ABSENTEEISM. WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. Lately Published, THE LIFE and TIMES of SALVATOR ROSA. In 2 vols. 8vo. with a fine Portrait of Salvator, from the Original Painting by himself, in the possession of Earl Grosvenor, price 28s. bds. “ Lady Morgan has produced two of the most amusing octavos we have met with, even in this biographical age.”— Edinburgh Mag. ITALY. By LADY MORGAN. Being the Substance of a Journal of her Residence in that Country; exhibiting a View of the pre sent State of Society and Manners, Arts, Literature, and Literary Institutions, interspersed with numerous Anecdotes of the most eminent Literary and Political Characters, &c. The Third Edition, revised, in 3 vols. 8vo. price 36s. '• Lady Morgan’s fearless and excellent work upon Italy.”— Lord Byron. “ Lady Morgan has given us more information on the actual state of society in Italy at the present moment, than can be found in any of the numerous publications which have made their appearance since the peace.”— New Monthly Magazine. “ This is not merely a work of opinions expressed in the ornamental style of the writer. It is a substantial account of Italy, and may be consulted for its facts by the historian, the traveller, and the topogra¬ pher.'’— Monthly Magazine. i ABSENTEEISM.! I BY LADY MORGAN. “ Les absens ont toujours tort.” “ You heare of a case as it were in a dreame, and feell not the smart that vexeth us .”—Speech of the Earl of Kildare to Cardinal Wolsey. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 1825 . LON DON: IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. V TO CHARLES BROWNLOW, ESQ. M. P. Dear Sir, 4 Your recent speech on the Catholic question, has been hailed as an event favourable to the best interests of Ireland by all who in sym¬ pathising with her sufferings, have sought for, and ascertained their master cause. All Irishmen are brave! it is scarce a na¬ tional boast to say so ! for the courage of nerve and sinew is, after all, a quality of pretty VI DEDICATION. general distribution, “ from Indus to the Pole/ Man is every where a pugnacious animal; and les keros de cirConstance —prompt to fight “ for any God or King”—are always to be had for hire, be the cavalier pagante who he may. But there is a quality of courage, which has been found rare in all ages and in all regions, the peculiar endowment of high, free, and above all, of honest minds. This is the courage that sets at nought “ The world’s dread sneer, Which scarce the stern philosopher can scorn,” which boldly opposes a startling truth to a received opinion, which frankly recants the cherished error of early associations, and avows the change operated by arduous inquiry and clear conviction, at the expense of all worldly interests, and the sacrifice of all private feel¬ ings. Such, Sir, is the courage which you have displayed upon a subject of vital importance to DEDICATION. Vll Ireland. As an Irishwoman, I beg to offer my mite of gratitude for the benefit conferred upon our common country—convinced that whenever the spirit of those sentiments which you have avowed shall govern the councils of the na¬ tion, Absenteeism will cease to be a national malady. I have the honor to be, With every sentiment of respect. Your obedient Servant, SYDNEY MORGAN. London, June 4th, 1825. r * « - I . ■ r> ' • ) , Wrjl - - , ■* * ■ • ■ . i . * , * • 1 PREFACE. The following pages were originally published in the New Monthly Magazine. The continued demand for the numbers in which they ap¬ peared, has induced the proprietor to reprint the article, and it is now offered to the public in a substantive form. Notwithstanding the intense interest which is felt throughout all England concerning Ireland and Irish affairs, notwithstanding the frequent debates in parliament, and more frequent pam¬ phlets and volumes published on points of Irish politics and ceconomy, the prevailing ignorance X PREFACE. on these subjects still operates powerfully in maintaining prejudices the most unfounded and the most fatal, and in retarding those measures of wisdom and of justice without which Ireland can never be happy, or the British Empire secure. It is this ignorance more especially which enables the party opposed to the settlement of i Ireland to occupy public attention with minor grievances, behind which the danger and ma¬ lice of their system are concealed from a na¬ tion too generous to tolerate open and avowed oppression. No sooner is the question of Ca¬ tholic Emancipation proposed in the senate, with some chance of obtaining a favourable consideration, than one or other of these con¬ venient abuses is thrust forward to distract attention and to puzzle the will. The absentees, the deficiency of employment, the potatoe diet, the want of poor laws, or the want of educa¬ tion, are, from time to time put forth as the PREFACE. XI paramount evil, the gushing fountain of every misfortune of Ireland ; while the main subject of complaint, the Catholic disability, is stu¬ diously represented as affecting only a few briefless barristers, or ambitious landlords. The advantage which is thus obtained in pre¬ occupying the public mind, and in affording additional ground for a superstructure of so¬ phisms is immense. The British nation has so many and such vast interests to pursue, its relations with every country in the world are so many and so com¬ plicated, that the most instructed of its subjects can find but little time and attention to bestow on any one of them, however important. The public in general is therefore compelled to repose confidence in those who affect a know¬ ledge of each particular subject; and to take for granted the propositions they advance. When the men who should be the guides of public opinion are false to their trust, and in- XU PREFACE. stead of presenting truths in a clear and per¬ spicuous form, studiously bury them beneath a mass of plausibilities, or entangle them in a net-work of sophistry, the task of unweaving their web, and detecting their fallacies, must be again and again undertaken, before a cre¬ dulous and a pre-occupied people can be made aware of the deception, and enabled to judge of the question at issue by its intrinsic merits. On this account, it cannot but be deemed most unfortunate that the friends of Ireland unwittingly complicated the recent discussion on the Catholic Question, by the two bills with which they clogged their main proposition. It was not sufficient that the public should be dinned and stupified with the mass of untelli- gible and absurd theology with which that very plain question of policy and common morality is too unfortunately loaded; but it must also be mystified with high sounding phrases of “ disfranchisement,” “ oppression of the poor,” PREFACE. Xlll and other similar phantoms. To lead the Bri¬ tish public to imagine that the disqualification of the forty shilling freeholders would aflect the influence either of the catholic or protestant party in Ireland, was, to say the best of it, a strange mistake: but on the other side, to attempt making men believe that the franchise is a benefit to its holder, or that the existing representative system of Ireland, with or without the forty shilling freeholders, has any the remotest practical utility as an instrument of liberty or of self-taxation, is a gross and absolute deception. Ail the discussion which was raised on this most silly of disputes (and the enemies of emancipation were not slow to profit by the advantage) was de lana caprina, and so much diversion of the public mind from the main point at issue ; serving only to inflame enemies, and to divide friends. Though no one will dispute that both the riders were appended to the Catholic Bill in deference to XIV PREFACE. the opponents of that measure, and with an % honest intention to conciliate and to compro¬ mise, yet in the event, the introduction of extraneous matter has proved eminently unfa¬ vourable to the cause, and will, it is to be hoped, never again be attempted. The futility of the arguments derived from a putting forth of secondary causes of evil in Irish politics, as directed against the entertain¬ ment of the Catholic Question, is the greater, in as much as all the various subjects which are advanced as matters of complaint, derive imme¬ diately from this one source. Deficient capital, deficient knowledge, deficient civilization, are all the necessary consequences of bad govern¬ ment,—of that bad government for whose sake Catholic has been set against Protestant, and the Irish people divided, in order to prevent the assertion of their political rights. In England people are governed in their opinions on the Catholic Question exclusively by their hopes PREFACE. XV and fears ; and none but the clergy have a cor¬ rupt interest in withholding justice from any religious sect. But in Ireland power and place, the licence to oppress, and the facility of living on the public purse, are closely entwined with the permanence of a system, which, while it tramples the Catholic in the dust, degrades and impoverishes the whole population, for the exclusive benefit of a few powerful families. It is bad government, and the destraction and tur¬ bulence which bad government has engendered, that drives industry and capital from the coun¬ try, and forces the peasantry to abandon all pretence to luxuries and refinements, whether moral or physical. It is bad government that banishes meat from the cotter’s table, and in¬ struction from his mind. It is bad government that puts a pike in his hand, and hardens his heart against all the charities of life; it is bad government that makes property insecure, and life precarious; it is bad government, there- XVI PREFACE. tore, that induces the aristocracy to fly to hap¬ pier regions, to abandon their duties to their country and to themselves, and to seek for tranquillity and safety even at the expense of half their fortunes; and it is, above all, bad government which renders the absence of a limited aristocracy an evil of magnitude, either morally, politically, or economically. The geographical position of Ireland, and its political dependence, (the necessary consequence of that position,) must always occasion more absenteeism than usually occurs in other na¬ tions. The robbery and spoilation of the native proprietors to endow the pampered favourites of a foreign court, which took place in the pre¬ ceding centuries, afford another cause for this evil; but by far the greatest number of absentees are banished by the direct operation of the penal code, or by its indirect influence in limiting the pursuit of fortune at home. Ireland has no field for enterprise and industry, it has no PREFACE. XVII market for merchandize. It has no scope for honest ambition, no promise of pleasure, no resting place for repose; and yet it is expected - that those who have the means of quitting the land will inhabit it out of respect for a prin¬ ciple, or regard for an abstraction ! Absenteeism considered in itself is an unna¬ tural ill. There is usually so much of ease, of happiness, and of personal consequence in living at home surrounded by friends, relations, and a respectful tenantry,—there is usually so much mortification and disgust in the con- dition of a stranger and a foreigner, tfiat no¬ thing but political causes can drive the great proprietors of a country to permanently abandon their estates. Yet so natural is it for men to complain of the evil which strikes the most powerfully on the senses,'—so convenient is it for those, who are determined in the denial of justice, to make absenteeism the causa tausans of calamities which they want the humanity to XV111 PREFACE. relieve, that all classes of persons, the Pro¬ testant and the Catholic, the mere Irish and the lord of the pale, the oppressor and the op¬ pressed, the Irish corporator and the English minister have joined in a common cry against absentees. It is not therefore very surprising that the mere John Bull, wrapped in his own affairs, and buried in his counting-house, should believe what every one repeats, and should shut his eyes against the real causes of that turbulence and that discontent which, though they have given him so much trouble and uneasiness, are yet too far removed from his oaze to allow of the formation of an inde- O pendent judgment. It is not very wonderful that he should credit the assertion so hardily made, that Catholic Emancipation is not the one thing needful to Ireland, the essential preliminary, without which, no practical relief can be afforded to the economical distresses of the country. PREFACE. XIX In taking up the subject of absenteeism, the 0 peculiar bent of Lady Morgan’s mind, and the character of her habitual pursuits, have inevi¬ tably given a picturesque turn to her ideas, and induced her to view the matter less as an eco¬ nomist than as a poet and a woman. But the great truth has not escaped her, that absen- teeism is less a cause than an effect: and while in the romance of her imagination she has delineated what Ireland might be under the fostering protection of an enlightened and liberal aristocracy, she has not forgotten that under existing circumstances it must remain for ever the blighted victim of an oppressive and ignorant bureaucratie. T. C. MORGAN. London , June 3, 1825. . . ' . * • ► * „ • ‘ i ; . 1 : * i % ' i • » * i* * ‘ . ’ - . . * I % •• « ABSENTEEISM. “ Les absens ont toujours tort.” La Rochefaucault. The phrase “ Absentee/’ says Dr. Johnson, is one ** used with regard to Irishmen living out of their countryand as its origin is Irish, so its use and application are strictly confined to the history of that unfortunate people. The inference to be drawn from this fact is plain : that there is something in the circumstances of the Irisk, peculiar to themselves,—something which forces upon them a line of conduct con¬ trary to the ordinary instincts of humanity, and compels them to fly from that land which all other nations regard with more or less of favour B 2 ABSENTEEISM. and affection,—from that land which youth quits with regret, and to which age clings with passion, when all other passions fade,—the land of their nativity. In every history of Irish grievances, this cabalistical term “ absentee” appears in the front of the array, and, like the terrible “II Bondocani” of the Calif of Bagdat, strikes down all before it,—the apology for every abuse, the obstacle to every plan of amelioration, the bugbear of the timid, the stalking-horse of the designing. “ Absenteeism,” observes the Secretary for the Home Department, “ is an operative cause of tumult, but it is without a remedyand thus dismissing all ministerial responsibility with a laconic aphorism, he launches an inte¬ gral portion of the empire committed to his management, to revolve for ever in the turbu¬ lent whirlpool of a vicious circle of cause and effect. Tumult expels the rich landholders, the ABSENTEEISM. 3 absence of the rich landholders perpetuates tumult: this is a law of nature, which admits of no remedyand the executive have ^ nothing to do but to procure the passing of penal statutes according to the necessities of the moment, and to find the means of extorting four^ millions a year from English industry, to pay the expense of Irish misrule. In political philosophy there are no evils without a remedy, save those which arise out of the common condition of humanity;—and the minister who confesses a political evil which he cannot remove, should remove himself: for he is himself the greatest evil with which the people have to contend^ Sully, who adminis¬ tered the affairs of France under the most ad¬ verse circumstances, when it was still harassed with civil contentions and torn with religious I factions, saw no political impossibilities, though many political difficulties, with which he coura¬ geously and successfully grappled : but, alas ! b 2 4 ABSENTEEISM. the Secretary for the Home Department is not Sully. To what physiological peculiarity of consti¬ tution this irremediable tendency to wander, inherited from their progenitors by the restless sons of the great Milesius, is to be attributed, the learned Secretary has not informed us; and it is certain that Spurzheim, on his visit to the Irish capital, discovered no migratory inequality upon the surface of the Irish cranium, to account for the disposition. But in whatever particular of temperament or exuberance of cerebral deve- lopement the cause of this “ effect defective” lies latent, it is matter of historic fact, that though the ancient Irish were restless enough at home, (“ never,” says Campion, “ wanting drift to drive a tumult,”) yet this activity, which in¬ duced them “ to pick a quarrel, fall in love, or any other diverting accident of that kind,” never found vent in absenteeism. Where, in¬ deed, could Irishmen go to better their condi- ABSENTEEISM. 5 tion, when all in Ireland, who were not saints, were kings; and many w r ere both, while none were martyrs.* “ II est certain negoce,” says the French proverb, “ oit Von perd beaucoup en quittant boutique and this proverb, at all * Irish potentates were then as plenty “ as Mun¬ ster potatoes.” “ Ils se coudoyoient,” as in the suite des rots of Napoleon. Irish saints were equally numerous; but, if the scandalous chroni¬ cles of the times be worthy of credit, the social / order of that day was not the better for the circum¬ stance. While King Mac Murrogh was running away with Queen O’Rourke, wife of O’Rory, King of Breffny, who was on a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s purgatory, his son was undergoing the operation of having those eyes put out, which had looked too tenderly on the Queen of Ossory. The gallantries of these Macs and O’s from the earliest ages to the present day, recall the answer of the French Sil¬ vester Daggerwood to his manager, who asked his line of parts, “ Chacun sen tienne au metier de ses pcres ; je sais que dans notre famille, nous sommes tons amour eux de pere en Jits” • • 6 ABSENTEEISM. times applicable to Irish absentees, was parti¬ cularly so in that golden age, so often referred to by antiquaries, when Ireland, “ lying alool in the Western Ocean, was a nest of kingdoms,” when superb and wealthy monasteries and royal palaces occupied every foot of the territory, and when swallows built their nests in old men’s beards for want of worse habitations. In those true church and state times of Ireland’s pro¬ sperity, of which the Orangeman’s Utopia is but a type, it is little wonderful that the people gave into no wanderings, but those “ du coeur et de Vesprit;” and that a pilgrimage to St. Patrick’s purgatory, a royal progress of some Toparck of the South to a Dynast in the North, or a morn¬ ing visit from King Mac Turtell to his close neighbour King Gillemohalmoghe, # (which oc- * King Mac Turtell was King of Dublin, and held his kingdom by tribute from the King of Leinster. “ Not far from Dublin,” says the admi¬ rable Maurice Regan, historiographer to Mac ABSENTEEISM. 7 casionally ended in the broken heads of both parties,) should include the recorded absen¬ teeism of two thousand years It was reserved, however, for one of these royal heroes first to commit the patricidal crime: and the first Irish absentee of note, though a great king, was but a mauvais sujet, having pillaged his people, wasted his revenue, ran away with his neighbour’s wife, and sold his country for a mess of pottage. It is almost unnecessary to add that this royal founder of absenteeism is condemned to the contempt of posterity by the title of Dermot Mac Murrogh Murrogh,—“ not far from Dublin there lived an Irish king named Gillemohalmoghe.” Of the terri¬ tories of this prince, Michael’s lane in Dublin formed a part. It is called in the black book of Christchurch, Gillemohalmoghe. As there is some reason to suppose that the kingdom extended as far as Swords, Sir Compton Domville may be re¬ garded as the modern representative of the Gille¬ mohalmoghe dynasty. 8 ABSENTEEISM O’Kavenagh, King of Leinster; and that the result of his absenteeship was the successful invasion of Ireland by Henry II. the crusading grants of Pope Adrian IV. and, above all, the fearful forfeitures followed by rebellion on one part, and on the other by an effort at extermi¬ nation, which have multiplied from age to age those possessors and deserters of the soil, who have drawn over “ the profits raised out of Ire¬ land, and refunded nothing.” * * Child’s Discourse upon Trade.—“ No incon¬ siderable portion of the entire of Ireland has been confiscated twice, and perhaps thrice, in the course of a century .”—Lord Clare's Speech on the Union. The causes of absenteeship are, in fact, coeval with the first steps of English power in this country. “ Those that were adventurers,” says Temple, “ in the first conquests, and such others of the English nation as came over afterwards, took possession by former grants of the whole kingdom, and drove the Irish in a manner out of all habitable parts of it, and settled themselves in all the plains and fertile ABSENTEEISM. 9 It appears very probable that one of the motives by which the lords of t Ireland (as the English kings were long styled) were actuated in giving such large tracts of land to great English proprietors, was to get rid of the trou¬ blesome and rebellious Barons, by tempting them to reside in that “ most beautiful and sweet country as any is under heaven,” where so much was given up to their power and pil¬ lage, and where the services demanded in re¬ turn, “ the raising of forts and castles and fencing themselves with garrisons, as captains, i keepers, and constables,” might forward the royal interests by protecting its power against the inroads of the natives. “ For, except v places of the country, especially in the chief towns, ports, and sea-coasts. It was no capital offence to kill any of the rest of the Irish; the law did neither protect their life nor revenge their death.”— History of Irish Rebellion. Here is the starting-post of absenteeism, pointed out by an English minister and historian. 3 O 10 ABSENTEEISM. Leinster,” says Campion, “ all other parts re- tayned still their ancient kind of government, and were always ready to start at every corner, ag and rag, to expell the English.” But the framers of Magna Charta, the guardians of all that was then known of liberty in England, were not by the bribe of principalities to be kept from the great scene of action ; and some of the 2 nost considerable, having accepted, or seized upon the fairest portions of the land, made them over to sons-in-law or other kinsmen; and having thus, by the scratch of their rude pen, # * The signatures of Magna Charta evince that the nobility of those times, like Pierrot in the farce, were “ un pen brouilles avec l' Alphabet but the spirit which founded that great arch of British free¬ dom, was well worth all the namby-pamby acquire¬ ments of all the modern nobles who ever presided > over archaeology, (or, as Walpole calls it, “ old woman’s logic/’) flirted with the muses, and com¬ bined to give tracts to England, or rose-trees to the starving peasantry of Connaught and Munster. ABSENTEEISM. 11 conveyed to others the fee simple of an Irish province, hastened back to England to dispute the power of the barbarous despots, who reigned by their sufferance, or were deposed by their caprice. In process of time, the mischief of this species of transfer was not only felt as an ad¬ ditional grievance by the Irish, but as an an¬ noyance by the English sovereign.* The injury done to their power by the absence of those whom they had deputed to watch over it, at a time when that power was held by a precarious tenure, was deemed so great, that a law against absentees was passed so early as the time of Richard II. The divisions of the houses of ■) > i V * Henry II. obliged the Earl Strongbow to return to Ireland, “being likely for his own wealth and assurance to procure all possible means of bridling and annoying the Irish.” In the time of Edward III. military emigration seems to have been considerable. The Irish robbers did good service at Cressy. 12 ABSENTEEISM. York and Lancaster, however, abrogated all laws; “at which time,” says Spenser, “all English lords and gentlemen which had great possessions in Ireland, repaired over hither into England, some to succour their friends here, and to strengthen their partie, others for to defend their lands and possessions here against such as hovered after the same, upon hope of the alteration of the kingdom, and success of that side which they favoured and T affected.”* The result of this absenteeism of * The Irish were always ready for a little com¬ motion at home or abroad ; “ Great was the credit of the Geraldines ever when the House of York prospered, and likewise the Butlers thryved under the bloud of Lancaster.” It was this disposition towards the House of York, which caused the tem¬ porary success of Perkin Warbeck in Ireland. The unfortunate Duke of Clarence, who was drowned in a butt of Malmsey, was born in Ireland during the lieutenancy of his father, the Duke of York. Hk godfathers were the Earls of Ormond and Desmond. i ABSENTEEISM. 13 the great landholders of Ireland was natural and inevitable. “ The Irish, whom before they had banished into the mountains, where they lived only upon white meates,*as it is recorded, seeing now their lands so dispeopled and weak- Whether this Irish origin will serve to explain the peculiarity of his destiny, I cannot say; but -the residence of a York in Dublin may in part account for the popularity of the faction in that city. Shakspeare probably alludes to this personage in Henry VI. “ Please it your grace to be advertised The Duke of York is newly come from Ireland, And with a puissant and mighty pow^r Of Gallowglasses and stout Kernes Is marching hitherward in proud array.” * The English reader is not to suppose that these blcinc-mangers of the poor Irish were such as are to be had at the Verys or Beauvilliers. The Irish white meates Were curds and whey, the only provisions which men whose lives were “ in wander¬ ing spent and care” could obtain. The Irish then lived like Arabs, a prey of cattle being the subject of their fiercest contests. 14 absenteeism. ened, came down into all the plains adjoining, and thence expelling those few English that remayned, re-possessed them again.” But these re-possessions were only temporary. New conquests and new forfeitures ensued. New possessors, unaffected to the soil, and disdainful of its children, afforded fresh causes of ab¬ senteeism, which, in whatever way it operated, was injurious to the country; till at length the forfeiture of Leix and Offaly (the King and Queen’s Counties) under Edw r ard VI. threw the whole of those spacious and fertile districts into the hands of new proprietors; who having established themselves by “ fire and sword,” transferred the ownership “ to foreigners by connexion, arid resided themselves in England .” But if the first barbarous English legislators for Ireland (and when has the epithet been in¬ applicable ?) were, at an early period of their unfixed power, sensible of the injury which the state and the country suffered from absen- ABSENTEEISM. 15 teeism—if the Plantagenets took cognizance of the evil, and endeavoured to provide against it by statute, the Tudors (those sanguinary but sagacious despots) considered the absence of the Irish from their homes and country as a state engine; and wielded it with a policy which always advanced their own interests, and confirmed their power over that unhappy land. Sometimes they allured the Irish nobility to their splendid court for the purpose of dazzling their imagination, and corrupting their pa- triotism. Sometimes, on shallow pretexts, they cited them as accused or crimiiials, to awe them by their array of power, or to intimidate them by their display of cruelty. Yet, fre¬ quently forced to feel that the prosperity Qf the country and the English interests were both best served by the permanent residence of the gentry of the pale, they did not the less frame laws which made it penal for the proprietors of the soil to spend its profits elsewhere than at 16 ABSENTEEISM. home.* The love which the Irish had borne to the house of York, had rendered it a point * Had they made the country endurable to live in, they would have done what all the penal laws that ever have been framed can never affect—they would have kept the Irish at home. At the time when Henry VIII. was framing his “ act of ab- sencie” for preventing the increase of the absentees the state of the country in which they were by law obliged to live, is thus described by Spenser; —“ Notwithstanding that the same was a most rich and plentiful country, full of corn and cattle, (Munster more particularly is here speken of,) yet in one year and a half (during the war carried on against the Earl of Desmond for the purpose of forfeiting his estates) the natives were brought to such wretchedness, as that any stoney heait would rue the same. Out of every corner of the woods and glyns they came creeping forth upon their hands, for their legs could not bear them, they looked like anatomies of death, they shoke like ghosts crying out of their graves, they did eat the dead carrion, happy when they could find them ; ABSENTEEISM. 17 of courteous policy to appoint the second sons of the king to the Lieutenancy of Ireland, with a deputy for the execution of the high office : and Henry VIII. as Duke of York, while yet a boy, and during the life-time of his elder brother, began his career of power under this character, conjointly with his deputy, Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, “ a mighty made man/’ says his chronicler, “ full of honour and courage.” (1501) This grand conser¬ vator of the peace, however, had the old Irish fashion of being occasionally disposed to break it; and his fierce feuds with the Butlers-, Earls yea, and one another soon after, inasmuch as the very carcasses they spared not to scrape out of ffieir graves; and if they found a plot of water-cresses or shamrocks, there they flocked as to a feast for the time, yet not able to continue them withal, that in , short space there was none almost left; and a most populous and plentiful country suddenly lett void of man and beast .”—State of Ireland , 1581. 18 ABSENTEEISM. of Ormond, (“ nothing inferior to Kildare in stomache, and in reach of policy farre beyond him,”) were the causes “ of much ruffle and unquietness to the realm.” These served his enemies for a pretext to draw down upon him the displeasure of the English government, and finally induced Henry VII. to summon the old deputy over to the English court, and to seek to break down that haughty and turbulent spirit in a region rarely favourable to powerful energies and independence of mind. A bon- mot saved the earl from the danger which awaited him, and limited his absenteeism to * a few months residence in the court of Henry, from which he returned to Ireland more pow¬ erful than he left it. Gerald Fitzgerald, son of the aforesaid earl, “ a gentleman valiant and well spoken,” suc¬ ceeded his father in all his dignities; but though appointed lord deputy of Ireland, his influence, power, and spirit, soon awakened the ABSENTEEISM. 19 jealousy of Henry VIII. Being “ overtaken with vehement suspicion of sundry treasons, it was deemed politic to draw him away from Ireland; and, by secret heavers and enviers of his fortunes, nourishers of the old grudge, the king was urged to call upon him to attend the English court.” The illustrious but involuntary absentee, was, on his first arrival in England, treated with a severity vainly intended to inti¬ midate a spirit which was afterwards to be subdued by other and more seducing means. Among many frivolous charges, “ lie was op- posed with divers interrogatories touching the 4 Earl of Desmond , his cousin , a notorious trap¬ tor.” His trial, however, was but a mockery, and as the object was to sink the popular chief of a nation into a pliant courtier, to bind him more firmly to the English interests, and to weaken his feelings of patriotism, the union of the turbulent Gerald was proposed with the Lady Elizabeth Grey, the kings own kins¬ woman and daughter of the Duke of Suffolk. 20 ABSENTEEISM. This marriage, celebrated with royal splendour, with all the festivities of a boisterous but splendid court, was deemed a preliminary step to permanent subjection, and to frequent and long visits to the English court. O v . O . V* + 4*. .j. - ‘ 1 Scarcely, however, had Kildare returned home, and resumed the deputyship of Ireland, when the domestic tumults of the great lords of the pale involved him in new accusations on the part of the crown, “ intimations of new treasons passing to and fro, with complaynts and replyes;” and as Cardinal Wolsey “ did hate the Kildare bloud,” and had resolved on breaking down their power, the earl was again called from his stronghold in Ireland, and accused of having “ wilfully winked at the Earl of Desmond (whose large possessions were his crimes in the eye of the minister), and with having curried acquaintance and friendship with mere Irish. “ While lying* under the imputa¬ tion of a crime, always heinous in the Irish,— natural affection to the land and its suffering ABSENTEEISM. 21 children,—the brave Kildare (like an eagle taken from its eirie in the mountain-cliffs of its native region, and chained to the earth in a golden cage) was suffered to loiter away his existence, in listless indolence and life-wearing anxiety, in the purlieus of a court that resem¬ bled the seraglio of an Asiatic satrap, alter¬ nately favoured and persecuted, as the caprice of the sovereign or the aversion of the minister ruled the hour. It was at this period, when his mind was borne down by his humiliating posi¬ tion, that he was prevailed on to consent to his daughter the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald’s per¬ manent residence at court: and it was by this concession that the loveliest of all Irish absen¬ tees, “ the more than celestial Geraldine hasv become an object of interest and admiration to posterity, as the poetical idol of the gallant and unfortunate Surrey. # * English antiquaries have been much puzzled to determine the identity of this l( more than celestial 22 ABSENTEEISM. Although educated at the rural palace of Hunsdon with her kinswomen the Princesses Geraldine.” “ Who she was/’ says Walpole, “ we are not directly told.” Surrey himself mentions some particulars of her, but not her name. The editor of the last edition of Surrey’s Poems, in some short notes on his life, says, “ that she was the greatest beauty of her time, and maid of honour to Queen Catharine; but I think I have very nearly discovered who this fair person was, &c. &c. &c. I am inclined to think her poetical appellation was her real name, as every one of the circumstances tally.” The elegant antiquary then devotes three pages to prove the probability that Lady Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of Kildare, was the Geraldine of Lord Surrey. Warton adopts this supposition, and compliments the biographer on having, with the most happy segacity, solved the difficulties of “ this little enigmatical ode .”—History of English Poets. There was, however, a much shorter way of solving the difficulties, namely, the consultation of Irish authors for an historical incident respecting one of the most illustrious Irish families. Campion, ABSENTEEISM. 23 Mary and Elizabeth, and though afterwards maid of honour to the Queen, it is probable that who had probably many a time and oft seen the “ fair Geraldine,” with his usual quaint simplicity says, “ The Fitzgerald family is touched in the Sonnet of Surrey made upon Kildare’s sister, now Lady Clinton From Tuscane came my ladyes worthy race, Faire Florence was sometime her ancient seate; The western isle, whose plaisant shore doth face Wilde Cambre’s cliffes, did give her lively heate.” The ode goes on as follows ;— Fostered she was with milk of Irish breast, Her sire an earle, her dame of prince’s blood; From tender years in Britain she doth rest Withkinges childe, while she tasteth costly food. Honsdon did first present her to mine yeen, Bright is her hue, and Geraldine her hight, &c. &c. &c. This fair and celebrated Irish absentee, after having sent her illustrious lover to Italy “ to defend her beautie by an open challenge,’’ in which he was victorious, married the Earl of Clinton :—a most unsentimental conclusion to a most romantic story. 24 ABSENTEEISM. this lady was rather an hostage than a guest, and was detained more by force than by incli¬ nation :—as the sequel of her story goes to prove. ** All this while,” says Campion, “ abode the Earl of Kildare at the court, and with much ado found shifte to be called before the Lords to answer solemnly.” When, at last, every excuse for delay was exhausted, and every hope of subduing his invincible spirit faded, he was “ called before the lords to answer so¬ lemnly,” who “ sat upon him diverslyaffectioned ; and especially the Cardinal Lord Chancellor (Wolsey) who dislikedJiis cause, comforted his accusers, and enforced the articles objected.” The whole scene of this mock trial is so graphic, and the speeches of the Cardinal and of the Irish Lord Deputy so curious and descriptive of the state and manners of the time, that the introduction may be pardoned of an episode which goes to prove, by a striking in¬ stance, that Irish absenteeism under any form, voluntarily or involuntary, graced by royal ABSENTEEISM. 25 favour, or marked by ministerial persecution, is derogatory to the dignity, and injurious to the interests of the Irish nobility. The Earl of Kildare, alone, unfriended, without the aid of counsel to plead, or witness to depose in his behalf; appeared in the midst of the Lords, every one of whom was the slave of the King or the parasite of the minister,—“ for what,” (says Walpole, one of their own caste ,)—“ what twelve tradesmen could be found more servile than every court of peers during the whole of this reign?”—Wolsey was the first to speak, and he began with these words:—“ I wot well, my Lord, that I am not the meetest man at this board to charge you with these treasons, because it hath pleased some of your pew-fellows to report that I am a professed enemie to all nobi- litie, and namely to the Geraldines : but seeing every curst boy can say as much when he is controled, and seeing these points are so weightie that they should not be dissembled of c 28 ABSENTEEISM. us, and so apparent that they cannot be denyed of you, I must have leave, notwithstanding your state slaunder, to be the mouth of these honor¬ able persons at this time, and to trumpe your reasons in your way, howsoever you take me. First, you remember how the lewde Earle your kinsman, who passeth not whom he serve, might he change his master, sent his confederates with letters of credence to Frauncis the French king, and, having but cold comfort there, to Charles the Emperour, prof¬ fering the helpe of Mounster and Connaght towards the conquest of Ireland, if either of them would helpe to win it from our King. How many letters ? what precepts ? what messages ? what threats have been sent you to apprehend him'? and yet not done! why so? forsooth, I could not catch him : nay, nay, Earle, forsooth you would not nightly watch him. If he be justly suspected, why are you partiall in so great a cause ? if not, why are you fearfull to have him ABSENTEEISM. 27 tryed? Yea sir, it will be sworn and deposed to your face, that for feare of meeting him, you have winked, wilfully shunned his sight, altered your course, warned his friends, stopped both eyes and eares against his detectors, and, when soever you tooke upon you to hunt him out, then was he sure before hand to bee out of your walke : surely this juggling and false play little became either an honest man, called to such honour, or a nobleman put in such trust. Had you lost but a cow or a garron of your owne, two hundred Kyrneghes would have come at your * whistle, to rescue the prey from the uttermost edge of Ulster: all the Irish in Ireland must have given you the way. But in pursuing so weightie a matter as this, mercifull God! how nice, ho\v dangerous, how wayward have you bin! One while he is from home, sometimes fled, some¬ times in the borders where you dare not ven ture: I wist, my Lord, there be shrewd Bugges in the borders for the Earl of Kildare to feare - c 2 28 ABSENTEEISM. The Earle, nay the King of Kildare, for, when you are disposed, you reigne more like than rule, the land :—where you are malicious, the truest subjects stand for Irish enemies : where you are pleased the Irish enemie stands for a dutifull sub¬ ject : hearts and hands, lives and lands, are all at your courtesie: who fawneth not thereon, hee can¬ not rest within your smell, and your smell is so ranke that you tracke them out at pleasure 0 ’ Whilst the Cardinal was speaking, the Earle chafed and changed colour, and sundry proffers made to answer every sentence as it came ; at last he broke out, and interrupted them thus. “ My Lord Chancellour, I beseech you pardon me; I am short-witted, and you, I perceive, intend a long tale. If you proceede in this order, halfe my purgation will be lost for lacke of carryage: I have no schools tricks, nor art of memory ; excepte you heare me while I re¬ member your words, your second processe will hammer out the former.” The Lords associate. ABSENTEEISM. 29 who for the most part tenderly loved him, and knew the Cardinal’s manner of termes so loth- some, as wherewith they were tyred many years agoe, humbly besought his Grace to charge him directly with particulars and to dwell in some one matter till it were examined through. That granted, “ It is good reason (quoth the Earle) that your Grace beare the mouth of this cham¬ ber. JBut, my Lord, those mouthes that put this tale into your mouth, are very wide mouths, such indeed as have gaped long for my wreck, and now 7 at length, for w ? ant of better stuff, are fain to fill their mouths with smoak. What mv «/ cousin Desmond hath compassed, as I know 7 not, so I beshrew his naked heart for holding out so long. If hee can bee taken by my agents that presently wayte for him, then have my adversaryes betrayed their malice, and this heape of haynous wordes shall resemble a man of strawe, that seemeth at a blush to carry some proportion, but when it is felt and poysed, dis- covereth a vanity, serving only to fraye crowes ; 30 ABSENTEEISM. and I trust your honours will see the proofe hereof and mine innocencie testified in this be- halfe by the thing itselfe within these few dayes. But goe to, suppose hee never bee had, what is Kildare to blame for it, more than my good brother of Ossory? notwithstanding his high promises, having also the king’s power, he is glad to take egges for his money, and bring him in at leysure. Cannot the Earle of Desmond shift, but I must bee of counsell? cannot hee bee hid, except I winke ? If hee bee close, am I his mate ? If hee bee friended, am I a traitour ? This is a doughty kinde of accusation, which they urge against mee, wherein they are stabled and myred at my first denyall. You would not see him, say they; who made them so familiar with mine eye sight? or when was the Earle within my Equinas ? or who stood by when I let him slip? or where are the tokens of my willfull hood-winking ? Oh, but you sent him word to beware of you: who was the messenger ? where are the letters ? convince my negative. ABSENTEEISM. 31 See how loosely this idle reason hangeth: Desmond is not taken, well, we are in fault: why? because you are. Who proves it? no¬ body. What conjectures ? so it seemeth. To whom? to your enemies. Who told it them ? What other grounds ? none. Will they sweare it ? they will sweare it. My Lords, then belike they know it: if they know it, either they have my hand to show, or can bring forth the messenger, or w T ere present at a conference, or privy to Desmond, or somebody betrayed it to them, or themselves were my carry- ers or vice-gerehts therein. Which of these parts will they choose ? I know them too well to reckon myself convict by their bare wordes, or headlesse hearsayes, or frantick oathes: Aiy letters were soone read, were any such writing extant; my servaunts and friends are ready to bee sifted. Of my cousin Desmond they may lye lewdly, since no man can heere will tell the contrary. Touching my selfe, I never noted in 32 ' ABSENTEEISM. them either so much wit, or so much faith, that I could have gaged upon their silence the life of a good hound, much lesse mine owne. I doubt not, may it please your honours to oppose them, how they came to knowledge of these matters which they are so ready to depose, but you shall finde their tongues chayned to another man’s trencher, and as it were knights of the post, suborned to say, sweare, and stare the uttermost they can, as those that passe not what they say, nor with what face they say it, so they say no truths. But of another thing, it grieveth me that your good grace, whom I take to be wise and sharpe, and who of your own blessed dis¬ position wish me well, should be so farre gone in crediting those corrupt informers, that abuse the ignorance of their state and country to my perill. Little know you, my lord, how necessary it is, not onely for the governour, but also for every nobleman in Ireland, to hamper his vinci¬ ble neighbours at discretion, wherein, if they ABSENTEEISM. wayted for processe of law, and had not these lives and lands you speake of within their reach, they might pass to loose their own lives and lands without law. You heare of a case, as it were in a dreame, and feell not the smart that vexeth us. In England there is not a meane subject that dare extend this hand to fillip a peere of the realme;—in Ireland, except the lord have cunning to his strength, and strength to save his owne, and sufficient authoritie to racke thieves and varletts when they stirre, hee shall finde them swarme so fast that it will bee too late to call ft for justice. If you will have our service take effect, you must not tye us always to the judi¬ cial proceedings, wherewith your realme, thank- bee God, is inured. As touching my kingdotne', my Lord, I would you and I had exchanged kingdomes but for one moneth, I would trust to • gather up more crummes in that space, than twice the revenues of my poore earledome ;— but you are well and warme, and so hold you, c 5 34 ABSENTEEISM. and upbraide not me with such an odious storme. I sleepe on a dablin, when you lye soft in your bed of downe ; I serve under the cope of heaven, when you are served under a canopy ; I drinke water out of a skull, when you drinke out of golden cuppes; my courser is trained to the field, when your jennet is taught to amble; when you are begraced, and belord- / ed, and crowched and kneeled unto, then 1 finde small grace with our Irish borderers, except I cut them off by the knees.” At these girds the councell would have smiled if they durst; but each man bitt his lippe, and held his countenance. The Cardinall perceived that Kil¬ dare was no cake, and rose in a fume from the councell-table, committed the Earle, and de¬ ferred the matter till more direct probations came out of Ireland.—It is unnecessary to add, that these “ probations ” were readily procured. “ For of this treason,” continues the quaint chronicler, “ he (Kildare) was found guilty. ABSENTEEISM. 35 and imprisoned in the Tower a long time. The gentleman betook himself to God and the King, was heartily loved of the lieutenant, pittied in all the court, and standing in so hard case, altered little his accustomed hue, comforted other noblemen prisoners with him dissembling his own sorrow. One night, when the lieutenant and he, for disport, were playing at slide-groat, sud¬ denly commeth from the Cardinall a mandat to execute Kildare on the morrow. The Earl marking the Lieutenant’s deep sigh on reading the bill, ‘ By Sant Bride,’ quoth he, there is « some mad game in that scralle, but, fall how it will, this throw is for a huddle.’ When the worst was told him : ‘ Now I pray thee,’ quoth he, ‘ doe no more but learn assuredly from the King’s owne mouthe whether his Grace be wit¬ ting thereto or not.’ Sore doubted the Lieute¬ nant to displease the Cardinall; yet of very pure devotion to his friend, he posteth to the King at midnight, and said his errand (for all houres 36 ABSENTEEISM. of the day or night, the lieutenant hath accesse to the prince upon occasions.) King Henry, controwling the sawcyness of the priest—those were his tearmes—gave him his signet in token of countermand ; which, when the Cardinall had seene, he began to breake into unseasonable words with the lieutenant, which he was loath to heare, and so he left him fretting. Thus broke up the storme for a time, and the next yeare Wolsey was cast out of favour; and within few yeares Sir William Skevington was sent over deputy, who brought with him the Earle pardoned, and rid from all his troubles.” But this “ riddance” was only of short dura¬ tion. New causes of complaint, and new reasons, were soon found or invented for once more draw¬ ing the Earl from the strong hold of his interest and power—his native country: and he was again f< commanded by sharp letters to repair to England.” His arrival there was followed by ABSENTEEISM* 37 a report of his execution,* which soon reached his family in Ireland. His son, whom he had left Lord Justice in his place, the gallant but impetuous Lord Thomas, on hearing of this supposed act of treachery against his father, threw down the sword of office, and flew into open rebellion, followed by his five uncles the Lords Fitzgerald. The insurrection was soon quelled ; and the unfortunate Geraldines having surrendered, set out for England on the parole of the Lord Marshal Dorset, where, shortly after their arrival, they were all executed in one day. The death of the old Earl himself in the Tower, where he is said to have died “ for thought and paine,” ends the tragic story of the enforced absenteeism of the Geraldines .J* * “ A false muttering flew about that his execu¬ tion was intended.” f “ Soon after,” says Campion, “ was the house of the Geraldines attaynted by Parliament, and all of the name busily trayned out for feare of new com- 38 ABSENTEEISM. This murder of the Lady Geraldine’s uncles, father, brother, and that of her unfortunate and highly endowed lover, (“ who,” says Lodge, “ reflected splendour even on the name of Ho¬ ward,” and who was put to death by Henry VIII. for quartering the arms of Edward the Confessor,) must have rendered the English Court a dreary residence to her. Still, however, she remained there, most probably under the in¬ fluence of the same major force which first drew her from her domestic home. But while Henry thus continued to retain the most beautiful motions. But Thomas Leurces, late Bishop of Kildare, schoolemaster to a younger brother, Gerald Fitzgerald, the Earle that now liveth, secretly stole away with the childe, first into Scotland, then into France, and misdoubting the French, into Italy; where Cardinall Pole, his neare kinsman preserved him till the raigne of Edward the Sixt, with whom hee entred into high favour, and obtayned of him his olde inheritance of Meinothe.” ABSENTEEISM. 39 » woman of Ireland near his person, he began to see, as it appears, the policy of keeping the men at home ; and he passed his famous bill against “ absencie” the preamble of which is curious, as portraying the evils against which it was framed—at least that portion of the evils by which the English government, for a long series of years, was alone touched. Like a good many more modern acts, be it remarked en passant , it commences by the formal averment of a self-evident falsehood : “ That, for as much as it was notorious and manifest, that this land of Ireland being heretofore inhabited and in obedience to the said king’s most noble progeni¬ tors, who in those days in the righte of the Crown of England had great possessions, rentes, and profits, within the same land,” &c. It then goes on to state “ the ruine, rebellion, and decay,” which ensued by the absence of the great landholders: who, “ after abiding within the said land, nobly and valiantly defended the 40 ABSENTEEISM. same against all the king’s enemies, and also kept the same in such tranquillity and good order , as the King of England had due obedience of the inhabitance there, the laws obeyed, and the revenues and regalitie were duely answered/’ but that afterwards “ they and their heires absented themselves out of the said land of Ireland, denjorning within the realm of England, not pondering, ne regarding the preservation thereof,—the townes, castels, and garrisons ap¬ pertaining to them fell in ruin and decay, and the English inhabitants therein, in default of defence and justice, and by compulsion of those of the Irish, were exiled, whereby the king’s said progenitors lost as w T ell their said dominion and subjection there, as also their revenues and profiles ; and their said enemies by redopting or retaining the said lands, dominions, and pos¬ sessions, were elevated into great pride/’ 8cc. &c. $ Hitherto, with a few exceptions, ahsencie , as touching a residence in England, had been con- ABSENTEEISM. 41 fined to the great Irish lords of the pale, who, although of English descent, and bearing Nor¬ man names, had in the course of successive ge¬ nerations run through all those shades of natu¬ ralization, which left them in manners, habits, and affections, but little distinguishable from the aboriginal Irishman, who proudly traced his origin to the Lady Scota, the daughter or grand-daughter of King Pharaoh.* But it was reserved for the reign of the Virgin Queen to drive the genuine nobility of Ireland from their native land at any loss or risk into distant regions f and unknown countries, or to allure * The various epithets applied to these retrogra- dations on the scale of civilization are very amusing. Between the “ mere and uncivil Irish,” and die “ English Lords of the Pale,” were the “ English Lords beginning to wax Irish “ degenerating,” “ becoming mere Irish,” and ending by being “ very wilde Irish,” &c. &c. f O’Sullivan Beare, one of the bravest and noblest chiefs of Kerry, and Lord of part of the paradise of 42 ABSENTEEISM. them to her own formal and fantastic court, by a show of feminine sympathy; which, though in direct contradiction to her whole policy and conduct, was well calculated to win the unwary, and to soothe the unfortunate.* Killarney, in writing to the Spanish minister an ac¬ count of his sufferings at this period, urges him “ to the speedy sending of a ship to receive him, his wife, and children, to save them from the hands of his T most merciless enemies : Making choice (he pathe¬ tically adds) rather to forsake my ancient inheri¬ tance, friends, followers, and goods, than any way trust to their graceless pardon or promise .”—Pacata Hibernia. Here was absenteeship in the sixteenth century!! * Elizabeth frequently discovered that her De¬ puties were carrying the joke too far. On the occa¬ sion of the wanton massacre of Smerwick, “ The queen (says the Bishop of Chichester) was not pleased at the manner of this execution, and was hardly after drawn to admit any excuse of the slaughter commit¬ ted.” The “ manner ” was curious enough,—“ It was concluded that only the leaders should be saved, ABSENTEEISM. 43 The Queen, in her quality both of woman and sovereign, was fond of making speeches; and she probably found it prettier to be pathetic than just, as she certainly found it easier to chide than to call in the pack of bloodhounds she had let loose upon the devoted country of her delegated sway. While the Fitzwilliams, the Binghams, the Drurys, the Bagnals, and others of her Irish ministers, were carrying destruction through the land by “ fire, sword, and pestilence,”* the fair and royal rhetorician (the leaders were Spanish officers,) the res’t slain, and all the Irish hanged up: which was presently put into execution, to the great disliking of the queen, who detested the slaughter of such as yielded them¬ selves.”— Baker's Chronicle. * “ The Queen was assured,” says Leland, speak¬ ing of the inhuman rigour of Lord Deputy Gray, “ that he tyrannized with such barbarity, that little was left in Ireland for her Majesty to reign over but ashes and dead carcases.”— Hist, of Ire - 44 ABSENTEEISM. was exclaiming in her closet against their con¬ duct, by classical allusions to parallel facts, which showed at once her learning and her sympathy. “ I fear,” she said, apostrophizing her ministers in Ireland, “ that the same re¬ proach will be made to me as was formerly made by Bato to Tiberius. It is you who are to blame for these things, who have committed your flocks not to shepherds but to wolves.” The Irish, “ who love learning to a fault,” says Spenser, (and women too, God forgive them,) were bewitched by similar declarations of pity, breathed in the language of the learned from the lips of the royal and the fair. The O’Rourkes, the O’Neils, the O’Connors, forgot the wiles and the treachery of which their lathers had been the dupes or the victims ; and land, v. ii. p. 227.—Here are reasons for absentee- ship quite as cogent as any which can be advanced in the present day. ABSENTEEISM. 45 each in his turn expiated his credulity in its fatal results. # The English were accustomed to the presence of the Geraldines, the Butlers, the De Courceys, De Burgos, and other great Anglo-Irish lords of the pale, who, though by '* N landscape-painter, Barrett, &c. t Miss Brook, the elegant translator and com¬ poser of the “ Relics of Ancient Irish Poetry.” F 98 ABSENTEEISM. as in the days of the Mayos* and the O’ Con¬ nors .t * The Lord Mayo, of the early part of the eighteenth century, here alluded to, was a model of the genuine Irish resident nobleman, living .in his rural palace, surrounded by his family, his bards, and musicians. One of these, u his retainer,” Da¬ vid Murphy, composed an Irish Ode of some cele¬ brity, called