Catalogue description GEORGE [BROWN], ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, and the CHAPTER of CHRIST CHURCH and SAINT PATRICK'S, DUBLIN, to HENRY VIII.

Received your letters dated Westminster, 13 March, in favour of your servant Patrick Barnewell, to whom and his heirs male you direct us to confirm our right to the constableship of Balymore with the mill of the same, which, as it seems by your letters, will presently be void and in your gift by the attainder of Christopher Eustache. I, the Archbishop, whom this request principally touches, was not "privy to the finding of any office whereby your Grace should be entitled in this behalf, if any such be taken." Eustache had no state in the constableship; nor have his ancestors held it since 18 Edw. IV., in whose reign and in that of Henry VII. Parliament repealed the grant to the Eustaches and all other such grants made by Archbishops of Dublin. The Lord of Trymlettiston, your Chancellor, who had the custody of the body and lands of the said Christopher during his nonage, claimed the constableship, and the matter was brought before the Dean of Lichfield, Sir Rauff Egerton and Sir Anthony Fitz Herbert, then your Commissioners here, who decreed that the Archbishop and his successors ought to enjoy it, notwithstanding the said grant. The mill, moreover, is not comprehended in the grant. Before the grant was repealed, it was considered that the revenues of the archbishopric lying in the heart of the English pale were not sufficient for the Archbishop to defend the residue of his lands lying in the marches and borders of Irishmen, "as the same manor doth, joining to the Tooles, Byrnes, and Cavenages." At present "the lands thereunto appertaining is almost made waste, and the rent of assize thereof yearly not leviable above 20l. sterling, where in times past it was 340 marks yearly." The rent cannot be increased, or the poor tenants there defended, but by the personal residence of an active person. We think Master Barnewell, who is your serjeant at law here, would not attend thereto, but substitute some other gentleman there of the country under him, who would oppress the poor tenants there, under pretence of their defence, as the Geraldines and Eustaches used to do in times past; and thus both your lands and revenues and the poor living of the ministers of the Church have decreased there. Sometimes I, the Archbishop, "must resort thither and lie there, as my predecessors have done, for the stay of the country; and lacking the use as then of the castle and room of my house, which is very small, with the profits of the mill there, I should not have provision nor lodging in all those parts." We beseech you to have us excused for not conforming ourselves herein.

We have lately elected Sir Edward Basnet Dean of Saint Patrick's, which we did only in respect of your Grace's desire.

Dublin, 30 April.

Signed: Georgius Dubliñ; Walterus Whyt, Prior electus; Edward Basnet, Dean of Saint Patrick's.

Addressed: To the King's Highness.

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 145.