try against which they had struggled; when they had been rewarded with peerages for the trouble which they had occasioned, and had been permitted to appropriate, on easy terms, the estates of the Irish monasteries.
The spoliation for a time compromised their orthodoxy, and committed them to English interests. It was not till Henry was gone that Ireland resumed her natural appearance. The policy of St Leger had been 'to make things quiet;'[1] to overlook small offences so long as the general order was unbroken, and to be contented if each year the forms of law could be pushed something deeper beyond the borders of the Pale. His greatest success had been in prevailing upon an O'Toole to accept the decent dignity of Sheriff of Wicklow. As a further merit, and a great one, he had governed economically. While the home exchequer was so heavily strained, the Deputy of Ireland had made but few applications for money—conciliation was cheaper than force, and he had been happy in having to deal with a set of circumstances which enabled him to conciliate. His maxim had been—Ireland for the Irish; he had recommended Henry to return to the old plan of appointing an Irish deputy, and he had especially recommended the Earl of Ormond.[2] He had naturally not pleased every one. The all-censorious Chancellor Allen had occasionally found something to condemn, and even with Ormond the deputy had not always been on terms; but so long
