Henry VIII., the circuits of the
judges had been extended. And with the Brehon law came anarchy as its
inseparable attendant.'

The correctness of this view is too well attested by the records
which the learned historian brings to light, adopting the quaint
and expressive phraseology of the old writers whom he quotes. For
example:--

'The lords and gentiles of the Irish Pale that were not governed under
the Queen's laws were compelled to keep and maintain a great number
of idle men of war to rule their people at home, and exact from their
neighbours abroad--working everyone his own wilful will for a law--to
the spoil of his country, and decay and waste of the common weal of
the same. The idle men of war ate up altogether; the lord and his men
took what they pleased, destroying their tenants, and themselves never
the better. The common people, having nothing left to lose, became as
idle and careless in their behaviour as the rest, stealing by day and
robbing by night. Yet it was a state of things which they seemed all
equally to enjoy, and high and low alike were always ready to bury
their own quarrels, to join against the Queen and the English.'

At the time when the crown passed to Elizabeth the qualities of the
people were thus described by a correspondent of the council, who
presents the English view of the Irishry at that time:--

'The appearance and outward behaviour of the Irish showeth them to be
fruits of no good tree, for they exercise no virtue and refrain and
forbear from no vice, but think it lawful to do every man what him
listeth. They neither love nor dread God, nor yet hate the devil. They
are worshippers of images and open idolaters. Their common oath they
swear is by books, bells, and other ornaments which they do use as
holy religion. Their chief and solemnest oath is by their lord or
master's hand, which whoso forsweareth is sure to pay a fine or
sustain a worse turn. The Sabbath-day they rest from all honest
exercises, and the week days they are not idle, but worse occupied.
They do not honour their father and mother as much as they do
reverence strangers. For every murder that they commit they do not so
soon repent, for whose blood they once shed, they lightly never cease
killing all that name. They do not so commonly commit adultery; not
for that they profess or keep chastity, but for that they seldom or
never marry, and therefore few of them are lawful heirs, by the law of
the realm, to the