[480] Leland, 225.
[481] Davis, 100, 109. He quotes the following record from an assize at Waterford, in the 4th of Edward II. (1311), which may be extracted, as briefly illustrating the state of law in Ireland better than any general positions. "Quod Robertus le Wayleys rectatus de morte Johannis filii Ivor MacGillemory, felonicè per ipsum interfecti, etc. Venit et bene cognovit quod prædictum Johannem interfecit; dicit tamen quod per ejus interfectionem feloniam committere non potuit, quia dicit, quod prædictus Johannes fuit purus Hibernicus, et non de libero sanguine, etc. Et cum dominus dicti Johannis, cujus Hibernicus idem Johannes fuit, die quo interfectus fuit, solutionem pro ipso Johanne Hibernico suo sic interfecto petere voluerit, ipse Robertus paratus erit ad respondendum de solutione prædictâ prout justitia suadebit. Et super hoc venit quidam Johannes le Poer, et dicit pro domino rege, quod prædictus Johannes filius Ivor Mac-Gillemory, et antecessores sui de cognomine prædicto a tempore quo dominus Henricus filius imperatricis, quondam dominus Hiberniæ, tritavus domini regis nunc, fuit in Hiberniâ, legem Anglicanam in Hiberniâ usque ad hanc diem habere, et secundum ipsam legem judicari et deduci debent." We have here both the general rule, that the death of an Irishman was only punishable by a composition to his lord, and the exception in behalf of those natives who had conformed to the English law.
[482] Davis, 104; Leland, 82. It was necessary to plead in bar of an action, that the plaintiff was Hibernicus, et non de quinque sanguinibus.
[483] Davis, 106. "If I should collect out of the records all the charters of this kind, I should make a volume thereof." They began as early as the reign of Henry III. Leland, 225.
[484] Leland, 243.
[485] Id. 289.
[486] "There were two other customs proper and peculiar to the Irishry, which, being the cause of many strong combinations and factions, do tend to the utter ruin of a commonwealth. The one was fostering, the other gossipred; both which have ever been of greater estimation among this people than with any other nation in the Christian world. For fostering I did never hear or read that it was in that use or reputation in any other country, barbarous or civil, as it hath been, and yet is, in Ireland, where they put away all their children to fosterers; the potent and rich men selling, the meaner sort, buying, the alterage and nursing of their children; and the reason is, because in the opinion of this people, fostering hath always been a stronger alliance than blood; and the foster-children do love and are beloved of their foster-fathers and their sept, more than of their own natural parents and kindred, and do participate of their means more frankly, and do adhere to them in all fortunes, with more affection and constancy. The like may be said of gossipred or compaternity, which though by the canon law it be a spiritual affinity, and a juror that was gossip to either of the parties might in former times have been challenged, as not indifferent, by our law, yet there was no nation under the sun that ever made so religious an account of it as the Irish," Davis, 179.
[487] "For that now there is no diversity in array between the English marchers and the Irish enemies, and so by colour of the English marchers, the Irish enemies do come from day to day into the English counties as English marchers, and do rob and kill by the highways, and destroy the common people by lodging upon them in the nights, and also do kill the husbands in the nights and do take their goods to the Irish men; wherefore it is ordained and agreed, that no manner man that will be taken for an Englishman shall have no beard above his mouth; that is to say, that he have no hairs upon his upper lip, so that the said lip be once at least shaven every fortnight, or of equal growth with the nether lip. And if any man be found among the English contrary hereunto, that then it shall be lawful to every man to take them and their goods as Irish enemies, and to ransom them as Irish enemies." Irish Statutes, 25 H. 6, c. 4.
[488] Davis, 152, 182; Leland, i. 256, etc.; Ware, ii. 58.
[489] Leland, 253.