r from the earliest
period the O'Malleys have been celebrated as rivalling the Vikings
in their love of the sea. In the fourteenth century a bard is found
singing:

"A good man never was there
Of the O'Mailly's but a mariner;
The prophets of the weather are ye,
A tribe of affection and brotherly love."

Grainne O'Malley, with all her depredations upon the sea, was no
common pirate; through her veins ran the royal blood of the line
of Connaught, and, despite her serviceability to the English as
a freebooting ally upon the western coasts of the island, she
acknowledged no higher power than her own. Her title of dignity was
regarded as inviolable. Quite worthy of the brush of an artist was
the scene presented by the reception at court of the wild Irish
chieftainess. Disdaining land travel, she performed the whole trip to
London by water, sailing up the Thames to the Tower Gate. The little
son who was born upon this voyage was fittingly called Theobald of the
Ship. There has come down to us no account of the meeting of the two
queens, but one may readily imagine the scene--the blonde Elizabeth,
thin, unbeautiful, her scant features lined by petulance, but with
indomitable will shown in the turn of her mouth and the strength of
her chin, and the large-limbed, full-bodied Irish woman, dressed in
the semi-wild attire of her race and of her calling, her arms, her
wrists, her ankles, gleaming with circlets of gold, a fillet of
massive metal binding her hair, her mantle caught up at the shoulder
by an immense, ornately wrought brooch. Courteously, but with no sign
of inferiority in her demeanor, her swarthy skin showing the dash of
Spanish blood in her veins, and her eyes flashing with the light of
an unconquered spirit, stood the female buccaneer before the woman
who had rule of England. The best tradition of the results of the
interview tell us that a treaty was effected between the two, but that
the Irish chieftainess did not yield an iota of her royal claims.

Thus was cemented a union between the English throne and the piratical
leader. It must be borne in mind, however, that piracy was not
then the despicable vice that it afterward came to be regarded. The
commerce of the enemy was always lawful spoil, and, even when there
was not actually a state of hostilities existing between countries,
preying upon one another's commerce was often regarded as a
semi-legitimate industry; and if the freebooter kept out of rea