164 
taken by the English government to prevent the intermixture of 
the two nations, from the time of their first entrance into the island 
down to the reign of James the First, that no material change had 
been made in the Irish laws in consequence of the settlement of the 
English in Ireland ; but that, whatever those laws were at the end 
of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they must have been the same as 
they were at the time of the invasion in the reign of King Henry 
II. or as they were handed down from the earliest period of the 
Irish monarchy, allowing for some small changes arising from an 
improved state of civilization. 
That the Irish princes, from the time of the English invasion to the 
commencement of the 17th century, held their respective territories, 
and governed their tribes according to those ancient laws estab- 
lished by their ancestors at a very early period, and which the 
English had not the power to abolish, Sir John Davis puts beyond 
the possibility of a doubt : he says,* “ For to give lawes unto a peo- 
« ple, to institute magistrates and officers over them, to punish and 
“ pardon malefactours, to have the sole authority of making warre 
«“ and peace, and the like, are the true marks of soveraigntie, which 
« King Henry the Second had not in the Irish countreyes, but the 
« Trish lords did still retain all those prerogatives to themselves.” 
« For they governed their people by the Brehon law, they made 
« their owne magistrates and officers, they pardoned and punished 
all malefactours within their several countries, they made warre 
“ and peace one with another, without controulment ; and this they 
“ did not onely during the raigne of King Henry the Second, but 
« afterwards in all times, even until the raigne of Queen Eliza- 
“ beth.” 
* Discovery, &c. London 1747, p. 18. 
