Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 7.djvu/122

 102 REIGN OF ELIZABETH. [CH. 42. chiefs made forays upon each other, killing, robbing, and burning. When the war broke out between Eng- land and France there were the usual conspiracies and uprisings of nationality ; the young Earl of Kildare, in reward to the Queen who had restored him to his rank, appearing as the natural leader of the patriots. Ireland was thus happy in the gratification of all its natural tendencies. The Brehon law readvanced upon the narrow limits to which, by the exertions of Henry the Eighth, the circuits of the judges had been ex- tended ; and with the Brehon law came anarchy as its inseparable attendant. ' The Lords and Gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number of idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their neighbours abroad working every one his own wilful will for a law to the spoil of his country and decay and waste of the common weal of the same.' 'The idle men of war ate up all to- gether ; ' the lord and his men took what they pleased, ' destroying their tenants and themselves never the better ; ' ' the common people having nothing left to lose/ became ' as idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest/ ' stealing by day and robbing by night/ Yet it was a state of things which they seemed all equally to enjoy, and high and low alike ' were always ready to bury their own quarrels to join against the Queen and the English/ 1 1 The disorders of the Irishry, 1559 : Irish MSS. Roll* Honsf.