s Irish policy was to take advantage of local
factions, and to maintain English supremacy by setting them against
each other. "The result was hideous. The forty-five glorious years
of Elizabeth were to Ireland years of unremitting wretchedness."
Nobody could complain that Froude spared the English Government. If
he had been writing history, or rather when he was writing it, the
mutual treachery of the Irish could not be passed over. "Alas and
shame for Ireland," said Froude in New York. "Not then only, but
many times before and after, the same plan [offer of pardon to
murderous traitors] was tried, and was never known to fail. Brother
brought in the dripping head of brother, son of father, comrade of
comrade. I pardon none, said an English commander, until they have
imbued their hands in blood." The revival of such horrors on a
public platform could serve no useful purpose. They could not be
pleaded as an apology for England, and they inflamed, instead of
soothing, the animosities which Froude professed himself anxious to
allay. Yet he never lost sight of justice. On Elizabeth he had no
mercy. He made her responsible for the slaughter of men, women, and
children by her officers, for first neglecting her duties as ruler,
and then putting down rebellion by assassination. The plantation of
Ulster by 'James I., and the accompanying forfeiture of Catholic
estates, he defended on the ground that only the idle rich were
dispossessed. This is of course socialism pure and simple. James
I.'s own excuse was that Tyrone and Tyrconnell, who owned the
greater part of Ulster between them, had been implicated in the
Gunpowder Plot. If they were, the loss of their lands was a very
mild penalty indeed.

On the rebellion of 1641, which led to Cromwell's terrible
retribution, Froude touched lightly. Although the number of
Protestants who perished in the massacre has been exaggerated, the
attempts of Catholic historians to deny it, or explain it away, are
futile. Sir William Petty's figure of 38,000 is as well
authenticated as any. Froude of course justifies Cromwell for
putting, eight years afterwards, the garrisons of Drogheda and
Wexford to the sword. His characteristic intrepidity was never more
fully shown than in these appeals to American opinion against the
Irish race and creed. Unfortunately the practical result of them was
the reverse of what he intended. He preached the gospel of force.
Thus he expressed it in reply to Cromwell'