Hugh O'Neill, who had received much kindness from Queen Elizabeth, by whom he had been created earl of Tyrone, and to whom he was indebt ed for the restoration of a considerable part of the earldom, which had been forfeited by the treason of his uncle Shane O'Neill, was for some time one of the most loyal of the queen's nobles. It chanced, however, that when the great and providential tempest dispersed that armada which Philip of Spain and the pope had presumptuously named the "invincible,' some of the vessels composing it were wrecked on the coast of Ireland Tyrone behaved with so much cordiality to the shipwrecked Spaniards, as to give an opportunity to his cousin, a son of Shane O'Neill, to accuse him of treasonable correspondence with Spain. All the violence of the earl's nature now burst fiercely forth; instead of taking a safe and straight course, he caused his cousin to be seized and put to death; and having thus, by an inhuman crime put himself out of the queen's peace, he impudently set himself up as the patriotic enemy of her to whose favour he owed all that he possessed. Levying war in reality to save himself from the deserved penalty of murder, he also excited the M'Guires, M'Mahons, and other sects to join in his rebellion; and while the English agents were endeavouring to enrich the country, these patriots were doing their utmost to throw it deeper into barbarism. A. D. 1594.-The experience of ages had not yet taught the Irish that peace is the true nursing-mother of prosperity and happiness. Tyrone and his associates, with abundant support, had committed much crime and inflicted proportionate misery. And yet, when in 1594 Sir William Russell went to Ireland as lord-deputy, Tyrone had the consummate assurance to go to Dublin and assert his desire to support her majesty's government. Sir Henry Bagnal, a shrewd man, who then filled the office of marshal of the army in Ireland, was for putting it out of the traitor's power to commit further crime by at once sending him to England. But Sir William, desirous of carrying conciliation to its most prudent length, determined to trust the earl's promise of faith and loyalty; and the earl showed his sense of this too-trusting conduct, by immediately going to his own territory and opening a correspondence with her majesty's bitterest enemy, the Spaniard, from whom he obtained a supply of arms and ammunition, and then openly placed himself at the head of a confederacy of Irish chiefs, their avowed object being the ruin of the English power in Ireland. Shrewd and well-advised as Elizabeth was beyond most English sovereigns, magnum vectigal parsimonia est was the ruling maxim of her life; to parsimony she owed not a little of that respect which the profusion of her successor caused to be withheld from him; to parsimony she was sincerely devoted. And, accordingly, to the six thousand pounds which was the ordinary revenue of Ireland, the queen added only twenty thousand, when emergency required the doubling or trebling of the ordinary English force of a thousand men. While Sir John Norris was in command of the English force in Ireland, Tyrone availed himself of his knowledge of the limited extent to which the queen supplied her officers, to play upon that commander's feelings, to make and break treaties to such an extent, that the unfortunate gentleman actually died of a complaint which was attributed solely to his mental sufferings. He was succeeded by Sir Henry Bagnal, of whom mention has already been made. Being aware of the real disposition of Tyrone, this officer resolved to suppress him to the utmost; but an unfortunate circumstance caused the first of his operations to terminate in his death The rebels at that time were besieging the fort of Blackwater, the garri son of which they had already reduced to great distress. Sir Henry led his troops to the relief of the fort, and was suddenly attacked on very dis advantageous ground; and one of the ammunition wagons accidentally blowing up, so increased the panic into which the men had been thrown. ! that a complete rout took place. The loss on the English side was fully fifteen hundred, and unhappily included the gallant Sir Henry; and but for the daring conduct of Montacute, the commander of the cavalry, whc held the enemy in check, the loss would have been much greater. The rebels were much elated by this victory, which was more decisive than they were accustomed to achieve; and it also put them in possession of a considerable supply of arms and ammunition, of both which they stood in great need. As for Tyrone, he assumed to himself the title of deliverer of the Irish people, and patron of Irish liberty. This event caused no little anxiety at the English court; and Elizabeth and her councillors at length came to the determination to give no future room to the rebels to avail themselves of truces and treaties. The queen, in truth, deemed it high time to put her Irish affairs in the hands of some commander possessing rank as well as ability. Her own opinion inclined towards Charles Blount, the young and high-spirited Lord Mountjoy. But Essex, who was now high in his sovereign's favour, was himself ambitious of acquiring fame by pacifying Ireland, and he urged that Mountjoy was not possessed of the requisite standing or the requisite talent; plainly giving the queen to understand that he was himself the fittest person she could send. Essex so perseveringly pushed his suit, that Elizabeth at length consented to entrust him with the coveted office; and in the patent by which she constituted him her lord-lieutenant of Ireland, she gave him the power of pardoning rebels, and of appointing all the principal officers in the lieutenantcy. As in distinction, so in military force he was favoured beyond any of his predecessors; having an army provided for him of twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry. Averse as Elizabeth was to all expensive armaments, the more reflecting among the friends of Essex trembled for him; and the more reflecting among his enemies rejoiced in anticipation of the ruin in which failure would involve him, should he be otherwise than successful when so abundantly provided with the means of success. And, in order to render ill success the more ruinous to him, Raleigh, Cecil, and the earl of Nottingham, took every opportunity to impress upon the queen the impossibility of her favourite being otherwise than triumphant. The earl of Southampton had incurred the anger of Elizabeth by marrying without her permission-an offence which never failed deeply to incense her against those of her courtiers who committed it; and ere Essex left England the queen gave express orders not to give any command to Southampton. But one of the very first acts of Essex on his arrival in Ireland was to give his friend Southampton the command of the horse. This error, gross enough, was still farther aggravated. The queen no sooner heard of the disobedience than she sent her special command to Essex to revoke Southampton's commission; and Essex, instead of obeying, contented himself with remonstrating, nor did he obey until a new and more positive order convinced him that his own command would be taken from him if he longer hesitated. Considering the self-willed character of the sovereign whom he served, Essex placed himself in sufficient peril by this one error; but as if infatuated and determined upon ruin, he immediately committed an error still more grave because striking directly against the success of the enterprize intrusted to him. At the English council-board he had pledged himself to proceed at once against the main body under Tyrone. The queen and her advisers perfectly agreed with him on this point; yet he had scarcely landed in Dublin when he allowed himself to be persuaded the season was too early, and that his better plan would be to devote some time to an expe dition into Munster, where parties of the rebels were doing mischief. In fine, after proving himself signally unfit for his task, Essex in a pet re turned to England, and eventually lost his head. Lord Mountjoy, whom Elizabeth, as we have said, originally intended for the Irish expeditio : was now sent over, in the hope that he would repair the evils caused by his incapable rival. The Irish rebels speedily discovered that they now had to deal with a lord-lieutenant very different from the vain and facile Essex. Brave and accomplished as a soldier, Mountjoy was also somewhat inclined to sternness and severity. A. D. 1602.-On taking the command in Ireland, Mountjoy divided his force into detachments, and gave the commands to men of known ability and courage, with orders to act with the utmost vigour and to give no quarter. The rebels being thus attacked at once, and finding their new opponent was impracticable in negotiation as he was in war, threw down their arms. Many of them sought safety by retiring into the morasses and mountain caves, while their friends exerted themselves to obtain their peace ou such terms as Mountjoy chose to dictate. Tyrone was no exception; at first, indeed, he tried to obtain favourable terms, but his days of successful deception were ended. Mountjoy refused to admit him tc mercy on any other condition than that of absolute surrender of his life and fortunes to the queen's pleasure. But Elizabeth had expired while he still hesitated; and as the character of her successor rendered it unlikely he would show mercy to rebels so crafty and faithless as Tyrone both he and O'Donnel made their escape to Italy; where Tyrone lived some years, supported only on a pension allowed him by the pope. He was blind for many years before his death; and the poverty and obscurity into which his misconduct brought him, compared with the influence and respect which he forfeited, ought to warn such men-if indeed men of ambition and ill-regulated energies can be warned by anything-of the danger as well as impropriety of inciting the ignorant and violent to that worst of crimes, rebellion. CHAPTER VI. A. D. 1612.—THE most efficient of the English commanders was undoubtedly the lord Mountjoy; and perhaps, but for his stern chastisement of armed rebellion, Ireland would not have been in a state to profit by the wise and humane desire of Elizabeth's successor, James I., to civilize the people by raising them socially as well as intellectually. The immense tracts of land which civil war and rebellion had depopulated in Ireland, especially in Ulster, furnished the sagacious James with the first great element, room for civilized colonists, whose example of industry and prosperity could not fail to have the effect of raising all the rest in the social scale. Aware that a large sum of money was necessary for the carrying out of his admirable plan, and aware, too, that practical men were the best persons to look after the details upon which so much would depend, James incorporated the Royal Irish Society. The members were to be annually elected from the aldermen and common-council of London ; and to the committee thus formed, were all matters to be intrusted connected with the management of the Irish fisheries, and the waste tracts of land. The lands were to be let to three classes of undertakers; so called because they undertook to fulfil certain conditions. Those who received two thousand acres were to build a castle, with a proportionate bawn or yard, surrounded by a substantial wall; those who received fifteen hundred acres were to build a stone house, also surrounded by a bawn, unless in situations where a bridge would be more desirable; and those who received a thousand acres were to build a good dwelling to their own taste. The plan itself was a comprehensive one; and we think that few will be disposed to differ from Sir John Davies, who says, as quoted by Hume, that "James in nine years made greater advances towards the civilization of Ireland, than had been made in the four hundred and forty years which had elapsed since the conquest was first attempted." Having done so much, James declared all the people of Ireland to be equally his subjects, abolished the Brehon laws, and stationed a small army in Ireland, which was regularly paid from England, and thus spared all temptation to excite disturbances in the country by levying contributions upon its inhabitants. The good effect of this was strikingly shown in the case of an outbreak excited by a chief named O'Dogherty. This chieftain, among many, was enraged at seeing the comfort and prosperity in which strangers dwelt in his native country; and he was especially opposed to the abolition of the Brehon laws, which gave occasion to periodical warfare by a most absurd division of property, and made murder and other crimes as purchaseable as any manufactured luxury, by affixing a price to each crime, as the Normans and Saxons, and most other partially barbarous people, had done at an earlier day. Taking counsel with other chieftains as prejudiced and turbulent as himself, O'Dogherty endeavoured to plunge the country into a civil war. But his first outbreak was steadily met by the resident English troops; reinforcements were speedily sent; and he who but a few years before might have sacked towns, and then have sold his good behaviour for a peerage, was easily and speedily put down. Regular circuits for the administration of justice were formed; charters of incorporation were bestowed upon the larger and more pros perous towns; and James had the truly enviable pleasure of seeing prosperity and growing civilization accomplished by his peaceful and equitable rule, for a country which his predecessors had all failed even to begin to rule with either certainty or advantage. Hume gives a curious anecdote, illustrative of the effect which the affixing prices to crimes had, in diminishing not merely the legal fear of committing them, but also the moral sense of their enormity. When Sir William Fitzwilliams was lorddeputy, he told the powerful and unruly M'Guire that he, the deputy, was about to send the sheriff into Fermanagh. "Your sheriff shall be welcome," said M'Guire," but let me know beforehand what a sheriff's head is rated at, that I may be prepared to levy the amount upon the county if my people chance to cut his head off." A. D. 1641.-From the year 1603, Ireland had been constantly progressing, sometimes slowly, but always more or less, towards the comparative perfection of England; and if, now, in 1641, Brian Borohme, or Malachi of the golden collar, those sincere and-the age in which they lived being considered-sensible friends of their native country, could have seen the splendid alterations that had been wrought in its favour, they would have denounced to death the traitor, who, for the sake of his own interests, or ignorant fancies, should have proposed to light up the torch of war, and undo, in a few weeks of violence, what had been accomplished by the wisdom, patience, and liberality of years. But unhappily the times were favourable to mock patriots. The unfortunate Charles I. was now upon the English throne, and deeply involved in the fatal disputes with parliament, which ended so lamentably for both king and people. The settlers in Ireland under the scheme of King James were almost exclu sively protestant, and they naturally had the utmost horror of the opposite faith, in the name of which so much cruel persecution had taken place, and constantly sympathized with the puritan party in the English house of commons. In their zealous attention to this one point, they quite overlooked the peculiarity of their own situation. Owing everything to royal authority, and protected in their liberties by the royal troops, the Irish protestants were probably the last of all the ill-fated Charles subjects who, even with a view to selfish interests alone, should have done aught that could aid the triumphs of his enemies. Though a long lapse of years, and the steady and consistent wisdom of the successive adminis trations of Chichester, Grandison, Falkland, and the murdered Strafford, had fairly established Ireland among the prosperous and civilized nations though septs after septs had become peaceful and settled tillers of the earth, or prosperous artizans and traders in the town, neither time nor ministerial wisdom had, as yet, abated the detestation in which the Irishman held the Englishman, in which the catholic held the protestant, in which, in a word, the conquered held the conqueror. There was still much of the old leaven of disturbance in existence; and at the moment when the protestants of Ireland were indulging their hostility to the throne, they were watched with a grim smile of approving hate by their Roman catholic enemies. No matter whether the question were one of finance, of power, or of the form and etiquette so important to the efficacy of the ruler, yet without injury or danger to the ruled, the Irish protestants in parliament assembled took every opportunity to despoil and mortify their king in the most complete and egregious unconsciousness, as it would seem, that they were in precisely the same degree preparing and precipitating their own ruin. While the Irish protestants were thus departing from the line of policy and duty, the catholics and old Irish were longing for an opportunity to avail themselves of the fatal error; and there was nothing needed to plunge the now smiling and prosperous land into the horrors of civil war, but a daring, active leader. Unhappily such a man was at hand in the person of Roger Moore, a man of ability, and very popular among the "old Irish," of whom by descent he was one. Hating even the beneficence of the English, he took advantage of the blundering ingratitude of the Irish protestants, to excite the catholics and malcontents to insurrection. Artful and eloquent, he suited his complaints to every man's peculiar character, and pressed them alike upon the sympathy of all. To Sir Phelim O'Neill, and the lord M'Guire, he early and successfully addressed himself, and he and they used the most untiring industry to induce other leading men of the old blood and the old faith to join them. They pointed out the crippled condition of the royal authority in England, and of the vice-regal authority in Ireland; and they dwelt upon the inferiority of the English in numbers, and upon the ignorant and insolent confidence of safety in which they lived, even their small standing army being loosely subdivided throughout the land. Moore urged that the decay of the royal authority boded persecution and ruin to the catholics. He said, that though, as Irishmen, they were wronged by being subjected to English rule under any circumstances, yet the king had shown no disposition to persecute them especially on account of their religion, but if the puritans, as seemed certain, should succeed in subjecting their high-church sovereign in England, would they have any toleration to spare for his catholic subjects in Ireland? If any Irishman had a doubt upon that point, he had but to look at the persecution already endured by his fellow-religionists in England. As catholics, it was their bounden duty to prevent themselves from falling victims to the fierce and persecuting zeal of the puritans; as Irishmen they would at all times, and under any circumstances, have been warranted in throwing off the foreign yoke which conquest had fixed upon them; and they were now especially called upon to do so. O'Neill engaged to head an insurrection in the provinces, the signal for which was to be given simultaneously with an attack upon the castle of Dublin, which was to be headed by Roger Moore and M'Guire. Cardinal Richelieu, indirectly at least, promised arms and other aid; numerous Irish officers who were serving in the Spanish army promised to join them; and there could be no doubt but the catholic population would join in a revolt originating in zeal for the catholic religion. Every arrangement having been made, the day fixed upon for the outbreak was the 23d of October, 1641 that late period of the year being named by Moore on account of the |