Catalogue description The COUNCIL of IRELAND to the QUEEN.

This record is held by Lambeth Palace Library

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Title: The COUNCIL of IRELAND to the QUEEN.
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Your Deputy has signified to us your pleasure that we should once every year at the least advertise the state of this country, and set down our opinions of the means to reform disorders, and to diminish your great charge.

 

After the end of the Deputy's long journey into all the provinces, the first year after his arrival, the lords and chieftains of all the Irishry have submitted themselves, with offers to hold their lands of your Highness, and to yield rent and service.

 

If you had sent presidents and justices to be resident in the remote parts that he visited and a Chancellor and justices to serve within the Pale, we lived in hope in a few years to have tasted of the fruit of that your gracious intent, to the good of this realm. But in June last, upon the landing of your Chancellor and President, "a rebellion (conspired by the Earl of Clanricard the May before, to draw force of Scots into Connaught,) was by the said Earl himself then actually put in execution, as we have most apparently perceived, by sundry examinations already taken, whatsoever be said or informed of the father's severe dealing against his sons." The Deputy so daunted it in the very beginning that the forces and helps which the rebels expected were cut off, the fortifying of the castles and holds suddenly stayed, and their trenching and walling prevented; yet they held me, Sir Nicholas Malbie, your Majesty's colonel there, so occupied that until almost Easter last I had small time to see justice delivered, or to deal with the country for contribution towards your great charge.

 

The conspiracy stretched itself by sundry branches into Munster, "to hold your Deputy and Presidents in both the provinces so occupied in arms, as they should not greatly trouble courts with English justice, of those conspirators abhorred and hated; expecting (as may be gathered) some greater force from foreign parts, to have wrought this year the like that the last yielded; for this appeareth by the confession of Sir John of Desmond, that saith the Earl was committed, [Sic.] his sons and their force being not yet subdued, but remaining armed in the fields; mediation and intreaty was made for the conclusion of the marriage between Mary Burke, the Earl's daughter, and the said Sir John, although he have another wife living and she another husband. And further it appeared by examination that he received several letters from John Burke and Mary, and as it is by others affirmed (although colorably by him denied,) he secretly met and had conference with John Burghe, who showed him letters of advertisements of James FitzMaurice his invasion, as it were in vaunt of the likelihood of some foreign invasion and help, the rather to stir him to take his part."

 

Conner McCormucke O'Conner and Rorie Oge O'More, contrary to their oaths, (hoping for aid out of Connaught) began to gather their friends and confederates to the number of 100 swords or thereabouts, and so to revolt; who, upon a sudden at Christmas Eve last, burnt divers haggards and poor men's cottages of the King's County, to the value of 200l. Afterwards with greater force they came to the town of the Naas by night, and burnt about 140 thatched houses; and since that time they have burnt a great part of Leighlin, and done some other harms and spoils upon the borders of the Pale. Notwithstanding your forces have cut off the greatest number of those who first were assembled, "yet such is their maintenance in the countries adjoining to Leix, and their watch and spial so good, with the help of their fastness, bogs, and woods, as still they be out; unto whose danger Captain Harrington and Alexander Cosbie, overmuch crediting some subtle promises and oaths, have of late (through their own follies) cast themselves."

 

The North is in greater quiet than it has been of long time, for Tirloghe Lenoghe has come in to your Deputy without protection or hostage. If troubles should arise there by means of the Scots, Tirloghe is to be framed as an instrument and scourge for them.

 

"The benefit that hath risen by this last year's travail of your Highness' President in Munster and Colonel in Connaught, notwithstanding the actual rebellion in the one place, and the show of mislike in the other, is an argument to us what would have grown thereby to your Majesty, had not the rebellion in Connaught been, or, if the Earl of Desmond had in all points showed such willing disposition to obey, and live under the rule of justice, as he might have done." Resident authority is of great force.

 

"The people within the Pale are over much blemished with the spots of the Irishry," and the sundry good laws from age to age devised to wipe out those stains have not been executed. We beseech you to send justices to put those and other needful laws fit to pass this next parliament in due execution.

 

By the long journeys which your Chancellor (Gerrard) has taken, he has seen the exactions, extortions, and Irish impositions, which decay the poor and hinder justice; and by his search into the Parliament rolls and rolls of accompt, he has seen the government of this estate in times past. He is thus fit to confer with such as you shall appoint touching these new laws that are to pass this next Parliament. Therefore, upon consideration of such persons as we thought meetest to repair to your presence with advertisements, we have made special choice of him, and have taken order for the safe using and custody of the seal.

 

The country seems now to be more grieved than before with the cesse. They of the country should fall to some certain composition, that a certain sum might yearly be yielded out of every ploughland. The Deputy has used no other manner and order in the setting down of the cesse for the two years past than was before used. The Lord Chancellor can certify you fully of the manner of the setting down of the cesse this last year.

 

Signed: T. Armachan.; Adam Dublin.; W. Drury; H. Miden.; Ed. Fyton; H. Bagenall; Lucas Dillon; Nich. Malbie; Francis Agard; J. Garvey; John Chaloner; Henry Colley.

 

Copy.

Date: 12 Sep 1577
Related material:

Collin's Sydney Papers, 214-221.

Held by: Lambeth Palace Library, not available at The National Archives
Former reference in its original department: MS 601, p. 76
Language: English
Physical description: 9 Pages.
Unpublished finding aids:

Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, ed. J. S. Brewer & W. Bullen (6 vols., 1867-73), vol. II, document 70.

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