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1601.

Death of

Elizabeth

some of the chieftains, who had joined him in 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.

The irascible and haughty temper of Elizabeth and submis- was so affected by the resistance of Tyrone, and her feelings were so worked upon by the disgrace, trial, and exccution of Essex, all of which she laid to the

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*Essex, in communicating 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, prostrate 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 which his rivals failed not to take the most tragical advantage. Essex regretted to the Queen, that her services so often requiring his absence, exposed him to the ill offices of his enemies. The Queen in the moment of unguarded sensibility, gave him a ring, with a solemn assurance, that into whatever disgrace he might fall, the sight of the ring would revive the feelings of that moment, and command a favorable hearing. Essex, after having at first sported with the affections, was at last drawn in to defy the powers of the Queen. He was condemned to suffer as a traitor. He then resolved to make the experiment, and commissioned the Countess of Nottingham to deliver the ring to the Queen. The Countess was dissuaded by her husband, an enemy of Essex, from complying. Elizabeth anxiously expected this appeal to her tenderness, and ascribing the neglect of it to pride and obstinacy, signed the

account of her. rebellious subjects in Ireland, that her 1603. dissolution is generally supposed to have been accelerated from these causes. The Lord Deputy Mountjoy, who succeeded Essex in the government of Ireland, pressed upon Cecil the absolute necessity of an amicable conclusion of the war. But the irritated mind of the Queen interposed insurmountable obstacles: so fluctuating and contradictory were her latter orders respecting Ireland, that all the art and power of .Cecil could not render them practicable to the Lord Deputy. He however hazarded at his peril the bold determination of acting up to reason, and upon his own authority, sent articles for a pacification to Tyrone. In the height of his perplexity Mountjoy received a private communication of the Queen's death, of which he prudently availed himself by instantly closing the treaty. The almost immediate knowledge of this event threw the humiliated dynast into despair and rage, from the sense of a precipitaté submission, when perseverance for one short hour might have preserved his honour, maintained his reputation with his countrymen, and afforded a favourable opportunity of re

warrant for his execution, which took place in the Tower, for fear of a rescue or tumult from the great popularity of Essex. Lady Nottingham soon after fell ill and was visited by the Queen, to whom, on her death bed, she revealed the secret, and prayed forgiveness. Elizabeth, in a paroxysm of rage, shook the dying Countess in her bed, exclaiming "that God might forgive her but she never could." Her anger settled in an obstinate melancholy, that brought on her dissolution, which by some historians is represented as most Christian and heroic, by others weak, petulant, and desperate even to rage.

1603 newing the war, or concluding it upon more ho

Character of

the Queen.

nourable terms with the new monarch.

But the die

was cast and the once great and formidable Tyrone, now deserted by his followers, in the piteous state of fallen greatness, cast himself on his knees before the Deputy, acknowledged his guilt, implored mercy, and renounced for ever the name of O'Neale, with all his former pretensions to independent sovereignty, entreating to be admitted, through the bounty of his sovereign, 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's treating the Irish as a divided, separate, and enslaved people. But it was a melancholy solace: The reduc tion of Ireland to submission, by blood, famine, and pestilence, cost the crown of England no less a sum than 1,198,7171.; a sum, in those days, enor

mous.

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

*

* In a desperate cause, all means of aid, countenance, and sup. port, are resorted to. O'Nial, at the beginning of his insurrection,

resistance. But she appears to have been actuated 1603. less by religious influence against her Irish than her English subjects. In England under Elizabeth* 130priests were publicly executed for their religion, numbers were imprisoned, and others sent into banishment by companies of forty, fifty, and seventy at a time. Whereas, during her whole reign in Ireland, we read of no imprisonment, banishment, or execution of any priest for the sake of his religion.

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; a copy of which is to be seen in the Appendix to the Historical Review, No. XI.

Ere we enter upon another reign, it may be not uninteresting to refer to the specific grounds and reasons, why the Irish rose · against Elizabeth, and so obstinately persisted in their rebellion. Many of them are collected together in a very strong and sensible memorial submitted to the Queen, by Captain Thomas Lee, a good officer and staunch protestant, in the year 1594. Several of the facts he was eye witness to; others he vouches for the truth of. A manuscript of it is in Trinity College, Dublin; and considerable extracts from it are to be seen in the Appendix to my Historical Review, No. XII. del acto o

Pers. Discuss, of Bul. Answer, 1612, p. 179.

1603.

CHAPTER V.

The Reign of James I.

THE accession of the house of Stuart to the throne of England, and consequently to that of Ireland, of the house forms a notable æra in the modern history of that

Accession

of Stuart

to the Irish

throne

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 *.

Morryson (p. 97) says, that the Queen's charge for Ireland, from the 1st of April, 1600, to the 29th of March, 1602, was 283,6731. 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

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