and yet these new created corporations, for the most part are so miserable and beggarly poor, as their tuguria cannot otherwise be holden or denied than as tituli sine re, et figmenta in relus; for divers of which (their extreme poverty, being not able to defray the charges of burgesses, nor the places themselves to afford any one man fit to present himself in the poorest society of men) and for others, we must confess, that some of great fashion have not sticked to abase themselves to be returned: the lord deputy's servants, attornies, and clerks, resident only in the city of Dublin, most of them having never seen or known the places for which they were returned, and others of contemptible life and carriage. And what outra geous violence was offered yesterday to a grave gentleman, whom men of all sorts that know him, do and will confess to be both learned, grave, and discreet, free from all touch and imputation, and whom those of the lower house, to whom no exceptions could be taken, had chosen to be their speaker, we leave, for avoiding tediousness to your highness, to their own further declaration. And forasmuch as, most renowned and dread sovereign, we cannot in any 'due proportion of reason expect redress in these our distressed calamities, where many of those who represent the body of your estate were the chief authors of them, upon the knees of our loyal and submissive hearts, we humbly pray, that it would please your majesty to admit some of us to the access of your royal presence; where, if we fail in the least point of these our assertions, and declarations of other evils, which do multiply in this estate, we willingly submit ourselves to any punishment, as deserved, which it shall please your highness to lay and inflict upon us. For we are those, by the effusion of whose ancestors blood, the foundation of that empire, which we acknowledge your highness by the laws of God and man to have over this kingdom and people, was first laid, and in many succeeding ages preserved. To es it properly appertaineth, both in the obligation of public duty and private interest, to heed the good thereof, who never laid the foundation of our hopes upon the disturbance of it, garboils and dissentions being the downfall of our estate, as some of us now living can witness; and therefore, we cannot, but out of the consideration of our bounden duty and allegiance, make known unto your highness the general discontent which those strange, unlooked for, and never heard of courses particularly have bred; where of, if the rebeltious and discontented of this nation abroad do take advantage, and procure the evil-affected at home, which are numbers, by reason of that already settled, and intended plantation, in an hostile fashion to set disorders on foot, and labour some underhand relief from any prince or estate abroad, who peradventure might be inveigled, and drawn to commiserate their pretended distresses and oppressions; however, we are assured the prowess and power of your majesty in the end will bring the authors thereof to ruin and confusion; yet it may be attended with the effusion of much blood, exhausting of masses of treasure, the exposing of us, and others your highness's well affected subjects, to the hazard of poverty, whereof the memory is very lively and fresh among us; and finally, to the laying open of the whole commonality to the inundation of all miseries and calamities, which garboils, civil war, and dissentions to breed and draw with them, in a rent and torn estate. For preventing whereof, we nothing doubt but your majesty will give redress, by the equal balance of your highness's justice, which we beseech the Almighty, with your royal person, ever to maintain and preserve, To the Right Honorable the Lords of his Majesty's Most Honorable Privy Council. The humble Petition of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses of the Counties, Cities, and ancient Boroughs of Ireland. [See Review, p. 79.] MOST humbly declaring to your lordships, that the assurance of his majesty's most princely inviolable justice, whereof your lordships, in matters of state and government, are the high and supreme distributors, doth embolded us, in our oppressions, to address these our submissive lines to your honors; wherein our purpose is, not to be pleaders, the strangeness of our extremities finding no fit words to express them; and therefore, in declaration of the naked truth, your lordships shall understand that we, the knights, citizens, and burgesses of the counties, cities, and ancient boroughs of this realm, coming, according to our bounden duties, into the parliament house, we find there fourteen counsellors of state, three of the judges, having before received writs to appear in the higher house, all his majesty's council at law; and the rest of the number, for the most part, consisting of attornies, clerks in courts, of the lord deputy's reti nue, and others his household-servants, with some lately come out of England, having no abiding here; and all these, saving very few, were returned from the new corporations erected, to the number of forty or thereabouts, not only in places of the new plantation, but also in other provinces, where there be corporations of antiquity; few or none of them having been ever resident, and most of them having never seen these places the rest, who possessed the rooms of knights of shires, save four or six, came in by practice, and dishonest devices, whereunto themselves were not strangers; and some there were from ancient boroughs, who intruded themselves into their places, by as undue and unlawful means: as the knights and burgesses duly elected were ready at the parliament door to prove and avouch. For redress whereof, we of the ancient shires, cities, and towns, to whom no exceptions could be taken, being desirous to take the usual and accustomed course, what outrageous violence ensued, by the fury of some there, we humbly leave to your lordships to be informed by our declarations; whereunto a schedule, by direction of my lord deputy, subscribed with our hands, is annexed. And forasmuch, right honorable, as the strangeness of these proceedings, in a christian commonwealth is such as we think his majesty and your lordships will hardly be induced to believe; they being, in the likelihood of impossibility, equal to that of Messalino, unto the emperor Claudius in ancient Rome; or to any other accident, how rare soever, transmitted to posterity in modern or ancient shires, we humbly pray, that your lordships, in commiseration of our distress, will be a mean to his highness, that some of us, with some of our nobility, may be licensed to present ourselves there, for the proof of our assertions; wherein if we fail in any one point, we utterly renounce all favour; and that in the mean time his majesty will be pleased to suspend his gracious judgment, in the apprehension of what to our prejudice may be informed here; those from whom his highness doth usually receive information, being the authors of the carriage of what is done amiss. NUMBER IV, [From Desiderat. Curios. Hibern.] Abstract of the Report and Return of Commissioners sent by the King to Ireland, to enquire into the Grievances and Complaints of the Irish, in 1613. [See Review, p. 89.] UPON our arrival in Dublin the 11th of September, we caused his majesty's commission and instructions to be inrolled, and presently directed our letters to the governors of Munster and Conaught, as also to divers Jords, archbishops, and bishops, and to several of the sheriffs of counties, and others, concerning the articles of the said instructions, whereby our arrival, and the cause of our employment were made known to the people in most parts of the kingdom. Yet during the space of one month at the least, after our landing, no one petition was exhibited to us complain, ing of any grievances. Nevertheless afterwards, upon the coming over of the lord Killeene and sir Christopher Plunket, two of the late petitioners to his majesty, they exhibited unto us particular instances of oppression and exactions by soldiers, provost-marshals, and some others, specially those that reside nearest the state; out of which particulars, being many, we selected three-score or thereabouts, as meetest to be examined; whereby we might discern, what were the several kinds of the soldiers oppressions towards the people; for proof of which selected articles, divers days were assigned to them to produce their witnesses: at which time some of the captains of horse and foot, provost-marshals, and some of their soldiers we warned to appear before us, and thereupon we proceeded in presence of the lord Killeene and sir Christopher Plunket, and some of the parties grieved, and we proceeded to a summary examination of those disorders; and by these examinations, and by other means, it doth appear unto us, that the soldiers, both horse and foot, have extorted upon his majesty's subjects in manner following: first, in all their journies and thoroughfares, where, by their warrant from the lord deputy, they are commanded to take meat and drink in the country, paying ready money, or giving tickets for the same: the soldiers nevertheless, for the most part, neither pay money, nor give tickets, as they ought to do; and in cases where the collectors receive tickets for the payment of the country for victualling of soldiers, they, and sometimes persons authorised by the principal gentlemen of the country, do get these tickets into their hands, and obtain payment from his majesty's treasurer, and seldom make distribution to the poorer sort to whom it is due. The soldiers, where they are cessed, do extort money from the poorer people (besides meat and drink) for every night's lodging three shillings for a horse-man, and two shillings for a foot-man, sometimes more, and sometimes less; and certain petty sums are also taken for their boys and attendants, besides victuals; and it happeneth sometimes, that the soldiers that take cess, take money, as well for themselves as for other soldiers absent, which the country call Black-men, because they are not seen; and sometimes soldiers in pay, and others discharged out of pay, and divers vagrants in the name of soldiers, take meat and money of the peo ple without warrant, or after the date of their warrant is expired, in extortious manner, by two or three or more in a company. And in all these cases, when the people have not money to pay them, they take divers times, forcibly, either some of their cattle, or some of their household stuff for pawns in lieu thereof, whereby breach of peace and affrays are occasioned. Likewise the soldiers, although they be always enjoined by the lord deputy's warrant to pass to and fro the direct way in their journics, yet do they sometimes make a circular and long course in their thoroughfare, . whereby they cess and hurt the people, more days than is limited to them, or is requisite for their journey. Also the soldiers in journies, being cessed in small numbers in villages by the collectors, according to the ability of the places, they do sometimes take money in the towns, wherein they are assigned to take their lodg ings and victuals, and depart the same and lodge themselves, without warrant, near the same place, whereby the people bear a double charge. Moreover it appeareth, that some officers of bands have taken monies of townships, to forbear to cess upon them in their journies, and have cessed upon the towns not far distant from thence; and these exactions are committed by soldiers in counties where the composition in lieu of cess is paid, as in other places; wherein is to be observed, that by the tenor of the composition, the counties are to victual the soldiers in their passage at usual rates, a matter reserved for necessity of state. The soldiers do not only commit these abuses in their thoroughfares, but when they are sent into the country upon other employments. The provost-marshal (whereof there is one at the least in every province) has likewise certain men to attend him, who do exact victuals and money in their passage up and down the country from the people, and commit other disorders as soldiers do; which extortions have been committed by the soldiers and the rest of themselves, without any warrant at all, or connivance of any, so far as hath appeared unto us. And notwithstanding the oppressions in these kinds are very many (as may be seen by their informations to us exhibited from divers parts of the kingdom), yet, for any thing appearing unto us, very few have complained thereof to the lord deputy; who upon their complaints, hath given order for redress of such grievances, as hath been manifested unto us. The reasons wherefore the people pretend to have forborne their complaints, is the fear they have had to be worse used by the soldiers com plained of at other times, and that the charges of the complaint would far have exceeded their damages and losses, although they cannot deny but the lord deputy hath given as easy access and as speedy remedy, as hath been given by former governors. The names of some few soldiers that are offenders in these kinds, and are yet in pay, appear in our examine ions, others are dead or discharged, and in many of the complaints against soldiers, their names are not known to the parties, neither have soldiers, or others complained to us for want of pay by their captains, although some of them have been by us required publicly to deliver us their knowledge therein......There be divers complaints againts sheriffs in general, that sundry sheriffs have no freehold, or habitation, in the counties for which they serve, as they ought to have by the laws of the kingdom; also that divers of them have no settled estates of land or freehold in other places; and having gathered rents, and other duties for his majesty, they depart without passing their accounts, which appeareth to be true: and the reason thereof is affirmed to be, that in the civilest countries in the English pale, and in other counties within the kingdom, there are found very few protestants that are freeholders of quality fit to be sheriffs, and that will take the oath of supremacy, as by the laws they ought to do; and by the lord deputy's order, no sheriff is admitted till he enter into sufficient bond for answering his accounts. It is likewise a grievance complained of, and found true, that many sheriffs, especially those of the meaner sort, do suffer their men, bailiis, and followers to take victuals of the country for themselves without money, and sometimes both money and victuals; and that in gathering in his majesty's rents, and the fines for using the short ploughs, and other impositions, as building of bridges and such like, they do take of the people, besides the principal duties, twelve pence in the pound, and sometimes greater sums, for their private uses, for which the sheriffs give no reason, but that the same is taken towards their charges in collect ing those duties, in regard of the little benefit which their office other. wise yieldeth, &c. NUMBER V. [From Carte's Orm. vol. iii.] The Remonstrance of the Catholics of Ireland, delivered to his Majesty's Commissioners at Trym, 17th March, 1642. [See Review, p. 237.] To the King's most excellent Majestie. Most gracious soveraigne, WEE your majestie's most dutifull and loyall subjects, the catholiques of your highness kingdome of Ireland, being necessitated to take armes for the preservation of our relligion, the mainetenance of our majestie's rights and prerogatives, the natural and just defence of our lives and estates, and the liberties of our country, have often since the beginning of these troubles attempted to present our humble complaynts unto your royall view; but we are frustrated of our hopes therein by the power and vigilance of our adversaryes, (the now lords justices and other ministers of state in this kingdome) who by the assistance of the malignant partie in England, now in armes against your royall person, with less difficultie to attain the bad ends they proposed to themselves, of extirpateing our religion and nation, have hitherto debarred us of any access to your majestie's justice, which occasioned the effusion of much innocent blood, and other mischiefs in this wour kingdome, that otherwise might well bee prevented. And whereas of late notice was sent unto us of a commission granted by your majestie to the right honorable the lord Marques of Ormond, and others, authorising them to heare what we shall say or propound, and the same to transmitt to your majestie in writeing, which your majestie's gratious and princely favour, wee finde to bee accompa nied with these words, viz. (albeit wee doe extremely detest the odious rebellion which the recusants of Ireland have without ground or colour raysed against us, our crowne and dignitie) which words wee doe in all humilitie conceive to have proceeded from the misrepresentations of our adversaries; and therefore doe protest, we have been therein maliciously traduced to your majestie, haveing never entertayned any rebellious thought against your majestie, your crowne, or dignitie; but allways have beene, and ever will continue, your majestie's most faithfull and loyall subjects; and doe most humbly beseech your majestic soe to owne and avowe us; and as such we present unto your majestie these ensueing grievances, and causes of the present distempers. Imprimis, The catholiques of this kingdome, whome no reward could invite, no persecution enforce, to forsake that religion professed by them and their ancestors for thirteen hundred years, or thereabouts, are since the second yeare of the reigue of queene of Elizabeth, made incapable of places of honour or trust, in church or commonwealth; their nobles become contemptible, their gentry debarred from learning in universities, or public schools within this kingdom; their younger brothers put by all manner of imployment in their native country, and necessitated (to their great discomfort, and impoverishment of the land) to seeke education and fortune abroad; misfortunes made incident to the said catholiques of Ireland only (their numbers, qualitie, and loyaltie considered) of all the nations of Chris tendome. 2. Secondly, That by this incapacitie, which in respect of their religion was imposed upon the said catholiques; men of meane condition and qualitie, for the most part were in this kingdome, imployed in places of great |