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your princely estate in marrying a lady of so mean a house and parentile; which though it be perchance agreeable to your lusts, yet not so much to the security of your realm and subjects.' Whereunto his Majesty immediately condescended, and said that he had spoken most true and discreetly.

"Not long after, the said Earl having licence to depart into his country and remaining in Ireland, it chanced that the said King and the Queen his wife, upon some occasion fell at words, insomuch that his Grace braste out and said: Well I perceive now that true it is that my cousin, the Earl of Desmond, told me at such a time when we two communed secretly together;" which saying his Majesty, then in his melancholy, declared unto her; whereupon her Grace being not a little moved, and conceiving upon those words a grudge in her heart against the said Earl, found such mean as letters were devised under the King's privy seal, and directed to the Lord Justice or governor of the realm of Ireland, commanding him in all haste to send for the said Earl, dissembling some earnest matter of consultation with him touching the state of the same realm, and at his coming to object such matter, and to lay such things to his charge, as should cause him to lose his head.

"According to which commandment the said Lord Justice addressed forth his messenger to the said Earl of Desmond, and by his letters signifying the King's pleasure willed him with all diligence to make his repair unto him and others of the King's Council; who, immediately setting all other business apart, came to them to the town of Droughedda, accompanied like a nobleman with eighteen score horsemen, well appointed after a civil English sort, being distant from his own country above 200 miles. Where without long delay or sufficient matter brought against him, after the order of his Majesty's laws, the said Lord Justice (the rest of the Council being nothing privy to the conclusion) caused him to be beheaded, signifying to the common people for a cloak, that most heinous treasons were justified against him in England, and so justly condemned to die. Upon which murder and fact committed, the King's Majesty being advertised thereof, and declaring himself to be utterly ignorant of the said Earl's death, sent with all possible speed into Ireland for the said Lord Justice; whom, after he had well examined and known the considerations and circumstances of his beheading, he caused to be put to a very cruel and shameful death, according to his desert, and for satisfaction and pacifying the said Earl's posterity, who by this execrable deed

were wonderfully mated, and in manner brought to rebel against the sovereign lord and King. His Majesty, by his letters patent, gave liberty to the Earls of Desmond successively, to remain at home, and not at any time upon commandment to frequent the Deputy and Council, but at such times as they at their own pleasure, for declaration of their duties, should think it so meet. Sithens which licence, so granted, none of them came either to Lord Justice, Deputy, or Council.

"And when the late Earl of Ormond's father, Peers Butler, and he himself also had weighed and considered what licence was granted to the said Earls of Desmond, being in emnity with them, and taking occasion to find great fault, that such liberty should be given to any subject, which mought (as he suggested) cause in them no small disobedience, chiefly when they should most declare the same, he persuaded as well with Sir William Skevyngton, as with the Lord Leonard Grey, in the time of their several rules, and found such mean, that the said manor of Dungarvan was by authority of Parliament, evict out of the said Earl's possession; because he being of purpose so moved to the same parliament came not, only by force of the said licence to him granted. Which manor was after conferred to the said late Earl of Ormond, who, to the intent he would enjoy it himself, drave the mean to avoid the said Earl of of Desmond's interest and possession in the same. And since his time being removed, by what mean I know not, the charge and keeping of that castle was committed to Mr. Robert Seyntleger, and afterwards to one Matthew Wykynge, and now lastly to James Walshe, a servant of the late Duke of Somerset, who hath presently the charge thereof, not without burdening the King as well with men in extraordinary wages as with sundry other like charges standing to small effect, either for the service of his Majesty or defence of the country thereabouts; the same being chiefly, at this day, by the said Earl's policy and power, kept in the stay it is, by having his men and constables planted everywhere upon those borders. And now when after the death of the said late Earl of Desmond, uncle to this Earl, the Lord Leonard Grey, then being the King's Deputy, came into the west parts of Ireland, and of his own courage, being a stout valiant captain, having but small number of soldiers with him, attempted to go through Mounster; where if the Earl, that now is, had not aided him with his power and strength, although he durst not trust the Deputy himself, ne yet come into him, fearing the late practice of his said grandfather,

he had there lost the King's honor and had repulse; as I doubt not divers of the army now here, which then were there can well declare; but the said Earl, which never digressed from his duty to his sovereign lord, nor yet at any time rebelled against his highness, sent with him such power and conduty, as he passed all straits and dangers without obstacle or resistance, notwithstanding that the O'Braynes being sithens [created]* into Earls of Thomond, were then in open hostility against him. And although the said Earl ne none of his ancestors, sithens the beheading of his said grandfather, at the town of Drougheda, came in at any time to the King's Deputy, yet this Earl, in the time of Sir Anthony Seyntlegier, late Deputy, forsaking his said liberty and abandoning all fear, came in unto him to Casell; who then promised him faithfully, on the King's Majesty's behalf, that he should not only have and enjoy the Earldom, but all other claims, titles, pre-eminences, and dignities in as large and ample manner as any of his ancestors heretofore had, or of right ought to have, the same; as upon his submission made and registered in the Council Book may appear more at large.

"Upon which trust and promise, forasmuch as the said Earl had then lost the letters patent of the gift of Dungarvan, of the which he entreated with the said Deputy, he made humble suit by petition to your Honors to have the same grant to him of new confirmed; nevertheless, sithens upon search made he hath found again the said letters patent, the exemplification whereof your Honors have seen, and doth most humbly beseech that according to the tenor and effect of his said grant, and in respect of his true and faithful service done, and hereafter to be done, to the King's Majesty, it may please his Highness to vouchsafe that he may have and enjoy the benefit of the said letters patent; which standing with his Majesty's pleasure, and your Honors', he trusteth shall be well employed; considering that both the same manor and all other the manors and castles, which the said Earl bath, and his own person besides, are and shall always, God willing, be at his Grace's disposition, to give or take the same, according to his princely pleasure."

* Blank in original.

A LIST OF THE CAREW MSS.,

Showing the Ancient Letter-marks both of the Volumes which are still to be found in the LAMBETH and BODLEIAN LIBRARIES, and of those which are now wanting.

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MS. Laud. 611, in the Bodleian Library.

DDD (altered to QQQ) Carew MS. 604.

MS. Bodl. Laud., 612.

Missing, but printed as Davis's Reports.
Carew MS. 605.

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Carew MS. 634.

Described as above. Missing.
Carew MS. 635.

Described as above.

(Printed as "Davis's Discourse.")

Not described in the old catalogue, but a memorandum respecting it has been made by Archbishop Sancroft.

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