'Lady Lennox demands vengeance upon the Queen of Scots,' de Silva said; nor is Lady Lennox alone in the belief of her guilt; they say it is revenge for the Italian secretary. The heretics denounce her with one voice; the Catholics are divided; her own friends acquit her; the connections of the King cry out upon her without exception.' 1

March.

On the 1st of March, Moret, the Duke of Savoy's ambassador at the Scotch Court, passed through London on his way to the Continent. He had been in Edinburgh at the time of the murder; and de Silva turned to him for comfort. But Moret had no comfort to give. I pressed him,' said de Silva, 'to tell me whether he thought the Queen was innocent; he did not condemn her in words, but he said nothing in her favour; '2 the spirits of the Catholics are broken; should it turn out that she is guilty, her party in England is gone, and by her means there is no more chance of a restoration of religion.' 4

3

'De Silva to Philip, February | nada.'-De Silva to Philip, March 1 : 22: MS. Ibid. MS. Ibid.

524

1564.

THE

CHAPTER XLVI.

DEATH OF O'NEIL.

HE Earl of Sussex having failed alike to beat Shan O'Neil in the field or to get him satisfactorily murdered, had at last been recalled, leaving the government of Ireland in the hands of Sir Nicholas Arnold. An unsuccessful public servant never failed to find a friend in Elizabeth, whose disposition to quarrel with her ministers was usually in proportion to their ability. She had shared the confidence of the late Deputy in what to modern eyes appears unpardonable treachery; she received him on his return to England with undiminished confidence, and she allowed him to confirm her in her resolution to spend no more money in the hopeless enterprise of bringing the Irish into order; while she left Arnold to set the bears and bandogs to tear each other, and watched contentedly the struggle in Ulster between O'Neil and the Scots of the Isles.

The breathing-time would have been used to better advantage had the reform been carried to completeness

which had been commenced with the mutinous miscreants miscalled the English army. But the bands could not be discharged with decency till they had received their wages; without money they could only continue to maintain themselves on the plunder of the farmers of the Pale; and the Queen, provoked with the past expenses to which she had so reluctantly assented, knotted her purse-strings, and seemed determined that Ireland should in future bear the cost of its own misgovernment. The worst peculations of the principal officers were inquired into and punished: Sir Henry Ratcliff, Sussex's brother, was deprived of his command and sent to the castle; but Arnold's vigour was limited by his powers. The paymasters continued to cheat the Government in the returns of the number of their troops; the Government defended themselves by letting the pay run into arrear; the soldiers revenged their illusage on the people; and so it came to pass that in O'Neil's country alone in Ireland-defended as it was from attacks from without, and enriched with the plunder of the Pale-were the peasantry prosperous, or life or property secure.

Munster was distracted by the feuds between Ormond and Desmond; while the deep bays and creeks of Cork and Kerry were the nests and hiding-places of English pirates, whose numbers had just received a distinguished addition in the person of Sir Thomas Stukeley, with a barque of four hundred tons and 'a hundred tall soldiers, besides mariners.'

Stukely had been on his way to Florida with a license

2

from the Crown to make discoveries and to settle there; but he had found a convenient halting-place in an Irish harbour, from which he could issue out and plunder the Spanish galleons. He had taken up his quarters at Kinsale, 'to make the sea his Florida ;" and in anticipation of the terms on which he was likely to find himself with Elizabeth, he contrived to renew an acquaintance which he had commenced in England with Shan O'Neil. The friendship of a buccaneer who was growing rich on Spanish plunder might have seemed inconvenient to a chief who had offered Ireland as a fief to Philip; but Shan was not particular: Philip had as yet shown but a cold interest in Irish rebellion, and Stukely filled his cellars with sherry from Cadiz, amused him with his magniloquence, and was useful to him by his real dexterity and courage. So fond Shan became of him that he had the impertinence to write to Elizabeth in favour 'of that his so dearly loved friend, and her Majesty's worthy subject,' with whom he was grieved to hear that her Majesty was displeased. He could not but believe that she had been misinformed; but if indeed so good and gallant a gentleman had given her cause of offence, Shan entreated that her Majesty, for his sake and in the name of the services which he had himself rendered to England, would graciously pardon him; and he,

1 'Stukely's piracies are much | humani generis I like not.'-Chaloner railed at here in all parts. I hang to Cecil, Madrid, December 14,1564: down my head with shame. Alas! Spanish MSS. Rolls House. though it cost the Queen roundly, let him for honour's sake be fetched in. These pardons to such as be hostes

2 Sir Thomas Wroth to Cecil, November 17: Irish MSS. Ibid.

with Stukely for a friend and confidant, would make Ireland such as Ireland never was since the world began.1

Among so many mischiefs 'religion' was naturally in a bad way. The lords and gentlemen of the Pale went habitually to mass.' The Protestant bishops were chiefly agitated by the vestment controversy. Adam Loftus, the titular Primate, to whom sacked villages, ravished women, and famine-stricken skeletons crawling about the fields were matters of every-day indifference, shook with terror at the mention of a surplice. Robert Daly wrote in anguish to Cecil, in dismay at the countenance to 'Papistry,' and at his own inability to prolong a persecution which he had happily commenced.*

1 Shan O'Neil to Elizabeth, June 18, 1565 Irish MSS. Rolls House.

3

and of the ministers of the same, except that spark be extinguished before it grow to flame. The occa

2 Adam Loftus to Elizabeth, sion is that certain learned men of May 17: MS. Ibid.

our religion are put from their

3 Adam Loftus to Cecil, July livings in England; upon what oc16: MS. Ibid.

'The bruit of the alteration in religion is so talked of here among the Papists, and they so triumph upon the same, it would grieve any good Christian heart to hear of their rejoicing; yea, in so much that my Lord Primate, my Lord of Meath, and I, being the Queen's commissioners in ecclesiastical causes, dare not be so bold now in executing our commissions in ecclesiastical causes as we have been to this time. To what end this talk will grow I am not able to say. I fear it will grow to

the great contempt of the Gospel

casion is not known here as yet. The poor Protestants, amazed at the talk, do often resort to me to learn what the matter means; whom I comfort with the most faithful texts of Scripture that I can find. . . . But I beseech you send me some comfortable words concerning the stablishing of our religion, wherewith I may both confirm the wavering hearts of the doubtful, and suppress the stout brags of the sturdy and proud Papists.'-Robert Daly to Cecil, July 2: Irish MSS. Rolls House.