of this the lord justice took time to consider, but died before he made up his mind.

It was after this that the promotion of Maurice to the earldom took place. He was become the most powerful subject in Ireland; his services were many, but not distinguished enough for special notice here. The unhappy state of the country was such as to render the wars of chiefs, and the devastation of septs and districts, a thing too frequent for description; we can only select such instances as illustrate the period.

He was summoned by Sir John Darcie, the lord justice in 1330, to take the field against the Irish insurgents, with a promise of the king's pay. He gained a victory over the O'Nolans and O'Murroughs, ravaged their country, and compelled them to give hostages. It was on this occasion that he first introduced that grievous abuse known by the name of coigne and livery, afterwards so productive of oppression and complaint. An arbitrary exaction for the maintenance of soldiers would, at any time, or however limited by strict discretion and rule, be felt as a grievance; but in those days of licentious and unprincipled spoliation, the evil must have been increased by that reckless and grasping spirit of extortion and violence, to which life and the rights of property were trifles. This oppressive resource was quickly adopted by all the barons, and contributed more to repress the prosperity of the English settlers, on whom its burthen fell, than all the dangers and disasters they experienced from the hostility of the Irish. It originated in the penurious policy of the English court; the drain of an incessant war was sustained by no adequate supply from England, and the remedy was but too obvious, and too much a matter of necessity. The soldiers were now supported by quartering them upon the inhabitants of the district they were sent to protect: under the pretence of this necessity, the passions, cupidity, and reckless licence of a rude soldiery, abandoned to its own discretion, soon made the remedy more formidable than the evil: the English settler was quickly made to feel the insecurity of a condition so far worse than defenceless, as the false protector, armed with the licence of power, was more surely fatal than the known enemy. In their despair, numbers fled over to the Irish, whose ranks they strengthened, and with whom they soon became assimilated in language and manners. From this fatal date, the decline of the English interest was progressive for two centuries. The English were no longer a compact body, united by common interest and the sense of mutual dependence and protection; the little security to be found was in the protection of the enemy.

From the energy at first derived from this dangerous resource, Desmond acquired a vigour and efficiency in the field, not to be sustained by more regular and just means, and gained several victories on a larger scale than was commonly known in these petty wars.

A still more unwise measure of the English court, which had a very material influence on the fortunes of Desmond, demands our particular attention, as the commencement of those hapless discontents, which, perhaps, above all other causes, contributed to the decay of the English settlement.

Edward III., engrossed with projects of aggrandizement, and look

ing to the utmost resources of men and money that his dominions could supply for the prosecution of his military enterprises, while he had little time or thought for the troubled state of Irish politics, was irritated both at the disorders and the unproductive state of that country; and not considering how mainly these were the consequences of his own neglect, came to an angry and precipitate resolution to proceed by violent and extreme steps to the termination of its disorders, instead of the just and obvious policy of supporting, and at the same time controlling his Irish barons. In place also of protecting, and bringing into subjection, the native chiefs and thus, by a well tempered union of conciliation with irresistible force, gradually bringing the whole together into one with the rest of his dominions-he abruptly adopted a system, at the same time harsh and oppressive, while it was inefficient and not to be put into practice without such efforts as would be sufficient to carry sounder measures into effect.

This precipitate policy was hastened by events which must be admitted to have placed in a strong point of view the degeneracy of the settlers; and on a superficial consideration, appeared to call for the remedial means chiefly adopted. On the murder of the earl of Ulster, which occurred in 1338, a confused and angry movement took place among the Irish baronage; some espousing the cause of order and justice, while the turbulent and degenerate habits of others were thus brought to light. Many of the great settlers were become virtually Irish chiefs, and in a state of tacit hostility to the laws and interests of the English settlement. But the greater barons acted with due regard to justice: Desmond seized and imprisoned Fitz-Maurice, the lord of Kerry, who sided with the Irish of Munster and Kildare, and exerted himself with equal vigour and effect for the preservation of the king's authority in Leinster.

Edward angrily imputed these disorders to his Irish government and barons, and adopted a course of which the injustice and folly cannot be too strongly branded by the historian. He declared all suspensions of debts due to the crown" *to be null, and ordered them to be strictly levied without delay. Many of the greater officers he dismissed; of some he seized the estates; but these and other measures of severity, some of which might be regarded as useful reforms, were trifles compared with the crowning absurdity and injustice of one ordinance, which we here insert verbatim.

"The king to his trusty and beloved John Darcy, justiciary of Ireland, greeting:

"Whereas it appeareth to us and our council, for many reasons, that our service shall the better and more profitably be conducted in the said land by English officers having revenues and possessions in England, than by Irish Englishmen married and estated in Ireland, and without any possessions in our realm of England; we enjoin you, that you diligently inform yourself of all our officers greater or lesser within our land of Ireland aforesaid; and that all such officers beneficed, married and estated in the said land, and having nothing in England, be removed from their offices; that you place and substitute

* Unless those under the great seal.

in their room other fit Englishmen, having lands, tenements, and benefices in England; and that you cause the said offices for the future to be executed by such Englishmen, and none other, any order of ours to you made in contrariwise notwithstanding."*

Such was the first instance of a course of blind and irrespective policy of which Ireland has too often been the subject—a cruel, unjust, and short-sighted half-measure, which contemplated the pacification of a half barbarian country by trampling upon the interests and feelings, by damping the loyalty and paralyzing the powers of that class in which the better part of the wisdom, virtue, civilization, and civil order of a people must ever reside; and without whose assent and cooperation no government can have permanence, unless by the most iron despotism of force. To have carried this grievous injustice into effect, it would be necessary to suppress altogether the native and English aristocracy, and crush the nation down into the prostrate level of military law; for a government, proceeding on the systematic contempt of a proud and wealthy aristocracy, cannot, even in these more orderly times, subsist in peace. There was then no populace to be worked on by the varied artifices of modern policy, so as to create a spurious and frail support, which, though dangerous to society and fatal to the power that leans on it, can yet be made, in our times, available for the maintenance of power, this perilous element did not then exist. Το set aside the aristocracy of a nation was a gross oversight, and this soon was made to appear: it had immediate and permanent consequences.

The first consequence was the most violent aggravation of the evil, by rousing the injured barons to resistance. The next and saddest was a spirit of national animosity and jealousy between two permanent factions thus called into existence the old settlers and the English by birth.

The powerful Irish barons were at once placed in opposition to the crown; it was no struggle for power or possession, but for the honour and the rights of their order, in which slackness would be a disgrace and crime. Desmond took the lead; the barons of the Geraldine race seconded him with zeal and energy. Sir John Morris, an English knight, without any pretension either from fortune or ability, was appointed governor; and the irritation to the pride of these great chiefs, thus insulted, was productive of immediate consequences. Desmond at once made the circuit of his adherents and connexions, conferred with the nobility, and roused the zeal and excited the fears of the towns; so that when the parliament was expected to assemble in Dublin, the lord justice heard with alarm of a convention of the prelates, nobles, and commons of the land, assembled at Kilkenny.

It is observed by Leland that the English annalists give a scanty and insufficient account of this assembly-of which Cox and Campion give three short sentences, purporting remonstrance against the inefficiency and corruption of the English governors; but Leland, whose success and diligence in searching out the original documentary evidence of Irish history, places him among the chief of our historians,

* Quoted by Leland.

cites a document found among the close rolls of the 16th year of Edward III., which he considers as the undoubted act of this assembly. Of this petition we give Leland's abstract, which indeed leaves no doubt as to its occasion and source:

"The petitioners begin with representing the total neglect of fortifications and castles, particularly those of the late earl of Ulster, in Ulster and Connaught, now in the king's custody, but abandoned by his officers, so that more than a third part of the lands conquered by his royal progenitors were regained by the Irish enemy; and by their insolence on the one hand, and the excesses of his servants on the other, his faithful subjects are reduced to the utmost distress. Other castles, they observe, had been lost by the corruption of treasurers, who withheld their just pay from the governors and warders; sometimes, obliged them in their necessities to accept some small part of their arrears, and to give acquittance for the whole; sometimes substituted in their place mean and insufficient persons, contented with any wages they were pleased to allow; sometime appointed governors to castles never erected, charging their full pay and disbursing but a trifling part; that the subject was oppressed by the exaction of victuals never paid for, and charged at their full value to the crown, as if duly purchased; that hostings were frequently summoned by the chief governor without concurrence of the nobles, and money accepted in lieu of personal service; treaties made with the Irish, which left them in possession of those lands which they had unjustly seized; the attempts of the subjects to regain them punished with fine and imprisonment; partial truces made with the enemy, which, while one country was secured, left them at liberty to infest the neighbouring districts; the absence and foreign residence of those who should defend their own lands and seigniories, and contribute to the public aid and service; illegal seizures of the persons and properties of the English subjects;—all these, with various instances of corruption, oppression, and extortion, in the king's servants, were urged plainly and forcibly, as the just grounds of discontent.

"But chiefly, and with particular warmth and earnestness, they represent to the king that his English subjects of Ireland had been traduced and misrepresented to the throne, by those who had been sent from England to govern them-men who came into the kingdom without knowledge of its state, circumstances, or interests; whose sole object was to repair their shattered fortunes; too poor to support their state, much less to indulge their passions, until they had filled their coffers by extortion, to the great detriment and affliction of the people; that notwithstanding such misrepresentations, the English subjects of Ireland had ever adhered in loyalty and allegiance to the crown of England, had maintained the land for the king and his progenitors, served frequently both against the Irish and their foreign enemies, and mostly at their own charges."

From the same author we learn that the answer of Edward was gracious; he consented that the grants should be restored, and the pardons of debts valid, until these causes should be duly investigated. He was preparing for his expedition into France-a circumstance which must have much influenced his answer; and he applied for their assistance, by leading their forces to join his army.

But the spirit he had raised was not to be so put down; his conciliatory reply was not adequately followed up by measures adapted to allay the pride and jealousy he had raised. It was a little thing to tell the proud Irish baron that he was not to be robbed under the sanction of royal authority, when the selection of governors was still such as too faithfully to reflect the most insulting features of the offensive ordinance.

The measures of Edward were, however, judiciously carried into effect; and the first consequences must be described as beneficial. Ufford, an Englishman of vigour and talent, was sent over, and enforced the laws of civil order with a high and equal hand. The system of policy was one which demanded more than ordinary vigour to enforce, and Ufford went to work with prompt and decisive energy. He ordered the marchers to their stations; forbade private wars, or coalitions with the enemies of the pale. He summoned Desmond to Dublin to attend parliament; but Desmond despised the call, and summoned a parliament of his own. Ufford forbade the attendance of the Irish nobles and commons; and, collecting his forces, marched at once into Munster, and seized on the territories of Desmond, whom he thus compelled to a reluctant submission: with equal alertness he attacked, seized, and imprisoned Kildare. Desmond was released on the bail of the earls of Ormonde and Ulster, and twenty-four knights; but the uncompromising severity of Ufford disheartened him, and he did not

appear.

The brave Ufford died on the 9th April, 1346;* Sir John Morris was again appointed, and acted with more lenity; but an insurrection broke out in Ulster, and the king sent over first Darcy, and then Walter de Birmingham. Desmond now took courage to re-appear upon the scene. He was received with friendly warmth by Birmingham, who sent him to England to plead his own grievances and justifications to the royal ear. The occasion was fortunate; Edward thought of this and all things as they might affect his own projects, as he was preparing to embark for France. Desmond was retained in his service, and attended him with a considerable train into France, receiving promises of the most prompt redress and restoration. He was present at the siege of Calais; and the favour of the king produced for some time a most beneficial effect on the discontented baronage of Ireland.

During this time, Desmond received one pound per day for his expenses, his own estates being under forfeiture. In 1352, they were restored, with those of other barons who had been dispossessed by Ufford; and Ireland continued so quiet for some years, that there is no special record of any interest, until the administration of Sir Thomas Rokeby, whose strict honour and integrity are celebrated by all historians; but he did not understand the feelings and complicated interests of the country he was sent to govern: and troubles which again broke out in Ulster, made it necessary to make a more effectual appointment. Desmond was now in favour, and appeared, from his power, connexion, and warlike temper, to be the best suited to meet the