CHAPTER VI.

1558-1603.

Reign of Elizabeth.-Hibernia pacified. - Bon-mot of Queen Elizabeth.-Famine a Means of quieting Ireland.—Liberal Policy of England.—Kings of Egypt.— Fish-adorers and Dog-worshippers.-One of my Ancestors distinguished in the Rebellious Line.-Precious Relic in the Possession of my Family.

THE plan of pacifying Ireland by exterminating the Irish-the only feasible one that has yet been attempted-was tried, on a grand scale, during the reign of Elizabeth; and had so nearly succeeded, that under the government of lord Gray, the Queen was assured that "little was left in Ireland for her majesty to reign over but carcasses and ashes." So satisfied, too, with the result of

* When the garrison of Smerwick, in Kerry, surrendered, upon mercy, to Lord Deputy Gray, he ordered upwards of seven hundred of them to be put to the sword or hanged. "Wingfield was commissioned to disarm them; and, when this service was performed, an English company was sent into the fort, and the garrison was butchered in cold blood: nor is it without pain (adds Leland), that we find a service so horrid and detestable committed to Sir Walter Raleigh."

For this and other such services, Sir Walter Raleigh had

his mission was another of her agents in this work of desolation, that the record which he has left behind him of his sanguinary exploits is entitled “Pacata Hibernia," or "Hibernia pacified."

Hibernia pacified! alas, alas, could the shade of Sir G. Carew but once more hover over his own region of Munster, he would find that a new edition of his work of Pacification is much wanted -he would find that though the same peacemakers, Slaughter and Persecution, have been tried under almost every government since his time, the grand object is still unaccomplished—the Temple of the Anglo-Irish Janus (that "forma biceps") lies as open as ever.

As I am not writing a History of the English power in Ireland, but merely tracking its course by hasty glimpses, and pointing out a few footmarks of the Hercules of Despotism, from which the rest of his colossal proportions may be estimated, I shall content myself with selecting from the long reign of Elizabeth a trait or two most characteristic of her general policy—or, rather, of the policy of those employed by her; as that Queen herself would have been far too wise, had

forty thousand acres of land bestowed upon him in the county of Cork, which he afterwards sold to Richard, first Earl of Cork.

her attention been fairly directed to the subject, * to turn thus into a wilderness what Nature meant for a garden, or make Famine and Devastation the hand-maids of her power. There is a memorable saying of hers, preserved by Camden, which not only shows how feelingly she was aware of the perverse wickedness of the system pursued under her name, but contains as bitter a comment on the

* On more than one occasion she endeavoured to introduce measures of conciliation and justice; but, in the intoxication of unlimited power, her Deputies were incapable of either. Even when they affected to put "her Majesty's merciful orders" into execution, the terms of pardon which they offered were but new devices of cruelty. Lord Mountjoy (as we are told by his secretary Moryson) never received any to mercy but such as had drawn blood of their fellow-rebels. "Thus," says he, M'Mahon and M'Artmoyle offered to submit, but neither could be received without the other's head."

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Yet could this Lord Mountjoy write, as plausibly as any of our modern Secretaries speak, on the expediency of a more humane and tolerant policy. Thus, in a letter to the Lords of the Council, he says-" All the Irish that are now obstinate, are so only out of their diffidence to be safe in any forgiveness; and, though they are weary of the war, they are unwilling to have it ended, for fear lest, upon a peace, there would come a severe reformation of religion. They have the ancient swelling and desire of liberty in their countrymen to work upon-their fear to be rooted out, and generally all over the kingdom their fear of a persecution for religion; the least of which alone has been many times sufficient to drive the best and most quiet states into sudden confusion."

whole course of policy towards this country as the most virulent United Irishman ever dared to utter." Alas (said she, on receiving some representation of grievances from Ireland), how I fear lest it be objected to us, as it was to Tiberius by Bato :-You, you it is that are in fault, who have committed your flocks not to shepherds but to wolves!"

And now for our specimens of the policy of this reign. Let the poet Spenser, in the first place, describe the frightful state of desolation brought upon the people of Munster,' by a war into which their leader, the Earl of Desmond, was driven by the cupidity of the chief Governors, who had long looked on his immense possessions with a wishful eye,*and, thinking him too tempting, as an enemy, to be long suffered to remain a friend (as he himself expresses it), "wrung him into undutifulness.' Notwithstanding," says Spenser, "that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, yet, ere one year and a half, they were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stony

* Elizabeth knew the art of turning Irish rebellions to account full as well as any of her successors. "Be not dismayed," she said, upon hearing that O'Neal meditated some = designs against her government; "tell my friends, if he arise, it will turn to their advantage; there will be estates for them who want."-LELAND, p. 238.

heart would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glynns 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 cafrions, 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 water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue there withal; that in short space there was none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and

beast.'

The authors of this calamity reaped from it the expected fruits. Five hundred and seventy-four thousand six hundred and twenty-eight acres were forfeited to the Crown, and distributed among Englishmen.

As famine had succeeded so well in Munster, it was adopted systematically in Leinster and Ulster; and that death which Homer pronounces to be the most miserable that man can die, was now prescribed and administered universally as a panacea

* State of Ireland.