O'Rourke, after a
protracted, but ineffectual resistance, was made prisoner and sent to
London, where he was executed, in the early part of the reign of Queen
Elizabeth; "going to death," says Camden, "with as little concern as if he
had been merely a spectator." The county was then declared a forfeiture to
the crown, and the estates of its old proprietors (including those of the
Magranals among the rest) parcelled out among a colony of English settlers,
then for the first time seated in the county. This is the first document
known, in which Leitrim is spoken of as a county; and it is generally said
not to have been made such till the time of James I.; it was more anciently
known as the territory of _Briefne O'Rourke_.
Although Henry II. is said to have conquered Ireland, the dominion of the
English monarchs there was little better than nominal prior to the reign of
James I. Great pains had been taken by different sovereigns to reduce the
Irish to a perfect submission to the English crown; and English colonies
had, from time to time, been planted, with that view, in different parts of
the country; these colonies, however, in a generation or two, had uniformly
"degenerated," as the phrase was; that is, had become Irish, both in
manners and feelings, using the Irish tongue, and even coining for
themselves Irish surnames, as if desirous of forgetting their English
origin.
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