systematic oppression of the much tried English colony, which appears through all the chequered annals of the history of English rule in the character of the much-enduring Ulysses. In 1341 the king issued a writ to the justiciary of Ireland to resume all royal grants of lands until he was "made certain of the merits of the grantees, the causes and conditions of the grants." The purpose of the writ to force the grantees to compound by payment of fines was clear to all concerned. And this flagrant act of dishonesty roused the whole colony who were already provoked by the king's gratuitous exclusion of Irish-born subjects from "the sweets of office," so that, as Campion observes, "the realm was ever upon point to give over and rebel." Other acts of injustice committed by his own English-born officials, Sir Anthony Lucy and Sir Ralph Ufford who had seized Desmond's estates, and was justly unpopular for his general character and conduct, brought matters to a head. The great Earls of Desmond and Kildare refused to attend the Parliament in Dublin (1341) and convened a meeting in Kildare, from which a memorial was despatched to the king, setting forth the grievances of the English settlement in Ireland, the state of destitution to which they had been reduced by the raids of the Irish enemy on the one side and on the other by the "embezzlement and extortions practised by English-born officials, who defrauded the constables of the royal castles; entrusted their custody to incompetent warders, or to those who employed deputies, merely to extort fees; charged the Crown for goods and valuables taken for its use, but for which they never paid; entered into their accounts salaries to governors

of castles which were either demolished, in the hands of their enemy, or had never existed, and exacted money from the king's subjects on various pretences." 1

The Earl of Desmond, who had been allowed to escape from his imprisonment in Dublin, where he had been arrested by order of the rapacious Ufford, whose lady is described as "a miserable sott who led him to extortion and bribery;" also put down on the paper the pertinent question-"How an officer of the king that entred very poore might in one yeare grow to more excessive wealth than men of great patrimony in many yeares?"

Edward was forced to give way to such a memorial especially when supported by an appeal to Magna Charta and a resolute nobility who had been provoked beyond endurance by Ufford's insolence and tyranny. For in 1346 we find him conferring knighthood on the Earl of Kildare, another victim of Ufford's jealousy and greed, for his services at the siege of Calais, and making the Earl of Desmond, some of whose estates Ufford had seized, Lord Justice. It is surprising that Edward, with all his cruelty, was able to obtain a splendid Irish contingent for his foreign wars which eventually brought greater loss than lustre to England. It seemed, moreover, a sort of poetic justice to find the victims of Ufford's impositions thus honoured shortly after the death of their tormentor had been publicly solemnized with bonfires and other expressions of rejoicing in the land.

But Edward's hold on Ireland was growing weaker

1 Richey, Short History, p. 225.

yearly. The Irish had grown excessively turbulent since the invasion of Bruce had shown them the weakness of the Anglo-Norman power. During 1330 there had been a great rising in Leinster, and "so outragious were the Leinster Irish that in one church they burned eighty innocent soules, asking no more but the life of their priest then at Masse, whom they, notwithstanding, sticked with their javelins, spurned the Blessed Sacrament, and wasted all with fire."1 His justiciary was compelled to bribe some of the Irish septs, the O'Tooles and others to defend the frontiers of the Pale, and to offer reward for the capture and assassination of the more refractory chieftains. The Irish insurgents, however, had not matters all their own way in every part of the country, for we read of men like Sir Robert Savage in Ulster fortifying his manor house, and his son, Sir Henry, who led his men against the Irish and defeated them. This Sir Henry seems to have had a touch of humour, for, having prepared a supper of wine, aqua vitae, and venison, beef and fowl for his men on their return, he was advised by his officers to poison the food, lest the enemy should defeat them and secure the supper. "Tush," he answered, "ye are too full of envy. If it please God to set other good fellows in our stead, what hurt shall it be for us to leave them some hardly win it and

meate for their suppers; let them wear it." The gallant knight returned with his men to enjoy his own supper.

Nor is it to be inferred from the charges that were made against the English Lords Justices that they

1 Campion, History of Ireland, p. 129.

were all bad and dishonest. For Sir Thomas Rokeby, who held office in 1353 was the impersonation of rugged honesty and sterling worth. When rebuked for allowing himself to be served with wooden cups, he answered: "These homely cuppes and dishes pay truly for what they containe. I had rather drinke out of wood and pay gold and silver than drinke out of gold and make wooden payment." This was of course an allusion to the almost proverbial dishonesty of the Lord Deputies.

CHAPTER V.

THE RISE OF THE O'CONNORS AND RICHARD II.'S EXPEDITION.

IN the foregoing chapter an account was given of the condition of the English Colony called the Pale, which may help the readers of this little work to form a general idea of the state of Ireland in the fourteenth century, when the O'Connors Faly rose into prominence. Of the great possessions in the hands of the English settlers and territorial barons at the beginning of that century but little remained at the end. Some of the causes, internal and external, that brought about this condition of things have already been set forth. But one has not yet received the attention it deserves. The tribes are beginning to act more unitedly, and to trust one another, and though still far from that Home Reunion, which is as vital to the existence of states as of churches, were taught by the "degenerate English, who had cast in their lot among them, that they should, at least for the time being, bury the hatchet between themselves until they had swept the Colony into the sea.

A tremendous effort, or rather series of efforts, was accordingly made at various points of the Colony's possessions, and the English subjects and officials, unable to resist the overwhelming tide, were driven back upon their lines. Ulster was regained; Connaught was in revolt; parts of Leinster and