take it. Of this one thing I will assure you, that those that will most entice you to take other men's causes in hand, will be the first that shall leave you if ye have need. As heretofore I have declared unto you, whatsoever he be that shall, with manifest invasion, enter, burn, and destroy the King's people, I will no more suffer it than to have my heart torn out of my body. When the King's subjects commit such offences, they are traitors and rebels, and so I will take them and use them. My Lord, this privilege I challenge, on the King my master's duty, that what of gentleness I require touching the King's affairs, it be taken and weighed as a commandment.'[1]
He advised that the offenders should be sent in upon the instant, and to advice so given it was prudent to submit.
Lord Ormond had died, leaving his heir a minor in England. St Leger, or some one about the council who took the Irish view of things, thought the presence of a chief of a clan indispensable for their good behaviour, and sent him over. Bellingham protested. It would have been better, he said, to have kept him where he was, and brought him up with English habits. 'Authority, it was thought, would not take place without him. I pray God,' continued Bellingham, 'rather these eyes of mine should be shut up than it should be proved true; or that during the time of my deputation, I should not make a horse-boy sent from me to do as much as
- ↑ Bellingham to O'Brien; Irish MSS. Edward VI. vol. i. State Paper Office.
