very legible and full of abbreviated words. In criminal cases the Brehons had an eleventh part of all the fines. This might sometimes amount to a considerable sum; for, among the Irish, murders, rapes and rob beries, were only subject to a pecuniary commutation, which was called in Irish "eric." The Brehons were divided into sev eral tribes, and their office was hereditary, yet their laws were wrapped up in an obscure language, intelligible only to those who had studied in their schools in order to succeed the family Brehon. The first certain known instances of the supplanting of the Brehon Laws in Ireland occurred in 1541, when the bishop of Cork and Ross, the bishop of Waterford, together with the mayors of Cork and Youghal, were appointed by the Lord Deputy, Sir Anthony St. Leger, and the Privy Council, judges and arbitrators in Munster, who should hear and determine all controversies among the natives in the future instead of their Irish Brehons. Several of the Irish chiefs agreed to submit their disputes to the persons above men tioned. The • suffrain of Kinsale, Philip Roche, Esq., and William Welch, Esq.. to gether with the dean of Cloyne, are men tioned in the commission. Any three of them to hear and determine these disputes, the Earl of Desmond to be always one. In the Red Book of the Privy Council (vol. i, p. 273) says Sir Richard Cox: "There are several indentures of submission of the Irish chiefs registered about this time. Those in the County of Cork were—the Lord Barry alias Barrvmore, MacCarty More, the Lord Roche, McCarty Reagh, Teig MacCormac, Lord Muskerry, Barry Oge alias the Young Barry, O'Sullivan Bear, chief of his nation, and Sir Gerald Fitz-John, knight, on the one part, and Sir Anthony St. Leger, James, Earl of Desmond, Sir William Brabazon, vice-treasurer and treasurer of war, in be half of the king, on the other part. These kind of submissions were also made in all the other provinces. In 1570 the office of Lord President,
clothed with despotic power, was established in Munster. Sir John Perrot was the first to hold the office. The power of the Lord President was very great. They had not only to hear and determine all complaints throughout the province, as well guildable as belonging to the franchises of corpora tions, and might send for and punish any such officers against whom such complaint was made. They had commission of oyer and terminer, as well as of gaol delivery of the whole province, and might hold their courts when and where they thought proper, with power to execute martial law upon all persons who had not £5 of freehold or goods to the value of £10, and could prosecute any rebel with fire and sword, and, for this pur pose, might array any number of the queen's loyal subjects. They could hear and de termine complaints against all magistrates, and officers, civil and military, throughout the province of Munster, and the crosses and liberties of Tipperary and Kerry, and might punish the offenders at discretion. They had authority to put persons accused of high treason to the torture, and might reprieve condemned persons. They had power to issue proclamations tending to the better ordering and regulation of the queen's subjects. Their chaplain was to be maintained out of the fines arising in the provincial courts. The Lord President's salary was ¿133 6s. 8d., with a retinue of thirty horse and twenty foot. He had 2s. per day allowed him for an under captain, and for a guidon and trumpeter 2s. each. He had a sergeant-at arms to attend him, who carried a mace be fore him in the same manner as the Lord President of Wales had his borne: such sergeant-at-arms to apprehend all disobedient persons. Thus the presidency court was a civil juris diction, equal within the districts to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, he being a kind of viceroy in every circumstance but in name. He had the power of life and death; could make knights, and was royally attended with guards, and had power by patents to com-
