CHAPTER XXIII. Ulster-Sir John Courcy's invasion-Error of English policy with respect to Ireland-Elizabeth's efforts to secure Ireland -The Irish massacre-Reflections. Strabane. THE province of Ulster is encompassed on three sides by the sea. It is about one hundred and sixteen miles in length, and one hundred in breadth. It contains nine counties, three hundred and sixty-five parishes, one archbishoprick, and six bishopricks. The air is temperate and salubrious; being cooled by various winds in summer, and qualified by frequent rains in winter. The temperature, therefore, is milder than in England, both with respect to cold and heat, especially the former. Snow of a month's duration on the ground is a rare phenomenon; and some winters are seen without it altogether. The seasons are later than in England. The spring and autumn more tardy in their approach, as also the winter. The fall of the leaf is later here than in England. Tradition and history both inform us that few countries of equal extent were better timbered than Ulster. But the natives, repeatedly harassed by the inroads and encroachments of the English, frequently found asylum in their forests from the swords of their invaders. These became, therefore, an object of equal jealousy and vengeance, and the destroying axe generally accompanied the sword in the joint extirpation of woods and men. Ulster then became denuded; and the long continuance of civil discord, the fluctuation of property, and the hopeless despondency which hung over this devoted province, have left it destitute of its ancient beauties for several ages. The aspect of Ulster, therefore, is dreary to the eye accustomed to the shady groves, the extensive plantations, and numerous forests of England. The want of hedges, the numerous bogs, the appearance of many of the habitations, and of many of their inhabitants, no doubt heighten this; and an Englishman, who seldom takes more than a cursory glance of the countries he travels over, is apt to pronounce it a spot for which nature has done little, and man has done less. He is wrong in both these conclusions; nature has been bountiful, and man has not ill-performed his part; better than could be expected, when the history of this ill-fated province is considered. The waves which break upon its rocky shores, the tempests which howl over its lofty mountains, are the peaceful circles of a lake, the soft breezes of the south, compared to the storms which avarice and ambition, hatred and malice, fanaticism and bigotry have raised; and which are still felt in their consequences, after a lapse of some hundreds of years. The history of man is said to be the history of his crimes and his woes. I hope not in the former, but certainly in the latter, Ulster stands in melancholy pre-eminence. I know of no equal extent of country, where equal misery has been inflicted for an equal number of years: like the lightning-struck tree on a solitary common, it still bears in its withered trunk and leafless branches the marks of the judgments with which Heaven (no doubt for wise purposes) has visited it. It was first invaded in the year 1177, by Sir John Courcy, a gallant knight who had served under King Henry the Second, in his wars in England and France. He set out from Dublin in January with twenty-two knights, fifty esquires, and about seven hundred foot soldiers; all chosen men, on whose courage he could depend: he marched through Meath and Louth, and arrived at Down without any molestation: here he found provisions and other necessaries for his small company, who had been half famished in Dublin. O'Donnell, the Ulster chieftain, having assembled a large army, purposed to besiege him in Down; when Sir John, judging it better to adventure the fight in the field, than to be shut up and famished in the town, came to an engagement, and forced O'Donnell, after the loss of numbers, to retreat before him. After this successful introduction to his conquests, he fought four other great battles, in all of which he was victorious; he penetrated as far as Dunluce, in the most northern part of the province, overcame all opposition, and subdued the whole of Ulster to the obedience of Henry the Second. He was requited for this service, by being the first Englishman dignified with any title of honour in Ireland by a formal creation: the king, in 1181, creating him Earl of Ulster, and annexing thereto the Lordship of Connaught, with a grant by patent, to him and his heirs, that they should enjoy all the land in Ireland he could gain by his sword, together with the donation of bishopricks and abbeys, reserving from him only homage and fealty. It was to this lord, and his successors, the heirs male of his family, that King John granted the extraordinary privilege (their first obeisance being paid) pf being covered in the royal presence of him, and his successors, kings of England. The reader unacquainted with it will find a curious account of this transaction in Hanmer's The submission of Ulster to the English government, as might be expected, was short-lived. It was EX de fo a T extorted by force, and, when that was removed, the desire of independence returned. For upwards of four centuries after its nominal subjugation, it continued a prey to anarchy and confusion, to slaughter and devastation. In turn the Irish and English prevailed, and wreaked their vengeance on each other. Constant contest engendered the most violent hatred; constant danger, the most deadly malice; and constant slaughter, the most ferocious cruelty. It is hard to say which of the parties was the worst, nor is it now of much consequence to inquire. By a singular refinement on misfortune, religion, which should have been the healing balsam of these rancorous passions, was poured like molten lead upon their scalding sores. Englishmen and Irishmen murdered each others' happiness on earth. Protestants and Catholics, like demons, stopped not here. Witnessing the tortures of their expiring victims, they rejoiced that those tortures were but the beginning of those which should last for ever beyond the grave. The great fault of English dominion in Ulster, and in every part of Ireland, was, that a sufficient number of men was not sent at once effectually to subdue the island, and retain it in subjection, till its desire of independence had passed away. The system pursued was the most unfortunate that could have been devised. A dwarf in mercy, but in cruelty a giant; alternately defeating and defeated, ravaging and ravaged, torturing and tortured, it was too feeble to be manly, too poor to be generous, too much injured to forget, and too much injuring to forgive. An officer in Queen Elizabeth's service acquaints us, that those placed in authority would draw together, perhaps, three or four |