furnish; but that which raised the greatest difficulty in relation to an absolute subjugation of this province, was the power the priests exercised over the natives consciences, who, not able to resolve themselves, were implicitly led by their pers wasions to cast off the English yoke, and distresse the queene, who, in the Roman dialect, was stiled heretick, and in whose favour no compact could be made, much lesse kept, without mortall sinne in the performer, especially upon the offer of any (though but seeming) advantage. Nor was the defection of Ireland one of the smallest inconveniences that resulted to this crowne from the protestant profession. '

* Naunton remarks, that, in fomenting the Irish rebellion, the Spaniards played back on Elizabeth the game she had pursued in the Netherlands.

"The Irish action we may call a malady, and a consumption of her times, for it accompanied her to her end; and it was of so profuse and vast expense, that it drew neare unto a distemperature of the state, and of passion in herselfe; for, towards her last, she grew somewhat hard to please; her armies being accustomed to prosperity, and the Irish prosecution not answering

23. In this miserable nation, that wanted not only wisdome and virtue to purchase her owne freedome, but a competency of patience quietly to submit to the English civility, the former-mentioned Earle of Essex buried his fortune. For after his more subtill enemies, prompted by malice and his owne destructive ambition, had placed him so farre off, it proved no hard matter (working upon her majesties age and parcimonious humour) to distresse him, for want of coyne and other necessary provisions for so expensive an expedition: which cast him upon disadvantagious treaties with

her expectation and her wonted successe; for it was a good while an unthrifty and inauspicious war, which did much disturb and mislead her judgment; and the more, for that it was a precedent taken out of her own pattern.

"For, as the queen, by way of division, had, at her coming to the crowne, supported the revolted states of Holland; so did the King of Spaine turne the tricke upon herselfe towards her going out, by cherishing the Irish rebellion; where it falls into consideration what the state of this kingdome and the crown revenues were then able to indure and embrace."-NAUNTON'S Fragmenta Regalia.

Tyrone, the capitall rebell, and might occasion the private discourse he had with him alone on horse-back, in the middest of a river'; which hinted to the queen the first cause of that fatall suspicion: He might, through the assistance of the Irish and English army (already wholy at his devotion) attempt some novelty; a dismall whisper the contrary faction did hourely inspire her withall: and, to give it a deeper tincture of probability, Sir Robert Cecill gained leave of the queene to advertise Essex, first of her being past hope, and after of her death, stopping in the meane time all ships else, but what came loaden with this fatall intelligence; and, to secure her person no lesse then his owne, in case he took the wiser counsell of his friends to land in Wales with all the power he could raise, the English militia were put in a posture of defence, of which no use was made; for the earles composition having alwaies participated more of truth and loyalty to his soveraigne, with zeale to the protestant reli

gion, then prudence or reason of state: He, not only contrary to the will of his friends, but beyond the highest hopes of his enemies, came over attended with some few gentlemen; and in this naked condition, finding the report false, he cast himselfe, habited as a travellor, at the feet of his mistris, whom after he never met, (unlesse since in heaven,) being presently confined; yet to no stricter prison then his chamber, and under no other guard but the obedience he owed to his soveraignes commands, who, though daily importuned, could not be brought to signe a warrant for any severer commitment, till after his passage through the city, in which he did not only exceed the extent of his owne ordinary rashnesse, but the highest and most extraordinary plots of his enemies. And thus was the earle snatched out of the armes of his mistris, and torne from the hearts of the people that were his servants, by the subtilty of his enemies, and in the sight of both brought to an untimely death: it appear

ing no lesse wonder that prince and subject did meet in their affections, then that they should both be so quiet spectators of his ruin. But as God shewed in his death the weaknesse of the arme of flesh, so not long after he declared as plainly the power of his justice in a strict account he took from those that were the principall agents in it: For after the blow given, the queene, presaging, by a multitude of teares shed for him, the great drouth was likely to appeare in the eyes of her subjects, when the hand that signed the warrant for it should be cut off, fell into a deepe melancholy, whereof she died not long after. And for the fame that immediately followed her, (if multitudes were not fouly mistaken,) she was more beholding to her successors miscarriages in the generall opinion, then any popular esteeme attending her to the grave: her death being reported to proceed from an occasion that would have beene thought ridiculous in an ordinary lady, much more