Majesty," found the enterprise "greatly to our lyking." She thanked Grey for "performing this so acceptable service." In a later letter, complaining only of the cost of conquest, she renewed her thanks for great good services, "chiefly in the late exploit you did against the strangers... Proceed on cheerfully to do your best."

From the mouths of Bingham, Walter Raleigh, and others, we learn how the fighting proceeded. In Connacht the English planned a land settlement, provoked a rising, and slew "fourteen or fifteen hundred, besides boys, women, churls and children, which could not be so few, as so many more and upwards." Sir Peter Carew "murdered women and children, and babies that had scarcely left the breast." Malbie and Zouche report killing "men, women, and children." "There escaped not one, neither of man, woman, nor child."

A great estate fell to Walter Raleigh, in reward for his part in this "Mahometan conquest." Another estate, with two abbeys, fell to the poet Edmund Spenser. He served as a secretary. From him, who agreed in this bloody policy, we have that famous passage on the scene he himself beheld:

Munster "was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, that you would have thought

they should have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glens they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could 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 carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of watercresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to feast for the time, yet not able long to continue there withal; that in short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast."

9

This was the first act, as savage as the most savage Elizabethan tragedy. By 1583 Munster was a waste, with the Earl of Desmond whipped and hunted to Kerry. There, in a hovel, he was found by a few straggling soldiers. "I am the Earl of Desmond. Spare my life," he pleaded. Instead, his rescuer

dragged the elderly man out and killed him, for the Government reward.

Now followed confiscation, after the example of Leix and Offaly. About 250,000 acres were actually

granted by the crown to English settlers, as Antrim had already been granted to Essex. An enormous number of legal disputes were originated, especially concerning the MacCarthys; but some of the claimants were rudely disturbed by the next O'Neill rebellion.

10

Hugh O'Neill succeeded Shane O'Neill. He was a man of finer metal. Trained at the Elizabethan court, where his father had left him, he realized that he had to deal with a statecraft which was not nice in point of honor. He himself had no scruple to play double with Elizabeth. He was undoubtedly waiting for the Armada to come to Ireland. Up to then and after he took as good pains as any Tudor not to reveal his hand. He lied, he dissembled, he bent the knee. Secretly he armed and trained his troops. The head of the O'Donnells, Hugh Roe (Red Hugh) O'Donnell, he could not reach. When a boy an English captain had invited O'Donnell on board ship to buy wine, and had kidnapped and delivered him to Dublin Castle. That was in 1587. In 1591, on Christmas night, young O'Donnell managed, as so many Irishmen have managed, to escape from his English jail. He and Art O'Neill, who was in prison with him, dragged their way as far as Glenmalure. There, in the snow of the mountains, their strength gave out; they were numb when found by a servant of the O'Byrnes. The O'Neill boy was already dying. Hugh Roe was revived, and, although partially crippled, he recovered.

Four years caged in Dublin Castle had made Hugh Roe O'Donnell ready to think of England as his enemy. He found Hugh O'Neill of the same judgment and faith. By 1595 the two Hughs were ready for a war which would drive out the English.

In that war O'Neill and O'Donnell gathered up all the matters of state that had created grievances in Ireland since England professed to reclaim Ireland "from barbarism to a godly government." It had previously been reaffirmed that Englishness be made obligatory, that "all brehons, carraghes, bards, rhymers, friars, monks, Jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such like," be executed by martial law. Now O'Neill and O'Donnell demanded complete religious liberty, political independence in Tir Owen and Tirconnell, a Catholic university, freedom to go overseas for learning, and no Englishmen as churchmen.

"Ewtopia," wrote Cecil on these demands: the war proceeded.

11

Success attended O'Neill and O'Donnell. They destroyed an English army at Yellow Ford, with Burke of Sligo and MacDonnell of the Isles fighting for them. This victory aroused the whole country. Essex arrived