HENRY II, AND HENRY VIII.

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V.

RELAND now became passive for a while for there were

I REB

no means of redress: petition and force were alike in vain. She made no more resistance till Henry VIII. attempted, Mahomet-like, to convert her, sword in hand, to the principles of the Reformation. Henry II. had spread slaughter through Ireland, to make her Catholic. Henry VIII. did the same, to make her Protestant. She became the spoil of every monarch.

Henry sent over pastors for the people, but they were a set of adventurers who came only for the booty of extortion, and they drove, by insult and oppression, the common people into tumult. This first civil war of the Reformation, wrongly termed a rebellion, terminated as former ones had done, in favor of the English.

War following on the desolate steps of war, renders the succeeding years a monotonous history of violence and bloodshed. Sometimes, it was baron against baron; sometimes supported by foreign allies, they made for a while a successful stand against the power that bore so heavily upon them; but in the end they were overthrown, and night triumphed over the right. Often a great chief, possessed of large estates, was purposely driven by the most flagrant injustice and insults into open rebellion, that he might be branded as a traitor, and his rich possessions revert by confiscation to the English vampyres that so infested the land. Every cruelty and outrage that can dishonor our nature, was perpetrated in those unjust wars by English leaders and English soldiers. Cities were sacked, villages burned, women violated, and the helpless and the young slaughtered by thousands. A record of these scenes of crime and blood we cannot furnish. It is written, however, on every foot of Irish soil, and in the still living memories of many an Irish heart. Our meagre outline is scarcely as much as a naked table of the killed and wounded. The suffering we leave undescribed.

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FATE OF EARL DESMOND.

The policy of the English government, provoking a war at every turn, is fairly exhibited in its treatment of the Earl of Desmond.

This heroic Irishman happened to be guilty of owning 600,000 acres of land, upon which English cupidity cast an insatiate eye. A dispute arising concerning his lands, he obtained permission to lay his claims before the English throne. On proceeding to London, he was immediately seized, and without any cause being assigned, was committed to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner for several years. This falsehood and crime, together with the murder of O'Neill, another distinguished Irish chief, caused commotions throughout the country. At length the Earl made his escape, and returned to Ireland :-knowing that the government was determined to seize his lands, he took up arms. For this he was branded as a traitor. The war that succeeded, was marked by the most relentless cruelty. Tottering age, and helpless childhood, and pleading maternity, presented no obstacle to the English soldiery. Munster was literally a field of blood.

Overcome his troops scattered-himself a fugitive-the Earl was at length discovered, and murdered by an English soldier, and his head sent as a present to the queen, who had said of O'Neill, "if he revolted, it would be better for her servants, as there would be estates enough for them all." This single expression of Elizabeth, reveals the entire policy of the English Government towards Ireland. That injured country was the great repast to which every monarch bid his lords sit down and eat. After they had gorged their fill, the remains were left for those who should come after. Tranquillity succeeded these massacres, but it was the tranquillity of the graveyard. The proud and patriotic Irishmen were folded in the sleep of death, and the silence and repose around their lifeless corpses was called peace.

THE ADMINISTRATION OF SIR JOHN PERROT. 103

VI.

"They made a solitude
And called it peace."

HEIR treatment of Sir John Perrot, who governed the country in 1589, is ample proof that the Irish were not the discontented rebels their enemies declared them to be. The only upright man England had appointed over the country since Duke Richard, he endeavored to unite jarring interests, to heal, instead of aggravate, old feuds, to conciliate the discontented, and distribute honest justice to all. Notwithstanding the obstructions thrown in his way by the crown and local aristocracy, the generous Irish appreciated his character, and rendered a proper return for his justice and kindness. When he resigned, he told Elizabeth that he could govern her Irish subjects, but that no power could control her English servants. As he was about to bid farewell to Ireland, a great multitude assembled to witness his departure, and were melted to tears by his kind words. The wronged and outraged, yet sympathetic Irishmen, pressed on his footsteps as he descended to the shore. For once an English ruler had treated them like men, and striven, however vainly, to render them justice. But now he was leaving them for ever, and the rapacious plunderer would once more desolate their firesides. Tears and lamentations were mingled with the shouts of praise that rose around him. The loved "God bless you" that was wafted over the waters, was the bitterest sentence ever uttered against English oppression. A few such rulers would have saved Ireland, and fastened her as with hooks of steel to the British throne.

The same generous sentiment was exhibited towards the prelates of the Established Church when they ceased to be plunderers, and became shepherds. Later in her history, she exhibited this regard for Bishop Belmore. He sought the spiritual and temporal good of his flock. He strove to win their affections by kindness, instead of exciting their indignation by rav

104

OUTRAGES ON RICH CHIEFTAINS.

aging their folds. At length, when he came to die, such was the affection felt for him by Catholic Irishmen, that the soldiers who had no other way of showing him respect, interred him with military honors, and when the grave closed over him, all joined in the simple chorus, "Requiescat in pace, ultimus Anglorum."

These two exhibitions of affection, one towards an English ruler, and the other towards an English bishop, illustrate most strikingly, both the cruelty of the English government, and the generosity of the Irish character. It shows how cruel and sanguinary must have been her policy, to deluge in blood a nation of such men, how tyrannical the power that must need continual physical force to keep such men in tranquillity.

The successor of Sir John, renewed the oppressions of his predecessors, and under a pretence of high treason, had a rich chieftain arrested and suddenly executed, that he might appropriate his possessions to himself. Outrages like this on rich chieftains to get possession of their land, the commission of crimes for which there was no redress, and the distress and suffering caused by the oppression of their rulers, roused the exasperated Irish again to resistance. But before they commenced hostilities, they drew up a detailed account of their grievances, and humbly besought redress. Their petition and their wrongs were alike disregarded, and war with its desolating flood again swept over the devoted island. The English were defeated on every side; their armies melted away; victory perched on the Irish standard, and over the dark cloud of war, the rainbow of freedom was already bending.

Elizabeth became alarmed. The infatuated rulers who had driven the inhabitants into rebellion by their cruelty, were thunderstruck at the terrible elements they had aroused. Ireland was almost free. But owing to the arrogance and selfconceit of the Spaniards, the allies of Ireland, O'Neill, the commander of the native forces, was compelled to hazard an attack when he foresaw, and foretold a failure. It came, and Ireland again was lost-lost in the very arms of victory. This foolish,

SIX COUNTIES CONFISCATED.

105

mad, and fatal battle turned the whole current of events, and the British army swept like a sea of fire over the land, burying men, women and children in one indiscriminate slaughter.

England expended in this unjust and murderous war, more than £3,000,000, and lost thousands of soldiers. She reduced the land to a desert, and between famine and war, swept away, at least, one half of the entire population.

When Elizabeth approached her death, and the future, with its fearful retributions, visited her conscience, the ghost of murdered Ireland rose before her, filling her with terrible alarms; so that she immediately ordered that some of the confiscated estates should be restored, and peace be made with O'Neill.

0

VII.

N the accession of James I., the system of confiscation recommenced on a more extended scale. In the first place, without a single proof, or attempt at proof, the Earls of Tyrone and of Tyrconnel were declared to be agents in a Catholic conspiracy. Even if it had been true, as they were chiefs, and had the sovereignty, and not the ownership of the land, it could not lawfully be scized by the crown. But seized it was, and six countics, embracing more than 500,000 acres, came into the possession of James. These lands the king wished to settle with English colonists, in order to establish the "English ascendency" in the very heart of the country. To prevent the Irish Parliament in its next session from defeating this plan, he created at once forty boroughs, in order to have a majority in the representation. This justice in appearance, and dishonesty in action, has ever been the course of the English government towards her subjects at home and abroad.

His success in this kingly robbery, only whetted his appetite for greater spoils. But what new scheme could he devise by which to wrest from the Irish chieftains their estates, for even a villain's brain will become exhausted of plots! A commission was appointed "for the discovery of defective titles." A set