CH. VI.] Its miserable effects on the Country. 801 woods, dead and mangled by wild beasts. Such A.D. 1583. were the unhappy ends to which the principal leaders of this wicked and ill-concerted rebellion came: and the calamities in which they involved their unfortunate followers were still more terrible. Shortly after the death of the earl, his agent, the titular bishop of Killaloe, arrived from Spain with a reinforcement of men, money, and arms, too late in their coming to be of any use for the bad cause which they were intended to maintain.* Desmond the country. The desolating effects of this fatal rebellion Frightful were such, that the Queen was given to under-effects of the stand that she would have nothing left to reign rebellion on over in Munster but ashes and carcases. And that this statement was little exaggerated, would appear from the accounts handed down to us of the state of the country under the influence of the famine which was caused by the rebellion in question. For the operations of agriculture having been suspended, the people had but their cattle to live upon, and when these were carried away, some of the surviving inhabitants would follow the English soldiers and beg for death by the sword, rather than be left to die by the protracted sufferings of starvation. The famous poet Spenser, who came over to Ireland in 1580 as secretary to the lord deputy Gray of Wilton, * Leland, ii. 287. 802 Spencer's account of the famine caused by it. Calamitous effects of the Geraldine Rebellion. [Book VI. A.D. 1583. and who was an eyewitness of the disasters of those times, has left on record the following awful description of the wretched scenes of woe which then presented themselves to view in that part of the kingdom. "Notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, says he," yet, ere one year and a half, they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs would not bear them they looked like anatomies of death; they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves: they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them, yea and one another soon after; insomuch as the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for a time, yet not able to continue there withal: so that in short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man or beast." Such were the blessings procured by the bulls of the pope's holiness for his deluded and infatuated victims. Forfeiture of the es tates of the The rebellion in Munster having terminated in the death of the earl of Desmond, his imearl of Des- mense estates which extended through the counties of Cork, Waterford, Limerick, Tipperary mond. CH. VI.] Confiscation of the Desmond Estates. 803 and Kerry, were soon afterwards confiscated, A.D. 1587. and declared by a parliament holden in 1586, to be forfeited to the queen. In the distribution of these lands, Sir Walter Raleigh obtained a large grant, including a great part of the town of Youghal, where he lived many years, and was the first to introduce into Ireland the culture of potatoes and the use of tobacco. The poet Spenser also among others obtained a grant of more than 3,000 acres at Kilcoleman in the county of Cork, where he resided for some time, and composed his famous poem The Faërie Queene, and his View of the State of Ireland, from which is extracted the passage relating to the famine, which we have set before the reader in the preceding page. CHAP. VII. CHARACTER AND INTRIGUES OF HUGH O'NIAL.-FOUNDATION OF O'Nial and WE must not suppose that the troubles with Account of which Queen Elizabeth's government had to Hugh contend in Ireland were terminated when the his rebelearl of Desmond's insurrection came to an end. On the contrary fresh disturbances were ready to succeed into their place, and the attention lion. 804 Early Life of Hugh O'Nial. A.D. 1587. and cares of government in the latter His early life, educa tion, and personal [Book VI. years of her majesty's reign were to be occupied with a still more violent and dangerous rebellion than that of the Geraldine family. Many of the disaffected Irish lords were engaged in this design, but the one who acted the most conspicuous part in it was Hugh earl of Tyrone, whose great natural abilities, aided by his family influence and immense wealth, were well calculated to render him a suitable leader for such an undertaking. Less respected in his clan on account of the illegitimacy of his descent, (his father Matthew the baron having been the son of a blacksmith's character. wife,) Hugh O'Nial entered early into the service of the English government, and in the Desmond insurrection was distinguished by his industry, activity, and valour. By an English education, and a constant intercourse with the state, he was enabled to add the polish of English manners, with some degree of mental cultivation, to a disposition of itself crafty and insinuating. And while he could associate with his countrymen of Ulster in all the simple wildness of their native Irish customs, he could also on occasion divest himself entirely of that character, and appear at court, not as an Irish chieftain, but in the refined elegance of an English gentleman.* * Leland, ii. 306. CH. VII.] His Character and Principles. 805 leadership of But whatever advantages he may have become A. D. 1587. possessed of in this way, certain it is that Hugh His fitness O'Nial had imbibed from his ambiguous origin for the and amphibious education, qualities that entirely a religious unfitted him for holding in a well ordered state war. of society any position calculated to prove useful or beneficial to his fellowmen. And he must needs therefore become a patriot, (according to the common use or abuse of that word,) in order to have within his reach a state of affairs that might furnish a proper scope for the exercise of his tyranny and turbulence, his high ambition and low cunning. And as all the world knows that patriots are a very moral, devout, and godly class of men, Hugh O'Nial who was to become the leader of a religious war, did not neglect paying a due attention to the value of this necessary qualification for the character which he proposed to sustain. It was true-that he did not for the most part allow the bands of Christian principle to press on him too tightly, or exercise an unpleasant restraint on his brutal appetites, his lust, ambition, and revenge. It was truethat he had murdered with his own hand Hugh na Gaveloch, (or Hugh of the fetters,) son of the late Shane O'Nial, when no other person of his clan could be found to execute the deed on one that bore the honoured name of an O'Nial. But then he had first "condemned" him of VOL. II. 2 E |