administration which had been sent to the
council the preceding winter, is very interesting. It is signed by a
large number of persons, lay and ecclesiastical: bishops, abbots,
priors, archdeacons, barons, knights, and esquires joined in the
petition.[180] The prayer of the memorial was professedly to procure a
fuller remuneration to the then Lord Lieutenant,[181] John Talbot,
Lord Furnival, for his indefatigable and successful exertions (p. 237)
in subduing "the English rebels and the Irish enemies;" it was,
however, evidently intended to obtain a still greater share of the
King's attention, and of the public expenditure in that island. The
memorial commences by expressions of loyalty to Henry's person, the
petitioners desiring above all earthly things to hear and to know of
the gracious prosperity and noble health of his renowned person, to
the principal comfort of all his subjects, but "especially of us who
are continuing in a land of war, environed by your Irish enemies and
English rebels, in point to be destroyed, if it were not that the
sovereign aid and comfort of God, and of you our gracious Lord, do
deliver us." It then states that they had prevailed upon the
Lieutenant[182] not to persevere in his intention to leave Ireland for
the purpose of applying to Henry in person for payment and relief, (p. 238)
expressing their great alarm should his presence be withdrawn from
them. The memorialists then dwell at great length upon the vast
labours, travails, and endeavours of Lord Furnival for the good of all
Henry's lieges; but those labours were only military proceedings:
every sentence of the memorial breathes of war, and slaughter, and
destruction. One of the chief topics in his praise is that he remained
many days and nights ("the which was not done before in our time") in
the lands of various of the strongest Irish enemies (specifying them
by name), taking their chief places and goods, burning, foraging, and
destroying all the country, and in many places causing the Irish
rebels to turn their weapons against each other. The document then
shows the precarious tenure of goods and of life among the English at
that time in Ireland; how they were "preyed upon and killed," and what
a wonderful change had just been effected by the vigorous measures of
Lord Furnival. "Now your lieges may suffer their goods and cattle to
remain in the fields day and night, without being stolen or sustaining
any loss, _which hath not b