The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (314 page)

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game, so you may see more than I: But give me leave to tell you, that since you do but

see, and I do suffer, I must of necessity feel more than you.”NOTE [FF]

This spirited letter was shown by Essex to his friends; and they were so imprudent as to disperse copies of it: Yet notwithstanding this additional provocation, the queen’s partiality was so prevalent, that she reinstated him in his former favour; and her kindness to him appeared rather to have acquired new force from this short interval of anger and resentment.

The death of Burleigh, his antagonist, which happened about the 4th Aug.

same time, seemed to ensure him constant possession of the queen’s confidence; and nothing indeed but his own indiscretion could thenceforth have shaken his well-established credit. Lord Burleigh died in an advanced age; and by a rare fortune, was equally regretted by his sovereign and the people. He had risen gradually, from small beginnings, by the mere force of merit; and though his authority was never entirely absolute, or uncontrouled with the queen, he was still, during the course of near forty years, regarded as her principal minister. None of her other inclinations or affections could ever overcome her confidence in so useful a counsellor; and as he had had the generosity or good sense to pay assiduous court to her, during her sister’s reign, when it was dangerous to appear her friend, she thought herself bound in gratitude, when she mounted the throne, to persevere in her attachments to him. He seems not to have possessed any shining talents of address, eloquence, or imagination; and was chiefly distinguished by solidity of understanding, probity of manners, and indefatigable application in business: Virtues, which, if they do not always enable a man to attain high stations, do certainly qualify him best for filling them. Of all the queen’s ministers he alone left a considerable fortune to his posterity; a fortune not acquired by rapine or oppression, but gained by the regular profits of his offices, and preserved by frugality.

The last act of this able minister was the concluding of a new 8th Aug.

treaty with the Dutch; who, after being, in some measure, deserted by the king of France, were glad to preserve the queen’s alliance, by submitting to any terms which she pleased to require of them. The debt, which they owed her, was now settled as eight hundred thousand pounds: Of this sum they agreed to pay, during the war, thirty thousand pounds a-year; and these payments were to continue till four hundred thousand pounds of the debt should be extinguished. They engaged also, during the time that England should continue the war with Spain, to pay the garrisons of the cautionary towns. They stipulated, that, if Spain should invade England, or the Isle of Wight, or Jersey, or Scilly, they should assist her with a body of five thousand foot, and five hundred horse; and that in case she undertook any naval armament against Spain, they should join an equal number of ships to hers.
b
By this treaty the queen was eased of an annual charge of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

Soon after the death of Burleigh, the queen, who regretted extremely the loss of so wise and faithful a minister, was informed of the death of her capital enemy, Philip II.

who, after languishing under many infirmities, expired in an advanced age at Madrid.

This haughty prince, desirous of an accommodation with his revolted subjects in the Netherlands, but disdaining to make in his own name the concessions necessary for PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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that purpose, had transferred to his daughter, married to archduke Albert, the title to the Low Country provinces; but as it was not expected, that this princess could have posterity, and as the reversion, on failure of her issue, was still reserved to the crown of Spain, the States considered this deed only as the change of a name, and they persisted with equal obstinacy in their resistance to the Spanish arms. The other powers also of Europe made no distinction between the courts of Brussels and Madrid; and the secret opposition of France, as well as of the avowed efforts of England, continued to operate against the progress of Albert, as it had done against that of Philip.

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[Back to Table of Contents]

XLIV

State of Ireland — Tyrone’s rebellion — Essex sent over to Ireland — His ill success

— Returns to England — Is disgraced — His intrigues — His insurrection — His trial
and execution — French affairs — Mountjoy’s success in Ireland — Defeat of the
Spaniards and Irish — A parliament — Tyrone’s submission — Queen’s sickness —

And death — And character

Though the dominion of the English over Ireland had been

1599. State of Ireland.

seemingly established above four centuries, it may safely be affirmed, that their authority had hitherto been little more than nominal. The Irish princes and nobles, divided among themselves, readily paid the exterior marks of obeisance to a power which they were not able to resist; but, as no durable force was ever keeped on foot to retain them in their duty, they relapsed still into their former state of independance. Too weak to introduce order and obedience among the rude inhabitants, the English authority was yet sufficient to check the growth of any enterprizing genius among the natives: And though it could bestow no true form of civil government, it was able to prevent the rise of any such form, from the internal combination or policy of the Irish.
c

Most of the English institutions likewise, by which that island was governed, were to the last degree absurd, and such as no state before had ever thought of, for preserving dominion over its conquered provinces.

The English nation, all on fire for the project of subduing France, a project, whose success was the most improbable, and would to them have proved the most pernicious; neglected all other enterprizes, to which their situation so strongly invited them, and which, in time, would have brought them an accession of riches, grandeur, and security. The small army, which they maintained in Ireland, they never supplied regularly with pay; and as no money could be levied on the island, which possessed none, they gave their soldiers the privilege of free quarter upon the natives. Rapine and insolence inflamed the hatred, which prevailed between the conquerors and the conquered: Want of security among the Irish, introducing despair, nourished still more the sloth, natural to that uncultivated people.

But the English carried farther their ill-judged tyranny. Instead of inviting the Irish to adopt the more civilized customs of their conquerors, they even refused, though earnestly solicited, to communicate to them the privilege of their laws, and every where marked them out as aliens and as enemies. Thrown out of the protection of justice, the natives could find no security but in force; and flying the neighbourhood of cities, which they could not approach with safety, they sheltered themselves in their marshes and forests from the insolence of their inhuman masters. Being treated like wild beasts, they became such; and joining the ardor of revenge to their yet untamed barbarity, they grew every day more intractable and more dangerous.
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As the English princes deemed the conquest of the dispersed Irish to be more the object of time and patience than the source of military glory, they willingly delegated that office to private adventurers, who, inlisting soldiers at their own charge, reduced provinces of that island, which they converted to their own profit. Separate jurisdictions and principalities were established by these lordly conquerors: The power of peace and war was assumed: Military law was exercised over the Irish, whom they subdued, and, by degrees, over the English, by whose assistance they conquered: And, after their authority had once taken root, deeming the English institutions less favourable to barbarous dominion, they degenerated into mere Irish, and abandoned the garb, language, manners, and laws of their mother country.
e

By all this imprudent conduct of England, the natives of its dependant state remained still in that abject condition, into which the northern and western parts of Europe were sunk, before they received civility and slavery from the refined policy and irresistible bravery of Rome. Even at the end of the sixteenth century, when every christian nation was cultivating with ardour every civil art of life, that island, lying in a temperate climate, enjoying a fertile soil, accessible in its situation, possessed of innumerable harbours, was still, notwithstanding these advantages, inhabited by a people, whose customs and manners approached nearer those of savages than of

barbarians.f

As the rudeness and ignorance of the Irish were extreme, they were sunk below the reach of that curiosity and love of novelty, by which every other people in Europe had been seized at the beginning of that century, and which had engaged them in innovations and religious disputes, with which they were still so violently agitated.

The ancient superstition, the practices and observances of their fathers, mingled and polluted with many wild opinions, still maintained an unshaken empire over them; and the example alone of the English was sufficient to render the reformation odious to the prejudiced and discontented Irish. The old opposition of manners, laws, and interest was now inflamed by religious antipathy; and the subduing and civilizing of that country seemed to become every day more difficult and more impracticable.

The animosity against the English was carried so far by the Irish, that, in an insurrection, raised by two sons of the earl of Clanricarde, they put to the sword all the inhabitants of the town of Athenry, though Irish; because they began to conform themselves to English customs, and had embraced a more civilized form of life, than had been practiced by their ancestors.
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The usual revenue of Ireland amounted only to six thousand pounds a-year:
h
The queen, though with much repining,
i
commonly added twenty thousand more, which she remitted from England: And with this small revenue, a body of a thousand men was supported, which, on extraordinary emergencies, was augmented to two

thousand.k
No wonder that a force, so disproportioned to the object, instead of subduing a mutinous kingdom, served rather to provoke the natives, and to excite those frequent insurrections, which still farther inflamed the animosity between the two nations, and encreased the disorders, to which the Irish were naturally subject.

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In 1560, Shan O’Neale, or the great O’Neale, as the Irish called him, because head of that potent clan, raised a rebellion in Ulster; but after some skirmishes, he was received into favour, upon his submission, and his promise of a more dutiful behaviour for the future.
l
This impunity tempted him to undertake a new insurrection in 1567; but being pushed by Sir Henry Sidney, lord deputy, he retreated into Clandeboy, and rather than submit to the English, he put himself into the hands of some Scottish islanders, who commonly infested those parts by their incursions. The Scots, who retained a quarrel against him on account of former injuries, violated the laws of hospitality, and murdered him at a festival, to which they had invited him. He was a man equally noted for his pride, his violence, his debaucheries, and his hatred of the English nation. He is said to have put some of his followers to death, because they endeavoured to introduce the use of bread after the English fashion.
m
Though so violent an enemy to luxury, he was extremely addicted to riot; and was accustomed, after his intemperance had thrown him into a fever, to plunge his body into mire, that he might allay the flame, which he had raised by former excesses.
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Such was the life led by this haughty barbarian, who scorned the title of the earl of Tyrone, which Elizabeth intended to have restored to him, and who assumed the rank and appellation of king of Ulster. He used also to say, that, though the queen was his sovereign lady, he never made peace with her but at her seeking.
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Sir Henry Sidney was one of the wisest and most active governors that Ireland had

enjoyed for several reigns;p
and he possessed his authority eleven years; during which, he struggled with many difficulties, and made some progress in repressing those disorders, which had become inveterate among the people. The earl of Desmond, in 1569, gave him disturbance, from the hereditary animosity, which prevailed between that nobleman and the earl of Ormond, descended from the only family, established in Ireland, that had steddily maintained its loyalty to the English

crown.q
The earl of Thomond, in 1570, attempted a rebellion in Connaught, but was obliged to fly into France, before his designs were ripe for execution. Stukely, another fugitive, found such credit with the pope, Gregory the XIIIth, that he flattered that pontiff with the prospect of making his nephew, Buon Compagno, king of Ireland; and as if this project had already taken effect, he accepted the title of marquiss of

Leinster from the new sovereign.r
He passed next into Spain; and after having received much encouragement and great rewards from Philip, who intended to employ him as an instrument in disturbing Elizabeth, he was found to possess too little interest for executing those high promises, which he had made to that monarch: He retired into Portugal; and following the fortunes of Don Sebastian, he perished with that gallant prince in his bold but unfortunate expedition against the Moors.