A. D. 1607. were almost impassable for their carriages by reason of the woods and bogs; while at night they found it necessary to encamp in the fields, or to make use of such partial shelter as was afforded by ecclesiastical buildings lying in a state of dilapidation. On the second night after leaving Monaghan, "we pitched our tents," observes Attorney-General Davies, "over against the island of Devenish, a place being prepared for the holding of our sessions for Fermanagh in the ruins of the abbey there . . For the habitations of this people are so wild and transitory, as there is not one fixed village in all this county." Wretched churches and clergy in Kilmore diocese. The party next repaired to the diocese of State of the Kilmore and county of Cavan, concerning the churches and clergy of which Sir John Davies reports as follows;-"For the churches, they are for the most part in ruins; such as were presented to be in reparation, are covered only with thatch, But the incumbents, both parsons and vicars, did appear to be such poor, ragged, ignorant creatures, (for we saw many of them in the camp,) as we could not esteem any of them worthy of the meanest of those livings, albeit many of them are not worth above forty shillings per annum.”* The ragged ignorance of these poor clerks need not so much surprise us, when we consider that even the great Irish chieftains A. D. 1607. The bishop with care The bishop of this place was Robert Draper, an Irishman, who had been appointed in 1603 to the united sees of Kilmore and Ardagh, King charged James "having received testimony of his suffi- lessness and cient learning and honest conversation to be cupidity. meet to supply those places, in regard that he was well acquainted with the conditions and dispositions of that people, and was able to instruct them in the Irish tongue, and thereby likely to do more good among them in his said function." Such favourable expectations do not however appear to have been realized; as we find Sir J. Davies particularly severe on him for negligence in his charge. "He doth live now," says he, "in these parts, where he hath two bishoprics, but there is no divine service or sermon to be heard withen either of his dioceses." He is far, adds this writer, from being careful to see the churches repaired and supplied with good incumbents, as he is diligent in visiting his barbarous clergy, to make benefit out of their insufficiency, [although having otherwise a good income out of Church pro as The were often beggarly in their apparel, and grossly illiterate. A. D. 1607. perty] according to the proverb, which is common in the mouth of one of our great bishops Flight of the Earls of here, that an Irish priest is better than a milch cow." Thus far concerning this visitation of the counties of the north. In the same year, 1607, the Irish government Tyrone and having received private information that the Tyrconnel. Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnel, with Maguire, chieftain of Fermanagh, and other accomplices, had entered into a formidable conspiracy for the purpose of seizing the Castle of Dublin, murdering the Lord Deputy, and raising, with the aid of Spain, a general insurrection throughout the kingdom; the accused parties. hearing that the matter was made public, resolved upon fleeing the country rather than to abide the issue of a trial. And accordingly, embarking at Lough Swilly in the middle of September, they took refuge in foreign parts, landing on the coast of Normandy, and proceeding from thence through France to Brussels. With their after history we need not here meddle, except so far as to mention that Hugh O'Neill died at Rome, in A.D. 1616, after he had been residing there for some time as a pensioner on the bounty of O'Dogher the pope, and of the king of Spain.* Cahir ty's out rages, His departure from Ireland however did not * Cox ii. 12. Appx. 65, inf. and the letters of Sir J. Davies, in the State Paper Office, quoted in Moore iv. 155, seqq. leave the country free from firebrands and agitators; for in the very next year (1608) after his leaving it, Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, chieftain of Inishowen, a lad it seems of about twenty, but smart of his age, and old in wickedness, became the exciter of a fresh rebellion; and having taken Derry by surprise, plundered the town, and burned it to ashes, murdering the governor, and all the Protestants, excepting the bishop's wife and her children, who were taken captives, and afterwards. allowed to be ransomed. A. D. 1608. But and their the ruffian who was actuated by personal feelings of spite and passion to commit such outrages, having lost his life by an accidental shot, after he had kept the field for some few months, his rebellion thus came happily to a termination.* issue. of Ulster, And now, experience having proved that it was Plantation vain to expect any good results from treating A.D.1609-12 the authors of these insurrections with lenity and indulgence, they were in consequence outlawed, and subsequently attainted by parliament. By this judgment large tracts of land, comprising 511,465 Irish acres in the counties of Done The Four Masters, narrating this incident in their own peculiar style, and having mentioned the quarrel between Sir Cahir and the Governor of Derry, Sir Geo. Paulet, observe (at A. D. 1608), that the Governor having abused and castigated him, "he would not delay being revenged, but became so filled with anger and fury, that it was a wonder he did not go distracted and mad." Connellan's Trans lation. J A. D. 1609. gal, Tyrone, Coleraine, (or Derry,) Fermanagh, Cavan, and Armagh, were forfeited or escheated to the crown. And these territories being for the most part in a very waste and desolate condition after the late wars, and very thinly peopled, King James was the better enabled to put into execution a favorite plan which he had conceived, of bringing over to settle in those parts, numbers of English and Scotch colonists, with a view to the promoting of industry, civilization, and improvement in general. The scheme however proved, from various causes, only partially successful; chiefly because the parties to whom lands were granted cared more for their own private ends and private gains, than they did for promoting the welfare of the country, or the advancement of true religion, or for fulfilling the conditions on which they had received their grants. Its results in part beneficial to Yet after all, partial benefits of very considerable magnitude were found to result from the the country. plantation of Ulster: and that province which at the close of Elizabeth's reign had been left in such a desolate and miserable condition, because afterwards the most prosperous and flourishing in the kingdom, notwithstanding the violent convulsions of war in which its inhabitants were subsequently engaged. In the general improvement of the country, the Church also profited considerably in a temporal point of |