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overthrow of the Earl, who, by the intermarrying of his kinsmen with the
Irish, possessed great influence among the native septs contiguous to
his own territory. The petitioners pray that the government may be
committed to some "mighty English lord," and they moderately request
that the said "mighty lord" may be permitted to create temporal peers.
They hint at the Earl's age as an objection to his administration of
justice, and assert that "the Lieutenant should be a mighty, courageous,
and laborious man, to keep the field and make resistance against the
enemy." But the great crime alleged against him, is that "he hath
ordained and made Irishmen, and grooms and pages of his household,
knights of the shire." These representations, however, had but little
weight in the quarter to which they were addressed, for Ormonde was a
stout Lancastrian; and if he had sinned more than his predecessors, his
guilt was covered by the ample cloak of royal partiality. However, some
appearance of justice was observed. Sir Giles Thornton was sent over to
Ireland to make a report, which was so very general that it charged no
one in particular, but simply intimated that there was no justice to be
had for any party, and that discord and division prevailed amongst all
the King's officers. The system of appointing deputies for different
offices was very properly condemned; and the rather startling
announcement made, that the annual expenses of the Viceroy and his
officers exceeded all the revenues of Ireland for that year by L4,456.
In fact, it could not be otherwise; for every official, lay and
ecclesiastical, English and Anglo-Irish, appear to have combined in one
vast system of peculation, and, when it was possible, of wholesale
robbery. Even the loyal burghers of Limerick, Cork, and Galway had
refused to pay their debts to the crown, and the representatives of
royalty were not in a position to enforce payment. The Talbot party
seems to have shared the blame quite equally with the Ormondes, and the
churchmen in power were just as rapacious as the seculars. After having
ruined the "mere Irish," the plunderers themselves were on the verge of
ruin; and the Privy Council declared that unless an immediate remedy was
applied, the law courts should be closed, and the royal castles
abandoned. Further complaints were made in 1444; and Robert Maxwell, a
groom of the royal chamber, was despatched to Ireland with a summons to
Ormonde, commanding him to