State of Connaught.
Forty-eight executions in Leinster.
Feagh MacHugh a prosecutor of thieves.
In Connaught Bingham complained that he was denied means to maintain the strict government necessary for a people who were not naturally inclined to civility. He hoped nevertheless to increase the revenue in time. From Leinster alone was there anything like a good report. The Master of the Rolls went circuit, and 48 prisoners out of 181 were executed on verdicts found by their own clansmen. Among them were two landowners of the Kavanaghs, who had regularly preyed upon the Barrow navigation, and whose property near Leighlin thus escheated to the Crown. White settled some dispute between chiefs and sheriffs, and visited Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne at Ballinacor, ‘where law never approached.’ Nor was the reconciliation with the notable partisan altogether hollow. About three months afterwards, fifty head of cattle were lifted in the Pale, and ‘carried with a pipe to the mountain.’ Feagh MacHugh followed, brought back the cows, and sent three of the reivers’ heads to Perrott. The piper and another were sent alive, and speedily hanged, and O’Byrne declared his willingness to send his own son, who had been implicated in the robbery. ‘Your lordship,’ said Perrott, ‘perhaps will marvel to hear that Feagh is such a prosecutor of theft, and will think it a great change that the O’Connors are ready to do good service; and the O’Mores, having put in pledges, do live without doing harm. In Munster only one of the Burkes is abroad in Aherlow woods with a 20 or 30 swords.’[129]
State of Ulster.
Perrott addresses the Parliament of England.
The Queen spares both money and thanks.
Exhaustion or despair had for a time quieted East, South, and West, but the North was still unsubdued, and Perrott felt that only permanent garrisons could secure it. He asked for 600 men, 25 to be levied in each of the 24 handiest counties of England and Wales. In common years the Queen had hitherto spent 30,000l. or 40,000l. a year over and above the Irish revenue, and the average expense was considerably more. If he might have 50,000l. for three years only, he would at the end of them hand over Ireland provided with a trained garrison of 2,000 foot and 400 horse, with seven walled towns of a mile in circumference, with seven bridges, and with seven castles; and the whole country might then be governed infinitely better and more cheaply than it had ever been before. He went so far as to write a letter to the English Parliament, addressing it as ‘most high and noble assembly.’ The malice of the Pope was urged, and also the certainty that foreign princes would again attempt Ireland, and make it a noisome neighbour to England. ‘Choke up the sink at once,’ he exclaimed, ‘make one charge of all, conceiving you do but lend so much upon large interest.’ But even Perrott was not rash enough to address Parliament without Elizabeth’s leave, and the despatch was forwarded through Walsingham, who consulted Burghley and promptly suppressed it. The Queen, they said, would certainly resent anyone but herself moving Parliament. She had now resolved to help the Dutch, and was the more determined to spare treasure in Ireland. No real danger was to be apprehended from the Scots, about whom she meant to deal roundly with King James. But Perrott was thanked for his services, and some minor requests were granted. A few weeks later, fearing perhaps lest he should be puffed up, she wrote with her own hand as follows:—‘Let us have no more such rash, unadvised journeys without good ground as your last journey in the North. We marvel that you hanged not such saucy an advertiser as he that made you believe so great a company was coming. I know you do nothing but with a good intention for my service, but yet take better heed ere you use us so again.’
He could only reiterate, what seems to have been the fact, that thousands of Scots had really landed, and had run away before he could reach them.[130]