official nobility—he had married Walsingham's daughter, and was step-brother to the Earl of Essex—and at the moment resident in England, Stiffened by his support the Galway jury refused to find for the Crown.
But the line they took was a curious one. The Crown title started from the conquest of Henry II., and an alleged grant of his to Roderick O'Conor, King of Ireland and Connaught, with a subsequent forfeiture and grant to De Burgo. The jury found that the acquisition of Henry 11. was not a conquest, but a submission of the inhabitants, that the grant to Roderick was merely a composition whereby the King had only the dominium, but not the property of the lands. In both of these contentions they were undoubtedly right. But they apparently ignored the later dealings of John and Henry III. with Connaught which were the true foundation of the De Burgo title, and they started what looks a mere quibble when they found that, in tracing the descent to Edward IV., proof had not been made of Lionel, Duke of Clarence's possession (he had married the De Burgo heiress), and that the Statute of Henry VII. related to tenures rather than to lands. And when called on to declare in whom the freehold was vested (if not in the Crown) they refused to do so.[1]
The jurors were dealt with after the approved Tudor and Stuart methods of treating recalcitrant landowners. They were sentenced to pay £4,000 fine each, and to be imprisoned until they paid it; furthermore they were to acknowledge
