and menaced the existence of the English colony in Ireland. The greater proprietors had begun to absent themselves from their Irish estates, and the native chiefs had not only to a great extent resumed the possession of the territories which they or their fathers had anciently held, but were even enabled to exact from the English no small revenue, as the price of forbearance and protection.

The settlers, in this state of things, were loud in petition and remonstrance; and various well-directed, but unfortunate or insufficient remedies were tried. It is unnecessary to dwell on the successive nominations of governors who did not govern, or whose short sojourn had no result that can be called historical. The administration of Sir Philip Dagworth might be expanded into a frightful picture of oppression and extortion, under the sanction of authority. But unhappily we want no such examples. The earl of Oxford was appointed with kingly powers, and for a time governed by his deputies.

Sir John Stanley was next deputy, and was followed by the earl of Ormonde. Both conducted the confused and sinking interests of the country with prudence and spirit; and the consequences were such as to exemplify the important necessity of the presence of such men. The powerful O'Niall soon surrendered, and entered into engagements of submission and loyalty.

These advantages were not equivalent to their cost. Applications for money on the pretence of Irish affairs, became a grievance, and the subject of frequent remonstrance. On the other hand, the petitions of the Irish became louder and more urgent. The duke of Gloucester volunteered his services; they were accepted. Preparations were made; and, from the weight of the duke's character, for spirit and ability, the best consequences were not unreasonably anticipated. But suddenly, when all was ready, the king announced his intention to undertake the expedition in person. This resolution has been attributed by some writers to fear of the talent and ambition of his uncle, by others, with more apparent justice, to mortified vanity. His application to be elected emperor of Germany, drew from the electors a charge of incapacity; they refused to weigh the claims of a prince who could not recover the dominions of his ancestors in France. Richard was resolved to repel the imputation by heroic enterprise, but discreetly selected Ireland as a field more appropriate to his abilities. Ample preparations were made; and, in October, 1394, he landed at Waterford, with four thousand men at arms and thirty thousand archers, an army sufficient, in competent hands and with rightly aimed intentions, to place the fortunes of Ireland on the level of a secure and prosperous progress to civil tranquillity, order, and liberty. He was attended by the duke of Gloucester, the earls of Rutland, Nottingham, and other persons of distinction and rank.

Resistance was, of course, not for a moment contemplated. The Irish chiefs contended in the alacrity and humility of their submission; but there was no presiding wisdom in the councils of Richard—all the ability was on one side. The chiefs made ostentatious concessions of all that was required, but which really amounted to nothing. Truth and the faith of treaties were wanting. They proposed to do homage, to pay tribute, and to keep the peace; and these specious offers

satisfied the feeble understanding of Richard. This weak and vain monarch-softened by their flatteries and seeming submission, and impatient to secure a nominal advantage-shut out from his mind the whole experience of the past, which left no shadow of doubt on the absurdity of any hope that such pledges would be regarded a moment after they could be broken with impunity. The supposition that they were sincere was an unpardonable imbecility. The stern and clearsighted father of this infatuated prince would, under the same circumstances, have at once seen and consulted the interests of both English and Irish, and acted with a just and merciful rigour. He would have flung aside with merited disregard, the artful offers of a pretended submission, and for ever placed it beyond the power of any chief or baron to enact the crimes of royalty on the scale and stage of plunderers. Instead of receiving pledges, he would have dismembered territories extensive beyond any object but military power. Whether or not, in effecting this essential object, this rigorous king would have consulted expediency without regard to justice, we cannot determine; but of this we are convinced, that the measure required might have been effected without any wrong. It would be easy to show, that a distinction between actual property available for domestic, social, and personal expenditure, and extensive territorial and fiscal jurisdiction, might have been made the basis of a settlement as equitable as the intent of the king might have admitted. The policy of Edward would, it is probable, have secured the prosperity and peace of the country, on a surer, though, according to our view, less equitable basis, by allotting the estates of those robber kings to English settlers. But whatever view a more deep consideration of the state of affairs might have suggested, one thing admits of no question. The territorial jurisdiction of the Irish chiefs was equally inconsistent with the improvement of the Irish, or the peace of their English neighbours. It was a state equally incompatible with progress or civil order; and although it may be made a question, what right a nation has to invade the country of another, under any circumstances but retaliation—yet it is a question, which, if not rendered absurd by the history of every civilized nation, is surely set at rest by established tenure. The English colony was settled not merely by usurpation, but on the faith of treaties and voluntary cessions, as well as cessions by conquest; claim which it had to its possessions, was not inferior to any other. Considering this, there can be no doubt, according to the severest view of national equity, that a neighbouring territory, existing in a state of continued aggression, assuming the rights of forcible exaction, could have no claim to any justice but that which resistance and the privileges of armed interference give. Such privileges are rigidly commensurate with the necessity of the case.

the

The occasion was one which admitted of a just and lenient policy, and such alone seems to us to have been called for. The whole nation might have been reduced to one policy and government, and all its factious chiefs deprived of the very name of power. It is easy to see and point out the disadvantages to be apprehended from any course; but it was a time pregnant with change and the seeds of change, and the question which lay open, was the settlement most likely to put an

end to disorder and secure permanent good. An occasion was lost which could never come, unless with the most deplorable train of national calamities. In a state of order, it is unsafe and unjust to tamper with the rights of persons-the error of modern times: rebellion, which is a state of crime against established rights, is attended by the forfeiture of all right, and war is attended by the rights of conquest; on either supposition, it was the time to enforce these rights for the common good.

The Irish chiefs made such specious excuses, as are always ready for credulous ears, and offered submission in every form. They did homage on their knees-unarmed, uncovered, and ungirdled, and received the kiss of peace from the lord marshall. They resigned all lands which they held in Leinster, pledged themselves to military service, and were bound by indenture to adhere to the treaty thus made. But the weak king engaged to pay them pensions, and gave them leave to make conquests among "his enemies in other provinces," thus annulling the little value of this nugatory agreement. Seventyfive little kings thus submitted, all of whom were the absolute despots of their own small dominions, and spent their lives in the business of petty wars and depredations.

Richard, fully satisfied with his exploits, completed the favourable impression which his power and magnificence had made, by holding his court in Dublin. There he indulged his vanity in a weak and profuse luxury. The Irish chiefs flocked to his court, where they were received with ostentatious kindness; and disguised their wonder and admiration, by a well-assumed deportment of grave and haughty dignity. Four of the principal chiefs were, with some difficulty, prevailed on to allow themselves to be knighted. They expressed surprise that it could be thought that they could receive additional honour from a ceremony which they had undergone in their youth, after the manner of their fathers. O'Niall, O'Conor, O'Brian, and M'Murchard, were induced to submit to receive the honour in due form from king Richard. On these, knighthood—then the most honourable distinction, though now sadly fallen from its rank-was solemnly conferred in St Patrick's cathedral; after which they were feasted, in their ceremonial robes, by the king.

Richard was immediately after obliged to return to England. The Irish chiefs were urged to perform the only part of their promises which had any meaning. But the single motive which had weight with them was gone; they temporized a little, and then refused. Oppression and hostility recommenced their old round, and things relapsed into their wonted condition.

These disorders quickly rose to their height. De Burgo, Birmingham, and Ormonde, exerted themselves, and gained great advantages, which were more than counterbalanced by a defeat, in which many of the king's forces, among whom were forty gentlemen of rank and property,* were slain by the O'Tooles. The earl of Marche, who was left by Richard in the government, proceeding rashly, and in perfect ignorance of the country, was surprised and slain.

Kildare took a prominent part, and distinguished his valour, activity, and fidelity through the whole of these proceedings. He was rewarded for his services, and the great expenses he had incurred were reimbursed by the grant of a rich wardship in Kildare and Meath, of the estates of Sir John de Loudon; and subsequently by the grants of several Irish manors in the county of Dublin, to be held for ever of the crown in capite.* He died in 1390, and was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity, in Dublin.

Gerald, Fourth Earl of Desmond.

DIED A. D. 1397.

THIS earl is not only memorable for the prominent place he held in the troubled events of Irish history, during his long life-a distinction more unusual graces the history of his life. He was among the learned men of his age, and obtained the popular title of the poet. Considering the state of poetry then, the honour is doubtful; but Gerald was evidently a person of some taste and talent. He is said to have been well versed in mathematics, and was thought by the people to be a conjuror. He was lord justice in 1367, and distinguished for diligence and success in preserving the peace of the districts where his property lay. His death was, in some degree, suitable to his popular reputation for magic: in 1397, he went away from his camp, and was seen no more. The conjecture, that he was privately murdered, admits of little doubt.

Thomas, Sixth Earl of Desmond.

DIED A.D. 1420.

THE history of this most unfortunate nobleman might, without any departure from its facts, be easily dilated into a tragic romance. This is, however, not our design. A brief outline must be sufficient; and will add to the conception of the unhappy state of manners and morals, for which we have chiefly selected the statements of the more recent memoirs.

Thomas, the sixth earl of Desmond, succeeded his father John, who was drowned in leading his army across the ford of Ardfinnan, in the river Suir, in 1399. He was left a minor and very young, and became an object of dark plots and manœuvres to his uncle James, an ambitious, active-spirited, and intriguing character. The license of the times was such as to leave the weak at the mercy of the strong; and for those whose craft or prudence were insufficient to protect them, there was no safeguard in law, and little refuge in the affection or honour of those who might despoil them safely. But there seems to have been in this family a singular prevalence of ambition, tur

*Lodge, Archdall.

bulence, and tendency to lawlessness, that might at first sight lead the careless observer to infer the existence of some family idiosyncrasy of temper, that incessantly urged its members on some lawless or eccentric course. But the fact is—and though an obvious fact, it is worth reflection that the remote and comparatively Irish connexion and property of this great branch of the Geraldines, must have had the main influence at least in the determination of this temper. The tendencies of the mind are the results very much of circumstances, acting in such a manner on a few elementary dispositions, as often to produce from the very same dispositions the opposite extremes of character. From hence the dark enigmas of human conduct and the injustice of human judgments.

Thomas, earl of Desmond, appears to have been a weak but not unamiable person, and devoid of the firmness and craft which his time and situation required. To make these effects the more unfortunate, his uncle chanced to be unusually endowed with the qualities in which his nephew was wanting. Lawless, audacious, crafty, and ambitious, it seems to be a matter of course that he should contemplate the facile and weak nature of his youthful kinsman as an object of speculation; and that, seeing the possibility of setting aside one so exposed to the approach of guile, so accessible to folly and indiscretion, he should have long made it a principal object of scheme and calculation. Such, indeed, are the strong moral inferences from the facts.

The occasions thus sought could not long be wanting, and it is probable that they were well prepared for. The unfortunate youth, in one of his hunting excursions, was driven by the weather to take shelter in the house of a tenant of his own, named M'Cormac. There he fell violently in love with Katharine M'Cormac, the beautiful daughter of his host. He made his passion known; but the virtue of Katharine was proof against such addresses, as it was customary for persons of her degree to receive from those of the earl's princely quality. At this remote period, it is impossible to say by what intermediate practices the circumstance may have been improved by his enemies—how far underhand agency may have worked on the girl or on the young lord. No supposition is necessary to account for the impulse of romantic passion, the self-reliance of beauty, or the firmness of female virtue; but we must confess a disposition to suspect a more artful and complicated chain, because such is also but too derivable from the position of all the parties of this romance of antiquity.

Whatever was the working of circumstances, the facts are certain. Thomas married the fair Katharine M'Cormac. The consequences quickly followed, and were so far beyond the probable effects of such an act, that they seem to justify the suspicions which attribute the whole transaction to an intrigue. The outcry of his dependents, followers, and relations, immediately arose, to a degree of animosity not quite to be accounted for from the fact or the prejudices of the time. A time so lawless, of morals so coarse, and manners so unrefined, was not likely to produce so violent and universal a sense of resentment on account of a misalliance, humiliating to the pride of family, even though such a feeling was the best developed sentiment