Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/546

 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 62. Ulster leaders on the least dishonourable terms which he could obtain. 1 There would be no. occasion to dwell on these vacil- lations, so universal as they were in every department with which the Queen interfered, but for their conse- quences to the miserable Irish : the English officers, dis- tracted by change of purpose, encouraged in acts which roused the fiercest exasperation, and then forbidden to carry out their severities to conclusions which would have formed the sole justification of commencing them, employed their forces in murderous raids where they were not strong enough to conquer. The order to make peace gave Essex discretionary power as to the means of effecting it. A reproach of cowardice had been thrown out against him by Leicester. He had a few hundred soldiers ready to march, and he preferred to negotiate in the field. Before the news of the change of policy could reach Ulster he made a rapid march into Tyrone, carried off twelve hundred of Tirlogh's cattle, defeated him in action, and all but took him prisoner, and then exacting an oath of him for his future good behaviour, he left him in possession by treaty of all his lands, privileges, and royalties, and of all the estates of the religious houses between the Bann and the Black- water, Lough Foyle and Lough Erne. 2 The sovereignty 1 The Queen to Essex, May 22 ; Instructions to Mr Asheton sent to the Earl of Essex, May 22 : MSS. Ireland. 2 ' Item habebit omnes terras mo- nasteriorum, abbatiarum, et aliarum sodium spiritualium intra dictum prsecinctum. ' Essex adds in a note, ' Upon examination what monasteries and other spiritual lands there were in the circuit of land now appointed to Tirlogh, it was proved that there