1614. Vol. 600, p. 194. 156. for 12d. Irish for relief of the poor, 98. sterling to the clerks and officers. We offer that the forfeiture of the said Act, tending to charitable uses, cannot be granted or employed otherwise than is appointed by the statute, and the clerk of the Crown ought not to intermeddle with the receipts nor make churchwardens accountable to him. Some of the justices of assize give in charge to inquire and present all the inhabitants of the parish that absented themselves since the last assizes; whereas there are two quarter sessions and some jail deliveries in the interim between the assizes, and the words of the statute are expressed to the contrary; for they ought to inquire since the last quarter sessions only. The ordinaries or commissaries of most dioceses of the kingdom exact great sums of money for marriages and christenings, and call the parishioners in question for three or four years past, and in some places for a longer time, and to redeem the penance inflicted upon them for standing three days in a white sheet at the market cross, the commissary takes 408., 138. 4d., 10s., more or less, according to the ability of the party, besides other extraordinary fees. Copy. Pp. 3. Endorsed. Dated 1614. A DISCOURSE of the present ESTATE of IRELAND, 1614. In kingdoms conquered nothing but time, and that also must be the flux of hundreds of years, has power to unite the conqueror's issue and the ancient inhabitants in perfect amity. Examples hereof are frequent in many kingdoms of Europe, and particularly in Ireland it is evident; for until of late the old English race (as well in the pale as in other parts of the kingdom) despised the mere Irish, accounting them to be a barbarous people, void of civility and religion, and either of them held the other as an hereditary enemy; and so it would have continued for many years yet to come had not these later times produced a change, the occasion whereof proceeds from these three heads ensuing. 1. First, their frequent marriages one with the other, which in former ages was rarely seen. 2. Secondly, the mere Irish (by their travel abroad) are civilized, grown to be disciplined soldiers, scholars, politicians, and further instructed in points of religion than accustomed, whereby the ancient dislike and contempt is laid aside. 3. Lastly, the late plantation of new English and Scottish in all the parts of the kingdom, whom with an unanime consent the natives repute as a common enemy. But this last is the first and principal cause of their union, which with all * The heading is in Carew's hand. 1614. possible art they endeavour to disguise, covering the same under the mask of religion, pretending that nothing but matter of conscience moves them to concur in opposition to the present Government. For this cause in odium tertii the slaughters and rivers of blood shed between them is forgotten, and the intrusions made by themselves or their ancestors, on either part, for title of land is remitted; which characters of inveterated malice, reciprocally rooted, as well in the hearts of the conquerors as the conquered, the wit and industry of man (but for the respects recited) was no way able to deface and extinguish. They being then conjoined, as is evident, it is worthy the consideration (admitting they rebel) what more danger to the State their union can now produce than in former ages. The rebellions in times past have been moved, for the most part, upon particular quarrels between themselves, the weaker evermore praying aid from the State to preserve him from the oppression of his neighbour. Some others have risen (whereof there are examples) out of disdain to subject themselves to the laws of the land, which appeared in the Earls of Desmond and Tyrone; and when they found their swords too weak to maintain their treasons, as men in despair to be received to mercy, they have drawn foreign forces (which was unusual) to their aid, whereby the kingdom has been in some danger. But in all these tumults whatsoever, the greater part of the inhabitants have ever served the State, or have stood neutrals; the cities and enclosed towns never gave cause of suspicion of defect; and of the old English, though some branches might fall into rebellion, yet the body hath evermore remained sound and firm to the Crown of England; whereby we may conclude that these forepassed rebellions have been more troublesome than dangerous, and the cause of small danger hath been their disunion, for the reasons aforesaid. But now contempt and rancour sleeping, and their general ill affections to the State, as well for the cause of religion, as for the new plantations, increasing (whereby they are united) the next rebellion, whensoever it shall happen, threatens more danger to the State than any that has preceded, and my reasons are these: 1. They have the same bodies they ever had, and therein they had and have advantage of us. 2. From their infancies, they have been and are exercised in the use of arms. 3. The realm, by reason of long peace, was never so full of youth as at present. 4. That they are better soldiers than heretofore, their continual employment in the wars abroad assures us; and they do conceive that their men are better than ours. 1614. 5. That they are more politic, and able to manage a rebellion with more judgment and dexterity than their elders, their experience and education are sufficient reasons. 6. They will give the first blow, which is very advantageous to them that give it. 7. The quarrel for the which they rebel will be under the veil of religion and liberty, than which nothing is esteemed so precious in the hearts of men.. 8. And lastly, their union is such, as not only the old English dispersed abroad in all parts of the realm, but the inhabitants of the pale, cities and towns, are as apt to take arms against us (which no precedent time has ever seen) as the ancient Irish. Being then granted that the revolt is like to be general, experience, the mistress of fools and reason, the rule of wise men, has sufficiently taught them that his Majesty's sword is too sharp and heavy when his pleasure is, in his just indignation, to draw the same, for them with their own forces to resist; wherefore we must imagine that they will never take armis, until they be assured of the aid of some foreign prince. This in reason they will do, or pay the ransom of their follies with their ruin. Tyrone is said to have a design for Ireland. The same intelligence reports that he has found means to raise a competent force to put the kingdom in a flame. And to move us to be jealous that the intelligence is in part or in all true, is the late coming of the Pope's Archbishop of Dublin into Ireland, who hath a pension of 300 ducats per of the Spanish King, and was sent from Lovayne into Spain to negociate for Tyrone's support. This his repair into Ireland agreeing with the intelligence, gives no less cause of suspicion than the sight of a sea bird, called a Petrell, of a storm ensuing. If Tyrone's counsels aim no farther than to try his own fortune by stolen forces brought with him, although it may be confessed that the slightest occasion, countenanced by his presence, and fomented by the priests, is sufficient to disturb the realm, and to set a fire in every part thereof, which will cost the lives of many of his Majesty's subjects, and the exhausture of great masses of treasure before it is pacified; yet it will not move the cities nor the gentlemen of the pale, or men of great possessions (although their hearts are with him) to set up their rests upon so weak a foundation; but, as in former times, they will be lookers on to see how the game is played. Tirone is known to be witty and crafty by nature, and now by reason of his many years and great experience, much wiser. The disposition of his body (worn with time and travel) are motives of his rest. He has a competent pension from Spain for his relief. His age is sufficient to deter him from great and toilsome attempts, and especially from such as must be 1614. determined by a long tract of time, which he is like never to see. Wherefore, if he intend any enterprise for Ireland, we have reason to conceive it to be such, as that for the instant he will be able to carry all things smooth before him. without resistance, which can never be done but with a foreign army, paid and supplied by a powerful prince. It any such accident should happen, then we have just cause to fear the union of that people, whose hearts are prepared to extirpate both the modern English and the Scots, which is not difficult to execute in a moment, by reason they are dispersed, and the natives' swords will be in their throats in every part of the realm, like the Sicilian Vespers, before the cloud of mischief shall appear. As yet there is no cause discovered that any prince in Europe has a design to break amity with his Majesty; nevertheless it is wisdom to trust the worst, and not to be over credulous in the faith of any, and especially of such as are opposite unto us in religion, or jealous of his Majesty's great ness. The fugitives of Ireland are entertained and relieved only by the Pope, the King of Spain, and the Archduke, a branch of Spain. Upon these princes both the traitors abroad, and the traitorly disposed at home, have fastened their hopes, relying themselves upon their protections and aid in case of necessity. Of the Pope's desire to tear his Majesty's Crowns in sunder no man doubts, and of Spain we cannot judge otherwise than of a reconciled enemy, apt to break faith when occasion shall serve to advance his ends, which is and evermore has been (notwithstanding all oaths taken at the confirmation of treaties) the familiar practice of Popish princes, even in the times when all the world was Romish; and, therefore, much more now to be suspected by princes of that religion, the Catholic being assured to be absolved by his Holiness. Reason of State moves both the one and the other to wish and endeavour the diminishing of his Majesty's greatness, the Ecclesiastic prince, because our King is the most powerful defender of the Gospel, the enlargement whereof will, in progression of time, dissolve his triple diadem; and the Temporal monarch fears his sea and land forces, which not many years past, made his father tremble, as well in Spain as in his Indies, nothing in Europe being so able to infest him in either, as his Majesty. These violent motives springing from fear and envy keep their malice awake. Pope needs not to satisfy the world for the drawing of both his swords quærere angulos; for, in being God's vicar on earth, he is bound in conscience to extirp heretical princes (and such a one he esteems his Majesty to be) by all possible means whatsoever. The Spanish king can never want pretences to blind the world for the defence of the breach of his league, which by the Catholics will be applauded; and if no other shift were to be found to preserve his honour, the planta The 1614. tions in the Bermudas and in Virginia, or his obedience to the Church (being incited to a war by the Pope) will be enforced as sufficient. I do not conclusively deliver my opinion that they will either at this present or within a prefixed time attempt any of his Majesty's kingdoms; notwithstanding, I am confident, that whensoever a fit opportunity (sorting with their desires) shall offer itself, they will take the advantage of it, for the eyes of fear are ever open, and hearts swollen with envy study mischief. Admitting, then, (which we have reason to suspect) that Rome and Spain, finding an aptness in the natives of Ireland, now united, to shake off their obedience to his Majesty, and so cast themselves into their arms, and that the Pope would confer his pretended right to that realm, which he challengeth to be Patrimonium Sancti Petri, unto the King of Spain (as his predecessor did the kingdom of Navarre to Ferdinando el Catolico), and that the Spanish king accept of the same, and under the pretence of some other invasion (at the natives' desire), send an army of 10,000 foot into Ireland, in one or two bodies, armed with the Pope's indulgences and excommunications, I think that little doubt is to be made, but all the modern English and Scots would in an instant be massacred in their houses; no city or walled town would open their gates unto such as should escape the fury; his Majesty's foot and private men's castles, not being manned or victualled to sustain a siege, would be surprised; yea, the city of Dublin, in such a general revolt, would scarce be secure for the Lord Deputy and such as should survive. A displantation being thus effected (which would not be the work of many days), the reconquering of Ireland will prove a Herculean labour, and no less difficult than the recovery of Aquitain and Normandy have been to the French king from his Majesty's royal progenitors. It has ever been held as an infallible maxim that no monarch in Europe is able to maintain a long war against his Majesty in Ireland, and no man has been more confident in that opinion than myself, and so I remained until this fearful and unexpected union gave me to mistrust more danger than otherwise I should have done. For who did ever dream of a general defection in all the natives, which now is probable? It was always supposed that the King should evermore have a strong party in the kingdom, and that the cities would never decline from their duties, as is now to be feared. This strange alteration must needs produce strange events whensoever Spain can be drawn to invade that realm, which is no less wished and laboured by the priests and Jesuited Catholics of Ireland, than liberty to such as groan under captivity, proceeding from the abundance of their malice, which has so blinded their reason as that they loath his Majesty's soft and sweet government, tempered with justice |
