Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)Bagwell, Richard
History
Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 3 (of 3)
Bagwell, Richard
Ireland -- History -- 16th century
was as strong as ever, and what the rebels spared the soldiers
ravaged. In Connaught the young Burkes daily razed houses and fences,
northern Leinster lay waste, in Munster nothing was left standing save
towns and cities, and Ulster was ready to break out on the smallest
provocation.[73]
[Sidenote: Official attack upon Ormonde.]
The English officials all maintained that Ormonde had shown himself
unfit to conduct the war. One writer estimates his emoluments at
215_l._ a month, and another at 3,677_l._ a year, and the first result
of a peace would be to deprive him of these comfortable subsidies. He
was mixed up with Irish families and Irish lawsuits, and could not have
a single eye to the public service. He owed the Queen over 3,000_l._ in
rents, and the war was an excuse for not paying. Nor was his system of
warfare calculated to finish a rebellion, for all experienced officers
said that could be done only by settled garrisons. 'He followeth,'
says his enemy St. Leger, 'with a running host, which is to no end but
only wearing out and consuming of men by travel, for I can compare
the difference between our footmen and the traitors to a mastiff and
wight greyhound.' According to the same authority Ormonde was generally
disliked, and those whom he was set over would 'rather be hanged than
follow him, finding their travel and great pains altogether in vain.'
He procured the imprisonment of the Baron of Upper Ossory, whom he
accused of treason, of harbouring papists and consorting with rebels,
and of meeting Desmond after he had been proclaimed; but Wallop
thought the Earl coveted his neighbour's land, being 'so imperious as
he can abide none near him that dependeth not on him.' Spenser's friend
Ludovic Bryskett said the Lord General did nothing of moment with his
2,000 men, and as for his toil and travel, 'the noble gentleman was
worthy of pity to take so much labour in vain.' Wallop, Waterhouse,
Fenton, and St. Leger agreed that Ireland could only be pacified by
severity, and that Ormonde was not the man to do it. But perhaps the
heaviest, as it is certainly the most graphic, indictment was that
which Captain Raleigh forwarded to Walsingham.[74]
[Sidenote: Adventures of Raleigh.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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