Part 3 (2/2)

There is sorotesque ”At Kilkenny,” writes Sir W Drury, ”the jail being full, we caused sessions iin

Thirty-six persons were executed, aood ones; two for treason, a blackamoor, and titches by natural law, for that we found no law to try them by in this reala of kerne and churles had been worth advertizing,” writes Lord Grey to the Queen, ”I would have had every day to have troubled your Highness” Yet Lord Grey protests in the same letter that he has never taken the life of any, however evil, who submitted At the end of the Desmond outbreak, the chiefs in the different provinces send in their tale of death Ormond co three men,” whereas the number was more than 3000; and he sends in his ”brief note” of his contribution to the slaughter, ”598 persons of quality, besides 3000 or 4000 others, and 158 slain since his discharge” The end was that, as one of the chief actors writes, Sir Warhaer, ”Munster is nearly unpeopled by the s by the soldiers; 30,000 dead of faed and killed The realer, or in like misery” But in the er ”Our wars,” writes Sir Henry Wallop, in the height of the struggle, ”are but like fox-hunting”

And when the English Governainst this system of massacre, the Lord-Deputy writes back that ”he sorrows that pity for the wicked and evil should be enchanted into her Majesty”

And of this dreadful policy, involving, as the price of the extinction of Desmond's rebellion, the absolute desolation of the South and West of Ireland, Lord Grey ca champion

His administration lasted only two years, and in spite of his natural kindness of temper, which we need not doubt, it was, fro consent of all English opinions round him, a rule of extermination No scruple ever crossed hisin putting first the religious aspect of the quarrel ”If Elizabeth had allowed him,” writes Mr Froude, ”he would have now made a Mahommedan conquest of the whole island, and offered the Irish the alternative of the Gospel or the sword” With the terrible sincerity of a Puritan, he reproached himself that he had allowed even the Queen's co to God's dear service” ”I confess ham, ”I have followed man too much,” and he sahy his efforts had been in vain ”Baal's prophets and councillors shall prevail I see it is so I see it is just I see it past help I rest despaired” His policy of blood and devastation, breaking the neck of Des to put an end to it, becath more than the home Government could bear; and with mutual dissatisfaction he was recalled before his as done Alish Government, is one of which this is the abstract: ”Declaration (Dec 1583), by Arthur, Lord Grey, of Wilton, to the Queen, showing the state of Ireland when he was appointed Deputy, with the services of his governentle those ofof churles, which were innumerable”

This was the world into which Spenser was abruptly thrown, and in which he was henceforward to have his home He first became acquainted with it as Lord Grey's Secretary in the Munster war He hie reviewed the whole of this dreadful history, its policy, its necessities, its results: and no more instructive document has come down to us from those times But his description of the way in which the plan of extermination was carried out in Munster before his eyes, e on the spot of those responsible for it

_Eudox_ But what, then, shall be the conclusion of this war?

_Iren_--The end will I assure reat a trouble, as it seeh there should none of them fall by the sword nor be slain by the soldier: yet thus being kept fro abroad, by this hard restraint they would quickly consume themselves, and devour one another The proof whereof I saw sufficiently exa that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle that you would have thought they should have been able to stand long, yet ere one year and a half they were brought to such wretchedness as that any stony heart would have rued the salynnes they cas could not bear thehosts crying out of their graves; they did eat the dead carrions, happy where they could find them, yea and one another soon after, insomuch that the very carcases they spared not to scrape out of their graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for a ti to continue there withal; that in a short space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly left void of man and beast; yet sure in all that war there perished not many by the sword, but all by the extreht

It is hardly surprising that Lord Grey's Secretary should share the opinions and the feelings of his master and patron Certainly in his company and service, Spenser learned to look upon Ireland and the Irish with the ilishreedy eyes In this new atmosphere, in which his life was henceforth spent, ae and death, the daily scramble for the spoils of rebels and traitors, the daily alarms of treachery and insurrection, a inative richness, and poetic delicacy of feeling, there appeared two features There was a shrewd sense of the practical side of things: and there was a full share of that sternness of teed to the time He came to Ireland for no romantic purpose: he came to make his fortune as well as he could: and he accepted the conditions of the place and scene, and entered at once into the galish comers, and of which the prizes were lucrative offices and forfeited manors and abbeys And in the native population and native interests, he saw nothing but what called forth not merely antipathy, but deep norant, thriftless, filthy, debased and loathsome in their pitiable misery and despair: it was that in his view, justice, truth, honesty had utterly perished a them, and therefore were not due to thelishmen, was entirely unconscious: he saw only on all sides of him the elishainst apparent but not real odds And all this was aggravated by the stiff adherence of the Irish to their old religion

Spenser calishland the pure and undoubted religion of the Bible: and in Ireland, he found himself face to face with the very superstition in its lowest for in England; he found it in armed rebellion in Ireland

Like Lord Grey, he saw in Popery the root of all the ion, as well as his convictions of right, conspired to recoovernment

The opinion was everywhere--it was undisputed and unexamined--that a policy of force, direct or indirect, was the natural and right way of reducing diverging religions to subht as a ree or another All wise and good ht so: all statesmen and rulers acted so Spenser found in Ireland a state of things which seemed to make this doctrine the siust, 1582, Lord Grey left Ireland He had accepted his office with the utreement between the Queen and hireatly displeased the hoave it up with his special work, the extinction of Desmond's rebellion, still unaccomplished In spite of the thousands slain, and a province erous Lord Grey had been ruthlessly severe, and yet not successful For ry letters between hihahley wanted order restored, but did not like either the expense of war, or the responsibility before other governed necessary Knowing that he did not please, he had begun to solicit his recall before he had been a year in Ireland; and at length he was recalled, not to receive thanks, but to meet a strict, if not hostile, inquiry into his administration Besides what had been on the surface of his proceedings to dissatisfy the Queen, there had been, as in the case of every Deputy, a continued underground streaainst hiet this, when in the _Faery Queen_ he shadowed forth Lord Grey's career in the adventures of Arthegal, the great Knight of Justice, s, Envy and Detraction, and the braying of the hundred tongues of the Blatant Beast

Irish lords and partisans, calling theet what they wanted, or when he threatened theland His English colleagues, civil and military, were his natural rivals or enemies, ever on the watch to spy out and report, if necessary, to misrepresent, as questionable or unfortunate in his proceedings Permanent officials like Archbishop Adam Loftus the Chancellor, or Treasurer Wallop, or Secretary Fenton, knew more than he did; they corresponded directly with the ministers; they knew that they were expected to keep a strict watch on his expenditure; and they had no scruple to send hoainst one another A secretary in Dublin like Geoffrey Fenton is described as a arment of every Deputy Grey himself complains of the underhand work; he cannot prevent ”backbiters' report:” he has found of late ”very suspicious dealing ast all his best esteemed associates;” he ”dislikes not to be infor hiuilty; they riting ho his favourites, under pretence of rewarding service, to the great loss and pere of her Majesty's revenue; and they were forwarding plans for commissions to distribute these estates, of which the Deputy should not be a reat responsibilities under the Queen He was expected to do very hard tasks with insufficient means, and to receive more blame where he failed than thanks where he succeeded He had every one, English and Irish, against hiland He was driven to violence because he wanted strength; he took liberties with forfeitures belonging to the Queen because he had no otherpublic services It is not easy to feel much sympathy for a man who, brave and public spirited as he was, could think of no remedy for the miseries of Ireland but wholesale bloodshed Yet, coainst hiot rich on these miseries, the Wallops and Fentons of the Irish Council, this stern Puritan, so remorseless in what he believed to be his duty to his Queen and his faith, stands out as an honest and faithful public servant of a Government which seemed hardly to know its own ence and severity, and which hanorant of their difficulties, and incapable of controlling the supplies for a costly and wasteful war Lord Grey's strong hand, though incapable of reaching the real causes of Irish evils, undoubtedly saved the country at a ht lawless Geraldines, and Eustaces, and Burkes the terrible lesson of English power The hich he had half done in crushi+ng Desmond was soon finished by Desmond's hereditary rival, Ormond; and under the milder, but not more popular, rule of his successor, the proud and irritable Sir John Perrot, Ireland had for a few years the peace which consisted in the absence of a definite rebellion, till Tyrone began to stir in 1595, and Perrot went back a disgraced man, to die a prisoner in the Tower

Lord Grey left behind him unappeasable animosities, and returned to meet jealous rivals and an ill-satisfied mistress But he had left behind one whose admiration and reverence he had won, and as not afraid to take care of his reputation Whether Spenser went back with his patron or not in 1582, he was from henceforth mainly resident in Ireland Lord Grey's administration, and the principles on which it had been carried on, had made a deep impression on Spenser's mind His first ideal had been Philip Sidney, the attractive and all-accoentleman,--

The President Of noblesse and of chevalrie,--

And to the end the pastoral Colin Clout, for he ever retained his first poetic name, was faithful to his ideal But in the stern Proconsul, under whom he had become hardened into a keen and resolute colonist, he had coovernor under the sense of duty, doing the roughest of work in the roughest of ways In Lord Grey, he had this character, not as heout its qualities in present life, aencies, the desperate alternatives, the calls for instant decision, the pressing necessities and the anxious hazards, of a course full of uncertainty and peril He had before his eyes day by day, fearless, unshrinking deter task He believed that he saw a living exa and unswerving zeal for order and religion, and good governht, and to the Queen Lord Grey grew at last, in the poet's ie and representative of perfect and reat allegory his ideas of human life and character, Lord Grey supplied the moral features, and almost the name, of one of its chief heroes Spenser did ories In Spenser's _View of the present State of Ireland_, written soives his mature, and then at any rate, disinterested approbation of Lord Grey's administration, and his opinion of the causes of its failure He kindles into indignation when ”ues backbite and slander the sacred ashes of that e, whose least virtue, of many most excellent, which abounded in his heroical spirit, they were never able to aspire unto”

Lord Grey's patronage had brought Spenser into the public service; perhaps that patronage, the patronage of a man who had powerful enemies, was the cause that Spenser's preferments, after Lord Grey's recall, were on so lean from indirect sources about Spenser's eh, but they are distinct They show hireat account, but yet, like other public servants in Ireland, profiting, in his degree, by the opportunities of the ti Lord Grey's arrival (March 22, 1581), Spenser was appointed Clerk of Decrees and Recognizances in the Irish Court of Chancery, retaining his place as Secretary to the Lord-Deputy, in which character his signature so State doculand This office is said by Fuller to have been a ”lucrative”

one In the same year he received a lease of the Abbey and Manor of Enniscorthy, in the County of Wexford Enniscorthy was an iarrisons, on one of the roads from Dublin to the South He held it but for a short time It was transferred by hient, apparently, of the powerful Sir Henry Wallop, the Treasurer; and it was soon after transferred by Synot to his patron, an official who secured to hie share of the spoils of Desmond's rebellion Further, Spenser's na whom Lord Grey had distributed some of the forfeited property of the rebels--a list sent hoe to the Queen's revenue, busily urged against him in Ireland by lish ulf of consurant wasothers one to Wallop himself; and a certain number of smaller value to persons of Lord Grey's own household There, a the Lord-Deputy, and Welshratifications had been allotted out of the spoil, we read--”the lease of a house in Dublin belonging to [Lord] Baltinglas for six years to come to Edmund Spenser, one of the Lord-Deputy's Secretaries, valued at 5_l_””of a 'custodialas' family] land of the Newland to Edmund Spenser, one of the Lord-Deputy's Secretaries” In July, 1586, when every one was full of the project for ”planting” Munster, he was still in Dublin, for he addresses from thence a sonnet to Gabriel Harvey In March, 1588/9, we find the following, in a list of officers on the establishovernland: ”Lodovick Briskett, clerk to the council (at 20_l_ per annum), 13_l_ 6_s_ 8_d_ (this is exercised by one Spenser, as deputy for the said Briskett), to whoranted by patent 6 Nov 25 Eliz (1583)” (_Carew MSS_) Bryskett was a man much employed in Irish business He had been Clerk to the Irish Council, had been a correspondent of Burghley and Walsingham, and had aspired to be Secretary of State when Fenton obtained the post: possibly in disappointment, he had retired, with an office which he exercised by deputy, to his lands in Wexford He was a poet, and a friend of Spenser's: and it e, that ”one Spenser,” who had been his deputy, succeeded to his office

In this position Spenser was brought into colish chiefs on the Council of Munster, and also with the leadingwhom more than half a million of acres of the escheated and desolate lands of the fallen Desmond were to be divided, on condition of each Undertaker settling on his estate a proportionate nuentlemen, yeomen, artisans and labourers with their fa the ruined province into order and cultivation The President and Vice-President of the Council were the two Norreys, John and Thoallant fainally started before the rebellion, in 1568 It had been one of the causes of the rebellion; but now that Desland with favour and hope Men of influence and enterprise, Sir Christopher Hatton, Walsinghaovernentleer sons, and to send them over at the head of colonies from the families of their tenants and dependants, to occupy a rich and beautiful land on easy terms of rent In the Western Counties, north and south, the appeal had awakened interest In the list of Undertakers are found Cheshi+re and Lancashi+re naer nuers, Coles, Ralegh, Chudleigh, Champernown The plan of settlement was carefully and methodically traced out The province was surveyed as well as it could be under great difficulties Maps were nories” were created of varying size, 12,000, 8000, 6000, 4000 acres, with corresponding obligations as to the nual science in England was to protect titles by lengthy patents and leases; administrative watchfulness and fires of trade were granted to the Undertakers: they were even allowed to transport coin out of England to Ireland: and a long respite was granted them before the Croas to claim its rents Strict rules were laid down to keep the native Irish out of the English lands and frolish fanories were distributed by the Undertakers a the spoil The great people, like Hatton and Ralegh, were to have their two or three Seignories: the county of Cork with its nineteen Seignories is assigned to the gentleman undertakers fro one But difficulties soon arose The gentleland even on a visit to their desolate and dangerous seignories in Munster The ”planting” did not thrive The Irish were inexhaustible in raising legal obstacles and in giving practical annoyance Claiuish

Even the very attainted and escheated lands were challenged by virtue of settlements made before the attainders The result was that a certain number of Irish estates were added to the possessions of a certain nuhley's policy, and Walsingha inventiveness were alike baffled by the conditions of a proble of Alish After all its desolation, it reverted in the main to its Irish possessors

Of all the schemes and efforts which accompanied the attempt, and the records of which fill the Irish State papers of those years, Spenser was the near and close spectator He was in Dublin and on the spot, as Clerk of the Council of Munster And he had become acquainted, perhaps, by this tih, one of thewherever he was becoathered, and of the i of Irish affairs had left on hi work, written several years later--_A View of the present State of Ireland_ But his connexion with Munster not unnaturally brought hih and the ”So them the County of Cork, the Clerk of the Council was re the Undertakers His nareat statesnories of 12,000 acres, as holding a grant of some 3000 It was the manor and castle of Kilcolman, a ruined house of the Desmonds, under the Galtee Hills It appears to have been first assigned to another person[79:5] But it came at last into Spenser's hands, probably in 1586; and henceforward, this was his abode and his hoh road between Mallow and Limerick, about three miles from buttevant and Doneraile, in a plain at the foot of the last western falls of the Galtee range, watered by a strea, but which he celebrates under the name of the Mulla

In Spenser's time it was probably surrounded oods The earlier writers describe it as a pleasant abode with fine views, and so Spenser celebrated its natural beauties The more recent accounts are not so favourable ”Kilcolman,” says the writer in Murray's Handbook, ”is a small peel toith craentleman's house assuin of a s an extrehbourhood of the wild country to the north, half forest, half bog, the wood and hill of Aharlo, or Arlo, as Spenser writes it, which was the refuge and the ”great fastness” of the Desmond rebellion It was amid such scenes, amid such occupations, in such society and companionshi+p, that the poet of the _Faery Queen_ accoiven him to do In one of his later poeland with his own ho there nor wretchednesse is heard, No bloodie issues nor no leprosies, No griesly fas [= border ravage], nor no hue and cries; The shepheards there abroad er: No ravenous wolves the good er