the officers of the Irish ports to permit 4000 men to be exported. Nothing came of it, and many of them joined the insurgents.

The next defection was the Lords of the Pale. There was the greatest antipathy between them and the Ulster Irish. Their ancestors had been bitterly opposed in wars and depredations from the time of the Conquest to the Plantation of Ulster, and the animosity so begotten still survived. The Lords Justices ought to have profited by this well-known feeling, but by a strange perversity they drove the Lords of the Pale to unite with the Ulster insurgents.

The Lords Justices were animated by the most extreme puritanical principles, and had no sympathy with the Lords of the Pale. On the outbreak of the rebellion several of the chief families offered their services, but the Lords Justices did not accept them. This put a stop to similar offers, and the men who came to Dublin to risk their lives for the State were actually ordered by proclamation to return home as soon as the Lords Justices had assurance of substantial support from the English House of Commons.

This forced them to return to districts adjoining the localities where the rebellion raged, and they were thus obliged to have perpetual intercourse with the rebels, to support them by contributions, and sometimes to unite with them, to avert cruelty.

Their position was very critical; circumstances altogether unavoidable had made them liable to a charge of high treason. They knew the Lords Justices heartily disliked them; the proclamation excluding them from Dublin had deprived them of refuge, and driven them into association with the rebels, their persons and possessions being defenceless.

At the beginning of December strange rumours were industriously circulated throughout the kingdom. The violent proceedings of the English Parliament caused the Roman Catholics generally to apprehend the design of extirpating them, and the action of the Lords Justices. confirmed this view; the wealthy and powerful had reason to fear that their estates would be forfeited and planted with English adventurers.

The forces of the Lords Justices were defeated at Gillianstown Bridge, near Julianstown, on the 29th November; and in a few days the forces of the rebels between Drogheda and Dublin amounted to 20,000 men. The Lords Justices were alarmed, as no aid had yet arrived from England, and on the 3rd December they summoned the gentlemen of the Pale to Dublin to confer with them. The latter, fearing that a trap was laid for them, refused to attend, and after some fruitless correspondence openly united with the rebels in the course of the month.

They did not join the standard of the Ulster rebels, but remained under the guidance of Lord Gormanstown. They professed to take arms only in self-defence, and solicited a speedy accommodation. By their declaration of loyalty, and zeal for the redress of grievances, they made a

powerful impression on all the Roman Catholics. Their manifestoes, sent into Munster and Connaught, affirmed a most dangerous union between the Lords Justices and the English puritanical party, who were reported to have resolved to extirpate them, and the flame of insurrection was kindled everywhere. It spread from South Leinster to Munster; and Connaught, with the exception of Clanrickard's country, was all affected.

Munster was free at first from all disaffection, and many of the gentlemen there tendered their services to the Government; amongst them was lord Muskerry. The President, Sir William St. Leger, had only a single troop for the defence of the entire province, scarce sufficient to repress common robbers in time of peace, but the gentry, Irish as well as English, aided him to prevent disorder, and the province was orderly and quiet. Some petty robberies there were; but the President repressed them very vigorously, and executed any robbers captured, without mercy. In one of these excursions he was accompanied by a brother of lord Roche.

It was the middle of December before any gentleman in Munster appeared to favour the rebellion. The manifesto of the Lords of the Pale had now reached them, and must have greatly influenced them. Disaffection began to grow, the barbarous severity of St. Leger became intolerable, and several of the chief nobility and gentry waited on his lordship to complain of his cruelty. Among them were James Butler, lord of Dunboyne, and other gentlemen of great position and influence. The President dismissed them with disdain, and they retired offended. Several gentlemen began to levy forces now, and to form troops and companies.

of Kilkenny, Waterford was rebellion, and so did several Lord Mountgarret, invited to

Lord Mountgarret seized the city yielded to his son, Tipperary rose in gentlemen in Cork, Limerick, and Clare. the command of all these forces, advanced into Tipperary, where he was joined by the forces of lord Ikerrin, lord Castleconnell, and lord Bourke of Brittas. He intended to besiege Limerick, but turned from Kilmallock into the county of Cork, where his forces were further increased.

REFERENCES TO OPPOSITE PAGE.

Facsimile of Plan of Limerick Castle, circa 1611, from Pacata Hibernia, Dublin, 1810. The following are the references :

The President was posted on the way near Ballyhoura Mountain, but did not deem it prudent to attack him.

Mountgarret marched thence to Buttevant and Mallow, and all Munster seemed in his power; he was anxious to attack Kinsale, Cork, and Youghal, which were in the hands of the Government, but Maurice Roche, viscount Roche and Fermoy, disputed his authority and refused to serve under him. He expected the command himself, and had a powerful following. Lord Mountgarret was disgusted, and retired to Kilkenny. If the insurgents had acted together at this time, Munster was undoubtedly in their power.

The nobility of Munster, left to their own disunion, gave St. Leger time to save the province. He collected and disciplined the English settlers, and was able to appear in the field with a considerable army in the spring.

The insurgents entered Mallow on the 11th February, about a week after lord Mountgarret retired, and several competitors claiming the leadership, General Barry, who had served in the Spanish army, assumed the command as a compromise. Lord Muskerry joined the insurgents early in March.

Instead of reducing the fortresses in detail, they split up into separate bodies, and attacked them all at the same time. Cork in its turn was attacked, and the Lord President, who was ill, was assisted by lord Inchiquin, and Sir Charles Vavasour. It was invested on the south by General Barry and lord Muskerry; they expected lord Roche to besiege it on the north. Lord Inchiquin and Sir Charles Vavasour sallied out on the 13th April, pursued a detachment of the rebels to the camp at Rochfortstown, three miles off, put the army to flight, and took their baggage and carriages.

Lord Mountgarret, after his return to Leinster, mustered a numerous but ill-armed force, and endeavoured to intercept the earl of Ormond, who was marching from South Kildare to Dublin. Ormond was accompanied by Sir Charles Coote, Colonel Monck, Sir Thomas Lucas, and other officers of distinction. An engagement took place on 16th April, at Kilrush, about twenty miles from Dublin; Mountgarret's men were routed and driven into a bog at their rear, with a loss of 600 men, twenty colours, and all their ammunition. Mountgarret returned to Kilkenny, and Ormond to Dublin.

Notwithstanding their repulse before Cork, the forces of the insurgents were very formidable. All the fortresses in that county, except Cork, Kinsale, Youghal, and Bandon Bridge, were in their hands, and scattered bands of insurgents came close to the walls of these towns.

Numerous bands united to form a large army, and turning from the county of Cork to north Munster, they resolved to attack Limerick city. The citizens opened the gates to receive them, and the garrison retired into Limerick Castle.

This castle, originally built in the reign of King John, was a place of great strength. During the Tudor period it had become almost a ruin. In the State Papers of Queen Elizabeth, and the early part of the reign of James I., there are many references to its bad condition. Early in the reign of James I. it was resolved to strengthen and repair various forts and castles; various works were begun, and on 12th April, 1608, directions were given to finish certain forts begun by the Lord Deputy, the earl of Devon.

The work was entrusted not to Samuel Molyneux, the Clerk of Works, but to Sir Josias Bodley.

In his report to Lord Carew in 1611, Sir Josias says1:

"Upon my last receipt of that small sum which was remaining of the moneys demanded, and granted for the forts in Munster and Galway, I presently resumed the care of that business, surveyed diligently those several places, gave directions for perfecting the works, and supplied them with sufficient means for the same as far as my allowance would extend, that by this time the most part of them, and by all-hallowtide, they will be thoroughly finished. That you may be the better satisfied concerning the present state and strength of each plan, I have thought good to signify how I found them, and how they are left.

"At the King's Castle at Limerick, the foundation of the round towers was so undermined with the continual beating of the river against them, that in divers places a cart might have passed under them, the half towers at the gate, and the rest of the wall being in like manner ruined, all which I caused substantially to be repaired, as also the munition house and other parts of the castle. And as that whole fabric consisting in manner of a square had only three towers, at three corners thereof, and the corner lying towards the town altogether unfortified, having neither ditch nor other outwork to hinder the approach of an enemy to the very foot of the wall I thought fit to cast out a bulwark at that unfortified corner of hewed stone, equal in height to the former wall, and capable of five or six pieces of ordnance, also to draw a ditch about the whole work, and cut off all access to the same, except by a drawbridge, which I also caused to be framed, and I laid new planks upon the round towers, providing the like for the new bulwark, setting up divers roofs where they were needful, and flooring certain rooms in the towers. There is yet wanting a convenient house for the constable, and some lodgings for the warders, which it may please you to consider." This description agrees perfectly with plan of the castle, as shown at page 171.

"Calendar of State Papers," Ireland, Carew, 1603-1624, pp. 214, 216.