Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/317

I572-] STATE OF IRELAND. 297 and the worst that the Protestants had to complain of was that they dared .not show themselves iii the general enthusiasm. Every trace of English authority however was destroyed in Connaught. Sir Brian MacPhelim O'Neil and Tirlogh Lenogh, when the nights grew long, swept young Smith's herds into the woods, stripped him of all that he possessed, and pinned him into a corner of Antrim, where he could but shriek to England for assistance. 1 The Pale was no longer safe. Cattle-driving had been common at all times, and was, * in the world's ac- count, no great matter.' But now the highland tribes of Wicklow came down in bands, in open daylight, out of the mountains, with their bagpipes blowing. Kil- dare, Queen's County, the very meadows round Dublin itself, were plundered with the utmost audacity. There was no one left to oppose them. With discreet coolness they spared the Irish farmers, and loaded their waggons with the spoils of every English settler. The mischief overskipped, like the Passover in Egypt, and touched only those ' who were marked men in birth or duty ; ' and Fitzwilliam concluded that they meant ' to make it impossible for any Englishman to live in the island, and to thrust the spade at their root.' 2 * I pass over,' he said, ' the ordinary burnings, killings, and spoilings ; I cannot help them ; I may shake the scabbard, but I have not a sword to draw. Every Irish rascal is now grown so insolent, the names of England and English* 1 Thomas Smith to Cecil, No- I 3 Fitzwilliam to Elizabeth, De vember 21 : MSS. Ireland. I cember 7 : JUSS. Ibid.