Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 10.djvu/555

i$7&-] THE DESMOND REBELLION. $3$ Fitzmaurice came back, and there was no English governor in the province, he would have the whole country at his feet.' 1 He was not deceived by tho smoothness of the surface. The causes of disaffection were vigorous as ever. The momentary peace had been bought by the abandonment of effort for the real re- generation of the country. Most distressing, and most pregnant with future disaster, was the condition of the Church, which had been flung out like a carcase to be the prey of the wolf and the kite. Elizabeth's latest orders were to establish peace, and leave creeds and doctrines to settle themselves. Sidney saw clearly that nothing permanent could be arrived at on that road ; and his opinion was the more important, as he was one of those statesmen who had hesitated long and gravely on the prudence of the revolution in England which had been made at the Queen's accession. ( Preposter- ous it seems to me,' he wrote, ' to begin reformation of the politic part and neglect the religious ; and the Church here is so spoiled as well by the ruin of temples and the dissipation and embezzling of patrimony, as so deformed and overthrown a Church there is not, I am sure, in. any region where Christ is professed/ 2 Enthusiastic defenders of the Irish Establishment have maintained that during the first eleven years of the reign of Elizabeth the prelates and clergy were working cordially and successfully on the new paths which had been opened to them. The truth is rather 1 Sidney to the English Council, April 27 : MSS. Ireland. 2 Ibid.