Catalogue description ROBERT COWLEY to the DUKE OF NORFOLK.

While my Lord Deputy and the Council were in Munster last summer, "James of Desmond, pretending himself Earl of Desmond, would not come in to the Lord Deputy, but inveigled him with fair promises and indentures written, till the Deputy's victuals were spent." On the Deputy's returning homewards, the said James disgressed from all his covenants and promises. The King's Commissioners went to Clonmell to commune with him, but he would not come to them or to any walled town, so that they "were fain to meet him in the plain fields in his danger, he having at his heels all his host of horsemen and footmen in harness." I suppose he will not observe anything he promised to do, for he is endeavouring to strengthen himself by alliances with Irishmen. Sir William Darcy shows me "there is privy intelligence and secret brewings of bands and confederacies betwixt the said James and O'Nele and part of the Brenes with this new O'Downyl." The Deputy's servants are often with the said James, but the Deputy is deceived if he give credence "to his surmises and forged accusations" against those that most truly serve the King, whom he seeks to bring to confusion, in order that he may "usurp upon the earldom." He should be compelled to conform to due allegiance to the King, and to have his pretended title judged by the King's laws.

One of the Burkes of Clanricard, called Rowland Burke, is lately come over from Rome with bulls from the Bishop of Rome upon the bishopric of Clonefert in Conaght, which the King has given to Doctor Nangle, provincial of the Friars Augustine in this land, who is in Galway, "and dare not issue out for fear of his adversary and his complices.

The bearer, Barnardyn de Valois, late Master of the Ordnance here, has served the King right diligently.

Dublin, 20 January. ["1537" is added in Carew's hand.]

Addressed: To the Duke of Norfolk's noble Grace. Endorsed.

Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts preserved in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, ed. J. S. Brewer & W. Bullen (6 vols., 1867-73), vol. I, document 115.