Charles was excited by the insult to his aunt; the Pope, in maintenance of the rights or usurpations of the Church, would henceforth throw the whole weight of Catholicism into the hostile scale, and assist the foreign enemies and aggravate the domestic troubles of England. In this state of affairs, the foreign enemies of England for the first time discovered how favourable a point of attack Ireland presented, and for the first time an Irish deputy, heading an insurrection against the king, appealed to the Continental powers for aid, and attempted to make the state of Ireland an European question. Thus, at one and the same time, the disposition of the English people, the character of the king, domestic and foreign affairs, the necessities arising from the struggle for existence, into which England was fast drifting, all tended to the introduction of a new and vigorous policy as regarded the government of Ireland. To comprehend the magnitude of the task to be accomplished, to appreciate the nature of the protracted, or rather intermittent, struggle which ensued, extending over a period of seventy years, it is necessary to understand the condition, both social and religious, of Ireland in the year

1534.

The inhabitants of Ireland did not constitute a nation nor possess any common interest or bond of union; even the English portion of the population was divisible into distinct sections, differing from each other in their form of government and social condition. The native Celtic tribes, the Hibernicised Normans and English, the English corporate seaports, and the subjects of the Pale must be separately considered.

The Celtic tribes had for above two centuries enjoyed a practical independence; they still continued organised upon the Celtic tribal system, were ruled according

to their Brehon code, and used their national dress and customs; in the desultory warfare of two centuries, although the English government from time to time attempted to assert its sovereignty, and occasionally claimed to have succeeded in so doing, the general result was altogether in favour of the natives. The Irish tribes upon the marches were exposed to the hostings of the Pale, but the injury they inflicted and the plunder they secured far more than counterbalanced their occasional losses. The usual result of the border war is very clearly stated in a State paper of the reign of Elizabeth :-" And when in time of war with any Irishry of power-moveth the Governor to proclaim a main journey for 30 or 40 days to invade the enemy's country, the Governor goeth with the army and force of the English Pale to their great charge, where they continue out their days whilst their victuals last, and then fain to return home again, as many times they do, without booty or other harms they do, or yet can be done to a waste country, the inhabitants whereof, whilst the English host is in their country, shunneth all their cattle into woods or pastures, where they continue until the English army be gone; and then do they come into the plains of their country with their cattle again, where they are as ready anew to invade and spoil the English Pale as before; as commonly they do bring with them great booties out of the borders of the same, whereof if recovery be not made by hot pursuit of some part of that they take away, very seldom or never can there be found anything of theirs worth the having to be taken from them for the same again. So as by these appearances, wheresoever the service is done, the same is a charge to the Queen's

Majesty, a burden to the liege people, to the decay both of them and the English soldiers, fretting one another of themselves, with small defence to the Pale, nor yet can be any great scourge to the enemy, who always gaineth by our losses and we never gain by them, altho' we win all that we play for, the stakes being so unequal, viz., not a penny against a pound, for that the English Pale is planted with towns and villages, inhabited with people resident, having goods, chattels, corn, and household stuff, good booties for the Irish enemies to take from us, and their countries being kept of purpose waste, uninhabited, as where nothing is nothing can be got."*

This description of the waste condition of the tribe land must be confined to the marches of the Pale, or considered as descriptive of the difference between the lands of the English agricultural and town settlements, and the districts occupied by tribes, still to a great extent pastoral. On one occasion it was reported that the territory of the O'Connors was full of corn, for the destruction of which scythes were supplied to the hosting of the Pale.

How far the general balance of success was against the English is shown by the recitals of the 28 Henry VIII., chapter II., That whereas the King's Irish enemies have been heretofore of great force and strength within this land of Ireland, by reason whereof they have charged divers the King's towns and faithful subjects with tributes and exactions, for consideration that the said Irishmen which do take the said tributes should defend the King's said subjects, which they have not done, ne do not, and yet the King's said subjects at the charge to pay them the said unlawful impositions, to their utter impoverishing, &c." When such was the condition of the Irishry upon the

*Carew MSS., vol. 3, p. xcvi.

borders of the Pale, it is needless to insist that the tribes removed from immediate contact with the English settlement were in the enjoyment of practical independence.

It is to be remarked that from the date of the attempt to reduce the Irish, in the reign of Richard II., to 1535, the condition of the tribes had not improved, but rather retrograded. The evils of the Celtic system were aggravated, its counterbalancing advantages were obsolete and forgotten. The several tribes were devoid of any central authority or bond of union. The idea of nationality had disappeared; although the English were styled strangers and invaders, the national union of the native tribes had not been attempted for two centuries. The tribemen exhibited to their immediate chief extraordinary devotion and fidelity; but being thoroughly imbued with tribal patriotism, and having no higher idea of country, they hated the adjoining tribes, their hereditary enemies, more bitterly than the foreign enemy; no power existed capable or desirous of restraining the ambition or rapacity of the meanest chieftain.

The English government, in its enfeebled condition, so far from seeking to maintain peace among the tribes, sought its own safety in encouraging their disorders. In 1520, the Archbishop of Dublin was despatched to Waterford to allay the discords, debates, and variances existing between the Earl of Desmond and Sir Piers Butler; his instructions, after expressing the desire of the King to see concord reestablished among the Butlers, contains a passage in relation to the native Irish. "Now at the beginning politic practices may do more good than exploit of war, till such time as the strength of the Irish enemy shall be enfeebled and diminished, as well by getting their captains from them as by

putting division among them, so that they join not together."*

In 1537 the Irish government insisted upon the necessity of keeping a supply of ready money in Dublin, for the purpose of bribing Irish chiefs to engage in hostilities with their neighbours; "finally, because the nature of Irishmen is such that for money one shall have the son to war against the father, and the father against the child, it shall be necessary for the King's grace to have always treasure here, as a present remedy against sudden rebellion. His Highness may therefore be advised to give away clearly none of his lands, otherwise than some yearly rent may come into his coffers."†

This policy had not the merit or demerit of novelty, and has been invariably practised by every feeble government under similar circumstances; but if it be an evidence of the powerlessness of those who practise it, its success is a proof also of the want of patriotism and the political immorality of those upon whom it is practised. Thus the Celtic portion of the Irish nation was split into many hostile fractions, under chiefs ruling by the sword, and unrestrained by any central authority. The national susceptibility and instability of the Celtic race were exaggerated. They quarrelled without reason, and warred and plundered without reluctance. "They fight for their dinner, and many of them lose their heads before they be served with their supper."‡

It is but fair to judge the Celtic tribes by their own historians, not by the reports of English statesmen

*State Papers, tem. Henry VIII., vol. ii., p. 34.

State Papers, vol. ii., pt. 3, p. 485.

Sydney to the Privy Council, Car. MSS., vol. ii., p. 52.