EXTERMINATING WARS.
Mr. Froude's magnificent chapter on Ireland, in the eleventh volume
of his history, just published, ought to be studied by every member of
the legislature before parliament meets. If a nation has a conscience,
England must feel remorse for the deeds done in her name in Ireland;
and ought to make amends for them, if possible. The historian has well
described the policy of Queen Elizabeth. She was at times disposed to
forbearance, but 'she made impossible the obedience she enjoined. Her
deputies and her presidents, too short-sighted to rule with justice,
were driven to cruelty in spite of themselves. It was easier to kill
than to restrain. Death was the only gaoler which their finances could
support, while the Irish in turn lay in wait to retaliate upon their
oppressors, and atrocity begat atrocity in hopeless continuity.'
Whenever there was a failing in any enterprise, the queen conceived 'a
great misliking of the whole matter;' but success covered a multitude
of sins. When the Irish were powerful, and the colony was in danger,
she thought it 'a hard matter to subvert the customs of the people
which they had enjoyed, to be ruled by the captains of their own
nation. Let the chiefs sue for pardon, and submit to her authority,
and she would let them have their seignories, their captaincies, their
body-guards, and all the rest of their dignities, with power of life
and death over their people. But,' says Mr. Froude, 'it was the curse
of the English rule that it never could adhere consistently to any
definite principle. It threatened, and failed to execute its threats.
It fell back on conciliation, and yet immediately, by some injustice
or cruelty, made reliance on its good faith impossible.'
Essex seemed to understand well the nature and motive of the queen's
professions, and he resolved to make some bold attempts to win back
her favour. He had made a sudden attack on Sir Brian O'Neill of
Clandeboye, with troops trained in the wars of the Low Countries, and
in a week he brought him to abject submission, which he expressed by
saying that 'he had gone wickedly astray, wandering in the wilderness
like a blind beast.' But it was the misfortune of Sir Brian, or
M'Phelim, that he still held his own territory, which had been
granted by the queen to Essex. 'The attempt to deprive him had been
relinquished. He had surrendered his lands, and the queen, at Essex's
own intercession, had reinstated him as tenant under the crown. It
seems, however, as if Essex had his eye still upon the property.'
Under such circumstances, it was easy to assume that O'Neill was still
playing false. So he resolved that he should not be able to do so any
longer. 'He determined to make sure work with so fickle a people.' He
returned to Clandeboye, as if on a friendly visit. Sir Brian and Lady
O'Neill received him with all hospitality. The Irish Annalists say
that they gave him a banquet. They not only let him off safe, but they
accompanied him to his castle at Belfast. There he was very gracious.
A high feast was held in the hall; and it was late in the night when
the noble guest and his wife retired to their lodging outside the
walls. When they were supposed to be asleep, a company of soldiers
surrounded the house and prepared to break the door. 'The O'Neills
flew to arms. The cry rang through the village, and the people swarmed
out to defend their chief; but surprised, half-armed, and outnumbered,
they were overpowered and cut to pieces. Two hundred men were killed.
The Four Masters add that the women were slain. The chieftain's wife
had female attendants with her, and no one was knowingly spared. The
tide being out, a squadron of horse was sent at daybreak over the
water into the "Ardes," from which, in a few hours, they returned with
3,000 of Sir Brian's cattle, and with a drove of stud mares, of which
the choicest were sent to Fitzwilliam. Sir Brian himself, his brother,
and Lady O'Neill, were carried as prisoners to Dublin, where they were
soon after executed.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.179.]
Essex did not miscalculate the probable effect of this exploit. It
raised him high in the estimation of the Anglo-Irish of the Pale. 'The
taint of the country was upon him; he had made himself no better than
themselves, and was the hero of the hour.' The effect of such conduct
and such a spirit in the rulers, may be imagined. A few weeks later,
Sir Edward Fitton wrote: 'I may say of Ireland, that it is quiet;
but if universal oppression of the mean sort by the great; if murder,
robberies, burnings make an ill commonwealth, then I cannot say we are
in a good case ... Public sentiment in Dublin, however, was unanimous
in its approbation. Essex was the man who would cauterize the
long-standing sores. There was a soldier in Ireland at last who
understood the work that was to be done, and the way to set about it.
Beloved by the soldiers, admirable alike for religion, nobility, and
courtesy, altogether the queen's, and not bewitched by the factions
of the realm, the governor of Ulster had but to be armed with supreme
power, and the long-wished-for conquest of Ireland would be easily and
instantly achieved.'
These feelings were not unnatural to the party in Dublin, now
represented by the men who recently declared that they rejoiced in
the election of a Fenian convict in Tipperary, and declared that they
would vote for such a candidate in preference to a loyal man. But how
did Queen Elizabeth receive the news of the treacherous and atrocious
massacre at Belfast? She was not displeased. 'Her occasional
disapprobation of severities of this kind,' says Mr. Froude, 'was
confined to cases to which the attention of Europe happened to be
especially directed. She told Essex that he was a great ornament of
her nobility, she wished she had many as ready as he to spend their
lives for the benefit of their country.'
Thus encouraged by his sovereign, and smarting under the reproach of
cowardice cast on him by Leicester, Essex determined to render his
name illustrious by a still more signal deed of heroism. After an
unprovoked raid on the territories of O'Neill in Tyrone, carrying
off cattle and slaughtering great numbers of innocent people whom
his soldiers hunted down, he perpetrated another massacre, which is
certainly one of the most infamous recorded in history. A great
number of women and children, aged and sick persons, had fled from the
horrors that reigned on the mainland, and taken refuge in the island
of Rathlin. The story of their tragic fate is admirably told by Mr.
Froude:--'The situation and the difficulty of access had thus long
marked Rathlin as a place of refuge for Scotch or Irish fugitives,
and, besides its natural strength, it was respected as a sanctuary,
having been the abode at one time of St. Columba. A mass of broken
masonry, on a cliff overhanging the sea, is a remnant of the castle in
which Robert Bruce watched the leap of the legendary spider. To this
island, when Essex entered Antrim, M'Connell and other Scots had sent
their wives and children, their aged and their sick, for safety. On
his way through Carrickfergus, when returning to Dublin, the earl
ascertained that they had not yet been brought back to their homes.
The officer in command of the English garrison (it is painful to
mention the name either of him, or of any man concerned in what
ensued) was John Norris, Lord Norris's second son, so famous
afterwards in the Low Countries, grandson of Sir Henry Norris,
executed for adultery with Anne Boleyn. Three small frigates were in
the harbour. The summer had been hot and windless; the sea was smooth,
there was a light and favourable air from the east; and Essex directed
Norris to take a company of soldiers with him, cross over, and--'
What? Bring those women and children, those sick and aged folk, back
to their homes? Essex had made peace by treaty with the O'Neill. He
had killed or chased away every man that could disturb the peace;
and an act of humanity like this would have had a most conciliatory
effect, and ought to recommend the hero to the queen, who should be
supposed to have the heart as well as the form of a woman.
No; the order was, to go over '_and kill whatever he could find!_' Mr.
Froude resumes: 'The run of the Antrim coast was rapidly and quietly
accomplished. Before an alarm could be given, the English had landed,
close to the ruins of the church which bears St. Columba's name.
Bruce's castle was then standing, and was occupied by a score or two
of Scots, who were in charge of the women. But Norris had brought
cannon with him. The weak defences were speedily destroyed, and after
a severe assault, in which several of the garrison were killed, the
chief who was in command offered to surrender, if he and his people
were allowed to return to Scotland. The conditions were rejected. The
Scots yielded at discretion, and every living creature in the place,
except the chief and his family (who were probably reserved for
ransom), was immediately put to the sword. Two hundred were killed in
the castle. It was then discovered that several hundred more, chiefly
mothers and their little ones, were hidden in the caves about
the shore. There was no remorse, nor even the faintest shadow of
perception that the occasion called for it. They were hunted out as if
they had been seals or otters, and all destroyed. Sorleyboy and other
chiefs, Essex coolly wrote, had sent their wives and children into the
island, "which be all taken and executed to the number of six hundred.
Sorleyboy himself," he continued, "stood upon the mainland of the
Glynnes and saw the taking of the island, and was likely to have run
mad for sorrow, tearing and tormenting himself, and saying that he
there lost all that he ever had!" The impression left upon the mind by
this horrible story, is increased by the composure with which even the
news of it was received. "Yellow-haired Charley," wrote Essex to
the queen, "might tear himself for his pretty little ones and
their _dam_," but in Ireland itself the massacre was not specially
distinguished in the general system of atrocity. Essex described it
himself as one of the exploits with which he was most satisfied; and
Elizabeth, in answer to his letters, bade him tell John Norris, "the
executioner of his well-designed enterprise, that she would not be
unmindful of his services."'
I have transcribed this narrative partly for the sake of the
reflection with which Mr. Froude concludes. He says: 'But though
passed over and unheeded at the time, and lying buried for three
hundred years, the bloody stain comes back to the light again, not in
myth or legend, but in the original account of the nobleman by whose
command the deed was done; and when the history of England's dealings
with Ireland settles at last into its final shape, that hunt among the
caves at Rathlin will not be forgotten.'[1] It was for services like
these that Essex got the barony of Farney, in the county Monaghan. He
had mortgaged his English estates to the queen for 10,000 l.,and after
his plundering expeditions in Ireland he went home to pay his debts.
[Footnote 1: History of England, vol. xi. p.184.]
Further on Mr. Froude has another reflection connected with the death
of Essex, supposed to have been poisoned, as his widow immediately
after married Leicester. He says: 'Notwithstanding Rathlin, Essex was
one of the noblest of living Englishmen, and that such a man could
have ordered such a deed, being totally unconscious of the horror of
it, is not the least instructive feature in the dreadful story.' It
is certainly a strange fact that nearly all the official murderers who
ruled in Ireland in those times were intensely religious, setting
to their own class a most edifying example of piety. Thus, from the
first, Protestantism was presented to the Irish in close connexion
with brutal inhumanity and remorseless cruelty. Essex, when dying, was
described by the bystanders as acting 'more like a divine preacher or
heavenly prophet than a man.' His opinion of the religious character
of his countrymen was most unfavourable. 'The Gospel had been preached
to them,' he said, 'but they were neither Papists nor Protestants--of
no religion, but full of pride and iniquity. There was nothing but
infidelity, infidelity, infidelity!--atheism, atheism!--no religion,
no religion!' What such tiger-like slaughterers of women and children,
such ruthless destroyers, could have meant by religion is a puzzle for
philosophers.
Sidney reluctantly resumed the office of viceroy in 1575. Tirlogh
O'Neill congratulated the Government on his appointment, 'wretched
Ireland needing not the sword, but sober, temperate, and humane
administration.' Though it was winter, the new deputy immediately
commenced a progress through the provinces. Going first to Ulster, he
saw Sorleyboy, and gave him back Rathlin. He paid a friendly visit
to the O'Neill, who gave him an assurance of his loyalty. Leinster he
found for the most part 'waste, burnt up and destroyed.' He proceeded
by Waterford to Cork. He was received everywhere with acclamation.
'The wretched people,' says Mr. Froude, how truly!--'sanguine then, as
ever, in the midst of sorrow, looked on his coming as the inauguration
of a new and happier era.' So, in later times, they looked on the
coming of Chesterfield, and Fitzwilliam, and Anglesey. But the good
angel was quickly chased away by the evil demon--invoked under the
name of the 'Protestant Interest.' The Munster and the Connaught
chiefs all thronged to Sidney's levées, weary of disaffection, and
willing to be loyal, if their religion were not interfered with,
'detesting their barbarous lives,'--promising rent and service for
their lands. 'The past was wiped out. Confiscation on the one hand,
and rebellion on the other, were to be heard of no more. A clean page
was turned.' Even the Catholic bishops were tractable, and the viceroy
got 'good and honest juries in Cork, and with their help twenty-four
malefactors were honourably condemned and hanged.' Enjoying an ovation
as he passed on to Limerick and Galway, he found many grievances to be
redressed--'plenty of burnings, rapes, murders, besides such spoil
in goods and cattle as in number might be counted infinite, and in
quantity innumerable.'
Sir William Drury was appointed president of Munster; and he was
determined that in his case the magistrate should not bear the sword
in vain. Going round the counties as an itinerant judge, he gleaned
the malefactors Sidney had left, and hanged forty-three of them
in Cork. One he pressed to death for declining to plead to his
indictment. Two M'Sweenys, from Kerry, were drawn and quartered. At
Limerick he hanged forty-two, and at Kilkenny thirty-six, among which
he said were 'some good ones,' as a sportsman might say, bagging his
game. He had a difficulty with 'a blackamoor and two witches,' against
whom he found no statute of the realm, so he dispatched them 'by
natural law.' Although Jeffreys, at the Bloody Assizes, did not come
near Drury, the latter found it necessary to apologise to the English
Government for the paucity of his victims, saying, 'I have chosen
rather with the snail tenderly to creep, than with the hare swiftly to
run.' With the Government in Ireland, as Mr. Froude has well remarked,
'the gallows is the only preacher of righteousness.'
But the gallows was far too slow, as an instrument of reform and
civilisation, for Malby, president of Connaught; and as modern
evictors in that province and elsewhere have chosen Christmas as the
most appropriate season for pulling down dwellings, extinguishing
domestic fires, and unhousing women and children, so Malby chose the
same blessed season for his 'improvements' in 1576. It is such a model
for dealing with the Fenians and tenants on the Tory plan, that I
transcribe his own report, which Mr. Froude has found among the Irish
MSS. 'At Christmas,' he wrote, 'I marched into their territory, and
finding courteous dealing with them had like to have cut my throat,
I thought good to take another course; and so with determination _to
consume them with fire and sword, sparing neither old nor young_,
I entered their mountains. I burnt all their corn and houses, and
committed to the sword all that could be found, where were slain
at that time above sixty of their best men, and among them the best
leaders they had. This was Shan Burke's country. Then I burnt Ulick
Burke's country. In like manner I assaulted a castle where the
garrison surrendered. I put them to the misericordia of my soldiers.
They were all slain. Thence I went on, sparing none which came in my
way, which cruelty did so amaze their followers, that they could not
tell where to bestow themselves. Shan Burke made means to me to pardon
him and forbear killing of his people. I would not hearken, but went
on my way. The gentlemen of Clanrickard came to me. I found it was but
dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little corn and as few houses
standing as I left his brother; and what people was found had as
little favour as the other had. _It was all done in rain and frost
and storm_, journeys in such weather bringing them the sooner to
submission. They are humble enough now, and will yield to any terms we
like to offer them.'
And so Malby and his soldiers enjoyed a merry Christmas; and when
Walsingham read his letters, giving an account of his civilising
progress, to the Queen, she, too, must have enjoyed a fresh sensation,
a new pleasure amidst the festivities and gallantries of her brilliant
court. Mr. Froude has rendered a timely service in this Christmas
time to the Coercionists, the Martial Law men, and the Habeas Corpus
Suspension men of our own day. He has shown them their principles at
work and carried out with a vengeance, and with what results! He has
admirably sketched the progress of English rule in Ireland up to
that time--a rule unchanged in principle to the present hour, though
restrained in its operation by the spirit of the age. Mr. Froude says:
'When the people were quiet, there was the rope for the malefactors,
and death by the natural law for those whom the law written could not
touch. When they broke out, there was the blazing homestead, and death
by the sword for all, not for the armed kerne only, but for the aged
and infirm, the nursing mother and the baby at her breast. These, with
ruined churches, and Irish rogues for ministers,--these, and so far
_only_ these were the symbols of the advance of English rule; yet even
Sidney could not order more and more severity, and the president of
Munster was lost in wonder at the detestation with which the English
name was everywhere regarded. Clanrickard was sent to Dublin, and the
deputy wished to hang him, but he dared not execute an earl without
consulting his mistress, and Elizabeth's leniency in Ireland, as well
as England, was alive and active towards the great, although it was
dead towards the poor. She could hear without emotion of the massacres
at Rathlin or Slievh Broughty; but the blood of the nobles, who had
betrayed their wretched followers into the rebellion for which they
suffered, was for ever precious in her sight. She forbade Sidney to
touch him.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Vol. xi, p.197.]
Next came the great Desmond Rebellion, by which Munster was desolated.
The Pope had encouraged an expedition against the heretics in Ireland,
and some Spanish forces joined in the enterprise. It was organised by
an English ecclesiastic, named Sanders, and an exiled Geraldine,
named Fitzmaurice of Kerry, both able and energetic men. The Spaniards
landed at Dingle in 1579. In a few days all Kerry and Limerick were
up, and the woods between Mallow and the Shannon 'were swarming
with howling kerne.' 'The rebellion,' wrote Waterhouse, 'is the most
perilous that ever began in Ireland. Nothing is to be looked for but a
general revolt.' Malby took the command against them, joined by one of
the Burkes, Theobald, who when he saw Fitzmaurice struck by a ball
and staggering in his saddle, rode at him and cut him down. The Papal
standard was unfolded in this battle. Malby then burnt the Desmonds'
country, killing all the human beings he met, up to the walls of
Askeaton. When opportunity offered, Desmond retaliated by sacking and
burning Youghal. For two days the Geraldines revelled in plunder; they
violated the women and murdered all who could not escape. At length
Elizabeth was roused to the greatness of the danger, her parsimony
was overcome. A larger force was drawn into Ireland than had ever
been assembled there for a century. Ormond, the hereditary enemy of
Desmond, was appointed commander-in-chief; and Burghley, writing to
him in the name of the queen, concluded thus: 'So now I will merely
say, Butler aboo, against all that cry in the new language--Papa aboo,
and God send your hearts' desire to banish and vanquish those cankered
Desmonds!' The war now raged, and, as usual, the innocent people, the
cultivators of the soil, were the first victims. 'We passed through
the rebel countries,' wrote Pelham, 'in two companies, burning with
fire _all habitations, and executing the people_ wherever we found
them.' Mr. Froude says: '_Alone_ of all the English commanders he
expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the creatures they destroyed
were horses, dogs, or cats, we should expect a man of ordinary human
feelings to be shocked at the wholesale butchery. But the beings
slaughtered were men and women and children--Christians found unarmed
and defenceless in their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a
war carried on in Kent or Yorkshire, by Irish invaders, killing in
the name of the Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond
killed the blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots,
sparing none.
The English, as usual, had help from an Irish chief in the work of
destruction. Ormond had in his train M'Carthymore, 'who, believing
Desmond's day to be done, hoped, by making himself useful, to secure
a share of the plunder.' Dividing their forces, Pelham marched on to
Dingle, 'destroying as he went, with Ormond parallel to him on the
opposite side of the bay, the two parties watching each other's course
at night across the water by the flames of the burning cottages!'
The fleet was waiting at Dingle. There was a merry meeting of the
officers. 'Here,' says Sir Nicholas White, 'my lord justice and I
gathered cockles for our supper.'[1] The several hunting parties
compared notes in the evening. Sometimes the sport was bad. On one
occasion Pelham reported that his party had hanged a priest in the
Spanish dress. 'Otherwise,' he says, 'we took small prey, and
killed less people, though we reached many places in our travel!' At
Killarney they found the lakes full of salmon. In one of the islands
there was an abbey, in another a parish church, in another a castle,
'out of which there came to them a fair lady, the rejected wife of
Lord Fitzmaurice.' Even the soldiers were struck with the singular
loveliness of the scene. 'A fairer land,' one of them said, 'the
sun did never shine upon--pity to see it lying waste in the hands of
traitors.' Mr. Froude, who deals more justly by the Irish in his last
volumes, replies: 'Yet it was by those traitors that the woods whose
beauty they so admired had been planted and fostered. Irish hands,
unaided by English art or English wealth, had built Muckross and
Innisfallen and Aghadoe, and had raised the castles on whose walls the
modern poet watched the splendour of the sunset.'
[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]
Ormond was the arch-destroyer of his countrymen. In a report of his
services he stated that in this one year 1580, he had put to the
sword 'forty-six captains and leaders, with 800 notorious traitors
and malefactors, _and above_ 4,000 other people.'[1] In that year
the great Desmond wrote to Philip of Spain that he was a homeless
wanderer. 'Every town, castle, village, farm-house belonging to him or
his people had been destroyed. There was no longer a roof standing in
Munster to shelter him.' Hunted like a wolf through the mountains,
he was at last found sleeping in a hut and killed. In vain his wife
pleaded with Ormond, and threw herself on his protection. Even she was
not spared. Mr. Froude gives an interesting account of Desmond's last
hours. He was hunted down into the mountains between Tralee and the
Atlantic. M'Sweeny had sheltered him and fed him through the summer,
though a large price was set on his head; and when M'Sweeny was gone,
killed by an Irish dagger, the earl's turn could not be distant.
Donell M'Donell Moriarty had been received to grace by Ormond, and
had promised to deserve his pardon. This man came to the captain
of Castlemayne, gave information of the hiding-place, a band was
sent--half-a-dozen English soldiers and a few Irish kerne, who stole
in the darkness along the path which followed the stream--the door was
dashed in, and the last Earl of Desmond was killed in his bed.
[Footnote 1: Carew Papers; Froude, vol. xi. p.225.]
Ormond had recourse to a horrible device to extinguish the embers of
the rebellion. It was carrying out to a diabolical extent the policy
of setting one Irishman against another. If the terror-stricken
wretches hoped for pardon, they must deserve it, by murdering their
relations. Accordingly sacks full of the heads of reputed rebels were
brought in daily. Yet concerning him Mr. Froude makes this singular
remark: 'To Ormond the Irish were human beings with human rights. To
the English they were _vermin, to be cleared from off the earth_ by
any means that offered.'
Consequently, when it was proposed to make Ormond viceroy, the Pale
was in a ferment. How could any man be fit to represent English power
in Dublin Castle, who regarded the Irish as human beings! Not less
curious is the testimony which the historian bears to the character of
the English exterminators. He says, 'They were honourable, high-minded
men, full of natural tenderness and gentleness, to every one with whom
they were placed in _human relations_. The Irish, unfortunately, they
looked upon as savages who had refused peace and protection when it
was offered to them, and were now therefore to be _rooted out and
destroyed_.' A reformer in 1583, however, suggested a milder policy.
He recommended that 'all Brehons, carraghs, bards, rhymers, friars,
monks, jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such-like should be executed by
martial law, and that with this clean sweep the work of death might
end, and a new era be ushered in with universities and schools, a
fixed police, and agriculture, and good government.'
When the English had destroyed all the houses and churches, burnt all
the corn, and driven away all the cattle, they were disgusted at the
savage state in which the remnant of the peasantry lived. A gentleman
named Andrew Trollope gave expression to this feeling thus: 'The
common people ate flesh if they could steal it, if not they lived on
shamrock and carrion. They never served God or went to church; they
had no religion and no manners, but were in all things more barbarous
and beast-like than any other people. No governor shall do good here,'
he said, 'except he show himself a Tamerlane. If hell were open and
all the evil spirits abroad, they could never be worse than these
Irish rogues--rather dogs, and worse than dogs, for dogs do but after
their kind, and they degenerate from all humanity.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.246.]
The population of Ireland was then by slaughter and famine reduced to
about 600,000, one-eighth of the population of England; but far too
many, in the estimation of their English rulers. Brabason succeeded
Malby in Connaught, and surpassed him in cruelty. The Four Masters
say: 'Neither the sanctuary of the saint, neither the wood nor the
forest valley, the town nor the lawn, was a shelter from this captain
and his people, till the whole territory was destroyed by him.' In the
spring of 1582 St. Leger wrote from Cork: 'This country is so ruined
as it is well near unpeopled by the murders and spoils done by the
traitors on the one side, and by the killing and spoil done by the
soldiers on the other side, together with the great mortality in town
and country, which is such as the like hath never been seen. There has
died by famine only not so few as 30,000 in this province in less than
half a year, besides others that are hanged and killed.'
At length the world began to cry shame on England; and Lord Burghley
was obliged to admit that the English in Ireland had outdone the
Spaniards in ferocious and blood-thirsty persecution. Remonstrating
with Sir H. Wallop, ancestor of Lord Portsmouth, he said that the
'Flemings had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of
the Spaniards, as the Irish against the tyranny of England.' Wallop
defended the Government; the causes of the rebellion were not to
be laid at the door of England at all. They were these, 'the great
affection they generally bear to the Popish religion, which agreeth
with their humour, that having committed murder, incest, thefts, with
all other execrable offences, by hearing a mass, confessing themselves
to a priest, or obtaining the Pope's pardon, they persuade themselves
that they are forgiven, and, hearing mass on Sunday or holyday, they
think all the week after they may do what heinous offence soever and
it is dispensed withal.' Trollope said they had no religion. Wallop
said they had too much religion. But their nationality was worse than
their creed. Wallop adds, 'They also much hate our nation, partly
through the general mislike or disdain one nation hath to be governed
by another; partly that we are contrary to them in religion; and
lastly, they seek to have the government among themselves.'
The last was the worst of all. Elizabeth wished to heal the wounds of
the Irish nation by appointing Ormond lord deputy. He was a nobleman
of Norman descent. His family had been true to England for centuries.
He had commanded her armies during this exterminating war, and, being
a native of the country, he would be best fitted to carry on the work
of conciliation after so much slaughter. But, says Mr. Froude, 'from
every English officer serving in the country, every English settler,
every bishop of the Anglo-Irish Church, there rose one chorus of
remonstrance and indignation; to them it appeared as a proposal now
would appear in Calcutta to make the Nizam Viceroy of India.'[1]
Wallop wrote that if he were appointed, there would be 'no dwelling in
the country for any Englishman.'
[Footnote 1: Ibid. p.202.]
The fear that a merciful policy might be adopted towards Ireland
sorely troubled Wallop and Archbishop Loftus; but they were comforted
by a great prize--an archbishop fell into their hands. Dr. Hurley
refused to give information against others. Walsingham suggested that
he should be put to the torture. To him Archbishop Loftus wrote with
unction. 'Not finding that easy method of examination do any good, we
made command to Mr. Waterhouse and Mr. Secretary Fenton to put him to
the torture, such as your honour advised us, which was to _toast his
feet_ against the fire with hot boots.' He confessed something. They
asked permission to execute him by martial law. The queen took a month
to consider. She recommended an ordinary trial for high treason, and
if the jury did not do its duty, they might take the shorter way.
She wished for no more torture, but 'for what was past her majesty
accepted in good part their careful travail, and greatly commended
their doings.' The Irish judges had repeatedly decided that there was
no case against Archbishop Hurley; but on June 19, 1584, Loftus and
Wallop wrote to Walsingham, 'We gave warrant to the knight-marshal to
do execution upon him, which accordingly was performed, and thereby
the realm rid of a most pestilent member.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Froude, vol. xi. p.264.]
This was the last act of these two lords justices. Sir John Perrot,
the new viceroy, made a speech which sent a ray of hope athwart the
national gloom. It was simply that the people might thenceforth
expect a little justice and protection. He told the natives that 'as
natural-born subjects of her majesty she loved them as her own people.
He wished to be suppressed and universally abolished throughout the
realm the name of a churle and the crushing of a churle; affirming
that, however the former barbarous times had desired it and nourished
it, yet he held it tyrannous both in name and manner, and therefore
would extirpate it, and use in place of it the titles used in England,
namely, husbandmen, franklins or yeomen.' 'This was so plausible,'
wrote Sir G. Fenton, 'that it was carried throughout the whole realm,
in less time than might be thought credible, if expressed.'
The extirpation of the Munster Geraldines, in the right line,
according to the theory of the 'Undertakers' and the law of England in
general, vested in the queen the 570,000 acres belonging to the late
earl. Proclamation was accordingly made throughout England, inviting
'younger brothers of good families' to undertake the plantation of
Desmond--each planter to obtain a certain scope of land, on condition
of settling thereupon so many families--'none of the native Irish to
be admitted' Under these conditions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up
10,000 acres in Waterford; Sir Walter Raleigh 12,000 acres, partly in
Waterford and partly in Cork; Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000
acres in Kerry; Sir Edward Denny 6,000 in the same county; Sir Warren
St. Leger, and Sir Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork; Sir
William Courtney 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir Edward Fitton 11,500
acres in Tipperary and Waterford, and Edmund Spenser 3,000 acres in
Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other notable Undertakers
were the Hides, Butchers, Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons,
Bourchers, Billingsleys, &c. Some of these grants, especially
Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard Boyle, the so-called
'_great_ Earl of Cork '--probably the most pious hypocrite to be found
in the long roll of the 'Munster Undertakers.'