Sidney's interview with Grace O'Malley is historic. The English warrior, unaccustomed to Amazonian women, out of curiosity granted an audience to Grace, who came to him in state. This is how the viceroy describes the incident:
'There came to me also a most famous feminine sea-captain, called Grace O'Malley, and offered her services to me wheresoe'er I would command her, with three galleys and two hundred fighting men. She brought with her her husband, for she was as well by sea as by land more than master's mate with him. He was of the nether Burkes, and called by nickname "Richard in Iron." This was a notorious woman in all the coasts of Ireland. This woman did Henry Sidney see and speak with. He can no more at large inform you of her.'
On May 26, 1578, Sidney retired from office, broken in health and fortune. Describing his condition, he says that he was 'fifty-four years of age, toothless and trembling, being five thousand pounds in debt.' Later he declared that he was twenty thousand pounds poorer than when he had succeeded to his father's estate—a commentary on his inability to take advantage in a pecuniary sense of his viceroyalty. His wail is dated 'from Ludlow Castle, with more pain than heart, March 1, 1582.'
English colony absorbed
But Sidney was the victim of his time. There was no English colony now; it had been absorbed by the native Irish families, and to make war against the natives was to make war against the Fitzgeralds, the Butlers, and other great families better known by their titles. Happily for England, Ireland was never united, and if Sidney gained no great conquests he was, by reason of the schisms amongst his enemies, enabled to maintain the sovereignty of Elizabeth in Ireland. It was a purely nominal sovereignty, but it sufficed for the time being.
CHAPTER V
The gradual disappearance of the distinctively English population did not pass unnoticed in England. During some hundreds of years there had been many attempts to induce English families to emigrate to Ireland, but without any great success. To the average English person Ireland was an uncivilized country inhabited by savages and murderers. Elizabeth's councillors, however, resolved to put into practice the theories of previous viceroys and their advisers. A new English colony was to be created, but instead of crowding all the emigrants into Dublin, the bolder policy of scattering them all over the country was adopted.