se
spirits were dangerous neighbours. Men who first entered the country at
mature age might be fortified by experience against their influence, but
on the young they must have exerted a charm of fatal potency. The
foster-nurse first chanted the spell over the cradle in wild passionate
melodies.[287] It was breathed in the ears of the growing boy by the
minstrels who haunted the halls,[288] and the lawless attractions of
disorder proved too strong for the manhood which was trained among so
perilous associations.

[Sidenote: A military despotism the only government which could have
succeeded.]

[Sidenote: The English statesmen see the necessity, but cannot act upon
it.]

[Sidenote: The island all but completely Irish in the 16th century.]

For such a country, therefore, but one form of government could
succeed--an efficient military despotism. The people could be
wholesomely controlled only by an English deputy, sustained by an
English army, and armed with arbitrary power, till the inveterate
turbulence of their tempers had died away under repression, and they had
learnt in their improved condition the value of order and rule. This was
the opinion of all statesmen who possessed any real knowledge of
Ireland, from Lord Talbot under Henry VI. to the latest viceroy who
attempted a milder method and found it fail. "If the king were as wise
as Solomon the Sage," said the report of 1515, "he shall never subdue
the wild Irish to his obedience without dread of the sword and of the
might and strength of his power. As long as they may resist and save
their lives, they will not obey the king."[289] Unfortunately, although
English statesmen were able to see the course which ought to be
followed, it had been too inconvenient to pursue that course. They had
put off the evil day, preferring to close their eyes against the
mischief instead of grappling with it resolutely; and thus, at the
opening of the sixteenth century, when the hitherto neglected barbarians
were about to become a sword in the pope's hands to fight the battle
against the Reformation, the "king's Irish enemies" had recovered all
but absolute possession of the island, and nothing remained of
Strongbow's conquests save the shadow of a titular sovereignty, and a
country strengthened in hostility by the means which had been used to
subdue it.

[Sidenote: Division of the country.]

[Sidenote: The English pale.]

The events on which we are about to enter require for