Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/254

 4J4 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 59. would have been exterminated with equal indifference. Accident only, which betrayed the project prematurely and gave the chiefs time to combine, prevented the ex- periment from being tried. It has been seen that the Irish septs, taking advan- tage of the civil war in England in the I5th century, had reoccupied large portions of the interior of the island, from which they had before been driven by the Normans. Many English families had been forced to leave the country ; their estates had been abandoned with- out prospect of recovery ; and their great-grandchildren retained title-deeds which long had no value except as historical curiosities. The fall of Shan and the energy of Sidney however gave a hope that England would now recover its ascendency. The parchments, become again of importance, could be made use of as pretexts against the Irish, or to assist the intended forfeitures, and several of the twenty- seven speculators, Sir Peter Carew, Sir Warham Sfc Leger, Sir Hichard Grrenville, Humfrey Gilbert, and others, having acquired claims of this kind either by purchase or inheritance, set out for Munster to look after their so-called properties, without waiting for the resolution of the council upon the general project. Nor were they contented with a mere survey ; they carried with them, under the name of servants, considerable numbers of their retainers, and believing justly that at such times no title was so good as solid possession, St Leger and Grenville laid hold of a number of farms and castles in the neigh- bourhood of Cork, which MacCarty More and Des-