leading men; and the lesser landowners divided up their lands among all their sons, approximating to, if not actually adopting the Irish practice of gavelkind. The Earls of Ormond and the Earls of Kildare still maintained shadowy claims to great tracts from which all the settlers had been expelled by the Irish.
Thus in the time of Henry VIII. the right of the Crown to Connaught was legally beyond a doubt. No Connaught landowner could have a valid title unless he could show a grant from the Mortimers or the De Burgos, and unless the descent to him had been in accordance with the Common Law.[1] There can have been but few landowners in Connaught who fulfilled both these conditions.[2]
Henry VIII. entered into indentures with most of the Connaught lords of both races, the effect of which was to receive them as subjects, and, at least implicitly, to recognize their claims to land. To the Upper MacWilliam Burke, or De Burgo, he gave the title of Earl of Clanrickard, and a grant in general terms, under which the new earl claimed only the demesne lands actually in his possession, and rents and services from the lesser chiefs and freeholders in the territory subject to him.[3] O'Shaughnessy, lord of a small district
- ↑ An Act, 10th of Hy. VII.. had declared that it should be lawful for the King to enter into all manors, &c. of the lordship of Connaught in cases where no discharge of the King's interest could be proved. Several reputed freeholders were at the same time got rid of, after confessing that they had no right to their lands. Lds. Justices and Council to Vane. Cal. St. Paps., 1641, p. 275.
- ↑ The head of the Blake family was able to do so. See Blake Family Records.
- ↑ For grant to E. of Clanrickard see Cal. St. Paps., 1606, p. 310.
