The Lord Lieutenant, being at Kilmallock, called certain of the undertakers and demanded of them the cause why they, being strong if they had held together, would forsake their houses and castles and lands, which they held of Her Majesty, to her dishonour, their great shame, and the animating of roguish rebels and rascal traitors. There was a great fault in Sir Thomas Norris that, having special direction out of England, and from the Earl of Ormond, afore this rebellion grew ripe, to take pledges and good security of the noblemen, gentlemen, and suspected men throughout Munster, for their loyalty, from time to time; he took slender bonds, he took bastards and children, all not worth a rush. When the rebellion came, then it appeared to his shame, and he could render no good answer to the Earl of Ormond. Again, if he, in discretion, had drawn to a head and had animated the inhabitants of the Province, he had found of the Englishry and Irishry a sufficient number of able men to withstand the forces of the rebels. For in the year 1590, eight years before these troubles, by virtue of a commission directed to the President and Council of the Province, there were mustered in Munster, able men furnished, 9,331; able men furnished and unfurnished, 10,490; and, in this later time, the country was better peopled than in many years before.
The Lord Lieutenant, from Corrabbey, wrote to the Lord President of Munster to call before him such undertakers as he had not formerly met withal, and take assurance from them to appear when called for, to yield reason of their flight.
[The causes of the misery of the Englishry] I may not (gentle reader) with silence pass over the misery of the Englishry in their flight, and, in examining the causes, neither enter into God's judgment, neither write in disgrace of the nation.
First of all, I note their great wickedness formerly rooted, not purged, by change of air, but found still procuring the wrath of God, according to that of the poet, ‘coelum non animum mutant, qui trans mare currunt’, they change the air and not the mind that cross the seas. Notwithstanding many wise, godly and virtuous, yet there were out of England, and other countries, traitors, murderers, thieves, coseners, conycatchers, shifting mates, runners away with other men's wives, some having two or three wives, persons divorced living loosely, bankrupts, carnal gospellers, Papists, Puritans, and Brownists. If the enemy, by the permission of God, had not come with a scourge against them (as Josephus said some time of the Jews in Jerusalem), it is like with other plagues, the earth would have gaped, and swallowed them up.
Now gentle reader I am to acquaint thee with the principal traitors and rebels in Leinster and Munster, their grievances as they allege and such as practised the combination. In Leinster
Secondly, division, contention, and emulation, among themselves, a great cause of their misery. They could not be content to scrape from the Irishry, but one inveighing and suing the other, troubling the courts, and disquieting the country. The English gentlemen in Leix and Offally contended among themselves. In Munster they jarred one with another, so that the Mayor of Cork gave forth that most suits depending before him were between the Englishry. The inhabitants of Curryglasse were so famous; they were never quiet, while they had a penny in their purses, but arresting and binding to the peace, that they were called the clampers of Curryglasse. The prophecie of --
One great fault they found in the President of that Province, that, if they had just cause of complaint against the Irishry, the President, laying aside English sympathy, favoured the Irish more than the English; for he brought somewhat in his hand, and the English came empty, and empty he went away. They were so imperious, that every gentleman would be in commission of the peace; the Lord Chancellor's fault was to grant it. There was one in Munster, a great swearer, they called him Justice God's Wounds; another, killing of Irish cows, selling hides and tallow, they called him Justice Tripes; another, having no land, but a stock of money, hunting, and hawking, and gaming, and coming once a year, they called him Justice When-ye-will. Such insufficiency there was in their service.
Thirdly, it cannot be but the wickedness, insufficiency, and lewdness of the clergy procured this plague; and to say the truth, as it was delivered in the late Council of Trent, ‘omne malum a pontificio culmine,’ all the mischief cometh from the high prelates; such archbishops, bishops, deans, and men of unworthy dignities, as no kingdom hath the like; very few learned and reverend; of the rest, some weavers, some tapsters, and men of occupation out of England; others, mere Irish, having neither learning nor honesty, going in mantles and Irish trous, tippling of ale and aqua vitae, getting of bastards, and never giving themselves to study or preaching; yet these have been by the Governors and magistrates, for rewards and affection, commended into England, Her Majesty therein mightily abused, and God's people disappointed. What shall I say of the inferior sort of priests, English and Irish, all alike for the most part lewd and ignorant. Divers of the English have not one word of Latin, divers of the Irish, broken Latin, meeter for the tavern than for the temple. A scholar meeteth one of them and saith, ‘Come out of the alehouse, Domine;’ he, thinking it was, ‘quomodo vales, Domine,’ answereth, ‘ago tibi gratias.’ The bishops, given to gain and covetousness, and being ignorant themselves, will have no learned and sufficient men, but Irish priests, in their dioceses; for the English ministers will see unto them, will not bribe them, as the Irish do, therefore call they the Irish priests, good milch cows. The bishops grow infamous; by authority and countenance, they will carry things away and doubtful oftentimes it is where to find them and how to trust them. Richard Meredith, Bishop of Leighlin, being charged by an honest gentleman, Mr. Thorneborowe, then newly come from England to be Bishop of Limerick, that there were found great fault with him for breach of promise, answered, ‘My Lord of Limerick, when you have been here a twelvemonth, no man will believe one word that you speak.’ Shameless dealings have shameless answers, and such was the corruption of the time. The Bishops have winked for gain at laymen, children, their own kindred and household servants, and granted them sequestrations and faculties to hold sundry ecclesiastical livings. The Bishops have suffered Papists, Puritans, Brownists, atheists, in their dioceses and households, to preach, to reason, to prate, to gather conventicles, without contradiction or reformation. The example of Derby Cragh, calling himself a Doctor of Divinity, whom the Pope made Bishop of Cork, and graced with the title of Nuncius Apostolicus, and James Archer, of Kilkenny, a cosening mass priest, is fresh in memory. This Derby confessed among the traitors, that he had been in Ireland the space of eighteen years, day and night, among them, persuading to rebellion, which he termed the Catholic faith. He wrought the combination, and effected the whole mischief over Ireland, which then took place. Yet no Governor, no Bishop, weighed this matter, and when massing priests and friars were apprehended and brought afore the State, as the Bishop of Dromore and others were, they were quickly set at liberty, and found more grace and favour than they that furthered the service.
Fourthly, and lastly, the corruption of the Governors, magistrates, and Council in general hath deserved this plague. The Irishry desireth no better than a bad cause, and a great bribe to give; then doubteth he not but he shall speed; and such is the nature of them that, when they have corrupted any, they will be the first that will betray it.