an accommodation with a sincerity to which hither to he had been a stranger. The lord deputy Mountjoy, who had succeeded Essex, pressed the absolute necessity of an amicable conclusion to the war: but the irritated mind of Elizabeth interposed insurmountable obstacles; and she positively charged the deputy not to receive Tyrone upon any other conditions than an absolute submission to her mercy in all things, except his life; and even this concession she afterwards retracted, in peevish opposition to the sentiments of her council. The manner of proceeding with the Irish chief became the subject of debate in the English cabinet; and the queen's resolutions appear to have fluctuated greatly. In contradiction to her former orders, she directed Mountjoy to grant the earl a promise of life: in a few days after she enlarged her commission, and directed that he should be assured of life, liberty, and pardon. While the deputy was thus distracted he received alarming intimations of the queen's sickness, which were soon followed by private assurances of her death Aware that this intelligence, if once divulged, would prove dangerous, by the encouragement it would give to the rebels, he determined to put an end to delay, and to conclude a treaty with Tyrone by virtue of the queen's commission, without attending to any subsequent instructions. Sir Wi liam Godolphin was dispatched to the earl, to in duce him instantly to repair to the lord deputy and accept the honourable terms which he then had power to grant, but which he pretended might be immediately revoked. The chieftain in his for mer pride would have considered such advances an indication of the weakness and apprehensiors of the government; but the once great and formidable

1

midable Tyrone was now reduced to a state of real humiliation, deserted by his followers, and in the truly piteous condition of fallen greatness. He set out immediately to attend the lord deputy at Mellifont; where falling on his knees he implored mercy, acknowledged his guilt, and renounced for ever the name of O'Neal, with all his former pretensions to independence, authority, and 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 with some exceptions promised him the restoration of his lands and dignity. On these conditions the pacification was ratified. Tyrone accompanied the lord deputy to Dublin; where on hearing that Elizabeth was dead, he burst into tears. He pretended that his emotion arose from the affection which he entertained for a princess who had treated him with such unmerited clemency. His passion may however be more probably accounted for by the mortification which he must have felt at his precipitate submission, when perseverance for one hour would have preserved his honour, maintained his reputation with his countrymen, and afforded a favourable opportunity of renewing the war, or of concluding it upon more honourable terms with the new monarch.

Thus closed the rebellion; but it was a melancholy solace, that the reduction of Ireland to this reluctant state of submission through the gloomy tracks of tamine, pestilence, and blood, cost Engand no less a sum than 1,198,7171.; which, conidering the value of money at that period, is truly

normous.

VOL. XXI.

2A

CHAP.

JAMES

CHAP. V.

The Reign of James I.

AMES was the first monarch who extended the legislative as well as the juridical power of England beyond the Pale. It was unquestionably the interest of the crown to have the whole kingdom in effective subjection to the law of England; it was the interest also of Ireland to be no longer subjected to several chieftains, who were incessantly at war with each other, or with the crown of England. Ireland was at this epoch so reduced by famine and by the sword, that she abandoned all thoughts of that liberty and independence which was only to be purchased by a continuance of such calamities. England revolted at the idea of retaining the sovereignty of a kingdom by so profuse a drain of blood and treasure, which her resources were inadequate any longer to supply. The first care of the new monarch, therefore, was to ingra tiate himself with the Irish. Tyrone and Roderie O'Donnel, who in the late rebellion had been exceedingly active against the government, accom panied Mountjoy to the court of king James, where they were most graciously received: the former was confirmed in all his lands and honours, and the latter was created earl of Tyrconnel. It has been proved beyond a doubt, that James rather encouraged than discountenanced the report which were industriously spread among the Irish that he should favour the catholic cause. These reports were naturally magnified by the enthusiasm

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of the Irish; and it was currently believed by a large portion of the nation, that the king himself was of that persuasion. In the warmth of these hopes and expectations, they no longer considered it necessary to confine their religious worship to privacy. In many parts of Leinster, and more particularly of Munster, they openly performed divine service and other religious ceremonies in the full external form of the Roman ritual. When the lord deputy remonstrated with them on this violation and defiance of the law, they defended with zeal their right of conscience, declaring at the same time their loyalty to the king. Mountjoy marched an army into Munster to check this open defiance of the law. At Waterford he found the town gates shut against him: the citizens pleaded that, by a charter of king John, they were exempted from quartering soldiers: but Mountjoy instantly replied, that with the sword of king James he would cut to pieces the charter of king John, level their city to the ground, and strew salt upon its ruins. The menace was effectual; the citizens were terrified, and Mountjoy entered in triumph. This conduct of the deputy occasioned the other cities of Munster, which had declared for the free and public exercise of the Roman catholic religion, to comply in a similar manner. An act of oblivion and indemnity was soon published by proclamation, by which all offences against the crown and all particular trespasses between subject and subject were pardoned, remitted, and utterly extin, guished, never to be revived or called in question; and by the same proclamation all the Irishry, who had hitherto received no defence or protection from the crown, having been entirely subjected to their respective chieftains, were admitted into his majesty's

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majesty's immediate protection. Still more effectually to secure the full dominion both of the Irish and their property, James published a proclamation, which is usually called the Commission of Grace, for securing the subjects of Ireland against all claims of the 'crown. The chief governor was thereby empowered to accept the surrenders of those Irish lords who still held their possessions by the old tenures of tanestry and gavelkind, and to regrant them in fee simple according to the English law: thus converting the estates for life of the chieftains into estates in fee simple. The chief policy of this measure consisted in the alteration it occasioned in the right of inheritance. By vesting the fee simple in the chief, by the course of English law, it descended to his eldest son or heir at law, and thus excluded the sept from their reversionary distributive rights of gavelkind upon the! death of the tenant for life, and by that means detached the septs from that common bond of interest and union with their chief which gave them firmness, consistency, and consequence, and necessarily threw them thus disjointed more inmediately under the power of the sovereign, by leaving one only freeholder or tenant to the crown in each sept. The new grants to the lords were limited to the lands in their actual possession. Thus was the whole landed interest of Ireland new modelled; and the example of these new paten tees of the crown was followed by many trading towns and corporations throughout the kingdom: they surrendered their old and accepted new char ters from the crown, with such regulations and privileges as were more congenial with the policy and views of the court.

James now felt himself firmly seated on the

throm