Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 2.djvu/185

follow with the rest.'^[1] The wind which filled the sails of the ship in which Kildare returned, blew into flames the fires of insurrection; and in a very Saturnalia of Irish madness the whole people, with no object that could be discovered but for very delight in disorder itself, began to tear themselves to pieces. Lord Thomas Butler was murdered by the Geraldines; Kildare himself was shot through the body in a skirmish; Powerscourt was burnt by the O'Tooles; and Dublin Castle was sacked in a sudden foray by O'Brien Oge. O'Neil was out in the north; Desmond in the south; and the English pale was overrun by brigands.^[2] Ireland had found its way into its ideal condition that condition towards which its instincts perpetually tended, and which at length it had undisputedly reached. The Allens furnished the King with a very plain report of the effect of his leniency. They dwelt boldly on the mistakes which had been made. Re-echoing the words of the Report of 1515, they declared that the only hope for the country was to govern by English deputies; and that to grudge the cost seemed 'consonant to the nature of him that rather than he will depart with fourpence he will jeopard to lose twenty shillings—which fourpence, disbursed in time, might have saved the other.'^[3] They spoke well of the common Irish. 'If well governed,' they said, 'the Irish would be found as civil, politic, and active, as any other nation. But what subjects under any prince in the world,' they asked, 'would love or defend the rights of that prince

1. Report of 1533: State Papers, vol. ii. pp. 163–179.
2. State Papers, vol. ii. p. 180.
3. Ibid. vol. ii. p. 177.