very year, and promised some active employment
for his successor.

Edward appears to have had apprehensions as to the kind of reception his
favourite was likely to receive from the powerful Earl of Ulster; he
therefore wrote him a special letter, requesting his aid and counsel for
the Viceroy. But De Burgo knew his own power too well; and instead of
complying with the royal request, he marched off to Drogheda, and then
to Trim, where he employed himself in giving sumptuous entertainments,
and conferring the honour of knighthood on his adherents. The favourite
was recalled to England at the end of a year. Edward had conducted him
to Bristol, on his way to Ireland; he now went to meet him at Chester,
on his return. Three years later he paid the forfeit of his head for all
these condescensions.

In 1309 De Wogan was again appointed Governor. The exactions of the
nobles had risen to such a height, that some of their number began to
fear the effects would recoil on themselves. High food rates and fearful
poverty then existed, in consequence of the cruel exactions of the
Anglo-Normans on their own dependents. They lived frequently in their
houses, and quartered their soldiers and followers on them, without
offering them the smallest remuneration. A statute was now made which
pronounced these proceedings "open robbery," and accorded the right of
suit in such cases to the crown. But this enactment could only be a dead
letter. We have already seen how the crown dealt with the most serious
complaints of the natives; and even had justice been awarded to the
complainant, the right of eviction was in the hands of the nearest
noble, and the unfortunate tenant would have his choice between
starvation in the woods or marauding on the highways, having neither the
_dernier resort_ of a workhouse or emigration in that age.

The Viceroy had abundant occupation suppressing the feuds both of the
Irish and the colonists. Civil war raged in Thomond, but the quarrels
between the Anglo-Norman settlers in the same province, appear to have
been more extensive and less easily appeased. In a note to the Annals of
Clonmacnois, MacGeoghegan observes, that "there reigned more
dissentions, strife, warrs, and debates between the Englishmen
themselves, in the beginning of the conquest of this kingdome, than
between the Irishmen; as by perusing the warrs between the Lacies of
Meath, John Coursey, Earle of Ulster, William Marshal, and the English
of Mea