from this time may be passed over until, after many dissemblings, oppositions, and submissions, Hugh O'Neill found himself at the head of a strong northern league, and on the 14th of August 1598 defeated the English troops at Blackwater. Charles Blount, then a man of five-and-thirty, who on his elder brother's death in 1594 had become eighth Lord Mountjoy, had shown intellectual vigour and an appetite for war. He would have been sent to Ireland as Lord Deputy when Essex went, and failed. He followed Essex in February 1600, and found all Ireland outside Dublin in the rebels' hands. In December 1601 Tyrone marched, with the largest Irish army ever known, to relieve four thousand Spaniards in Kinsala, whom Mountjoy was besieging. Tyrone's army was defeated; the Spaniards surrendered and left the country. Mountjoy followed up his victory. In 1602 new forces came from England. Lord Mountjoy in the north and Sir George Carew in the south were masters of the country, and Tyrone was reduced to the offer of unconditional submission on the 22nd of December 1602. It was six days after the Queen's death, as we have seen already, that Mountjoy received Tyrone in state in Dublin; and when he left Ireland at the end of May, not to return again, he took O'Neill with him that he might make personal submission to King James.

The full story of Mountjoy's successes in the north is told by Fynes Moryson, his Secretary, in that "History of Ireland from the Year 1599 to the Year 1603," to which he added the “Description of Ireland." It was first published as a separate work in two volumes at Dublin in 1735, but it had been included in the folio, published in 1617, of Fynes Moryson's "Itinerary, containing his Ten Yeeres Travel through Germany, Bohmerland, Switzerland, Netherland, Denmark, Poland, Italy, Turkey, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland; in three Parts."

The full story of Sir George Carew's successes in the south is told in "Pacata Hibernia, Ireland appeased and reduced: or an

Historie of the late Warres of Ireland, especially within the Province of Mounster under the Government of Sir George Carew, Knight, then Lord President of that Province, and afterwards Lord Carew of Clopton, and Earl of Totnes, &c." This was published four years after the death of Carew, in 1633, in two volumes, including seventeen maps and plans. It was dedicated by Sir Thomas Stafford, its editor, to Charles the First. Sir Thomas Stafford had served under Carew in Munster, and was supposed to be his illegitimate son. Carew had antiquarian tastes, and his interest in Irish affairs caused him to leave notes and documents from which Sir Thomas Stafford shaped the Pacata Hibernia, which covered, like Fynes Moryson's History, the period from 1599 to 1602.

III.

CHARLES BLOUNT, LORD MOUNTJOY.

Described by Fynes Moryson in his "History of Ireland from 1599 to 1603."

ERE I take my pencil in hand to figure this noble lord's person, I must acknowledge my weakness such as I cannot fully apprehend his complete worthiness, and therefore desire that those of greater judgment to discern the same will impute all defects to the unskilfulness of the workman, and that with others to whom his lordship was less known my rude pen may not derogate anything from his due praise. Again, give me leave to remember that which I received from his mouth, that in his childhood, when his parents would have his picture, he chose to be drawn with a trowel in his hand, and this motto, Ad reædificandum antiquam domum, To Rebuild the Ancient House. For this noble and ancient barony was decayed, not so much by his progenitors' prodigality, as his father's obstinate addiction to the study and practice of alchemy, by which he so long laboured to increase his revenues, till he had almost fully consumed them. Now to the purpose, let us observe how he fulfilled this ominous presage, in rebuilding that noble House, till by his untimely death the same was fatally eclipsed again.

He was of stature tall, and of very comely proportion, his skin fair, with little hair on his body, which hair was of colour blackish, or inclining to black, and thin on his head, where he wore it short, except a lock under his left ear which he nourished the time of this war, and being woven up, hid it in his neck under

his ruff. The crown of his head was in his latter days something bald, as the forepart naturally curled. He only used the barber for his head, for the hair on his chin growing slowly, and that on his cheeks and throat, he used almost daily to cut it with his scissors, keeping it so low with his own hand that it could scarce be discerned, as likewise himself kept the hair of his upper lip something short, only suffering that under his nether lip to grow at length and full; yet some two or three years before his death he nourished a sharp and short piquedevant on his chin. Hist forehead was broad and high; his eyes great, black, and lovely; his nose something low and short, and a little blunt in the end; his chin round; his cheeks full, round, and ruddy; his countenance cheerful, and as amiable as ever I beheld of any man; only some two years before his death, upon discontentment, his face grew thin, his ruddy colour failed, growing somewhat swarthy, and his countenance was sad and dejected. His arms were long, and of proportionable bigness; his hands long and white; his fingers great in the end, and his legs somewhat little, which he gartered ever above the knee, wearing the garter of St. George's Order under the left knee, except when he was booted, and so wore not that garter, but a blue ribbon instead thereof above his knee, and hanging over his boot.

The description of his apparel may be thought a needless curiosity, yet I must add some few words thereof, because, having promised the lively portraiture of his body as well as his mind, the same cannot otherwise be so lively represented to the imagination; besides that by his clothes some disabilities of his body to undertake this hard war may be conjectured, and especially the temper of his mind may be lively shadowed, since the wise man hath taught us that the apparel in some sort shows the man, His apparel in court and cities was commonly of white or black taffatas or satins, and he wore two, yea, sometimes three, pairs of silk stockings, with black silk grogram clocks, guarded, and ruffs

of comely depth and thickness, never wearing any falling band; black beaver hats with plain black bands; a taffata quilted waistcoat in summer, a scarlet waistcoat, and sometimes both, in winter. But in the country, and specially keeping the field in Ireland (yea, sometimes in the cities) he wore jerkins and round hose, for he never wore other fashion than round, with lace panes of russet cloth, and cloaks of the same cloth, lined with velvet, and white beaver hats with plain bands. And besides his ordinary stockings of silk, he wore under boots another pair of woollen or worsted, with a pair of high linen boot-hose; yea, three waistcoats in cold weather, and a thick ruff, besides a russet scarf about his neck thrice folded under it, so as I never observed any of his age or strength to keep his body so warm. He was very comely in all his apparel, but the robes of St. George's Order became him extraordinarily well.

For his diet, he used to fare plentifully and of the best, and as his means increased, so his table was better served, so that in his latter time no lord in England might compare with him in that kind of bounty. Before these wars he used to have nourishing breakfasts, as panadas and broths; but in the time of the war he used commonly to break his fast with a dry crust of bread, and in the spring-time with butter and sage, with a cup of stale beer, wherewith in winter he would have sugar and nutmeg mixed. He fed plentifully both at dinner and supper, having the choicest and most nourishing meats with the best wines, which he drunk plentifully, but never in great excess; and in his latter years (especially in the time of the war, as well when his night sleeps were broken as at other times upon full diet) he used to sleep in the afternoons, and that long, upon his bed. He took tobacco abundantly and of the best, which I think preserved him from sickness, especially in Ireland, where the foggy air of the bogs and waterish fowl, plenty of fish, and generally all meats, with the common sort always unsalted and green roasted, do most prejudice the health.