De Verdun; Wexford,
Carlow, and Kilkenny, under the jurisdiction of the respective
representatives of the Marshal heiresses; Thomond, claimed by De Clare;
and Desmond, partly controlled by the FitzGeralds. Sir William Davies
says: "These absolute palatines made barons and knights; did exercise
high justice in all points within their territories; erected courts for
criminal and civil cases, and for their own revenues, in the same forms
as the King's courts were established at Dublin; made their own judges,
sheriffs, coroners, and escheators, so as the King's writ did not run in
these counties (which took up more than two parts of the English
colonies), but only in the church-lands lying within the same, which
were called the 'Cross,' wherein the King made a sheriff; and so in each
of these counties-palatine there were two sheriffs, one of the Liberty,
and another of the Cross. These undertakers were not tied to any form of
plantation, but all was left to their discretion and pleasure; and
although they builded castles and made freeholds, yet there were no
tenures or services reserved to the crown, but the lords drew all the
respect and dependency of the common people unto themselves." Hence the
strong objection which the said lords had to the introduction of English
law; for had this been accomplished, it would have proved a serious
check to their own advancement for the present time, though, had they
wisdom to have seen it, in the end it would have proved their best
safeguard and consolidated their power. The fact was, these settlers
aimed at living like the native princes, oblivious or ignorant of the
circumstance, that these princes were as much amenable to law as the
lowest of their subjects, and that they governed by a prescriptive right
of centuries. If they made war, it was for the benefit of the tribe, not
for their individual aggrandizement; if they condemned to death, the
sentence should be in accordance with the Brehon law, which the people
knew and revered. The settlers owned no law but their own will; and the
unhappy people whom they governed could not fail to see that their sole
object was their own benefit, and to obtain an increase of territorial
possessions at any cost.

On the lands thus plundered many native septs existed, whom neither war
nor famine could quite exterminate. Their feelings towards the new lord
of the soil can easily be understood; it was a feeling of open
hostility, of which they made