Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/305

 157 1.] STATE OF IRELAND. 285 might have been kept quiet with ease till the people had forgotten to be troublesome ; but it required money, and money was simply not to be had. The Queen could - not give it, for she had not got it. The whole Protest- ant world were clamouring for help at the doors of the English treasury ; had Parliament filled her lap with gold, little of it could have been spared for Ireland ; and thus the poor country drifted on before the stream of the age from misery to misery. In one only of the four provinces Elizabeth con- sented that exertions should continue to be made. If the Spaniards came, they would probably land in Water- ford, Cork, or Kerry. To leave it in the hands of the Geral dines was to reward rebellion, and to open the door to invasion ; and, as the confiscation scheme had broken down, the Queen consented at last, with extreme unwillingness, to the measures so long urged upon her by Sir Henry Sidney. The disaster of Sir Edward Fitton was a poor encouragement to provincial presi- dencies, but the experiment had been tried in Connaught under conditions which made success impossible. An- < other attempt was to be made in the South, and Sir John Perrot, a soldier by profession, reported by Ca- tholic scandal to be a natural son of Henry VIII., was appointed President of Munster. Before Perrot would accept the offer, he stipulated that a year's salary to himself, and a year's wages to his men, should be paid in advance ; that he should be supplied regularly from England with military stores ; that he should be em- powered to receive the dues of the Crown, and might