RAT
labourers in full employment, felling the timber, and making staves for the manu- facture of wine casks. This was the com- mencement of the process of clearing oflF the forests, that in little more than a cen- tury left Ireland, once called the " Island of "Woods," almost bare of timber. As might be supposed. Sir Walter was en- gaged in many bitter quarrels with the old proprietors of the soil. The Govern- ment also threw difficulties in the way of his exportation of pipe-staves, which ex- cited the jealousy of English manufacturers. He was clear-sighted euough to perceive that the high-handed dealings of Govern- ment with the Irish chiefs and people must ere long lead to fresh troubles. The Queen, he says, " made a scorn of my conceit" in the matter. Yet he had no scruples concerning " practising," as he calls it, the secret murder of Irish ene- mies. He says : " It can be no disgrace if it were known that the killing of a rebel were practised ; for you see that the lives of anointed princes are daily sought ; and we have always in Ireland given head- money for the killing of rebels, who are ever proclaimed at a price. So was the Earl of Desmond ; and so have all rebels been practised against. . . I am more sorry for being deceived than for being declared in the practice." " Of the con- sistency with which Ealeigh," says his biographer, "on almost all occasions, counselled an unrelenting demeanour to- wards Irish rebels, the evidence is super- abundant. The exceptional instances are but rare. He did this alike in open con- ference with the Queen, and with his private advice to her ministers." Yet Sir Walter was one of the most cultivated and high-minded men of his day. Eventually the difficulties in connexion with his Irish property so pressed upon him, that, by the advice of Cecil and Carew, he sold almost his whole Irish estates, including the land on which he had planted the first potatoes ever set in Ireland, to Kichard Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork. He says himself : " There remains unto me but an old castle and demesne, which are yet in the occupation of the old Count- ess of Desmond, for her jointure." The result of a sojourn with Spenser at Kil- colman Castle, in 1589, was that the poet gave to the world his Faerie Queene. Raleigh does not appear to have had any material connexion with Ireland after this date. He ended his career on the scaffold in London, upon a verdict given fifteen years before, 29th October 161 8. ^'^
Batcliffe, Sir Thomas, Earl of Sussex, several times Deputy or Lord-
2E
RAW
Lieutenant of Ireland between 1556 and 1564, one of Elizabeth's lieutenants in the Irish wars, was born in 1526. At the instance of Shane O'NeiU, he made several expeditions against the Scots in Ulster and the Isles, rousing their animosity, without effecting their subjugation. In July 1561, collecting all the troops in the Pale, he marched into Tyrone against Shane O'Neill himself. He occupied Armagh, but was artfully delayed by negotiations, and ultimately suffered a disastrous defeat. He wrote to Cecil : " The fame of the English army, so hardly gotten, is now vanished, and I wrecked and dishonoured by the vileness of other men's deeds." Leaving a garrison at Armagh, he returned with the dis- spirited remnant of his forces into the Pale. He then sent Shane O'Neill a safe conduct to negotiate in person in London, at the same time writing to the Queen that he had unsuccessfully endeavoured to have him assassinated. After Shane's re- turn from England, Sussex endeavoured to entice him to Dublin to visit his sister, with whose beauty the chief had been smitten. He was, however, too wary, and Sussex told Elizabeth that she must either use force once more, or be prepared to see "all Ireland under Shane's dominion." The Queen sent over supplies in 1 563 ; the Lord-Lieutenant once more marched against his adversary, and an ineffective three weeks' campaign ensued in the neighbourhood of Newry and Armagh. Sussex threw the blame of failure on others, writing in a letter to Cecil : " I have been commanded to the field, and I have not one penny of money ; I must lead forth an army, and have no commis- sion ; I must continue in the field, and see not how I shall be victualled ; I must fortify, and have no working tools." In May 1564, "having failed alike to beat Shane O'Neill in the field, or to get him satisfactorily murdered," Sussex was re- called, leaving the government of Ireland in the hands of Sir Nicholas Arnold. He died in London, 9th July 1583. He is described as "a goodly gentleman, of a brave, noble nature, and constant to his friends and servants." s^ '^ '* ^39
Rawdon, Francis, Earl of Moira, Marquis of Hastings, son of the ist Earl of Moira, was born in Ireland 7th December 1754. He completed his educa- tion at Oxford, made a short tour on the Continent, and entered the army in 1 771 as ensign in the 1 5th Foot. Two years later he was made lieutenant in the 5th, and embarked for America, where, in 1775, he distinguished himself at the battle of Bun- 449
