1565.] DEATH OF a NEIL. 5-29 alike failed so far. Once more a project was imagined of some possible reformation, which might succeed at least on paper. In the system which was at last to bring a golden age < to Ireland, the four provinces were to be governed each by a separate president and council. Every county was to have its sheriff; and the Irish noblemen and gentle- men were to become the guardians of the law which they had so long defied. The poor should no longer be op- pressed by the great ; and the wrongs which they had groaned under so long should be put an end to for ever by their own Parliament. ' No poor persons should be compelled any more to work or labour by the day or otherwise without meat, drink, wages, or some other allowance during the time of their labour ; ' no < earth- tillers, nor any others inhabiting a dwelling under any lord, should be distrained or punished in body or goods for the faults of their landlord ; J nor any honest man lose life or lands without fair trial, by parliamentary attain- der, ' according to the antient laws of England and Ire- land.' Noble provisions were pictured out for the re- building of the ruined churches at the Queen's expense, with ' twelve free grammar schools,' where the Irish youth should grow into civility, and /twelve hospitals for aged and impotent folk.' A University should be founded in Elizabeth's name, and endowed with lands at Elizabeth's cost ; and the devisers of all these things, warming with their project, conceived the Irish nation accepting willingly a reformed religion, in which there should be no more pluralities, no more abuse of patroii- 84
