Ireland under the Tudors, with a Succinct Account of the Earlier History. Vol. 2 (of 3)

When Perrott had done his hanging he went to Dublin and reported that Desmond was devoid of reason, and that nothing could be done with him. The Earl, however, declared that the unreasonableness was in the Government, who demanded of him more than he had promised, and when he made fresh promises refused to accept them. His right to a palatinate jurisdiction in Kerry was held void by the lawyers; he was ready to exercise it only according to her Majesty’s pleasure, and without engrafting any Irish customs upon it, and he made no objection to the establishment of courts leet and courts baron. As to coyne and livery, he would forego them for six months, pending the decision of his cause. He was more willing than able to abolish them permanently, but was quite ready to agree to such a reasonable composition as impartial commissioners might agree upon. On the other hand, he demanded immediate restoration to his country, and all castles which he claimed either as owner or mortgagee, except Castlemartyr and Castlemaine, which were reserved to the Queen. This was all very well; but Desmond gave out generally that there would be no more Presidents after Christmas, and this was hardly the way to conciliate Perrott, who had a veto upon all Munster matters. Sir John Fitzgerald was more pliable or more politic than the Earl, and he risked little by loyal professions, for nothing that he did or said really committed the Geraldine connection. On promising to put down the Brehon law, to suffer no composition for felony, and to abstain from gathering rhymers and dicers about him, he was allowed to return into Munster, leaving his brother to endure ‘an easy restraint for a little time.’

There was probably some vain hope that Sir John would remit enough money to pay the debts incurred in England—a subject about which there was much correspondence, and which seems to have been thought nearly as important as the state of Munster. Perrott went to Cork, where the sessions were well attended and where he executed sixty more persons. This, though quite a matter of course, was recorded with satisfaction; but the Lord President took far greater pride in having forced the men to give up their glibbes and in having bullied or coaxed the gentlewomen into foregoing the great rolls which they wore on their heads. ‘By wading into this further danger,’ he said, ‘I am assured to have no wife in these parts, and for England when I re-embark I look there to have none. For all my gains here is for every white hair that I brought over with me sixty, and a thin purse, how great soever the report went of things that came to my hand by the Marseillyan ship.’[250]

This vessel, the ‘Peter and Paul,’ belonging to Marseilles, but laden at Lisbon with a rich cargo of pepper, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, soap, salad oil, sugar, ‘grains,’ and cotton-wool, arrived at Youghal in November 1572. She had forty persons on board, chiefly Portuguese, but among them were an Englishman, a Neapolitan, and two French passengers. Fitzwilliam, upon some report of a general restraint of trade with Spain, which might include Portugal, sent a commission to Perrott to detain the ship and to sell the cargo. At Youghal it might have been impossible to protect her from Piper and Garratt, two of the many pirates who at this time infested British waters, and she was brought round to Cork, where the men were billeted on the aldermen and allowed the run of the city. Perrott petitioned for a grant of the cargo, but the owners, who were wholly or partly French, complained to the Queen. Proceedings followed in the Admiralty, and the goods were not sold; but the ship was found to be rotten, and had to be unladen. This was carefully done: every article was scrupulously accounted for, and the foreigners certified that nothing had been extorted from them by way of ransom. It is the fate of every active provincial governor to have many detractors among the stay-at-homes, and Perrott’s enemies raised a cry at Court accusing him of making away with the cargo. His defence was complete and perfectly satisfactory to the Government, but he continued to be troubled about it for some time, and the voluminous correspondence extant shows how great was the commotion excited.[251]

As if Munster had not troubles enough, an attempt was made at this time to revive Sir Peter Carew’s shadowy claim to a principality there, and some of the projectors renewed their offers to colonise parts of the province. Fitzwilliam referred to Perrott, who reported strongly against Carew. The mere disclosure of his title, he said, would rouse a nest of hornets; and he protested against a private adventurer being allowed to break the peace which he had established with great labour and tribulation. Sidney had three soldiers to Fitzwilliam’s one, yet it had taxed his resources severely to still Carew’s first commotion. It would be cheaper for the Queen to buy him out than to let him meddle again. The people saw clearly that what affected one would affect all, and Sir Peter was obliged to promise not to stir further in the matter.[252]

The more Perrott saw of Desmond the less he liked him. He had grumbled at his return; had he known him better he would have cried aloud. He now besought the Queen to have him taken back to England, for he would never learn manners in Dublin, and could do nothing but harm in Munster. To Burghley Perrott wrote still more unrestrainedly that the Earl was fitter to keep Bedlam than to rule a newly reformed country. In Munster, wrote the President proudly, the plough already laughed the unbridled rogue to scorn, and daily improvement was visible. The poor prayed for the Queen. The clansmen had almost given up swearing by their lords’ hands. The 8,000 or 9,000 men capable of bearing arms honoured Elizabeth’s name, and their hands began to wax hard in labour as their feet once did in running to mischief. The revenue might soon be expected to increase. ‘If the kings of England,’ he said in language which must have appealed very strongly to Elizabeth, ‘have any one thing heavier upon their souls than others, it is that they have not made a thorough conquest of this realm.’[253]

The Queen gracefully thanked Perrott for his services, begged him not to leave his post on account of his health, and proposed to send over an English doctor who knew his constitution. But she did not recall Desmond, who complained loudly of his long detention and declared his good intentions, while admitting that he had made many rash speeches. It does not seem to have occurred to him that a man who could not rule his tongue was hardly fit to rule a province. In the meantime his officers left the land waste, and seized Glin Castle in defiance of the President, whose health obliged him to go suddenly to England without taking the vengeance he had threatened. The highest praise which can be given him for his government of Munster is to quote the words which the ‘Four Masters’ used in derision:—‘The departure of the President was lamented by the poor, the widows, the feeble, and the unwarlike of the country.’ No sooner was his back turned than the Geraldines began to stir ominously. James Fitzmaurice reopened his intrigues with Spain. Finding that his wife had been writing amorous letters to Edward Butler, he divorced her summarily and married O’Connor Kerry’s widow, whose castle of Carrigafoyle, ‘the strongest and beautifullest’ in West Munster, thus fell into his hands, and offered a ready harbour for ‘Jack Spaniard.’ He conferred with Clanricarde’s sons—‘a sage Parliament in God’s name’—and to this Sir John was supposed to be privy. Fitzwilliam saw that mischief was in the wind, and meditated a journey to Munster, when Desmond, whose tone had been gradually growing less submissive, cut the knot by escaping from Dublin.[254]

Being sent back to England was probably what Desmond really feared, for he afterwards said he had received letters from England hinting at such a thing. He complained of no harsh treatment in Dublin, where he was placed under the Mayor’s charge, but not closely confined. Either wishing for or dreading an escape, his gaoler told the Government that the Earl was welcome to his house and table, but that he would no longer answer for his safe keeping. Some say that he was allowed out on parole, which he kept for a fortnight and then broke. Telling the Mayor that he was going out hunting, and that he would return at night, he went to Grangegorman, and thence escaped by dint of riding into Munster. He was escorted through Kildare by Rory Oge O’More and Piers Grace, both noted brigands or guerillas, and received in the Queen’s County by 400 O’Mores, and in Limerick by James Fitzmaurice. At Lough Gur the Earl and Countess lost no time about showing themselves in Irish dress, and we cannot doubt that glibbes and rolls at once became fashionable again. All the Geraldines hastened to arms, ‘knowing no God, no Prince, but the Earl, no law but his behests.’ Desmond promptly gave out that he would allow no sheriffs, thus practically deciding the palatinate question in his own favour; and to all appearances he was soon as powerful as any of his ancestors had been. Fitzwilliam wrote to warn the fugitive that he was in great danger of losing all, but to Burghley he confessed his fear of a great conspiracy. The lawyers were afraid to go circuit in Munster, and not a single councillor could be got to go to Cork, where Perrott had lately done such execution. In a few days Castlemaine and Castlemartyr, which had taken so much pains to reduce, were again in Geraldine hands, and there was soon nothing to show for Perrott’s Presidency but the gibbeted corpses of some malefactors, and the tears of ‘the poor, the widows, the feeble, and the unwarlike.’[255]

The general course of government was neither smooth nor glorious from the time when Elizabeth determined to restore Desmond to Ireland, until he practically carried out her first intention by escaping from Dublin. Leix and Offaly were almost as bad as they had ever been. In the former, Cosby was forced by his weakness to wink at disorder. In the latter, Henry Cowley, who was honourably distinguished as the only English officer who really tried to rule legally, had to go to Dublin to beg in vain for one hundred men. Without them he hardly knew how to get back to Philipstown, outside which he could at the best scarcely stir. The general opinion was that the Queen meant to leave all to Irish government. The miserable town of Athenry had been plundered and left utterly desolate by Clanricarde’s sons, and an alderman danced attendance on Fitzwilliam and Fitton, begging for help which they could not give. Ormonde’s country in his absence was scarcely better than the rebel districts, and the Graces, who would have obeyed the Earl but no one else, carried off Sir Barnaby Fitzpatrick’s wife and daughter. Sir Barnaby pursued and recovered the young lady, but her mother, who was in delicate health, spent some miserable weeks in captivity in Tipperary and Kilkenny. King Edward’s old companion poured forth his grief to Sidney, and signed himself ‘your poor tormented friend.’ Tremayne, who had orders to make special inquiries about this outrage, reported that Fitzwilliam had followed it up well. But Fitzwilliam could really do very little, for old Cormac O’Connor was again at the head of a Scotch and Irish band who hovered between Leinster and Connaught. The force of the country would not serve against the old chief, nor do any damage to the native gentlemen; so that the whole brunt fell on the scanty garrison and yet more scanty settlers. Athlone Castle was actually entered by the rebels, and Connaught was left to its own devices. Tremayne reported that Clanricarde was quite unable to restrain his graceless sons. Fitton thought his late subjects might, perhaps, by good management be persuaded to stay quiet as long as they liked, ‘which kind of quiet is no new thing in the politics of Ireland.’ Like everyone else, he attributed all to the Queen’s ill-judged parsimony, ‘sparing too sparely I fear will cost more spending.’[256]

For most practical purposes the two chief personages in the Irish Government at this time were the Lord Deputy and Vice-Treasurer Fitton—the bearer of the sword and the bearer of the purse. The way in which they worked together was not edifying, nor calculated to impress the natives with a sense of dignity and power. Having inquired into the quarrel between Fitton and Clanricarde, the Lord Deputy and Council decided that the former had made good his case, and they patched up a precarious friendship between them. But in the daily intercourse between hostile officials it was less easy to maintain a friendly appearance. Fitzwilliam was a man of hasty temper, Fitton was said to be vain-glorious and was certainly quarrelsome and litigious. An opportunity for explosion was afforded by an affray between the Vice-Treasurer’s servant Roden, a gentleman’s son—with the expectation of one hundred marks a year, he notes, as if that had anything to do with it—and one Burnell, a follower of the Clerk of the Council, and a friend of Captain Harrington, the Lord Deputy’s nephew. Roden broke Burnell’s head with his dagger, and Harrington threatened vengeance. According to Fitton’s account, Harrington’s servant, James Meade, met Roden in the street some days afterwards, and shouting ‘Dead, villain!’ immediately ran him through the body. The coroner’s jury found that the deed was done in self-defence, but Meade was indicted for murder in the Queen’s Bench, and the Grand Jury found a bill for manslaughter, whereupon the Lord Deputy granted a general pardon, and thus defeated both law and justice entirely. Fitton asked to see the record of pardon, which he retained as evidence, and, refusing to restore it, was imprisoned in the common gaol during the Lord Deputy’s pleasure. Next day Fitzwilliam thought better of it, and summoned the Vice-Treasurer to the Council Board, but he refused to take his seat, declaring that he had done nothing wrong, and that one who had been judged a contemner of authority was unworthy to act as a councillor. He pressed hard for a full inquiry, and the noise soon reached the Queen’s ears, who exonerated Fitton, told him to take his seat again fearlessly, and to repute it praise and honour that he had suffered for doing her Majesty good service. Fitzwilliam she rebuked sharply for giving a pardon which she herself would have feared to grant, lest the blood of slain men should cry vengeance upon the realm. It was generally said in England, she informed the Irish Council, that they were the Deputy’s tools and Fitton only a true councillor. The Vice-Treasurer was not likely to hide the letter addressed to himself, and the other soon got wind in spite of every effort. To the Queen Fitzwilliam could say little but that he was undeservedly disgraced, and longed to be recalled, but he rated Fitton before one hundred persons, impeaching his truth and honesty, and saying that if he kept away from the Council Board he was but one councillor the less. Having his cue from the Queen, Fitton dutifully attended next day, and must be allowed on the whole to have got much the best of it. Fitzwilliam had not the temper to conceal his feelings, though he dared not dispute her Majesty’s decision, for he told Burghley that the other was a deep dissembler and his professed enemy. Malicious, false, and cowardly, he had given him two deadly bites, and was to be distrusted for ever. ‘God send me into the earth or to be tied into a dungeon rather than to be coupled with such a venomous person.’[257]

At this critical time death deprived the Irish Government of Lord Chancellor Weston’s services. He had held the Great Seal for six years, respected by all the official world as a father to the commonwealth; and the very Irishry lamented his loss. Weston was sincerely religious, not without a tinge of Puritanism, and was filled with anxiety at the condition of the Irish Church. Non-resident clergymen and desecrated churches were the rule, and he felt that he was giving a bad example by holding the temporalities of two deaneries, Wells in England and St. Patrick’s in Ireland. It was thus that scanty salaries were eked out both before and after the Reformation. His conscientious scruples aggravated his naturally weak health, mainly caused, as he believed, by the damp climate, more probably by the want of vegetables and by unskilful physicians. He left a widow who appears to have been worthy of him, and an equally virtuous daughter, who was married first to Brady, Bishop of Meath, and afterwards to Secretary Fenton. Catherine Fenton, the only daughter of this second marriage, whilst in her nurse’s arms, consented in childish play to be the wife of Richard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork. Many years later Boyle, a widower of four years’ standing, actually married the ‘little lady’ with whom he had played in his bachelor days. That she inherited the virtues of her mother, grandmother, and grandfather, may be inferred from the beautiful passage in which one of the most powerful and successful men of his time has recorded his debt to his second wife. ‘I never,’ he says, ‘demanded any marriage portion, neither had promise of any, it not being in my consideration; yet her father after my marriage gave me 1,000l. in gold with her; but the gift of his daughter unto me I must ever thankfully acknowledge as the crown of all my blessings; for she was a most religious, virtuous, loving, and obedient wife unto me all the days of her life, and the happy mother of all my hopeful children, who, with their posterity, I beseech God to bless.’ Among the children were the famous Orrery, and the yet more famous Robert Boyle.[258]

The relations of England both with France and Spain were at this time extremely strained, and Antonio de Gueras, the Spanish Commissioner in London, thought the expedition of Essex might be turned to good purpose. The English refugees in Spain and the Low Countries kept pressing Philip to invade Ireland, and Rowland Turner, calling himself Lord Audley, an English priest from Louvain, was sent to Ulster with letters from De Gueras to Sir Brian MacPhelim. Essex, the Spaniard wrote, was about to land with 3,000 men and to exterminate the O’Neills. In order to frustrate his plan, Sir Brian was advised to put himself under the direction of Turner, a prudent, worthy, and faithful Catholic gentleman, with 500 splendidly armed men awaiting his orders in England. Turner, who had lately been in Spain, Scotland, and the Isle of Man, was well known to the English Government; and his foolish boasts about hanging all Protestants were not likely to enhance his reputation for ability or discretion. Sir Brian, though very willing to keep off Essex, had no idea of directly opposing Queen Elizabeth, nor of engaging in œcumenical plots for the extirpation of heresy. Like Archbishop Fitzgibbon, he feared that the English Catholics would make a tool of him, and throw him away when a turn had been served. He received Turner very coldly, who bitterly complained that he was not believed, though an exile for God’s sake and for that of the Irish. Captain Piers hinted to Sir Brian that Turner’s noble blood was fabulous, and the exile, while insisting upon his own stainless pedigree, retorted that Piers himself was the son of a scoundrel, and unworthy of being believed on his oath. His language, indeed, though he wrote in Latin, was almost worthy of Marryat’s boatswain. The Irish were wretched, beggarly paupers, the slaves of the English, who took their cattle and fished their waters without payment, and held all their country either by force or fraud. By listening to Turner the natives might change all this, and make the English their slaves for ever. But they would not listen; and Turner shook the dust from his feet, though Essex thought he could trace the effects of his machinations. He was afterwards employed by Alva, and received money from Philip, but he does not appear to have risked a second rebuff in Ireland.[259]

After Smith’s death Essex could do little but bemoan his hard fate and confess that the people, ‘to increase their own plague, had refused her Majesty’s mercies.’ The causes of failure he thus sums up: ‘Two great disadvantages I find in this little time of my continuance here. The first by the adventurers, of whom the most part, not having forgotten the delicacies of England, and wanting resolute minds to endure the travail of a year or two in this waste country, have forsaken me, feigning excuses to repair home, where I hear they give forth speeches in dislike of the enterprise to the discouragement of others. The second, that the common hired soldiers, both horsemen and footmen, mislike of their pay, and allege that they were not pressed by commission but by persuasion, and therefore ought not to be detained in this service longer than they like to stay. This is not hidden from the Irish, who also are fully persuaded that this war is altogether mine, alleging that if it were your Majesty’s, it should be executed by the Lord Deputy, being your chief general here; and therefore thinking that I must be in a short time wearied with the charge, have confederated to stand in arms, which they would never do with your Majesty unless it were in respect of me, whereby I must acknowledge the weakness of myself, and so consequently of any subject that shall attempt any great service, and therein part with his prince either honour or profit. Therefore my humble petition is, that, albeit the moiety of the charge be mine, according to my covenant with your Majesty, that yet some means may be devised that all the officers, soldiers, and dealers in this war may seem to be your Majesty’s; the war yours, and the reformation your Majesty’s, and I only the instrument and executor of this service; whereby all men shall either put on better contentations and new courages, or else I with better warrant may punish the mutiny and the base ignobility of the soldiers’ minds.’[260]

The Devon and Somerset men, under Captain Burrowes, showed a particularly craven spirit, and began to desert at the prospect of active service. Essex hanged a few without much effect, for they preferred both starving and hanging to fighting. This is not surprising when we consider how they were recruited. The Privy Council directed the Western gentlemen to call for volunteers, and in default of a response to press those whom the country could best spare. Of course they sent all the greatest blackguards.

Captain Thomas Wilsford, who saw clearly how matters stood, reported that the Irish were actuated ‘by despair to farm any part of their lands. They affirm they are no rebels, for that they say it is not the Queen’s wars, and that they do but defend their own lands and goods.’ The English, moreover, were unwarlike, ‘through the fat, delicate soil and long peace at home,’ and unable to cope with the Irish, who, while retaining their native hardiness, had become skilled in the use of weapons. The task was too great for any but the Queen, though Essex was one to go through with his undertaking even at the cost of his earldom. He ‘shot not at the gain and revenue of the matter, but rather for the honour and credit of the cause.’ It is not in this poetic fashion that flourishing colonies have been founded, nor was the Earl himself sanguine, for he sent a trusty messenger to England with a detailed account of his troubles; and indeed nothing could be worse than the aspect of affairs, especially after the escape of Desmond had made it hopeless to expect help from the Pale.[261]

Essex could do nothing against the enemy, but some whom he considered lukewarm friends were more within his power. Piers, being accused of giving information to Sir Brian, was closely imprisoned and treated with excessive harshness, though there does not appear to have been any evidence against him. Nor was Fitzwilliam spared, for the Irish very reasonably held that if the war was the Queen’s the army should be led by the Queen’s Deputy, and it is probable that that experienced officer was of the same opinion himself. Essex professed readiness to serve under him as a private adventurer, but in the meantime accused him of encouraging libels against Burghley and himself. ‘He could be contented to hear me ill spoken of openly in his chamber by his own servants, and he to show countenance, as though he took pleasure in his man’s words ... he can be contented to sit in his chair and smile; and because I see further that all the Irish messengers of Ulster are daily with his lordship and I no way made privy to their petitions, or causes of their coming thither, I conclude that underhand many things may pass to my disadvantage, for already, whatsoever I require at any Irishman’s hands, he appealeth to the Lord Deputy.’[262] Captain Wilsford thought that Ulster was about the quietest part of Ireland, and it is likely that Fitzwilliam, besides a not unnatural jealousy, thought it extremely unreasonable that with the scanty forces at his disposal he should be in any way called upon to advance the Northern enterprise.

The carrying off of the Fitzpatrick ladies had created much stir at the English Court, on account of the high position of the victims. That, however, was in a remote part of the country, and the captives were detained as hostages only. The story of an abduction of the day throws more light upon the state of society than any number of political disquisitions. Janet Marward, heiress and titular baroness of Skryne in Meath, a manor worth some 200l. a year, was a royal ward, and the Queen gave her wardship to Fitzwilliam, who sold it to her stepfather, Nicholas Nugent, second Baron of the Exchequer. Her mother, besides being married to a judge, was the daughter of a judge, John Plunket, Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench. Nugent sold the unfortunate girl to his nephew, the Baron of Delvin’s brother. ‘Afterwards, by procurement of the mother, the maid, being but eleven years old, was made to mislike of Nugent and to like of the young Lord of Dunsany, being of the Plunkets, whereupon there fell great discord between the Houses of Delvin and Dunsany, and the maid being by her mother and father-in-law brought into this city as the safest place to keep her, on Friday last at night about twelve o’clock the Baron of Delvin’s brother, accompanied with a number of armed men, the watch being either negligent or corrupted, entered one of the postern gates of the city with twenty swords and entered by sleight into the house where the maid lay, and forcibly carried her away, to the great terror of the mother and of all the rest.’ William Nugent married the heiress without her own consent or that of her friends. But we may hope that in time she got to ‘like of’ her lawless husband tolerably well, for when he was in prison for conspiracy nine years after it is recorded that she sent him some shirts. With such things going on under the very shadow of Dublin Castle, it is no wonder that Fitzwilliam should clamour for recall or that he should regret the hard fate of his three marriageable daughters, who were losing their time in Ireland. Had they been heiresses and royal wards their lot might have been still harder.[263]

CHAPTER XXXI.
1573 AND 1574.

The escape of Desmond had made a great difference in the state of Ireland, for no chief either in north or south could afford to neglect such a factor in insular politics. Clanricarde, being invited by him to a conference, informed the Government that he would, if possible, persuade him to conformity. Desmond also sought Sir Edmund Butler, who was now sincerely loyal, and made to him a general denial of rebellious intentions. Butler advised him to go to the Lord Deputy and make his peace, but this he would not do. ‘Sir Edmund Butler,’ he said, ‘if you had known what extremity I had suffered in England, you would never give me the like counsel.’ And to clench the argument he exhibited the patched and pieced hose and shoes which he had been forced to wear continually in England. Sir Edmund answered that he had suffered much more, but was now at liberty by her Majesty’s grace. Desmond would not willingly confess himself disloyal, yet it is plain that he liked Queen Elizabeth best at a distance.[264]

With humble men, or with those whom he believed friendly, the Earl was less guarded, and made no secret of his intention to annoy the Butlers and their friends, and he said he would rather have an old mantle in Munster than a torn silk gown in England. He went about with a rabble of 800 or 900, so that peaceable folk wished they had accompanied Perrott to England or drowned themselves at his departure. The Barrys and Roches had to support his lawless train, though the influence of the Countess and others for a time prevented open plunder; but Desmond refused to reduce his followers while Bourchier remained in garrison at Kilmallock. The townsmen were not to be trusted, and ladders were being prepared in the woods. Even Cork refused to support nine soldiers, though a regular warrant was produced, and James Fitzmaurice’s attitude was very threatening; for he made little secret of hiring Scots, and a Scots visitor ostentatiously donned Irish attire. But there was no lack of loyal professions. ‘Before God, Mr. Walshe,’ he said, ‘I do not intend it, nor will do harm to any man unless I am compelled.’ Another less noted partisan appeared before Castlemaine on Christmas Eve with thirty sword and target men. The porter, either corrupted or a sympathiser, had furnished the assailants with impressions of the keys in dough, and new keys had been made. The Geraldines entered quietly, and found the garrison playing cards. They turned them out, taking back such as were willing to change masters. Desmond, three days later, reported that the castle had been taken without his orders and against his will, that he had put in warders of his own, and arrested the adventurers who had seized the place. About the same time the seneschal of Imokilly took possession of Castlemartyr. Rumours of rebellion and foreign invasion filled the air, and merchants who had seen golden visions of Irish prosperity informed Burghley that the escape of Desmond had spoiled all.[265]

The importance of Desmond’s escape was not lost on the English Government, and it was resolved to send a semi-official messenger to remonstrate with him in a friendly way. The person chosen was Kildare’s brother Edward, Lieutenant of the Gentleman Pensioners, and no doubt it was supposed that his name and blood would recommend him to Desmond. There had probably been a close acquaintance between them in England. Fitzgerald had a regular commission from the Queen, but she desired him to write always to his wife or sister, so as to keep up the appearance of a private tour. The experienced courtier may have thought the matter too weighty for women, for he wrote all privately to Burghley. As a precaution 300 men were ordered to Ireland, and others were held in readiness. Rather more than 6,000l. was sent in money, with strict injunctions that it should be spent on the exigencies of the moment, and not on satisfying creditors. This new way of paying old debts was not found practicable. The money was quickly spent, and in less than two months the Irish Government was asking for more.[266]