Ipswich and had six members of his own family as colleagues. His most important speech of this session was one "against depopulation of towns and houses of husbandry, and for the maintenance of husbandry and tillage," a subject which he expanded afterwards in the essay, Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates.
During the summer of 1599, Essex made his disastrous campaign in Ireland. He had prevailed upon the Queen to send him to the island as Lord Lieutenant to put down the rebellion of the Earl of Tyrone. Far from conquering Tyrone, between March and September he managed to lose some £300,000 and ten or twelve thousand men. Essex's enemies about the Queen, Sir Robert Cecil, Sir Walter Ralegh, and the Earl of Nottingham, had rather favored his absence from Court, and they took pains to keep Elizabeth informed of the failure of the most expensive enterprise she had ever undertaken. It was even said that Essex did not mean to do anything in Ireland, but was using his authority there to intrigue with Tyrone and with James VI of Scotland for his own aggrandizement. Elizabeth let Essex know of her dissatisfaction with the campaign, required an explanation, and forbade him to return without orders. In spite of this express command, Essex conceived the extraordinary idea of abandoning his post and hastening to England to throw himself at the feet of the Queen Elizabeth was at her palace of Nonesuch, and there, on the 28th of September, as we read in one of the Sidney Letters,—
