upon a mortgage of the earl's English estates, and gave him the title of President of Ulster. The district so allotted was principally occupied by the immigrant Argyleshire Scots, who had for many years been a thorn in the side of the Government. These were to be exterminated, and part of the land leased to the English settlers, and part to Irish natives. Essex seems to have started with the idea that he was going to fulfil the functions of a patriarch of old, and, after expelling the heathen, to govern his people with paternal solicitude. The sequel was hardly according to his expectations. He was, of course, perpetually harassed by both the O'Neils and the Scots, and both he and his followers retaliated by committing a series of frightful atrocities. He induced Con O'Donnel to attend a conference, and then arrested him and sent him prisoner to Dublin Castle; he lured Sir Brian O'Neil of Clanaboy into the castle of Belfast, then, after a merry-making, treacherously seized upon him, his wife, his brother, and his retainers, and put them all to the sword, "men, women, youths, and maidens," two hundred in number; he attacked Rathlin Island, the stronghold, where the Scots had left their wives and their children, their sick and aged, and after receiving the surrender of its scanty garrison, massacred them to a man, and hunted out and slew every living soul, man, woman, and child, who had taken refuge in the caves and fastnesses of the island, in all some 650 persons. Then, ruined in fortune, and broken in health, after two years of fruitless endeavour, he abandoned his settlement and returned to

Dublin to die, leaving his slumbering rights in Monaghan to be asserted by his heirs, when the English interest should be strong enough to push on to the line of the Blackwater.

But the most serious effort made towards a plantation, and the one attended by the most serious consequences, was the proposal made to colonize Munster by a number of gentlemen from the west of England. This was a most systematic scheme, and of a truly gigantic character. There were some twenty-seven volunteers-Sir Humfrey Gilbert, Sir Wareham St. Leger, Sir Peter Carew, Sir Richard Grenville, Courtenay, Chichester, and others who offered to relieve the queen of all expense and trouble in Southern Ireland, in return for permission to confiscate the counties of Cork, Limerick, and Kerry. The leading spirit in this enterprise was an adventurer of ancient blood but broken fortune, Sir Peter Carew, who laid claim to vast estates in Carlow and Cork, the lands granted to Fitzstephen in the days of Henry II., which had passed by marriage to Carew's ancestors, but which had been deserted by them two hundred years since, had been reoccupied by the Cavenaghs and the Earl of Desmond, and had passed into the hands of third parties.

The claim of the Carews to Fitzstephen's lands had been inquired into and disposed of in the reign of Edward III., when it had been found that Fitzstephen, having been himself a bastard, and his daughter, through whom the Carews claimed, having been illegitimate, had died without heirs. Carew, nevertheless, at once set

to work to bring actions of ejectment against the present owners. His claim was scouted by the courts of law, but was arbitrarily upheld by the deputy and the Privy Council; and so, taking the bull by the horns, he forcibly expelled many of the occupiers in Carlow and retook possession.

There were many other estates which had, in a similar way, been lost to their Anglo-Norman owners in consequence of their deserting the country, the claims. to which were doubly statute-barred by the several Acts which had been passed depriving absentees of their properties; and these stale claims were bought up as speculations by the enterprising undertakers above referred to. St. Leger and Grenville took possession of a number of farms belonging to Desmond and McCarthy More, but were promptly expelled by the owners. Sir Peter Carew surrounded himself with a gang of ruffians, established himself at Leighlin, and scized some lands belonging to Ormonde's brother, Sir Edward Butler. The Butlers fell upon him, and tried to drive him out by force, cruelly wreaking their vengeance on some miserable Irish who had joined themselves to him; and Carew retaliated by attacking Sir Edward's house and massacring every human being he found there, down. to a child of three years old.

The story of Carew's atrocities spread like wildfire. A suspicion of the secret plans for confiscation ran through the south. A league for self-defence was formed between the Geraldines, the McCarthys, and Ormonde's brothers, which was countenanced by Tho

K

mond, Clanricarde, and Turlough Luinagh. The Archbishop of Cashel was sent to beg for help from Philip II. and the Pope, and the standard of revolt was actually raised by Sir James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, a cousin of the Earl of Desmond. The earl and his brother, Sir John, had shortly before been seized by Sir Henry Sidney and forwarded to London, where they were lodged in the Tower, in order to compel them to accept an adverse decision on their quarrel with Ormonde, whose steady loyalty to the Tudor family was to be rewarded by a correspondingly steady support. The Government, afraid that even Ormonde might grow disaffected if the confiscation conspiracy were authenticated, hastened to disavow all such intentions, loaded him with favours, and persuaded him to detach his brothers from the rebel cause. Sidney then collected a force and marched into Waterford, Tipperary, and Limerick, burning villages, blowing up castles, and hanging their garrisons. He overawed Connaught by occupying Galway and Roscommon; and he established Humfrey Gilbert at Kilmallock to strike terror into the people, which he effectually did by the indiscriminate slaughter of all who came in his way, irrespective of age or sex. Ormonde succeeded in pacifying his brothers, who made their submission and were forgiven, and James Fitzmaurice retired with his followers to lead an outlaw's life in the Kerry mountains.

By these brutal measures the incipient insurrection was crushed out, and Sir John Perrot was appointed President of Munster, to hunt down the rebels and to catch Fitzmaurice. For two years did Sir James set

him at defiance, taking up his quarters in the inaccessible vale of Aherlow, under the Galtee mountains. Perrot blew up his castles, captured his towns, and hanged his followers, and finally took Castlemaine after a two months' siege. Then, stinted by Elizabeth both of men and money, and almost as exhausted as Fitzmaurice, he opened negotiations with the rebels, and the Geraldine came in, made his submission, and was pardoned.