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Quarto (20 cm x 27 cm). CII, 604 pages. Hardcover / Original, contemporary half cloth with gilt lettering on spine. Binding slightly rubbed. Overall firm, strong and in very good condition. Name of G.B.O'Connor on titlepage in ink. From the library of Daniel Conner (Connerville / Manch House), with his Exlibris / Bookplate loosely inserted. Fantastic original source with lengthy Introduction over 100 pages in which a summary of events are given about the situation in Munster and the general State of Ireand at "Mary's accession": "On the death of Edward VI. in 1553, Sir Thomas Cusack, chancellor, and Gerald Aylmer, were appointed Lord Justices in Ireland, and continued to hold office until the arrival in Dalkey of the new Deputy, Sir Anthony Saintlegger, who succeeded Sir James Croft on the 19th of November 1553. Of the State of Ireland at Mary's accession, the report of Cusack, noticed in the preface of the last Volume, gives the most trustworthy and accurate description. In Munster, beyond the Pale, the whole country ws in such "good quiet" that the judges kept their circuits, not only in Limerick, Cork and Kerry, but in the most distant shires of the West, without fear or molestation. The Desmonds, the Barries, the McCarthy Mores and others, the most troublesome and refractory of the Irish chiefs, were content to remain in peace themselves, and to compel the rest of their countrymen to do the same. They accepted the Queen's Commission and acted jointly with the law officers of the Crown. In Connaught, the Earl of Clanricarde, lately restored to his inheritance, gladly submitted to the arrangements made by Cusack out of gratitude to his English supporters. His subjects turning their swords into ploughshares, abandoned their old habits of plunderfor more peaceful, if not more congenial, occupations. McWilliam Burke, the second captain and the most powerful man of the province, was "of honest conformity" and was ready to support the Earl, or any other Chief, in promoting the King's Service. The O'Connor's, the McDermotts, the O'Kellies, men of subordinate authority and influence, either found resistance hopeless or readily followed the examples of their superiors." [cited from the Introduction]. George Carew, 1st Earl of Totnes (29 May 1555 27 March 1629), known as Sir George Carew between 1586 and 1605 and as The Lord Carew between 1605 and 1626, served under Elizabeth I during the Tudor conquest of Ireland and was appointed President of Munster. He was an authority on heraldry and the author of Carew's Scroll of Arms 1588, Collected from Churches in Devonshire etc., with Additions from Joseph Holland's Collection of Arms 1579. Carew was appointed President of Munster on 27 January 1600, at the height of the Nine Years War and landed with Lord Mountjoy at Howth Head a month later. He enjoyed wide powers, including imposition of martial law, and excelled in the politics of divide and rule. He interviewed the successor to the Earl of Clancarty, Florence MacCarthy, in the spring of that year, after an unjust attack by presidency forces on the MacCarthy territories prior to his arrival. He was present as a guest when the Earl of Ormond was seized by the O'Mores at a parley in the same year, and managed to escape with the Earl of Thomond through a hail of daggers. At about this time he put down the supporters of the Súgán Earl of Desmond, and in October the lawful Desmond heir, James FitzGerald, was restored to the title in a limited degree. In August, Carew had accepted a reinforcement of 3,000 troops from England, but in the following May was dismayed when Mountjoy took 1,000 from him to supplement the crown army in its northern campaign, at a time when the threat of a Spanish landing in the south was at its highest. Although he had been distrusted by Essex, owing to his sympathy with the Cecils in 1598 Essex had encouraged his despatch to Ireland, in order to remove his influence from court Carew's support was welcomed by Moun.
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