A plan for appointing presidents of provinces had been a favourite with the late deputy, Sussex, and was now revived.  Sir Edward Fitton, one of the judges of the Queen’s Bench, was appointed to the province of Connaught—­a miserably poor appointment as it turned out; Sir John Perrot a little later to Munster; Leinster for the present the deputy reserved for himself.  This done he returned, first pausing to arrest the Earl of Desmond and carrying him and his brother captive to Dublin and eventually to London, where according to the queen’s orders he was to be brought in order that she might adjudicate herself in the quarrel between him and Ormond.

The two earls—­they were stepson and stepfather by the way—­had for years been at fierce feud, a feud which had desolated the greater part of the South of Ireland.  It was a question of titles and ownership, and therefore exclusively one for the lawyers.  The queen, however, was resolved that it should be decided in Ormond’s favour.  Ormond was “sib to the Boleyns;” Ormond had been the playmate of “that sainted young Solomon, King Edward,” and Ormond therefore, it was quite clear, must know whether the lands were his own or not.

Against the present Desmond nothing worse was charged than that he had enforced what he considered his palatinate rights in the old, high-handed, time-immemorial fashion.  His father, however, had been in league with Spain, and he himself was held to be contumacious, and had never been on good terms with any of the deputies.

On this occasion he had, however, surrendered himself voluntarily to Sidney.  Nevertheless, upon his arrival he was kept a close prisoner, and upon attempting, sometime afterwards, to escape, was seized, and only received his life on condition of surrendering the whole of his ancestral estates to the Crown, a surrender which happened to fit in very conveniently with a plan upon which the attention of the English Council was at that time turned.

The expenses of Ireland were desperately heavy, and Elizabeth’s frugal soul was bent upon some plan for their reduction.  A scheme for reducing the cost of police duty by means of a system of military colonies had long been a favourite one, and an opportunity now occurred for turning it into practice.  A number of men of family, chiefly from Devonshire and Somersetshire, undertook to migrate in a body to Ireland, taking with them their own farm servants, their farm implements, and everything necessary for the work of colonization.  The leader of these men was Sir Peter Carew, who held a shadowy claim over a vast tract of territory, dating from the reign of Henry II., a claim which, however, had been effectually disposed of by the lawyers.  The scheme as it was first proposed was a truly gigantic one.  A line was to be drawn from Limerick to Cork, and everything south of that line was to be given over to the adventurers.  As for the natives, they said, they would undertake to settle with them.  All they required was the queen’s permission.  Everything else they could do for themselves.