1577. Aug. 19. Vol. 628, p. 357. 1577. Sept. 12. Vol. 601, p. 76. Collins' Sydney Papers, 214-221. 69. 70. Munster and Connaught, where they are cessed.-- Munster and Contemp. copies. Pp. 65. O'NEILL to the LORD DEPUTY. My request for hostages was not preferred from any distrust of your Lordship, but because I had frequently presented my complaints to you, and you were too much occupied to attend to them. I now perceive it was not through negligence that justice was not ministered to me against those who have injured me. I therefore humbly beseech you to perform such things as you intend to do for me, according to a book of your decrees respecting the said complaints. Lest it should be said I have not come to you without hostages, I send [orders] to conduct them before you. I pray you to write your protection for Con O'Donnell, that he may come to you with the said hostages. The Newrie, 19 August 1577. Headed O'Nele's letter to the Lord Deputy of his submission. Latin. P. 1. Endorsed. The COUNCIL OF IRELAND to the QUEEN. Your Deputy has signified to us your pleasure that we should once every year at the least advertise the state of this country, and set down our opinions of the means to reform disorders, and to diminish your great charge. After the end of the Deputy's long journey into all the provinces, the first year after his arrival, the lords and chieftains of all the Irishry have submitted themselves, with offers to hold their lands of your Highness, and to yield rent and service. If you had sent presidents and justices to be resident in the remote parts that he visited and a Chancellor and justices to serve within the Pale, we lived in hope in a few years to have tasted of the fruit of that your gracious intent, to the good of this realm. But in June last, upon the landing of your Chancellor and President, "a rebellion (conspired by the Earl of Clanricard the May before, to draw force of Scots into Connaught,) was by the said Earl himself then actually put in execution, as we have most apparently perceived, by sundry examinations already taken, whatsoever be said or informed of the father's severe dealing against his sons." The Deputy so daunted it in the very beginning that the forces and helps which the rebels expected were cut off, the fortifying of the castles and holds suddenly stayed, and their trenching and walling prevented; yet they held me, Sir Nicholas Malbie, your Majesty's colonel there, so occupied that until almost Easter last I had small 1577. time to see justice delivered, or to deal with the country for contribution towards your great charge. The conspiracy stretched itself by sundry branches into Munster, "to hold your Deputy and Presidents in both the provinces so occupied in arms, as they should not greatly trouble courts with English justice, of those conspirators abhorred and hated; expecting (as may be gathered) some greater force from foreign parts, to have wrought this year the like that the last yielded; for this appeareth by the confession of Sir John of Desmond, that saith the Earl was committed, his sons and their force being not yet subdued, but remaining armed in the fields; mediation and intreaty was made for the conclusion of the marriage between Mary Burke, the Earl's daughter, and the said Sir John, although he have another wife living and she another husband. And further it appeared by examination that he received several letters from John Burke and Mary, and as it is by others affirmed (although colorably by him denied,) he secretly met and had conference with John Burghe, who showed him letters of advertisements of James Fitz Maurice his invasion, as it were in vaunt of the likelihood of some foreign invasion and help, the rather to stir him to take his part.' Conner McCormucke O'Conner and Rorie Oge O'More, contrary to their oaths, (hoping for aid out of Connaught) began to gather their friends and confederates to the number of 100 swords or thereabouts, and so to revolt; who, upon a sudden at Christmas Eve last, burnt divers haggards and poor men's cottages of the King's County, to the value of 2001. Afterwards with greater force they came to the town of the Naas by night, and burnt about 140 thatched houses; and since that time they have burnt a great part of Leighlin, and done some other harms and spoils upon the borders of the Pale. Notwithstanding your forces have cut off the greatest number of those who first were assembled, "yet such is their maintenance in the countries adjoining to Leix, and their watch and spial so good, with the help of their fastness, bogs, and woods, as still they be out; unto whose danger Captain Harrington and Alexander Cosbie, overmuch crediting some subtle promises and oaths, have of late (through their own follies) cast themselves." The North is in greater quiet than it has been of long time, for Tirloghe Lenoghe has come in to your Deputy without protection or hostage. If troubles should arise there by means of the Scots, Tirloghe is to be framed as an instrument and Scourge for them. "The benefit that hath risen by this last year's travail of your Highness' President in Munster and Colonel in Connaught, notwithstanding the actual rebellion in the one place, 1577. Sept. 12. Vol. 628, p. 358. 71. and the show of mislike in the other, is an argument to us what would have grown thereby to your Majesty, had not the rebellion in Connaught been, or, if the Earl of Desmond had in all points showed such willing disposition to obey, and live under the rule of justice, as he might have done." Resident authority is of great force. "The people within the Pale are over much blemished with the spots of the Irishry," and the sundry good laws from age to age devised to wipe out those stains have not been executed. We beseech you to send justices to put those and other needful laws fit to pass this next parliament in due execution. By the long journeys which your Chancellor (Gerrard) has taken, he has seen the exactions, extortions, and Irish impositions, which decay the poor and hinder justice; and by his search into the Parliament rolls and rolls of accompt, he has seen the government of this estate in times past. He is thus fit to confer with such as you shall appoint touching these new laws that are to pass this next Parliament. Therefore, upon consideration of such persons as we thought meetest to repair to your presence with advertisements, we have made special choice of him, and have taken order for the safe using and custody of the seal. The country seems now to be more grieved than before with the cesse. They of the country should fall to some certain composition, that a certain sum might yearly be yielded out of every ploughland. The Deputy has used no other manner and order in the setting down of the cesse for the two years past than was before used. The Lord Chancellor can certify you fully of the manner of the setting down of the cesse this last year. Signed: T. Armachan.; Adam Dublin.; W. Drury; H. Miden.; Ed. Fyton; H. Bagenall; Lucas Dillon; Nich. Malbie; Francis Agard; J. Garvey; John Chaloner; Henry Colley. Copy. Pp. 9. THE GARRISON. "The garrison presently in pay," 12 Sept 1577. Numbers of the men attending on the Lord Deputy, Treasurer, Knight Marshal, &c.* Garrison in Munster: Sir William Drury, Lord President; his own fee, 133l. 68. 8d., and 10l. a week for his diets; a petty captain, gwidon bearer, and trumpeter; 30 horse and 20 foot. The said Sir William, captain of horsemen, himself 68. a day; his petty captain, 28.; gwidon bearer, 18d.; a trumpeter and a surgeon, 12d. each; 100 horse. Nicholas Walshe, Chief Justice there, 1007. a year; John Meagh, * See p. 44. 1577. Second Justice, 100 marks; Thomas Burgate, clerk of the Council there, 201.; Henry Davells, constable of Dungarvan, himself 48. a day, 6 horsemen at 9d., 3 footmen harquebussers at 8d., and 3 archers at 6d. Total, 175. Garrison in Connaught: Sir Nicholas Malby, colonel and chief commissioner, himself 26s. 8d. a day; a petty captain, 28.; a gwidon bearer, trumpeter, and surgeon, at 12d. a day each; 60 horse and 20 foot. Thomas Vaghan, an assistant in Council to the said Sir Nicholas, 6s. 8d. a day. Thomas Dillon, Justice there, 100l. a year. Edward White, clerk of the Council there, 201. Captain George Acre's band of footmen; himself, 4s. a day; petty captain, 28.; ensign bearer, serjeant, drummer, fifer, and surgeon, 12d. each; 100 foot. Captain Fisher's band of footmen, the same. Total, 302. "Garrison appointed for the prosecution of the O'Mores and O'Connors, now rebels, in the King and Queen's Counties." Total, 337. Garrison at Knockfergus, 127; and in sundry wards and castles, 93. Kerne.-Francis Cosbye, General of her Majesty's kerne, 38. Sd. a day; 32 kerne at 3d. each. Mr. Agard, 40 kerne. Robert Harpoll, 24 kerne of the sept of the Keatings. Ordnance. The Clerk of the Ordnance, 12d. a day; his man, 8d.; 7 gunners at 12d. and 4 at 8d.; 5 artificers at 12d. and 3 at 8d. The porter of Dublin Castle, 12d. a day. Names of the "pensioners, at sundry entertainments." 13 impotent soldiers, at 6d. a day each. Total in pay, 1619. Pp. 7. Endorsed. Sept. 12. Vol. 628, p. 305a. Sept. 15. Vol. 628, p 362. 73. Number of men in pay in Ireland, 12th September, 1577. Total, 1619. An abstract from the preceding. P.. LORD CHANCELLOR GERRARD. "Instructions given by the Lord Deputy and Council to William Gerard, Esquire, Lord Chancellor of this realm," dated at Dublin, 15 September 1577. (1.) You shall repair to the court, and deliver our letters. (2.) You shall impart to her Majesty or the Lords the state of this country, and particularly the state of every province. (3.) You shall declare that for the reformation of this realm there is nothing so necessary as the planting of presidents and councils, or some like resident authority in the remoter parts; and show the frailties thereof, that her Majesty may perceive both the increase of obedience and augmentation of revenue in those remoter provinces. 1577. (4.) Put them in remembrance that the delivering of justice universally is the only means to reform this disjointed state and barbarous country, and how glad the common and poorer sort are to embrace it, and that none but the great ones under hand repine at it, and what sweetness her good subjects feel by the administration of her laws, whereby of late years they have been delivered from the oppressions of their lords. (5.) Declare how wilfully many of the noblemen of the Pale, as namely the Viscount of Baltinglas, the Barons of Delvin, Trimleston, and Howth, oppose the State; how loth they were to make any submission; and how, within few days after, being called as in former times to yield their consents to lay down a cesse, they refused to put their hands to the Council book, alleging that the cause was before her Majesty, and that they expected resolutions from her. They thought that except the same were either expressly signified from her Highness or else agreed upon by Parliament, they ought not to bear. You shall move therefore that they be specially sent for. (6.) Declare how many ways and devices we used to ease the people of their griefs and burthen of cesse, which in truth is heavy; and how many times we offered to join with the Lords in advice for redress of the matter, which they refused to do. (7.) Declare that there are no new grievances or impositions, for that the cesse is not so great as in other governors' times; wherein you are to remember such notes and memorials as be collected out of the Council Book.* (8.) Make known the estate of the revenue and that the same has not been neglected as her Majesty is informed. (9.) Remember to the Lords that the quarterage assigned for the service of this country, due 1st October next, may be delivered to the Treasurer or his agent, to be presently sent hither; and move that the treasure here already may remain as a dead mass, to answer the event of any foreign invasion. (10.) Declare what hindrance to her Majesty's service the bruits do that are brought over; first, that I, the Deputy, shall be revoked. They say further that her Majesty will have no cesse, and that I have taken the land to farm, which is no new thing, for Deputies have been placed by patent to govern the land sometimes for 10 years, sometimes 6 years, more or less, and have had by composition all the revenues, besides other allowances; yet no such rumour has been raised as now. (11.) As it is reported that I, the Deputy, pass all things without advertising her Majesty or the Lords, remind them of my long and large letters, in which I left nothing of importance untold. (12.) Declare the great hope that is conceived of the See No. 61. |
