England had already tried to solve the Irish problem by colonization. Leinster had long been a center of English settlement, and in 1573 the first English colony was sent to Ulster. But as it consisted chiefly of bankrupts, fugitives from justice and others "of so corrupt a disposition as England rather refuseth," it did not help matters much but rather "irrecuperably damnified the state." The Irish Parliament continued to represent only the English of the Pale and of a few towns outside of it. Though the inhabitants of the {349} Pale remained nominally Catholic, the Parliament was so servile that in 1541 it destroyed the monasteries and repudiated the pope, [Sidenote: Religion] shortly after which the king took the title of Head of the Irish Church. Not one penny of the confiscated wealth went to endow an Irish university until 1591, when Trinity College was founded in the interests of Protestantism. Though almost every other country of Europe had its own printing presses before 1500, Ireland had none until 1551, and then the press was used so exclusively for propaganda that it made the very name of reading hateful to the natives. There were, however, no religious massacres and no martyrs of either cause. The persecuting laws were left until the following century.
[Sidenote: Commercial exploitation]
The rise of the traders to political power was more ominous than the inception of a new religion. The country was drained of treasure by the exaction of enormous ransoms for captured chiefs. The Irish cloth-trade and sea-borne commerce were suppressed. The country was flooded with inferior coin, thus putting its merchants at a vast disadvantage. Finally, there was little left that the Irish were able to import save liquors, and those "much corrupted."
With every plea in mitigation of judgment that can be offered, it must be recognized that England's government of Ireland proved a failure. If she did not make the Irish savage she did her best to keep them so, and then punished them for it. By exploiting Erin's resources she impoverished herself. By trying to impose Protestantism she made Ireland the very stronghold of papacy. By striving to destroy the septs she created the nation.
{350}
CHAPTER VII
SCOTLAND
One of the most important effects of modern means of easy communication between all parts of the world has been to obliterate or minimize distinctions in national character and in degrees of civilization. The manner of life of England and Australia differ less now than the manner of life of England and Scotland differed in the sixteenth century. The great stream of culture then flowed much more strongly in the central than in the outlying parts of Western Europe. The Latin nations, Italy and France, lay nearest the heart of civilization. But slightly less advanced in culture and in the amenities of life, and superior in some respects, were the Netherlands, Switzerland, England and the southern and central parts of Germany. In partial shadow round about lay a belt of lands: Spain, Portugal, Northern Germany, Prussia, Poland, Hungary, Scandinavia, Scotland, and Ireland.
[Sidenote: Scotland]
Scotland, indeed, had her own universities, but her best scholars were often found at Paris, or in German or Italian academies. Scotch humanists on the continent, the Scotch guard of the French king, and Scotch monasteries, such as those at Erfurt and Würzburg, raised the reputation of the country abroad rather than advanced its native culture. Printing was not introduced until 1507. Brantôme in the sixteenth century, like Aeneas Silvius in the fifteenth, remarked the uncouthness of the northern kingdom.