Elites Close Ranks Around Ivy League Intermarriage. By Walter Russell Mead.

Elites Close Ranks Around Ivy League Intermarriage. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, April 7, 2013.

The Secrets of Princeton. By Ross Douthat. New York Times, April 6, 2013.

Where the Brains Are. By Richard Florida. The Atlantic, October 2006. Also find it here.

America’s higher education problem. By Fareed Zakaria. Time, April 15, 2013. Video at Fareed Zakaria GPS. CNN, April 6, 2013.

The Myth of American Meritocracy. By Ron Unz. The American Conservative, December 2012. PDF. Also find it here. Ron Unz blog posts.


Advice for the Young Women of Princeton: Find a Husband. By Susan A. Patton. NJBR, April 1, 2013. With related articles.

Anne Smedinghoff, 25-Year-Old Amercian Diplomat Killed In Afghanistan, Mourned As “Selfless, Idealistic.” By Bradley Klapper

This undated photo provided by Tom Smedinghoff, shows Anne Smedinghoff. Anne Smedinghoff, 25, was killed Saturday, April 6, 2013 in southern Afghanistan , the first American diplomat to die on the job since last year's attack on the U.S. diplomatic installation in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Tom Smedinghoff).

Anne Smedinghoff, Amercian Diplomat Killed In Afghanistan, Mourned As “Selfless, Idealistic.” By Bradley Klapper. The Huffington Post, April 7, 2013.

Dad says diplomat had passion for foreign affairs. By Sophia Tareen. The Associated Press, April 7, 2013. Also find it here.

The death of a young American patriot. Video. The O’Reilly Factor. Fox News, April 8, 2013.

Thomas Churchyard Describes Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s Policy of Terrorism in Ireland, 1569

John Derricke, Image of Irelande, Plate 6. Sir Henry Sidney, Lord-Deputy, accompanied by an armed force, sets out from Dublin Castle for a progress through Ireland. Edinburgh University Library.

Extract From Thomas Churchyard, A Generall Rehearsall of Warres (1579), page images 72-75. Full Text, pp. 56-59.

The English crown had claimed Ireland since 1171. Starting in 1565 the government of Queen Elizabeth began to assert English rule and establish English colonies in Gaelic Ireland. The English imposed their agriculture, language, local government, legal system, aristocracy, and religion on the Irish who were a clan-based pastoral people. Elizabethan writers portrayed the Irish as uncivilized barbarians, much like the native American Indians, who needed the English to civilize them. To combat fierce resistance from the native Irish, Sir Humphrey Gilbert and other English conquistadores resorted to a policy of terrorism against Irish civilians. Gilbert, as Thomas Churchyard explained, would kill the wives and children of rebels to starve male fighters and force them to surrender. Those who did surrender were forced to march to Gilbert’s tent down a path staked with the severed heads of their family members and friends. The spelling in this document has been modernized.

_____________________

An Abstract of the Authority, and Entertainment, that was Given and Committed by the Honorable Sir Henry Sidney, knight, Lord Deputy of Ireland: to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, knight, During the Time of his Continuance and Service in Munster, in Ireland.

Written to show how that severe and straight handling of rebellious people, reforms them sooner to obedience, then any courteous dealing: because the stiff necked must be made to stoop, with extremity of Justice, and stout behavior.

The said Lord Deputy by his Commission dated the 13th day of September, Anno do[mini] 1569, made him Colonel of the men of war in Munster, and Governor of the same Province, leaving then in his company, and under his government, Captain Warde, and Captain Shute, either of them having under their leadings two hundred Soldiers footmen: and he himself having to his private band a hundred horsemen clothed in Motley, part whereof served with Harquebuses, and part with horsemen’s staves, Master James Crewes was at this service.

Sir Humphrey had authority of Martial law, generally committed unto him, as well for the execution of any within the limits of his Commission, as for the annoyance of any offender by fire and sword, or any other kind of death, according to the quality of his or their offences: as otherwise at his discretion. And to seize upon the Country for the victualing of his companies. With diverse other articles set down in his Commission, more largely then to fore had been committed to any other in that Province.

. . . .

The order and course of his government.

First, wheresoever he came to do her Majesty service, before he attempted anything, he proffered her highnesses’ mercy to the Rebels, were they within Holds, or in Camp: sending to them messengers, with offer of pardon both for body, goods, and lands, if they would presently yield, which if they once refused, although it were with never so mild an answer, or that they did but so much as throw a stone at the messenger, were he but a horseboy, he would never after by any means receive them to grace, but would subdue them by the sword or he departed, how dearly so ever he bought it: which done, he caused every creature of them, of all sorts and ages, to pass by the sword without remission. Accounting the Prince’s mercy so sacred a thing, as that it ought to be taken when it is offered, and not to be had when it is asked.

Which course of government grew so well to be known to all men in the Country, that at the length no Ward, Castle, Fort, or Fastnesses, would shut their gates against him, if he sent to summon them by a horseboy· For they knew his determination to be such, as that if they once refused mercy being offered, and yielded not presently they must resolve themselves to die, man, woman, and child: if they could not forever withstand him, by means whereof these commodities ensued.

First, this: his resolute and irremovable determination towards them, bred such an universal fear and terror as that thereby very many yielded without blows, bloodshed, or loss, either of their parties or his.

Also it gave him such expedition in his services, as that thereby he recovered more Forts in some one day, then by strong hand would have been won in a year, respecting the smallness of his company. And the gaining of time, was one of his chiefest cares, both because he had no provision of victuals for his people, but pulled it as it were out of the enemy’s mouth perforce. And also for that he (his company being so few in number) not knowing how to have supplies: could not bear with the loss of men, to the winning of every petty Forte.

He performed all his actions, after such an open known course, and manner, as that he would not grant grace to an offender at any manner of request, contrary to his resolved course, so as every man knew whereto to trust.

He further took this order infringeble, that when soever he made any ousting, or inroad, into the enemy’s Country, he killed man, woman, and child, and spoiled, wasted, and burned, by the ground all that he might: leaving nothing of the enemy’s in safety, which he could possibly waste, or consume. And these were his reasons that persuaded him thereto, as I have often heard him say.

First the men of war could not be maintained, without their Churls, and Calliackes, or women, who milked their Creat[ur]es, and provided their victuals, and other necessaries. So that the killing of them by the sword, was the way to kill the men of war by famine, who by flight oftentimes saved themselves from the dint of the sword.

Also he held it dishonorable for the Prince, to practise with Rebels to accept her Majesty’s mercy: And therefore, he did always seem to care least for the submission of them, whom he chiefly desired to have become true. And yet by this course of government it happened, that their wives and children, whom they dearly loved, were Ambassadors to bring that to pass, which he disdained to seem to desire, or to be willing to accept.

He never would parley with any Rebel, nor thereto permit under his charge, saying always that he thought his Dog’s ears too good, to hear the speech of the greatest nobleman amongst them, so long as he was a Rebel.

. . . .

His manner was that the heads of all those (of what sort soever they were) which were killed in the day, should be cut off from their bodies, and brought to the place where he encamped at night: and should there be laid on the ground, by each side of the way leading into his own Tent: so that none could come into his Tent for any cause, but commonly he must pass through a lane of heads, which he used ad terrorem, the dead feeling nothing the more pains thereby: and yet did it bring great terror to the people, when they saw the heads of their dead fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolk, and friends, lie on the ground before their faces, as they came to speak with the said Colonel. Which course of government may by some be thought to cruel, in excuse whereof it is to be answered: That he did but then begin that order with them, which they had in effect ever to fore used toward the English. And further he was out of doubt, that the dead felt no pains by cutting of their heads, according to the example of Diogenes, who being asked by his friends, what should be done with him when he died, answered in this sort: Caste me on a dunghill quoth he, where unto his friends replied, saying: The Dogs will then eat you, his answer thereto was thus why then set a staff by me: Whereunto they answered, you shall not feel them, to whom he again replied with these words, what need I then to care.

But certainly by this course of government (although to some it may seem otherwise) there was much blood saved, and great peace ensued in haste. For through the terror, which the people conceived thereby, it made short wars. For he reformed the whole Country of Munster, and brought it into an universal peace, and subjection, within six weeks: leaving at his coming from thence James Mack Morris as a wood Kern, accompanied only at the most not with above seventeen men: who at his first coming thither commanded many a thousand. Which reformation, and establishment of the Countries peace there performed, presently came from thence, and so left his charge there with sufficient pledge, bond, and paune, for the good behavior of every Lord, and Captain for them selves, and their followers, refusing no dutiful service ever since.


A Generall Rehearsall of Warres. By Thomas Churchyard. London: Edward White, 1579. Full Text.

A New Description of Ireland. By Barnabe Rich. London: Thomas Adams, 1610. Full Text.

The Image of Irelande, with a Discoverie of Woodkarne. By John Derricke. London: Jhon Daie, 1581; reprint Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black, 1883. Edinburgh University Library. Also at Internet Archive, Wikisource, and Wikipedia.

“That moste barbarous Nacion”: John Derricke’s Image of Ireland and the “delight of the well disposed reader.” By James A. Knapp. Criticism, Vol. 42, No. 4 (Fall 2000).

John Derricke’s Image of Irelande, Sir Henry Sidney, and the Massacre at Mullaghmast, 1578. By Vincent P. Carey. Irish Historical Studies, Vol. 31, No. 123 (May 1999).

Atrocities: “Some days two heads and some days four.” By David Edwards. History Ireland, Vol. 17, No. 1 (January/February 2009).

 “An headlesse Ladie” and “a horses loade of heads”: Writing the Beheading. By Patricia Palmer. Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Spring 2007).

Gender, Violence, and Rebellion in Tudor and Early Stuart Ireland. By William Palmer. Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Winter 1992).

The Ideology of English Colonization: From Ireland to America. By Nicholas P. Canny. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 30, No. 4 (October 1973).

Representations of Women in Some Early Modern English Tracts on the Colonization of Ireland. By Clare Carroll. Albion, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Autumn 1993).