vigilance of that King to reliev them did stoutly beat them off and frustrated their unchristian intention Then that King finding them so embarked in their former rudeness and barbarisme as there was no faith or dutie to bee exspected from them and that they could not sit down in anie civil societie Hee by advice of his Council confiscated all their Estates and adjudged and declared the Irish generally to bee enemies and aliens in which condition they continued long after as is manifest by the Records and Statute-Laws of those times And then hee set his Subjects of England and Wales at full Libertie to win what they could in that Land towards the reducement thereof to his just Subjection for better accomplishment whereof hee made chois of ten special persons of qualitie and power in his other Dominions to whom by grant of inheritance hee divided the Lands of that whole Island who drawing together their several Alies friends and other adventurers they by that King's countenance and assistance so bestirred themselvs as within few years they became Masters and possessors of the whole Island and so continued quietly possessed for almost one hundred years without anie offence to England forcing the perfidious Irish who were then few in number after manie conflicts with them into Mountains Bogs and boggie woods there to wander up and down with the remain of their Cattel not daring to bee seen or to graze in anie of the more habitable parts where the English had footing special Statute-Laws prohibiting the same Laws also were made that upon pain of fellonie no Merchant or other liege person should trade with the Irish in market or otherwise It was also made fellonie to succor anie of the Irish enemies from the time of the foresaid division forward was that Island onely called the King's Land of Ireland till the reign of King Henrie the eighth as appear's by Acts of Parlament and all Records mentioning the same The division hee made was as followeth viz. To Richard Earl of Pembroke of Strigil called Strongbow he regranted the Kingdom or Territories of Leimster surrendred to him by the said Earl Richard whose it was pretended to bee in right of his wife sole daughter and heir of the last nominal or tributarie King thereof except Dublin and som lands thereunto lying part whereof is yet called the King's Land and beeing divided into Mannors the Free-holders paie chief rents into the Exchequer to this daie and except som maritim Towns Castles and som lands about them which hee reserved to himself To Bobert Fitz-Stephens and Myles Cogan hee granted the Territories called the Kingdom of Cork the Citie of Cork and som lands thereunto lying reserved as aforesaid excepted the heir of Cogan is yet possessor of som of those lands To Phillip le Bruce the Territories called the Kingdom of Limerick with donation of Bishopricks and Abbeies except the Citie of Limerick and a Cantred of Land adjoining reserved as aforesaid To Sr Hugh de Lacie Justice or as som write Custos of Ireland the territories called the Kingdom of Meath then of far greater extent then the name Meath now import's To Sr John de Coursie all Vlster which beeing a large continent was quietly possessed by him and his English tenements manie years After his death without heirs it was granted to Hugh Lacie who held it till forfeited then was it granted by King Edward the first to Walter de Burgo from whom it descended to William de Burgo And after those Lands and Signories were by Edward the fourth adjoined to the Demesne and Crown-Lands of England To William Fitz-Adelme de Burgo all Connaght except a small part for life given to Rotherick formerly nominal King thereof after whose death that Land also was by King Henrie the third granted to Richard de Burgo heir to William except the Cantreds of Roscomon Randon and two or three other Cantreds neer Athlon All which were after granted by succeeding Kings to other English onely Roscomon remained in the Crown till Queen Elizabeth granted the same to one Mr Malby This whole Countrie came after to the Crown by the marriage of Lionel Duke of Clarence son to King Edward the third with the Daughter and heir of de Burgo To Sr Thomas Clare of the stock of the Earl of Glocester all Ghomond now the Countie of Clare which was confirmed to the same Familie by grant from King Edward the first to Robert le Poer all the Countie of Waterford except the Citie and cantred about it the chief of the Familie of which Poers is now a Baron to Otho de Grandison all Tipperarie Afterwards King John having intelligence that the English began to bee at variance amongst themselvs by reason that the Laws were not so spread and administred as they should bee made a voiage in person thither with a competent force for his honor and safetie and then did hee divide the whole Land into Counties as they for the most part stand at this daie though Connaght and Vlster since are much subdivided hee carried over with him divers learned men for civil and ecclesiastical Notion hee ordered and established the Courts of Justice as in England viz. the Chancerie the Kings Bench Common Pleas and Exchequer and other Ecclesiastical Judicatures and setled competent Judges in them hee appointed Justices Itinerant and all other Officers for Law and execution of Justice and four tearms in the year to bee kept as in England by which the people became subject to Law the Irish beeing still held as enemies and Aliens were better governed lived in peace and great prosperitie manie years save what ruptures it endured by their own dissentions as hereafter appeareth So as by what is above specified it appear's the English were made lawfully inheritable and became possessed of the whole continent wheresoever they could finde places anie waie fit for habitation And to prove their possessions as well as their grants besides that in all the ancient Records taking cognizance of all the habitable parts of that Land in which those English are named you shall finde no Juries upon Inquiries or trial of anie causes whatsoever Capital Criminal or common where is mentioned anie Irish name but all English All their Officers and Ministers of Justice beeing the same and beside several Statute-Laws do assert their universal possession It is undeniably evident that generally all the now Freeholders of several great continents in that Island are English either descendents or deriving from those first adventurers or by ancient grants from the Crown upon their forfeitures though the truth is manie of their laborers underfarmers and tennants which they call Churls are and still were Irish the territories and Countries which those English and som of late settlement did and do possess are viz. in the Countie of Down the Countries of little Ards the Duffrey Lecale Mourn the Newrie and several other places of lesser note all the Countie of Lowth the whole Countie of Dublin
and Nature on whom hee would father the Irish depredations and murthers And this may in som measure suffice for an Answer to the first Quere at least to shew how the Querist seek's to blinde inadvertent men with a far fetched supposition which want's substance in everie particular when examined yet framed as an Engine to retard all succors for Ireland then at the point to bee lost The second Quere VVHether a people or Nation so setled have not a power to establish all Laws Government Offices and Officers amongst themselvs and to oppose and execute all such as shall endeavor to impose and obtrude upon them Laws Government Offices and Officers without or against their consent The second Answer THe Irish are not such a people or Nation so setled have not a power to establish all Laws Government c. But the people of England to whom Ireland belong's are and have such a power to establish all Laws Government Offices and Officers in Ireland their own Dominions and to oppose and execute all such as shall endeavor to impose and obtrude in their said Dominions Laws Government Offices and Officers without or against their consent The third Quere WHether God and Nature having given a people and Nation such a possession of Lands and som other Prince or people should invade or conquer them deprive them of much of their Land impose Laws Government and Officers upon them without or against their consent if it bee anie other then robberie in the Invaders and the just right of the invaded and conquered to cut off their enemies to procure their own Freedom and inheritance again The third Answer GOd and Nature hath so given Ireland for a possession and Government to the Inhabitants and people of England from the beginning as in the Answer to the first Quere is cleer And this Quere more properly relate's to the English just title against the claim of the Irish who were not the original Inhabiters of Ireland and so no claim from God and Nature for such a possession of theirs and therefore the Irish invasion and expulsion of the English depriving them of much of their Lands framing Laws Government and Officers in the English Dominions or against the English consent is no other then robberie in the Irish Invaders and it is the just right of the Invaded and part conquered English to cut off their Irish enemies and to procure theirs and their Brethren's freedom to regain their own lawful government and inheritance And for further resolution this Quere as it is stated is not the case of the Irish For as before is truly said the permission of the British planted and gave them first footing there and the several Conquests or rather reducements of them by the British there was no invasion but a bringing of the rebelling Irish to due obedience and Christian-like submission to their supreme Governors whose right onely it is to impose Laws Governors and Officers upon them and therefore no robberie for the English to enter on their own Land but most just to punish and disseis them who by their frequent Rebellions were no more to bee trusted with them then a mad-man with a sword yet the indulgence of the English Government hath alway as been so great as to take but a part of the Rebel's estates whereas they had forfeited all by their iterated former rebellions Then where is the caus or right of the Irish to cut off the English in cold blood in time of peace and in the best Government and improvement the Irish ever injoyed The fourth Quere WHether length of time where the original Nation is distinct from the Conqueror doth swallow up the right of the conquered that they have no right to seek after and regain their own freedoms and possessions yea or no The fourth Answer LEngth of time cannot privilege or discharge a people originally subordinate to another from their due conformitie and obedience to the Laws and Government of those by whose permission they were received into the Verge of their dominions as the Irish were into the dominions of the British in Ireland neither are the Irish Rebels as now composed a distinct Nation of themselvs nor so distinct in descent from those who at all times lawfully reduced them But that the now most ruling and powerful partie of the Rebels are descended of English lineage as aforesaid and neither they nor the other old degenerate English can justly pretend to anie Land there but what hath been passed unto them under the great Seal of that Land and therefore their freedom and right cannot bee anie wise said to bee swallowed up by the English for from anie other they cannot truly derive either their Freedom Lands or possessions as beeing granted unto them by the English and the meer Irish as is abovesaid not beeing half of the Inhabitants of Ireland nor of anie considerable riches strength or policie The fift Quere HOw can the conquered justly bee called or accounted Rebels if anie time they shall seek and endeavor to free themselvs and to regain their own Lands and Liberties The fift Answer THe Inhabitants of Ireland now in Arms against the power and just right of England are no better then perfidious rebels intruders and inhumane blood-suckers not onely for the causes before shewed but for their iterated Rebellions and former massacring of the English and have been well known to bee such brutish enemies for divers ages past And if it should bee allowed that they at their wills and pleasures might shake off the yoke of obedience and to perpetrate the inhumane cruelties semblable to their former then would they at length as it were change their shape of men into the state of Divels The sixt Quere WHether Julius Caesar Alexander the great William Duke of Normandie or anie other the great Conquerors of the world were anie other then so manie great and lawless thievs And whether it bee not altogether as unjust to take our neighbor Nations Lands and liberties from them as our neighbor's goods of our own Nation The sixt Answer HEre might I now suspend further labor as superfluous in contesting with extravagant impertinencies having expended much time upon the main But I have alreadie as I conceiv irrecoverably thrown down the fals foundation upon which this presumptuous Impostor doth rear the whole fabrick of his insnaring Queres In the fall whereof they are slaughtered as I may saie in the mother's bellie resolved before well objected and may bee left as dead and buried in their first ruines yet since the easiest part of my task is now behinde I will wave the trouble I might justly avoid in beeing filent and crave leav to proceed in the solution of the remaining interrogations to their utmost borders lest by such silence I should give advantage to the contriver of them to surfet with conceit of his supposed unanswerable suggestions By this question that now look's so big stare's us in the face
their homage to him who thereupon came and performed the same accordingly which was don in the year after our Saviour's nativitie 579 and this prove's a claim at least made by the Kings of great Britain to the Island of Ireland as part of their dominions Afterwards as is known to all men of anie reading the Saxons and Angles out of Germanie invaded great Britain and by manie contests in Arms and bloudie Battels obteined the Dominion thereof dividing it into several Kingdoms amongst themselvs which continued for manie years In all which times the Irish Inhabitants took more Libertie to root themselvs in their barbarous usurpation and tyrannie for wee cannot finde that then before or since they established anie certain Government either regal or otherwise neither are there extant anie authentick memories of anie certain or passable Laws ordeined by them for the regulating of anie Christian people yet soon after the Saxon's Heptarchie was reduced into an Entire Monarchie It is manifest by good Historie and Record that Edgar King of great Britain then and now called England not unmindful of that Kingdom 's ancient right and interest in Ireland labored and obteined another reducement and had the possession of most of that continent as appear's by the Books of that excellent writer Judg Cook extracted out of Records of the Tower Afterwards when the Danes obteined the Rule and power in great Britain they so little forgot the ancient and just challenge to Ireland as that they sent thither good numbers of men who gained large footing in several places of the best parts of the Island of whom there yet remain manie visible Monuments as their intrenchments and Fortifications to this daie called Danes Mounts or Rathes in Irish Lisses and round slender high Towers yet called Danes Steeples or Danes Towers yea the best and largest Suburbs about Dublin is yet called Ostmantown which term the Saxons gave to the Danes as Easterlings and doubtless it is their then access and som former incursions made by them as aforesaid which left manie of them there fixed who were the ancestors to the now pretended original Nation as pretended to bee given to them by God and Nature Afterwards the Norman William the Conqueror became possessed of the Dominions of England it is universally known what business hee had aswel to settle that so gained Land as to content his Allies and parties brought with him and to preserv what hee left behind him in France to which retrospect hee was enforced by manie disturbances and attempts neither is it unknown how unwarrantably his three next successors came to the Crown in England and against what counterworkings and heart-burnings they held Regencie there besides their distractions in their affairs and from their neighbors of France beeing not free from incumbrances of Scots and Welsh whereby all judicious men may conclude that none of them could safely embrace the restitution of Ireland howsoever it concerned them But assoon as one lineal descent had setled the Crown of England upon King Henry the second who was great Granchilde of the said William the Norman and who is recorded to bee the most powerful English Monarch both in England and France since the Normans coming in That King applied to the Pope for his consent to regain his said Land of Ireland who consenting thereunto to the end it might bee brought into orderly Government as well Ecclesiastical as Civil Hee yet suspended all action thither for som years beeing interrupted by his affairs in France and the disobedient combinations of his sons But after an occasion hapning by the invocation of one of the Irish pettie Kings hee permitted manie of his Subjects of England and Wales to pass thither who by their valor possessed themselvs of a good part of that Island Then in the year 1172 did that King with a competent Armie repair thither in person and resumed into his hands his ancient right of Dominion and interest there without much bloudshed and was therein confirmed by the absolute and free submissions of all the pettie Kings and other Rulers aswel Ecclesiastical as Temporal and by all others then of anie value there which they delivered unto him under their Seals There did hee also receiv the Homage Fealtie Allegiance and subjection of all those pettie usurping Princes and others as his Liege Subjects There did hee hold a great Council or general Assmblie of all the Prime inhabitants of that Island at Lismore which they called a Parlament and gave them the English Laws Vbi Leges Angliae ab omnibus sunt gratanter receptae juratoriâ cautioone praestitâ confirmatae There did hee send his Mandats to the Archbishops Bishops and Clergie of Ireland to assemble in a Synod at Cashel wherein Cbristianus Bishop of Lismore was President in which Synod that King's entrance actions and atchievments there were declared to bee lawful and it was there also concluded that it was most meet that as Ireland by God's appointment had recovered a lawful Lord and King from England so also they should from thence receiv a better from of living they also then established that all Divine Offices of holy Church should from thenceforth bee handled in all parts of Ireland according as the Church of England did observ them In that Synod also they made divers other Canons concerning the Church-Government there which Acts were ratified by the Regal Autoritie of the same Henrie the second To the same purposes another general Synod was soon after held at Armagh in Vlster where the same things and others for right ordering of that Government were resolved and agreed upon There was also placed Hugh Lacie Justice of Ireland for the Government of that Land wherein that Land then seemed to bee formally setled in a peaceable subject condition to England as it ought to bee Thus may the Querist and all others see that that Land and supposed original Nation did not continue manie hundreds or thousands of years nor was enjoied till these times without anie others laying claim to have right to the same It may bee demanded though standing thus how might King Henrie the second seiz all that Land into his own hands and grant it to adventurers as after hee did To this the answer is easie For in a short time after that King and the greatest part of his Army withdrew into England Then did all those pettie Kings Rulers and men of value and the other Inhabitants falsly and traiterously join in a Confederacie and action to extirpate and expuls all the English and Welsh then left there and did cast aside their dutie and obedience to England and the good order and Laws so freely and lately entertained by them breaking all Faith and Allegiance to him to whom they had formerly sworn it they murthered as manie as they could take at advantage and at last besieged Dublin and other Towns intending to destroie all the English But the valor of those men left there and the