and credit;" the Earl of Thomond had neither wit to govern
"nor grace to learn of others;" the Earl of Clanrickarde
was well intentioned, but controlled wholly by his wife.
Many districts had but "one-twentieth" of their ancient
population; Galway was in a state of perpetual defence.
Athenry had but four respectable householders left, and
these presented him with the rusty keys of their once
famous town, which they confessed themselves unable to
defend, impoverished as they were by the extortions of
their lords. All this to the eye of the able Englishman
had been the result of that "cowardly policy, or lack of
policy," whose sole maxims had been to play off the great
lords against each other and to retard the growth of
population, least "through their quiet might follow"
future dangers to the English interest. His own policy
was based on very different principles. He proposed to
make the highest heads bow to the supremacy of the royal
sword--to punish with exemplary rigour every sign of
insubordination, especially in the great--and, at the
same time, to encourage with ample rewards, adventurers,
and enterprises of all kinds. He proposed to himself
precisely the part Lord Stafford acted sixty years later,
and he entered on it with a will which would have won
the admiration of that unbending despot. He prided himself
on the number of military executions which marked his
progress. "Down they go in every corner," he writes, "and
down they shall go, God willing!" He seized the Earl of
Desmond in his own town of Kilmallock; he took the sons
of Clanrickarde, in Connaught, and carried them prisoners
to Dublin. Elizabeth became alarmed at these extreme