what true service to your highness, and what good to that poor commonweal, it made me utterly neglect my own fortune, and respect of my private benefit, and emboldened me to discharge my duty to God and your majesty, and disclose my zeal for benefiting that poor realm. And if these my labours fhall be rightly conceived of by your majefty, and your most honourable council, I fhall think my time happily spent, and enjoy as much as I defire. And thus, moft humbly befeeching pardon for this my bold and rude difcourfe, and praying on my knees to Almighty God, the director of all princes hearts, that it may please him to move your majefty's mind duly to confider of the premises, and pitifully to regard the present state of that your poor kingdom, and befeeching him to bless your highness with all honour, health, and princely happiness, long to reign over us, I most humbly conclude with this my petition. I humbly befeech your majefty, if it be your gracious pleafure to accept the Earl of Tyrone into your highness's protection, that he may fafely come in unto your majesty, or to your lord deputy, and hither at your pleasure, that I may be the meffenger; because at my coming over he repofed great trust in me, to deliver unto your majefty those things, wherewith he found himself grieved, wherein I doubt not but to do your highness acceptable fervice, by reafon of the poor credit I have with him. But if your majefty be minded to deal otherwise with him (because it hath been reported by those who are adverfaries both to him and me, that I am a great friend unto him) to show what manner of love mine is towards him, there is none of them, nor any other, who shall do greater service than I will, if it please your majefty to command me, and enable me fit for it; if not, my fervice and myself, reft at your highnefs's command to be difpofed, as it fhall please you, for whom, as is ny bounden duty, I will daily pray, &c. Your majefty's faithful and obedient fervant, THO. LEE. NUMB. NUM B. II. [From Defid. Curiof. Hibern.] Remonftrance of divers Lords of the Pale to the King, concerning the Irish Parliament in 1613. [See Review, p. 93, vol. i.] MAY it please your majefty, fuch is the exceffive grief and anxiety of mind and conscience, which we, the nobility of this your highness's kingdom, whose names are here under-written, do conceive, by the more prepofterous courses holden in parliament, as we must be inforced, before we defcend further, most humbly with tears, to implore your gracious favour, that if the due regard of your majefty's facred honour, the careful confideration of the good peace and tranquillity of this your realm and country, the tender and feeling refpect of our bounden and obliged duty to both, do carry us in aught beyond the limits of a well-tempered moderation, your highnefs will be graciously pleased to pardon our excefs herein, fo far as pius dolor and jufta iracundia, do in themselves deserve. It would far pafs the compass of a letter, if we should infift to particularise the manifeft, old, precedent diforders, and fuch as still do accompany this intended action; only your highnefs fhall understand, that many knights from counties, and citizens and burgeffes from cities and towns, have, contrary to the true election, been returned; and in fome places force, and in many others fraud, deceit, and indirect means have been used for effecting of this so lawless a course of proceeding. Neither can we but make known unto your majefty, that under pretence of erecting towns in places of the new plantation, more corporations have been made fince the beginning of laft month, or a little more, than are returned out of the whole kingdom; befides, the number whereof (as we conceive it) contrary to your highness's intended purpose, are dispersed throughout all parts of this kingdom; and that in divers places, where there be good ancient boroughs, and not allowed to fend burgeffes to the parliament; and yet these new created corporations, for the most part are fo miferable and beggarly poor, as their tuguria cannot otherwise be holden or denied than as tituli fine re, et figmenta in rebus; for divers of which (their extreme poverty being not able to defray the charges of burgeffes, nor the places themselves to afford any one man fit to prefent himself in the pooreft fociety of men) and for others, we must confefs, that fome of great fashion have not sticked to abase themselves to be returned: the lord deputy's fervants, attornies, and clerks, refident only in the city of Dublin, moft of them having never seen or known the places for which they were returned, and others of contemptible life and carriage. And what outrageous violence was offered yesterday to a grave gentleman, whom men of all forts that know him, do and will confefs to be both learned, grave, and discreet, free from all touch and imputation, and whom thofe of the lower houfe, to whom no exceptions could be taken, had chosen to be their speaker, we leave, for avoiding tediousness to your highness, to their own further declaration. And forafmuch as, most renowned and dread fovereign, we cannot in any due proportion of reafon expect redress in these our diftreffed calamities, where many of those who represent the body of your estate were the chief authors of them, upon the knees of our loyal and fubmiffive hearts, we humbly pray, that it would please your majefty to admit fome of us to the accefs of your royal prefence; where, if we fail in the least point of thefe our affertions, and declarations of other evils, which do multiply in this eftate, we willingly submit ourselves to any punishment, as deserved, which it thall please your highness to lay and inflict upon us. For we are thofe, by the effufion of whofe ancestors blood, the foundation of that empire, which we acknowledge your highnefs by the laws of God and man to have over this kingdom and people, was firft laid, and in many fucceeding ages preferved. To us it properly appertain eth, both in the obligation of public duty and private intereft, to heed the good thereof, who never laid the foundation of our hopes upon the difturbance of it, garboils and diffentions being the downfal of our estate, as some of us now living can witness; and therefore, we cannot, but out of the confideration of our bounden duty and allegiance, make known unto your highnefs the general discontent which thofe strange, unlooked for, and never heard of courfes particularly have bred; whereof, if the rebellious and difcontented of this nation abroad do take advantage, and procure the evil-affected at home, which are numbers, by reafon of that already fettled, and intended plantation, in any hoftile fashion to fet diforders on foot, and labour fome underhand relief from any prince or estate abroad, who peradventure might be inveigled, and drawn to commiserate their pretended diftreffes and oppreffions; however, we are affured the prowess and power of your majefty in the end will bring the authors thereof to ruin and confufion; yet it may be attended with the effufion of much blood, exhausting of maffes of treafure, the expofing of us, and others your highness's wellaffected fubjects, to the hazard of poverty, whereof the memory is very lively and fresh among us; and finally, to the laying open of the whole commonalty to the inundation of all miferies and calamities, which garboils, civil war, and diffentions do breed and draw with them, in a rent and torn estate. For For preventing whereof, we nothing doubt but your majefty will give redrefs, by the equal balance of your highness's juftice, which we beseech the Amighty, with your royal person, ever to maintain and preferve, Your majefty's most faithful subjects, [From Defiderat. Curiof. Hibern.] To the Right Honourable the Lords of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council. The humble Petition of the Knights, Citizens and Burgeffes of the Counties, Cities, and ancient Boroughs of Ireland. [See Review, p. 93, vol. i.] MOST humbly declaring to your lordships, that the affur ance of his majesty's most princely inviolable juftice, whereof your lordships, in matters of flate and government, are the high and fupreme diftributors, doth embolden us, in our oppreffions, to address these our submissive lines to your honours; wherein our purpose is, not to be pleaders, the ftrangeness of our extremities finding no fit words to exprefs them; and therefore, in declaration of the naked truth, your lordships fhall understand that we, the knights, citizens, and burgeffes of the counties, cities, and ancient boroughs of this realm, coming, according to our bounden duties, into the parliament houfe, we find there fourteen counsellors of ftate, three of the judges, having before received writs to appear in the higher house, all his majesty's council at law; and the reft of the number, for the most part, confifting of attornies, clerks in courts, of the lord deputy's retinue, and others his houfhold-fervants, with fome lately come out of England, having no abiding here; and all these, fave very few, were returned from the new corporations erected, to the number of forty or thereabouts, not only in places. of the new plantation, but alfo in other provinces, where there be corporations of antiquity; few or none of them having been ever refident, and most of them having never seen these places: the reft, who poffeffed the rooms of knights of fhires, fave four or fix, came in by practice, and difhoneft devices, where unto unto themfelves were not strangers; and some there were from ancient boroughs, who intruded themselves into their places, by as undue and unlawful means; as the knights and burgesfes duly elected were ready at the parliament door to prove and avouch. For redress whereof, we of the ancient fhires, cities, and towns, to whom no exceptions could be taken, being defirous to take the ufual and accustomed course, what outrageous violence enfued, by the fury of fome there, we humbly leave to your lordships to be informed by our declarations; whereunto a schedule, by direction of my lord deputy, subscribed with our hands, is annexed. And forafmuch, right honourable, as the strangeness of these proceedings, in a christian commonwealth is fuch, as we think his majefty, and your lordships will hardly be induced to believe; they being, in the likelihood of impoffibility, equal to that of Meffalino unto the emperor Claudius in ancient Rome; or to any other accident, how rare foever, tranfmitted to pofterity in modern or ancient fhires, we humbly pray, that your lordships, in commiferation of our diftrefs, will be a mean to his highness, that fome of us, with fome of our nobility, may be licensed to prefent ourselves there, for the proof of our affertions; wherein if we fail in any one point, we utterly renounce all favour; and that in the mean time his majesty will be pleased to suspend his gracious judgment, in the apprehenfion of what to our prejudice may be informed here; those from whom his highnefs doth ufually receive information, being the authors of the carriage of what is done amifs. NUMB. IV. [From Defiderat. Curiof. Hibern.] Abstract of the Report and Return of Commiffioners fent by the King to Ireland, to enquire into the Grievances and Complaints of the Irish, in 1613.. UPON [See Review, p. 105, vol. i.] PON our arrival in Dublin the 11th of September, we caufed his majefty's commiffion and inftructions to be inrolled, and presently directed our letters to the governors of Munfter and Conaught, as alfo to divers lords, archbishops, and bifhops, and to feveral of the sheriffs of counties, and others, concerning the articles of the faid instructions, whereby our arrival, and the cause of our employment were made known to the people in most parts of the kingdom. Yet during the fpace of one month at the leaft, after our landing, no one petition was exhibited to us complaining of any grievances. Never theless |