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Home Ireland under Tudors and Stuarts, 1485-1688 Part 4 |
Part 4But meanwhile came a great religious revival in Ireland. Outside "the Pale" little or no attempt had been made to enforce Protestantism. It is true in the course of Elizabeth's reign a law was passed forbidding the exercise of any religious worship except the Anglican, but it was impossible to enforce such an act against a whole nation, and the Irish Roman Catholics practically possessed liberty of worship. The reign of Elizabeth was contemporaneous with the great movement known as the Counter-Reformation, when the Roman Catholics recovered much ground that they had previously lost. Nowhere did the movement meet with more striking success than in Ireland. Soon after the accession of Elizabeth, Jesuit priests came over and obtained enormous influence, and on Elizabeth's excommunication in 1570 the Pope was regarded as the temporal ruler of Ireland (It will be remembered that it was the Pope who gave Ireland to Henry II.). Moreover, there were expectations of assistance from Philip II of Spain.Hence, as a consequence, there were two rebellions headed by that branch of the FitzGeralds who lived in Munster. The first was unimportant, but the second, which broke oiit in 1579, led to a great and general rising under the Earl of Desmond. The rebels met with some success, and a Spanish and Italian force landed and occupied Smerwick (A nuncio from the Pope, Dr. Nicholas Sandars, also arrived with them, and showed great activity in directing the rebellion. He baffled all attempts at capture, but finally died of exposure and cold, his body being found in a wood "with his Breviary and his Bible under his arm"). But the foreigners very quickly surrendered and were all—to the number of six hundred—put to the sword as pirates because they could produce no mandate from Philip II. Finally, after a campaign of four years, Munster was quelled. The war had been one of the most appalling ferocity; no Irish soldier was promised quarter, it was said, unless he brought the head of another Irishman with him; Munster had been converted into a desert, and in the last six months of the war it was calculated that no less than thirty thousand people had died of starvation (The poet Spenser's description of the condition of the people after the rebellion is well known: "Out of every corner of woods and glens they came creeping forth, for their legs would not bear them; they looked like anatomies of death, they spake like ghosts crying out of their graves, and a most populous and plentiful country was suddenly left void of man and beast"). It was then determined to "plant" Munster with English colonists. Such an idea was not new—in Mary's reign arrangements had been made to "plant" part of the counties now known as "King's County" and "Queen's County", arrangements carried out on Elizabeth's accession. But now it was to be done on a gigantic scale; nearly half a million acres were distributed to " undertakers" who undertook to introduce English settlers—an agreement which in many cases, however, was not carried out (Amongst the "undertakers" were Sir Walter Ralegh and the poet Spenser. It was in Ireland that Spenser wrote a great part of the Faerie Queens. When Ralegh was his guest, Spenser showed him the first three books. Ralegh was delighted with them, and they came over to London together in 1589 to see about their publication). |
Chronology |
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