Volume II Part 28 (2/2)

[284] _Statutes of Kilkenny._ Printed by the Irish Antiquarian Society.

Finglas's _Breviate_.

[285] The phenomenon must have been observed, and the inevitable consequence of it foreseen, very close upon the Conquest, when the observation digested itself into a prophecy. No story less than three hundred years old could easily have been reported to Baron Finglas as having originated with St. Patrick and St. Columb. The Baron says--”The four Saints, St. Patrick, St. Columb, St. Braghan, and St. Moling, many hundred years agone, made prophecy that Englishmen should conquer Ireland; and said that the said Englishmen should keep the land in prosperity as long as they should keep their own laws; and as soon as they should leave and fall to Irish order, then they should decay.”--Harris, p. 88.

[286] Report on the State of Ireland, 1515: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp.

17, 18.

[287] Some sayeth that the English n.o.ble folk useth to deliver their children to the king's Irish enemies to foster, and therewith maketh bands.--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 13.

[288] ”Harpers, rhymers, Irish chroniclers, bards, and ishallyn (ballad singers) commonly go with praises to gentlemen in the English pale, praising in rhymes, otherwise called 'danes,' their extortions, robberies, and abuses as valiantness; which rejoiceth them in their evil doings, and procures a talent of Irish disposition and conversation in them.”--Cowley to Cromwell: Ibid. Vol. II. p. 450. There is a remarkable pa.s.sage to the same effect in Spenser's _View of the State of Ireland_.

[289] State of Ireland, and plan for its reformation: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 28.

[290] Report on the State of Ireland: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 22.

[291] Baron Finglas, in his suggestions for a reformation, urges that ”no black rent be given ne paid to any Irishman upon any of the four s.h.i.+res from henceforward.”--Harris, p. 101. ”Many an Irish captain keepeth and preserveth the king's subjects in peace without hurt of their enemies; inasmuch as some of those hath tribute yearly of English men ... not to the intent that they should escape harmless; but to the intent to devour them, as the greedy hound delivereth the sheep from the wolf.”--_State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 16, 17.

[292] _Eudoxus_--What is that which you call the Brehon Law? It is a word unto us altogether unknown.

_Irenaeus_--It is a rule of right, unwritten, but delivered by tradition from one to another, in which oftentimes there appeareth great show of equity in determining the right between parties, but in many things repugning quite both to G.o.d's law and man's. As, for example, in the case of murder, the Brehon, that is, their judge, will compound between the murderer and the friends of the party murdered, which prosecute the action, that the malefactor shall give unto them or unto the child or wife of him that is slain, a recompence which they call an Eriarch. By which vile law of theirs many murders are made up and smothered. And this judge being, as he is called, the Lord's Brehon, adjudgeth, for the most part, a better share unto his Lord, that is the Lord of the soil, or the head of that sept, and also unto himself for his judgment, a greater portion than unto the plaintiffs or parties grieved.--Spenser's _View of the State of Ireland_. Spenser describes the system as he experienced it in active operation. Ancient written collections of the Brehon laws, however, existed and still exist.

[293] By relation of ancient men in times past within remembrance, all the English lords and gentills within the pale heretofore kept retinues of English yeomen in their houses, after the English fas.h.i.+on, according to the extent of their lands, to the great strength and succour of their neighbours the king's subjects. And now for the most part they keep hors.e.m.e.n and knaves, which live upon the king's subjects; and keep in manner no hospitality, but live upon the poor.--The Council of Ireland to the Master of the Rolls, 1533: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 163.

[294] _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp. 1, 5, 6.

[295] _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 14.

[296] The deputy useth to make great rodes, journeys, and hostings, now in the north parts of Ulster, now in the south parts of Munster, now in the west parts of Connaught, and taketh the king's subjects with him by compulsion oft times, with victual for three or four weeks, and chargeth the common people with carriage of the same, and giveth licence to all the n.o.ble folk to cesse and rear their costs on the common people and on the king's poor subjects; and the end of that journey is commonly no other in effect, but that the deputy useth to receive a reward of one or two hundred kyne to himself, and so depart, without any more hurt to the king's enemies, after that he hath turned the king's subjects and the poor common folk to their charge and costs of two or three thousand pounds. And over that, the deputy, on his progress and regress, oppresseth the king's poor common folk with horse meat and man's meat to all his host. And over that, in summer, when gra.s.s is most plenty, they must have oats or malt to their horse at will, or else money therefor.

The premises considered, some saith the king's deputy, by extortion, chargeth the king's poor subjects and common folk, in horse meat and man's meat, by estimation, to the value of a hundred pound every day in the year, one day counted with another, which cometh to the sum of 36,000 pounds yearly.--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 13. Finglas says that coyne and livery would destroy h.e.l.l itself, if it was used there.--Finglas's _Breviate_.

[297] The wretchedness of the country drove the Irish to emigrate in mult.i.tudes. In 1524, twenty thousand of them had settled themselves in Pembrokes.h.i.+re; and the majority of these had crossed in a single twelvemonth. They brought with them Irish manners, and caused no little trouble. ”The king's town of Tenby,” wrote a Welsh gentleman to Wolsey, ”is almost clean Irish, as well the head men and rulers as the commons of the said town; and of their high and presumptuous minds [they] do disobey all manner the king's process that cometh to them out of the king's exchequer of Pembroke.”--R. Gryffith to Cardinal Wolsey: Ellis, first series, Vol. I. p. 191, &c.

[298] Leland, Vol. II. p. 110.

[299] Campion's _History of Ireland_. Leland, Vol. II. p. 111.

[300] Campion. Leland.

[301] The earl married Elizabeth, daughter of Oliver St. John, while in London.

[302] Report to Cromwell, apparently by Allen, Master of the Rolls: _State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 175.

[303] Henry VIII. to the Earl of Surrey: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp.

52, 53.

[304] This is one of them, and another of similar import was found to have been sent to O'Neile. ”Life and health to O'Carroll, from the Earl of Kildare. There is none Irishman in Ireland that I am better content with than with you; and whenever I come into Ireland, I shall do you good for anything that ye shall do for me; and any displeasure that I have done to you, I shall make you amends therefore, desiring you to keep good peace to Englishmen till an English deputy shall come there; and when an English deputy shall come thither, do your best to make war upon Englishmen then, except such as be toward me, whom you know well yourself.”--_State Papers_, Vol. II. p. 45.

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