the places in the possession of the Spanish were given up, but a native chief obstinately held the castle of Dunboy, the fort of Berehaven, which was taken by assault (18th June, 1602), after the most obstinate and valiant defence ever known in Ireland; not one of the 143 men that formed the garrison escaping. Tyrone soon afterwards (30th March, 1602-3), submitted upon easy terms, retaining his title and lands, and thus, just about the time of her death, the third Irish difficulty of Elizabeth received a successful solution.

The distresses of the native population during these insurrections are thus described by Spenser the poet, an eye-witness:- In these late wars of Munster,' he writes, in 1596, '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 spoke like ghosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy when they could find them; yea, and one another soon after, inasmuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of their graves, and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for a time. . . . . There perished not many by the sword, but all by the extremity of famine, which they themselves had wrought.' The last words he thus explains: The strength of all that nation is the kerne, gallowglass, stocah, horseman, and horseboy, the which, never having been used to have anything of their own, and now being upon spoil of others, make no spare of anything, but havock and confusion of all they meet with, whether it be their own friends' goods or their foes. And if they happen to get never so great spoil at any time, the same they waste and consume in a trice, though it do themselves no good.'

This statement is fully borne out by what others have recorded concerning the dreadful miseries of the country. 'It was manifest,' says Sir Richard Cox, 'that some older people had been in such a starving

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condition, that they (Jan. 1603), murdered and eat children for a long time together.'-'Even in the city of Dublin,' says Leland, wheat had risen from thirtysix shillings to nine pounds per quarter,' and other articles of food in proportion.

The expenses of the last war weighed heavily upon the exchequer the cost from 1st April 1601 to 1st April 1602 was £322,502; the total is mentioned by Sir John Davies as two millions, and the queen resorted to the expedient of paying in base coin.

Some attempts to extend colonization were made in Elizabeth's reign. Sir Thomas Smith obtained a grant of lands (1572) in Ulster, in the peninsular district called Ardes; but his scheme was resisted by the natives, and failed. The first earl of Essex, father of the favourite, proposed to colonize the territory called Claneboy, in Ulster (1573); but it impoverished the originator, disgusted the participators, and came to nothing. The forfeitures of Desmond's rebellion were offered to adventurers. Letters were written to every county in England, to encourage younger brothers to settle in Ireland. Estates were offered at a small rent of three pence per acre, to commence payment only at the end of three years, and to pay half rent during three more. The undertaker for twelve thousand acres was to plant eighty-six families on his estates; others in proportion. None of the native Irish were to be admitted among the tenantry. Garrisons should be placed for their protection, and commissioners appointed to decide their controversies. Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Thomas Norris, and others, received ample grants. These gentlemen mortgaged their estates in England, to raise money, and wasted it in this speculation, which turned out rather ruinous than unprofitable.

Little objection was made to the alterations in religion. Two prelates refused the oath of supremacy, and were deprived; but the tenures of the bishoprics savoured

little in most instances of royal supremacy and magnificent endowment; they lay among the natives and the wars: three, Derry, Raphoe, and Clogher, were never in the gift of Elizabeth, but of the Pope, as we have before seen; and it sufficiently illustrates the laxity of the time to mention that one Maurice O'Brien received the profits of the see of Killaloe six years before he was consecrated (1555-70). By the act for Ireland, a congé d'elire does not issue, but bishops are created by letters patent. The same indifference had been exhibited in England, until, in the thirteenth year of her reign, Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope; then the Protestant and Romish communions separated, and a common grievance began to embody the opponents of government in Ireland. The rebels swore to be steadfast and true to their religion, and the priests cursed and excommunicated those who did not act in their interest. The universities of Salamanca and Valladolid replied to the question whether an Irish papist may obey or assist a protestant king: 1. that since the earl of Tyrone undertook the war for religion, and with the Pope's approbation, it was quite as meritorious to aid him against the heretics as to fight against the Turks: 2. that it was a mortal sin anyways to assist the English against him, and that those who did so could neither have absolution nor salvation, without deserting the heretics and repenting for so great a crime.

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CHAPTER VI.

JAMES I.

JAMES I., on his accession, found Ireland at peace; the peace, it is true, of exhaustion and desolation, but not the less durable on that account. Tyrone went to England with lord Mountjoy and O'Donnel, whose brother, Red Hugh, had, for his share in the rebellion, fled to Spain. They were both favourably received by James, and O'Donnel created earl of Tyrconnel. When Tyrone had submitted to the dominion of England, came the inquiry, after the methods and principles of the King's Bench, into the right by which he held his lands. This investigation resulted in stripping him of large tracts which he had acquired by the strong hand. Half ruined by these processes, an anonymous letter, dropped in the Council Chamber, accused him of a fresh conspiracy, and, with Tyrconnel, he fled the country (1607). He took up his residence at Rome, subsisting on a pension from the king of Spain, and there died (1616). The flight of Tyrone was followed by the little insurrection of Sir Cahir O'Dogherty, chief of Inishowen, which lasted a few months. This minor chieftain invited to a banquet the governors of the fort at Derry, and of that at Culmore, in the vicinity of Derry: during the festivity, he seized them, and, unable to intimidate the men, so worked upon the fears of a lady, that she contrived his admittance to Culmore, from which, being supplied with arms, he the same night surprised Derry (1608).

By the flight and outlawry of the two earls, and the ruin of O'Dogherty, a vast tract of land, extending over six counties, Tyrone, Donegal, Coleraine, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Armagh, and comprising 511,456

Irish acres, escheated to the crown. On this property, James determined to establish a plantation, according to the precedent of former reigns. It was discovered presently that about twenty-two thousand acres formed, under the Irish names of Termon and Herenach, a portion of the endowments of the church, and these were restored. Of the rest, two hundred thousand (209,800) acres were allotted to the new colonists, or undertakers as they were called. And a code of laws, or conditions of tenure, was drawn up for their guidance and government. They received allotments of two thousand, fifteen hundred, and one thousand acres.

The undertakers of two thousand acres were to hold of the king in capite; those of fifteen hundred, by knight's service; those of a thousand, in common soccage. The first were to build a castle and inclose a strong court-yard, or bawn, as it was called, within four years; the second, to finish a house and bawn within two years; and the third, to inclose a bawn; for even this rude species of fortification was accounted no inconsiderable defence against the incursions of an Irish enemy. The first were to plant upon their lands, within three years, forty-eight able men, of English or Scottish birth, to be reduced to twenty families; to keep a demesne of six hundred acres in their own hands; to have four fec-farmers, on a hundred and twenty acres each; six leaseholders, each on one hundred acres; and on the rest, eight families of husbandmen, artificers, and cottagers. The others were under the like obligations proportionably. All were, for five years after the date of their patents, to reside upon their lands, either in person or by such agents as should be approved by the state, and to keep a sufficient quantity of arms for defence. The British and servitors were not to alienate their lands to mere Irish, or to demise any portions of them to such persons as should refuse to take the oaths to government: they were to set them at determined rents, and for no less