Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/280

 264 IRELAND [HISTORY. of supremacy ; but the English convocation under Henry VIII. had done no less, and it involved no doctrinal changes. Walsh of Meath, Leverous of Kildare, and probably Thonory of Ossory were deprived. In other cases Elizabeth connived at what she could not prevent, and hardly pretended to enforce uniformity except in the Pale and in the large towns. Rebellion Ulster demanded the immediate attention of Elizabeth, of Shane Her father had conferred the earldom of Tyrone on Con 3 Neill. B aca gh O Neill, with remainder to his supposed son Matthew, the offspring of a smith s wife at Dundalk, who in her husband s lifetime brought the child to Con as his own. When the chief s legitimate son Shane grew up he declined to be bound by this arrangement, which the king may have made in partial ignorance of the facts. &quot; Being a gentleman,&quot; he said, &quot; my father never refusid no child that any woman namyd to be his.&quot; When Tyrone died, Matthew, already created baron of Dungannon, claimed his earldom under the patent. Shane being chosen O Neill by his tribe claimed to be chief by election and earl as Con s lawful son. Thus the English Government was com mitted to the cause of one who was at best an adulterine bastard, while Shane appeared as champion of hereditary right. To secure his position he murdered the baron of Dungannon, whose prowess in the field he had reason to dread, and the eldest of two surviving sons became official candidate for the earldom. Shane maintained a contest which had begun under Mary until 1567, with great ability and a total absence of morality, in which Sussex had no advantage over him. The lord-lieutenant twice tried to have Shane murdered; once he proposed to break his safe- conduct ; and he held out hopes of his sister s hand as a snare. Shane was induced to visit London, where his strange appearance and followers caused much amusement, and where he spent his time intriguing with the Spanish ambassador and making himself agreeable to Lord Robert Dudley. The Government detained him rather unfairly, and the young baron of Dungannon suffered his father s fate, leaving a brother who at last gained the coveted earldom, and became a more dangerous enemy to England than even Shane had been. Sussex was outmatched both in war and diplomacy; the loyal chiefs were crushed one by one ; and the English suffered checks of which the moral effect was ruinous. Shane always fully acknowledged Elizabeth as his sovereign, and sometimes played the part of a loyal subject, wreaking his private vengeance under colour of expelling the Scots from Ulster. At last, in 1566, the queen placed the sword of state in Sidney s strong grasp. Shane was driven helplessly from point to point, and perished miserably at the hands of the M Don- nells, whom he had so often oppressed and insulted. First Peace was soon broken by disturbances in the south. Desmond The earl of Desmond having shown rebellious tendencies was detained for six years in London. Treated leniently, but grievously pressed for money, he tried to escape, and, the attempt being judged treasonable, he was persuaded to surrender his estates, to receive them back or not at the queen s discretion. Seizing the opportunity, English adventurers proposed to plant a military colony in the western half of Munster, holding the coast from the Shannon to Cork harbour. Some who held obsolete title deeds were encouraged to go to work at once by the example of Sir Peter Carew, who had established his claims in Carlow. Carew s title had been in abeyance for a century and a half, yet most of the Kavanaghs attorned to him. Falling foul of Ormonde s brothers, seizing their property and using great cruelty and violence, Sir Peter drove the Butlers, the only one among the great families really loyal, into rebellion. Ormonde, who was in London, could alone restore peace ; all his disputes with Desmond 1574. were at once settled in his favour, and he was even allowed to resume the exaction of coyne and livery, the abolition of which had been the darling wish of statesmen. The Butlers returned to their allegiance, but continued to oppose Carew, and great atrocities were committed on both sides. Sir Peter had great but undefined claims in Munster also, and the people there took warning. His imitators .in Cork were swept away. Sidney first, and after him Humphrey Gilbert, could only circumscribe the rebellion. The presidency of Munster, an office the creation of which had long been contemplated, was then conferred on Sir John Perrott, who drove Fitzmaurice into the mountains, reduced castles everywhere, and destroyed a Scottish con tingent which had come from Ulster to help the rebels. Fitzmaurice came in and knelt in the mud at the president s feet, confessing his sins ; but he remained the real victor. The colonizing scheme was dropped, and the first pre sidency of Munster left the Desmonds and their allies in possession. Similar plans were tried unsuccessfully in Ulster, first by a son of Sir Thomas Smith, afterwards by Walter, earl of Essex, a knight-errant rather than a states man, who was unfortunately guilty of many bloody deeds. He treacherously captured Sir Brian O Neill and mas sacred his followers. The Scots in Rathlin were slaughtered wholesale. Essex struggled on for more than three years, seeing his friends gradually drop away, and dying ruined and unsuccessful. Towards the end of 1575 Sidney was again persuaded to become viceroy. The Irish recognized his great qualities, and hewenteverywhere without interrup tion. Henceforth presidencies became permanent institu tions. Drury in Munster hanged four hundred persons in one year, Malby in reducing the Connaught Burkes spared neither young nor old, and burned all corn and houses. The Desmonds determined on a great effort. A holy war was declared. Fitzmaurice landed in Kerry with a few followers, and accompanied by the famous Nicholas Sanders, who was armed with a legate s commission and a banner blessed by the pope. Fitzmaurice fell soon after in an encounter with Malby, but Sanders and Desmond s brothers still kept the field. When it was too late to act with effect, Desmond himself, a vain man, neither frankly loyal nor a bold rebel, took the field. He surprised Youghal, then an English town, by night, sacked it, and murdered the people. Roused at last, Elizabeth sent over Ormonde as general of Munster, and after long delay gave him the means of conducting a campaign. &quot; I will merely,&quot; wrote Burghley, &quot; say Butler Aboo against all that cry in a new language Papa Aboo.&quot; It was in fact as much a war of Butlers against Geraldines as of loyal subjects against rebels, and Ormonde did his work only too well. Lord Baltinglass raised a hopeless subsidiary revolt in Wicklow (1580), which was signalized by a crushing defeat of Lord-Deputy Grey ( Arthegal) in Glenmalure. A force of Italians and Spaniards landing at Smerwick in Kerry, Grey hurried thither, and the foreigners, who had no commission, surrendered at discretion, and were put to the sword. Neither Grey nor the Spanish ambassador seem to have seen anything extraordinary in thus disposing of incon venient prisoners. Spenser and Raleigh were present. Sanders perished obscurely in 1581, and in 1533 Desmond himself was hunted down and killed in the Kerry mountains. More than 500,000 Irish acres were forfeited to the crown. The horrors of this war it is impossible to exaggerate. The Four Masters say that the lowing of a cow or the voice of a ploughman could scarcely be heard from Cashel to the furthest point of Kerry ; Ormonde, who, with all his severity, was honourably distinguished by good faith, claimed to have killed 5000 men in a few months. Spenser, an eye-witness, says famine slew far more than the sword. The survivors were unable to walk, but crawled?