the English Pale as contrasted with the other districts of the island; but there is no fact more clearly demonstrated, by the evidence of contemporary writers, by the official reports of the Viceroys and members of the Irish government, by the innumerable letters now published from the State Paper Office, than this-that of all the inhabitants of Ireland, the English of the Pale were the most exposed to hostile plunder, having the least means of resistance or retaliation, the most taxed, the most oppressed, the worst governed. They suffered all the evils and enjoyed none of the benefits of the feudal or tribal system, and were further bowed down beneath the burden of a government which did not protect them, nor permit them to protect themselves. They held their lands at rack-rents; they were, in addition, cessed by their immediate lords for their private benefit; they were cessed by the Viceroy for his private benefit; they were cessed for the maintenance of soldiers who did not protect them; they were called out to the hostings; they paid black mail to the adjoining Irish chiefs, and were plundered notwithstanding. At the same time, they were not permitted to fuse themselves into the neighbouring population, to become Irish, and thus to escape from misery by escaping from their government.

The English statesmen marvelled that the marches of the Pale should be ever receding-that its inhabitants adopted Irish dress and manners, and would have made themselves, from "liege subjects of their Lord the King," mere Irish and savages. We should now wonder why the Pale continued to exist at all, and how the English government of that time were able to keep any footing in the island.

The extent to which the Pale, up to the very walls of Dublin, was plundered, and the suffering of the inhabitants,

is shown by a letter of Mr. Deythyke from Dublin, dated the 3rd Sept., 1533:"It may please your Mastership to be advertised of the news, that be in this country be these. No doubt here be very well-disposed people, and full of abstinaunce. Your Mastership knoweth their accustomed ceremony is to refrain flesh on the Wednesday, but also Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. This is a very sore abstinaunce. I trust to Jesu, ye shall hear that there shall be many saints among them. For they play the fox's part, sy of hens, when he could not reach them. For I assure your Mastership, all the butchers of Dublin hath no so much beaf to sell as would make one mess of browes; so as they use white meat in Dublin, except it be in my Lord of Dublin's house, or such as have of their own provision. And cause thereof is, they be nightly robbed. There hath been 5 or 6 preys taken out of St. Thomas, within this 10 days, so that one butcher for his part hath lost 220 kine. And another cause is the country is so quiet that they dare not ride out one mile out of the town, to buy any manner of victuals; and they make their complaint to the Deputy, and the wind hath blown him so in the eyes that he cannot hear them. But it is a common saying, 'who is so deaf as he that list not to hear?' So as the poor butchers be remediless, and have closed up their shops, and have taken to making of prekes, thinking there is a new Lent."* In 1515, Patrick Finglas, Baron of the Irish Exchequer, thus describes the Pale :—

In the four shires which obey the King's laws, called Meath, Louth, Dublin, and Kildare, the aforesaid abominable order of coyne and livery was begun by Thomas, Earl of Desmond, son of James; he was then the King's

* State Papers, Vol. ii., pt. 3, page 181.

deputy; for which order and precedent he was put to execution. And then said order shortly began and was renewed within these thirty years; coyne, and livery, and carting, carriages, journies, and other impositions for hostings, and journies, and wilful war, began since that time. The Deputies' wives go to cuddies, and put coyne and livery in all places at their pleasure, and do stir up great war, that now, by the aforesaid extort means and precedents, all the King's subjects of the said four shires be near hand Irish, and wear their habits and use their tongue, so as they are clean gone and decayed; and there is not eight of the lords, knights, esquires, and gentlemen of the four shires but be in debt, and their land be made waste; and without brief remedy be had, they must sell their lands and go to some other land."

In 1533, the Council gave the Master of the Rolls certain instructions to be declared to the King for the weal and reformation of Ireland. The following is a summary of their statement of the condition of the pale :

"1. You shall instruct the King of the great decay of this land; that neither the English order, tongue, or habit has been used, nor the King's laws obeyed above 20 miles in compass. 2. This decay groweth by the immoderate taking of coyne and livery without order, after men's own sensual appetites; cuddies, gartie, taking of caanes for felonies, murders, and all other offences, alter ages, biengis, saulties, and slaughtiaghes, and other like abusions and oppressions. 3. Also, by default of English inhabitants, which in times past were archers and had feats of war, and good servants in their houses for defence of the country in times of necessity; but now the inheritors of the land of the Englishry have admitted to be their tenants those of the Irishry, which can live hardily with*Carew MSS., vol. i., p. 7.

out bread or other good victuals; and some for lucre to have more rent, and some for other impositions than English husbands be able to give, together with oppression of coyne and livery, have expelled them; and so is all the country, in effect, made Irish. 4. By the relation of ancient men, all the English lords and gentlemen within the Pale heretofore kept retinues of English yeomen in their houses, after the English fashion, according to the extent of their lands; but now they keep horsemen and knaves, who live upon the King's subjects, and not in their houses; and they keep no hospitality, but live upon the poor people. 5. The liberties of the temporal lords of this land have been, and are, very prejudicial to the King and the weal of the land, for that by their abuse the King has lost the due obedience and strength of the inhabitants, and his regalities and revenues there. 6. The black rents and tributes which Irishmen, by violence, have obtained of the King's subjects, are a great mischief; and yet, when the Deputies go upon the Irishmen by the aid of the King's subjects for redress of their nightly and daily robberies, they keep all they get to their own use, and restore nothing to the poor people. 7. Another hurt is the committing of the governance of the land to native lords, and the frequent change of Deputies. 8. By the negligent keeping of the King's records, and by grants of clerk's offices of the four Courts to persons unlearned or not expert in the same, the King's Courts and revenues are greatly decayed and his records imbeciled, and inheritance and right thereby unknown. 9. The King has lost and given away his mannors, customs, and other revenues, so as he hath not now whereof to maintain a Deputy for the defence of his subjects."* This is one of the most abject confessions ever published by a government; it may

* Carew MSS., vol. i., p. 50.; State Papers, vol. ii., p. 3, p. 162.

be thus summarised:-The head of the government is chosen for party purposes, and exercises his power corruptly; the officials are corruptly appointed, and are wholly unfit to fulfil their duties; justice is not administered, order is not preserved, the King's revenues have been embezzled, and there is no means to maintain the semblance of an executive; under these circumstances, the people are plundered by and with the connivance of the Viceroys; they are rackrented by their landlords, they are robbed by legalised banditti, they are harassed by the Irish enemy, and the English prefer "Irish barbarism" to the miserable condition to which the iniquity of their own government has reduced them. Yet this is not a political pamphlet, nor the statement of an opponent of the government; it is a solemn State paper, signed by the two Archbishops, the Bishop of Meath, the Grand Prior of Kilmainham, the Abbots of St. Thomas's, St. Mary's, and Lowth, the Lord Trimbleston, and three of the judges.

In the great ordinance for the government of Ireland, 1534, the condition of the tenants of the Pale may be gathered from the acts which it prohibits on the part of the landlords.

"Item. Whereas dyvers lords and gentlemen within the four shires used to take night suppers, called cuddies, of their tenants, servants, and adherents, bringing with them as many as would go with them, without refusing any; whereby they did not only oppress them that gave such suppers, but also their neighbours, the King's subjects, five or six miles about, with their horse and horse keepers, and also they took a peck of oats of every plough in the seed time, called the great horse or chief horse's peck, &c.

"Item. Where some gentlemen use, whensoever the