibald Hamilton Rowan, one of the purest and
+most chivalrous characters of any age, was convicted, by
+a packed jury, of circulating the famous "Universal
+Emancipation" address of his friend, Dr. William Drennan,
+the poet-politician of the party. He was defended by
+Curran, in the still more famous speech in which occurs
+his apostrophe to "the genius of Universal Emancipation;"
+but he atoned in the cells of Newgate, for circulating
+the dangerous doctrine which Drennan had broached, and
+Curran had immortalized.
+
+The regular place of meeting of the Dublin society was
+the Tailors' Hall, in Back Lane, a spacious building,
+called, from the number of great popular gatherings held
+in it, "the Back Lane Parliament." Here Tandy, in the
+uniform of his new National Guard, whose standard bore
+the harp without the crown, addressed his passionate
+harangues to the applauding multitude; here Tone, whose
+_forte_, however, was not oratory, constantly attended;
+here, also, the leading Catholics, Keogh and McCormack,
+the "Gog" and "Magog," of Tone's extraordinary _Memoirs_,
+were occasionally present. And here, on the night of the
+4th of May, 1794, the Dublin society found themselves
+suddenly assailed by the police, their papers seized,
+their officers who were present arrested, and their
+meeting dispersed. From that moment we may date the new
+and _secret_ organization of the brotherhood, though it
+was not in general operation till the middle of the
+following year.
+
+This new organization, besides its secrecy, had other
+revolutionary characteristics. For "reform of Parliament"
+was substituted in the test, or oath, representation "of
+all the people of Ireland," and for petitions and
+publications, the enrolment of men, by baronies and
+counties, and the appointment of officers, from the least
+to the highest in rank, as in a regular army. The unit
+was a lodge of twelve members, with a chairman and
+secretary, who were also their corporal and sergeant;
+five of these lodges formed a company, and the officers
+of five such companies a baronial committee, from which
+again, in like manner, the county committees were formed.
+Each of the provinces had its Directory, while in Dublin
+the supreme authority was established, in an "Executive
+Directory" of five members. The orders of the Executive
+were communicated to not more than one of the Provincial
+Directors, and by him to one of each County Committee,
+and so in a descending scale, till the rank and file were
+reached; an elaborate contrivance, but one which proved
+wholly insufficient to protect the secrets of the
+organization from the ubiquitous espionage of the
+government.
+
+In May, 1795, the new organization lost the services of
+Wolfe Tone, who was compromised by a strange incident,
+to a very serious extent. The incident was the arrest
+and trial of the Rev. William Jackson, an Anglican
+clergyman, who had imbibed the opinions of Price and
+Priestley, and had been sent to Ireland by the French
+Republic, on a secret embassy. Betrayed by a friend and
+countryman, named Cockayne, the unhappy Jackson took
+poison in prison, and expired in the dock. Tone had been
+seen with Jackson, and through the influence of his
+friends, was alone protected from arrest. He was compelled,
+however, to quit the country, in order to preserve his
+personal liberty. He proceeded with his family to Belfast,
+where, before taking shipping for America, he renewed
+with his first associates, their vows and projects, on
+the summit of "the Cave Hill," which looks down upon the
+rich valley of the Laggan, and the noble town and port
+at its outlet. Before quitting Dublin, he had solemnly
+promised Emmet and Russell, in the first instance, as he
+did his Belfast friends in the second, that he would make
+the United States his _route_ to France, where he would
+negotiate a formidable national alliance, for "the United
+Irishmen."
+
+In the year in which Tone left the country, Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald, brother of the Duke of Leinster, and formerly
+a Major in the British Army, joined the society; in the
+next year--near its close--Thomas Addis Emmet, who had
+long been in the confidence of the promoters, joined, as
+did, about the same time, Arthur O'Conor, nephew of Lord
+Longueville, and ex-member for Phillipstown, and Dr.
+William James McNevin, a Connaught Catholic, educated in
+Austria, then practising his profession with eminent
+success in Dublin. These were felt to be important
+accessions, and all four were called upon to act on "the
+Executive Directory," from time to time, during 1796 and
+1797.
+
+The coercive legislation carried through Parliament,
+session after session--the Orange persecutions in Armagh
+and elsewhere--the domiciliary visits--the military
+outrages in town and country--the free quarters, whipping
+and tortures--the total suppression of the public press
+--the bitter disappointment of Lord Fitzwilliam's
+recall--the annual failure of Ponsonby's motion for
+reform--finally, the despairing secession of Grattan and
+his friends from Parliament--had all tended to expand
+the system, which six years before was confined to a few
+dozen enthusiasts of Belfast and Dublin, into the dimensions
+of a national confederacy. By the close of this year,
+500,000 men had taken the test, in every part of the
+country, and nearly 300,000 were reported as armed, either
+with firelocks or pikes. Of this total, 110,000 alone
+were returned for Ulster; about 60,000 for Leinster, and
+the remainder from Connaught and Munster. A fund,
+ludicrously small, 1,400 pounds sterling, remained in
+the hands of the Executive, after all the outlay which
+had taken place, in procuring arms, in extending the
+union, and in defending prisoners arrested as members of
+the society. Lord Edward Fitzgerald was chosen
+Commander-in-Chief; but the main reliance, for munitions,
+artillery, and officers, was placed upon the French
+Republic.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE AND HOLLAND--THE THREE
+EXPEDITIONS NEGOTIATED BY TONE AND LEWINES.
+
+The close of the year 1795 saw France under the government
+of the Directory, with Carnot in the cabinet, and Pichegru,
+Jourdain, Moreau, Hoche, and Buonaparte at the head of
+its armies. This government, with some change of persons,
+lasted from October, 1795, to November, '99, when it was
+supplanted by the Consular Revolution. Within the compass
+of those four years lie the negotiations which were
+carried on and the three great expeditions which were
+fitted out by France and Holland, at the instance of the
+United Irishmen.
+
+On the 1st of February, 1796, Tone, who had sailed from
+Belfast the previous June, arrived at Havre from New
+York, possessed of a hundred guineas and some useful
+letters of introduction. One of these letters, written
+in cipher, was from the French Minister at Philadelphia
+to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charles Lacroix;
+another was to the American Minister in France, Mr.
+Monroe, afterwards President of the United States, by
+whom he was most kindly received, and wisely advised, on
+reaching Paris. Lacroix received him courteously, and
+referred him to a subordinate called Madgett, but after
+nearly three months wasted in interviews and explanations,
+Tone, by the advice of Monroe, presented himself at the
+Luxembourg Palace, and demanded audience of the "Organizer
+of Victory." Carnot also listened to him attentively,
+asked and obtained his true name, and gave him another
+_rendezvous_. He was next introduced to Clarke (afterwards
+Duc de Feltre), Secretary at War, the son of an Irishman,
+whom he found wholly ignorant of Ireland; and finally,
+on the 12th of July, General Hoche, in the most frank
+and winning manner, introduced himself. At first the
+Directory proposed sending to Ireland no more than 5,000
+men, while Tone pleaded for 20,000; but when Hoche accepted
+the command, he assured Tone he would go "in sufficient
+force." The "pacificator of La Vendee," as the young
+general was called--he was only thirty-two,--won at once
+the heart of the enthusiastic founder of the United
+Irishmen, and the latter seems to have made an equally
+favourable impression. He was at once presented with
+the commission of a _chef de brigade_ of infantry--a rank
+answering to that of colonel with us--and was placed as
+adjutant on the general's staff. Hoche was all ardour
+and anxiety; Carnot cheered him on by expressing his
+belief that it would be "a most brilliant operation;"
+and certainly Tone was not the man to damp such
+expectations, or allow them to evaporate in mere
+complimentary assurances.
+
+During the autumn months the expedition was busily being
+fitted out at Brest, and the general head-quarters were
+at Rennes. The Directory, to satisfy themselves that all
+was as represented by Tone, had sent an agent of their
+own to Ireland, by whom a meeting was arranged on the
+Swiss frontier between Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur
+O'Conor, Dr. McNevin, and Hoche. From this meeting--the
+secret of which he kept to himself--the young general
+returned in the highest spirits, and was kinder than ever
+to his adjutant. At length, early in December, all was
+ready, and on the 16th the Brest fleet stood out to sea;
+17 sail of the line, 13 frigates, and 13 smaller ships,
+carrying 15,000 picked troops, the _elite_ of "the Army
+of the Ocean," and abundance of artillery and munitions
+of war. Tone was in the _Indomptable_, 80 guns, commanded
+by a Canadian, named Bedout; Hoche and the Admiral in
+the frigate _Fraternite_; Grouchy, so memorable for the
+part he played then and afterwards, was second in command.
+On the third morning, after groping about and losing each
+other in Atlantic fog, one-half the fleet (with the fatal
+exception of the _Fraternite_) found themselves close in
+with the coast of Kerry. They entered Bantry Bay, and
+came to anchor, ten ships of war, and "a long line of
+dark hulls resting on the green water." Three or four
+days they lay dormant and idle, waiting for the General
+and Admiral; Bouvet, the Vice-Admiral, was opposed to
+moving in the absence of his chief; Grouchy was irresolute
+and nervous; but at length, on Christmas day, the council
+of war decided in favour of debarkation. The landing was
+to take place next morning; 6,500 veterans were prepared
+to step ashore at daylight, but without their artillery,
+their military chest, and their general. Two hours beyond
+midnight Tone was roused from sleep by the wind, which
+he found blowing half a gale. Pacing the gallery of the
+_Indomptable_ till day dawned, he felt it rising louder
+and angrier, every hour. The next day it was almost a
+hurricane, and the Vice-Admiral's frigate, running under
+the quarter of the great 80-gun ship, ordered them to
+slip anchor and stand out to sea. The whole fleet was
+soon driven off the Irish coast; that part of it, in
+which Grouchy and Tone were embarked, made its entrance
+into Brest on New Year's day; the ship which carried
+Hoche and the Admiral, only arrived at La Rochelle on
+the 15th. The Directory and the General, so far from
+being discouraged by this failure, consoled themselves
+by the demonstration they had made, of the possibility
+of a great fleet passing to and fro, in British waters,
+for nearly a month, without encountering a single British
+vessel of war. Not so the Irish negotiator; on him,
+light-hearted and daring as he was, the disappointment
+fell with crushing weight; but he magnanimously carried
+Grouchy's report to Paris, and did his utmost to defend
+the unlucky general from a cabal which had been formed
+against him.
+
+While Tone was reluctantly following his new chief to
+the Meuse and the Rhine--with a promise that the Irish
+expedition was delayed, not abandoned--another, and no
+less fortunate negotiator, was raising up a new ally for
+the same cause, in an unexpected quarter. The Batavian
+republic, which had risen in the steps of Pichegru's
+victorious army, in 1794, was now eager to imitate the
+example of France. With a powerful fleet, and an unemployed
+army, its chiefs were quite ready to listen to any proposal
+which would restore the maritime ascendancy of Holland,
+and bring back to the recollection of Europe the memory
+of the puissant Dutch republic. In this state of affairs,
+the new agent of the Irish Directory, Edward John Lewines,
+a Dublin attorney, a man of great ability and energy,
+addressed himself to the Batavian government. He had been
+sent abroad with very general powers, to treat with
+Holland, Spain, France, or any other government at war
+with England, for a loan of half a million sterling, and
+a sufficient auxiliary force to aid the insurrection.
+During two months' stay at Hamburg, the habitual route
+in those days from the British ports to the continent,
+he had placed himself in communication with the Spanish
+agent there, and had, in forty days, received an encouraging
+answer from Madrid. On his way, probably to Spain, to
+follow up that fair prospect, he reached the Netherlands,
+and rapidly discovering the state of feeling in the Dutch,
+or as it was then called, the _Batavian_ republic, he
+addressed himself to the Directors, who consulted Hoche,
+by whom in turn Tone was consulted. Tone had a high
+opinion of Lewines, and at once proceeded with him to
+the Hague, where they were joined, according to agreement,
+by Hoche. The Dutch Committee of Foreign Affairs, the
+Commander-in-Chief, General Dandaels, and the Admiral,
+De Winter, entered heartily into the project. There were
+in the Texel 16 ships of the line and 10 frigates,
+victualled for three months, with 15,000 men and 80 field
+guns on board. The only serious difficulty in the way
+was removed by the disinterestedness of Hoche; the French
+Foreign Minister having demanded that 5,000 French troops
+should be of the expedition, and that Hoche should command
+in chief; the latter, to conciliate Dandaels and the
+Dutch, undertook to withdraw the proposal, and gracefully
+yielded his own pretensions. All then was settled: Tone
+was to accompany Dandaels with the same rank he had in
+the Brest expedition, and Lewines to return, and remain,
+as "Minister-resident" at Paris. On the 8th of July, Tone
+was on board the flagship, the _Vryheid_, 74 guns, in
+the Texel, and "only waiting for a wind," to lead another
+navy to the aid of his compatriots.
+
+But the winds, "the only unsubsidized allies of England,"
+were strangely adverse. A week, two, three, four, five,
+passed heavily away, without affording a single day in
+which that mighty fleet could make an offing. Sometimes
+for an hour or two it shifted to the desired point, the
+sails were unclewed and the anchors shortened, but then,
+as if to torture the impatient exiles on board, it veered
+back again and settled steadily in the fatal south-west.
+At length, at the end of August, the provisions being
+nearly consumed, and the weather still unfavourable, the
+Dutch Directory resolved to land the troops and postpone
+the expedition. De Winter, as is known, subsequently
+found an opportunity to work out, and attack Lord Duncan,
+by whom he was badly beaten. Thus ended Irish hopes of
+aid from Holland. The indomitable Tone rejoined his chief
+on the Rhine, where, to his infinite regret, Hoche died
+the following month--September 18th, 1797--of a rapid
+consumption, accelerated by cold and carelessness. "Hoche,"
+said Napoleon to Barry O'Meara at Saint Helena, "was one
+of the first generals France ever produced. He was brave,
+intelligent, abounding in talent, decisive and penetrating.
+Had he landed in Ireland, he would have succeeded. He
+was accustomed to civil war, had pacified La Vendee, and
+was well adapted for Ireland. He had a fine, handsome
+figure, a good address, was prepossessing and intriguing."
+The loss of such a patron, who felt himself, according
+to Tone's account, especially bound to follow up the
+object of separating Ireland from England, was a calamity
+greater and more irreparable than the detention of one
+fleet or the dispersion of the other.
+
+The third expedition, in promoting which Tone and Lewines
+bore the principal part, was decided upon by the French
+Directory, immediately after the conclusion of peace with
+Austria, in October, 1797. The decree for the formation
+of "the Army of England," named Buonaparte Commander-in-
+Chief, with Desaix as his second. Buonaparte consulted
+Clarke as to who he most confided in among the numerous
+Irish refugees then in Paris--there were some twenty or
+thirty, all more or less known, and more or less in
+communication with the Directory--and Clarke answered
+at once, "Tone, of course." Tone, with Lewines, the one
+in a military, the other in an ambassadorial capacity,
+had frequent interviews with the young conqueror of Italy,
+whom they usually found silent and absorbed, always
+attentive, sometimes asking sudden questions betraying
+great want of knowledge of the British Islands, and
+occasionally, though rarely, breaking out into irresistible
+invectives against Jacobinism and the English system,
+both of which he so cordially detested. Every assurance
+was given by the General, by the Directors, by Merlin du
+Douai, Barras, and Talleyrand especially, that the
+expedition against England would never be abandoned.
+Tone, in high spirits as usual, joined the division under
+the command of his countryman, General Kilmaine, and took
+up his quarters at Havre, where he had landed without
+knowing a soul in France two years before.
+
+The winter wore away in busy preparations at Havre, at
+Brest, and at La Rochelle,--and, which seemed mysterious
+to the Irish exiles--at Toulon. All the resources of
+France, now without an enemy on the Continent, were put
+forth in these preparations. But it soon appeared they
+were not put forth for Ireland. On the 20th of May,
+1798--within three days of the outbreak in Dublin, Wexford,
+and Kildare--Buonaparte sailed with the _elite_ of all
+that expedition for Alexandria, and "the Army of England"
+became, in reality, "the Army of Egypt."
+
+The bitterness, the despondency, and desperation which
+seized on the Irish leaders in France, and on the rank
+and file of the United Irishmen at home, on receiving
+this intelligence are sufficiently illustrated in the
+subsequent attempts under Humbert and Bompart, and the
+partial, ineffectual risings in Leinster, Ulster, and
+Connaught, during the summer and autumn of 1798. After
+all their high hopes from France and her allies, this
+was what it had come to at last! A few frigates, with
+three or four thousand men, were all that could be spared
+for the succour of a kingdom more populous than Egypt
+and Syria combined; the granary of England, and the key
+of her Atlantic position. It might have been some comfort
+to the family of Tone to have read, thirty years afterwards,
+in their American asylum, or for the aged Lewines to have
+read in the Parisian retreat in which he died, the
+memorable confession of Napoleon at Saint Helena: "If
+instead of the expedition to Egypt, I had undertaken that
+to Ireland, what," he asked, "could England do now? On
+such chances," he mournfully added, "depend the destinies
+of empires!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE INSURRECTION OF 1798.
+
+It is no longer matter of assertion merely, but simple
+matter of fact, that the English and Irish ministers of
+George III. regarded the insurrectionary movement of
+the United Irishmen as at once a pretext and a means for
+effecting a legislative union between the two countries.
+Lord Camden, the Viceroy who succeeded Lord Fitzwilliam
+in March, '95--with Mr. Pelham as his Chief Secretary,
+in a letter to his relative, the Hon. Robert Stewart,
+afterwards Lord Castlereagh, announced this policy, in
+unmistakable terms, so early as 1793; and all the official
+correspondence published of late years, concerning that
+period of British and Irish history, establishes the fact
+beyond the possibility of denial.
+
+Such being the design, it was neither the wish nor the
+interest of the Government, that the insurrection should
+be suppressed, unless the Irish constitution could be
+extinguished with it. To that end they proceeded in the
+coercive legislation described in a previous chapter; to
+that end they armed with irresponsible power the military
+officers and the oligarchical magistracy; with that view
+they quartered those yeomanry regiments, which were known
+to be composed of Orangemen, on the wretched peasantry
+of the most Catholic counties, while the corps in which
+Catholics or United Irishmen were most numerous, were
+sent over to England, in exchange for Scotch fencibles
+and Welsh cavalry. The outrages committed by all these
+volunteer troops, but above all by the Orange yeomanry
+of the country, were so monstrous, that the gallant and
+humane Sir John Moore exclaimed, "If I were an Irishman,
+I would be a rebel!"
+
+It was, indeed, impossible for any man, however obscure,
+or however eminent, to live longer in the country, without
+taking sides. Yet the choice was at best a hard and
+unhappy one. On the one side was the Castle, hardly
+concealing its intention of goading on the people, in
+order to rob them of their Parliament; on the other was
+the injured multitude, bound together by a secret system
+which proved in reality no safeguard against traitors in
+their own ranks, and which had been placed by its Protestant
+chiefs under the auspices of an infidel republic. Between
+the two courses men made election according to their bias
+or their necessities, or as they took local or general,
+political or theological views of the situation. Both
+Houses of the legislature unanimously, sustained the
+government against the insurrection; as did the judges,
+the bar, and the Anglican clergy and bishops. The
+Presbyterian body were in the beginning all but unanimous
+for a republican revolution and the French alliance; the
+great majority of the Catholic peasantry were, as the
+crisis increased, driven into the same position, while
+all their bishops and a majority of the Catholic
+aristocracy, adhered to that which they, with the natural
+tendency of their respective orders, considered the side
+of religion and authority. Thus was the nation sub-divided
+within itself; Protestant civilian from Protestant
+ecclesiastic, Catholic layman from Catholic priest, tenant
+from lord, neighbour from neighbour, father from son,
+and friend from friend.
+
+During the whole of '97, the opposing parties were in a
+ferment of movement and apprehension. As the year wore
+on, the administration, both English and Irish, began to
+feel that the danger was more formidable than they had
+foreseen. The timely storm which had blown Grouchy out
+of Bantry Bay, the previous Christmas, could hardly be
+reckoned on again, though the settled hostility of the
+French government knew no change. Thoroughly well informed
+by their legion of spies both on the Continent and in
+Ireland, every possible military precaution was taken.
+The Lord Lieutenant's proclamation for disarming the
+people, issued in May, was rigorously enforced by General
+Johnstone in the South, General Hutchinson in the West,
+and Lord Lake in the North. Two hundred thousand pikes
+and pike-heads were said to have been discovered or
+surrendered during the year, and several thousand firelocks.
+The yeomanry, and English and Scotch corps amounted to
+35,000 men, while the regular troops were increased to
+50,000 and subsequently to 80,000, including three
+regiments of the Guards. The defensive works at Cork,
+and other vulnerable points were strengthened at an
+immense cost; the "Pigeon House" fort, near Dublin, was
+enlarged, for the city itself was pronounced by General
+Vallancy, Colonel Packenham, and other engineer authorities
+dangerously weak, if not wholly untenable. A system of
+telegraphic signals was established from all points of
+the coast with the Capital, and every precaution taken
+against the surprise of another French invasion.
+
+During the summer assize, almost every considerable town
+and circuit had its state trial. The sheriffs had been
+carefully selected beforehand by the Castle, and the
+juries were certain to be of "the right sort," under the
+auspices of such sheriffs. Immense sums in the aggregate
+were contributed by the United Irish for the defence of
+their associates; at the Down assizes alone, not less
+than seven hundred or eight hundred guineas were spent
+in fees and retainers; but at the close of the term, Mr.
+Beresford was able to boast to his friend Lord Auckland,
+that but one of all the accused had escaped the penalty
+of death or banishment! The military tribunals, however,
+did not wait for the idle formalities of the civil courts.
+Soldiers and civilians, yeomen and townsmen, against whom
+the informer pointed his finger, were taken out, and
+summarily executed. Ghastly forms hung upon the thick-set
+gibbets, not only in the market places of country towns,
+and before the public prisons, but on all the bridges of
+the metropolis. Many of the soldiers, in every military
+district were shot weekly and almost daily for real or
+alleged complicity with the rebels. The horrid torture
+of picketing, and the blood-stained lash, were constantly
+resorted to, to extort accusations or confessions. Over
+all these atrocities the furious and implacable spirit
+of Lord Clare presided in Council, and the equally
+furious and implacable Luttrel, Lord Carhampton, as
+Commander-in-Chief. All moderate councils were denounced
+as nothing short of treason, and even the elder Beresford,
+the Privy Counsellor, was compelled to complain of the
+violence of his noble associates, and his inability to
+restrain the ferocity of his own nearest relatives--
+meaning probably his son John Claudius, and his son-in-law,
+Sir George Hill.
+
+It was while this spirit was abroad, a spirit as destructive
+as ever animated the Councils of Sylla or Marius in Old
+Rome, or prompted the decrees of Robespierre or Marat in
+France, that the genius and courage of one man redeemed
+the lost reputation of the law, and upheld against all
+odds the sacred claims of personal liberty. This man was
+John Philpot Curran, the most dauntless of advocates,
+one of the truest and bravest of his race. Although a
+politician of the school of Grattan, and wholly untainted
+with French principles, he identified himself absolutely
+with his unhappy clients, "predoomed to death." The genius
+of patriotic resistance which seemed to have withdrawn
+from the Island with Grattan's secession from Parliament,
+now re-appeared in the last place where it might have
+been expected--in those courts of death, rather than of
+justice--before those predetermined juries, besides the
+hopeless inmates of the crowded dock, personified in the
+person of Curran. Often at midnight, amid the clash of
+arms, his wonderful pleadings were delivered; sometimes,
+as in Dublin, where the court rooms adjoined the prisons,
+the condemned, or the confined, could hear, in their
+cells, his piercing accents breaking the stillness of
+the early morning, pleading for justice and mercy--pleading
+always with superhuman perseverance, but almost always
+in vain. Neither menaces of arrest, nor threats of
+assassination, had power to intimidate that all-daring
+spirit; nor, it may be safely said, can the whole library
+of human history present us a form of heroism superior
+in kind or degree to that which this illustrious advocate
+exhibited during nearly two years, when he went forth
+daily, with his life in his hand, in the holy hope to
+snatch some human victim from the clutch of the destroyer
+thirsting for his blood.
+
+In November, '97, some said from fear of personal
+consequences, some from official pressure in a high
+quarter, Lord Carhampton resigned the command of the
+forces, and Sir Ralph Abercromby was appointed in his
+stead. There could not be a more striking illustration
+of the system of terror patronized by government than
+was furnished in the case of Sir Ralph as Commander-in-
+Chief. That distinguished soldier, with his half century
+of services at his back, had not been a week in Dublin
+before he discovered the weakness of the Viceroy, and
+the violence of his principal advisers, the Chancellor,
+the Speaker, Lord Castlereagh and the Beresfords. Writing
+in confidence to his son, he says, "The abuses of all
+kinds I found here can scarcely be believed or enumerated."
+The instances he cites of such abuses are sufficiently
+horrible to justify the strong language which brought
+down on his head so much hostility, when he declared in
+his proclamation of February '98, that the Irish army
+was "formidable to every one but the enemy." These
+well-known opinions were so repugnant to the Castle
+policy, that that party held a caucus in the Speaker's
+Chambers, at which it was proposed to pass a vote of
+censure in Parliament on the General, whom they denounced
+as "a sulky mule," "a Scotch beast," and by other similar
+names. Though the Parliamentary censure dropped, they
+actually compelled Lord Camden to call on him to retract
+his magnanimous order. To this humiliation the veteran
+stooped "for the sake of the King's service," but at the
+same time he proffered his resignation. After two months'
+correspondence, it was finally accepted, and the soldier
+who was found too jealous of the rights of the people to
+be a fit instrument of their destruction, escaped from
+his high position, not without a profound sentiment of
+relief. His verdict upon the barbarous policy pursued in
+his time was always expressed, frankly and decisively.
+His entire correspondence, private and public, bears one
+and the same burthen--the violence, cruelty, and tyranny
+of Lord Camden's chief advisers, and the pitiful weakness
+of the Viceroy himself. Against the infamous plan of
+letting loose a lustful and brutal soldiery to live at
+"free quarters" on a defenceless and disarmed people--an
+outrage against which Englishmen had taken perpetual
+security at _their_ revolution, as may be seen in "the
+Bill of Rights," he struggled during his six months'
+command, but with no great success. The plan, with all
+its horrors, was upheld by the Lord-Lieutenant, and more
+than any other cause, precipitated the rebellion which
+exploded at last, just as Sir Ralph was allowed to retire
+from the country. His temporary successor, Lord Lake,
+was troubled with no such scruples as the gallant old
+Scotsman.
+
+Events followed each other in the first months of 1798,
+fast and furiously. Towards the end of February, Arthur
+O'Conor, Father James Quigley, the brothers John and
+Benjamin Binns, were arrested at Margate on their way to
+France; on the 6th of March, the _Press_ newspaper, the
+Dublin organ of the party, as the _Star_ had been the
+Ulster organ, was seized by Government, Lord Edward
+Fitzgerald and William Sampson being at the time in the
+office. On the 12th of March, on the information of the
+traitor, Thomas Reynolds, the Leinster delegates were
+seized in conclave, with all their papers, at the house
+of Oliver Bond, in Bridge Street, Dublin. On the same
+information. Addis Emmet and Dr. McNevin were taken in
+their own houses, and Sampson in the north of England:
+of all the executive, Lord Edward alone escaping those
+sent in search of him. This was, as Tone notes in his
+journal, on the ill news reaching France, "a terrible
+blow." O'Conor's arrest in Kent, Sampson's in Carlisle,
+and the other arrests in Belfast and Dublin, proved too
+truly that treason was at work, and that the much-prized
+oath of secrecy was no protection whatever against the
+devices of the Castle and the depravity of its secret
+agents. The extent to which that treason extended, the
+number of associates who were in the pay of their deadly
+enemies, was never known to the United Irish leaders;
+time has, however, long since "revealed the secrets of
+the prison-house," and we know now, that men they trusted
+with all their plans and hopes, such as McNally and
+McGucken, were quite as deep in the conspiracy to destroy
+them as Mr. Reynolds and Captain Armstrong.
+
+The most influential members of the Dublin Society
+remaining at large contrived to correspond with each
+other, or to meet by stealth after the arrest at Bond's.
+The vacancies in the Executive were filled up by the
+brothers John and Henry Sheares, both barristers, sons
+of a wealthy Cork banker, and former member of Parliament,
+and by Mr. Lawless, a surgeon. For two months longer
+these gentlemen continued to act in concert with Lord
+Edward, who remained undetected, notwithstanding all the
+efforts of Government, from the 12th of March till the
+19th of May following. During those two months the new
+directors devoted themselves with the utmost energy to
+hurrying on the armament of the people, and especially
+to making proselytes among the militia, where the gain
+of one man armed and disciplined was justly accounted
+equal to the enlistment of three or four ordinary adherents.
+This part of their plan brought the brothers Sheares into
+contact, among others, with Captain John Warneford
+Armstrong, of the Queen's County Yeomanry, whom they
+supposed they had won over, but who was, in reality, a
+better-class spy, acting under Lord Castlereagh's
+instructions. Armstrong cultivated them sedulously, dined
+at their table, echoed their opinions, and led the
+credulous brothers on to their destruction. All at last
+was determined on; the day of the rising was fixed--the
+23rd day of May--and the signal was to be the simultaneous
+stoppage of the mail coaches, which started nightly from
+the Dublin post-office, to every quarter of the kingdom.
+But the counterplot anticipated the plot. Lord Edward,
+betrayed by a person called Higgins, proprietor of the
+_Freeman's Journal_, was taken on the 19th of May, after
+a desperate struggle with Majors Swan and Sirr, and
+Captain Ryan, in his hiding-place in Thomas Street; the
+brothers Sheares were arrested in their own house on the
+morning of the 21st, while Surgeon Lawless escaped from
+the city, and finally from the country, to France. Thus,
+for the second time, was the insurrection left without
+a head; but the organization had proceeded too far to be
+any longer restrained, and the Castle, moreover, to use
+the expression of Lord Castlereagh, "took means to make
+it explode."
+
+The first intelligence of the rebellion was received in
+Dublin on the morning of the 24th of May. At Rathfarnham,
+within three miles of the city, 500 insurgents attacked
+Lord Ely's yeomanry corps with some success, till Lord
+Roden's dragoons, hastily despatched from the city,
+compelled them to retreat, with the loss of some prisoners
+and two men killed, whom Mr. Beresford saw the next day,
+literally "_cut to pieces_--a horrid sight." At Dunboyne
+the insurgents piked an escort of the Reay Fencibles
+(Scotch) passing through their village, and carried off
+their baggage. At Naas, a large popular force attacked
+the garrison, consisting of regulars, Ancient Britons
+(Welsh), part of a regiment of dragoons, and the Armagh
+Militia; the attack was renewed three times with great
+bravery, but finally, discipline, as it always will,
+prevailed over mere numbers, and the assailants were repulsed
+with the loss of 140 of their comrades. At Prosperous,
+where they cut off to a man a strong garrison composed of
+North Cork Militia, under Captain Swayne, the rising was
+more successful. The commander in this exploit was Dr.
+Esmonde, brother of the Wexford baronet, who, being betrayed
+by one of his own subalterns, was the next morning arrested
+at breakfast in the neighbourhood, and suffered death at
+Dublin on the 14th of the following month.
+
+There could hardly be found a more unfavourable field
+for a peasant war than the generally level and easily
+accessible county of Kildare, every parish of which is
+within a day's march of Dublin. From having been the
+residence of Lord Edward, it was, perhaps, one of the
+most highly organized parts of Leinster, but as it had
+the misfortune to be represented by Thomas Reynolds, as
+county delegate, it laboured under the disadvantage of
+having its organization better known to the government
+than any other. We need hardly be surprised, therefore,
+to find that the military operations in this county were
+all over in ten days or a fortnight; when those who had
+neither surrendered nor fallen, fell back into Meath or
+Connaught, or effected a junction with the Wicklow rebels
+in their mountain fastnesses. Their struggle, though so
+brief, had been creditable for personal bravery. Attacked
+by a numerous cavalry and militia under General Wilford,
+by 2,500 men, chiefly regulars, under General Dundas,
+and by 800 regulars brought up by forced marches from
+Limerick, under Sir James Duff, they showed qualities,
+which, if well directed, would have established for their
+possessors a high military reputation. At Monastereven
+they were repulsed with loss, the defenders of the town
+being in part Catholic loyalists, under Captain Cassidy;
+at Rathangan, they were more successful, taking and
+holding the town for several days; at Clane, the captors
+of Prosperous were repulsed; while at Old Killcullen,
+their associates drove back General Dundas' advance, with
+the loss of 22 regulars and Captain Erskine killed. Sir
+James Duff's wanton cruelty in sabring and shooting down
+an unarmed multitude on the Curragh, won him the warm
+approval of the extermination party in the Capital, while
+Generals Wilford and Dundas narrowly escaped being
+reprimanded for granting a truce to the insurgents under
+Aylmer, and accepting of the surrender of that leader
+and his companions. By the beginning of June the six
+Kildare encampments of insurgents were totally dispersed,
+and their most active officers in prison or fugitives
+west or south.
+
+By a preconcerted arrangement, the local chiefs of the
+insurrection in Dublin and Meath, gathered with their men
+on the third day after the outbreak, at the historic hill
+of Tara. Here they expected to be joined by the men of
+Cavan, Longford, Louth and Monaghan; but before the
+northerners reached the trysting place, three companies of
+the Reay Fencibles, under Captain McClean, the Kells and
+Navan Yeomanry, under Captain Preston, (afterwards Lord
+Tara,) and a troop of cavalry under Lord Fingal, surrounded
+the royal hill. The insurgents, commanded by Gilshine and
+other leaders, intrenched themselves in the graveyard which
+occupies the summit of Tara, and stoutly defended their
+position. Twenty-six of the Highlanders and six of the
+Yeomanry fell in the assault, but the bullet reached farther
+than the pike, and the defenders were driven, after a sharp
+action, over the brow of the eminence, and many of them
+shot or sabred down as they fled.
+
+Southward from the Capital the long pent-up flame of
+disaffection broke out on the same memorable day, May
+23rd. At Dunlavin, an abortive attempt on the barrack
+revealed the fact that many of the Yeomanry were thoroughly
+with the insurgents. Hardly had the danger from without
+passed over, when a military inquiry was improvised. By
+this tribunal, nineteen Wexford, and nine Kildare Yeomanry,
+were ordered to be shot, and the execution of the sentence
+followed immediately on its rending. At Blessington, the
+town was seized, but a nocturnal attack on Carlow was
+repulsed with great loss. In this last affair, the rebels
+had _rendezvoused_ in the domain of Sir Edward Crosbie,
+within two miles of the town. Here arms were distributed
+and orders given by their leader, named Roche. Silently
+and quickly they reached the town they hoped to surprise.
+But the regular troops, of which the garrison was chiefly
+composed, were on the alert, though their preparations
+were made full as silently. When the peasantry emerged
+from Tullow Street, into an exposed space, a deadly fire
+was opened upon them from the houses on all sides. The
+regulars, in perfect security themselves, and abundantly
+supplied with ammunition, shot them down with deadly
+unerring aim. The people soon found there was nothing
+for it but retreat, and carrying off as best they could
+their killed and wounded, they retired sorely discomfited.
+For alleged complicity in this attack, Sir Edward Crosbie
+was shortly afterward arrested, tried and executed. There
+was not a shadow of proof against him; but he was known
+to sympathize with the sufferings of his countrymen, to
+have condemned in strong language the policy of provocation,
+and that was sufficient. He paid with the penalty of his
+head for the kindness and generosity of his heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE INSURRECTION OF 1798--THE WEXFORD INSURRECTION.
+
+The most formidable insurrection, indeed the only really
+formidable one, broke out in the county of Wexford, a
+county in which it was stated there were not 200 sworn
+United Irishmen, and which Lord Edward Fitzgerald had
+altogether omitted from his official list of counties
+organized in the month of February. In that brief interval,
+the Government policy of provocation had the desired
+effect, though the explosion was of a nature to startle
+those who occasioned it.
+
+Wexford, geographically, is a peculiar county, and its
+people are a peculiar people. The county fills up the
+south-eastern corner of the island, with the sea south-east,
+the river Barrow to the west, and the woods and mountains
+of Carlow and Wicklow to the north. It is about forty
+miles long by twenty-four broad; the surface undulating
+and rising into numerous groups of detached hills, two
+or more of which are generally visible from each conspicuous
+summit. Almost in the midst flows the river Slaney,
+springing from a lofty Wicklow peak, which sends down on
+its northern slope the better known river Liffey. On the
+estuary of the Slaney, some seventy miles south of Dublin,
+stands the county town, the traveller journeying to which
+by the usual route then taken, passed in succession
+through Arklow, Gorey, Ferns, Enniscorthy, and other
+places of less consequence, though familiar enough in
+the fiery records of 1798. North-westward, the only road
+in those days from Carlow and Kilkenny, crossed the
+Blackstairs at Scollagh-gap, entering the county at
+Newtownbarry, the ancient Bunclody; westward, some twenty
+miles, on the river Barrow, stands New Ross, often
+mentioned in this history, the road from which to the
+county town passes through Scullabogue and Taghmon
+(_Ta'mun_), the former at the foot of Carrickbyrne rock,
+the latter at the base of what is rather hyperbolically
+called "the _mountain_ of Forth." South and west of the
+town, towards the estuary of Waterford, lie the baronies
+of Forth and Bargy, a great part of the population of
+which, even within our own time, spoke the language
+Chaucer and Spenser wrote, and retained many of the
+characteristics of their Saxon, Flemish, and Cambrian
+ancestors. Through this singular district lay the road
+towards Duncannon fort, on Waterford harbour, with branches
+running off to Bannow, Ballyhack, and Dunbrody. We shall,
+therefore, speak of all the localities we may have occasion
+to mention as on or near one of the four main roads of
+the county, the Dublin, Carlow, Boss, and Waterford roads.
+
+The population of this territory was variously estimated
+in 1798, at 150,000, 180,000, and 200,000. They were,
+generally speaking, a comfortable and contented peasantry,
+for the Wexford landlords were seldom absentees, and the
+farmers held under them by long leases and reasonable
+rents. There were in the country few great lords, but
+there was little poverty and no pauperism. In such a
+soil, the secret societies were almost certain to fail,
+and if it had not been for the diabolical experiments of
+Lord Kingsborough's North Cork Militia, it is very probable
+that that orderly and thrifty population would have seen
+the eventful year we are describing pass over their homes
+without experiencing any of the terrible trials which
+accompanied it. But it was impossible for human nature
+to endure the provocations inflicted upon this patient
+and prosperous people. The pitch-cap and the triangle
+were resorted to on the slightest and most frivolous
+pretexts. "A sergeant of the North Cork Militia," says
+Mr. Hay, the county historian, "nicknamed, _Tom the
+Devil_, was most ingenious in devising new modes of
+torture. Moistened gunpowder was frequently rubbed into
+the hair cut close and then set on fire; some, while
+shearing for this purpose, had the tips of their ears
+snipt off; sometimes an entire ear, and often both ears
+were completely cut off; and many lost part of their
+noses during the like preparation. But, strange to tell,"
+adds Mr. Hay, "these atrocities were publicly practised
+without the least reserve in open day, and no magistrate
+or officer ever interfered, but shamefully connived at
+this extraordinary mode of quieting the people! Some of
+the miserable sufferers on these shocking occasions, or
+some of their relations or friends, actuated by a principle
+of retaliation, if not of revenge, cut short the hair of
+several persons whom they either considered as enemies
+or suspected of having pointed them out as objects for
+such desperate treatment. This was done with a view that
+those active citizens should fall in for a little experience
+of the like discipline, or to make the fashion of short
+hair so general that it might no longer be a mark of
+party distinction." This was the origin of the nickname
+"Croppy," by which, during the remainder of the
+insurrection, it was customary to designate all who were
+suspected or proved to be hostile to, the government.
+
+Among the magistracy of the county were several persons
+who, whatever might have been their conduct in ordinary
+times, now showed themselves utterly unfit to be entrusted
+with those large discretionary powers which Parliament
+had recently conferred upon all justices of the peace.
+One of these magistrates, surrounded by his troops,
+perambulated the county with an executioner, armed with
+all the equipments of his office; another carried away
+the lopped hands and fingers of his victims, with which
+he stirred his punch in the carousals that followed every
+expedition. At Carnew, midway between the Dublin and
+Carlow roads, on the second day of the insurrection,
+twenty-eight prisoners were brought out to be shot at as
+targets in the public ball alley; on the same day
+Enniscorthy witnessed its first execution for treason,
+and the neighbourhood of Ballaghkeen was harried by Mr.
+Jacob, one of the magistrates whose method of preserving
+the peace of the county has been just referred to. The
+majority of the bench, either weakly or willingly,
+sanctioned these atrocities, but some others, among them
+a few of the first men in the county, did not hesitate
+to resist and condemn them. Among these were Mr. Beauchamp
+Bagenal Harvey of Bargy Castle, Mr. Fitzgerald of Newpark,
+and Mr. John Henry Colclough of Tintern Abbey; but all
+these gentlemen were arrested on Saturday, the 26th of
+May--the same day, or more strictly speaking, the eve
+of the day on which the Wexford outbreak occurred.
+
+On the day succeeding these arrests, being Whitsunday,
+Father John Murphy, parish priest of Kilcormick, the son
+of a small farmer of the neighbourhood, educated in Spain,
+on coming to his little wayside chapel, found it laid in
+ashes. To his flock, as they surrounded him in the open
+air, he boldly preached that it would be much better for
+them to die in a fair field than to await the tortures
+inflicted by such magistrates as Archibald Jacob, Hunter
+Gowan, and Hawtrey White. He declared his readiness to
+share their fate, whatever it might be, and in response,
+about 2,000 of the country people gathered in a few hours
+upon Oulart Hill, situated about half-way between
+Enniscorthy and the sea, and eleven miles north of Wexford.
+Here they were attacked on the afternoon of the same day
+by the North Cork Militia, Colonel Foote, the Shilmalier
+Yeoman cavalry, Colonel Le Hunte, and the Wexford cavalry.
+The rebels, strong in their position, and more generally
+accustomed to the use of arms than persons in their
+condition in other parts of the country, made a brave
+and successful stand. Major Lambert, the Hon. Captain De
+Courcy (brother of Lord Kinsale), and some other officers,
+fell before the long-shore guns of the Shilmalier fowlers;
+of the North Cork detachment, only the colonel, a sergeant,
+and two or three privates escaped; the cavalry, at the
+top of their speed, galloped back to the county town.
+
+The people were soon thoroughly aroused. Another popular
+priest of the diocese, Michael Murphy, on reaching Gorey,
+finding his chapel also rifled, and the altar desecrated,
+turned his horse's head and joined the insurgents, who
+had gathered on Kilthomas hill, near Carnew. Signal fires
+burned that night on all the eminences of the county,
+which seemed as if they had been designed for so many
+watch-towers; horns resounded; horsemen galloped far and
+near; on the morrow of Whitsunday all Wexford arose,
+animated with the passions and purposes of civil war.
+
+On the 28th, Ferns, Camolin, and Enniscorthy were taken
+by the insurgents; the latter, after an action of four
+hours, in which a captain, two lieutenants, and eighty
+of the local yeomanry fell. The survivors fled to Wexford,
+which was as rapidly as possible placed in a state of
+defence. The old walls and gates were still in good
+repair, and 300 North Cork, 200 Donegal, and 700 local
+militia ought to have formed a strong garrison within
+such ramparts, against a mere tumultuous peasantry. The
+yeomen, however, thought otherwise, and two of the three
+imprisoned popular magistrates were sent to Enniscorthy
+to exhort and endeavour to disperse the insurgents. One
+of them only returned, the other, Mr. Fitzgerald, joined
+the rebels, who, continuing their march, were allowed to
+take possession of the county town without striking a
+blow. Mr. Bagenal Harvey, the magistrate still in prison,
+they insisted on making their Commander-in-Chief; a
+gentleman of considerable property, by no means destitute
+of courage, but in every other respect quite unequal to
+the task imposed upon him. After a trial of his generalship
+at the battle of Ross, he was transferred to the more
+pacific office of President of the Council, which continued
+to sit and direct operations from Wexford, with the
+co-operation of a sub-committee at Enniscorthy. Captain
+Matthew Keogh, a retired officer of the regular army,
+aged but active, was made governor of the town, in which
+a couple of hundred armed men were left as his guards.
+An attempt to relieve the place from Duncannon had utterly
+failed. General Fawcett, commanding that important
+fortress, set out on his march with this object on the
+30th of May--his advanced guard of 70 Meathian yeomanry,
+having in charge three howitzers, whose slower movements
+it was expected the main force would overtake long before
+reaching the neighbourhood of danger. At Taghmon this
+force was joined by Captain Adams with his command, and
+thus reinforced they continued their march to Wexford.
+Within three miles of the town the road wound round the
+base of the "three rock" mountain; evening fell as the
+royalists approached this neighbourhood, where the victors
+of Oulart, Enniscorthy, and Wexford had just improvised
+a new camp. A sharp volley from the long-shore-men's
+guns, and a furious onslaught of pikes threw the royal
+detachment into the utmost disorder. Three officers of
+the Meathian cavalry, and nearly one hundred men were
+placed _hors de combat_; the three howitzers, eleven
+gunners, and several prisoners taken; making the third
+considerable success of the insurgents within a week.
+
+Wexford county now became the theatre of operations, on
+which all eyes were fixed. The populace gathered as if
+by instinct into three great encampments, on Vinegar
+Hill, above Enniscorthy; on Carrickbyrne, on the road
+leading to Ross, and on the hill of Corrigrua, seven
+miles from Gorey. The principal leaders of the first
+division were Fathers Kearns and Clinch, and Messrs.
+Fitzgerald, Doyle, and Redmond; of the second, Bagenal
+Harvey, and Father Philip Roche; of the last, Anthony
+Perry of Inch, Esmond Kyan, and the two Fathers Murphy,
+Michael, and John. The general plan of operations was
+that the third division should move by way of Arklow and
+Wicklow on the Capital; the second to open communication
+with Carlow, Kilkenny, and Kildare by Newtownbarry and
+Scollagh-gap; while the first was to attack New Ross,
+and endeavour to hasten the rising in Munster.
+
+On the 1st of June, the advance of the northern division
+marching upon Gorey, then occupied in force by General
+Loftus, were encountered four miles from the town, and
+driven back with the loss of about a hundred killed and
+wounded. On the 4th of June, Loftus, at the instance of
+Colonel Walpole, aid-de-camp to the Lord Lieutenant, who
+had lately joined him with considerable reinforcements,
+resolved to beat up the rebel quarters at Corrigrua. It
+was to be a combined movement; Lord Ancram, posted with
+his militia and dragoons at the bridge of Scaramalsh,
+where the poetic Banna joins the Slaney, was to prevent
+the arrival of succours from Vinegar Hill; Captain McManus,
+with a couple of companies of yeomanry, stationed at
+another exposed point from which intelligence could be
+obtained and communicated; while the General and Colonel
+Walpole, marched to the attack by roads some distance
+apart, which ran into one within two miles of Corrigrua
+camp. The main body of the King's troops were committed
+to the lead of Walpole, who had also two six-pounders
+and a howitzer. After an hour-and-a-half's march he
+found the country changed its character near the village
+of Clogh (_clo'_), where the road descending from the
+level arable land, dips suddenly into the narrow and
+winding pass of Tubberneering. The sides of the pass were
+lined with a bushy shrubbery, and the roadway at the
+bottom embanked with ditch and dike. On came the confident
+Walpole, never dreaming that these silent thickets were
+so soon to re-echo the cries of the onslaught. The 4th
+dragoon guards, the Ancient Britons, under Sir Watkyn
+Wynne, the Antrim militia, under Colonel Cope, had all
+entered the defile before the ambuscade was discovered.
+Then, at the first volley, Walpole fell, with several of
+those immediately about Ms person; out from the shrubbery
+rushed the pikemen, clearing ditch and dike at a bound;
+dragoons and fencibles went down like the sward before
+the scythe of the mower; the three guns were captured,
+and turned on the flying survivors; the regimental flags
+taken, with all the other spoils pertaining to such a
+retreat. It was, in truth, an immense victory for a mob
+of peasants, marshalled by men who that day saw their
+first, or, at most, their second action. Before forty-eight
+hours they were masters of Gorey, and talked of nothing
+less than the capture of Dublin within another week or
+fortnight!
+
+From Vinegar Hill the concerted movement was made against
+Newtonbarry, on the 2nd of June, the rebels advancing by
+both banks of the Slaney, under cover of a six-pounder--
+the only gun they had with them. The detachment in command
+of the beautiful little town, half hidden in its leafy
+valley, was from 600 to 800 strong, with a troop of
+dragoons, and two battalion guns, under command of Colonel
+L'Estrange; these, after a sharp fusilade on both sides,
+were driven out, but the assailants, instead of following
+up the blow, dispersed for plunder or refreshment, were
+attacked in turn, and compelled to retreat, with a reported
+loss of 400 killed. Three days later, however, a still more
+important action, and a yet more disastrous repulse from
+the self-same cause, took place at New Ross, on the Barrow.
+
+The garrison of Ross, on the morning of the 5th of June,
+when General Harvey appeared before it, consisted of
+1,400 men--Dublin, Meath, Donegal, and Clare militia,
+Mid-Lothian fencibles, and English artillery. General
+Johnson, a veteran soldier, was in command, and the place,
+strong in its well preserved old walls, had not heard a
+shot fired in anger since the time of Cromwell. Harvey
+was reported to have with him 20,000 men; but if we allow
+for the exaggeration of numbers common to all such
+movements, we may, perhaps, deduct one-half, and still
+leave him at the head of a formidable force--10,000 men,
+with three field-pieces. Mr. Furlong, a favourite officer,
+being sent forward to summon the town, was shot down by
+a sentinel, and the attack began. The main point of
+assault was the gate known as "three bullet gate," and
+the hour, five o'clock of the lovely summer's morning.
+The obstinacy with which the town was contested, may be
+judged from the fact, that the fighting continued for
+nearly ten hours, with the interruption of an hour or
+two at noon. This was the fatal interruption for the
+rebels. They had, at a heavy cost, driven out the royalists,
+with the loss of a colonel (Lord Mountjoy), three captains,
+and above 200 men killed: but of their friends and comrades
+treble the number had fallen. Still the town, an object
+of the first importance, was theirs, when worn out with
+heat, fatigue, and fasting since sunrise, they indulged
+themselves in the luxury of a deep unmeasured carouse.
+The fugitive garrison finding themselves unpursued, halted
+to breathe on the Kilkenny bank of the river, were rallied
+by the veteran Johnson, and led back again across the
+bridge, taking the surprised revellers completely
+unprepared. A cry was raised that this was a fresh force
+from Waterford; the disorganised multitude endeavoured
+to rally in turn, but before the leaders could collect
+their men, the town was once more in possession of the
+Bang's troops. The rebels, in their turn, unpursued by
+their exhausted enemies, fell back upon their camping
+ground of the night before, at Corbet hill and
+Slieve-kielter. At the latter, Father Philip Roche,
+dissatisfied with Harvey's management, established a
+separate command, which he transferred to a layman of his
+own name, Edward Roche, with whom he continued to act
+and advise during the remainder of this memorable month.
+
+The summer of 1798 was, for an Irish summer, remarkably
+dry and warm. The heavy Atlantic rains which at all
+seasons are poured out upon that soil, seemed suspended
+in favour of the insurgent multitudes, amounting to
+30,000, or 40,000 at the highest, who, on the different
+hill summits, posted their nightly sentinels, and threw
+themselves down on turf and heather to snatch a short
+repose. The kindling of a beacon, the lowing of cattle,
+or the hurried arrival of scout or messenger, hardly
+interfered with slumbers which the fatigues of the day,
+and, unhappily also, the potations of the night rendered
+doubly deep. An early morning mass mustered all the
+Catholics, unless the very depraved, to the chaplain's
+tent--for several of the officers, and the chaplains
+always were supplied with tents; and then a hasty meal
+was snatched before the sun was fairly above the horizon,
+and the day's work commenced. The endurance exhibited by
+the rebels, their personal strength, swiftness and agility;
+their tenacity of life, and the ease with which their
+worst wounds were healed, excited the astonishment of
+the surgeons and officers of the regular army. The truth
+is, that the virtuous lives led by that peaceful peasantry
+before the outbreak, enabled them to withstand privations
+and hardships under which the better fed and better clad
+Irish yeomen and English guardsmen would have sunk
+prostrate in a week.
+
+Several signs now marked the turning of the tide against
+the men of Wexford. Waterford did not rise after the
+battle of Ross; while Munster, generally, was left to
+undecided councils, or held back in hopes of another
+French expedition. The first week of June had passed
+over, and neither northward nor westward was there any
+movement formidable enough to draw off from the devoted
+county the combined armies which were now directed against
+its camps. A gunboat fleet lined the coast from Bannow
+round to Wicklow, which soon after appeared off Wexford
+bar, and forced an entrance into the harbour. A few days
+earlier, General Needham marched from Dublin, and took
+up his position at Arklow, at the head of a force variously
+stated at 1,500 to 2,000 men, composed of 120 cavalry
+under Sir Watkyn Wynne, two brigades of militia under
+Colonels Cope and Maxwell, and a brigade of English and
+Scotch fencibles under Colonel Skerrett. There were also
+at Arklow about 300 of the Wexford and Wicklow mounted
+yeomanry raised by Lord Wicklow, Lord Mountnorris, and
+other gentlemen of the neighbourhood. Early on the morning
+of the 9th of June the northern division of the rebels
+left Gorey in two columns, in order if possible to drive
+this force from Arklow. One body proceeding by the coast
+road hoped to turn the English position by way of the
+strand, the other taking the inner line of the Dublin
+road, was to assail the town at its upper or inland
+suburb. But General Needham had made the most of his two
+days' possession; barricades were erected across the
+road, and at the entrance to the main street; the graveyard
+and bridge commanding the approach by the shore road were
+mounted with ordnance; the cavalry were posted where they
+could best operate, near the strand; the barrack wall
+was lined with a _banquette_ or stage, from which the
+musketeers could pour their fire with the greatest
+advantage, and every other precaution taken to give the
+rebels a warm reception. The action commenced early in
+the afternoon, and lasted till eight in the evening--five
+or six hours. The inland column suffered most severely
+from the marksmen on the _banquette_, and the gallant
+Father Michael Murphy, whom his followers believed to be
+invulnerable, fell leading them on to the charge for the
+third time. On the side of the sea, Esmond Kyan was badly
+wounded in the arm, which he was subsequently obliged to
+have amputated, and though the fearless Shilmaliers drove
+the cavalry into and over the Avoca, discipline and
+ordnance prevailed once again over numbers and courage.
+As night fell, the assailants retired slowly towards
+Coolgreney, carrying off nine carloads of their wounded,
+and leaving, perhaps, as many more on the field; their
+loss was variously reported from 700 to 1,000, and even
+1,500. The opposite force returned less than 100 killed,
+including Captain Knox, and about as many wounded. The
+repulse was even more than that at Ross, dispiriting to
+the rebels, who, as a last resort, now decided to
+concentrate all their strength on the favourite position
+at Vinegar Hill.
+
+Against this encampment, therefore, the entire available
+force of regulars and militia within fifty miles of the
+spot were concentrated by orders of Lord Lake, the
+Commander-in-Chief. General Dundas from Wicklow was to
+join General Loftus at Carnew on the 18th; General Needham
+was to advance simultaneously to Gorey; General Sir Henry
+Johnson to unite at Old Ross with Sir James Duff from
+Carlow; Sir Charles Asgill was to occupy Gore's bridge
+and Borris; Sir John Moore was to land at Ballyhack ferry,
+march to Foulke's Mill, and united with Johnson and Duff,
+to assail the rebel camp on Carrickbyrne. These various
+movements ordered on the 16th, were to be completed by
+the 20th, on which day, from their various new positions,
+the entire force, led by these six general officers, was
+to surround Vinegar Hill, and make a simultaneous attack
+upon the last stronghold of the Wexford rebellion.
+
+This elaborate plan failed of complete execution in two
+points. _First_, the camp on Carrickbyrne, instead of
+waiting the attack, sent down its fighting men to Foulke's
+Mill, where, in the afternoon of the 20th they beat up
+Sir John Moore's quarters, and maintained from 3 o'clock
+till dark, what that officer calls "a pretty sharp action."
+Several tunes they were repulsed and again formed behind
+the ditches and renewed the conflict; but the arrival of
+two fresh regiments, under Lord Dalhousie, taught them
+that there was no farther chance of victory. By this
+affair, however, though at a heavy cost, they had prevented
+the junction of all the troops, and, not without
+satisfaction, they now followed the two Roches, the priest
+and the layman, to the original position of the mountain
+of Forth; Sir John Moore, on his part, taking the same
+direction, until he halted within sight of the walls of
+Wexford. The other departure from Lord Lake's plan was
+on the side of General Needham, who was ordered to approach
+the point of attack by the circuitous route of Oulart,
+but who did not come up in time to complete the investment
+of the hill.
+
+On the morning of the appointed day, about 13,000 royal
+troops were in movement against the 20,000 rebels whom
+they intended to dislodge. Sir James Duff obtained
+possession of an eminence which commanded the lower line
+of the rebel encampment, and from this point a brisk
+cannonade was opened against the opposite force; at the
+same time the columns of Lake, Wilford, Dundas, and
+Johnson, pushed up the south-eastern, northern and western
+sides of the eminence, partially covered by the fire of
+these guns, so advantageously placed. After an hour and
+a half's desperate fighting, the rebels broke and fled
+by the unguarded side of the hill. Their rout was complete,
+and many were cut down by the cavalry, as they pressed
+in dense masses on each other, over the level fields and
+out on the open highways. Still this action was far from
+being one of the most fatal as to loss of life, fought
+in that county; the rebel dead were numbered only at 400,
+and the royalists killed and wounded at less than half
+that number.
+
+It was the last considerable action of the Wexford rising,
+and all the consequences which followed being attributed
+arbitrarily to this cause, helped to invest it with a
+disproportionate importance. The only leader lost on the
+rebel side was Father Clinch of Enniscorthy, who encountered
+Lord Roden hand to hand in the retreat, but who, while
+engaged with his lordship whom he wounded, was shot down
+by a trooper. The disorganization, however, which followed
+on the dispersion, was irreparable. One column had taken
+the road by Gorey to the mountains of Wicklow--another
+to Wexford, where they split into two parts, a portion
+crossing the Slaney into the sea-coast parishes, and
+facing northward by the shore road, the other falling
+back on "the three rocks" encampment, where the Messrs.
+Roche held together a fragment of their former command.
+Wexford town, on the 22nd, was abandoned to Lord Lake,
+who established himself in the house of Governor Keogh,
+the owner being lodged in the common jail. Within the
+week, Bagenal Harvey, Father Philip Roche, and Kelly of
+Killane, had surrendered in despair, while Messrs. Grogan
+and Colclough, who had secreted themselves in a cave in
+the great Saltee Island, were discovered, and conducted
+to the same prison. Notwithstanding the capitulation
+agreed to by Lord Kingsborough, the execution and
+decapitation of all these gentlemen speedily followed,
+and their ghastly faces looked down for many a day from
+the iron spikes above the entrance of Wexford Court House.
+Mr. Esmond Kyan, the popular hero of the district, as
+merciful as brave, was discovered some time subsequently
+paying a stealthy visit to his family; he was put to
+death on the spot, and his body, weighted with heavy
+stones, thrown into the harbour. A few mornings afterwards
+the incoming tide deposited it close by the dwelling of
+his father-in-law, and the rites of Christian burial, so
+dear to all his race, were hurriedly rendered to the
+beloved remains.
+
+The insurrection in this county, while it abounded in
+instances of individual and general heroism, was stained
+also, on both sides, by many acts of diabolical cruelty.
+The aggressors, both in time and in crime were the yeomanry
+and military; but the popular movement dragged wretches
+to the surface who delighted in repaying torture with
+torture, and death with death. The butcheries of Dunlavin
+and Carnew were repaid by the massacres at Scullabogue
+and Wexford bridge, in the former of which 110, and in
+the latter 35 or 40 persons were put to death in cold
+blood, by the monsters who absented themselves from the
+battles of Ross and Vinegar Hill. The executions at
+Wexford bridge would probably have been swelled to double
+the number, had not Father Corrin, one of the priests of
+the town, rushing in between his Protestant neighbours
+and the ferocious Captain Dixon, and summoning all present
+to pray, invoked the Almighty "to show them the same
+mercy" they showed their prisoners. This awful supplication
+calmed even that savage rabble, and no further execution
+took place. Nearly forty years afterwards, Captain Kellet,
+of Clonard, ancestor of the Arctic discoverer, and others
+whom he had rescued from the very grasp of the executioner,
+followed to the grave that revered and devoted minister
+of mercy!
+
+It would be a profitless task to draw out a parallel of
+the crimes committed on both sides. Two facts only need
+be recorded: that although from 1798 to 1800, not less
+than _sixty-five_ places of Catholic worship were demolished
+or burned in Leinster, (twenty-two of which were in
+Wexford county), only _one_ Protestant Church, that of
+Old Ross, was destroyed in retaliation; and that although
+towards men, especially men in arms, the rebels acted on
+the fierce Mosaic maxim of "an eye for an eye and a tooth
+for a tooth," no outrage upon women is laid to their
+charge, even by their most exasperated enemies.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE INSURRECTION ELSEWHERE--FATE OF THE LEADING
+UNITED IRISHMEN.
+
+On the 21st of June, the Marquis Cornwallis, whose name
+is so familiar in American and East Indian history,
+arrived in Dublin, to assume the supreme power, both
+civil and military. As his Chief Secretary, he recommended
+Lord Castlereagh, who had acted in that capacity during
+the latter part of Lord Camden's administration in
+consequence of Mr Pelham's illness; and the Pitt-Portland
+administration appointed his lordship accordingly, because,
+among other good and sufficient reasons, "he was so unlike
+an Irishman."
+
+While the new Viceroy came to Ireland still more resolute
+than his predecessor to bring about the long-desired
+legislative union, it is but justice to his memory to
+say, that he as resolutely resisted the policy of torture
+and provocation pursued under Lord Camden. That policy
+had, indeed, served its pernicious purpose, and it was
+now possible for a new ruler to turn a new leaf; this
+Lord Cornwallis did from the hour of his arrival, not
+without incurring the ill-concealed displeasures of the
+Castle cabal. But his position gave him means of protection
+which Sir Ralph Abercromby had not; he was known to enjoy
+the personal confidence of the King; and those who did
+not hesitate three months before to assail by every abusive
+epithet the humane Scottish Baronet, hesitated long before
+criticising with equal freedom the all-powerful Viceroy.
+
+The sequel of the insurrection may be briefly related:
+next to Wexford, the adjoining county of Wicklow, famous
+throughout the world for its lakes and glens, maintained
+the chief brunt of the Leinster battle. The brothers
+Byrne, of Ballymanus, with Holt, Hackett, and other local
+leaders, were for months, from the difficult nature of
+the country, enabled to defy those combined movements by
+which, as in a huge net, Lord Lake had swept up the camps
+of Wexford. At Hacketstown, on the 25th of June, the
+Byrnes were repulsed with considerable loss, but at
+Ballyellis, on the 30th, fortune and skill gave them and
+their Wexford comrades a victory, resembling in many
+respects that of Clough. General Needham, who had again
+established his head-quarters at Gorey, detached Colonel
+Preston, with some troops of Ancient Britons, the 4th
+and 5th dragoons, and three yeomanry corps, to attack
+the insurgents who were observed in force in the
+neighbourhood of Monaseed. Aware of this movement, the
+Byrnes prepared in the ravine of Ballyellis a well-laid
+ambuscade, barricading with carts and trees the farther
+end of the pass. Attacked by the royalists they retreated
+towards this pass, were hotly pursued, and then turned
+on their pursuers. Two officers and sixty men were killed
+in the trap, while the terrified rear-rank fled for their
+lives to the shelter of their head-quarters. At
+Ballyraheene, on the 2nd of July, the King's troops
+sustained another check in which they lost two officers
+and ten men, but at Ballygullen, on the 4th, the insurgents
+were surrounded between the forces of General Needham,
+Sir James Duff, and the Marquis of Huntley. This was the
+last considerable action in which the Wicklow and Wexford
+men were unitedly engaged. In the dispersion which
+followed, "Billy Byrne of Ballymanus," the hero of his
+county, paid the forfeit of his life; while his brother,
+Garrett, subsequently surrendered, and was included in
+the Banishment Act.
+
+Anthony Perry of Inch, and Father Kearns, leading a much
+diminished band into Kildare, formed a junction with
+Aylmer and Reynolds of that county, and marched into
+Meath, with a view of reaching and surprising Athlone.
+The plan was boldly and well conceived, but their means
+of execution were deplorably deficient. At Clonard they
+were repulsed by a handful of troops well armed and
+posted; a combined movement always possible in Meath,
+drove them from side to side during the midweek of July,
+until at length, hunted down as they were, they broke up
+in twos and threes to seek any means of escape. Father
+Kearns and Mr. Perry were, however, arrested, and executed
+by martial law at Edenderry. Both died bravely; the priest
+sustaining and exhorting his companion to the last.
+
+Still another band of the Wexford men, under Father John
+Murphy and Walter Devereux, crossed the Barrow at Gore's
+bridge, and marched upon Kilkenny. At Lowgrange they
+surprised an outpost; at Castlecomer, after a sharp
+action, they took the town, which Sir Charles Asgill
+endeavoured, but without success, to relieve. Thence they
+continued their march towards Athy in Kildare, but being
+caught between two or rather three fires, that of Major
+Mathews, from Maryboro', General Dunne, from Athy, and
+Sir Charles Asgill, they retreated on old Leighlin, as
+if seeking the shelter of the Carlow mountains. At
+Killcomney Hill, however, they were forced into action
+under most unfavourable circumstances, and utterly routed.
+One, Father Murphy, fell in the engagement, the other,
+the precursor of the insurrection, was captured three
+days afterward, and conveyed a prisoner to General Duff's
+headquarters at Tullow. Here he was put on his trial
+before a Military Commission composed of Sir James Duff,
+Lord Roden, Colonels Eden and Foster, and Major Hall.
+Hall had the meanness to put to him, prisoner as he was,
+several insulting questions, which at length the
+high-spirited rebel answered with a blow. The Commission
+thought him highly dangerous, and instantly ordered him
+to execution. His body was burned, his head spiked on
+the market-house of Tullow, and his memory gibbeted in
+all the loyal publications of the period. On his person,
+before execution, were found a crucifix, a pix, and
+letters from many Protestants, asking his protection; as
+to his reputation, the priest who girded on the sword
+only when he found his altar overthrown and his flock
+devoured by wolves, need not fear to look posterity in
+the face.
+
+Of the other Leinster leaders, Walter Devereux, the last
+colleague of Father Murphy, was arrested at Cork, on the
+eve of sailing for America, tried and executed; Fitzgerald
+and Aylmer were spared on condition of expatriation;
+months afterwards, Holt surrendered, was transported,
+and returned after several years, to end his days where
+he began his career; Dwyer alone maintained the life of
+a Rapparee for five long years among the hills of Wicklow,
+where his adventures were often of such a nature as to
+throw all fictitious conceptions of an outlaw's life into
+commonplace by comparison. Except in the fastnesses
+frequented by this extraordinary man, and in the wood of
+Killaughram, in Wexford, where the outlaws, with the last
+stroke of national humour, assumed the name of _The Babes
+in the Wood_, the Leinster insurrection was utterly
+trodden out within two months from its first beginning,
+on the 23rd of May. So weak against discipline, arms,
+munitions and money, are all that mere naked valour and
+devotion can accomplish!
+
+In Ulster, on the organization of which so much time and
+labour had been expended for four or five years preceding,
+the rising was not more general than in Leinster, and
+the actual struggle lasted only a week. The two counties
+which moved _en masse_ were Down and Antrim, the original
+chiefs of which, such as Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson,
+were unfortunately in prison. The next leader on whom
+the men of Antrim relied, resigned his command on the
+very eve of the appointed day; this disappointment and
+the arrest of the Rev. Steele Dickson in Down, compelled
+a full fortnight's delay. On the 7th of June, however,
+the more determined spirits resolved on action, and the
+first movement was to seize the town of Antrim, which,
+if they could have held it, would have given them command
+of the communications with Donegal and Down, from both
+of which they might have expected important additions to
+their ranks. The leader of this enterprise was Henry John
+McCracken, a cotton manufacturer of Belfast, thirty two
+years of age, well educated, accomplished and resolute,
+with whom was associated a brother of William Orr, the
+proto-martyr of the Ulster Union. The town of Antrim was
+occupied by the 22nd light dragoons, Colonel Lumley, and
+the local yeomanry under Lord O'Neil. In the first assault
+the insurgents were successful, Lord O'Neil, five officers,
+forty-seven rank and file having fallen, and two guns
+being captured; but Lumley's dragoons had hardly vanished
+out of sight, when a strong reinforcement from Blaris
+camp arrived and renewed the action, changing premature
+exultation into panic and confusion. Between two and
+three hundred of the rebels fell, and McCracken and his
+staff, deserted by their hasty levies, were arrested,
+wearied and hopeless, about a month later, wandering
+among the Antrim hills. The leaders were tried at Belfast
+and executed.
+
+In Down two actions were fought, one at Saintfield on
+the 7th of June, under Dr. Jackson--where Colonel Stapleton
+was severely handled--and another and more important one
+at Ballynahinch, under Henry Munro, on the 13th, where
+Nugent, the district General, commanded in person. Here,
+after a gallant defence, the men of Down were utterly
+routed; their leader, alone and on foot, was captured
+some five or six miles from the field, and executed two
+days afterwards before his own door at Lisburn. He died
+with the utmost composure; his wife and mother looking
+down, on the awful scene from the windows of his own house.
+
+In Munster, with the exception of a trifling skirmish
+between the West-Meath yeomanry under Sir Hugh O'Reilly,
+with whom were the Caithness legion, under Major Innes,
+and a body of 300 or 400 ill-armed peasants, who attacked
+them on the 19th of June, on the road from Clonakilty to
+Bandon, there was no notable attempt at insurrection.
+But in Connaught, very unexpectedly, as late as the end
+of August, the flame extinguished in blood in Leinster
+and Ulster, again blazed up for some days with portentous
+brightness. The counties of Mayo, Sligo, Roscommon and
+Galway had been partially organized by those fugitives
+from Orange oppression in the North, who, in the years
+'95, '96, and '97, had been compelled to flee for their
+lives into Connaught, to the number of several thousands.
+They brought with the tale of their sufferings the secret
+of Defenderism; they first taught the peasantry of the
+West, who, safe in their isolated situation and their
+overwhelming numbers, were more familiar with poverty
+than with persecution, what manner of men then held sway
+over all the rest of the country, and how easily it would
+be for Irishmen once united and backed by France, to
+establish under their own green flag, both religious
+and civil liberty.
+
+When, therefore, three French frigates cast anchor in
+Killalla Bay, on the 22nd of August, they did not find
+the country wholly unprepared, though far from being as
+ripe for revolt as they expected. These ships had on
+board 1,000 men, with arms for 1,000 more, under command
+of General Humbert, who had taken on himself, in the
+state of anarchy which then prevailed in France, to sail
+from La Rochelle with this handful of men, in aid of the
+insurrection. With Humbert were Mathew Tone and Bartholmew
+Teeling; and immediately on his arrival he was joined by
+Messrs. McDonnell, Moore, Bellew, Barrett, O'Dowd, and
+O'Donnell of Mayo, Blake of Galway, Plunkett of Roscommon,
+and a few other influential gentlemen of that Province--
+almost all Catholics. Three days were spent at Killalla,
+which was easily taken, in landing stores, enrolling
+recruits, and sending out parties of observation. On
+the 4th, (Sunday,) Humbert entered Ballina without
+resistance, and on the same night set out for Castlebar,
+the county town. By this time intelligence of his landing
+was spread over the whole country, and both Lord Lake
+and General Hutchinson had advanced to Castlebar, where
+they had from 2,000 to 3,000 men under their command.
+The place could be reached only by two routes from the
+north-west, by the Foxford road, or a long deserted
+mountain road which led over the pass of Barnagee, within
+sight of the town. Humbert, accustomed to the long marches
+and difficult country of La Vendee, chose the unfrequented
+and therefore unguarded route, and, to the consternation
+of the British generals, descended through the pass of
+Barnagee, soon after sunrise, on the morning of Monday,
+August 27th. His force consisted of 900 French bayonets,
+and between 2,000 and 3,000 new recruits. The action,
+which commenced at 7 o'clock, was short, sharp, and
+decisive; the yeomanry and regulars broke and fled, some
+of them never drawing rein till they reached Tuam, while
+others carried their fears and their falsehoods as far
+inland as Athlone--more than sixty miles from the scene
+of action. In this engagement, still remembered as "the
+races," the royalists confessed to the loss, killed,
+wounded, or prisoners, of 18 officers, and about 350 men,
+while the French commander estimated the killed alone at
+600. Fourteen British guns and five stand of colours
+were also taken. A hot pursuit was continued for some
+distance by the native troops under Mathew Tone, Teeling,
+and the Mayo officers; but Lord Roden's famous corps of
+"Fox hunters" covered the retreat and checked the pursuers
+at French Hill. Immediately after the battle a Provisional
+Government was established at Castlebar, with Mr. Moore
+of Moore Hall, as President; proclamations addressed to
+the inhabitants at large, commissions to raise men, and
+_assignats_ payable by the future Irish Republic, were
+issued in its name.
+
+Meanwhile the whole of the royalist forces were now in
+movement toward the capital of Mayo, as they had been
+toward Vinegar Hill two months before. Sir John Moore
+and General Hunter marched from Wexford toward the Shannon.
+General Taylor, with 2,500 men, advanced from Sligo
+towards Castlebar; Colonel Maxwell was ordered from
+Enniskillen to assume command at Sligo; General Nugent
+from Lisburn occupied Enniskillen, and the Viceroy,
+leaving Dublin in person, advanced rapidly through the
+midland counties to Kilbeggan, and ordered Lord Lake and
+General Hutchinson, with such of their command as could
+be depended on, to assume the aggressive from the direction
+of Tuam. Thus Humbert and his allies found themselves
+surrounded on all sides--their retreat cut off by sea,
+for their frigates had returned to France immediately on
+their landing; three thousand men against not less than
+thirty thousand, with at least as many more in reserve,
+ready to be called into action at a day's notice.
+
+The French general determined if possible to reach the
+mountains of Leitrim, and open communications with Ulster,
+and the northern coast, upon which he hoped soon to see
+succour arrive from France. With this object he marched
+from Castlebar to Cooloney (35 miles), in one day; here
+he sustained a check from Colonel Vereker's militia,
+which necessitated a change of route; turning aside, he
+passed rapidly through Dromahaine, Manor-Hamilton, and
+Ballintra, making for Granard, from which accounts of a
+formidable popular outbreak had just reached him. In
+three days and a half he had marched 110 miles, flinging
+half his guns into the rivers that he crossed, lest they
+should fall into the hands of his pursuers. At Ballinamuck,
+county Longford, on the borders of Leitrim, he found
+himself fairly surrounded, on the morning of the 8th of
+September; and here he prepared to make a last desperate
+stand. The end could not be doubtful, the numbers against
+him being ten to one; after an action of half an hour's
+duration, two hundred of the French having thrown down
+their arms, the remainder surrendered, as prisoners of
+war. For the rebels no terms were thought of, and the
+full vengeance of the victors was reserved for them. Mr.
+Blake, who had formerly been a British officer, was
+executed on the field; Mathew Tone and Teeling were
+executed within the week in Dublin; Mr. Moore, President
+of the Provisional Government, was sentenced to banishment
+by the clemency of Lord Cornwallis, but died on shipboard;
+ninety of the Longford and Kilkenny militia who had joined
+the French were hanged, and the country generally given
+up to pillage and massacre. As an evidence of the
+excessive thirst for blood, it may be mentioned that at
+the re-capture of Killalla a few days later, four hundred
+persons were killed, of whom fully one-half were
+non-combatants.
+
+The disorganization of all government in France in the
+latter half of '98, was illustrated not only by Humbert's
+unauthorized adventure, but by a still weaker demonstration
+under General Reay and Napper Tandy, about the same time.
+With a single armed brig these daring allies made a
+descent, on the 17th of September, on Rathlin Island,
+well equipped with eloquent proclamations, bearing the
+date "first year of Irish liberty." From the postmaster
+of the island they ascertained Humbert's fate, and
+immediately turned the prow of their solitary ship in
+the opposite direction; Reay, to rise in after times to
+honour and power; Tandy, to continue in old age the
+dashing career of his manhood, and to expiate in exile
+the crime of preferring the country of his birth to the
+general centralizing policy of the empire with which he
+was united. Twelve days after the combat at Ballinamuck,
+while Humbert and his men were on their way through
+England to France, a new French fleet, under Admiral
+Bompart, consisting of one 74-gun ship, "the Hoche,"
+eight frigates, and two smaller vessels, sailed from
+Brest. On board this fleet were embarked 3,000 men under
+General Hardi, the remnant of the army once menacing
+England. In this fleet sailed Theobold Wolfe Tone, true
+to his motto, _nil desperandum_, with two or three other
+refugees of less celebrity. The troops of General Hardi,
+however, were destined never to land. On the 12th of
+October, after tossing about for nearly a month in the
+German ocean and the North Atlantic, they appeared off
+the coast of Donegal, and stood in for Lough Swilly. But
+another fleet also was on the horizon. Admiral Sir John
+Borlase Warren, with an equal number of ships, but a much
+heavier armament, had been cruising on the track of the
+French during the whole time they were at sea. After many
+disappointments, the flag-ship and three of the frigates
+were at last within range and the action began. Six hours'
+fighting laid the Hoche a helpless log upon the water;
+nothing was left her but surrender; two of the frigates
+shared the same fate on the same day; another was captured
+on the 14th, and yet another on the 17th. The remainder
+of the fleet escaped back to France.
+
+The French officers landed in Donegal were received with
+courtesy by the neighbouring gentry, among whom was the
+Earl of Cavan, who entertained them at dinner. Here it
+was that Sir George Hill, son-in-law to Commissioner
+Beresford, an old college friend of Tone's, identified
+the founder of the United Irishmen under the uniform of
+a French Adjutant-General. Stepping up to his old
+schoolmate he addressed him by name, which Tone instantly
+acknowledged, inquiring politely for Lady Hill, and other
+members of Sir George's family. He was instantly arrested,
+ironed, and conveyed to Dublin under a strong guard. On
+the 10th of November he was tried by court-martial and
+sentenced to be hanged: he begged only for a soldier's
+death--"to be shot by a platoon of grenadiers." This
+favour was denied him, and the next morning he attempted
+to commit suicide. The attempt did not immediately succeed;
+but one week later--on the 19th of November--he died from
+the results of his self-inflicted wound, with a compliment
+to the attendant physician upon his lips. Truth compels
+us to say he died the death of a Pagan; but it was a
+Pagan of the noblest and freest type of Grecian and Roman
+times. Had it occurred in ancient days, beyond the
+Christian era, it would have been a death every way
+admirable; as it was, that fatal final act must always
+stand between Wolfe Tone and the Christian people for
+whom he suffered, sternly forbidding them to invoke him
+in their prayers, or to uphold him as an example to the
+young men of their country. So closed the memorable year
+1798, on the baffled and dispersed United Irishmen. Of
+the chiefs imprisoned in March and May, Lord Edward had
+died of his wounds and vexation; Oliver Bond of apoplexy;
+the brothers Sheares, Father Quigley, and William Michael
+Byrne on the gibbet. In July, on Samuel Nelson's motion,
+the remaining prisoners in Newgate, Bridewell, and
+Kilmainham, agreed, in order to stop the effusion of
+blood, to expatriate themselves to any country not at
+war with England, and to reveal the general secrets of
+their system, without inculpating individuals. These
+terms were accepted, as the Castle party needed their
+evidence to enable them to promote the cherished scheme
+of legislative Union. But that evidence delivered before
+the Committees of Parliament by Emmet, McNevin, and
+O'Conor, did not altogether serve the purposes of
+government. The patriotic prisoners made it at once a
+protest against, and an exposition of, the despotic policy
+under which their country had been goaded into rebellion.
+For their firmness they were punished by three years'
+confinement in Fort George, in the Scottish Highlands,
+where, however, a gallant old soldier, Colonel Stuart,
+endeavoured to soften the hard realities of a prison by
+all the kind attentions his instructions permitted him
+to show these unfortunate gentlemen. At the peace of
+Amiens, (1802), they were at last allowed the melancholy
+privilege of expatriation. Russell and Dowdall were
+permitted to return to Ireland, where they shared the
+fate of Robert Emmet in 1803; O'Conor, Corbet, Allen,
+Ware, and others, cast their lot in France, where they
+all rose to distinction; Emmet, McNevin, Sampson, and
+the family of Tone were reunited in New York, where the
+many changes and distractions of a great metropolitan
+community have not even yet obliterated the memories of
+their virtues, their talents, and their accomplishments.
+
+It is impossible to dismiss this celebrated group of men,
+whose principles and conduct so greatly influenced their
+country's destiny, without bearing explicit testimony to
+their heroic qualities as a class. If ever a body of
+public men deserved the character of a brotherhood of
+heroes, so far as disinterestedness, courage, self-denial,
+truthfulness and glowing love of country constitute
+heroism, these men deserved that character. The wisdom
+of their conduct, and the intrinsic merit of their plans,
+are other questions. As between their political system
+and that of Burke, Grattan and O'Connell, there always
+will be, probably, among their countrymen, very decided
+differences of opinion. That is but natural: but as to
+the personal and political virtues of the United Irishmen
+there can be no difference; the world has never seen a
+more sincere or more self-sacrificing generation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS--BEFORE THE UNION.
+
+"Nothing strengthens a dynasty," said the first Napoleon,
+"more than an unsuccessful rebellion." The partial
+uprising; of the Irish people in 1798 was a rebellion of
+this class, and the use of such a failure to an able and
+unscrupulous administration, was illustrated in the
+extinction of the ancient legislature of the kingdom,
+before the recurrence of the third, anniversary of
+the insurrection.
+
+This project, the favourite and long-cherished design of
+Mr. Pitt, was cordially approved by his principal
+colleagues, the Duke of Portland, Lord Grenville, and
+Mr. Dundas; indeed, it may be questioned whether it was
+not as much Lord Grenville's design as Pitt's, and as
+much George the Third's personal project as that of any
+of his ministers. The old King's Irish policy was always
+of the most narrow and illiberal description. In his
+memorandum on the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam, he explains
+his views with the business-like brevity which characterized
+all his communications with his ministers while he retained
+possession of his faculties; he was totally opposed to
+Lord Fitzwilliam's emancipation policy, which he thought
+adopted "in implicit obedience to the heated imagination
+of Mr. Burke." To Lord Camden his instructions were,
+"to support the old English interest as well as the
+Protestant religion," and to Lord Cornwallis, that no
+further "indulgence could be granted to Catholics," but
+that he should steadily pursue the object of effecting
+the union of Ireland and England.
+
+The new Viceroy entered heartily into the views of his
+Sovereign. Though unwilling to exchange his English
+position as a Cabinet Minister and Master-General of
+Ordnance for the troubled life of a Lord-Lieutenant of
+Ireland, he at length allowed himself to be persuaded
+into the acceptance of that office, with a view mainly
+to carrying the Union. He was ambitious to connect his
+name with that great imperial measure, so often projected,
+but never formally proposed. If he could only succeed in
+incorporating the Irish with the British legislature, he
+declared he would feel satisfied to retire from all other
+public employments; that he would look on his day as
+finished, and his evening of ease and dignity fully
+earned. He was not wholly unacquainted with the kingdom
+against which he cherished these ulterior views; for he
+had been, nearly thirty years before, when he fell under
+the lash of _Junius_, one of the Vice-Treasurers of
+Ireland. For the rest he was a man of great information,
+tact, and firmness; indefatigable in business; tolerant
+by temperament and conviction; but both as a general and
+a politician it was his lot to be identified in India
+and in Ireland with successes which might better have
+been failures, and in America, with failures which were
+much more beneficial to mankind than his successes.
+
+In his new sphere of action his two principal agents were
+Lord Clare and Lord Castlereagh, both Irishmen; the
+Chancellor, the son of what in that country is called a
+"spoiled priest," and the Secretary, the son of an
+ex-volunteer, and member of Flood's Reform Convention.
+It is not possible to regard the conduct of these high
+officials in undermining and destroying the ancient
+national legislature of their own country, in the same
+light as that of Lord Cornwallis, or Mr. Pitt, or Lord
+Grenville. It was but natural, that as Englishmen, these
+ministers should consider the empire in the first place;
+that they should desire to centralize all the resources
+and all the authority of both Islands in London; that to
+them the existence of an independent Parliament at Dublin,
+with its ample control over the courts, the revenues,
+the defences, and the trade of that kingdom, should appear
+an obstacle and a hindrance to the unity of the imperial
+system. From their point of view they were quite right,
+and had they pursued their end, complete centralization,
+by honourable means, no stigma could attach to them even
+in the eyes of Irishmen; but with Lords Clare and
+Castlereagh the case was wholly different. Born in the
+land, deriving income as well as existence from the soil,
+elected to its Parliament by the confidence of their
+countrymen, attaining to posts of honour in consequence
+of such election, that they should voluntarily offer
+their services to establish an alien and a hostile policy
+on the ruins of their own national constitution, which,
+with all its defects, was national, and was corrigible;
+this betrayal of their own, at the dictate of another
+State, will always place the names of Clare and Castlereagh
+on the detested list of public traitors. Yet though in
+such treason, united and identified, no two men could be
+more unlike in all other respects. Lord Clare was fiery,
+dogmatic, and uncompromising to the last degree; while
+Lord Castlereagh was stealthy, imperturbable, insidious,
+bland, and adroit. The Chancellor endeavoured to carry
+everything with a high hand, with a bold, defiant,
+confident swagger; the Secretary, on the contrary, trusted
+to management, expediency, and silent tenacity of purpose.
+The one had faith in violence, the other in corruption;
+they were no inapt personifications of the two chief
+agencies by which the union was effected--Force and Fraud.
+
+The Irish Parliament, which had been of necessity adjourned
+during the greater part of the time the insurrection
+lasted, assembled within a week of Lord Cornwallis'
+arrival. Both Houses voted highly loyal addresses to
+the King and Lord-Lieutenant, the latter seconded in the
+Commons by Charles Kendal Bushe, the college companion
+of Wolfe Tone! A vote of 100,000 pounds to indemnify
+those who had suffered from the rebels--subsequently
+increased to above 1,000,000 pounds--was passed _una
+voce_; another, placing on the Irish establishment certain
+English militia regiments, passed with equal promptitude.
+In July, five consecutive acts--a complete code of
+penalties and proscription--were introduced, and, after
+various debates and delays, received the royal sanction
+on the 6th of October, the last day of the session of
+1798. These acts were: 1. The Amnesty Act, the exceptions
+to which were so numerous "that few of those who took
+any active part in the rebellion," were, according to
+the Cornwallis' correspondence, "benefited by it." 2. An
+Act of Indemnity, by which all magistrates who had
+"exercised a vigour beyond the law" against the rebels,
+were protected from the legal consequences of such acts.
+3. An act for attainting Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Mr.
+Harvey, and Mr. Grogan, against which Curran, taking "his
+instructions from the grave," pleaded at the bar of the
+House of Lords, but pleaded in vain. (This act was finally
+reversed by the Imperial Parliament in 1819.) 4. An act
+forbidding communication between persons in Ireland and
+those enumerated in the Banishment Act, and making the
+return to Ireland, after sentence of banishment by a
+court-martial, a transportable felony. 5. An act to compel
+fifty-one persons therein named to surrender before 1st
+of December, 1798, under pain of high treason. Among the
+fifty-one were the principal refugees at Paris and
+Hamburg-Tone, Lewines, Tandy, Deane Swift, Major Plunkett,
+Anthony McCann, Harvey Morres, etc. On the same day in
+which the session terminated, and the royal sanction was
+given to these acts, the name of Henry Grattan was, a
+significant coincidence, formally struck, by the King's
+commands, from the roll of the Irish Privy Council!
+
+This legislation of the session of 1798, was fatal to
+the Irish Parliament. The partisans of the Union, who
+had used the rebellion to discredit the constitution,
+now used the Parliament to discredit itself. Under the
+influence of a fierce reactionary spirit, when all merciful
+and moderate councils were denounced as treasonable, it
+was not difficult to procure the passage of sweeping
+measures of proscription. But with their passage vanished
+the former popularity of the domestic legislature. And
+what followed? The constitution of '82 could only be
+upheld in the hearts of the people; and, with all its
+defects, it had been popular before the sudden spread of
+French revolutionary notions distracted and dissipated
+the public opinion which had grown up within the era of
+independence. To make the once cherished authority, which
+liberated trade in '79, and half emancipated the Catholics
+in '93, the last executioner of the vengeance of the
+Castle against the people, was to place a gulf between
+it and the affections of that people in the day of trial.
+To make the anti-unionists in Parliament, such as the
+Speaker, Sir Lawrence Parsons, Plunkett, Ponsonby and
+Bushe, personally responsible for this vindictive code,
+was to disarm them of the power, and almost of the right,
+to call on the people whom they turned over, bound hand
+and foot, to the mercy of the minister in '98, to aid
+them against the machinations of that same minister in
+'99. The last months of the year were marked besides by
+events already referred to, and by negotiations incessantly
+carried on, both in England and Ireland, in favour of
+the Union. Members of both Houses were personally courted
+and canvassed by the Prime Minister, the Secretaries of
+State, the Viceroy and the Irish Secretary. Titles,
+pensions and offices were freely promised. Vast sums of
+secret service money, afterwards added as a charge to
+the public debt of Ireland, were remitted from Whitehall.
+An army of pamphleteers, marshalled by Under-Secretary
+Cooke, and confidentially directed by the able but
+anti-national Bishop of Meath, (Dr. O'Beirne,) and by
+Lord Castlereagh personally, plied their pens in favour
+of "the consolidation of the empire." The Lord Chancellor,
+the Chief Secretary and Mr. Beresford, made journeys to
+England, to assist the Prime Minister with their local
+information, and to receive his imperial confidence in
+return. The Orangemen were neutralized by securing a
+majority of their leaders; the Catholics, by the
+establishment of familiar communication with the bishops.
+The Viceroy complimented Dr. Troy at Dublin; the Duke of
+Portland lavished personal attentions on Dr. Moylan, in
+England. The Protestant clergy were satisfied with the
+assurance that the maintenance of their establishment
+would be made a fundamental article of the Union, while
+the Catholic bishops were given to understand that complete
+Emancipation would be one of the first measures submitted
+to the Imperial Parliament. The oligarchy were to be
+indemnified for their boroughs, while the advocates of
+Reform were shown how hopeless it was to expect a House
+constituted of _their_ nominees, ever to enlarge or amend
+its own exclusive constitution. Thus for every description
+of people a particular set of appeals and arguments was
+found, and for those who discarded the affectation of
+reasoning on the surrender of their national existence,
+there were the more convincing arguments of titles,
+employments, and direct pecuniary purchase. At the close
+of the year of the rebellion, Lord Cornwallis was able
+to report to Mr. Pitt that the prospects of carrying the
+measure were better than could have been expected, and
+on this report he was authorized to open the matter
+formally to Parliament in his speech at the opening of
+the following session.
+
+On the 22nd of January, 1799, the Irish legislature met
+under circumstances of great interest and excitement.
+The city of Dublin, always keenly alive to its metropolitan
+interests, sent its eager thousands by every avenue
+towards College Green. The Viceroy went down to the Houses
+with a more than ordinary guard, and being seated on the
+throne in the House of Lords, the Commons were summoned
+to the bar. The House was considered a full one, 217
+members being present. The viceregal speech congratulated
+both Houses on the suppression of the late rebellion, on
+the defeat of Bompart's squadron, and the recent French
+victories of Lord Nelson; then came, amid profound
+expectation, this concluding sentence:--"The unremitting
+industry," said the Viceroy, "with which our enemies
+persevere in their avowed design of endeavouring to effect
+a separation of this kingdom from Great Britain, must
+have engaged your attention, and his Majesty commands me
+to express his anxious hope that this consideration,
+joined to the sentiment of mutual affection and common
+interest, may dispose the Parliaments in both kingdoms
+to provide the most effectual means of maintaining and
+improving a connection essential to their common security,
+and of consolidating, as far as possible, into one firm
+and lasting fabric, the strength, the power, and the
+resources of the British empire." On the paragraph of
+the address, re-echoing this sentiment, which was carried
+by a large majority in the Lords, a debate ensued in the
+Commons, which lasted till one o'clock of the following
+day, above twenty consecutive hours. Against the suggestion
+of a Union spoke Ponsonby, Parsons, Fitzgerald, Barrington,
+Plunkett, Lee, O'Donnell and Bushe; in its favour, Lord
+Castlereagh, the Knight of Kerry, Corry, Fox, Osborne,
+Duigenan, and some other members little known. The
+galleries and lobbies were crowded all night by the first
+people of the city, of both sexes, and when the division
+was being taken, the most intense anxiety was manifested,
+within doors and without. At length the tellers made
+their report to the Speaker, himself an ardent
+anti-Unionist, and it was announced that the numbers
+were--"for the address 105, for the amendment 106," so
+the paragraph in favour of "consolidating the empire"
+was lost by one vote! The remainder of the address,
+tainted with the association of the expunged paragraph,
+was barely carried by 107 to 105. Mr. Ponsonby had
+attempted to follow his victory by a solemn pledge binding
+the majority never again to entertain the question, but
+to this several members objected, and the motion was
+withdrawn. The ministry found some consolation in this
+withdrawal, which they characterized as "a retreat after
+a victory," but to the public at large, unused to place
+much stress on the minor tactics of debate, nothing
+appeared but the broad, general fact, that the first
+overture for a Union had been rejected. It was a day of
+immense rejoicing in Dublin; the leading anti-Unionists
+were escorted in triumph to their homes, while the
+Unionists were protected by strong military escorts from
+the popular indignation. At night the city was illuminated,
+and the patrols were doubled as a protection to the
+obnoxious minority.
+
+Mr. Ponsonby's amendment, affirmed by the House of Commons,
+was in these words:--"That the House would be ready to
+enter into any measure short of surrendering their free,
+resident and independent legislature as established in
+1782." This was the _ultimatum_ of the great party which
+rallied in January, 1799, to the defence of the established
+constitution of their country. The arguments with which
+they sustained their position were few, bold, and
+intelligible to every capacity. There was the argument
+from Ireland's geographical situation, and the policy
+incident to it; the historical argument; the argument
+for a resident gentry occupied and retained in the country
+by their public duties; the commercial argument; the
+revenue argument; but above all, the argument of the
+incompetency of Parliament to put an end to its own
+existence. "Yourselves," exclaimed the eloquent Plunkett,
+"you may extinguish, but Parliament you cannot extinguish.
+It is enthroned in the hearts of the people--it is
+enshrined in the sanctuary of the constitution--it is as
+immortal as the island that protects it. As well might
+the frantic suicide imagine that the act which destroys
+his miserable body should also extinguish his eternal
+soul. Again, therefore, I warn you. Do not dare to lay
+your hands on the Constitution--it is above your powers!"
+
+These arguments were combated on the grounds that the
+islands were already united under one crown--that that
+species of union was uncertain and precarious--that the
+Irish Parliament was never in reality a national
+legislature; that it existed only as an instrument of
+class legislation; that the Union would benefit Ireland
+materially as it had benefited Scotland; that she would
+come in for a full share of imperial honours, expenditure
+and trade; that such a Union would discourage all future
+hostile attempts by France or any other foreign power
+against the connection, and other similar arguments. But
+the division which followed the first introduction of
+the subject showed clearly to the Unionists that they
+could not hope to succeed with the House of Commons as
+then constituted; that more time and more preparation
+were necessary. Accordingly, Lord Castlereagh was authorized
+in March, to state formally in his place, that it was
+not the intention of the government to bring up the
+question again during that session; an announcement which
+was hailed with a new outburst of rejoicing in the city.
+
+But those who imagined the measure was abandoned were
+sadly deceived. Steps were immediately taken by the Castle
+to deplete the House of its majority, and to supply their
+places before another session with forty or fifty new
+members, who would be entirely at the beck of the Chief
+Secretary. With this view, thirty-two new county judgeships
+were created; a great number of additional inspectorships
+and commissioners were also placed at the Minister's
+disposal; thirteen members had peerages for themselves
+or for their wives, with remainder to their children,
+and nineteen others were presented to various lucrative
+offices. The "Escheatorship of Munster"--a sort of Chiltern
+Hundreds office--was accepted by those who agreed to
+withdraw from opposition, for such considerations, but
+who could not be got to reverse their votes. By these
+means, and a lavish expenditure of secret service money,
+it was hoped that Mr. Pitt's stipulated majority of "not
+less than fifty" could be secured during the year.
+
+The other events of the session of '99, though interesting
+in themselves, are of little importance compared to the
+union debates. In the English Parliament, which met on
+the same day as the Irish, a paragraph identical with
+that employed by Lord Cornwallis in introducing the
+subject of the Union, was inserted in the King's speech.
+To this paragraph, repeated in the address, an amendment
+was moved by the celebrated Richard Brinsley Sheridan,
+and resisted with an eloquence scarcely inferior to his
+own, by his former _protege_ and countryman, George
+Canning. Canning, like Sheridan, had sprung from a line
+of Irish literateurs and actors; he had much of the wit
+and genius of his illustrious friend, with more worldly
+wisdom, and a higher sentiment of personal pride. In very
+early life, distinguished by great oratorical talents,
+he had deliberately attached himself to Mr. Pitt, while
+Sheridan remained steadfast to the last, in the ranks of
+the Whig or liberal party. For the land of their ancestors
+both had, at bottom, very warm, good wishes; but Canning
+looked down upon her politics from the heights of empire,
+while Sheridan felt for her honour and her interests with
+the affection of an expatriated son. We can well credit
+his statement to Grattan, years afterwards, when referring
+to his persistent opposition to the Union, he said, he
+would "have waded in blood to his knees," to preserve
+the Constitution of Ireland. In taking this course he
+had with him a few eminent friends: General Fitzpatrick,
+the former Irish Secretary, Mr. Tierney, Mr. Hobhouse,
+Dr. Lawrence, the executor of Edmund Burke, and Mr.,
+afterwards Earl Grey. Throughout the entire discussion
+these just minded Englishmen stood boldly forward for
+the rights of Ireland, and this highly honourable conduct
+was long remembered as one of Ireland's real obligations
+to the Whig party.
+
+The resolutions intended to serve as "the basis of union,"
+were introduced by Mr. Pitt, on the 21st of January, and
+after another powerful speech in opposition, from Mr.
+Grey, who was ably sustained by Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Lawrence,
+and some twenty others, were put and carried. The following
+are the resolutions:--
+
+1st. "In order to promote and secure the essential
+interests of Great Britain and Ireland, and to consolidate
+the strength, power, and resources of the British empire,
+it will be advisable to concur in such measures as may
+tend to unite the two kingdoms of Great Britain and
+Ireland into one kingdom, in such manner, and in such
+terms and conditions as may be established by acts of
+the respective Parliaments of his Majesty's said kingdoms.
+
+2nd. "It would be fit to propose as the first article,
+to serve as a basis of the said union, that the said
+kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland shall, on a day to
+be agreed upon, be united into one kingdom, by the name
+of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
+
+3rd. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose,
+that the succession to the monarchy and the imperial
+crown of the said United Kingdom, shall continue limited
+and settled, in the same manner as the imperial crown of
+the said Great Britain and Ireland now stands limited
+and settled, according to the existing law, and to the
+terms of the union between England and Scotland.
+
+4th. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose
+that the said United Kingdom be represented in one and
+the same Parliament, to be styled the Parliament of the
+United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and that
+such a number of Lords, spiritual and temporal, and such
+a number of members of the House of Commons, as shall be
+hereafter agreed upon by the acts of the respective
+Parliaments as aforesaid, shall sit and vote in the said
+Parliament on the part of Ireland, and shall be summoned,
+chosen, and returned, in such manner as shall be fixed
+by an act of the Parliament of Ireland previous to the
+said union; and that every member hereafter to sit and
+vote in the said Parliament of the United Kingdom shall,
+until the said Parliament shall otherwise provide, take,
+and subscribe the said oaths, and make the same declarations
+as are required by law to be taken, subscribed, and made
+by the members of the Parliaments of Great Britain and
+Ireland.
+
+5th. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose,
+that the Churches of England and Ireland, and the doctrine,
+worship, discipline, and government thereof, shall be
+preserved as now by law established.
+
+6th. "For the same purpose it would be fit to propose,
+that his Majesty's subjects in Ireland shall at all times
+be entitled to the same privileges, and be on the same
+footing in respect of trade and navigation in all ports
+and places belonging to Great Britain, and in all cases
+with respect to which treaties shall be made by his
+Majesty, his heirs, or successors, with any foreign power,
+as his Majesty's subjects in Great Britain; that no duty
+shall be imposed on the import or export between Great
+Britain and Ireland, of any articles now duty free, and
+that on other articles there shall be established, for
+a time to be limited, such a moderate rate of equal duties
+as shall, previous to the Union, be agreed upon and
+approved by the respective Parliaments, subject, after
+the expiration of such limited time, to be diminished
+equally with respect to both kingdoms, but in no case to
+be increased; that all articles which may at any time
+hereafter be imported into Great Britain from foreign
+parts shall be importable through either kingdom into
+the other, subject to the like duties and regulations,
+as if the same were imported directly from foreign parts:
+that where any articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture
+of either kingdom, are subject to an internal duty in
+one kingdom, such counter-vailing duties (over and above
+any duties on import to be fixed as aforesaid) shall be
+imposed as shall be necessary to prevent any inequality
+in that respect; and that all matters of trade and
+commerce, other than the foregoing, and than such others
+as may before the Union be specially agreed upon for the
+due encouragement of the agriculture and manufactures of
+the respective kingdoms, shall remain to be regulated
+from time to time by the United Parliament.
+
+7th. "For the like purpose it would be fit to propose,
+that the charge arising from the payment of the interests
+or sinking fund for the reduction of the principal of
+the debt incurred in either kingdom before the Union,
+shall continue to be separately defrayed by Great Britain
+and Ireland respectively; that, for a number of years to
+be limited, the future ordinary expenses of the United
+Kingdom, in peace or war, shall be defrayed by Great
+Britain and Ireland jointly, according to such proportions
+as shall be established by the respective Parliaments
+previous to the Union; and that, after the expiration of
+the time to be so limited, the proportion shall not be
+liable to be varied, except according to such rates and
+principles, as shall be in like manner agreed upon previous
+to the Union.
+
+8th. "For the like purpose, that all laws in force at
+the time of the Union, and all the courts of civil or
+ecclesiastical jurisdiction within the respective kingdoms,
+shall remain as now by law established within the same,
+subject only to such alterations or regulations as may
+from time to time as circumstances may appear to the
+Parliament of the United Kingdom to require."
+
+Mr. Pitt, on the passage of these resolutions, proposed
+an address stating that the Commons had proceeded with
+the utmost attention to the consideration of the important
+objects recommended in the royal message, that they
+entertained a firm persuasion of the probable benefits
+of a complete and entire Union between Great Britain and
+Ireland, founded on equal and liberal principles; that
+they were therefore induced to lay before his Majesty
+such propositions as appeared to them to be best calculated
+to form the basis of such a settlement, leaving it to
+his wisdom in due time and in proper manner, to communicate
+them to the Lords and Commons of Ireland, with whom they
+would be at all times ready to concur in all such measures
+as might be found most conducive to the accomplishment
+of that great and salutary work.
+
+On the 19th of March, Lord Grenville introduced the same
+resolutions in the Lords, where they were passed after
+a spirited opposition speech from Lord Holland, and the
+basis, so far as the King, Lords, and Commons of England
+were concerned, was laid. In proroguing the Irish Houses
+on the 1st of June, Lord Cornwallis alluded to these
+resolutions, and the anxiety of the King, as the common
+father of his people, to see both kingdoms united in the
+enjoyment of the blessings of a free constitution.
+
+This prorogation was originally till August, but in August
+it was extended till January, 1800. In this long interval
+of eight months, the two great parties, the Unionists
+and the anti-Unionists were incessantly employed, through
+the press, in social intercourse, in the grand jury room,
+in county and city meetings, by correspondence, petitions,
+addresses, each pushing forward its own views with all
+the zeal and warmth of men who felt that on one side they
+were labouring for the country, on the other for the
+empire. Two incidents of this interval were deeply felt
+in the patriot ranks, the death at an advanced age of
+the venerable Charlemont, the best member of his order
+Ireland had ever known, and the return to the kingdom
+and to public life of Lord Charlemont's early friend and
+_protege_, Henry Grattan. He had spent above a year in
+England, chiefly in Wales and the Isle of Wight. His
+health all this time had been wretched; his spirits low
+and despondent, and serious fears were at some moments
+entertained for his life. He had been forbidden to read
+or write, or to hear the exciting news of the day. Soothed
+and cheered by that admirable woman, whom Providence had
+given him, he passed the crisis, but he returned to
+breathe his native air, greatly enfeebled in body, and
+sorely afflicted in mind. The charge of theatrical
+affectation of illness has been brought against Grattan
+by the Unionists,--against Grattan who, as to his personal
+habits, was simplicity itself! It is a charge undeserving
+of serious contradiction.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+LAST SESSION OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT--THE LEGISLATIVE
+UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.
+
+When the Irish Parliament met for the last time, on the
+15th of January, 1800, the position of the Union question
+stood thus: 27 new Peers had been added to the House of
+Lords, where the Castle might therefore reckon with safety
+on a majority of three to one. Of the Lords spiritual,
+only Dr. Marlay of Waterford, and Dr. Dixon of Down and
+Conor, had the courage to side with their country against
+their order. In the Commons there was an infusion of some
+50 new borough members, many of them general officers,
+such as Needham, and Pakenham, all of them nominees of
+the Castle, except Mr. Saurin, returned for Blessington,
+and Mr. Grattan, at the last moment, for Wicklow. The
+great constitutional body of the bar had, at a general
+meeting, the previous December, declared against the
+measure by 162 to 33. Another powerful body, the bankers,
+had petitioned against it, in the interest of the public
+credit. The Catholic bishops, in their annual meeting,
+had taken up a position of neutrality as a body, but
+under the artful management of Lord Castlereagh, the
+Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam, with the Bishop of Cork,
+and some others, were actively employed in counteracting
+anti-Union movements among the people. Although the vast
+majority of that people had too much reason to be disgusted
+and discontented with the legislation of the previous
+three years, above 700,000 of them petitioned against
+the measure, while all the signatures which could be
+obtained in its favour, by the use of every means at the
+command of the Castle, did not much exceed 7,000.
+
+The Houses were opened on the 15th of January. The Viceroy
+not going down, his message was read in the Lords, by
+the Chancellor, and in the Commons, by the Chief Secretary.
+It did not directly refer to the basis laid down in
+England, nor to the subject matter itself; but the leaders
+of the Castle party in both Houses, took care to supply
+the deficiency. In the Lords, proxies included, Lord
+Clare had 75 to 26 for his Union address: in the Commons,
+Lord Castlereagh congratulated the country on the
+improvement which had taken place in public opinion,
+since the former session. He briefly sketched his plan
+of Union, which, while embracing the main propositions
+of Mr. Pitt, secured the Church establishment, bid high
+for the commercial interests, hinted darkly of emancipation
+to the Catholics, and gave the proprietors of boroughs
+to understand that their interest in those convenient
+constituencies would be capitalized, and a good round
+sum given to buy out their perpetual patronage. In
+amendment to the address, Sir Lawrence Parsons moved,
+seconded by Mr. Savage of Down, that the House would
+maintain _intact_ the Constitution of '82, and the debate
+proceeded on this motion. Ponsonby replied to Castlereagh;
+Plunkett and Bushe were answered by the future judges,
+St. George Daly and Luke Fox; Toler contributed his farce,
+and Dr. Duigenan his fanaticism. Through the long hours
+of the winter's night the eloquent war was vigorously
+maintained. One who was himself a distinguished actor in
+the struggle, (Sir Jonah Barrington,) has thus described
+it: "Every mind," he says, "was at its stretch, every
+talent was in its vigour: it was a momentous trial; and
+never was so general and so deep a sensation felt in any
+country. Numerous British noblemen and commoners were
+present at that and the succeeding debate, and they
+expressed opinions of Irish eloquence which they had
+never before conceived, nor ever after had an opportunity
+of appreciating. Every man on that night seemed to be
+inspired by the subject. Speeches more replete with talent
+and energy, on both sides, never were heard in the Irish
+Senate; it was a vital subject. The sublime, the eloquent,
+the figurative orator, the plain, the connected, the
+metaphysical reasoner, the classical, the learned, and
+the solemn declaimer, in a succession of speeches so full
+of energy and enthusiasm, so interesting in their nature,
+so important in their consequence, created a variety of
+sensations even in the bosom of a stranger, and could
+scarcely fail of exciting some sympathy with a nation which
+was doomed to close for ever that school of eloquence which
+had so long given character and celebrity to Irish talent."
+
+At the early dawn, a special messenger from Wicklow, just
+arrived in town, roused Henry Grattan from his bed. He
+had been elected the previous night for the borough of
+Wicklow, (which cost him 2,400 pounds sterling), and this
+was the bearer of the returning officer's certificate.
+His friends, weak and feeble as he was, wished him to go
+down to the House, and his heroic wife seconded their
+appeals. It was seven o'clock in the morning of the 16th
+when he reached College Green, the scene of his first
+triumphs twenty years before. Mr. Egan, one of the
+staunchest anti-Unionists, was at the moment, on some
+rumour, probably, of his approach, apostrophising warmly
+the father of the Constitution of '82, when that striking
+apparition appeared at the bar. Worn and emaciated beyond
+description, he appeared leaning on two of his friends,
+Arthur Moore and W. B. Ponsonby. He wore his volunteer
+uniform, blue with red facings, and advanced to the table,
+where he removed his cocked hat, bowed to the Speaker,
+and took the oaths. After Mr. Egan had concluded, he
+begged permission from his seat beside Plunkett, to
+address the House sitting, which was granted, and then
+in a discourse of two hours' duration, full of his ancient
+fire and vigour, he asserted once again, by the divine
+right of intellect, his title to be considered the first
+Commoner of Ireland. Gifted men were not rare in that
+assembly; but the inspiration of the heart, the
+uncontrollable utterance of a supreme spirit, not less
+than the extraordinary faculty of condensation, in which,
+perhaps, he has never had a superior in our language,
+gave the Grattan of 1800 the same pre-eminence among his
+cotemporaries, that was conceded to the Grattan of 1782.
+After eighteen hours' discussion the division was taken,
+when the result of the long recess was clearly seen; for
+the amendment there appeared 96, for the address 138
+members. The Union majority, therefore, was 42. It was
+apparent from that moment that the representation of the
+people in Parliament had been effectually corrupted; that
+that assembly was no longer the safeguard of the liberties
+of the people. Other ministerial majorities confirmed
+this impression. A measure to enable 10,000 of the Irish
+militia to enter the regular army, and to substitute
+English militia in their stead, followed; an inquiry into
+outrages committed by the sheriff and military in King's
+county, was voted down; a similar motion somewhat later,
+in relation to officials in Tipperary met the same fate.
+On the 5th of February, a formal message proposing a
+basis of Union was received from his Excellency, and
+debated for twenty consecutive hours--from 4 o'clock of
+one day, till 12 of the next. Grattan, Plunkett, Parnell,
+Ponsonby, Saurin, were, as always, eloquent and able,
+but again the division told for the minister, 160 to
+117--majority 43. On the 17th of February, the House went
+into Committee on the proposed articles of Union, and
+the Speaker (John Foster) being now on the floor, addressed
+the House with great ability in review of Mr. Pitt's
+recent Union speech, which he designated "a paltry
+production." But again, a majority mustered, at the nod
+of the minister, 161 to 140--a few not fully committed
+showing some last faint spark of independence. It was on
+this occasion that Mr. Corry, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
+member for Newry, made for the third or fourth time that
+session, an attack on Grattan, which brought out, on the
+instant, that famous "philippic against Corry," unequalled
+in our language, for its well-suppressed passion, and
+finely condensed denunciation. A duel followed, as soon
+as there was sufficient light; the Chancellor was wounded,
+after which the Castlereagh tactics of "fighting down
+the opposition," received an immediate and lasting check.
+
+Throughout the months of February and March, with an
+occasional adjournment, the Constitutional battle was
+fought on every point permitted by the forms of the House.
+On the 25th of March, the Committee, after another powerful
+speech from the Speaker, finally reported the resolutions
+which were passed by 154 to 107--a majority of 47. The
+Houses then adjourned for six weeks, to allow time for
+corresponding action to be taken in England. There was
+little difficulty in carrying the measure. In the Upper
+House, Lords Derby, Holland, and King only opposed it;
+in the Lower, Sheridan, Tierney, Grey, and Lawrence
+mustered on a division, 30 votes against Pitt's 206. On
+the 21st of May, in the Irish Commons, Lord Castlereagh
+obtained leave to bring in the Union Bill by 160 to 100;
+on the 7th of June the final passage of the measure was
+effected. That closing scene has been often described,
+but never so graphically, as by the diamond pen of Jonah
+Barrington.
+
+"The galleries were full, but the change was lamentable.
+They were no longer crowded with those who had been
+accustomed to witness the eloquence and to animate the
+debates of that devoted assembly. A monotonous and
+melancholy murmur ran through the benches; scarcely a
+word was exchanged amongst the members; nobody seemed at
+ease; no cheerfulness was apparent; and the ordinary
+business, for a short time, proceeded in the usual manner.
+
+"At length, the expected moment arrived: the order of
+the day for the third reading of the bill for a 'legislative
+union between Great Britain and Ireland' was moved by
+Lord Castlereagh. Unvaried, tame, cold-blooded, the words
+seemed frozen as they issued from his lips; and, as if
+a simple citizen of the world, he seemed to have no
+sensation on the subject.
+
+"At that moment he had no country, no God, but his
+ambition. He made his motion, and resumed his seat, with
+the utmost composure and indifference.
+
+"Confused murmurs again ran through the House. It was
+visibly affected. Every character, in a moment, seemed
+involuntarily rushing to its index--some pale, some
+flushed, some agitated--there were few countenances to
+which the heart did not despatch some messenger. Several
+members withdrew before the question could be repeated,
+and an awful, momentary silence succeeded their departure.
+The Speaker rose slowly from that chair which had been
+the proud source of his honours and of his high character.
+For a moment he resumed his seat, but the strength of
+his mind sustained him in his duty, though his struggle
+was apparent. With that dignity which never failed to
+signalize his official actions, he held up the bill for
+a moment in silence. He looked steadily around him on
+the last agony of the expiring Parliament. He at length
+repeated, in an emphatic tone, 'As many as are of opinion
+that THIS BILL do pass, say _ay_! The affirmative was
+languid, but indisputable. Another momentary pause ensued.
+Again his lips seemed to decline their office. At length,
+with an eye averted from the object he hated, he proclaimed,
+with a subdued voice, '_The, AYES have it_.' The fatal
+sentence was now pronounced. For an instant he stood
+statue-like; then indignantly, and with disgust, flung
+the bill upon the table, and sank into his chair with an
+exhausted spirit. An independent country was thus degraded
+into a province. Ireland, as a nation, was extinguished."
+
+The final division in the Commons was 153 to 88, nearly
+60 members absenting themselves, and in the Lords, 76 to
+17. In England all the stages were passed in July, and
+on the 2nd of August, the anniversary of the King's
+accession, the royal assent was given to the twofold
+legislation, which declared the kingdoms of Great Britain
+and Ireland one and inseparable!
+
+By the provisions of this statute, compact, or treaty,
+the Sovereignty of the United Kingdom was to follow the
+order of the Act of Succession; the Irish peerage was to
+be reduced by the filling of one vacancy for every three
+deaths, to the number of one hundred; from among these,
+twenty-eight representative Peers were to be elected for
+life, and four spiritual Lords to sit in succession. The
+number of Irish representatives in the Imperial Parliament
+was fixed at one hundred (increased to one hundred and
+five); the churches of England and Ireland were united
+like the kingdoms, and declared to be one in doctrine
+and discipline. The debt of Ireland, which was less than
+4,000,000 pounds in 1797, increased to 14,000,000 pounds
+in '99, and had risen to nearly 17,000,000 pounds in
+1801, was to be alone chargeable to Ireland, whose
+proportionate share of general taxation was then estimated
+at 2-17ths of that of the United Kingdom. The Courts of
+Law, the Privy Council, and the Viceroyalty, were to
+remain at Dublin, the cenotaph and the shadows of
+departed nationality.
+
+On the 1st day of January, 1801, in accordance with this
+great Constitutional change, a new imperial standard was
+run up on London Tower, Edinburgh Castle, and Dublin
+Castle. It was formed of the three crosses of St. Patrick,
+Saint Andrew, and Saint George, and is that popularly
+known to us as "the Union Jack." The _fleur de lis_, and
+the word "France," were struck from the royal title,
+which was settled, by proclamation, to consist henceforth
+of the words _Dei Gratia, Britanniarum Rex, Fidei Defensor_.
+
+The foul means by which this counter revolution was
+accomplished, have, perhaps, been already sufficiently
+indicated. It may be necessary, however, in order to
+account for the continued hostility of the Irish people
+to the measure, after more than sixty years' experience
+of its results, to recapitulate them very briefly. Of
+all who voted for the Union, in both Houses, it was said
+that only six or seven were known to have done so on
+conviction. Great borough proprietors, like Lord Ely and
+Lord Shannon, received as much as 45,000 pounds sterling
+in "compensation" for their loss of patronage; while
+proprietors of single seats received 15,000 pounds. That
+the majority was avowedly purchased, in both Houses, is
+no longer matter of inference, nay, that some of them
+were purchased twice over is now well known. Lord Carysfort,
+an active partisan of the measure, writing in February,
+1800, to his friend the Marquis of Buckingham, frankly
+says: "The majority, which has been bought at an enormous
+price, must be bought over again, perhaps more than once,
+before all the details can be gone through." His lordship
+himself, and the order to which he belonged, and those
+who aspired to enter it, were, it must be added, among
+the most insatiable of these purchased supporters. The
+Dublin _Gazette_ for July, 1800, announced not less than
+sixteen new peerages, and the same publication for the
+last week of the year, contained a fresh list of twenty-six
+others. Forty-two creations in six months was a stretch
+of prerogative far beyond the most arbitrary of the
+Stuarts or Tudors, and forms one, not of the least
+unanswerable evidences, of the utterly corrupt
+considerations which secured the support of the Irish
+majority in both Houses.
+
+It was impossible that a people like the Irish,
+disinterested and unselfish to a fault, should ever come
+to respect a compact brought about by such means and
+influences as these. Had, however, the Union, vile as
+were the means by which it was accomplished, proved to
+the real benefit of the country--had equal civil and
+religious rights been freely and at once extended to the
+people of the lesser kingdom--there is no reason to doubt
+that the measure would have become popular in time, and
+the vices of the old system be better remembered than
+its benefits, real or imaginary. But the Union was never
+utilized for Ireland; it proved in reality what Samuel
+Johnson had predicted, when spoken of in his day: "Do
+not unite with us, sir," said the gruff old moralist to
+an Irish acquaintance; "it would be the union of the
+shark with his prey; we should unite with you only to
+destroy you."
+
+In glancing backward over the long political connexion
+of Ireland and England, we mark four great epochs. The
+Anglo-Norman invasion in 1169; the statute of Kilkenny
+decreeing eternal separation between the races, "the
+English pale" and "the Irish enemy," 1367; the Union of
+the Crowns, in 1541, and the Legislative Union, in 1801.
+One more cardinal event remains to be recorded--the
+Emancipation of the Catholics, in 1829.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK XII.
+
+FROM THE UNION OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND TO THE
+EMANCIPATION OF THE CATHOLICS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+AFTER THE UNION--DEATH OF LORD CLARE--
+ROBERT EMMET'S EMEUTE.
+
+The plan of this brief compendium of Irish history obliges
+us to sketch for some years farther on, the political
+and religious annals of the Irish people. Having described
+in what manner their distinctive political nationality
+was at length lost, it only remains to show how their
+religious liberties were finally recovered.
+
+The first striking effect of the Union was to introduce
+Catholic Emancipation into the category of imperial
+difficulties, and to assign it the very first place on
+the list. By a singular retribution, the Pitt administration
+with its 200 of a House of Commons majority, its absolute
+control of the Lords, and its seventeen years' prescription
+in its favour, fell upon this very question, after they
+had used it to carry the Union, within a few weeks of
+the consummation of that Union. The cause of this crisis
+was the invincible obstinacy of the King, who had taken
+into his head, at the time of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall
+from Ireland, that his coronation oath bound him in
+conscience to resist the Catholic claims. The suggestion
+of this obstacle was originally Lord Clare's; and though
+Lord Kenyon and Lord Stowell had declared it unfounded
+in law, Lord Loughborough and Lord Eldon were unfortunately
+of a different opinion. With George III. the idea became
+a monomaniac certainty, and there is no reason to doubt
+that he would have preferred abdication to its abandonment.
+
+The King was not for several months aware how far his
+Prune Minister had gone on the Catholic question in
+Ireland. But those who were weary of Pitt's ascendancy,
+were, of course, interested in giving him this important
+information. The minister himself, wrapped in his austere
+self-reliance, did not volunteer explanations even to
+his Sovereign, and the King broke silence very unexpectedly,
+a few days after the first meeting of the Imperial
+Parliament (January 22nd, 1801). Stepping up to Mr. Dundas
+at the levee, he began in his usual manner, "What's this?
+what's this? this, that this young Lord (Castlereagh)
+has brought over from Ireland to throw at my head? The
+most Jacobinical thing I ever heard of! Any man who
+proposes such a thing is my personal enemy." Mr. Dundas
+replied respectfully but firmly, and immediately
+communicated the conversation to Mr. Pitt. The King's
+remarks had been overheard by the bystanders, so that
+either the minister or the Sovereign had now to give way.
+Pitt, at first, was resolute; the King then offered to
+impose silence on himself as regarded the whole subject,
+provided Mr. Pitt would agree to do likewise, but the
+haughty minister refused, and tendered his resignation.
+On the 5th of February, within five weeks of the
+consummation of the Union, this tender was most reluctantly
+and regretfully accepted. Lord Grenville, Mr. Dundas,
+and others of his principal colleagues went out of office
+with him; Lord Cornwallis and Lord Castlereagh following
+their example. Of the new Cabinet, Addington, the Speaker,
+was Premier, with Lord Hardwicke as Lord-Lieutenant of
+Ireland. By the enemies of Pitt this was looked upon as
+a mere administration _ad interim_; as a concerted
+arrangement to enable him to evade an unfavourable
+peace--that of Amiens--which he saw coming; but it is
+only fair to say, that the private letters of the period,
+since published, do not sanction any such imputation. It
+is, however, to be observed, _per contra_, that three
+weeks after his formal resignation, he had no hesitation
+in assuring the King, who had just recovered from one of
+his attacks brought on by this crisis, that he would
+never again urge the Catholic claims on his Majesty's
+notice. On this understanding he returned to office in
+the spring of 1804; to this compact he adhered till his
+death, in January, 1806.
+
+In Ireland, the events immediately consequent upon the
+Union, were such as might have been expected. Many of
+those who had been instrumental in carrying it, were
+disappointed and discontented with their new situation
+in the empire. Of these, the most conspicuous and the
+least to be pitied, was Lord Clare. That haughty,
+domineering spirit, accustomed to dictate with almost
+absolute power to the Privy Counsellors and peerage of
+Ireland, experienced nothing but mortification in the
+Imperial House of Lords. The part he hoped to play on
+that wider stage he found impossible to assume; he
+confronted there in the aged Thurlow and the astute
+Loughborough, law lords as absolute as himself, who soon
+made him conscious that, though a main agent of the Union,
+he was only a stranger in the united legislature. The
+Duke of Bedford reminded him that "the Union had not
+transferred his dictatorial powers to the Imperial
+Parliament;" other noble Lords were hardly less severe.
+Pitt was cold, and Grenville ceremonious; and in the
+arrangements of the Addington ministry he was not even
+consulted. He returned to Ireland before the first year
+of the Union closed, in a state of mind and temper which
+preyed upon his health. Before the second session of the
+Imperial Parliament assembled, he had been borne to the
+grave amid the revilings and hootings of the multitude.
+Dublin, true to its ancient disposition, which led the
+townsfolk of the twelfth century to bury the ancestor of
+Dermid McMurrogh with the carcass of a dog, filled the
+grave of the once splendid Lord Chancellor with every
+description of garbage.
+
+On the other hand, Lord Castlereagh, younger, suppler,
+and more accommodating to English prejudices, rose from
+one Cabinet office to another, until at length, in fifteen
+years from the Union, he directed the destinies of the
+Empire, as absolutely, as he had moulded the fate of
+Ireland. To Castlereagh and the Wellesley family, the
+Union was in truth, an era of honour and advancement.
+The sons of the spendthrift amateur, Lord Mornington,
+were reserved to rule India, and lead the armies of
+Europe; while the son of Flood's colleague in the Reform
+convention of 1783, was destined to give law to Christendom,
+at the Congress of Vienna.
+
+A career very different in all respects from those just
+mentioned, closed in the second year of Dublin's widowhood
+as a metropolis. It was the career of a young man of
+four-and-twenty, who snatched at immortal fame and obtained
+it, in the very agony of a public, but not for him, a
+shameful death. This was Robert, youngest brother of
+Thomas Addis Emmet, whose _emeute_ of 1803 would long
+since have sunk to the level of other city riots, but
+for the matchless dying speech of which it was the prelude
+and the occasion. This young gentleman was in his 20th
+year when expelled with nineteen others from Trinity
+College, in 1798, by order of the visitors, Lord Clare
+and Dr. Duigenan. His reputation as a scholar and debater
+was already established within the college walls, and
+the highest expectations were naturally entertained of
+him, by his friends. One of his early college companions
+--Thomas Moore--who lived to know all the leading men
+of his age, declares that of all he had ever known, he
+would place among "the highest of the few" who combined
+in "the greatest degree pure moral worth with intellectual
+power"--Robert Emmet. After the expatriation of his
+brother, young Emmet visited him at Fort-George, and
+proceeded from thence to the Continent. During the year
+the Union was consummated he visited Spain, and travelled
+through Holland, France, and Switzerland, till the peace
+of Amiens. Subsequently he joined his brother's family
+in Paris, and was taken into the full confidence of the
+exiles, then in direct communication with Buonaparte and
+Talleyrand. It was not concealed from the Irish by either
+the First Consul, or his minister, that the peace with
+England was likely to have a speedy termination; and,
+accordingly, they were not unprepared for the new
+declaration of war between the two countries, which was
+officially made at London and Paris, in May, 1803--little
+more than twelve months after the proclamation of the
+peace of Amiens.
+
+It was in expectation of this rupture, and a consequent
+invasion of Ireland, that Robert Emmet returned to Dublin,
+in October, 1802, to endeavour to re-establish in some
+degree the old organization of the United Irishmen. In
+the same expectation, McNevin, Corbet, and others of the
+Irish in France, formed themselves, by permission of the
+First Consul, into a legion, under command of Tone's
+trusty aid-de-camp, McSheehey; while Thomas Addis Emmet
+and Arthur O'Conor remained at Paris, the plenipotentiaries
+of their countrymen. On the rupture with England Buonaparte
+took up the Irish negotiation with much earnestness; he
+even suggested to the exiles the colours and the motto
+under which they were to fight, when once landed on their
+own soil. The flag on a tricolour ground, was to have a
+green centre, bearing the letters _R.I.--Republique
+Irlandaise_. The legend at large was to be: _L'independence
+de l'Irlande--Liberte de Conscience_; a motto which
+certainly told the whole story. The First Consul also
+suggested the formation of an Irish Committee at Paris,
+and the preparation of statements of Irish grievances
+for the _Moniteur_, and the semi-official papers.
+
+Robert Emmet seems to have been confidently of opinion
+soon after his return to Dublin, that nineteen out of
+the thirty-two counties would rise; and, perhaps, if a
+sufficient French force had landed, his opinion might
+have been justified by the fact. So did not think, however,
+John Keogh, Valentine Lawless (Lord Cloncurry), and other
+close observers of the state of the country. But Emmet
+was enthusiastic, and he inspired his own spirit into
+many. Mr. Long, a merchant, placed 1,400 pounds sterling
+at his disposal; he had himself, in consequence of the
+recent death of his father, stock to the amount of 1,500
+pounds converted into cash, and with these funds he
+entered actively on his preliminary preparations. His
+chief confidants and assistants were Thomas Russell and
+Mathew Dowdall, formerly prisoners at Fort-George, but
+now permitted to return; William Putnam McCabe, the most
+adventurous of all the party, a perfect Proteus in
+disguise; Gray, a Wexford attorney; Colonel Lumm of
+Kildare, an old friend of Lord Edward Fitzgerald; Mr.
+Long, before mentioned; Hamilton, an Enniskillen barrister,
+married to Russell's niece; James Hope of Templepatrick,
+and Michael Dwyer, the Wicklow outlaw, who had remained
+since '98 uncaptured in the mountains.
+
+In the month of March, when the renewal of hostilities
+with France was decided on in England, the preparations
+of the conspirators were pushed forward with redoubled
+energy. The still wilder conspiracy headed by Colonel
+Despard in London, the previous winter, the secret and
+the fate of which was well known to the Dublin leaders
+--Dowdall being Despard's agent--did not in the least
+intimidate Emmet or his friends. Despard suffered death
+in February, with nine of his followers, but his Irish
+confederates only went on with their arrangements with
+a more reckless resolution. Their plan was the plan of
+O'Moore and McGuire, to surprise the Castle, seize the
+authorities and secure the capital; but the Dublin of
+1803 was in many respects very different from the Dublin
+of 1641. The discontent, however, arising from the recent
+loss of the Parliament might have turned the city scale
+in Emmet's favour, had its first stroke been successful.
+The emissaries at work in the Leinster and Ulster counties
+gave besides sanguine reports of success, so that, judging
+by the information in his possession, an older and cooler
+head than Robert Emmet's might well have been misled into
+the expectation of nineteen counties rising if the signal
+could only be given from Dublin Castle. If the blow could
+be withheld till August, there was every reason to expect
+a French invasion of England, which would drain away all
+the regular army, and leave the people merely the militia
+and the volunteers to contend against. But all the Dublin
+arrangements exploded in the melancholy _emeute_ of the
+23rd of July, 1803, in which the Chief-Justice, Lord
+Kilwarden, passing through the disturbed quarter of the
+city at the time, was cruelly murdered; for which, and
+for his cause, Emmet suffered death on the same spot on
+the 20th of September following. For the same cause,
+the equally pure-minded and chivalrous Thomas Russell
+was executed at Downpatrick; Kearney, Roche, Redmond and
+Howley also suffered death at Dublin; Alien, Putnam,
+McCabe, and Dowdall escaped to France, where the former
+became an officer of rank in the army of Napoleon; Michael
+Dwyer, who Lad surrendered on condition of being allowed
+to emigrate to' North America, died in exile in Australia,
+in 1825. Others of Emmet's known or suspected friends,
+after undergoing two, three, and even four years'
+imprisonment, were finally discharged without trial.
+Mr. Long, his generous banker, and James Hope, his
+faithful emissary, were both permitted to end; their
+days in Ireland.
+
+The trial of Robert Emmet, from the wonderful death-speech
+delivered at it, is perfectly well known. But in justice
+to a man of genius equal if not superior to his own--an
+Irishman, whose memory is national property, as well as
+Emmet's, it must here be observed, that the latter never
+delivered, and had no justification to deliver the vulgar
+diatribe against Plunkett, his prosecutor, now constantly
+printed in the common and incorrect versions of that
+speech. Plunkett, as Attorney-General, in 1803, had no
+option but to prosecute for the crown; he was a politician
+of a totally different school from that of Emmet; he
+shared all Burke and Grattan's horror of French
+revolutionary principles. In the fervour of his accusatory
+oration he may have gone too far; he may have, and in
+reading it now, it is clear to us that he did press too
+hard upon the prisoner in the dock. He might have performed
+his awful office with more sorrow and less vehemence,
+for there was no doubt about Ms jury. But withal, he gave
+no fair grounds for any such retort as is falsely attributed
+to Emmet, the very style of which proves its falsity. It
+is now well known that the apostrophe in the death-speech,
+commencing "you viper," alleged to have been addressed
+to Plunkett, was the interpolation many years afterwards
+of that literary Ishmaelite--Walter Cox of the _Hibernian
+Magazine_,--who through such base means endeavoured to
+aim a blow at Plunkett's reputation. The personal reputation
+of the younger Emmet, the least known to his countrymen
+of all the United Irish leaders, except by the crowning
+act of his death, is safe beyond the reach of calumny,
+or party zeal, or time's changes. It is embalmed in the
+verse of Moore and Southey, and the precious prose of
+Washington Irvine. Men of genius in England and America
+have done honour to his memory; in the annals of his own
+country his name deserves to stand with those youthful
+chiefs, equally renowned, and equally ready to seal their
+patriotism with their blood--Sir Cahir O'Doherty and
+Hugh Roe O'Donnell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+ADMINISTRATION OF LORD HARDWICKE (1801 TO 1806),
+AND OF THE DUKE OF BEDFORD (1806 TO 1808).
+
+During the five years in which Lord Hardwicke was Viceroy
+of Ireland, the _habeas corpus_ remained suspended, and
+the Insurrection Act continued in force. These were the
+years in which the power of Napoleon made the most
+astonishing strides; the years in which he remodelled
+the German Empire, placed on his head the iron crown of
+Lombardy, on his sister's that of Etruria, and on his
+brother's that of Holland; when the Consulate gave place
+to the Empire, and Dukedoms and Principalities were freely
+distributed among the marshals of the Grand Army. During
+all these years, Napoleon harassed England with menaces
+of invasion, and excited Ireland with corresponding hopes
+of intervention. The more far-seeing United Irishmen,
+however, had so little faith in these demonstrations that
+Emmet and McNevin emigrated to the United States, leaving
+behind them in the ranks of the French Army, those of
+their compatriots who, either from habit or preference,
+had become attached to a military life. It must however
+be borne in mind, for it is essential to the understanding
+of England's policy towards Ireland, in the first twelve
+or fourteen years after the Union, that the wild hope of
+a French invasion never forsook the hearts of a large
+portion of the Irish people, so long as Napoleon Buonaparte
+continued at the head of the government of France. During
+the whole of that period the British government were kept
+in constant apprehension for Ireland; under this feeling
+they kept up and increased the local militia; strengthened
+garrisons, and replenished magazines; constructed a chain
+of Martello towers round the entire coast, and maintained
+in full rigour the Insurrection Act. They refused, indeed,
+to the Munster magistrates in 1803, and subsequently,
+the power of summary convictions which they possessed in
+'98; but they sent special Commissions of their own into
+the suspected counties, who sentenced to death with as
+little remorse as if they had been so many hydrophobic
+dogs. Ten, twelve, and even twenty capital executions
+was no uncommon result of a single sitting of one of
+those murderous commissions, over which Lord Norbury
+presided; but it must be added that there were other
+judges, who observed not only the decencies of everyday
+life, but who interpreted the law in mercy as well as in
+justice. They were a minority, it is true, but there were
+some such, nevertheless.
+
+The session of the Imperial Parliament of 1803-'4, was
+chiefly remarkable for its war speeches and war budget.
+In Ireland 50,000 men of the regular militia were under
+arms and under pay; 70,000 volunteers were enrolled,
+battalioned, and ready to be called out in case of
+emergency, to which it was proposed to add 25,000
+sea-fencibles. General Fox, who it was alleged had
+neglected taking proper precaution at the time of Robert
+Emmet's _emeute_, was replaced by Lord Cathcart, as
+Commander-in-Chief. The _public_ reports at least of this
+officer, were highly laudatory of the discipline and
+conduct of the Irish militia.
+
+In May, 1804, Mr. Pitt returned to power, as Chancellor
+of the Exchequer and Prime Minister, when the whole Pitt
+policy towards Ireland, France, and America, was of course
+resumed; a policy which continued to be acted on during
+the short remainder of the life of its celebrated author.
+
+The year 1805 may be called the first year of the revival
+of public spirit and public opinion after the Union. In
+that year Grattan had allowed himself to be persuaded by
+Fox, into entering the Imperial Parliament, and his old
+friend Lord Fitzwilliam found a constituency for him, in
+his Yorkshire borough of Malton. About the same time,
+Pitt, or his colleagues, induced Plunkett to enter the
+same great assembly, providing him with a constituency
+at Midhurst, in Sussex. But they did not succeed--if they
+ever attempted--to match Plunkett with Grattan. Those
+great men were warm and close friends in the Imperial as
+they had been in the Irish Parliament; very dissimilar
+in their genius, they were both decided anti-Jacobins;
+both strenuous advocates of the Catholic claims, and both
+proud and fond of their original country. Grattan had
+more poetry, and Plunkett more science; but the heart of
+the man of colder exterior opened and swelled out, in
+one of the noblest tributes ever paid by one great orator
+to another, when Plunkett introduced in 1821, in the
+Imperial Parliament, his allusion to his illustrious
+friend, then recently deceased.
+
+Preparatory to the meeting of Parliament in 1805, the
+members of the old Catholic Committee, who had not met
+for any such purpose for several years, assembled in
+Dublin, and prepared a petition which they authorized
+their chairman, Lord Fingall, to place in such hands as
+he might choose, for presentation in both Houses. His
+lordship on reaching London waited on Mr. Pitt, and
+entreated him to take charge of the petition; but he
+found that the Prime Minister had promised the King one
+thing and the Catholics another, and, therefore, declined
+acceding to his request. He then gave the petition into
+the charge of Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox, and by them
+the subject was brought accordingly before the Lords and
+Commons. This debate in the Commons was remarkable in
+many respects, but most of all for Grattan's _debut_.
+A lively curiosity to hear one of whom so much had been
+said in his own country, pervaded the whole House, as
+Grattan rose. His grotesque little figure, his eccentric
+action, and his strangely cadenced sentences rather
+surprised than attracted attention, but as he warmed with
+the march of ideas, men of both parties warmed to the
+genial and enlarged philosophy, embodied in the interfused
+rhetoric and logic of the orator; Pitt was seen to beat
+time with his hand to every curiously proportioned period,
+and at length both sides of the House broke into hearty
+acknowledgments of the genius of the new member for
+Malton. But as yet their cheers were not followed by
+their votes; the division against going into Committee
+was 336 to 124.
+
+In sustaining Fox's motion, Sir John Cox Hippesley had
+suggested "the Veto" as a safeguard against the
+encroachments of Rome, which the Irish bishops would not
+be disposed to refuse. Archbishop Troy, and Dr. Moylan,
+Bishop of Cork, gave considerable praise to this speech,
+and partly at their request it was published in pamphlet
+form. This brought up directly a discussion among the
+Catholics, which lasted until 1810, was renewed in 1813,
+and not finally set at rest till the passage of the bill
+of 1829, without any such safeguard. Sir John C. Hippesley
+had modelled his proposal, he said, on the liberties of
+the Gallican Church. "Her privileges," he added, "depended
+on two prominent maxims: 1st. That the Pope had no
+authority to order or interfere in anything in which the
+civil rights of the kingdom were concerned. 2nd. That
+notwithstanding the Pope's supremacy was acknowledged in
+cases purely spiritual, yet, in other respects, his power
+was limited by the decrees of the ancient councils of
+the realm." The Irish Church, therefore, was to be
+similarly administered, to obviate the objections of the
+opponents of complete civil emancipation.
+
+In February, 1806, on the death of Pitt, Mr. Fox came
+into power, with an uncertain majority and a powerful
+opposition. In April, the Duke of Bedford arrived, as
+Viceroy, at Dublin, and the Catholics presented, through
+Mr. Keogh, a mild address, expressive of their hopes that
+"the glorious development" of their emancipation would
+be reserved for the new government. The Duke returned
+an evasive answer in public, but privately, both at Dublin
+and London, the Catholics were assured that, as soon as
+the new Premier could convert the King--as soon as he
+was in a position to act--he would make their cause his
+own. No doubt Fox, who had great nobleness of soul,
+intended to do so; but on the 13th of September of the
+same year, he followed his great rival, Pitt, to the
+vaults of Westminster Abbey. A few months only had
+intervened between the death of the rivals.
+
+Lords Grey and Grenville, during the next recess, having
+formed a new administration, instructed their Irish
+Secretary, Mr. Elliot, to put himself in communication
+with the Catholics, in relation to a measure making them
+eligible to naval and military offices. The Catholics
+accepted this proposal with pleasure, but at the opening
+of the session of 1807, in a deputation to the Irish
+government, again urged the question of complete
+emancipation. The bill in relation to the army and navy
+had, originally, the King's acquiescence; but early in
+March, after it had passed the Commons, George III.
+changed his mind--if the expression may be used of him
+--at that time. He declared he had not considered it at
+first so important as he afterwards found it; he intimated
+that it could not receive his sanction; he went farther
+--he required a written pledge from Lords Grey and
+Grenville never again to bring forward such a measure,
+"nor ever to propose anything connected with the Catholic
+question." This unconstitutional pledge they refused to
+give, hurried the bill into law, and resigned. Mr. Spencer
+Perceval was then sent for, and what was called "the
+No-Popery Cabinet," in which Mr. Canning and Lord
+Castlereagh were the principal Secretaries of State, was
+formed. Thus, for the second time in six years, had the
+Catholic question made and unmade cabinets.
+
+The Catholics were a good deal dispirited in 1805, by
+the overwhelming majority by which their petition of that
+year was refused to be referred to a committee. In 1806,
+they contented themselves with simply addressing the Duke
+of Bedford, on his arrival at Dublin. In 1807, the
+"No-Popery Cabinet," by the result of the elections, was
+placed in possession of an immense majority--a fact which
+excluded all prospects of another change of government.
+But the Committee were too long accustomed to
+disappointments to despair even under these reverses.
+Early in the next session their petition was presented
+by Mr. Grattan in the Commons, and Lord Donoughmore in
+the Lords. The majority against going into committee was,
+in the Commons, 153; in the Lords, 87. Similar motions
+in the session of 1808, made by the same parties, were
+rejected by majorities somewhat reduced, and the question,
+on the whole, might be said to have recovered some of
+its former vantage ground, in despite of the bitter,
+pertinacious resistance of Mr. Perceval, in the one House,
+and the Duke of Portland, in the other.
+
+The short-lived administration of Mr. Fox, though it was
+said to include "all the talents," had been full of
+nothing but disappointment to his Irish supporters. The
+Duke of Bedford was, indeed, a great improvement on Lord
+Hardwicke, and Mr. Ponsonby on Lord Redesdale, as
+Chancellor, and the liberation of the political prisoners
+confined since 1803 did honour to the new administration.
+But there the measures of justice so credulously expected,
+both as to persons and interests, ended. Curran, whose
+professional claims to advancement were far beyond those
+of dozens of men who had been, during the past ten years,
+lifted over his head, was neglected, and very naturally
+dissatisfied; Grattan, never well adapted for a courtier,
+could not obtain even minor appointments for his oldest
+and staunchest adherents; while the Catholics found their
+Whig friends, now that they were in office, as anxious
+to exact the hard conditions of the Veto as Castlereagh
+himself.
+
+In truth, the Catholic body at this period, and for a
+few years subsequently, was deplorably disorganized. The
+young generation of Catholic lawyers who had grown up
+since the Relief Act of '93 threw the profession open to
+them, were men of another stamp from the old generation
+of Catholic merchants, who had grown up under the Relief
+Act of 1778. In the ten years before the Union, the
+Catholic middle class was headed by men of business; in
+the period we have now reached, their principal spokesmen
+came from "the Four Courts." John Keogh, the ablest,
+wisest and firmest of the former generation, was now
+passing into the decline of life, was frequently absent
+from the Committee, and when present, frequently overruled
+by younger and more ardent men. In 1808, his absence,
+from illness, was regretted by Mr. O'Connell in an eloquent
+speech addressed to the Committee on the necessity of
+united action and incessant petitions. "Had he been
+present," said the young barrister, "his powers of
+reasoning would have frightened away the captious
+objections" to that course, "and the Catholics of Ireland
+would again have to thank their old and useful servant
+for the preservation of their honour and the support of
+their interests." It was a strange anomaly, and one which
+continued for some years longer, that the statesmen of
+the Catholic body should be all Protestants. A more
+generous or tolerant spirit than Grattan's never existed;
+a clearer or more fearless intellect than Plunkett's was
+not to be found; nobler and more disinterested friends
+than Ponsonby, Curran, Burroughs and Wallace, no people
+ever had; but still they were friends from without; men
+of another religion, or of no particular religion, advising
+and guiding an eminently religious people in their struggle
+for religious liberty. This could not always last; it
+was not natural, it was not desirable that it should
+last, though some years more were to pass away before
+Catholic Emancipation was to be accomplished by the union,
+the energy and the strategy of the Catholics themselves.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUKE OF RICHMOND (1807 TO 1813).
+
+Charles, fourth Duke of Richmond, succeeded the Duke of
+Bedford, as Viceroy, in April, 1807, with Lord Manners
+as Lord Chancellor, John Foster, Chancellor of the
+Exchequer--for the separate exchequer of Ireland continued
+to exist till 1820--and Sir Arthur Wellesley as Chief
+Secretary. Of these names, the two last were already
+familiar to their countrymen, in connection with the
+history of their own Parliament; but the new Chief
+Secretary had lately returned home covered with Indian
+laurels, and full of the promise of other honours and
+victories to come.
+
+The spirit of this administration was repressive,
+anti-Catholic and high Tory. To maintain and strengthen
+British power, to keep the Catholics quiet, to get
+possession of the Irish representation and convert it
+into a means of support for the Tory party in England,
+these were the leading objects of the seven years'
+administration of the Duke of Richmond. Long afterwards,
+when the Chief Secretary of 1807 had become "the most
+high, mighty and noble prince," whom all England and
+nearly all Europe delighted to honour, he defended the
+Irish administration of which he had formed a part, for
+its habitual use of corrupt means and influence, in
+arguments which do more credit to his frankness than his
+morality. He had "to turn the moral weakness of individuals
+to good account," such was his argument. He stoutly denied
+that "the whole nation is, or ever was corrupt;" but as
+"almost every man of mark has his price," the Chief
+Secretary was obliged to use corrupt influences "to
+command a majority in favour of order;" however the
+particular kinds of influence employed might go against
+his grain, he had, as he contended, no other alternative
+but to employ them.
+
+With the exception of a two months' campaign in Denmark
+--July to September, 1807--Sir Arthur Wellesley continued
+to fill the office of Chief Secretary, until his departure
+for the Peninsula, in July, 1808. Even then he was
+expressly requested to retain the nominal office, with
+power to appoint a deputy, and receive meanwhile the very
+handsome salary of 8,000 pounds sterling a year. In the
+wonderful military events, in which during the next seven
+years Sir Arthur was to play a leading part, the
+comparatively unimportant particulars of his Irish
+Secretariate have been long since forgotten. We have
+already described the general spirit of that administration:
+it is only just to add, that the dispassionate and resolute
+secretary, though he never shrank from his share of the
+jobbery done daily at the Castle, repressed with as much
+firmness the over-zeal of those he calls "red-hot
+Protestants," as he showed in resisting, at that period,
+what he considered the unconstitutional pretensions of
+the Catholics. An instance of the impartiality to which
+he was capable of rising, when influenced by partisans
+or religious prejudices, is afforded by his letter
+dissuading the Wexford yeomanry from celebrating the
+anniversary of the battle of Vinegar Hill. He regarded
+such a celebration as certain "to exasperate party spirit,"
+and "to hurt the feelings of others;" he, therefore, in
+the name of the Lord-Lieutenant, strongly discouraged
+it, and the intention was accordingly abandoned. It is
+to be regretted that the same judicious rule was not at
+the same tune enforced by government as to the celebration
+of the much more obsolete and much more invidious
+anniversaries of Aughrim and the Boyne.
+
+The general election which followed the death of Fox, in
+November, 1806, was the first great trial of political
+strength under the Union. As was right and proper, Mr.
+Grattan, no longer indebted for a seat to an English
+patron, however liberal, was returned at the head of the
+poll for the city of Dublin. His associate, however, the
+banker, La Touche, was defeated; the second member elect
+being Mr. Robert Shaw, the Orange candidate. The Catholic
+electors to a man, under the vigorous prompting of John
+Keogh and his friends, polled their votes for their
+Protestant advocate; they did more, they subscribed the
+sum of 4,000 pounds sterling to pay the expenses of the
+contest, but this sum Mrs. Grattan induced the treasurer
+to return to the subscribers. Ever watchful for her
+husband's honour, that admirable woman, as ardent a
+patriot as himself, refused the generous tender of the
+Catholics of Dublin. Although his several elections
+had cost Mr. Grattan above 54,000 pounds--more than the
+whole national grant of 1782--she would not, in this
+case, that any one else should bear the cost of his last
+triumph in the widowed capital of his own country.
+
+The great issue tried in this election of 1807, in those
+of 1812, 1818, and 1826, was still the Catholic question.
+All other Irish, and most other imperial domestic questions
+were subordinate to this. In one shape or another, it
+came up in every session of Parliament. It entered into
+the calculations of every statesman of every party; it
+continued to make and unmake cabinets; in the press and
+in every society, it was the principal topic of discussion.
+While tracing, therefore, its progress, from year to
+year, we do but follow the main stream of national history;
+all other branches come back again to this centre, or
+exhaust themselves in secondary and forgotten results.
+
+The Catholics themselves, deprived in Ireland of a
+Parliament on which they could act directly, were driven
+more and more Into permanent association, as the only
+means of operating a change in the Imperial legislature.
+The value of a legal, popular, systematic, and continuous
+combination of "the people" acting within the law, by
+means of meetings, resolutions, correspondence, and
+petitions, was not made suddenly, nor by all the party
+interested, at one and the same time. On the minds of the
+more sagacious, however, an impression, favourable to such
+organized action, grew deeper year by year, and at last
+settled into a certainty which was justified by success.
+
+In May, 1809, the Catholic Committee had been reconstructed,
+and its numbers enlarged. In a series of resolutions it
+was agreed that the Catholic lords, the surviving delegates
+of 1793, the committee which managed the petitions of
+1805 and 1807, and such persons "as shall distinctly
+appear to them to possess the confidence of the Catholic
+body," do form henceforth the General Committee. It was
+proposed by O'Connell, to avoid "the Convention Act,"
+"that the noblemen and gentlemen aforesaid are not
+representatives of the Catholic body, or any portion
+thereof." The Committee were authorized to collect funds
+for defraying expenses; a Treasurer was chosen, and a
+permanent Secretary, Mr. Edward Hay, the historian of
+the Wexford rebellion--an active and intelligent officer.
+The new Committee acted with great judgment in 1810, but
+in 1811 Lord Fingal and his friends projected a General
+Assembly of the leading Catholics, contrary to the
+Convention Act, and to the resolution just cited. O'Connell
+was opposed to this proposition; yet the assembly met,
+and were dispersed by the authorities. The Chairman, Lord
+Fingal, and Drs. Sheridan and Kirwan, Secretaries, were
+arrested. Lord Fingal, however, was not prosecuted, but
+the Secretaries were, and one of them expiated by two
+years' imprisonment his violation of the act. To get
+rid of the very pretext of illegality, the Catholic
+Committee dissolved, but only to reappear under a less
+vulnerable form, as "the Catholic Board."
+
+It is from the year 1810 that we must date the rise,
+among the Catholics themselves, of a distinctive line of
+policy, suited to the circumstances of the present century,
+and the first appearance of a group of public men, capable
+of maintaining and enforcing that policy. Not that the
+ancient leaders of that body were found deficient, in
+former times, either in foresight or determination; but
+new times called for new men; the Irish Catholics were
+now to seek their emancipation from the imperial government;
+new tactics and new combinations were necessary to success;
+and, in brief, instead of being liberated from their
+bonds at the good will and pleasure of benevolent
+Protestants, it was now to be tested whether they were
+capable of contributing to their own emancipation,--whether
+they were willing and able to assist their friends and
+to punish their enemies.
+
+Though the Irish Catholics could not legally meet in
+convention any more than their Protestant fellow-countrymen,
+there was nothing to prevent them assembling voluntarily,
+from every part of the kingdom, without claim to delegation.
+With whom the happy idea of "the aggregate meetings"
+originated is not certainly known, but to O'Connell and
+the younger set of leading spirits this was a machinery
+capable of being worked with good effect. No longer
+confined to a select Committee, composed mainly of a few
+aged and cautious, though distinguished persons, the
+fearless "agitators," as they now began to be called,
+stood face to face with the body of the people themselves.
+The disused theatre in Fishamble Street was their habitual
+place of meeting in Dublin, and there, in 1811 and 1812,
+the orators met to criticise the conduct of the Duke of
+Richmond--to denounce Mr. Wellesley Pole--to attack
+Secretaries of State and Prime Ministers--to return thanks
+to Lords Grey and Grenville for refusing to give the
+unconstitutional anti-Catholic pledge required by the
+King, and to memorial the Prince Regent. From those
+meetings, especially in the year 1812, the leadership of
+O'Connell must be dated. After seven years of wearisome
+probation, after enduring seven years the envy and the
+calumny of many who, as they were his fellow-labourers,
+should have been his friends; after demonstrating for
+seven years that his judgment and his courage were equal
+to his eloquence, the successful Kerry barrister, then
+in his thirty-seventh year, was at length generally
+recognized as "the counsellor" of his co-religionists
+--as the veritable "Man of the People." Dangers, delays
+and difficulties lay thick and dark in the future, but
+from the year, when in Dublin, Cork and Limerick, the
+voice of the famous advocate was recognized as the voice
+of the Catholics of Ireland, their cause was taken out
+of the category of merely ministerial measures, and
+exhibited in its true light as a great national contest,
+entered into by the people themselves for complete civil
+and religious freedom.
+
+Sir Arthur Wellesley had been succeeded in 1810 in the
+Secretaryship by his brother, Mr. Wellesley Pole, who
+chiefly signalized his administration by a circular
+against conventions, and the prosecution of Sheridan and
+Kirwan, in 1811. He was in turn succeeded by a much more
+able and memorable person--_Mr_., afterwards Sir Robert
+Peel. The names of Peel and Wellington come thus into
+juxtaposition in Irish politics in 1812, as they will be
+found hi juxtaposition on the same subject twenty and
+thirty years later.
+
+Early in the session of 1812, Mr. Perceval, the Premier,
+had been assassinated in the lobby of the House of Commons,
+by Bellingham, and a new political crisis was precipitated
+on the country. In the government which followed, Lord
+Liverpool became the chief, with Castlereagh and Canning
+as members of his administration. In the general election
+which followed, Mr. Grattan was again returned for Dublin,
+and Mr. Plunkett was elected for Trinity College, but
+Mr. Curran was defeated at Newry, and Mr. Christopher
+Hely Hutchinson, the liberal candidate, at Cork. Upon
+the whole, however, the result was favourable to the
+Catholic cause, and the question was certain to have
+several additional Irish supporters in the new House
+of Commons.
+
+In the administrative changes that followed, Mr. Peel,
+though only in his twenty-fourth year, was appointed to
+the important post of Chief Secretary, The son of the
+first baronet of the name--this youthful statesman had
+first been elected for Cashel, almost as soon as he came
+of age, in 1809. He continued Chief Secretary for six
+years, from the twenty-fourth to the thirtieth year of
+his age. He distinguished himself in the House of Commons
+almost as soon as he entered it, and the predictions of
+his future premiership were not, even then, confined to
+members of his own family. No English statesman, since
+the death of William Pitt, has wielded so great a power
+in Irish affairs as Sir Robert Peel, and it is, therefore,
+important to consider, under what influence, and by what
+maxims he regulated his public conduct during the time
+he filled the most important administrative office in
+that country.
+
+Sir Robert Peel brought to the Irish government,
+notwithstanding his Oxford education and the advantages
+of foreign travel which he had enjoyed, prejudices the
+most illiberal, on the subject of all others on which a
+statesman should be most free from prejudice--religion.
+An anti-Catholic of the school of Mr. Perceval and Lord
+Eldon, he at once constituted himself the principal
+opponent of Grattan's annual motion in favour of Catholic
+Emancipation. That older men, born in the evil time,
+should be bigots and defenders of the Penal Code, was
+hardly wonderful, but a young statesman, exhibiting at
+that late day, such studied and active hostility to so
+large a body of his fellow subjects, naturally drew upon
+his head the execrations of all those whose enfranchisement
+he so stubbornly resisted. Even his great abilities were
+most absurdly denied, under this passionate feeling of
+wrong and injustice. His Constabulary and his Stipendiary
+Magistracy were resisted, ridiculed, and denounced, as
+outrages on the liberty of the subject, and assaults on
+the independence of the bench. The term _Peeler_ became
+synonymous with spy, informer, and traitor, and the Chief
+Secretary was detested not only for the illiberal sentiments
+he had expressed, but for the machinery of order he had
+established. After half a century's experience, we may
+safely say, that the Irish Constabulary have shown
+themselves to be a most valuable police, and as little
+deserving of popular ill-will as any such body can ever
+expect to be, but they were judged very differently during
+the Secretaryship of their founder; for, at that time,
+being new and intrusive, they may, no doubt, have deserved
+many of the hard and bitter things which were generally
+said of them.
+
+The first session of the new Parliament in the year 1813--
+the last of the Duke of Richmond's Viceroyalty--was
+remarkable for the most important debate which had yet
+arisen on the Catholic question. In the previous year,
+a motion of Canning's, in favour of "a final and
+conciliatory adjustment," which was carried by an unexpected
+majority of 235 to 106, encouraged Grattan to prepare a
+detailed Emancipation Bill, instead of making his usual
+annual motion of referring the Catholic petitions to the
+consideration of the Committee. This bill recited the
+establishment of the Protestant succession to the crown,
+and the establishment of the Protestant religion in the
+State. It then proceeded to provide that Roman Catholics
+might sit and vote in Parliament; might hold all offices,
+civil and military, except the offices of Chancellor or
+Keeper of the Great Seal in England, or Lord-Lieutenant,
+Lord Deputy, or Chancellor of Ireland; another section
+threw open to Roman Catholics all lay corporations, while
+a proviso excluded them either from holding or bestowing
+benefices in the Established Church. Such was the
+Emancipation Act of 1813, proposed by Grattan; an act
+far less comprehensive than that introduced by the same
+statesman in 1795, into the Parliament of Ireland, but
+still, in many of its provisions, a long stride in advance.
+
+Restricted and conditioned as this measure was, it still
+did not meet the objections of the opponents of the
+question, in giving the crown a Veto in the appointment
+of the bishops. Sir John Hippesley's pernicious
+suggestion--reviving a very old traditional policy--was
+embodied by Canning in one set of amendments, and by
+Castlereagh in another. Canning's amendments, as summarised
+by the eminent Catholic jurist, Charles Butler, were to
+this effect:--
+
+"He first appointed a certain number of Commissioners,
+who were to profess the Catholic religion, and to be lay
+peers of Great Britain or Scotland, possessing a freehold
+estate of one thousand pounds a year; to be filled up,
+from time to time, by his Majesty, his heirs, or successors.
+The Commissioners were to take an oath for the faithful
+discharge of their office, and the observance of secrecy
+in all matters not thereby required to be disclosed, with
+power to appoint a Secretary with salary (proposed to be
+five hundred pounds a year), payable out of the consolidated
+fund. The Secretary was to take an oath similar to that
+of the Commissioners.
+
+"It was then provided, that every person elected to the
+discharge of Roman Catholic episcopal functions in Great
+Britain or Scotland should, previously to the discharge
+of his office, notify his then election to the Secretary;
+that the Secretary should notify it to the Commissioners,
+and they to the Privy Council, with a certificate 'that
+they did not know or believe anything of the person
+nominated, which tended to impeach his loyalty or peaceable
+conduct;' unless they had knowledge of the contrary, in
+which case they should refuse their certificate. Persons
+obtaining such a certificate were rendered capable of
+exercising episcopal functions within the United Kingdom;
+if they exercised them without a certificate, they were
+to be considered guilty of a misdemeanor, and liable to
+be sent out of the kingdom.
+
+"Similar provisions respecting Ireland were then
+introduced."
+
+"The second set of clauses," says Mr. Butler, "was
+suggested by Lord Castlereagh, and provided that the
+Commissioners under the preceding clauses--with the
+addition, as to Great Britain, of the Lord Chancellor,
+or Lord Keeper, or first Commissioner of the Great Seal
+for the time being, and of one of his Majesty's principal
+Secretaries of State, being a Protestant, or such other
+Protestant member of his Privy Council as his Majesty
+should appoint--and with a similar addition in respect
+to Ireland--and with the further addition, as to Great
+Britain, of the person then exercising episcopal functions
+among the Catholics in London--and, in respect to Ireland,
+of the titular Roman Catholic Archbishops of Armagh and
+Dublin,--should be Commissioners for the purposes
+thereinafter mentioned.
+
+"The Commissioners thus appointed were to take an oath
+for the discharge of their office, and observance of
+secrecy, similar to the former, and employ the same
+Secretary, and three of them were to form a quorum.
+
+"The bill then provided, that subjects of his Majesty,
+receiving any bull, dispensation, or other instrument,
+from the See of Rome, or any person in foreign parts,
+acting under the authority of that See, should, within
+six weeks, send a copy of it, signed with his name, to
+the Secretary of the Commissioners, who should transmit
+the same to them.
+
+"But with a proviso, that if the person receiving the
+same should deliver to the Secretary of the Commission,
+within the time before prescribed, a writing under his
+hand, certifying the fact of his having received such a
+bull, dispensation, or other instrument, and accompanying
+his certificate with an oath, declaring that 'it related,
+wholly and exclusively, to spiritual concerns, and that
+it did not contain, or refer to, any matter or thing
+which did or could, directly or indirectly, affect or
+interfere with the duty and allegiance which he owed to
+his Majesty's sacred person and government, or with the
+temporal, civil, or social rights, properties, or duties
+of any other of his Majesty's subjects, then the
+Commissioners were, in their discretion, to receive such
+certificate and oath, in lieu of the copy of the bull,
+dispensation, or other instrument.
+
+"Persons conforming to these provisions were to be exempted
+from all pains and penalties, to which they would be
+liable under the existing statutes; otherwise, they were
+to be deemed guilty of a high misdemeanor; and in lieu
+of the pains and penalties, under the former statutes,
+be liable to be sent out of the kingdom.
+
+"The third set of clauses provided that, within a time
+to be specified, the Commissioners were to meet and
+appoint their Secretary, and give notice of it to his
+Majesty's principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain
+and Ireland; and the provisions of the act were to be in
+force from that time."
+
+On the second reading, in May, the Committee of Parliament,
+on motion of the Speaker, then on the floor, struck out
+the clause enabling Catholics "to sit and vote in either
+House of Parliament," by a majority of four votes: 251
+against 247. Mr. Ponsonby immediately rose, and, observing
+that, as "the bill without the clause," was unworthy both
+of the Catholics and its authors, he moved the chairman
+do leave the chair. The committee rose, without a division,
+and the Emancipation Bill of 1813 was abandoned.
+
+Unhappily, the contest in relation to the Veto, which
+had originated in the House of Commons, was extended to
+the Catholic body at large. Several of the noblemen,
+members of the board, were not averse to granting some
+such power as was claimed to the crown; some of the
+professional class, more anxious to be emancipated than
+particular as to the means, favoured the same view. The
+bishops at the time of the Union, were known to have
+entertained the idea, and Sir John Hippesley had published
+their letters, which certainly did not discourage his
+proposal. But the second order of the clergy, the immense
+majority of the laity, and all the new prelates, called
+to preside over vacant sees, in the first decade of the
+century, were strongly opposed to any such connexion with
+the head of the State. Of this party, Mr. O'Connell was
+the uncompromising organ, and, perhaps, it was his course
+on this very subject of the Veto, more than anything
+else, which established his pretensions to be considered
+the leader of the Catholic body. Under the prompting of
+the majority, the Catholic prelates met and passed a
+resolution declaring that they could not accept the bill
+of 1813 as a satisfactory settlement. This resolution
+they formally communicated to the Catholic Board, who
+voted them, on O'Connell's motion, enthusiastic thanks.
+The minority of the Board were silent rather than satisfied,
+and their dissatisfaction was shown rather by their
+absence from the Board meetings than by open opposition.
+
+Mr. O'Connell's position, from this period forward, may
+be best understood from the tone in which he was spoken
+of in the debates of Parliament. At the beginning of the
+session of 1815, we find the Chief Secretary (Mr. Peel)
+stating that he "possesses more influence than any other
+person" with the Irish Catholics, and that no meeting of
+that body was considered complete unless a vote of thanks
+to Mr. O'Connell was among the resolutions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP--1813 TO 1821.
+
+While the Veto controversy was carried into the press
+and the Parliamentary debates, the extraordinary events
+of the last years of Napoleon's reign became of such
+extreme interest as to cast into the shade all questions
+of domestic policy. The Parliamentary fortunes of the
+Catholic question varied with the fortunes of the war,
+and the remoteness of external danger. Thus, in 1815,
+Sir Henry Parnell's motion for a committee was rejected
+by a majority of 228 to 147; in 1816, on Mr. Grattan's
+similar motion, the vote was 172 to 141; in 1817, Mr.
+Grattan was again defeated by 245 to 221; in this session
+an act exempting officers in the army and navy from
+forswearing Transubstantiation passed and became law.
+The internal condition of the Catholic body, both in
+England and Ireland, during all those years, was far from
+enviable. In England there were Cisalpine and Ultramontane
+factions; in Ireland, Vetoists and anti-Vetoists. The
+learned and amiable Charles Butler--among jurists, the
+ornament of his order, was fiercely opposed to the no
+less learned Dr. Milner, author of "The End of Controversy,"
+and "Letters to a Prebendary." In Ireland, a very young
+barrister, who had hardly seen the second anniversary of
+his majority, electrified the aggregate meetings with a
+new Franco-Irish order of eloquence, naturally enough
+employed in the maintenance of Gallican ideas of church
+government. This was Richard Lalor Shiel, the author of
+two or three successful tragedies, and the man, next to
+O'Connell, who wielded the largest tribunitian power over
+the Irish populace during the whole of the subsequent
+agitation. Educated at Stoneyhurst, he imbibed from
+refugee professors French idioms and a French standard
+of taste, while, strangely enough, O'Connell, to whom he
+was at first opposed, and of whom he became afterwards
+the first lieutenant, educated in France by British
+refugees, acquired the cumbrous English style of the
+Douay Bible and the Rheims Testament. The contrast between
+the two men was every way extreme; physically, mentally,
+and politically; but it is pleasant to know that their
+differences never degenerated into distrust, envy or
+malice; that, in fact, Daniel O'Connell had throughout
+all his after life no more steadfast personal friend than
+Richard Lalor Shiel.
+
+In the progress of the Catholic agitation, the next
+memorable incident was O'Connell's direct attack on the
+Prince Regent. That powerful personage, the _de facto_
+Sovereign of the realm, had long amused the Irish Catholics
+with promises and pledges of being favourable to their
+cause. At an aggregate meeting, in June, 1812, Mr.
+O'Connell maintained that there were four distinct pledges
+of this description in existence: 1. One given in 1806,
+through the Duke of Bedford, then Lord-Lieutenant, to
+induce the Catholics to withhold their petitions for a
+time. 2. Another given the same year in the Prince's
+name by Mr. Ponsonby, then Chancellor. 3. A pledge given
+to Lord Kenmare, _in writing_, when at Cheltenham. 4. A
+verbal pledge given to Lord Fingal, in the presence of
+Lords Clifford and Petre, and reduced to writing and
+signed by these three noblemen, soon after quitting the
+Prince's presence. Over the meeting at which this indictment
+was preferred, Lord Fingal presided, and the celebrated
+"witchery" resolutions, referring to the influence then
+exercised on the Prince by Lady Hertford, were proposed
+by his lordship's son, Lord Killeen. It may, therefore,
+be fairly assumed, that the existence of the fourth pledge
+was proved, the first and second were never denied, and
+as to the third--that given to Lord Kenmare--the only
+correction ever made was, that the Prince's message was
+delivered verbally, by his Private Secretary, Colonel
+McMahon, and not in writing. Lord Kenmare, who died in
+the autumn of 1812, could not be induced, from a motive
+of delicacy, to reduce his recollection of this message
+to writing, but he never denied that he had received it,
+and O'Connell, therefore, during the following years,
+always held the Prince accountable for this, as for his
+other promises. Much difference of opinion arose as to
+the wisdom of attacking a person in the position of the
+Prince; but O'Connell, fully persuaded of the utter
+worthlessness of the declarations made in that quarter,
+decided for himself that the bold course was the wise
+course. The effect already was various. The English Whigs,
+the Prince's early and constant friends, who had followed
+him to lengths that honour could hardly sanction, and
+who had experienced his hollow-heartedness when lately
+called to govern during his father's illness; they, of
+course, were not sorry to see him held up to odium in
+Ireland, as a dishonoured gentleman and a false friend.
+The Irish Whigs, of whom Lord Moira and Mr. Ponsonby were
+the leaders, and to whom Mr. Grattan might be said to be
+attached rather than to belong, saw the rupture with
+regret, but considered it inevitable. Among "the Prince's
+friends" the attacks upon him in the Dublin meetings were
+regarded as little short of treason; while by himself,
+it is well known the "witchery" resolutions of 1812 were
+neither forgotten nor forgiven.
+
+The political position of the Holy See, at this period,
+was such as to induce and enable an indirect English
+influence to be exercised, through that channel, upon
+the Irish Catholic movement. Pope Pius VII., a prisoner
+in France, had delegated to several persons at Rome
+certain vicarious powers, to be exercised in his name,
+in case of necessity; of these, more than one had followed
+him into exile, so that the position of his representative
+devolved at length upon Monsignor Quarrantotti, who,
+early in 1814, addressed a rescript to Dr. Poynter,
+vicar-apostolic of the London district, commendatory of
+the Bill of 1813, including the Veto, and the Ecclesiastical
+Commission proposed by Canning and Castlereagh. Against
+these dangerous concessions, as they considered them,
+the Irish Catholics despatched their remonstrances to
+Rome, through the agency of the celebrated Wexford
+Franciscan, Father Richard Hayes; but this clergyman,
+having spoken with too great freedom, was arrested, and
+suffered several months' confinement in the Eternal City.
+A subsequent embassy of Dr. Murray, coadjutor to the
+Archbishop of Dublin, on behalf of his brother prelates,
+was attended with no greater advantage, though the envoy
+himself was more properly treated. On his return to
+Ireland, at a meeting held to hear his report, several
+strong resolutions were unanimously adopted, of which
+the spirit may be judged from the following--the concluding
+one of the series--"Though we sincerely venerate the
+supreme Pontiff as visible head of the Church, we do not
+conceive that our apprehensions for the safety of the
+Roman Catholic Church in Ireland can or ought to be
+removed by any determination of His Holiness, adopted or
+intended to be adopted, not only without our concurrence,
+but in direct opposition to our repeated resolutions and
+the very energetic memorial presented on our behalf, and
+so ably supported by our Deputy, the Most Reverend Dr.
+Murray; who, in that quality, was more competent to inform
+His Holiness of the real state and interests of the Roman
+Catholic Church in Ireland than any other with whom he
+is said to have consulted."
+
+The resolutions were transmitted to Rome, signed by the
+two Archbishops present, by Dr. Everard, the coadjutor
+of the Archbishop of Cashel, by Dr. Murray, the coadjutor
+of the Archbishop of Dublin, by the Bishops of Meath,
+Cloyne, Clonfert, Kerry, Waterford, Derry, Achonry,
+Killala, Killaloe, Kilmore, Ferns, Limerick, Elphin,
+Cork, Down and Conor, Ossory, Raphoe, Clogher, Dromore,
+Kildare and Leighlin, Ardagh, and the Warden of Galway.
+Dr. Murray, and Dr. Murphy, Bishop of Cork, were
+commissioned to carry this new remonstrance to Rome, and
+the greatest anxiety was felt for the result of their
+mission.
+
+A strange result of this new _embroglio_ in the Catholic
+cause was, that it put the people on the defensive for
+their religious liberties, not so much against England
+as against Home. The unlucky Italian Monsignor who had
+volunteered his sanction of the Veto, fared scarcely
+better at the popular gatherings than Lord Castlereagh,
+or Mr. Peel. "Monsieur Forty-eight," as he was nicknamed,
+in reference to some strange story of his ancestor taking
+his name from a lucky lottery ticket of that number, was
+declared to be no better than a common Orangeman, and if
+the bitter denunciations uttered against him, on the
+Liffey and the Shannon, had only been translated into
+Italian, the courtly Prelate must have been exceedingly
+amazed at the democratic fury of a Catholic population,
+as orthodox as himself, but much more jealous of State
+interference with things spiritual. The second order of
+the clergy were hardly behind the laity, in the fervour
+of their opposition to the rescript of 1814. Then--entire
+body, secular and regular, residing in and about Dublin,
+published a very strong protest against it, headed by
+Dr. Blake, afterwards Bishop of Dromore, in which it was
+denounced as "pregnant with mischief" and entirely
+"non-obligatory upon the Catholic Church in Ireland."
+The several ecclesiastical provinces followed up these
+declarations with a surprising unanimity, and although
+a Vetoistical address to His Holiness was despatched by
+the Cisalpine club in England, the Irish ideas of Church
+government triumphed at Rome. Drs. Murray and Milner
+were received with his habitual kindness by Pius VII.;
+the illustrious Cardinal Gonsalvi was appointed by the
+Pope to draw up an explanatory rescript, and Monsignor
+Quarrantotti was removed from his official position. The
+firmness manifested at that critical period by the Irish
+church has since been acknowledged with many encomiums
+by all the successors of Pope Pius VII.
+
+The Irish government under the new Viceroy, Lord Whitworth
+(the former ambassador to Napoleon), conceiving that the
+time had come, in the summer of 1814, to suppress the
+Catholic Board, a proclamation forbidding his Majesty's
+subjects to attend future meetings of that body issued
+from Dublin Castle, on the 3rd of June. The leaders of
+the body, after consultation at Mr. O'Connell's residence,
+decided to bow to this proclamation and to meet no more
+as a Board; but this did not prevent them, in the following
+winter, from holding a new series of Aggregate meetings,
+far more formidable, in some respects, than the deliberative
+meetings which had been suppressed. In the vigorous and
+somewhat aggressive tone taken at these meetings, Lord
+Fingal, the chief of the Catholic peerage, did not concur,
+and he accordingly withdrew for some years from the
+agitation, Mr. Shiel, the Bellews, Mr. Ball, Mr. Wyse of
+Waterford, and a few others, following his example. With
+O'Connell remained the O'Conor Don, Messrs. Finlay and
+Lidwell (Protestants), Purcell O'Gorman, and other popular
+persons. But the cause sustained a heavy blow in the
+temporary retirement of Lord Fingal and his friends, and
+an attempt to form a "Catholic Association," in 1815,
+without their co-operation, signally failed.
+
+During the next five years, the fortunes of the great
+Irish question fluctuated with the exigencies of Imperial
+parties. The second American war had closed, if not
+gloriously, at least without considerable loss to England;
+Napoleon had exchanged Elba for St. Helena: Wellington
+was the Achilles of the Empire, and Castlereagh its
+Ulysses. Yet it was not in the nature of those free
+Islanders, the danger and pressure of foreign war removed,
+to remain always indifferent to the two great questions
+of domestic policy--Catholic Emancipation and Parliamentary
+Reform. In the session of 1816, a motion of Sir John
+Newport's to inquire into the state of Ireland, was
+successfully resisted by Sir Robert Peel, but the condition
+and state of public feeling in England could not be as
+well ignored by a Parliament sitting in London. In
+returning from the opening of the Houses in January,
+1817, the Regent was hooted in the street, and his carriage
+riddled with stones. A reward of 1,000 pounds, issued
+for the apprehension of the ringleaders, only gave
+additional _eclat_ to the fact, without leading to the
+apprehension of the assailants.
+
+The personal unpopularity of the Regent seems to have
+increased, in proportion as death removed from him all
+those who stood nearest to the throne. In November, 1817,
+his oldest child, the Princess Charlotte, married to
+Leopold, since King of Belgium, died in childbed; in
+1818, the aged Queen Charlotte died; in January, 1820,
+the old King, in the eighty-second year of his age,
+departed this life. Immediately afterwards the former
+Princess of Wales, long separated from her profligate
+husband, returned from the Continent to claim her rightful
+position as Queen Consort. The disgraceful accusations
+brought against her, the trial before the House of Lords
+which followed, the courage and eloquence of her counsel,
+Brougham and Denman, the eagerness with which the people
+made her cause their own, are all well remembered events,
+and all beside the purpose of this history. The unfortunate
+lady died after a short illness, on the 7th of August,
+1821; the same month in which Ms Majesty--George IV.
+--departed on that Irish journey, so satirized in the
+undying verse of Moore and Byron.
+
+Two other deaths, far more affecting than any among the
+mortalities of royalty, marked the period at which we
+have arrived. These were the death of Curran in 1817,
+and the death of Grattan, in 1820.
+
+Curran, after his failure to be returned for Newry, in
+1812, had never again attempted public life. He remained
+in his office of Master of the Rolls, but his health
+began to fail sensibly. During the summers of 1816 and
+'17, he sought for recreation in Scotland, England and
+France, but the charm which travel could not give--the
+charm of a cheerful spirit--was wanting. In October,
+1817, his friend, Charles Phillips, was suddenly called
+to his bed-side at Brompton, near London, and found him
+with one side of his face and body paralyzed cold. "And
+this was all," says his friend, "that remained of
+Curran--the light of society--the glory of the forum--
+the Fabricius of the senate--the idol of his country."
+Yes! even to less than this, was he soon to sink. On
+the evening of the 14th of October, he expired, in the
+68th year of his age, leaving a public reputation as free
+from blemish as ever did any man who had acted a leading
+part, in times like those through which he had passed.
+He was interred in London, but twenty years afterwards,
+the committee of the Glasnevin Cemetery, near Dublin,
+obtained permission of his representatives to remove his
+ashes to their grounds, where they now finally repose.
+A tomb modelled from the tomb of Scipio covers the grave,
+bearing the simple but sufficient inscription--CURRAN.
+Thus was fulfilled the words he had uttered long
+before--"The last duties will be paid by that country on
+which they are devolved; nor will it be for charity that
+a little earth will be given to my bones. Tenderly will
+those duties be paid, as the debt of well-earned affection,
+and of gratitude not ashamed of her tears."
+
+Grattan's last days were characteristic of his whole
+life. As the session of 1820 progressed, though suffering
+from his last struggle with disease, he was stirred by
+an irresistible desire to make his way to London, and
+present once more the petition of the Catholics. Since
+the defeat of his Relief Bill of 1813, there had been
+some estrangement between him and the more advanced
+section of the agitators, headed by O'Connell. This he
+was anxious, perhaps, to heal or to overcome. He thought,
+moreover, that even if he should die in the effort, it
+would be, as he said himself, "a good end." Amid--
+
+ "The trees which a nation had given, and which bowed
+ As if each brought a new civic crown to his head,"
+
+he consulted with the Catholic delegates early in May.
+O'Connell was the spokesman, and the scene may yet be
+rendered immortal by some great national artist. All
+present felt that the aged patriot was dying, but still
+he would go once more to London, to fall, as he said,
+"at his post." In leaving Ireland he gave to his oldest
+friends directions for his funeral--that he might be
+buried in the little churchyard of Moyanna, on the estate
+the people gave him in 1782! He reached London, by slow
+stages, at the end of May, and proposed to be in his
+place in the House on the 4th of June. But this
+gratification was not permitted him: on the morning of
+the 4th, at six o'clock, he called his son to his bed-side,
+and ordered him to bring him a paper containing his last
+political opinions. "Add to it," he said, with all his
+old love of antithesis, "that I die with a love of liberty
+in my heart, and this declaration in favour of my country,
+in my hand."
+
+So worthily ended the mortal career of Henry Grattan. He
+was interred by the side of his old friend, Charles James
+Pox, in Westminster Abbey; the mourners included the
+highest imperial statesmen, and the Catholic orphan
+children; his eulogium was pronounced in the House of
+Commons by William Conyngham Plunkett, and in the Irish
+capital by Daniel O'Connell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+RETROSPECT OF THE STATE OF RELIGION AND LEARNING
+DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.
+
+Before relating the decisive events in the contest for
+Catholic Emancipation, which marked the reign of George IV.
+we may be permitted to cast a glance backward over the
+religious and secular state of Ireland, during the sixty
+years' reign of George III.
+
+The relative position of the great religious denominations
+underwent a slow but important revolution during this
+long reign. In the last days of George II., a Chief-Justice
+was bold enough to declare that "the laws did not presume
+a Papist to exist in the kingdom;" but under the sway of
+his successor, though much against that successor's will,
+they advanced from one constitutional victory to another,
+till they stood, in the person of the Earl Marshal, on
+the very steps of the throne. In the towns and cities,
+the Catholic laity, once admitted to commerce and the
+professions, rose rapidly to wealth and honour. A Dublin
+Papist was at the head of the wine trade; another was
+the wealthiest grazier in the kingdom; a third, at Cork,
+was the largest provision merchant. With wealth came
+social ambition, and the heirs of these enfranchised
+merchants were by a natural consequence the judges and
+legislators of the next generation.
+
+The ecclesiastical organization of Ireland, as described
+in 1800 by the bishops in answer to queries of the Chief
+Secretary, was simple and inexpensive. The four archbishops
+and twenty bishops, were sustained by having certain
+parishes attached to their cathedrals, _in commendam_:
+other _Cathedraticum_ there seems to have been none.
+Armagh had then 350 parish priests, Tuam 206, Cashel 314,
+and Dublin 156: in all 1126. The number of curates or
+coadjutors was at least equal to that of the parish
+priests; while of regulars then returned the number did
+not exceed 450. This large body of religious--24 prelates,
+nearly 3,000 clergy--exclusive of female religious--were
+then, and have ever since been, sustained by the voluntary
+contributions of the laity, paid chiefly at the two great
+festivals of Christmas and Easter, or by customary
+offerings made at the close of the ceremonies of marriages,
+baptisms, and death. Though the income of some of the
+churches was considerable, in the great majority of cases
+the amount received barely sufficed to fulfil the injunction
+of St. Patrick to his disciples, that "the lamp should
+take but that wherewith it was fed."
+
+The Presbyterian clergy, though in some respects more
+dependent on their congregations than the Catholics were,
+did not always, nor in all cases, depend on the voluntary
+principle for their maintenance. The Irish Supply Bill
+contained an annual item before the Union of 7,700 pounds
+for the Antrim Synod, and some other dissenting bodies.
+The _Regium Donum_ was not, indeed, general; but that it
+might be made so, was one of the inducements held out to
+many of that clergy to secure their countenance for the
+Legislative Union.
+
+The Established Church continued, of course, to monopolize
+University honours, and to enjoy its princely revenues
+and all political advantages. Trinity College continued
+annually to farm its 200,000 acres at a rental averaging
+100,000 pounds sterling. Its wealth, and the uses to
+which it is put, are thus described by a recent writer:
+"Some of Trinity's senior fellows enjoy higher incomes
+than Cabinet ministers; many of her tutors have revenues
+above those of cardinals; and junior fellows, of a few
+days' standing, frequently decline some of her thirty-one
+church livings with benefices which would shame the
+poverty of scores of continental, not to say Irish,
+Catholic archbishops. Even eminent judges hold her
+professorships; some of her chairs are vacated for the
+Episcopal bench only; and majors and field officers would
+acquire increased pay by being promoted to the rank of
+head porter, first menial, in Trinity College. Apart from
+her princely fellowships and professorships, her seventy
+Foundation, and sixteen non-Foundation Scholarships, her
+thirty Sizarships, and her fourteen valuable Studentships,
+she has at her disposal an aggregate, by bequests,
+benefactions, and various endowments, of 117 permanent
+exhibitions, amounting to upwards of 2,000 pounds per
+annum." The splendour of the highest Protestant dignitaries
+may be inferred from what has been said formerly of the
+Bishop of Derry, of the Era of Independence. The state
+maintained by the chief bishop--Primate Robinson, who
+ruled Armagh from 1765 to 1795--is thus described by Mr.
+Cumberland in his _Memoirs_. "I accompanied him," says
+Cumberland, "on Sunday forenoon to his cathedral. We
+went in his chariot of six horses attended by three
+footmen behind, whilst my wife and daughters, with Sir
+William Robinson, the primate's elder brother, followed
+in my father's coach, which he lent me for the journey.
+At our approach the great western door was thrown open,
+and my friend (in person one of the finest men that could
+be seen) entered, like another Archbishop Laud, in high
+prelatical state, preceded by his officers and ministers
+of the church, conducting him in files to the robing
+chamber, and back again to the throne. It may well be
+conceived with what invidious eyes the barely tolerated
+Papists of the city of Saint Patrick must have looked on
+all this pageantry, and their feelings were no doubt
+those in some degree of all their co-religionists
+throughout the kingdom."
+
+The Irish Establishment, during the reign of George III.,
+numbered among its prelates and clergy many able and
+amiable men. At the period of the Union, the two most
+distinguished were Dr. O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath, an
+ex-priest, and Dr. Young, Bishop of Clonfert, a former
+fellow of Trinity College. As a Bible scholar, Dr. Young
+ranked deservedly high, but as a variously accomplished
+writer, Dr. O'Beirne was the first man of his order. His
+political papers, though occasionally disfigured with
+the bigotry natural to an apostate, are full of a vigorous
+sagacity; his contributions to general literature, such
+as his paper on _Tanistry_, in Vallency's _Collectanea_,
+show how much greater things still he was capable of. It
+is not a little striking that the most eminent bishop,
+as well as the most celebrated Anglican preacher of that
+age, in Ireland (Dean Kirwan), should both have been
+ordained as Catholic priests.
+
+The national literature which we have noted a century
+earlier, as changing gradually its tongue, was now mainly,
+indeed we might almost say solely, expressed in English.
+It is true the songs of "Carolan the Blind," were sung
+in Gaelic by the Longford firesides, where the author of
+"the Deserted Village" listened to their exquisite melody,
+moulding his young ear to a sense of harmony full as
+exquisite; but the glory of the Gaelic muse was past.
+He, too, unpromising as was his exterior, was to be one
+of the bright harbingers of another great era of
+Hiberno-English literature. When, within two generations,
+out of the same exceedingly restricted class of educated
+Irishmen and women, we count the names of Goldsmith,
+Samuel Madden, Arthur Murphy, Henry Brooke, Charles
+Macklin, Sheridan, Burke, Edmund Malone, Maria Edgeworth,
+Lady Morgan, "Psyche" Tighe, and Thomas Moore, it is
+impossible not to entertain a very high opinion of the
+mental resources of that population, if only they were
+fairly wrought and kindly valued by the world.
+
+One memorable incident of literary history--the Ossianic
+outbreak of 1760--aided powerfully though indirectly in
+the revival of the study of the ancient Celtic history
+of Scotland and Ireland. Something was done then, by the
+Royal Irish Academy, to meet that storm of Anglo-Norman
+incredulity and indignation; much more has been done
+since, to place the original records of the Three Kingdoms
+on a sound critical basis. The dogmatism of the unbelievers
+in the existence of a genuine body of ancient Celtic
+literature has been rebuked; and the folly of the theorists
+who, upon imaginary grounds, constructed pretentious
+systems, has been exposed. The exact originals of
+MacPherson's odes have not been found, after a century
+of research, and may be given up, as non-existent; but
+the better opinion seems now to be, by those who have
+studied the fragments of undoubted antiquity attributed
+to the son of the warrior Fion, that whatever the modern
+translator may have invented, he certainly did not invent
+Ossian.
+
+To the stage, within the same range of time, Ireland gave
+some celebrated names: Quinn, Barry, Sheridan, Mrs.
+Woffington, Mrs. Jordan, and Miss O'Neill; and to painting,
+one pre-eminent name--the eccentric, honest, and original,
+James Barry.
+
+But of all the arts, that in which the Irish of the
+Georgian era won the highest and most various triumphs
+was the art of Oratory, What is now usually spoken of as
+"the Irish School of Eloquence," may be considered to
+have taken its rise from the growth of the Patriot party
+in Parliament, in the last years of George II. Every
+contemporary account agrees in placing its first great
+name--Anthony Malone--on the same level with Chatham and
+Mansfield. There were great men before Malone, as before
+Agamemnon; such as Sir Toby Butler, Baron Rice, and
+Patrick Darcy; but he was the first of our later succession
+of masters. After him came Flood and John Hely Hutchinson;
+then Grattan and Curran; then Plunkett and Bushe; then
+O'Connell and Shiel. In England, at the same time, Burke,
+Barre, Sheridan, and Sir Phillip Francis, upheld the
+reputation of Irish oratory; a reputation generously
+acknowledged by all parties, as it was illustrated in
+the ranks of all. The Tories, within our own recollection,
+applauded as heartily the Irish wit and fervour of Canning,
+Croker, and North, as the Whigs did the exhibition of
+similar qualities in their Emancipation allies.
+
+Nothing can be less correct, than to pronounce judgment
+on the Irish School, either of praise or blame, in sweeping
+general terms. Though a certain family resemblance may
+be traced among its great masters, no two of them will
+be found nearly alike. There are no echoes, no servile
+imitators, among them. In vigorous argumentation and
+severe simplicity, Plunkett resembled Flood, but the
+temperament of the two men--and Oratory is nearly as much
+a matter of temperament as of intellect--was widely
+different. Flood's movement was dramatic, while Plunkett's
+was mathematical. In structural arrangement, Shiel,
+occasionally--very occasionally--reminds us of Grattan;
+but if he has not the wonderful condensation of thought,
+neither has he the frequent antithetical abuses of that
+great orator. Burke and Sheridan are as distinguishable
+as any other two of their contemporaries; Curran stands
+alone; O'Connell never had a model, and never had an
+imitator who rose above mimicry. Every combination of
+powers, every description of excellence, and every variety
+of style and character, may be found among the masterpieces
+of this great school. Of their works many will live for
+ever. Most of Burke's, many of Grattan's, and one or two
+of Curran's have reached us in such preservation as
+promises immortality. Selections from Flood, Sheridan,
+Canning, Plunkett and O'Connell will survive; Shiel will
+be more fortunate for he was more artistic, and more
+watchful of his own fame. His exquisite finish will do,
+for him, what the higher efforts of men, more indifferent
+to the audience of posterity, will have forfeited for them.
+
+It is to be observed, farther, that the inspiration of
+all these men was drawn from the very hearts of the people
+among whom they grew. With one or two exceptions, sons
+of humble peasants, of actors, of at most middle class
+men, they were true, through every change of personal
+position, to the general interests of the people--to the
+common weal. From generous thoughts and a lofty scorn of
+falsehood, fanaticism and tyranny, they took their
+inspiration; and as they were true to human nature, so
+will mankind, through successive ages, dwell fondly on
+their works and guard lovingly their tombs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE IRISH ABROAD, DURING THE REIGN OF GEORGE III.
+
+The fond tenacity with which the large numbers of the
+Irish people who have established themselves in foreign
+states have always clung to their native country; the
+active sympathy they have personally shown for their
+relatives at home; the repeated efforts they have made
+to assist the Irish in Ireland, in all their public
+undertakings, requires that, as an element in O'Connell's
+final and successful struggle for Catholic Emancipation,
+we should take a summary view of the position of "the
+Irish abroad."
+
+While the emigrants of that country to America naturally
+pursued the paths of peace, those who, from choice or
+necessity, found their way to the European Continent,
+were, with few exceptions, employed mainly in two
+departments--war and diplomacy. An Irish Abbe, liked the
+celebrated preacher, McCarthy--or an Irish merchant firm,
+such as the house of the same name at Bordeaux, might be
+met with, but most of those who attained any distinction
+did so by the sword or the pen, in the field or the
+cabinet.
+
+In France, under the revolutionary governments from '91
+to '99, the Irish were, with their old-world notions of
+God and the Devil, wholly out of place; but under the
+Consulate and the Empire, they rose to many employments
+of the second class, and a few of the very first. From
+the ranks of the expatriated of '98, Buonaparte promoted
+Arthur O'Conor and William Corbet to the rank of General;
+Ware, Alien, Byrne, the younger Tone, and Keating, to
+that of Colonel. As individuals, the Emperor was certainly
+a benefactor to many Irishmen; but, as a nation, it was
+one of then: most foolish delusions, to expect in him a
+deliverer. On the restoration of the Bourbons, the Irish
+officers who had acquired distinction under Napoleon
+adhered generally to his fortunes, and tendered their
+resignations; in their place, a new group of Franco-Irish
+descendants of the old Brigades-men, began to show
+themselves in the _salons_ of Paris, and the Bureaus of
+the Ministers. The last swords drawn for "the legitimate
+branch" in '91, was by Count Dillon and his friend Count
+Wall; their last defender, in 1830, was General Wall, of
+the same family.
+
+Though the Irish in France, especially those resident at
+Paris, exercised the greatest influence in favour of
+their original country--an influence which met all
+travelled Englishmen, wherever the French language was
+understood--their compatriots in Spain and Austria had
+also contributed their share to range Continental opinion
+on the side of Ireland. Three times, during the century,
+Spain was represented at London by men of Irish birth,
+or Irish origin. The British merchant who found Alexander
+O'Reilly Governor of Cadiz, or the diplomatist who met
+him as Spanish ambassador, at the Court of Louis XVI.,
+could hardly look with uninstructed eyes, upon the lot
+of his humblest namesake in Cavan. This family, indeed,
+produced a succession of eminent men, both in Spain and
+Austria. "It is strange," observed Napoleon to those
+around him, on his second entry into Vienna, in 1809,
+"that on each occasion--in November, 1805, as this day
+--on arriving in the Austrian capital, I find myself in
+treaty and in intercourse with the respectable Count
+O'Reilly." Napoleon had other reasons for remembering
+this officer; it was his dragoon regiment which saved
+the remnant of the Austrians, at Austerlitz. In the
+Austrian army list at that period, when she was the ally
+of England, there were above forty Irish names, from the
+grading of Colonel up to that of Field-Marshal. In almost
+every field of the Peninsula, Wellington and Anglesea
+learned the value of George the Second's imprecation on
+the Penal Code, which deprived him of such soldiers as
+conquered at Fontenoy. It cannot be doubted that even
+the constant repetition of the names of the Blakes,
+O'Donnells, and Sarsfields, in the bulletins sent home
+to England, tended to enforce reflections of that
+description on the statesmen and the nation, and to
+inspirit and sustain the struggling Catholics. A powerful
+argument for throwing open the British army and navy to
+men of all religions, was drawn from these foreign
+experiences; and, if such men were worthy to hold
+military commissions, why not also to sit in Parliament,
+and on the Bench?
+
+The fortunes of the Irish in America, though less brilliant
+for the few, were more advantageous as to the many. They
+were, during the war of the revolution, and the war of
+1812, a very considerable element in the American republic.
+It was a violent exaggeration to say, as Lord Mountjoy
+did in moving for the repeal of the Penal laws, "that
+England lost America by Ireland;" but it is very certain
+that Washington placed great weight on the active aid of
+the gallant Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Southern Irish
+troops, and the sturdy Scotch-Irish of New Hampshire.
+Franklin, in his visit to Ireland, before the rupture,
+and Jefferson in his correspondence, always enumerates
+the Irish, as one element of reliance, in the contest
+between the Colonies and the Empire.
+
+In the immediate cause of the war of 1812, this people
+were peculiarly interested. If the doctrines of "the
+right of search" and "once a subject always a subject,"
+were to prevail, no Irish emigrant could hope to become
+--or having become, could hope to enjoy the protection
+of--an American citizen. It was, therefore, natural that
+men of that origin should take a deep interest in the
+war, and it seems something more than a fortuitous
+circumstance, when we find in the chairman of the Senatorial
+Committee of 1812, which authorized the President to
+raise the necessary levies--an Irish emigrant, John
+Smilie, and in the Secretary-at-war, who acted under the
+powers thus granted, the son of an Irish emigrant, John
+Caldwell Calhoun. On the Canadian frontier, during the
+war which followed, we find in posts of importance, Brady,
+Mullany, McComb, Croghan and Reilly; on the lakes,
+Commodore McDonough, and on the ocean, Commodores Shaw
+and Stewart--all Irish. On the Mississippi, another son
+of Irish emigrant parents, with his favourite lieutenants,
+Carroll, Coffee, and Butler, brought the war to a close
+by their brilliant defence of New Orleans. The moral of
+that victory was not lost upon England; the life of Andrew
+Jackson, with a dedication "to the People of Ireland"
+was published at London and Dublin, by the most generally
+popular writer of that day--William Cobbett.
+
+In the cause of South American independence, the Irish
+under O'Higgins and McKenna in Chili, and under Bolivar
+and San Martin in Colombia and Peru, were largely engaged,
+and honourably distinguished. Colonel O'Conor, nephew to
+Arthur, was San Martin's chief of the staff; General
+Devereux, with his Irish legion, rendered distinguished
+services to Bolivar and Don Bernardo. O'Higgins was hailed
+as the Liberator of Chili. During that long ten years'
+struggle, which ended with the evacuation of Carraccas
+in 1823, Irish names are conspicuous on almost every
+field of action. Bolivar's generous heart was warmly
+attached to persons of that nation. "The doctor who
+constantly attends him," says the English General, Miller,
+"is Dr. Moore, an Irishman, who had followed the Liberator
+from Venezuela to Peru. He is a man of great skill in
+his profession, and devotedly attached to the person of
+the Liberator. Bolivar's first aide-de-camp, Colonel
+O'Leary, is a nephew of the celebrated Father O'Leary.
+In 1818, he embarked, at the age of seventeen, in the
+cause of South American independence, in which he has
+served with high distinction, having been present at
+almost every general action fought in Colombia, and
+has received several wounds. He has been often employed
+on diplomatic missions, and in charges of great
+responsibility, in which he has always acquitted himself
+with great ability."
+
+That these achievements of the Irish abroad produced a
+favourable influence on the situation of the Irish at
+home, we know from many collateral sources; we know it
+also from the fact, that when O'Connell succeeded in
+founding a really national organization, subscriptions
+and words of encouragement poured in on him, not only
+from France, Spain, and Austria, but from North and South
+America, not only from the Irish residents in those
+countries, but from their native inhabitants--soldiers
+and statesmen--of the first consideration. The services
+and virtues of her distinguished children in foreign
+climes, stood to the mother country instead of treaties
+and alliances.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP--THE CATHOLIC ASSOCIATION--
+1821 TO 1826.
+
+At the beginning of the year 1821, O'Connell, during the
+intervals of Ms laborious occupations in court and on
+circuit, addressed a series of stirring letters to "the
+People of Ireland," remarkable as containing some of the
+best and most trenchant of his political writings. His
+object was to induce the postponement of the annual
+petition for Emancipation, and the substitution instead
+of a general agitation for Parliamentary reform, in
+conjunction with the English reformers. Against this
+conclusion--which he ridiculed "as the fashion for January,
+1821"--Mr. Shiel published a bitter, clever, rhetorical
+reply, to which O'Connell at once sent forth a severe
+and rather contemptuous rejoinder. Shiel was quite content
+to have Mr. Plunkett continue Grattan's annual motion,
+with all its "conditions" and "securities." O'Connell
+declared he had no hope in petitions except from a reformed
+Parliament, and he, therefore, was opposed to such motions
+altogether, especially as put by Mr. Plunkett, and the
+other advocates of a Veto. Another session was lost in
+this controversy, and when Parliament rose, it was
+announced that George IV. was coming to Ireland "on a
+mission of Conciliation."
+
+On this announcement, Mr. O'Connell advised that the
+Catholics should take advantage of his Majesty's presence
+to assemble and consider the state of their affairs; but
+a protest against "connecting in any manner the King's
+visit with Catholic affairs," was circulated by Lords
+Fingal, Netterville, Gormanstown, and Killeen, Messrs.
+Baggott, Shiel, Wyse, and other Commoners. O'Connell
+yielded, as he often did, for the sake of unanimity. The
+King's visit led to many meetings and arrangements, in
+some of which his advice was taken, while in others he
+was outvoted or overruled. Nothing could exceed the
+patience he exhibited at this period of his life, when
+his natural impetuous temperament was still far from
+being subdued by the frosts of age.
+
+Many liberal Protestants at this period--the King's brief
+visit--were so moved with admiration of the judicious
+and proper conduct of the Catholic leaders, that a new
+but short-lived organization, called "the Conciliation
+Committee," was formed. The ultra Orange zealots, however,
+were not to be restrained even by the presence of the
+Sovereign for whom they professed so much devotion. In
+the midst of the preparations for his landing, they
+celebrated, with all its offensive accompaniments, the
+12th of July, and at the Dublin dinner to the King--though
+after he had left the room--they gave their charter toast
+of "the glorious, pious, and immortal memory." The
+Committee of Conciliation soon dwindled away, and, like
+the visit of George IV., left no good result behind.
+
+The year 1822 was most remarkable, at its commencement,
+for the arrival of the Marquis of Wellesley, as
+Lord-Lieutenant, and at its close, for the assault
+committed on him in the theatre by the Dublin Orangemen.
+Though the Marquis had declined to interfere in preventing
+the annual Orange celebration, he was well known to be
+friendly to the Catholics; their advocate, Mr. Plunkett,
+was his Attorney General; and many of their leaders were
+cordially welcomed at the Castle. These proofs were
+sufficient for the secret tribunals which sat upon his
+conduct, and when his Lordship presented himself, on the
+night of the 14th of December, at the theatre, he was
+assailed by an organized mob, one of whom flung a heavy
+piece of wood, and another a quart bottle, towards the
+state box. Three Orangemen, mechanics, were arrested
+and tried for the offence, but acquitted on a technical
+defect of evidence; a general feeling of indignation was
+excited among all classes in consequence, and it is
+questionable if Orangeism, in Dublin, ever recovered the
+disgust occasioned by that dastardly outrage.
+
+The great and fortunate event, however, for the Catholics,
+was the foundation of their new Association, which was
+finally resolved upon at an Aggregate Meeting held in
+"Townsend Street Chapel," on the 10th of May, 1823. This
+meeting had been called by an imposing requisition signed
+with singular unanimity by all the principal Catholic
+gentlemen. Lord Killeen presided. Mr. O'Connell moved
+the formation of the Association; Sir Thomas Esmonde
+seconded the motion; Mr. Shiel--lately and sincerely
+reconciled to O'Connell--sustained it. The plan was simple
+and popular. The Association was to consist of members
+paying a guinea a year, and associates paying a shilling;
+a standing committee was to form the government; the
+regular meetings were to be weekly--every Saturday; and
+the business to consist of organization, correspondence,
+public discussions, and petitions. It was, in effect, to
+be a sort of extern and unauthorized Parliament, acting
+always within the Constitution, with a view to the
+modification of the existing laws, by means not prohibited
+in those laws themselves. It was a design, subtle in
+conception, but simple in form; a natural design for a
+lawyer-liberator to form; and for a people strongly
+prepossessed in his favour to adopt; but one, at the same
+time, which would require a rare combination of
+circumstances to sustain for any great length of time,
+under a leader less expert, inventive, and resolute.
+
+The Parliamentary position of the Catholic question, at
+the moment of the formation of the Association, had
+undergone another strange alteration. Lord Castlereagh,
+having attained the highest honours of the empire, died
+by his own hand the previous year. Lord Liverpool remained
+Premier, Lord Eldon Chancellor, Mr. Canning became Foreign
+Secretary, with Mr. Peel, Home Secretary, the Duke of
+Wellington continuing Master-General of the Ordnance. To
+this cabinet, so largely anti-Catholic, the chosen organ
+of the Irish Catholics, Mr. Plunkett, was necessarily
+associated as Irish Attorney General. His situation,
+therefore, was in the session of 1823 one of great
+difficulty; this Sir Francis Burdett and the radical
+reformers at once perceived, and in the debates which
+followed, pressed him unmercifully. They quoted against
+him his own language denouncing cabinet compromises on
+so vital a question, in 1813, and to show their indignation,
+when he rose to reply, they left the House in a body.
+His speech, as always, was most able, but the House, when
+he sat down, broke into an uproar of confusion. Party
+spirit ran exceedingly high; the possibility of advancing
+the question during the session was doubtful, and a motion
+to adjourn prevailed. A fortnight later, at the first
+meeting of the Catholic Association, a very cordial vote
+of thanks to Plunkett was carried by acclamation.
+
+The new Catholic organization was labouring hard to merit
+popular favour. Within the year of its organization we
+find the Saturday meetings engaged with such questions
+as church rates; secret societies; correspondence with
+members of both Houses; voting public thanks to Mr.
+Brougham; the penal laws relating to the rights of
+sepulture; the purchase of a Catholic cemetery near
+Dublin; the commutation of tithes; the admission of
+Catholic freemen into corporations; the extension of the
+Association into every county in Ireland, and other more
+incidental subjects. The business-like air of the weekly
+meetings, at this early period, is remarkable: they were
+certainly anything but mere occasions for rhetorical
+display. But though little could be objected against,
+and so much might be said in favour of the labours of
+the Association, it was not till nearly twelve months
+after its organization, when O'Connell proposed and
+carried his system of monthly penny subscriptions to the
+"Catholic Rent," that it took a firm and far-reaching
+hold on the common people, and began to excite the serious
+apprehensions of the oligarchical factions in Ireland
+and England.
+
+This bold, and at this time much ridiculed step, infused
+new life and a system hitherto unknown into the Catholic
+population. The parish collectors, corresponding directly
+with Dublin, established a local agency, co-extensive
+with the kingdom; the smallest contributor felt himself
+personally embarked in the contest; and the movement
+became, in consequence, what it had not been before, an
+eminently popular one. During the next six months the
+receipts from penny subscriptions exceeded 100 pounds
+sterling per month, representing 24,000 subscribers;
+during the next year they averaged above 500 pounds a
+week, representing nearly half a million enrolled
+Associates!
+
+With the additional means at the disposal of the Finance
+Committee of the Association, its power rose rapidly. A
+morning and an evening journal were at its command in
+Dublin; many thousands of pounds were expended in defending
+the people in the courts, and prosecuting their Orange
+and other enemies. Annual subsidies, of 5,000 pounds
+each, were voted for the Catholic Poor schools, and the
+education of missionary priests for America; the expenses
+of Parliamentary and electioneering agents were also
+heavy. But for all these purposes "the Catholic Rent,"
+of a penny per month from each associate, was found
+amply sufficient.
+
+At the close of 1824, the government, really alarmed at
+the formidable proportions assumed by the agitation,
+caused criminal informations to be filed against Mr.
+O'Connell, for an alleged seditious allusion to the
+example of Bolivar, the liberator of South America; but
+the Dublin grand jury ignored the bills of indictment
+founded on these informations. Early in the following
+session, however, a bill to suppress "Unlawful Associations
+in Ireland," was introduced by Mr. Goulburn, who had
+succeeded Sir Robert Peel as Chief Secretary, and was
+supported by Plunkett--a confirmed enemy of all extra-legal
+combinations. It was aimed directly at the Catholic
+Association, and passed both Houses; but O'Connell found
+means "to drive," as he said, "a coach and six through
+it." The existing Association dissolved on the passage
+of the act; another, called "the _New_ Catholic
+Association," was formed for "charitable and other
+purposes," and the agitators proceeded with their
+organization, with one word added to then--title, and
+immensely additional _eclat_ and success.
+
+In Parliament, the measure thus defeated was followed by
+another, the long-promised Relief Bill. It passed in the
+Commons in May, accompanied by two clauses, or as they
+were called, "wings," most unsatisfactory to the Catholic
+body. One clause disfranchised the whole class of electors
+known as the "forty-shilling freeholders;" the other
+provided a scale of state maintenance for the Catholic
+clergy. A bishop was to have 1,000 pounds per annum; a
+dean 300 pounds; a parish priest 200 pounds; a curate 60
+pounds. This measure was thrown out by the House of Lords,
+greatly to the satisfaction, at least, of the Irish
+Catholics. It was during this debate in the Upper House
+that the Duke of York, presumptive heir to the throne,
+made what was called his "ether speech"--from his habit
+of dosing himself with that stimulant on trying occasions.
+In this speech he declared, that so "help him God," he
+would never, never consent to acknowledge the claims put
+forward by the Catholics. Before two years were over,
+death had removed him to the presence of that Awful Being
+whose name he had so rashly invoked, and his brother,
+the Duke of Clarence, assumed his position, as next in
+succession to the throne.
+
+The Catholic delegates, Lord Killeen, Sir Thomas Esmonde,
+Lawless, and Shiel, were in London at the time the Duke
+of York made his memorable declaration. If, on the one
+hand, they were regarded with dislike amounting to hatred,
+on the other, they were welcomed with cordiality by all
+the leaders of the liberal party. The venerable Earl
+Fitzwilliam emerged from his retirement to do them honour;
+the gifted and energetic Brougham entertained them with
+all hospitality; at Norfolk House they were banqueted in
+the room in which George III. was born: the
+millionaire-demagogue Burdett, the courtly, liberal Lord
+Grey, and the flower of the Catholic nobility, were
+invited to meet them. The delegates were naturally cheered
+and gratified; they felt, they must have felt, that their
+cause had a grasp upon Imperial attention, which nothing
+but concession could ever loosen.
+
+Committees of both Houses, to inquire into the state of
+Ireland, had sat during a great part of this Session,
+and among the witnesses were the principal delegates,
+with Drs. Murray, Curtis, Kelly, and Doyle. The evidence
+of the latter--the eminent Prelate of Kildare and
+Leighlin--attracted most attention. His readiness of
+resource, clearness of statement, and wide range of
+information, inspired many of his questioners with a
+feeling of respect, such as they had never before
+entertained for any of his order. His writings had already
+made him honourably distinguished among literary men;
+his examination before the Committees made him equally
+so among statesmen. From that period he could reckon the
+Marquises of Anglesea and Wellesley, Lord Lansdowne and
+Mr. Brougham, among his correspondents and friends, and,
+what he valued even more, among the friends of his cause.
+Mr. O'Connell, on the other hand, certainly lost ground
+in Ireland by his London journey. He had, unquestionably,
+given his assent to both "wings," in 1825, as he did to
+the remaining one in 1828, and thereby greatly injured
+his own popularity. His frank and full recantation of
+his error, on his return, soon restored him to the favour
+of the multitude, and enabled him to employ, with the
+best effect, the enormous influence which he showed he
+possessed at the general elections of 1826. By him mainly
+the Beresfords were beaten in Waterford, the Fosters in
+Louth, and the Leslies in Monaghan. The independence of
+Limerick city, of Tipperary, Cork, Kilkenny, Longford,
+and other important constituencies, was secured. The
+parish machinery of the Association was found invaluable
+for the purpose of bringing up the electors, and the
+people's treasury was fortunately able to protect to some
+extent the fearless voter, who, in despite of his landlord,
+voted according to the dictates of his own heart.
+
+The effect of these elections on the empire at large was
+very great. When, early in the following spring, Lord
+Liverpool, after fifteen years' possession of power, died
+unexpectedly, George IV. sent for Canning and gave him
+_carte blanche_ to form a cabinet without excepting the
+question of Emancipation. That high spirited and really
+liberal statesman associated with himself a ministry,
+three-fourths of whom were in favour of granting the
+Catholic claims. This was in the month of April; but to
+the consternation of those whose hopes were now so justly
+raised, the gifted Premier held office only four months;
+his lamented death causing another "crisis," and one more
+postponement of "the Catholic question."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+O'CONNELL'S LEADERSHIP--THE CLARE ELECTION--EMANCIPATION
+OF THE CATHOLICS.
+
+A very little reflection will enable us to judge, even
+at this day, the magnitude of the contest in which
+O'Connell was the great popular leader, during the reign
+of George IV. In Great Britain, a very considerable
+section of the ancient peerage and gentry, with the Earl
+Marshal at their head, were to be restored to political
+existence, by the act of Emancipation; a missionary, and
+barely tolerated clergy were to be clothed, in their own
+country, with the commonest rights of British subjects
+--protection to life and property. In Ireland, seven-eighths
+of the people, one-third of the gentry, the whole of the
+Catholic clergy, the numerous and distinguished array of
+the Catholic bar, and all the Catholic townsmen, taxed
+but unrepresented in the corporate bodies, were to enter
+on a new civil and social condition, on the passage of
+the act. In the colonies, except Canada, where that church
+was protected by treaty, the change of Imperial policy
+towards Catholics was to be felt in every relation of
+life, civil, military, and ecclesiastical, by all persons
+professing that religion. Some years ago, a bishop of
+Southern Africa declared, that, until O'Connell's time, it
+was impossible for Catholics to obtain any consideration
+from the officials at the Cape of Good Hope. Could there
+be a more striking illustration of the magnitude of the
+movement, which, rising in the latitude of Ireland, flung
+its outermost wave of influence on the shores of the
+Indian ocean?
+
+The adverse hosts to be encountered in this great contest,
+included a large majority of the rank and wealth of both
+kingdoms. The King, who had been a Whig in his youth,
+had grown into a Tory in his old age; the House of Lords
+were strongly hostile to the measure, as were also the
+universities, both in England and Ireland; the Tory party,
+in and out of Parliament; the Orange organization in
+Ireland; the civil and military authorities generally,
+with the great bulk of the rural magistracy and the
+municipal authorities. The power to overcome this power
+should be indeed formidable, well organized and wisely
+directed.
+
+The Lord Lieutenant selected by Mr. Canning, was the
+Marquis of Anglesea, a frank soldier, as little accustomed
+to play the politician as any man of his order and
+distinction could be. He came to Ireland, in many respects
+the very opposite of Lord Wellesley; no orator certainly,
+and so far as he had spoken formerly, an enemy rather
+than a friend to the Catholics. But he had not been
+three months in office when he began to modify his views;
+he was the first to prohibit, in Dublin, the annual Orange
+outrage on the 12th of July, and by subsequent, though
+slow degrees, he became fully convinced that the Catholic
+claims could be settled only by Concession. Lord Francis
+Leveson Gower, afterwards Earl of Ellesmere, accompanied
+the Marquis as Chief Secretary.
+
+The accession to office of a prime minister friendly to
+the Catholics, was the signal for a new attempt to raise
+that "No-Popery" cry which had already given twenty years
+of political supremacy to Mr. Perceval and Lord Liverpool.
+In Ireland, this feeling appeared under the guise of what
+was called "the New Reformation," which, during the summer
+of 1827, raged with all the proverbial violence of the
+_odium theologicum_ from Cork to Derry. Priests and
+parsons, laymen and lawyers, took part in this general
+politico-religious controversy, in which every possible
+subject of difference between Catholic and Protestant
+was publicly discussed. Archbishop Magee of Dublin, the
+Rev. Sir Harcourt Lees, son of a former English placeman
+at the Castle, and the Rev. Mr. Pope, were the clerical
+leaders in this crusade; Exeter-Hall sent over to assist
+them the Honourable and Reverend Baptist Noel, Mr. Wolff,
+and Captain Gordon, a descendant of the hero of the London
+riot of 1798. At Derry, Dublin, Carlow, and Cork, the
+challenged agreed to defend their doctrines. Father
+Maginn, Maguire, Maher, McSweeney, and some others accepted
+these challenges; Messrs. O'Connell, Shiel, and other
+laymen, assisted, and the oral discussion of theological
+and historical questions became as common as town talk
+in every Irish community. Whether, in any case, these
+debates conduced to conversion is doubtful; but they
+certainly supplied the Catholic laity with a body of
+facts and arguments very necessary at that time, and
+which hardly any other occasion could have presented.
+The Right Rev. Dr. Doyle, however, considered them far
+from beneficial to the cause of true religion; and though
+he tolerated a first discussion in his diocese, he
+positively forbade a second. The Archbishop of Armagh
+and other prelates issued their mandates to the clergy
+to refrain from these oral disputes, and the practice
+fell into disuse.
+
+The notoriety of "the Second Reformation" was chiefly
+due to the ostentatious patronage of it by the lay chiefs
+of the Irish oligarchy. Mr. Synge, in Clare, Lord Lorton,
+and Mr. McClintock at Dundalk, were indefatigable in
+their evangelizing exertions. The Earl of Roden--to show
+his entire dependence on the translated Bible--threw all
+his other books into a fish pond on his estate. Lord
+Farnham was even more conspicuous in the revival; he
+spared neither patronage nor writs of ejectment to convert
+his tenantry. The reports of conversions upon his lordship's
+estates, and throughout his county, attracted so much
+notice, that Drs. Curtis, Crolly, Magauran, O'Reilly,
+and McHale, met on the 9th of December, 1826, at Cavan,
+to inquire into the facts. They found, while there had
+been much exaggeration on the part of the reformers, that
+some hundreds of the peasantry had, by various powerful
+temptations, been led to change their former religion.
+The bishops received back some of the converts, and a
+jubilee established among them completed their reconversion.
+The Hon. Mr. Noel and Captain Gordon posted to Cavan,
+with a challenge to discussion for their lordships; of
+course, their challenge was not accepted. Thomas Moore's
+inimitable satire was the most effective weapon against
+such fanatics.
+
+The energetic literature of the Catholic agitation
+attracted much more attention than its oral polemics.
+Joined to a bright army of Catholic writers, including
+Dr. Doyle, Thomas Moore, Thomas Furlong, and Charles
+Butler, there was the powerful phalanx of the _Edinburgh
+Review_ led by Jeffrey and Sidney Smith, and the English
+liberal press, headed by William Cobbett. Thomas Campbell,
+the Poet of Hope, always and everywhere the friend of
+freedom, threw open his _New Monthly_, to Shiel, and
+William Henry Curran, whose sketches of the Irish Bar
+and Bench, of Dublin politics, and the county elections
+of 1826, will live as long as any periodical papers of
+the day. The indefatigable Shiel, writing French as
+fluently as English, contributed besides to the _Gazette
+de France_ a series of papers, which were read with great
+interest on the Continent. These articles were the
+precursors of many others, which made the Catholic question
+at length an European question. An incident quite
+unimportant in itself, gave additional zest to these
+French articles. The Duke de Montebello, with two of his
+friends, Messrs. Duvergier and Thayer, visited Ireland
+in 1826. Duvergier wrote a series of very interesting
+letters on the "State of Ireland," which, at the time,
+went through several editions. At a Catholic meeting at
+Ballinasloe, the Duke had some compliments paid him,
+which he gracefully acknowledged, expressing his wishes
+for the success of their cause. This simple act excited
+a great deal of criticism in England. The Paris press
+was roused in consequence, and the French Catholics,
+becoming more and more interested, voted an address and
+subscription to the Catholic Association. The Bavarian
+Catholics followed their example, and similar communications
+were received from Spain and Italy.
+
+But the movement abroad did not end in Europe. An address
+from British India contained a contribution of three
+thousand pounds sterling. From the West Indies and Canada,
+generous assistance was rendered.
+
+In the United States sympathetic feeling was most active.
+New York felt almost as much interested in the cause as
+Dublin. In 1826 and 1827, associations of "Friends of
+Ireland" were formed at New York, Boston, Washington,
+Norfolk, Charleston, Augusta, Louisville, and Bardstown.
+Addresses in English and French were prepared for these
+societies, chiefly by Dr. McNevin, at New York, and
+Bishop England, at Charleston. The American, like the
+French press, became interested in the subject, and
+eloquent allusions were made to it in Congress. On the
+20th of January, 1828, the veteran McNevin wrote to Mr.
+O'Connell--"Public opinion in America is deep, and strong,
+and universal, in your behalf. This predilection prevails
+over the broad bosom of our extensive continent.
+Associations similar to ours are everywhere starting into
+existence--in our largest and wealthiest cities--in our
+hamlets and our villages--in our most remote sections;
+and at this moment, the propriety of convening, at
+Washington, delegates of the friends of Ireland, of all
+the states, is under serious deliberation. A fund will
+erelong be derived from American patriotism in the United
+States, which will astonish your haughtiest opponents."
+
+The Parliamentary fortunes of the great question were at
+the same time brightening. The elections of 1826, had,
+upon the whole, given a large increase of strength to
+its advocates. In England and Scotland, under the influence
+of the "No-Popery" cry, they had lost some ground, but
+in Ireland they had had an immense triumph. The death of
+the generous-hearted Canning, hastened as it was by
+anti-Catholic intrigues, gave a momentary check to the
+progress of liberal ideas; but they were retarded only
+to acquire a fresh impulse destined to bear them, in the
+next few years, farther than they had before advanced in
+an entire century.
+
+The _ad interim_ administration of Lord Goderich gave
+way, by its own internal discords, in January, 1828, to
+the Wellington and Peel administration. The Duke was
+Premier, the Baronet leader of the House of Commons; with
+Mr. Huskisson, Lord Palmerston, in the cabinet; Lord
+Anglesea remained as Lord Lieutenant. But this coalition
+with the friends of Canning was not destined to outlive
+the session of 1828; the lieutenants of the late Premier
+were doomed, for some time longer, to suffer for their
+devotion to his principles.
+
+This session of 1828, is--in the history of religious
+liberty--the most important and interesting in the annals
+of the British Parliament. Almost at its opening, the
+extraordinary spectacle was exhibited of a petition signed
+by 800,000 Irish Catholics, praying for the repeal of
+"the Corporation and Test Acts," enacted on the restoration
+of Charles II., against the non-Conformists. Monster
+petitions, both for and against the repeal of these acts,
+as well as for and against Catholic emancipation, soon
+became of common occurrence. Protestants of all sects
+petitioned for, but still more petitioned against equal
+rights for Catholics; while Catholics petitioned for the
+rights of Protestant dissenters. It is a spectacle to
+look back upon with admiration and instruction; exhibiting
+as it does, so much of a truly tolerant spirit in Christians
+of all creeds, worthy of all honour and imitation.
+
+In April, "the Corporation and Test Acts" were repealed;
+in May, the Canningites seceded from the Duke's government,
+and one of the gentlemen brought in to fill a vacant seat
+in the Cabinet--Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, member for Clare--
+issued his address to his electors, asking a renewal of
+their confidence. Out of this event grew another, which
+finally and successfully brought to an issue the century-old
+Catholic question.
+
+The Catholic Association, on the accession of the
+Wellington-Peel Cabinet, had publicly pledged itself to
+oppose every man who would accept office under these
+statesmen. The memory of both as ex-secretaries--but
+especially Peel's--was odious in Ireland. When, however,
+the Duke had sustained, and ensured thereby the passage
+of the repeal of "the Corporation and Test Acts," Mr.
+O'Connell, at the suggestion of Lord John Russell the
+mover of the repeal, endeavoured to get his angry and
+uncompromising resolution against the Duke's government
+rescinded. Powerful as he was, however, the Association
+refused to go with him, and the resolution remained. So
+it happened that when Mr. Fitzgerald presented himself
+to the electors of Clare, as the colleague of Peel and
+Wellington, the Association at once endeavoured to bring
+out an opposition candidate. They pitched with this view
+on Major McNamara, a liberal Protestant of the county,
+at the head of one of its oldest families, and personally
+popular; but this gentleman, after keeping them several
+days in suspense, till the time of nomination was close
+at hand, positively declined to stand against his friend,
+Mr. Fitzgerald, to the great dismay of the associated
+Catholics.
+
+In their emergency, an idea, so bold and original, that
+it was at first received with general incredulity by the
+external public, was started. It was remembered by Sir
+David De Roose, a personal friend of O'Connell's, that
+the late sagacious John Keogh had often declared the
+Emancipation question would never be brought to an issue
+till some Catholic member elect stood at the bar of the
+House of Commons demanding his seat. A trusted few were
+at first consulted on the daring proposition, that
+O'Connell himself, in despite of the legal exclusion of
+all men of his religion, should come forward for Clare.
+Many were the consultations, and diverse the judgments
+delivered on this proposal, but at length, on the reception
+of information from the county itself, which gave strong
+assurance of success, the hero of the adventure decided
+for himself. The bold course was again selected as the
+wise course, and the spirit-stirring address of "the
+arch-Agitator" to the electors, was at once issued from
+Dublin. "Your county," he began by saying, "wants a
+representative. I respectfully solicit your suffrages,
+to raise me to that station.
+
+"Of my qualification to fill that station, I leave you
+to judge. The habits of public speaking, and many, many
+years of public business, render me, perhaps, equally
+suited with most men to attend to the interests of Ireland
+in Parliament.
+
+"You will be told I am not qualified to be elected; the
+assertion, my friends, is untrue. I am qualified to be
+elected, and to be your representative. It is true that
+as a Catholic I cannot, and of course never will, take
+the oaths at present prescribed to members of Parliament;
+but the authority which created these oaths (the
+Parliament), can abrogate them: and I entertain a confident
+hope that, if you elect me, the most bigoted of our
+enemies will see the necessity of removing from the
+chosen representative of the people an obstacle which
+would prevent him from doing his duty to his king and
+to his country."
+
+This address was followed instantly by the departure of
+all the most effective agitators to the scene of the
+great contest. Shiel went down as conducting agent for
+the candidate; Lawless left his Belfast newspaper, and
+Father Maguire his Leitrim flock; Messrs. Steele and
+O'Gorman Mahon, both proprietors in the county, were
+already in the field, and O'Connell himself soon followed.
+On the other hand, the leading county families, the
+O'Briens, McNamaras, Vandeleurs, Fitzgeralds and others,
+declared for their old favourite, Mr. Fitzgerald. He was
+personally much liked in the county; the son of a venerable
+anti-Unionist, the well-remembered Prime Sergeant, and
+a man besides of superior abilities. The county itself
+was no easy one to contest; its immense constituency (the
+40-shilling freeholders had not yet been abolished), were
+scattered over a mountain and valley region, more than
+fifty miles long by above thirty wide. They were almost
+everywhere to be addressed in both languages--English
+and Irish--and when the canvass was over, they were still
+to be brought under the very eyes of the landlords, upon
+the breath of whose lips their subsistence depended, to
+vote the overthrow and conquest of those absolute masters.
+The little county town of Ennis, situated on the river
+Fergus, about 110 miles south-west of Dublin, was the
+centre of attraction or of apprehension, and the hills
+that rise on either side of the little prosaic river soon
+swarmed with an unwonted population, who had resolved,
+subsist how they might, to see the election out. It is
+hardly an exaggeration to say that the eyes of the empire
+were turned, during those days of June, on the ancient
+patrimony of King Brian. "I fear the Clare election will
+end ill," wrote the Viceroy to the leader of the House
+of Commons. "This business," wrote the Lord Chancellor
+(Eldon), "must bring the Roman Catholic question to a
+crisis and a conclusion." "May the God of truth and
+justice protect and prosper you," was the public invocation
+for O'Connell's success, by the bishop of Kildare and
+Leighlin. "It was foreseen," said Sir Robert Peel, long
+afterwards, "that the Clare election would be the turning
+point of the Catholic question." In all its aspects, and
+to all sorts of men, this, then, was no ordinary election,
+but a national event of the utmost religious and political
+consequence. Thirty thousand people welcomed O'Connell
+into Ennis, and universal sobriety and order characterized
+the proceedings. The troops called out to overawe the
+peasantry, infected by the prevailing good humour, joined
+in their cheers. The nomination, the polling, and the
+declaration, have been described by the graphic pen of
+Shiel. At the close of the poll the numbers were--O'Connell,
+2,057; Fitzgerald, 1,075; so Daniel O'Connell was declared
+duly elected, amidst the most extraordinary manifestations
+of popular enthusiasm. Mr. Fitzgerald, who gracefully
+bowed to the popular verdict, sat down, and wrote his
+famous despatch to Sir Robert Peel: "All the great
+interests," he said, "my dear Peel, broke down, and the
+desertion has been universal. Such a scene as we have
+had! Such a tremendous prospect as is open before us!"
+
+This "tremendous prospect," disclosed at the hustings of
+Ennis, was followed up by demonstrations which bore a
+strongly revolutionary character. Mr. O'Connell, on his
+return to Dublin, was accompanied by a _levee en masse_,
+all along the route, of a highly imposing description.
+Mr. Lawless, on his return to Belfast, was escorted
+through Meath and Monaghan by a multitude estimated at
+100,000 men, whom only the most powerful persuasions of
+the Catholic clergy, and the appeals of the well-known
+liberal commander of the district, General Thornton,
+induced to disperse. Troops from England were ordered
+over in considerable numbers, but whole companies, composed
+of Irish Catholics, signalized their landing at Waterford
+and Dublin by cheers for O'Connell. Reports of the
+continued hostility of the government suggested desperate
+councils. Mr. Ford, a Catholic solicitor, openly proposed,
+in the Association, exclusive dealing and a run on the
+banks for specie, while Mr. John Claudius Beresford, and
+other leading Orangemen, publicly predicted a revival of
+the scenes and results of 1798.
+
+The Clare election was, indeed, decisive; Lord Anglesea,
+who landed fully resolved to make no terms with those he
+had regarded from a distance as no better than rebels,
+became now one of their warmest partisans. His favourite
+counsellor was Lord Cloncurry, the early friend of Emmet
+and O'Conor; the true friend to the last of every national
+interest. For a public letter to Bishop Curtis, towards
+the close of 1828, in which he advises the Catholics to
+stand firm, he was immediately recalled from the government;
+but his former and his actual chief, within three months
+from the date of his recall, was equally obliged to
+surrender to the Association. The great duke was, or
+affected to be, really alarmed for the integrity of the
+empire, from the menacing aspect of events in Ireland.
+A call of Parliament was accordingly made for an early
+day, and, on the 5th of March, Mr. Peel moved a committee
+of the whole House, to go into a "consideration of the
+civil disabilities of his Majesty's Roman Catholic
+subjects." This motion, after two days' debate, was
+carried by a majority of 188. On the 10th of March the
+Relief Bill was read for the first time, and passed
+without opposition, such being the arrangement entered
+into while in committee. But in five days all the bigotry
+of the land had been aroused; nine hundred and fifty-seven
+petitions had already been presented against it; that
+from the city of London was signed by more than "an
+hundred thousand freeholders." On the 17th of March it
+passed to a second reading, and on the 30th to a third,
+with large majorities in each stage of debate. Out of
+320 members who voted on the final reading, 178 were in
+its favour. On the 31st of March it was carried to the
+Lords by Mr. Peel, and read a first time; two days later,
+on the 2nd of April, it was read a second time, on motion
+of the Duke of Wellington; a bitterly contested debate
+of three days followed; on the 10th, it was read a third
+time, and passed by a majority of 104. Three days later
+the bill received the royal assent, and became law.
+
+The only drawbacks on this--great measure of long-withheld
+justice, were, that it disfranchised the "forty-shilling
+freeholders" throughout Ireland, and condemned Mr.
+O'Connell, by the insertion of the single word "hereafter,"
+to go back to Clare for re-election. In this there was
+little difficulty for him, but much petty spleen in the
+framers of the measure.
+
+While the Relief Bill was still under discussion, Mr.
+O'Connell presented himself, with his counsel, at the
+bar of the House of Commons, to claim his seat as member
+for Clare. The pleadings in the case were adjourned from
+day to day, during the months of March, April, and May.
+A committee of the House, of which Lord John Russell was
+Chairman, having been appointed in the meantime to consider
+the petition of Thomas Mahon and others, against the
+validity of the election, reported that Mr. O'Connell
+had been duly elected. On the 15th of May, introduced by
+Lords Ebrington and Duncannon, the new member entered
+the House, and advanced to the table to be sworn by the
+Clerk. On the oath of abjuration being tendered to him,
+he read over audibly these words--"that the sacrifice of
+the mass, and the invocation of the blessed Virgin Mary,
+and other saints, as now practised in the Church of Rome,
+are impious and idolatrous:" at the subsequent passage,
+relative to the falsely imputed Catholic "doctrine of
+the dispensing power" of the Pope, he again read aloud,
+and paused. Then slightly raising his voice, he bowed,
+and added, "I decline, Mr. Clerk, to take this oath.
+Part of it I know to be false; another part I do not
+believe to be true."
+
+He was subsequently heard at the bar, in his own person,
+in explanation of his refusal to take the oath, and,
+according to custom, withdrew. The House then entered
+into a very animated discussion on the Solicitor General's
+motion "that Mr. O'Connell, having been returned a member
+of this House before the passing of the Act for the Relief
+of the Roman Catholics, he is not entitled to sit or vote
+in this House unless he first takes the oath of supremacy."
+For this motion the vote on a division was 190 against
+116: majority, 74. So Mr. O'Connell had again to seek
+the suffrages of the electors of Clare.
+
+A strange, but well authenticated incident, struck with
+a somewhat superstitious awe both Protestants and Catholics,
+in a corner of Ireland the most remote from Clare, but
+not the least interested in the result of its memorable
+election. A lofty column on the walls of Deny bore the
+effigy of Bishop Walker, who fell at the Boyne, armed
+with a sword, typical of his martial inclinations, rather
+than of his religious calling. Many long years, by day
+and night, had his sword, sacred to liberty or ascendancy,
+according to the eyes with which the spectator regarded
+it, turned its steadfast point to the broad estuary of
+Lough Foyle. Neither wintry storms nor summer rains had
+loosened it in the grasp of the warlike churchman's
+effigy, until, on the 13th day of April, 1829--the day
+the royal signature was given to the Act of Emancipation
+--the sword of Walker fell with a prophetic crash upon
+the ramparts of Derry, and was shattered to pieces. So,
+we may now say, without bitterness and almost without
+reproach, so may fall and shiver to pieces, every code,
+in every land beneath the sun, which impiously attempts
+to shackle conscience, or endows an exclusive caste with
+the rights and franchises which belong to an entire People!
+
+
+
+END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Popular History of Ireland
+by Thomas D'Arcy McGee
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A POPULAR HISTORY OF IRELAND ***
+
+This file should be named 6634.txt or 6634.zip
+
+This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan with help from
+Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
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