power (as long as he shall carry himself like a good subject), so if, after his offences known to the world so publicly, this submission [of] his shall not as well appear to the world by all clear circumstances to proceed simply out of his inward grief and sorrow for his offences against us, and from his earnest desire only to satisfy us his sovereign, but that it must be bruited abroad that for any other man's respect whosoever he takes the way, either sooner or later, to become a good subject, or that it shall be conceived that Tyrone would forbear to draw his sword against our Lieutenant rather than against us, we shall take ourself thereby much dishonoured, and neither could value anything that shall proceed from him on such conditions, nor dispose our mind to be so gracious to him hereafter as otherwise we might have been induced."

It is well known that, notwithstanding all these manifestations of anger and resentment at his proceedings, and still more at his abrupt departure from Ireland, the Queen received this unfortunate nobleman with marks of favour. She uttered not a single reproach; on the other hand, she manifested the greatest pleasure at his return. This seems to me to be the real explanation of the mystery; not, as some have imagined, that she resented his absence from her person, or had fallen into that ridiculous dotage so ingeniously attributed to her by some historians, but that she was glad to get rid of suspicions fostered by her increasing years, and perhaps by the suggestions of the Earl's enemies. She had dreaded- a common dread to which all Deputies in Ireland had been exposed-lest Essex should make himself independent in Ireland; and that dread was encouraged by the self-will and popularity of the Earl. Ireland offered the easiest means for a clandestine correspondence with Scotland; and whether the Queen had knowledge of the fact, or only suspected it, so long as Essex remained in Ireland-the back door of England to Scotland, as it was often calledhe was, in fact, master of the succession. Not that he was so mad as to seek the sceptre for himself, but in whose

soever favour he declared himself-and that would be James VI.-not only would he succeed as monarch, but Essex would have the greatest claim upon his gratitude, the greatest stroke in disposing of his authority. That prospect pleased neither the Queen nor her ministers. As in the case of Tyrone, so also in that of James VI. and of all others, her dignity would suffer none to dictate. No suitor for favour, as she considered it, should "depend upon any second power;" and she naturally grew more jealous and more suspicious as she found it difficult to retain exclusive power, and observance towards herself undiminished. A little more caution, a little more diplomatic cunning, might have secured for Essex the place of Sir Robert Cecil; a little more openness and impetuosity might have exposed Cecil to the fate of Essex. The after conduct of the Earl is that of a reckless gambler who has lost his last chance, and attempts to retrieve his position by a bold stroke, in which prudence and sober calculation have no part. The papers relating to the last acts of his life are full of interest, and will be found in the third volume of the Calendar, pp. 436, 517, 519.

Charles Lord Mountjoy was appointed Deputy, and arrived in Ireland on the 24th February 1600. Sir George Carew was at the same time nominated Governor of Munster. Apparently the inferior in command, Carew was in fact the superior. He enjoyed the confidence of the Queen; and, what was more important, he had the undeviating support and ardent friendship of Sir Robert Cecil, who never omitted any opportunity of recommending Carew to his sovereign, magnifying his services and furthering his wishes, let the sacrifice cost what it might. Sir Robert has been set down by the historians of the period and in popular estimation as the very antithesis to Essex. He is represented as cold, subtle, and intriguing, as devoid of

generosity and of natural affection: and the eulogists of Lord Bacon have not failed to exalt their favourite at the expense of his less brilliant relative. But under a reserve which was necessary in a great minister-still more in one surrounded by watchful and intriguing rivals-Cecil concealed a heart susceptible of the warmest attachments. His large, liquid, lustrous eyes-absorbing as it were the whole of his countenance and fascinating the spectatorwere a sure and unerring index of the ardent and romantic affections which long training and strong self-possession had alone enabled him to control. The delicate susceptibilities of the man and his exquisite tenderness are manifest in the correspondence between himself and his father. The letters of the old Lord Burghley to his son during his last sickness are not only full of that fatherly affection, which is sometimes rare in statesmen, and in his case not generally suspected, but they breathe a grave and gracious spirit, showing how much the love of both was mingled with mutual respect. The confidential letters preserved by Carew, and written by Sir Robert without disguise, present him in a new character. They are in many respects the most valuable, as they certainly are the most delightful portions of this correspondence. What the treasures at Hatfield may contain I know not; but certainly no letters of Cecil hitherto published present him in so engaging a light as these, and in none, whilst throwing off the statesman, is the man himself so clearly presented to the reader. The envy and evil designs he is supposed to have harboured towards his contemporaries are here clearly shown to rest on no foundation. The truth appears to be that he won and held the highest post in the kingdom, and enjoyed the entire confidence of his sovereign, not only because he was far superior to all his rivals in real administrative genius and aptitude

for business, but because that genius was attended with certain moral qualities of a high order. He had few friends, but those few entertained for him the warmest affection, and reposed in him the most unshaken confidence.

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To return to Mountjoy. Notwithstanding the difficulties in which Elizabeth was now placed by the spreading of the rebellion, and still more by its effects on the susceptible minds of the Irish as the cause of the Pope, the first care of the Queen was the defence of the Protestant religion : "We do recommend unto your special care to preserve the true exercise of religion amongst our loving "subjects; and though the time doth not permit that you "should now intermeddle by any severity or violence in "matters of religion until we have better established our power there to countenance your actions in that kind, yet we require you, both in your own house and in your armies, you foresee that no neglect be used in that "behalf." *

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How Mountjoy carried out his instructions will be seen in the orders issued by him to the army when he assumed the command. A braver man, or one more chivalrous, was not then to be found. He was one of the few survivors of that noble band which, under Elizabeth, had raised this nation to an unprecedented height; one of those in whom the more sterling qualities of the English character were sublimated and refined by that tinge of idealism which redeemed it from the coarser materialism into which it was too apt to degenerate. The old spiritual element inherited from a past age had not yet wholly died out. The very first charge of Mountjoy to his officers is "to see "that Almighty God be duly served; that sermons and

* Vol. III. 356.

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morning and evening prayer be diligently frequented; " and that those that often and wilfully absent them"selves be duly punished." No man is to speak impiously and maliciously " against the Holy and Blessed Trinity," or contravene the known articles of the Christian faith, on pain of death. Impiety, blasphemy, uulawful oaths, any irreligious act "to the derogation of God's honour," is to be punished by fine or imprisonment, or whatever other penalty a court-martial shall think fit to award, as unbecoming the profession of a Christian and a soldier.* The stronger and healthier faith of those times did not flinch from avowing that honour to God was no less the concern of a true subject. than obedience to the sovereign; nor would a court-martial have thought itself obliged to punish drunkenness and desertion, and leave profaneness and infidelity uncensured.

It is easy to guess from this one specimen the general character of the rest. They are as strict as the greatest soldier in this age or any other age could desire. After denouncing the penalty of death against those who drew their swords in private quarrels-one of the commonest acts of insubordination in Ireland-banishment or imprisonment for acts of incontinence in officers or menMountjoy proceeds to enumerate under the same head a variety of crimes and misdemeanors; e. g., death to any man stealing her Majesty's stores, or for delivering a fort to the rebels, or making an ignominious compact with them, or abandoning his ensign, or sleeping on his post, or falling out of the ranks, or exceeding his furlough, "except he can prove he was stayed by the hand of God." Every soldier or officer found drunk is to be committed to prison for the first offence; for the second he shall forfeit

* Vol. III. 502.