[500] Leland.
[501] Irish Statutes, 33 H. 8, c. 1.
[502] Ibid. 28 H. 8, c. 15, 28. The latter act prohibits intermarriage or fostering with the Irish; which had indeed been previously restrained by other statutes. In one passed five years afterwards, it is recited that "the king's English subjects, by reason that they are inhabited in so little compass or circuit, and restrained by statute to marry with the Irish nation, and therefore of necessity must marry themselves together, so that in effect they all for the most part must be allied together; and therefore it is enacted, that consanguinity or affinity beyond the fourth degree shall be no cause of challenge on a jury." 33 H. 8, c. 4. These laws were for many years of little avail, so far at least as they were meant to extend beyond the pale. Spenser's State of Ireland, p. 384 et post.
[503] Leland, ii. 178, 184.
[504] Leland, ii. 189, 211; 3 & 4 P. and M. c. 1 and 2. Meath had been divided into two shires, by separating the western part. 34 H. 8, c. 1. "Forasmuch as the shire of Methe is great and large in circuit, and the west part thereof laid about or beset with divers of the king's rebels." Baron Finglas says, "Half Meath has not obeyed the king's laws these one hundred years or more." Breviate of Ireland, apud Harris, p. 85.
[505] Leland, ii. 158.
[506] Leland, 224; Irish Statutes, 2 Eliz.
[507] Leland gives several instances of breach of faith in the government. A little tract, called a "Brief Declaration of the Government of Ireland," written by Captain Lee in 1594, and published in Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, vol. i., censures the two last deputies (Grey and Fitzwilliams) for their ill usage of the Irish, and unfolds the despotic character of the English government. "The cause they (the lords of the north) have to stand upon those terms, and to seek for better assurance, is the harsh practices used against others, by those who have been placed in authority to protect men for your majesty's service, which they have greatly abused in this sort. They have drawn unto them by protection three or four hundred of the country people, under colour to do your majesty service, and brought them to a place of meeting, where your garrison soldiers were appointed to be, who have there most dishonourably put them all to the sword; and this hath been by the consent and practice of the lord deputy for the time being. If this be a good course to draw those savage people to the state to do your majesty service, and not rather to enforce them to stand on their guard, I leave to your majesty."—P. 90. He goes on to enumerate more cases of hardship and tyranny; many being arraigned and convicted of treason on slight evidence; many assaulted and killed by the sheriffs on commissions of rebellion; others imprisoned and kept in irons; among others, a youth, the heir of a great estate. He certainly praises Tyrone more than, from subsequent events, we should think just, which may be thought to throw some suspicion on his own loyalty; yet he seems to have been a protestant, and in 1594 the views of Tyrone were ambiguous, so that Captain Lee may have been deceived.
[508] Sidney Papers, i. 20.
[509] Id. 24.