bishop of Armagh, should be celebrated with nine lessons in crastino Johannis et Pauli.*

A writ dated Kyldroght, twenty-eighth of April 1355, was "directed to Primate FITZ RALPH, commanding him to go and treat with Odo O Neal of Ulster, who was preparing to march with a multitude of Irish to Dundalk and other parts of Louth, to seek redress from the English for injuries they had done him."+ A plain proof may be deduced from this circumstance that the influence of O Neal in Ulster, was even then undiminished.

In the days of Primate FITZ RALPH the town of Monaghan and the suburbs were burned on the festival of Saint Stephen the Proto-martyr. About the year 1347, flourished John Pembridge author of the greater part of those valuable annals annexed by Camden to his "Britannia," To this writer Irish historians are considerably indebted. William Occam, called by subsequent writers "Invincible-Angelical, and Prince of the Nominalists," lived in the same period. Volateran calls him a Scottish prelate, William Ockham, that renowned logician, a Minorite and Cardinal of Armagh, under John XXII, who lived in 1353."

In the year 1361, MILO SWEETMAN treasurer of the Cathedral of Kilkenny, a man of prudence and learning was advanced to the see. He died in his manor of Dromiskin, on the eleventh of August, 1380, and was succeeded by JOHN COLTON, a native of Torrington in the county of Norfolk, who, having been made archbishop of Armagh, by provision of the Pope, was restored to the temporals on the ninth of March, 1382. This prelate seems to have been possessed of considerable talents. He was a doctor of the canon law, and had been first master of. Gonville Hall, Cambridge, in the year 1348. After this period, he was dean of Dublin, and for a time chancellor and lord-justice of Ireland. His

Ware's

• Regist. Dowdall 89. Lodge Mss. notes ut supra. + Rot. Pat. in Birm. Tur. 29 Edw. III. d No. 83. Lodge Mss, notes ut supra. Bishops p. 83. § Ibid, p. 84.

abilities recommended him to the notice of Richard II. who employed him in an important negotiation at the court of Rome, together with John Whitehead, B. D. and Richard Moor, vicar of Termon-Feichan. Primate COLTON annexed to his see the convent of Benedictine monks of Saint Andrew, in the county of Down, commonly called Black-Abbey, purchased from the abbey of Saint Mary de Lonley, in Normandy, to which it had been an affiliated cell.*

Bayle says that he wrote an account of the causes and remedies of the schism which then existed betwixt Urban VI. and Clement VII. and some provincial constitutions published by him, are said by Ware to have been extant in his day. "He died in April, 1404, and was buried in Saint Peter's church, Drogheda, having a little before his decease resigned the see."+

In the year 1361, a pestilence raged in England and Ireland, which swept off multitudes of men, but few women. It commenced about Easter, and without doubt its deleterious effects were as severely felt in Armagh, as in other portions of the country. This pestilence was followed, in the year 1370, by another still more calamitous and deadly, in which, say Camden's annals, "died many noblemen and gentlemen, citizens also and children innumerable."

Some persons, who viewed with an envious eye the great landed property annexed to the abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, in Armagh, represented the friars of that institution to the king as a body of mere Irish, who spent the proceeds of their endowments in entertaining their countrymen. Edward III. therefore seized a carucate of their land in the Curragh near Dundalk. Of this he granted a life interest to James Billen. However, in the succeeding year, an inquisition was taken, and the jury pronounced that the abbot and his friars were probi et legales, true and loyal subjects. The lands were, of course, restored to the abbey.§

•Ware's Bish. p. 84.

† Ibid.

Ware's Annals. Camden's Annale. § Harris's Collectanea, v. 3, Arch, Mon. Hib. p. 29.

In 1367, a parliament was summoned by the duke of Clarence, and met at Kilkenny. In this both Lords and Commons sat together, and passed the famous Statute of Kilkenny.* By this curious act, Marriage and Gossipred or nursing with the Irish, were pronounced treason in English subjects. Those who adopted any Irish name, or used the apparel or language of the country, were to forfeit their lands. Britons were not to permit the cattle of the Irish to Creaght or graze upon their grounds; nor present Irishmen to any ecclesiastical be nefices, nor admit them into religious houses; nor hos pitably to receive their minstrels or bards; nor to make war upon them unless by order of the state. Cesses for the maintenance of soldiers were not to be levied off the English subject against his will. Sheriffs were to enter any liberty or franchise in pursuit of felons. The Bre hon laws were not to be used by the English. In every county four warders were to be appointed to assess each person's proportion of the public expense for levying and supporting men and purchasing armour.t

Human ingenuity could not have devised a more effec tual plan for preventing any friendly union betwixt the two nations. Separated from each other by diversity of law, language, habit and opinion, it was impossible that they should ever blend together and form an integral and happy people.

The

Sometime in the year 1376, the weak and disordered state of the Irish government gave rise to a singular transaction in which the Primate of Armagh, MILO SWEETMAN, particularly distinguished himself. British parliament having found Ireland to be a mere burden on England, were tired of supporting his majesty's Irish establishments, and demanded that a strict inquiry should be made into the nature of the revenues of that country, and the causes of their deficiency. The king

Lamb lib. D: +Mss. Lamb G, No. 608, fol. 1. Davis 112, 191. Rot. Tur. Birm, 49 Edw. III,

complied with their solicitations, and Nicholas Dagworth was sent to Dublin, with orders to investigate the subject most minutely, as well as to stimulate his majesty's ministers to exert themselves for the interest of their sovereign. Directions were also given that a parliament should be forthwith assembled, whose object should be to provide, by subsidy, for the exigencies of the Irish state, and for the aid of the king in his foreign wars.

The parliament having accordingly assembled, refused the supplies, pleading, in excuse, the poverty of the na tion and its inability to raise the required subsidies.

The king, irritated at this refusal, summoned by writs both the clergy and the laity. The bishops were peremptorily ordered to select, in each diocess, two clergymen as their representatives. The Commons were directed to choose in each county, two laymen, as the representatives of the Lords and Commons. The cities and burgesses were commanded to depute, in a similar manner, two citizens or burgesses; and the whole of this elected body were to meet the king and his council in England, to form regulations relative to the government of Ireland, and to the subsidies which his majesty required in aid of his foreign wars.

The answer of the archbishop of Armagh is remarkable and well worthy of being recorded. "We are not bound," said the prelate, "agreeably to the liberties, privileges, rights, laws and customs of the church and land of Ireland, to elect any of our clergy, and to send them to any part of England, for the purpose of holding parliaments or councils in England. Yet on account of our reverence to our lord the king of England, and the now imminent necessity of the land aforesaid, saving to us and to the lords and commons of the said land, all rights, privileges, liberties, laws and customs before-mentioned, we have elected representatives to repair to the king in England, to treat and consult with him and his council. Except, however, that we do

by no means grant to our said representatives any power of assenting to any burdens or subsidies to be imposed on us or our clergy, to which we cannot yield by reason of our poverty and daily expense in defending the land against the Irish enemy."*

An answer similar in spirit and effect was returned by the nobles and commons of the county of Dublin.+

After these declarations had been formally made, the Irish representatives repaired to Westminster, and their wages were paid by the diocesses, counties and boroughs which had elected and deputed them.

It is probable that this body of Irish representatives were utterly incompetent, under the limited powers granted to them by their constituents, to vote the subsidies demanded by Edward. If this had not been the case, it is likely that the British and Irish parliaments would have then coalesced and been ever after regularly held as one body, at Westminster, and thus a legislative union betwixt the two countries, would have been effected 424 years before the period in which it has actually taken place. The decided conduct, however, of the primate of Armagh, and of the other bishops, aided by the nobility and commons of Ireland, seems to have prevented the adoption of this important political measure. It does not appear that the Irish representatives when convened at Westminster, did any thing of moment, inasmuch as history has not narrated their acts, having probably found nothing of consequence to record.‡

Leland vol. 1, p: 328. + Vide M. S. Rawlinson in Bib. Bodl. Oxon. SS. p. 7. Rot. Tur. Birm. 49 Edward III. Leland vol. 1, p. 327. The first regularly convened parliament was held in Ireland A. D. 1295, but parliamentary acts had been made before that period.

Before we close this chapter, it may not be improper to remark that the seasons must formerly have been much earlier in this country than at the present day, and that of course the climate must have undergone a considerable change. Pembridge mentions the commencement of the harvest on Michaelmas day as an extraordinary event which was followed by a dearth of corn. In the present age we should not deem the twenty-ninth of September a very late harvest day- See page 184 of this work.