resistance; the conquest and winning
whereof in the beginning not only cost the king's noble progenitors
charges inestimable, but also those to whom the land was given, then and
many years after abiding within the said land, nobly and valiantly
defended the same, and kept such tranquillity and good order, as the
Kings of England had due subjection of the inhabitants thereof, and the
laws were obeyed ... and after the gift or descent of the lands to the
persons aforesaid, they and their heirs absented themselves out of the
said land of Ireland, not pondering nor regarding the preservation
thereof ... the King's Majesty that now is, intending the reformation of
the said land, to foresee that the like shall not ensue hereafter, with
the consent of his parliament," pronounces FORFEITED the estates of all
absentee proprietors, and their right and title gone.

[283] "The MacMahons in the north were anciently English, to wit,
descended from the Fitz-Ursulas, which was a noble family in England;
and the same appeareth by the significance of their Irish names.
Likewise the M'Sweenies, now in Ulster, were recently of the Veres in
England; but that they themselves, for hatred of the English, so
disguised their names." Spenser's _View of the State of Ireland_. So the
De Burghs became Bourkes or Burkes; the Munster Geraldines merged their
family names in that of Desmond; and a younger branch of them called
themselves M'Shehies.

[284] _Statutes of Kilkenny._ Printed by the Irish Antiquarian Society.
Finglas's _Breviate_.

[285] The phenomenon must have been observed, and the inevitable
consequence of it foreseen, very close upon the Conquest, when the
observation digested itself into a prophecy. No story less than three
hundred years old could easily have been reported to Baron Finglas as
having originated with St. Patrick and St. Columb. The Baron says--"The
four Saints, St. Patrick, St. Columb, St. Braghan, and St. Moling, many
hundred years agone, made prophecy that Englishmen should conquer
Ireland; and said that the said Englishmen should keep the land in
prosperity as long as they should keep their own laws; and as soon as
they should leave and fall to Irish order, then they should
decay."--Harris, p. 88.

[286] Report on the State of Ireland, 1515: _State Papers_, Vol. II. pp.
17, 18.

[287] Some sayeth that the English noble folk useth to deliver their
children to the king's Irish enemies to foster, and therewith make