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bled, and they did it in curious ways which show the wide dissemination of the practice. Thus, in the accounts of shop-keepers of the time, we find frequent records of articles sold to be paid for at an enormous advance, when the purchaser returned from a distant voyage, was married, had a child, or the like.* This, of course, was only a cover for a bet. With other tradesmen the transactions were more open, the customer paying down directly a sum of money, which he was to receive back several fold on the happening of some contingency.† This was but one form of a vice which became almost universal. As in the present day, dice and cards were the instruments most commonly used by the habitual gamesters, and there were in London more gambling houses "to honor the devil than churches to serve the living God." +

The most extensive form of gambling was that carried on in connection with the operations of the pirates and privateers. The ships of these worthies were usually fitted out by gentlemen "adventurers," as they were called, who sometimes lost their all, but at other times

* Hall's "Society in the Elizabethan Age,” p. 52, etc.

† Ben Jonson, in "Every Man out of his Humour," refers to this mode of speculation, which originated among the nobility, but soon extended to the lower ranks. Says Puntarvolo, "I do intend this year of jubilee coming on to travel; and because I will not altogether go upon expense, I am determined to put forth some five thousand pounds, to be paid me five for one upon the return of myself, my wife, and my dog from the Turk's court in Constantinople. If all or either of us miscarry in the journey, 'tis gone; if we be successful, why, there will be five and twenty thousand pounds to entertain time withal."-Act ii. sc. 3.

George Whetstone, 1586, quoted in Nathan Drake's "Shakespeare and his Times," p. 421.

received enormous returns on their investments.* Men for these purposes borrowed money, and a class of usurers sprang up, who formed one of the great curses of the age. Taking interest beyond ten per cent. was forbidden by statute, but means were found to evade the law. Twenty-five per cent. was a common rate,† and frequently even this was much exceeded. The Dean of York, one of the high dignitaries of the Church, was a noted usurer. We find him and his associates, in 1585, taking fifty, sixty, and sometimes a hundred per cent. interest on loans. In connection with the subject of gambling and usury, and as a further symptom of the state of society in its changing conditions, it may be added that, in 1569, lotteries, long known upon the Continent, were first introduced into England, the drawings taking place at the west door of St. Paul's.

When now we add to this picture the love of strong drink, in which no one, except perhaps the Netherlanders, could rival the Englishman, we can form a pretty correct idea of the dark side of society in England during the Elizabethan age. Of its brighter side we shall see something when in subsequent chapters we come to con

*In one expedition, planned by Raleigh, in 1592, the adventurers received ten for one, a thousand per cent. Strype's "Annals," iv. 129. + Hall, pp. 47, 56.

Strype, iii. 325. Until 1571, all interest was forbidden both by Church and State; then Elizabeth, through Parliament, fixed the legal rate at ten per cent. She also introduced judicious regulations concerning weights and measures, and gave the country an honest metallic currency, which had been unknown under her predecessors, who debased it by mixing other metals with the gold and silver.

§ Drake, p. 408. See also Hall, p. 76, etc., as to the change from the light drinks of earlier times to loaded wine and heady ale.

sider the marvellous literature of this period, its energy displayed in every quarter, and the reforms, civil and religious, advocated by the Puritans.

Let us now, after looking at the Englishman at home, see something of his character as it was exhibited in Ireland three centuries ago; and here, for our purpose, the recital of a few historical incidents will be sufficient. They will supplement what we have already seen of his moral condition, and throw some light on the opinion formed of him by foreigners.

English historians throw up their hands in natural horror at the atrocious plots of the fanatical Catholics for the assassination of Queen Elizabeth. Crimes of violence, they say, are common enough among our people; but for secret murder, especially by poison, our nation has always had a peculiar detestation. All this is true enough in general, but, in the light of some notable events in Ireland, to say nothing of what went on in England itself, one may well ask whether such statements are not a little overdrawn when applied to the Elizabethan age. As for the comparison between the Catholics in England and the Protestant English in Ireland, we must remember that the former had a religious motive. When, in 1584, the attempts were begun against the queen, she had been excommunicated by the pope, she had already put a number of Catholics to death, and the men who plotted her destruction believed that they were doing the work of God in removing a wicked woman, who was an outlaw persecuting the saints and aiding the spread of pernicious doctrines. In Ireland were a people fighting for their homes against a foreign invader. No question of religion was involved, in the early days of which I am about to speak; but the English were simply striving to

hold by the strong arm what they had won by force. Upon this point Lord Burghley, the queen's chief minister, said, in 1582, "that the people of the Netherlands had not such cause to rebel against the oppression of the Spaniards as the Irish against the tyranny of England."*

Under these conditions, in 1561, nineteen years before the Jesuits began even their religious teachings in England, and nine years before the excommunication of Elizabeth, Shan O'Neil led one of the periodical rebellions so common in the Emerald Isle. He was a brave soldier and a skilful general. In a fair fight he defeated an army led by the Earl of Sussex, the flower of English chivalry, one of Elizabeth's trusted councillors, and her deputy in Ireland. Shortly thereafter, Shan sent two of his followers to Sussex with a message concerning some military details. What followed is best told in the words of the noble English lord who thus reported to his queen :

"May it please your Highness:

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August 24th, 1561.

"After conference had with Shan O'Neil's seneschal, I entered talk with Neil Gray; and perceiving by him that he had little hope of Shan's conformity in anything, and that he therefore desired that he might be received to serve your Highness, for that he would no longer abide with him, and that if I would promise to receive him to your service he would do anything that I would command him, I swore him upon the Bible to keep secret that I should say unto him, and assured him if it were ever known during the time I had the government there that, besides the breach of his oath, it should cost him his life. I used long circumstance in persuading him to serve you, to benefit his country, and to procure assistance of living to him and his forever by doing of that which he might easily do. He promised to do what I would. In fine, I brake with him to kill Shan, and

*Froude, xi. 272.

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bound myself by my oath to see him have a hundred marks of land by the year to him and to his heirs for his reward. *** God send your Highness a good end.

"Your Highness's most humble and faithful servant,

"T. SUSSEX."

Froude, who first gave this letter to the public, mildly remarks that “English honor, like English coin, lost something of its purity in the sister island."* But this is not a transaction to be lightly dismissed. Here is the representative of the queen, himself one of the brightest ornaments of the English peerage, laboring with a trusted servant, and finally hiring him to assassinate his master, because that master is too strong an enemy in the open field, and then reporting the bargain to his royal mistress, like any other piece of business. The letter needs no comment, but deserves consideration.

No record remains, or at least has yet been found, of the answer made by Elizabeth to the report of her noble deputy. But Sussex retained his command, and, as was shown by subsequent events, could not have been discouraged by any communication received from home. Gray, either from fear or from some other reason, failed to murder his chief, who at length became so powerful that Elizabeth consented to make terms with him and to recognize his authority as virtual sovereign of Ulster. As a first evidence of cordiality, a present of a cask of wine was sent to Shan from Dublin-where Sussex had his headquarters - which, consumed at table, brought the Irish leader and half his household to the point of death. To such a mode of conducting a friendly intercourse Shan naturally objected. He made a great outcry, which probably would have been louder had he

*Froude, viii. 29.