astness of the rebels." Even the chiefs, usually on good terms
with the English, could not resist the stream. Even Thomas Norreys, the
President, was surprised, and retired to Cork, bringing down on himself
a severe reprimand from the English Government. "You might better have
resisted than you did, considering the many defensible houses and
castles possessed by the undertakers, who, for aught we can hear, were
by no means comforted nor supported by you, but either from lack of
comfort from you, or out of mere cowardice, fled away from the rebels on
the first alarm." "Whereupon," says Cox, the Irish historian, "the
Munsterians, generally, rebel in October, and kill, murder, ravish and
spoil without mercy; and Tyrone made James Fitz-Thomas, Earl of Desmond,
on condition to be tributary to him; he was the handsomest man of his
time, and is commonly called the _Sugan_ Earl."

On the last day of the previous September (Sept. 30, 1598), the English
Council had written to the Irish Government to appoint Edmund Spenser,
Sheriff of the County of Cork, "a gentleman dwelling in the County of
Cork, who is so well known unto you all for his good and commendable
parts, being a man endowed with good knowledge in learning, and not
unskilful or without experience in the wars." In October, Munster was in
the hands of the insurgents, who were driving Norreys before them, and
sweeping out of house and castle the panic-stricken English settlers. On
December 9th, Norreys wrote home a despatch about the state of the
province. This despatch was sent to England by Spenser, as we learn from
a subsequent despatch of Norreys of December 21.[177:3] It was received
at Whitehall, as appears from Robert Cecil's endorsement, on the 24th of
December. The passage from Ireland seems to have been a long one. And
this is the last original document which remains about Spenser.

What happened to him in the rebellion we learn generally from two
sources, from Camden's _History_, and from Drummond of Hawthornden's
Recollections of Ben Jonson's conversations with him in 1619. In the
Munster insurrection of October, the new Earl of Desmond's followers did
not forget that Kilcolman was an old possession of the Desmonds. It was
sacked and burnt. Jonson related that a little new-born child of
Spenser's perished in the flames. Spenser and his wife escaped, and he
came over to England, a ruined and heart-broken man. He died Jan. 16,
1598/9; "he died," said Jonson, "fo