lands they possess. They steal but from the strong,
and take by violence from the poor and weak. They know not so well who
is their neighbour as who they favour; with him they will witness in
right and wrong. They covet not their neighbours' good, but command
all that is their neighbours' as their own. Thus they live and die,
and there is none to teach them better. There are no ministers.
Ministers will not take pains where there is no living to be had,
neither church nor parish, but all decayed. People will not come to
inhabit where there is no defence of law.'

After six years of _discipline and improvement_ Sir Henry Sidney, in
1566, described the state of the four shires, the Irish inhabitants,
and the English garrison, in the following terms:--'The _English Pale_
is overwhelmed with vagabonds--stealth and spoil daily carried out of
it--the people miserable--not two gentlemen in the whole of it able
to lend 20 l. They have neither horse nor armour, nor apparel, nor
victual. The soldiers be so beggerlike as it would abhor a general to
look on them; yet so insolent as to be intolerable to the people, so
rooted in idleness as there is no hope by correction to amend them,
yet so allied with the Irish, I dare not trust them in a forte, or in
any dangerous service.'

A sort of 'special correspondent' or 'commissioner,' as we should call
him now, furnished to Cecil a detailed account of the social condition
of the people, which of course he viewed with English eyes. He found
existing among them a general organisation wherever the Irish language
was spoken--the remnants of a civilisation very ancient, but now fast
tending to ruin. Next to the chiefs were the priesthood, and after
them came a kind of intellectual hierarchy, consisting of four classes
of spiritual leaders and teachers, which were thus described. The
first was called the Brehon, or the judge. These judges took
'pawns' of both the parties, and then judged according to their own
discretion. Their property was neutral, and the Irishmen would not
prey upon them. They had great plenty of cattle, and they harboured
many vagabonds and idle persons. They were the chief maintainers of
rebels, but when the English army came to their neighbourhood they
fled to the mountains and woods 'because they would not succour
them with victuals and other necessaries.' The next sort was called
_Shankee_, who had also great plenty of cattle wherewith they
succoured the rebels. The