Catalogue description A DISCOURSE for the REFORMATION of IRELAND.

"The charge your Majesty committed unto me for the setting down of my opinion how your realm of Ireland might with the least charge be reclaimed from barbarism to a godly government is somewhat difficult." I have set down what were the causes of its disorders whilst I had some piece of government in it.

Notwithstanding all your care and charges, the state of that country has grown from worse to worse. The smoothing up of rebellions by pardons and protections has been the nursery of most of this mischief. There is a want of religion and law; St. Patrick is of better credit than Christ Jesus; and they fly from the laws as from a yoke of bondage. God's will and word must first be duly planted, and idolatry extirped; next, law must be established, and licentious customs abrogated.

The mean to effect both is now most fitly offered by the rebellion now afoot. No pardon or protection should be given to any man. Your subjects have been burned, ravished, spoiled, and robbed by the traitors. There will escheat to your Majesty, by due course of justice, the better half of that land, whereof great revenue will grow. But it is far from me to desire any extirpation; for England, populous as it is, would not be able to replenish the wastes.

To repress this rebellion and reform the realm the Deputy would require seven years. None of his actions should be crossed, to work him your disgrace, which the Irish will soon espy; and he must have sufficient men, money, munition, and victual; sc., 800 English horsemen, 3,000 English footmen, and 100 galloglasses, kerne, and shot, Irish. In lieu of cesse the pay should be according to certain rates (specified), as in all other your services. Total of the pay, 67,619l. 3s. 4d.; or, with the pay of the Deputy and other officers, and extra-ordinary charges, 100,000l. a year. All former arrearages to be discharged. It were money well bestowed. One year you spent as much as this.

"It shall be good that your Majesty, after the example of France, Spain, and Flanders (where most of the small money consisteth of base coins), you do also cause to be coined the first four years 100,000l. in pieces of 8d., 4d., 2d., and 1d.; these to contain but a fourth part of fine silver, letting all coins that are current there that are of gold and silver to run as they do now. So your Majesty's charges, besides all charges of coining, will amount to no more but 25,000l. yearly, which in four years would come to 100,000l." If the coinage be in Ireland, it is necessary to call in all the base money current. Rosse in Wexford is a most apt place for the mint, by reason of the great abundance of wood which grows along the river. The embasing of coin can do no harm in Ireland, which is all out of order. Prices may be doubled, but the reformation will recompense the loss treble. (Other considerations are mentioned.)

Victuals and provisions are now to be provided for.

The standing seat of the Deputy and the law should be translated from Dublin to Athlone, the centre of Ireland. The Deputy to have two Presidents: one in Munster, at Kylmalocke: the other in Ulster, at Lyeller. [Sic. Qy. Lifford?] Two marshals to be at the direction of the Deputy and Presidents. The Presidents to serve for not less than five years; the marshals for life. Advice respecting the choice of the Lord Chancellor, the clerk of the cheque, and other officers.

The Scots in Ulster, the Burkes in Connaught, Desmond in Munster, and Baltinglasse in Leinster, should all be fronted; the last first. The Deputy "to make passes through their woods and fastnesses, and fortifications, upon every their strength and strengths, after the example of your Majesty's most noble progenitors in subduing of Wales." [Was this scheme the production of Sir Henry Sydney, President of Wales?] A navy to be kept upon the coast to answer foreign attempts.

The rebellion being suppressed, it will be necessary to call a parliament to enact new statutes for establishing the articles ensuing:--

(1.) Two universities to be erected at Limerick and Armagh.

(2.) A collection to be made of all the statutes already in force.

(3.) The Earl of Ormond to be compounded with for his liberties of Tipperary; yet he is to have his escheats, as the lords marchers of Wales have theirs. For the Lord of Desmond's liberties of count palatine in Kennye (sic) there needs no composition, he being in rebellion.

(4.) All Ireland to be reduced into manors.

(5.) Cesse, cuttings, and all Irish exactions to be abolished; and in lieu thereof an annual rent to be rated upon every ploughland

(6.) No lord or gentleman to put upon his lordship or seignory any gallowglasse, kerne, or shotte, &c.

(7.) All brehons, carraghes, bards, rhymers, friars, monks, Jesuits, pardoners, nuns, and such like to be executed by martial law.

(8.) Your Majesty to grant a yearly pension to the Earl of Argyle, to restrain the Irish Scots from coming over into Ireland.

(9.) The English horsemen and footmen, the galloglasses, kerne, and Irish shotte to be allotted some of the escheated lands at a reasonable price; "and yearly as the commodities of the land increaseth, the wages to abate, and so at length clean extinguish."

(10.) New privileges to be granted to the ports.

(11.) Merchants not to sell powder and munition to the Irish.

(12.) Honest and skilful men to be taken out of every court of record here, and placed there.

(13.) Irish habits for men and women to be abolished, and the English tongue to be extended.

(14.) "That the factions of Butler and Geraldine, with the titles of Ihmabo and Craghnobo, be taken away."

(15.) A survey to be taken of the lands of all the lords of the country; a third part to be seized into your hands, and improved lands in England to be given them in exchange.

I will now show the commodities which are like to grow. "But first I thought it good to underwrite the copy of an old note or pamphlet, which I found in Ireland, containing a short survey of the whole land." (This "survey" is very brief. It shows the extent of Ireland, its divisions, the number of its cities, ploughlands, &c., and the revenue derivable from it.)

The want in England of timber for the navy may be abundantly supplied in Ireland. There is great plenty of iron in some places. Cork, Yowghull, Wexford, and Belfast are fit places for shipbuilding. The mines to be searched, &c.

"Here now, lastly, doth the common objection oppose itself, requiring an answer, whether it be safety or danger, good or evil, for England to have Ireland reformed, lest, growing to civility, government, and strength, it should cast off the yoke, and be more noisome and dangerous neighbours to England." This objection is of no force. "The Kings of Spain have now of long time governed other countries, being civil and lying further off."

Copy.

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 511.