Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 5.djvu/91

1552.] them, so long as he had France upon his hands; he would not only have to treat with them with courtesy, but be glad to accept their support. The opportunity was inviting. It tempted the Duke of Northumberland into dreams which, so long as Charles was powerful, he would not have dared to contemplate.

But, before I pass to the last phase of the Protestant administration, I must say something of the fortunes which during all this time had befallen Ireland. The men who had run so strange a course at home, had produced results no less astonishing in the sister country.

The Celtic and Celto-Norman chiefs, with whom anarchy was chronic and peace the least endurable of calamities, had for the last five years of the reign of Henry VIII., under the mild rule of Sir Anthony St Leger, remained in comparative quiet. The isolation of England in the midst of enemies, the French invasion in 1545, the internecine war with the Scots, had given them excellent opportunities for insurrection. But the temptation left them unaffected. Companies of gallowglass served in Henry's camp at Boulogne, and even in Leinster and Connaught there was a longer respite from murder and pillage than those provinces had experienced since the conquest.

Some part of his success St Leger owed to himself, but he owed more to fortune. The reins were placed in his hands, when, after a series of defeats, the Irish lords had gone to London, and had seen for the first time in their lives the wealth and resources of the