castles were numerous, and scattered over this large tract of country in well-chosen places, for its defense and protection; and it is curious that attached to one of them is a tale of blood not unlike what you will find Spenser describing. A few miles above the sea, on a bold cliff overhanging one of the deepest parts of the beautiful River Blackwater, stand the battered remains of the earl's Castle of Strancally. Attached to this strong-hold is a murderous device, which we had often previously heard of, but never till then beheld. The solid rock had been pierced with a large well-like aperture, communicating with the river; and the neighboring peasants will tell you, that the unwary, when decoyed within the castle, were tied hand and foot, and flung down the murder-hole: the rapid river hurried by, and soon carried away their gasping shrieks, and the dead told no tales. We have every respect for these local traditions, and esteem them in a thousand instances valuable guides; notwithstanding, we place no faith in the present horrible legend, which is wholly at variance with the received character of the Earl of Desmond. It may be that such things were told to him, even in Spenser's days; and it is certain that, about the close of the year 1579, his Castle of Strancally was taken by the Earl of Ormond, the president of Munster; a capture which could be easily transferred to the poet's hero, Artegall."
Lord Grey was recalled, in consequence of representations of cruelty and oppression in his administration. "The queen was persuaded by these insinuations, and his recall took place when he had scarcely completed his second year. With this event the fifth book of the Faërie Queene concludes: and the poet there enters at large into the facts of the case. Artegall is summoned away to Faërie Court, and on his way thither meets with two ill-favored hags—'superannuated vipers,' as Lord Brougham would term them—whom he knows to be Envy and Detraction. These are painted in language that makes the grisly creatures live before you. Every hue and feature of their vile countenances is preserved—their slavering lips, their tireless tongues, their foul and claw-like hands. We remember nothing in Milton or Dante that surpasses this powerful personification."
Spenser, as we have already stated, accompanied Lord Grey home, and here came in for a share in the partition of the vast estates of the vanquished Earl of Desmond. The plan now devised for more securely attaching Ireland to the British crown was called the Plantation of Munster. The scheme, which was first put in operation on this vast confiscated territory of the Earl of Desmond, is thus described in Smith's History of Cork:
"All forfeited lands to be divided into manors and seigniories, containing 12,000, 8000, 6000, and 4000 acres each, according to a plot laid down. The undertakers (those who got these grants) to have an estate in fee-farm, yielding for each seigniory of 12,000 acres, for the first three years, £33, 6s., 8d. sterling, viz., from 1590 to 1593, and from Michaelmas, 1593, £66, 13s., 4d. sterling, and ratably for every inferior seigniory, yielding upon the death of the undertaker the best beast as an heriot; to be discharged of all taxes whatsoever, except subsidies levied by Parliament. Bogs, mountains, &c., not to be included till improved, and then to pay a half-penny for each English acre. License to the undertakers to transport all commodities, duty free, into England for five years. That none be admitted to have more than 12,000 acres. No English planter to be permitted to convey to any mere Irish. The head of each plantation to be English; and the heirs female to marry none but of English birth; and none of the mere Irish to be maintained in any family there.
"Each freeholder, from the year 1590, to furnish one horse and horseman, armed; each principal undertaker for 12,000 acres, to supply three horsemen and six footmen, armed; and so ratably for the other seigniories; and each copyholder one footman, armed. That, for seven years to come, they shall not be obliged to travel out of Munster upon any service; and after that time, no more than ten horsemen and twenty footmen out of one seigniory of 12,000 acres, and so ratably; and such as serve out of Munster to be paid by the queen.
"That the queen will protect and defend the said seigniories, at her own charge, for seven years to come. All commodities brought from England for the use of the same seigniories to be duty free for seven years."
There was to be a complete English population established on these lands in this manner: "For any seigniory containing 12,000 acres, the gentleman was to have for his own domain 2100 acres; six farmers, 400 acres each; six freeholders, 100 acres each; and lands to be appropriated for mean tenures of 50, 25, and 10 acres, to the amount of 1500 acres; whereon thirty-six families, at least, must be established. The other seigniories to be laid out in like proportion. Each undertaker was to people his seigniory in seven years." These articles received the royal signature on the 27th of June, 1586. The following list of undertakers presents some curious particulars. In the first place, Sir Walter Raleigh and Arthur Robbins by some means managed at once to overleap the grand provision, that no undertaker should be permitted to have more than 12,000 acres: Sir Walter Raleigh getting 42,000, and poor Spenser, poet-like, only 3029! He is just tacked on at the end like an after-thought.
| Acres. | |
| Sir Walter Raleigh | 42,000 |
| Arthur Robbins, Esq. | 18,000 |
| Fane Beecher, Esq. | 12,000 |
| Hugh Worth, Esq. | 12,000 |
| Arthur Hyde, Esq. | 11,766 |
| Sir Thomas Norris | 6,000 |
| Sir Richard Beacon | 6,000 |
| Sir Warham St. Leger | 6,000 |
| Hugh Cuff, Esq. | 6,000 |
| Thomas Jay, Esq. | 5,775 |
| Sir Arthur Hyde | 5,774 |
| Edmund Spenser, Esq. | 3,029 |
The difference did not consist merely in the quantity either. Some of their lands, like Sir Walter's at Youghal, on the Blackwater, were splendid lands; those of Spenser were wild moorlands, facing the wilder mountains, where the Irish, yet smarting under defeat and expulsion, the destruction of their great chief, and this plan, which was to continue that expulsion forever, and plant on their own soil the hated Saxon, were looking down, ready to descend and take sanguinary vengeance. Such was the lot which Spenser chose in preference to the degrading slavery of court dependence. No doubt he pleased himself with the idea of a new English state, established in this newly-conquered region; where, surrounded by English gentlemen, and one of the lords of the soil, he should live a life of content and happiness, and hand down to his children a fair estate. But in this fond belief how much of the poet's self-delusive property was mixed! Hear what the authority I have already made such use of, because I know it to be good, says: "It was a wild and lonesome banishment at best, for one who had lived so much in courts, and in companionship with the rich and high-born. Mountains on all sides shut in the retreat, and in the midst of the long and level plain between them stood a strong fortalice of the Earl of Desmond, which was to be the poet's residence, Kilcolman Castle. Hard by the castle was a small lake, and a mile or two distant, on either side, a river descended from the hills. In position, likewise, it was insecure, forming, as it did, the frontier of the English line in the south, and the contiguous hills affording lurking-places for the Irish kerns, whence they could pour down in multitudes to plunder. In the insurrectionary warfare that shortly succeeded, these mountain passes became the scene of many a skirmish; and the first object of the commander of the English forces, when he