8. The forced submission of some of the Irish was no re than an insidious suspension of hostilities, till a fa-. rable moment for rising in arms should present itself. ⇒ insurrection soon became general;* and so precarious the very existence of the English power appear to governnt, that the queen condescended to appoint a commission Sir Robert Gardiner and Sir Henry Wallop, to conclude a ce with the Irish. This treaty was very solemn, and whilst vas pending, most of the Irish potentates made their com ints for redress of grievances.† It produced no more In a truce for some months, viz. to the 1st of April, 1596. glish historians have generally attributed the failure of s treaty to the unreasonable demands of the Irish, viz. 1. general liberty of conscience. 2. A general pardon for

3. That no garrison, sheriff, or officer should remain in y of their countries (Newry and Carrickfergus excepted). ter the recommencement of hostilities, the remainer of izabeth's reign was an unchequered scene of war, famine d desolation. The council gave it under their hands, that was an universal Irish rebellion to shake off all English go

rnment.

19. Elizabeth, being sensible of the necessity of closing e disasters of Ireland by strong measures, consulted with e young earl of Essex, whose personal accomplishments d high spirit had for some time gained an ascendancy over er feelings even at her advanced age, which produced upon

ac Mahon, and therefore in the great treaty of Dundalk, in Januy, 1595, they all desired to be exempted from garrisons, sheriffs, id other officers.

* The insurrection, however, was not universal; for, after the geeral submission to the queen that took place in the last parliament, is remarkable that no chiefs of the Kavenaghs, O'Moores, O'Tools, 'Dempsies, or O'Connors, could ever be brought to join in O'Neil's surrection, notwithstanding they adhered to the religion of their cestors, against which such severe laws had been enacted. A great are of the odium of government fell upon Fenton, the secretary, ho had maintained his situation in a sort of independence of each eputy and governor through several successive administrations. He as supported by the personal favour of the queen, to whom he freuently repaired to lay before her the state of affairs in Ireland, and is own complaints of the different officers, so that he was said to be moth in the garments of all the deputies of his time. He had estabshed his own consequence in the oppression of the Irish, and abused le confidence of the queen, by artful and false representations, to ontinue the same pernicious system of government for his own emoiment and security.

+ They are to be seen at large in Morryson, p. 113.

her mind an effect widely different from that which her official confidence in Burleigh, Raleigh, and her other ministers had ever occasioned. They were his envious rivals, and being more aware than Essex himself was of the hazardous and unproductive attempt to bring Ireland under complete subjection, encouraged the queen to second his intemperate ambition to become the conqueror of that kingdom. In this they had double policy. 1. To implicate their rival in a desperate enterprize. 2. To remove from the presence of the queen the person who commanded such an extraordinary and absolute ascendancy over the inflexible mind of so despotic a sovereign. He was appointed, and went over to Ireland in vast pomp. Besides a magnificent retinue, he was attended by about 150 persons of distinction, who were devoted to his interests. Although he had under him an army of 20,000 men, (a force never before known to have been sent to that country) yet during his whole government the arms of England were generally unsuccessful. This warfare produced enormities at which the soul sickens. The produce of that once fertile island no longer sufficed to support its wretched inhabitants. The putrified bodies of the multitudes that fell daily more by famine than the sword, brought on a pestilence which threatened to clear the land of its aboriginal race. The English, whose shipping supplied them with provisions, suffered less than the natives. The war was at last put an end to by the forced submission of Tyrone, and the dispersion of some of the chieftains who had joined him in the rebellion. Essex returned without orders; but the manœuvres of his enemies were so deep and powerful as to have accelerated his catastrophe on the scaffold.

20. The irascible and haughty temper of Elizabeth was so affected by the resistance of Tyrone, and her feelings were so worked upon by the disgrace, trial and execution of Essex, all of which she laid to the account of her rebellious

*

Essex, in communication with Elizabeth on the desperate situation of Ireland, so far forgot his respect for the queen, as to have provoked her to strike him in the face, which he so resented, that he put his hand to his sword, declaring he could overlook the insult of a woman, but not of a sovereign. This misunderstanding was patched up, and he set out for Ireland. The disparity of age and condition rendered Elizabeth's passion for Essex the more violent by how much the less natural and justifiable it was. Keen offence, pròstrate repentance, ambition and resentment, intervening diffidence, pride and jealousy, followed by relapse, revenge and final cruelty, degraded the actions of the sovereign and her favourite into lovers' quarrels, of

ojects in Ireland, that her dissolution is generally sup sed to have been accelerated from these causes. The lord puty Mountjoy, who succeeded Essex in the government Ireland, pressed upon Cecil the absolute necessity of an icable conclusion of the war. But the irritated mind of e queen interposed insurmountable obstacles: so fluctuatand contradictory were her latter orders respecting Ired, that all the art and power of Cecil could not render them acticable to the lord deputy. He however hazarded at his ril the bold determination of acting up to reason, and, upon s own authority, sent articles for a pacification to Tyrone. the height of his perplexity Mountjoy received a private mmunication of the queen's death, of which he prudently ailed himself by instantly closing the treaty. The almost mediate knowledge of this event threw the humiliated dyst into despair and rage, from the sense of a precipitate bmission, when perseverance for one short hour might _ve preserved his honour, maintained his reputation with s countrymen, and afforded a favourable opportunity of rewing the war, or concluding it upon more favourable rms with the new monarch. But the die was cast; and e once great and formidable Tyrone, now deserted by his llowers, in the piteous state of fallen greatness, cast himIf on his knees before the deputy, acknowledged his guilt, plored mercy, and renounced for ever the name of O'Neale,

hich his rivals failed not to take the most tragical advantage. Esx regretted to the queen, that her services so often requiring his sence exposed him to the ill office of his enemies. The queen, in e moment of unguarded sensibility, gave him a ring with a solemn surance, that into whatever disgrace he might fall, the sight of the ng would revive the feelings of that moment and command a faDurable hearing. Essex, after having at first sported with the affecons, was at last drawn into defy the powers of the queen. He was ondemned to suffer as a traitor. He then resolved to make the exeriment, and commissioned the countess of Nottingham to deliver he ring to the queen. The countess was dissuaded by her husband, n enemy of Essex, from complying. Elizabeth anxiously expected his appeal to her tenderness, and ascribing the neglect of it to pride nd obstinacy, signed the warrant for his execution, which took place the Tower for fear of a rescue or tumult from the great popularity f Essex. Lady Nottingham soon after fell ill and was visited by the ueen, to whom on her death bed she revealed the secret and prayed orgiveness. Elizabeth, in a paroxism of rage, shook the dying couness in her bed, exclaiming "that God might forgive her, but she never ould." Her anger settled in an obstinate melancholy, that brought -n her dissolution, which by some historians is represented as most Christian and heroic, by others weak, petulent, and desperate even orage.

HIST. IREL. VOL. I.

with all his former pretensions to independent sovereignty, intreating to be admitted, through the bounty of his sove. reign, to some part of his inheritance for an honourable subsistence, The deputy pardoned him and his followers, and (with some exceptions) promised him the restoration of his lands and dignity. On these conditions the pacification was ratified. Thus closed a rebellion, evidently brought on, stimulated, and continued by the noxious policy of England treating the Irish as a divided separate and enslaved people. But it was a melancholy solace. The reduction of Ireland to submission by blood, famine, and pestilence, cost the crown of England no less a sum than 1,198,7177.; a sun in those days enormous.

21. Elizabeth possessed all the despotism of her father: she was equally violent and vindictive, but more artful in disguising and managing her passions. During a very arbitrary though prosperous reign of forty-five years, nothing so effectually thwarted her designs, humbled her pride, and ruffled her feelings, as the resistance of the Irish. Unquestionably the pretext of religion* sharpened the animosity of Irish resistance. But she appears to have been actuated less by religious influence against her Irish than her English subjects.

In a desperate cause all means of aid, countenance and support are resorted to, O'Nial, at the beginning of his insurrection, had entered into the war under repeated assurances of succours from the pope and the king of Spain. He constantly importuned these powers for assistance. He urged the unlawfulness of submitting to Elizabeth, who still remained subject to the excommunication of Pius V. and entreated Clement VIII. to send a nuncio to Ireland; instead of which that pope wrote a breve from Rome to encourage the nation to the recovery of its liberties.

219

CHAPTER V.

1603.-JAMES I.

1. THE accession of the house of Stuart to the throne of England, and consequently to that of Ireland, forms a notable era in the modern history of that country. The conduct of the Irish to the Stuarts, and their treatment of the Irish, afford a melancholy illustration of the unmanly policy of that family, to court their enemies and neglect their friends. James was regularly proclaimed without opposition in Ireland, as he had been in England. The former he found so reduced by the sword, famine, and pestilence, as to have abandoned all thoughts of that liberty and independence which was only to be purchased by a continuance of such calamities; and it was scarcely worth retaining by so profuse a drain of blood and treasure, which England was no longer able to supply.*

2. James's first care after his accession was to ingratiate himself with the Irish. Tyrone and Roderick O'Donnel, who in the late commotions had been very active against the government, accompanied Mountjoy to the court of king James, where they were most graciously received: the former was confirmed in all his lands and honours, the latter was created earl of Tyrconnel. It is evident that James encouraged reports in Ireland that he should be favourable to

* Morryson (p. 97) says, that the queen's charge for Ireland from the 1st of April, 1600, to the 29th of March, 1602, was 283,673l. 19s. 44d. Robertson, in his History of Scotland, tells us," that it was part of James's policy, in order to pave the way to his succession, to waste the vigour of the state of England, by some insensible, yet powerful means. He had his agents in Ireland fomenting Tyrone's war (the Scots daily carrying munition to the rebels) in Ulster; so that the queen was driven almost to an incredible expense in carrying it on, and her enemies still encouraged by James's secret assistance and promises." Of this Elizabeth complained to James in a letter in 1599, remonstrating with him upon the impolicy of abetting what she termed the dangerous party, and failing his own (Saund. king James). No one therefore could be more alive to the dangers of the Irish persisting in rebellion than king James. He could not have forgotten, that he had under hand favoured Irish rebellions, and courted the catholic powers of the continent with specious promises of being well disposed to the religion of his mother, in order to pave his way to the English throue.