ABSENTEEISM.-NO. 11.

THE fate of O'Neil, O'Rourke, and of O'Connor, who, to his own eternal disgrace,* had been lured over to the English court, was not calculated to encourage others, or to bring absenteeship into fashion. Even those, who from long sufferings, harassed spirits, and subdued energies, were desirous of peace and forgiveness at the expense of independence, were still afraid, from experienced treachery, "to come in," as the phrase was; and were unwilling to absent themselves from the fearful security of their woods and mountains, to which they were romantically attached.

Lord Deputy Mountjoy, in a curious letter to the English council, observes that "all the Irish that are now obstinate, are so only out of their diffidence to be safe in forgiveness. They have the ancient swelling of liberty of their countrymen to work on, and they fear to be rooted out, and have their old faults punished upon particular dis-.

contents."

The plunder of Shane O'Neil, who, attainted, and driven beyond the. pale of law and of humanity, died a miserable death, did not satisfy those who had benefited by his ruin. There was something too terrible to be endured in the name of these fierce toparchs of the North, who were still crowned in their stone chair, "with heaven for their canopy and earth for their footstool;" and when the young and gallant Hugh O'Neil, the last of his race, worthy of their illustrious descent, started up to claim his inheritance, his death or his absenteeship (a political decease) were the alternatives proposed to themselves by those who had so largely profited by the confiscation of the immense property of his family. "In an Irish parliament," says Morrison," O'Neil put up his petition, that by virtue of the letters patent granted to his grandfather, his father, and their heirs, he might there (in parliament) have the place of Earl of Tyrone, and be admitted to his inheritance, the title and place there granted him." The inheritance, however, was "reserved for the Queen's pleasure;" for the obtaining whereof, Sir John Perrot, Lord Deputy, upon O'Neil's promise of a great rent to be reserved to the crown, gave him letters of recommendation into England, where he well knew how to humour the court; as in the year 1587 he got the queen's letters patent for the carldom of Tyrone without any reservation of the rent he had promised."

Whatever was O'Neil's secret for " 'humouring the court," great efforts were made to fix him there as a permanent absentee; and the queen (who at the same time had the young and unfortunate Earl of Desmond shut up in the Towert) gave O'Neil a troop of horse, a pen

O'Connor Sligo resided some time in the court of Elizabeth, where he was flattered up to his bent, though not into permanent absenteeship. He returned to Ireland in 1596, after obtaining a grant to secure him in the possession of his own property; in gratitude for which he was extremely active in her (the Queen's) favour, and gained back, partly by menace and partly by cunning, many of the revolted clans." The celebrated O'Donnel of Tirconnel, hearing of O'Connor's desertion from the common cause, marched with an army to bring him to obedience: and, in spite of the assistance of Sir Conyers Clifford and Lord Mayo, he ravaged and destroyed O'Connor's country.

This youth was the only son of the Earl of Desmond, already mentioned. He had been detained a prisoner in the Tower from his infancy as a pledge for his

sion of a thousand marks, and such proofs of her personal favour, as might have subdued a less energetic mind, and abated a less deep-seated feeling of patriotism and independence. But the young Irish Hercules soon became weary of the court of his middle-aged Omphale. He sought "to do her Majesty service" in Ireland by his influence over his countrymen, rather than to submit to the bondage which he foresaw awaited his protracted residence in England. "He lived," says Morrison, "sometimes in Ireland and much at the court of England:" yet by degrees he abandoned the English court altogether; and, resuming his natural position in Ireland as Earl of Tyrone, he contrived to preserve the good opinion of his countrymen even while acting for the queen," with all the alacrity of a faithful subject."

The reappearance of O'Neil in Ireland, his loyalty, and the queen's favour, threw the Irish government into utter consternation; and the Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam, upon the execution of M'Mahon (who was put to death for an offence committed before the law which declared it capital had been enacted) let fall some speeches against the Earl of Tyrone (says Morrison) notwithstanding his late services, "which speeches coming to the Earl's ears, were, as he afterwards said, the first causes which moved him to misdoubt his safety, and to stand upon his defence, now first combining with O'Donnel and other lords of the North, to defend their honour, estates, and liberties." The horrors which ensued during a civil war of ten years' duration, and which laid waste what Lord Verulam calls "the most miserable and desolate nation on the face of the earth," produced the most effectual species of absenteeship; for it sent out of the world, those that were not driven by any other means out of the country; exterminating more than a third of the native population!

The queen, however, says Bacon, "sought not an extirpation, but a reduction;" but such was the reduction, that at the end of the war, when Lord Mountjoy received the submission of a few "well-disposed chiefs," he disposed of the others in a very summary way, "and by fire, famine, or sword, weakened or ruined most of those who still continued obstinate." Still, however, the master-blow of this deputy (who was after all one of the best Irish viceroys who served under the Tudors) was the ruin of the once magnanimous and invincible O'Neil. Having "taken the most of his fortresses, and what perhaps was more mortifying to him, having broken in pieces the chair of stone, wherein for many cen

father's loyalty. He was afterwards sent to Ireland as a state engine to play off against another Geraldine who had made claims to the forfeited Palatinate; but after he had fretted his hour on the bloody stage of his own country, he was brought back to England, and lingering at court for a few months in hopeless despondency, he died in the prime of his youth, of a broken heart.-See Pacata Hibernia.

Upon two occasions the Earl saved a large party of English from destruction: Macquire, chief of Fermanagh, had given the Lord Deputy three hundred cows to free his country from a sheriff; "after which bargain, the sheriff, one Willis, was let loose upon Fermanagh, leading about some hundreds of women and boys, with a guard of one hundred men, all living upon the spoils of the country." Macquire, having driven this model of a modern Irish police into a church, was about to put them to the sword, when the Earl of Tyrone interposed his authority. This same Willis was again rescued by Tyrone from an insurrection occasioned by similar circumstances in the O'Donnels' country.—See Memorial to Queen Elizabeth.

turies the O'Neils of his family had been invested with more than kingly authority, he obliged the unfortunate chief "to tender his submission on his knees before the Lord Deputy and the council, and in the presence of a great assembly; whereupon the Lord Deputy, in the Queen's name, promised the Earl for himself and his followers her majesty's gracious pardon." Is it wonderful that in the ensuing reign the O'Neils and the O'Donnels fled for ever from the scene of their sufferings and humiliation; or that having chosen Spain as the goal of their permanent absenteeship, they should have arrived there, only to die of broken hearts?

Remote as are the times, the events of which are here so slightly touched,-unfixed, capricious and despotic as were the government and the laws,―rude, wild, weak and disorganized as was the state of society, -yet, through the obscurity and confusion which hung over the neglected annals of the day, it is evident that absenteeism, sometimes encouraged or enforced by the English policy, was foreign to the national habits and natural temperament of the Irish; and that the aristocracy of the country were more than any other wedded to their native land by natural affection, by family pride, by power, by religion, and by every feeling and every prejudice which brightens or shadows the mixed and imperfect condition of humanity. Hitherto emigration had been the result of necessity or of despair; but it was reserved for the Stuarts, Ireland's direst foes, the flatterers of her foible, and the enemies of her rights, to give a spell to absenteeism, which even the policy and the despotism of the Tudors could not lend to it. When the rude home of the Irish had by the sanguinary crusades of Elizabeth been rendered no longer endurable, the Stuarts held out a lure and presented a blandishment which suffering humanity could not resist; and under an impulse, consecrated by a mistaken sense of loyalty and chivalrous devotion, the long-enduring Irish rushed from the dreariness of their desolate abodes, and thronged to a court where they fancied they saw the representative! of their native kings, seated on the throne of their foreign tyrants.

The drivelling and despotic pedant, James, with the true family instinct towards power, sought to win over that portion of his subjects whose religion preached "passive obedience and the divine right of kings," and with whom he had so deeply tampered in the reign of his predecessor. On his coming to the throne, he loaded the Irish with favours, while he withheld rights; but with a disingenuous and stupid policy, secretly counteracting the intentions of his own council, he privately led the Irish to an open assumption of religious privileges, which he permitted his ministers in Ireland to oppose, not only by remonstrance and proclamation, but by "fire and sword." To ingratiate himself still further with the Irish gentry, and to break down whatever yet remained of devotion to their country, or of the "old swelling of liberty," inherited from their fathers, he invited the most distinguished among them to his court; where, "graciously received by the king," and incontinently ridiculed by the courtiers, they obtained the honour of being made the heroes of a court masque, in which the sarcastic laureate, Jonson, has handed down to posterity their devotion to "the king's sweet faish," and the melancholy fact that they danced "a fadan" for the amusement of" King Yarmish;" who, as the arch-patron' of all buffoonery, doubtless chuckled over the degrading exhibition.

How many Irish absentees have since danced “ the fadan,” for the amusement of mystifying royalty!*

Thus prepared, by being "brayed as in a mortar" at home, and at once degraded and flattered abroad, the Irish nobility but too willingly lent themselves to the allurements held out by Charles the Second (the falsest of all their royal friends); and from the epoch of the Restoration absenteeship became a voluntary habit. It was then that what has been called the characteristic virtue of the Irish, became the source of one of their peculiar vices; and that the feeling of loyalty which had led them to follow the king in his misfortunes, and to embrace his almost hopeless cause in many a distant land, now once more lured them from their own, to "share the triumph and partake the gale" of his prosperity. The habits of a great capital and a gay court confirmed their taste for

* The "Irish masque," got up to compliment the absentees at the English Court, is either a bitter satire, or a disgusting picture of the state of Irish society at that epoch. "The King being seated (says the programme), in expectation, out ran a fellow attired as a citizen, after him three or four footmen, Denis, Donnel, Dermoch, and Patrick," the object of whose visit to London was not like that of many of the Denises and Patricks of the present day, to become either porters or reporters, as the chances determined; but simply, as Donnel observes, "to see King Yamish," for which purpose "they had travelled a great way miles," having got the start of their lords or chiefs who had come over on the same loyal errand. "Der. ' fayt, tere ish very much phoyt stick here stirring to-night. He takes ush for no shquires, I tinke.

Pat. No; he tinksh not ve be imbasheters.

Der. No, fayt, I tinke sho too. But tish marriage bring over a doshen of our besht mayshters to be merry, perht tee shweet faish, an't be; and daunsh a fading at te vedding.

Den. But tey vere leeke to daunsh naked, and pleash ty majesty; for tey villanous vild Irish sheas have casht away all ter fine cloysh, as many ash cosht a towsand cowes and garraves, I warrant tee.

Der. And te prishe of a cashtell or two upon teyr backs.

Don. And tey tell ty majesty, tey have ner a great fish now, nor a shea moynshter to shave teyr cloyth alive now.

Pat. Nor a devoish vit a clowd to fesh 'hem out o' te bottom o' te vayter.

Der. But tey musht eene come and daunsh in teyr mantles, now; and show tee how tey can foot te fading and te fadow, and te phip a' Dunboyne, I trow.

Don. I pre dee now, let not ty sweet faysh ladies make a mock on' him, and scorn to daunsht vit 'hem now, becash tey be poor.

Pat. Tey drink no bonny clabber, i' fayt, now.

Don. It ish better ten usquebagh to daunsh vit, Patrick.

Pat. By my fater's hand, tey vill daunsh very vell.

Der. Ay, by St. Patrick, vill tey; for tey be nimble men.

Den. And vill leap ash light, be creesh save me, ash he tat veares te biggest fethur in ty court, King Yamish.

Der. For all tey have no good vindsh to blow tem heter, nor elementsh to preserve hem.

Don. Nor all te four cornersh o' te world to creep out on.

Pat. But tine own kingdomes.

Don. Tey be honesht men.

Pat.

And goot men: tine own shubshects.

Der.

Tou hast very good shubshects in Ireland.

Den. A great goot many, o' great good shubshects.

Don. Tat love ty mayesty heartily.

Den. And vill run t'rough fire and vater for tee, over te bog and te bannoke, be te graish o' Got and graish o' King.

Der.

By Got tey will fight for tee, King Yamish, and for my mistiesh tere. Den. And my little maishter. Paish, paish, now room for our mayshter. Then the gentlemen dance forth a dance in their Irish mantles to a solemn music of harps, which done, the footmen fall to speak again."

emigration, and excited a disgust for their native land, which became, in the end, as fatal to their interests as it was destructive of their patriotism. Then absenteeism became a species of national malady, a disease, infinitely more grievous in its effects than that terrible pestilence, which, a little before, in ravaging the population of Ireland, confined its mortal epidemia to a season and a generation.*

Absenteeism was no longer limited to the harassed Catholic gentlemen or loyal cavaliers, who came to seek the price of their sacrifice and their fidelity at the exchequer of royal gratitude, and found it, like that of the nation, closed by a fraudulent bankruptcy. The wealthy and the noble, the Protestant and the Papist, the English by blood, and the Scotch patentees; in a word, all who could afford to fly, now hastened to a court, where for a time an Irish mistress and an Irish minister held the ascendant; and where the Ormondes, the Ossorys, and the Villars, exchanged the honourable retreat of their own beautiful residences in Ireland, for the entresol of a royal villa at Newmarket, or "a lodging" in the harem of Whitehall.† Titles, and places, and pensions, and privileges, were then scattered among the Irish nobility, and became the premium of absenteeism; paying the sacrifice of patriotism in one sex, and of honour in the other. The talent, beauty, and virtue, which, if concentrated at home, might have redeemed and adorned the country from whence they were drawn, now served but to increase the sum of

Borlase asserts that in 1650, ten years before the Revolution, 1700 died of the plague in Dublin alone; this horrible infliction was peculiar to those "picturesque times," which describe so well, and which, it is a mark of literary loyalty to admire and eulogize.

"Sir, nothing against antiquity, I pray you,

I must not hear ill of antiquity."-B. Jonson.

The most noted beauties of the court of Charles the Second, Lady Barbara Villars (Duchess of Cleveland), the Countess of Chesterfield (a Butler), the Lady Kildare, introduced by St. Evremont into his pleasant little poem of "The Basset Table," the Countess de Grammont, and many others, were Irish women. The delightful author of "Mémoires de Grammont," Anthony Hamilton, was himself an Irishman,† and a branch of the illustrious house of Hamilton, which obtained from James the First such princely possessions in the North of Ireland, and which is still represented by the Marquis of Abercorn. The Fitzmaurices (Muskerry), the O'Briens, the Butlers, the Talbots, are names noted in the fasti of Whitehall at this period. With respect to the Talbots, however, it is but fair to observe that the elder branch of this ancient and patriotic family always remained permanently resident in their splendid castle and domain of Malahide, as their worthy representative the Member for the county of Dublin continues to do in the present day; though the younger branch, the Lords of Carton (now the seat of the Duke of Leinster) were prime favourites at Whitehall, and boon companions of both Charles and James, "The Dick Talbot" of that day, whom Charles would fain have set at odds with the Duke of Ormonde, brought no additional rays to the original splendour, when he added a ducal coronet to its less perishable honours. This Colonel Richard Talbot (afterwards Duke of Tirconnel) was sent to the Tower for having challenged the Duke of Ormonde with duplicity of conduct with respect to the Irish Catholics, whose agent Colonel Talbot then was. Ormonde, believing the better part of valour to be discretion, fought shy, instead of fighting Talbot; and when rallied on this circumstance by the King, petulantly demanded, "Is it then your Majesty's pleasure that at this time of day I should put off my doublet to fight duels with Dick Talbot ?"

* Vous ne me parlez pas de Madame de Kildare,

I never saw personne avoir meilleure air.

His mother, the beautiful Lady Maria Butler, was daughter to the Duke of Ormonde.