Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/621

 1581.] THE DESMOND REBELLION. 601 worse than dogs, for dogs do but after their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.' l The quiet, as Trollope had foreseen, was of short continuance. The overthrow of the churches, the total absence of all instruction, the cha- racter of the administration, which had abolished the native Irish laws, yet was too weak to enforce order of its own, had turned the people generally into wild beasts. The Anglo-Irish of the Pale, if retaining vestiges of civilized humanity, yet in their sympathy with the inhabitants of their adopted country had be- come deliberately disloyal. The Wicklow Highlanders broke out as was expected when they had got in their harvest. A conspiracy was formed at the same time in which one or other member of almost every family in the Pale was implicated, to seize Dublin, force the Castle, and liberate Kildare and the Baron of Delvin. The plot was betrayed, the leaders were arrested, and those who had no property were hanged as usual by martial law. Nineteen others, Nugents, Sherlocks, Eustaces, and Neutervilles, were brought to trial ; and Grey having cause to fear that, being men of family, Elizabeth would interfere in their favour, told Walsing- ham ' that he would make small stay in giving them their deserts/ 2 ' The jurors, by a secret power of God .working in their consciences, proceeded very uprightly/ They were all found guilty of high treason December and executed at once. A certain tenderness 4 Trollope to Walsingham, Sep- I 2 Grey to Walsingham, Novem- tember 12, 1581 : MSS. Ireland. I ber 6 : MS 8. Ibid.