Catalogue description SIR WILLIAM SKEFFINGTON, DEPUTY.

Instructions given by the King to Sir William Skeffington, Master of the Ordnance, appointed Deputy to the Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Lieutenant of Ireland.

He shall deliver the King's letters to the Chancellor and other councillors of Ireland, showing them the cause of his repair thither and his letters patent. The King sends with him 200 horsemen, and money for their wages. He is to reform all particular grudges and displeasures among the King's subjects, and chiefly between the Earls of Kildare, Desmond, and Ossory. He is not to employ the said horsemen or any other of the King's subjects in making any hosting or main invasion upon the wild Irishry at such charges of the country as are used without the express consent of the whole Council; but they are to attend to the sure preservation and defence of the said land.

"The said Deputy shall also take with him the letters patents under the King's seal of Ireland, devised upon all such articles and points as there were thought good to be enacted and passed by authority of the Parliament of his said land, which Parliament the Deputy shall call." He and the Council are to endeavour to pass such acts as by the King shall be devised, and consult together for the immediate attaining of a subsidy towards the alleviation of the King's charges, "payable for one year, to be ended at Michaelmas next, and that failing, for half a year, ending the same day, if they can so conduce it, and also to endure for as many years as they can attain the same; which thing is not to be tracted or retracted till the Parliament, forasmuch as percase the same shall not be assembled till Michaelmas next, but is with all convenient diligence to be practised and brought to pass before the said Parliament, if it may be." The same subsidy, and all other revenues, are to be paid to the Prior of Kilmainham, Under Treasurer there.

The Earl of Kildare has made faithful promise to the King to employ and endeavour himself for the annoyance of the King's rebellious subjects of the wild Irishry. When the Deputy shall not fortune to go in person, he shall, "at the acquisition (sic) of the said Earl," send to him part of the men of war now sent. "And the profits of such impositions, that is to say, of beasts or other things, that at any entry or exploit shall be imponed or had by way of patisment or agreement upon the enemies, always the moiety to be answered to the King's Highness to the hands of the said Under Treasurer, and the other moiety to remain to the Earl of Kildare (if he shall make the exploit and put the imposition), and to his company (not having the King's wages), to be ordered and divided by his discretion, as hath been accustomed."

Copy. Headed: Anno 1533. [This date does not appear in the original document, which exists in the Public Record Office, and is printed in "State Papers," II., 147.]

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 32.