gained a precarious living by
periodical raids on the more peaceful inhabitants of the Pale. During
the whole of the reign of Edward VI fighting had gone on in Leix and
Offaly with great loss of life and at enormous expense to the English
Government. The object of the confiscation was not to drive out the
few existing tribesmen; for the land, when cleared and drained, might
well support them as well as the new settlers. Nor was it to confer
great estates on absentee proprietors, but to establish a fairly
thickly settled district which might be a source of strength rather
than a constant cause of trouble to the dwellers in the Pale. Nor
again was it to introduce feudalism; for as I have shown, the system
already in existence was feudalism without its advantages; the
substitution of fixed dues for the barbarous custom of "coigne and
livery" was an unmixed benefit to the occupiers of land. And it cannot
be denied that the first "Plantation" was a thorough success--thriving
settlements and prosperous farms took the place of forest and swamp.

If the position of Henry VIII had been one of difficulty, that of
Elizabeth was far more critical. The separation of the Church of
England from Rome was now complete. The great powers of the Continent
were united in one supreme effort to stamp out the new heresy. The
massacre of St. Bartholomew had taken place in France; Philip II had
ordered a _Te Deum_ to be sung at Madrid, and the Pope had had a medal
struck to commemorate the glorious event. The lowest computation of
those put to death for heresy in the Netherlands by Charles V was
50,000; and his successor had, at the instigation of the Holy Office,
issued a proclamation sentencing to death the whole population--men,
women and children--with the exception of a few persons specially
named. Alva boasted that he had put 18,000 Dutchmen to death on the
scaffold, and the Pope presented him with a consecrated hat and
sword, an honour which had previously been bestowed only on reigning
sovereigns. In Spain it was regarded not only as a sacred duty but a
pleasant amusement for the King and his Court to watch the
torturing of heretics. England alone--then a comparatively weak
and insignificant country--stood out against this overwhelming
combination. And in attempting to realize the position of affairs we
must remember that in the sixteenth century the Papacy was not merely
a religious system but also a tremendous political power. We may