1564 CHAP XI pation of the terms on which he was likely to find himself with Elizabeth, he contrived to renew an acquaintance which he had commenced in England with Shan O'Neil. The friendship of a buccaneer who was growing rich on Spanish plunder might have seemed inconvenient to a chief who had offered Ireland as a fief to Philip; but Shan was not particular: Philip had as yet shown but a cold interest in Irish rebellion, and Stukely filled his cellars with sherry from Cadiz, amused him with his magniloquence, and was useful to him by his real dexterity and courage. So fond Shan became of him that he had the impertinence to write to Elizabeth in favour 'of that his so dearly loved friend and her Majesty's worthy subject,' with whom he was grieved to hear that her Majesty was displeased. He could not but believe that she had been misinformed; but if indeed so good and gallant a gentleman had given her cause of offence, Shan entreated that her Majesty, for his sake and in the name of the services which he had himself rendered to England, would graciously pardon him; and he, with Stukely for a friend and confidant, would make Ireland such as Ireland never was since the world began.' The Irish bishops. Among so many mischiefs 'religion' was naturally in a bad way. The lords and gentlemen of the Pale went habitually to mass." The Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment controversy. Adam Loftus, the titular Primate, to whom sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken skeletons crawling about the fields were matters of every-day indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice. Robert Daly 3 1 Shan O'Neil to Elizabeth, June 18, 1565.—Irish MSS. Rolls House. 2 Adam Loftus to Elizabeth, May 17.-MS. Ibid. 3 Adam Loftus to Cecil, July 16.-MS. Ibid. wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the countenance CHAP XI to 'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a 1565 persecution which he had happily commenced.' Some kind of shame was felt by statesmen in England at the condition in which Ireland continued. do anything real towards amending it, they sketched out among them about this time a scheme for a more effective government. The idea of the division of the country into separate presidencies lay at the bottom of whatever hopes they felt for an improved order of things. So long as the authority of the sovereign was represented only by a Deputy residing at Dublin, with a few hundred ragged marauders called by courtesy the army,' the Irish chiefs would continue, like O'Neil, to be virtually independent; while by recognizing the reality of a power which could not be taken from them, the English Government could deprive them of their principal motive for repudiating their allegiance. The aim of the Tudor sovereigns had been from the Irish policy first to introduce into Ireland the feudal administration of the Tudor sovereigus. 1 The bruit of the alteration in religion is so talked of here among the Papists, and they so triumph upon the same, it would grieve any good Christian heart to hear of their rejoicing; yea, in so much that my Lord Primate, my Lord of Meath, and I, being the Queen's commissioners in ecclesiastical causes, dare not be so bold now in executing our commissions in ecclesiastical causes as we have been to this time. To what end this talk will grow I am not able to say. I fear it will grow to the great contempt of the Gospel and of the ministers of the same, except that spark be extinguished before it grow to flame. The occasion is that certain learned men 1565 Irish re form. CHAP XI of the English counties; they had laboured to persuade the chiefs to hold their lands under the Crown, with the Project for obligations which landed tenures in England were supposed always to carry with them. The large owner of the soil to the extent that his lordship extended, was in the English theory the ruler of its inhabitants-magistrate from the nature of his position, and representative of the majesty of the Crown. Again and again they had endeavoured to convince the Irish that order was better than anarchy; that their faction fights, their murders, their petty wars and robberies, were a scandal to them; that till they could amend their ways they were no better than savages. Fair measures and foul had alike failed so far. Once more a project was imagined of some possible reformation, which might succeed at least on paper. In the system which was at last to bring a golden age to Ireland, the four provinces were to be governed each by a separate president and council. Every county was to have its sheriff; and the Irish noblemen and gentlemen were to become the guardians of the law which they had so long defied. The poor should no longer be oppressed by the great; and the wrongs which they had groaned under so long should be put an end to for ever by their own Parliament. No poor persons should be compelled any more to work or labour by the day or otherwise without meat, drink, wages, or some other allowance during the time of their labour;' no 'earth-tillers, nor any others inhabiting a dwelling under any lord should be distrained or punished in body or goods for the faults of their landlord; nor any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial, by Parliamentary attainder, according to the antient laws of England and Ireland.' Noble provisions were pictured out for the rebuilding of the 1565 ruined churches at the Queen's expense, with twelve CHAP XI free grammar schools,' where the Irish youth should grow into civility, and 'twelve hospitals for aged and impotent folk.' A University should be founded in Elizabeth's name, and endowed with lands at Elizabeth's cost; and the devisers of all these things, warming with their project, conceived the Irish nation accepting willingly a reformed religion, in which there should be no more pluralities, no more abuse of patronage, no more neglect, or idleness, or profligacy. The bishops of the Church of Ireland were to be chosen among those who had risen from the Irish schools through the Irish University. The masters of the grammar schools should teach the boys 'the New Testament, Paul's Epistles, and David's Psalms, in Latin, that they being infants might savour of the same in age, as an old cask doth of its first liquor.' In every parish from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, there should be a true servant of God for a pastor, who would bring up the children born in the same in the knowledge of the Creeds, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the Catechism; 'the children to be brought to the Bishop for confirmation at seven years of age, if they could repeat them, or else to be rejected by the Bishop that time with reproach to their parents." Here was an ideal Ireland, painted on the retina of some worthy English minister; but the real Ireland was still the old place: as it was in the days of Brian Boroihme and the Danes, so it was in the days of Shan O'Neil and Sir Nicholas Arnold; and the Queen who was to found all these fine institutions cared chiefly to` burden her exchequer no further in the vain effort to 1 Device for the better government of Ireland.--Irish MSS. Rolls House. CHAP XI drain the black Irish morass-fed as it was from the 1565 perennial fountains of Irish nature. Three The Pope might have been better contented with the condition of his children: yet he too had his grounds of disquiet, and was not wholly satisfied with Shan, or with Shan's rough-riding Primate. A nuncio had resided secretly for four years at Limerick, who from time to time sent information of the state of the people to Rome; and at last an aged priest named Creagh, who in past days had known Charles the Fifth, and had been employed by him in relieving English Catholic exiles, went over with letters from the nuncio recommending the Pope to refuse to recognize the appointment of Terence Daniel to the Primacy, and to substitute Creagh in his place. The old man, according to his own story, was unambitious of dignity, and would have preferred 'to enter religion' and end his days in a monastery. The Pope however decided otherwise. Creagh was consecrated Archbishop of Armagh in the Sistine Chapel, and was sent back to serve among those barbarous, wild, uncivil folk,' taking with him a letter from Pius to Shan O'Neil, whom he did not know whether to repute for his foe or his friend.' Thus Ireland had three competing Primates: Adam Loftus, the nominee of Elizabeth; Shan's Archbishop, Terence Daniel; and Creagh, sent by the Pope. The latter however had the misfortune to pass through London on his way home, where Cecil heard of him. He was seized and sent to the Tower, where he lay in great misery, cold, and hunger,' 'without a penny,' 'without the means of getting his single shirt washed, and without gown or hose.' The poor old man petitioned to be let go to teach youth.' 'He would do it for nothing,' he said, as he had |