and a shank-pillion without stirrups, and held | deeds, and hair-breadth escapes of Rorie Oge their lances overhead instead of couching them, O'More, already mentioned, and other such chiefso that they could thrust suddenly, and at un-tains, were attributed, and not to mere natural awares, wherever an enemy was exposed. They craft and courage. As the long sharp skein was could also dismount, run by the side of the horse the favourite national weapon of the Irish, the in full gallop, and vault into the saddle without soldier swore by it as a patron saint, while he abating the career. In addition to their lances was anxious to increase its efficacy by a double which they used in hand-to-hand fight, these portion of magic; and, therefore, before going to wild cavaliers carried darts of knotted wood about battle, he addressed prayers to it, signed it with four feet long, and terminating in a broad steel the cross, muttered conjurations over it, and head, which they threw with great dexterity and thrust its point into the earth, after which, he force. The defensive armour of the Irish sol- charged the enemy as if he wielded a charmed diery, whether of horse or foot, consisted of a blade which nothing could resist. As the bonds quilted jack, which they wore every day as part of chivalry and distinctions of knighthood were of their necessary clothing, and a light broad useless among such warriors, they were not shield of wicker work, resembling those of the sought after; but in their stead they had a tie ancient Britons at the period of the Roman in- called gossipred, which has existed among the vasion. Besides these, the cloak was of such soldiery of more than one nation of savages, both tough texture that it could blunt the ordinary of ancient and modern times. Under this gosstroke of a sword, while it was of such ample di- sipred, the Irish bound themselves to stand by mensions, that during a long campaign, it served each other to the death, whether in evil or in good; the wearer for tent, bed, and clothing. With a and to ratify the bargain, they opened their veins helmet the Irish soldier often dispensed; but in and drank a small portion of each other's blood. lieu of it, he wore his hair at full length, platted into cords, and wound round his head; and this defence, which was called a glib, could withstand both a sharp edge and heavy blow. With this glib, too, uncoiled and thrown over his face, an Irish soldier could disguise himself for the purposes of plunder or espial; and when in danger of detection he could cut it off in a trice, and look as demure as a harmless palmer. For offensive weapons, the Irish gallowglasses or foot soldiers had battles-axes, long sharp broadswords or skeins-and for distant fight, short bows, and short bearded arrows. It will be seen that a military force like this was no match in the open field for the superior intelligence, arms, and discipline of the English; and the experiment, therefore, after a few trials, the Irish seldom cared to hazard. Instead of this, they confined themselves to the irregular warfare for which they were best fitted to feigned flights, skirmishes, and surprises. As might have been expected, too, the English who were harassed by such a mode of resistance, which had continued for centuries, and been conducted with admirable cunning, were loud in their complaints of Irish treachery, cowardice, and cruelty-forgetting that every people so situated resist after the same fashion. The Irish being also the weaker party, although the most numerous, had recourse to supernatural aid besides the ordinary resources; and as their conquerors were not much more enlightened than themselves upon such a subject, they trembled more at the spells and incantations, than at the weapons of the Irish, who, they complained, had enlisted the devil upon their side as an auxiliary. To this, the daring In turning to the domestic usages and modes of life among the Irish at the close of this period, we find a ruder barbarism than had ever prevailed either in England or Scotland. What kind of houses could be expected among a people composed of predatory soldiers or wandering shepherds, and whose daily scramble was not merely for the means of subsistence, but for life itself? The dwellings of the peasantry were, therefore, such hovels as could be raised without trouble, and abandoned without regret mere shelters of a mud inclosure, in which, we are told by Spenser, men, women, children, and beasts, were littered together without distinction, “in one house, in one room, in one bed, that is, clean straw, or rather a foul dunghill." This coarse mode of living was further confirmed by the looseness of the marriage tie, in which man and wife lived together for mutual convenience, and parted upon the most frivolous quarrel, when they went forth in quest of new partners. “They seldom marry out of their own town," says Camden, "and contract with one another not in præsenti, but in futuro, or else consent without any manner of deliberation. Upon this account the least difference generally parts them, the husband taking another wife, and the wife another husband; nor is it certain whether the contract be true or false till they die. Hence arise feuds, rapines, murders, and deadly animosities about succeeding to the inheritance." As for the children of such a union, Campion informs us, "the natives neither swaddled nor lapped them in linen, but folded them up stark naked in a blanket, after which it was fortunate if a rag could be found to cover them." The truth of these squalid pictures of Irish do allowing not a single tress or ringlet to escape from its envelopment; while the whole form, from the shoulders to the feet, is shrouded in an ample cloak, descending in stiff folds, and giving no token of ornament, except the fur, with which the cape and edges are lined. Her rauk, indeed, is chiefly attested by the necklace and its pendant cross; but as for the other embellishments of her inner attire, if they really exist, these are so effectually concealed by the external covering, that mestic life, the experience of the nineteenth cen- | is a cap of the simplest and most demure kind, tury can but too well verify. As for the dress of the people-a scanty theme-it in most instances consisted of the thick sword-proof mantle we have alreadly described, which served as the wearer's clothes by day and blanket by night, and constituted the whole of his wardrobe. But among the higher and wealthier classes a more becoming style prevailed, the memorial of what the national costume had been when the nation was free and independent. This, besides the cloak, a flowing toga of saffron colour, which was the national hue, consisted of a cota or cotaigh, the classical tunica of ancient Rome, and as Walker in his History of Irish Bards informs us, was "a kind of shirt of plaided stuff or linen, dyed yellow, and ornamented also with needle-work according to the rank of COSTUME OF AN IRISHMAN OF RANK,1 the wearer. This shirt," "This figure is from the effigy of Richard de Burgo, in the abbey of Athassel, county of Tipperary, and represents the earl clothed in his civil robes, and without any cap or covering on his head; the hair is divided on the forehead, and falls over the ears in short curls, whilst on the upper lip are seen moustachios. The dress consists of a loose robe girded around the waist, and falling to the ankles in straight folds. The shoulders are covered by a small cape or tippet, which is fastened on the breast by a circular brooch."-Archaeological Journal, vol. ii. p. 124. COSTUME OF AN IRISHWOMAN. After Hollar. the fact of their existence can only be taken for granted. In the cookery and diet of the Irish people of this period, among whom materials were so scanty and famine so frequent, we can scarcely expect much refinement. A meal was an uncertainty, and the stomachs that awaited it were in no mood for delay. Besides this, as agriculture was so limited among them, not only from the precariousness of its profits, but the contempt with which it was regarded as an occupation only fit for Englishmen, a meal was almost wholly a flesh-feast, unqualified by the humanizing influences of vegetables and bread. The Bohemian baron, whose visit to the Earl of Tyrone we have already mentioned, found, during an eight days' journey in his progress, no bread, no, not so much as a cake of oatmeal, until he reached the table of the mighty satrap himself. This, however, was not to be wondered at, when we are informed of the patriotism of the earl, which was of such a fierce description, that he cursed any of his pedigree who should learn the English language, build houses, or sow corn. Even when a plentiful table was spread, its coarse dainties were served up on turned wooden platters, for even pewter was too costly a rarity; and when the luxury of a table itself was wanting, which often happened, a bundle of grass sufficed, that served the purposes of table, table-cloth, ewer, and napkin. Descending from these "good men's feasts" to the Irish common diet and processes of cookery, to use, were those that grew wild, such as the we are informed by an author of the period (Mor-water-cress, and especially the shamrock: this gan): "They scum the seething-pot with a hand- last by its acid taste was particularly grateful to ful of straw, and strain their milk taken from outlawed and starving fugitives, who snatched the cow through a like handful of straw, none of it "like beasts out of ditches, as they ran and the cleanest, and so cleanse, or rather more defile were chaced to and fro." Of the drinks used by the pot and milk. They devour great morsels of the Irish, the chief was aquavitæ or whiskey, beef unsalted, and they eat commonly swine's exclusively a Celtic beverage, which was common flesh, seldom mutton; and all these pieces of flesh, | from a very early period both to Irishmen and as also the entrails of beasts unwashed, they seethe Highlanders, and sometimes it was flavoured by in a hollow tree, lapped in a raw cow's hide, and the former with raisins, fennel-seed, or saffron. so set over the fire, and therewith swallow whole Sometimes sack found its way to the tables of lumps of filthy butter. Yea (which is most con- the rich from Spain, and ale and beer from Engtrary to nature) they will feed on horses dying land, but these last in smaller quantities. It of themselves, not only upon small want of flesh, speaks much for the Arab-like character of the but even for pleasure." To this account we may people, that although they denied themselves so add a few notices from Campion, who informs us, much the luxury of bread, yet they carefully that "in haste and hunger they would squeeze hoarded their scanty stores of oats for the excluout the blood of raw flesh, and ask no more sive sustenance of their horses. dressing thereto; the rest boileth in their stomachs with aquavitæ, which they swill in after such a surfeit by quarts and pottles." He also mentions a still more loathsome and inhuman dish which was in use among the Irish. This was procured by bleeding their cattle, and letting the blood congeal, after which it was baked, larded with butter, and devoured in lumps. The milk of their cattle was also plentifully used at Irish meals, warmed or curdled, by the process of dropping a stone into it that had been heated in the fire for the purpose; and sometimes this simple posset was enriched by an admixture of beef-broth. Whatever vegetables they chanced Such was the state of Ireland at the close of the sixteenth and commencement of the seventeenth centuries. It is truly a sickening picture; and on considering it, we are naturally induced to wonder that so little improvement has been accomplished in the character and condition of the native Irish, from that period till the present day. Are we to attribute this political phenomenon to the Asiatic tenacity and indisposition to change, manifested by the whole Celtic race, aggravated in the case of Ireland by foreign domination and misrule? Such a conclusion the whole history of that unhappy land seems too well calculated to verify. BOOK VII. PERIOD FROM THE ACCESSION OF JAMES I. TO THE RESTORATION OF CHARLES II.-57 YEARS. CHAPTER I. CIVIL AND MILITARY HISTORY.-A.D. 1603-1606. JAMES I.-ACCESSION, A.D. 1603-DEATH, A.D. 1625. Tidings of Queen Elizabeth's death sent to James VI. of Scotland-He is proclaimed King of England, &c.-His journey to England-His arrival in London-Court paid to him by foreign states-Plots against him in London-Apprehension of the principal conspirators-Apprehension and trial of Sir Walter Raleigh-He and his associates respited-Petition of the Puritans for religious reform and a conference-The conference held at Hampton Court-James's conduct as a disputant-Flattery paid to him by the bishops and courtiersMeeting of his first parliament James's love of hunting-Disappointment of the Catholics at not receiving toleration-Conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot-Their purpose and proceedings-Detection of the plotApprehension of Fawkes-Flight of the conspirators-Their desperate resistance and death-Trial and execution of Fawkes-Trial and execution of others of the conspirators-Apprehension of Garnet, the Jesuit, and his associate, Hall-Their imprisonment in the Tower-Nefarious practices to make them confess their guilt -Their trial-They are executed-Arbitrary proceedings of the Star Chamber. LIZABETH had no sooner breathed her last, than Lady Scrope, a daughter of her relative, the late Lord Hunsdon, communicated the intelligence to her brother, Sir Robert Carey, who had been on the watch; and who, anticipating Cecil and the other lords of the council, stole out of the palace at Richmond, where the queen had expired at three o'clock on the morning of Thursday, the 24th of March, and posted down to Scotland, in order to be the first to hail James Stuart as King of England. This tender relative arrived at Edinburgh on the night of Saturday the 26th, four days before Sir Charles Percy and Thomas Somerset, Esq., who were despatched by the council; but it was agreed with James to keep the great matter a VOL. II. secret, until the formal despatch from London should reach him. Sir Robert Carey had scarcely taken horse for the north when Cecil, Nottingham, Egerton, and others, met in secret debate at Richmond at an early hour, before the queen's death was known; and these lords "knowing above all things delays to be most dangerous," proceeded at once to London, and drew up a proclamation in the name "of the lords spiritual and temporal, united and assisted with the late queen's council, other principal gentlemen, the lord-mayor, aldermen, and citizens of London, a multitude of other good subjects and commons of the realm." This proclamation bore thirty-six signatures, the three first being those of Robert Lee, lord-mayor of London, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Lord-keeper Egerton; the three last, those of Secretary Sir Robert Cecil, Sir J. Fortescue, and Sir John Popham. It 143 was signed and ready about five hours after Elizabeth's decease; and then those who had signed it went out of the council-chamber at Whitehall, with Secretary Cecil at their head, who had taken the chief direction of the business, and who in the front of the palace read to the people the proclamation, which assured them that the queen's majesty was really dead, and that the right of succession was wholly in James, King of Scots, now King of England, Scotland, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, &c. They then went to the High Cross in Cheapside, THE HIGH CROSS, CHEAPSIDE. where Cecil again read the proclamation, and when he had done, "the multitude with one consent cried aloud-'God save King James!" for all parties, or rather the three great religious sects, High Churchmen, Puritans, and Papists, all promised themselves advantages from his accession. Cecil next caused three heralds and a trumpeter to proclaim the said tidings within the walls of the Tower, where the heart of many a state-prisoner leaped for joy, and where the Earl of Southampton, the friend of the unfortunate Essex, joined the rest in their signs of great gladness. Of the other thirteen or fourteen conflicting claims to the succession which had been reckoned up at different times during Elizabeth's reign, not one appears to have been publicly mentioned, or even alluded to; and the right of James was allowed to pass unquestioned. Such had been the able management of Cecil-such Stow; Weldon: Osborne, Memoirs of Sir Robert Carey. was the readiness of the nation to acknowledge the Scottish king, or their laudable anxiety to avoid a disputed succession and civil war. There was one person, however, whose claim excited uneasiness in the cautious mind of Cecil this was the Lady Arabella Stuart, daughter of the Earl of Lennox, younger brother of James's father, Darnley, and descended equally from the stock of Henry VII. This young lady was by birth an English woman, a circumstance which had been considered by some as making up for her defect of primogeniture, for James, though nearer, was a born Scotchman and alien. Cecil for some time had had his eye upon the Lady Arabella, and she was now safe in his keeping. Eight hundred dangerous or turbulent persons, indistinctly described as "vagabonds," were seized in two nights in London, and sent to serve on board the Dutch fleet. No other outward precautions were deemed necessary by the son of Burghley, who calmly waited the coming of James and his own great reward, without asking for any pledge for the privileges of parliament, the liberties of the people, or the reform of abuses which had grown with the growing prerogative of the crown. But these were things altogether overlooked, not only by Cecil and Nottingham, and those who acted with them, but also by the parties opposed to them, the most remarkable man among whom was Sir Walter Raleigh, who, like all the other courtiers or statesmen, looked entirely to his own interest or aggrandizement. Between the independent, unyielding spirit of his clergy, the turbulent, intriguing habits of his nobles, and his own poverty, James had led rather a hard life in Scotland. He was eager to take possession of England, which he looked upon as the very Land of Promise; but so poor was he that he could not begin his journey until Cecil sent him down money. He asked for the crown jewels of England for the queen his wife; but the council did not think fit to comply with this request: and, on the 6th day of April, he set out for Berwick, without wife or jewels. On arriving at that ancient town he fired off, with his own hand, a great piece of ordnance, an unusual effort of courage on his part. On the same day he wrote to his "right trusty and right wellbeloved cousins and councillors, the lords and others of his privy council at London," thanking them for the money which they had sent, telling them that he would hasten his journey as much 2 James's claim, however, was not at all through his father, Lord Darnley, but through his mother, who, as the granddaughter of James IV. by his wife Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., was, after Elizabeth, the next representative of that king. The Lady Arabella and her uncle Lord Darnley were descended from the same Margaret Tudor, but by her second marriage with Matthew Stuart, Earl of Lennox. |