1578]

THE ALENÇON MARRIAGE

533

Elizabeth this also seemed probable. She was displeased with the obstinacy of the Maritime States; she believed that the arrival of Matthias would check the schemes of Don John, and that she at all events was safe. The entire destruction by that Prince of the insurgent army at Gemblours (Jan. 31, 1578) also tended to make her lukewarm in their cause, and all her promises ended in the loan of a little money, and the endorsement of certain bills by which they raised money, an obligation which she afterwards refused to meet.

help, apply

Such conduct naturally excited the extremest indignation, the effect of which was very nearly to force her to take the step she most of all hated, and to marry Alençon, now become the Duke of The Low CounAnjou; for the States, looking for assistance, naturally tries, finding no threw themselves upon France, and Alençon, careless of to Alengon. what cause he supported if only it rendered him independent, raised an army in their favour. The Queen could scarcely hope by any amount of cajolery to win the States back again. If they were to pass into the hands of Alençon, it would be better for her to have some hold upon him also. She therefore pushed her negotiations for marriage with him to the furthest extremes. She brought him over to England, professed to like him, though he was hideous both in person and in character. She risked her popularity in the pursuit of the scheme, for the French marriage was hateful to the people. She even insisted upon the punishment of two honest men, Stubbs and Page, who wrote and sold a strong pamphlet against it. Their real loyalty and the cruelty of the sentence was proved when they left the scaffold, where they had just lost their right hands, crying, "God save Queen Elizabeth." Still she could not venture quite to defy popular feeling; and when, by a small majority, the Council declared itself against the marriage, it was for the time dropped.

To retain her

hold on them, marrying him. Aug. 1579.

she thinks of

Political causes

preventing the Princes, the people of Europe begin

action of

The plain issue of the religious struggle which was convulsing Europe had hitherto been constantly clouded by the personal interests of individual Princes. The time was now approaching when the quarrel fell more directly into the hands of the people themselves. By extreme good fortune, Elizabeth had kept the country free from war, and it had become increasingly prosperous. Fugitives from Holland had established manufactures. Agriculture had adapted itself to the new state of society, and those who took no interest in religion or politics were content. But beside this prosperity there had grown up, since the massacre of St. Bartholomew,

to act for

themselves.

a strong hatred and a strong fear of Papists and their plans. This undercurrent of feeling had made itself visible in the conduct of the swarming privateers of the Western harbours, in the action of Parliament in spite of the repressive measures of the Queen, and but lately in the great expedition of Drake, which had sailed from England with the Queen's full approbation, during the short period of determined action against Spain which followed upon the disclosure of Don John's intentions. The temper of the Catholics was likewise rising, and among them there already existed a religious organization, untrammelled by politics, with the Pope at its head. Supported by the Guises, by the enthusiastic Catholics of France, and by the people of Spain, who saw with dislike the dilatory conduct of their King, they were determined to act with energy. England was to be the object of their assault; and in Ireland, Scotland, and England itself, their influence at once began to be felt, till at length they carried their Princes with them; while the irritation of the Protestants rose to a height which could no longer be restrained, and in their case too their natural leaders were forced to take decided action.

The Covenant signed at Edinburgh, December 3, 1557, was as follows:"We, perceiving how Satan, in his members, the Antichrists of our time, cruelly doth rage, seeking to overthrow and to destroy the evangel of Christ and His Congregation, ought, according to our bounden duty, to strive in our Master's cause even unto death, being certain of the victory in Him. The which our duty being well considered, we do promise, before the majesty of God and His Congregation, that we (by His grace) shall with all diligence continually apply our whole power, substance, and our very lives, to maintain, set forward, and establish the most blessed Word of God and His Congregation; and shall labour at our possibility to have faithful ministers purely and truly to minister Christ's evangel and sacraments to His people. We shall maintain them, nourish them, and defend them, the whole Congregation of Christ, and every member thereof, at our whole powers and wearing of our lives, against Satan, and all wicked power that does intend tyranny or trouble against the foresaid Congregation. Unto the which Holy Word and Congregation we do join us, and also do forsake and renounce the congregation of Satan, with all the superstitious abomination and idolatry thereof; and moreover, this our faithful promise before God, testified to His Congregation, by our subscriptions at these presents."

ELIZABETH

(CONTINUED).

IRELAND. 1558-1584.

RELAND, always a chief difficulty to the English Government, had become more than ever unmanageable. The Condition of establishment of Protestantism in England had added Ireland. religious hatred to the old national differences which divided the country. Not that the religious revolution had been carried out with at all the same completeness as in England. But the very weakness of the reform had rendered it more irksome. On the accession of Elizabeth, there were scarcely any Protestants in Ireland, nor was it constitutionally necessary that the laws which regulated one nation should regulate the other. Yet political necessity had led to the establishment of the Protestant Church. It was contrary to Elizabeth's plan of government that two external forms of religion should be allowed to exist. The divided allegiance which was the necessary consequence of Papacy under a Protestant government rendered the establishment of Protestantism highly desirable. If it was established, in accordance with the Queen's views it must be universal. Consequently the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy became law in Ireland. Within the limits of the English Pale, where English law was held to be paramount, recusant Bishops were therefore removed and Protestants appointed; the Church and abbey lands were appropriated; and in the churches there was either Protestant worship, or, as too frequently happened, no worship at all. In other parts of the country Protestantism was only established and upheld, where possible, by force. Eager for money, the Queen farmed instead of colonizing the Church lands.. The churches fell into ruins. In a large number of parishes there was no service at all. In still more, some wholly unfit person hurried through some semblance of service in exchange for a wretched pittance from the farmer of the lands. The new Church seemed to justify the worst that could be said of it. Meanwhile the widest connivance was extended to Roman Catholic worship; in every castle and village, and among the mountains, the old Church continued its ministra

tions uninterrupted. The religious zeal of the Irish was thus kept up. The weak and miserable Protestant Church became not undeservedly an object of hatred, and the cause of Catholicism indissolubly connected with that of the nation. The same irritating weakness was visible in the temporal government of the island. Parsimony prevented the maintenance of a firm administration. The English influence was supported by a few scattered garrisons, which were forced to make up for their want of strength by the cruel vigour with which they acted. Thus the opposition of creeds and of nations grew constantly stronger, till the Irish placed their cause in the hands of the Pope and the King of Spain, and the whole country had again piece by piece to be reconquered. The first insurrection broke out in 1565, among the native Irish of Ulster. It was headed by Shan O'Neil, the eldest of the legitimate children of the late Earl of Tyrone. An illegitimate son of the name of Matthew had been put in his place by the English. Shan O'Neil sought, and in some degree obtained, the favour of the English Queen, but at length broke loose from all engagements with England, and claimed the sovereignty of Ulster, with the regal title of The O'Neil. Elizabeth contrived to raise against him the smaller native chieftains, and a colony of Scotch who had settled in Antrim. With their aid Sir Henry Sidney overran his country, and he was finally murdered by the Scotch. The fall of Shan O'Neil, and the good government of Sir Henry Sidney, seemed to promise a more prosperous time. Tirlogh O'Neil, a kinsman of the late head of the clan, promised to assist the English Government, and some of the towns began to show signs of industry.

Ulster insurrection. 1565.

But the anarchical condition of the whole country, the local disputes among the chieftains, the fierce cruelty with which any act of marauding was chastised by the English garrisons, and the want of any great uniform plan of government, soon put an end to any semblance of peace. Sir Henry Sidney had urged that the province of Munster should be formed into an English presidency, and that it should be governed by English laws; the supremacy of the Earl of Desmond, the head of the Southern Geraldines, being thus destroyed. It was hoped that at the same time the chiefs of the smaller clans might be gradually civilized by being intrusted with positions of authority. Such a plan must have been connected with considerable colonization, and Cecil appears to have gone so far as to have arranged the details, by which colonists would have been intro

Plans for colonization of Munster. 1568.

1568]

MUNSTER INSURRECTION

537

duced upon land already confiscated, without invading anew the rights of any Irish chief. The plan was too expensive to suit the views of Elizabeth, but the idea of colonization was still kept alive. A long standing quarrel between the Butlers of Ormond and the Geraldines of Desmond was occupying the courts of law. Elizabeth insisted, whatever the law might be, that judgment should be given in favour of Ormond, who was a Protestant, and loyal; and to complete the discomfiture of Desmond, he was summoned to London, and arrested to be tried for treason. No severe measures were however taken against him; he was allowed to live at large, but was detained in England. In July 1568, he thought it wiser to submit, and surrendered to the Queen all his lands and property, confessing that they were lawfully hers, and that he would thankfully receive back whatever she liked to give him. This surrender might be brought to include nearly half the province of Munster; and were an investigation into titles instituted and forfeitures pressed, the greater part of the other half might probably have been secured. Upon this, a certain number of Devonshire gentlemen, the same class of adventurers who were the chief supporters of the piracy and privateering which was at that time the fashion in the West of England, offered, if the province was granted to them, to conquer it at their own expense, and hold it of the Queen. This would certainly have led to a war of extermination, and neither Cecil nor the Queen liked openly to sanction such a scheme. It might perhaps have come to something had it not been prematurely exploded. Carew, St. Leger and others, having purchased some obsolete titles to land in Munster, went there with bodies of retainers and forcibly made their claims good.

To touch their property in the land has always been to rouse the fury of the Irish. The knowledge that the idea of colonization was seriously held in England, and the exaggerated notions such knowledge was likely to foster, induced the Earl of Clancarty, and James Fitz-Maurice, brother of the Earl of Desmond, to determine on insurrection and to apply to Spain for help. The insur- Insurrection rection, as usual, assumed the form of murderous on- in Munster. slaughts, met by reprisals of an equally sanguinary nature. The details are almost too horrible to relate. nor age were spared by either party. The war was unlike that waged between civilized nations, and resembled the exterminating warfare of the American frontier line. True to her policy of expending as little money as possible, Elizabeth wished at first to employ the Ormonds to suppress their old enemies the Desmonds. But

July 1569.

Neither sex