St George’s feast, like other civic and religious festivals across early modern Europe, were focal points for public assertions of loyalty, the dispensation of patronage and gratitude for said patronage; they were ostensibly vehicles to express solidarity and thankfulness for good governance. Civic and community leaders materially supported such celebrations, giving gifts of food to be shared commensally, theoretically maintaining and enhancing sociability. However, gifts were sometimes given for less exalted motivations: to pursue patronage; to advance suits for grants of lands, leases and offices; and to seek judicial pardons. Equally, gifts could be withheld, as a form of protest or a vote of no confidence. Using a previously unexplored manuscript — a list of food gifts given to celebrate the 1578 St George’s feast in Dublin — this article explores how gift-giving was used as a negotiation tactic when goodwill broke down between the governor and the governed, highlighting the dissent and tacit withdrawal of co-operation by the Pale.
Gift exchange presents an interesting opportunity to explore contested social and political dynamics, since gift-giving could be the means through which parties negotiated fraught relationships. Anthropologist Marcel Mauss identified three key components that form the gift-exchange process: that the exchange seems to be voluntary and disinterested; that an obligation of reciprocity is formed to the appropriate level of the participant’s honour; and that the gift-exchange event produces further social cohesion amongst the participating groups.Footnote 1 Social cohesion was formed and expressed through gift exchange, feasting and public pageantry, all of which were meant to ‘enhance solidarity’ and celebrate the general well-being among the populace that sprung from good government.Footnote 2
However, public celebrations and gift-giving often masked underlying tensions and discontent in the wider community, with outward shows of generosity sometimes concealing or covering antagonism and self-interest. Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu defined gift-giving in unequal relationships as a form of ‘symbolic violence’, noting that such violence was ‘inherent in clientele relationships when more overt means of domination are not practically enforceable or socially acceptable to enforce’.Footnote 3 Natalie Zemon Davis’s research noted that asymmetrical gift exchange acknowledged the dependency of the clients while simultaneously affirming their honour and that the process compelled actors to modify their behaviour based on gifts given and received.Footnote 4 In this regard, gifts acted as both conversation and leverage, whether through the act of giving or abstaining from the process.
The centralisation of the early Tudor court gave rise to competitive gifting, as both an expression of self-presentation and as a ‘means of advancement’ for courtiers and office-seekers.Footnote 5 While donors gave expensive commodities, ostensibly for no greater reward than the honour of giving, self-interest was often a factor when lower political actors gave gifts to their superiors.Footnote 6 Complicating matters further, generosity from clients ‘should in principle have reminded the lord of his duty to reciprocate with significant favours’, yet many donor-clients were unsatisfied with the lack of offices, grants or payments that flowed downwards.Footnote 7 Dissatisfaction could go both ways, as ‘the need to ask for favours created burdens of gratitude in inferiors that had the potential to poison the gift’.Footnote 8 Lord Deputy Henry Sidney’s last feast as viceroy in 1578 embodied these failings of the patronage system.
Food gifts were common at all levels, and lord deputies frequently received many gifts of food throughout the year from subordinates. Household accounts like those of Sir William Fitzwilliam covering his time as lord deputy in 1574–5 are rare survivals, and such accounts document the quantities and range of food purchased, gifted and consumed in Dublin Castle.Footnote 9 The provisioning accounts for the viceroy’s household reveal a duality about how power was projected and maintained; while projecting the image of an all-powerful lord requisitioning supplies for his household from the local populace, the reality was the viceroys were financially constrained and reliant on the compliance of the community.Footnote 10 Extending this line of enquiry from consumption to gift exchange through focusing on the donors, the 1578 gift list is a snapshot of the cess controversy that dominated the end of Sir Henry Sidney’s third and final deputyship (1575–8), materialising the breakdown in the relationship between the wider Pale community and an unpopular viceroy.
The 1578 list is a valuable source for understanding Sidney’s viceroyalty, signalling on the one hand the growing alienation of the Pale (Catholic) community and the emerging power of the New English (Protestant) interest on the other. By focusing on the donors, rather than the symbolic associations of the food donations, this list allows for the excavation and identification of groups that were contesting/competing for power and viceregal patronage. Sections IV and V of this article explore the numerous local interests that actively negotiated with the viceroy through diplomacy while competing with each other: an anti-Geraldine affinity that supported unpopular government policies in order to prevent the resurrection of a Kildare hegemony; petitioners greasing palms to seek pardons; military servitors, merchants and the Old English gentry augmenting their service and financial support with gifts to assure themselves of proper remuneration for said services. These gifts reflect part of the picture of how the non-noble community in Ireland, particularly the landed gentry, responded to the changing/centralising government. By comparing the donors on the 1578 gift list to other lists and/or household accounts — the 1574–5 Fitzwilliam household accounts, a list of horses given to Sidney between 1575–6 and the earl of Essex’s Irish accounts — the various non-noble members of the Pale community will come more sharply into focus, exposing the growing fracture between the governors of the Dublin administration and those they governed.
I
The manuscript under examination is a gift/rewards list, documenting details of the name/address of donors, the food items given and the monetary reward granted to the servant who brought the donation to Dublin Castle.Footnote 11 All the items of food were given as a contribution towards the city-wide St George’s Day feast, held annually on 23 April in Dublin; Sidney paid a grand total of £4 7s. 4d. as rewards for said donations. Rewards for a gift were loosely related to the value of said gift, at about half the market rate, though this was fluid; such immediate payment of reward struck a balance between the obligation to give and the expectation of reciprocity.Footnote 12 While the monetary sums tally perfectly, certain categories of food are missing from the final total — namely, plovers, veal, lobsters, oysters, a marchpane and bottle of hippocras. It is unknown why such categories were not recorded in the final tally, but perhaps these foodstuffs were not deemed necessary or adequate for the feast or were reallocated for the personal consumption of the lord deputy’s household.
The manuscript itself is four sheets of paper in total, comprising two booklets of two sheets each, both stitched together, the one inserted inside the other (hereafter OB for outer booklet and IB for inner booklet). The IB appears to have begun as a fair copy with a heading of ‘The note of all such presents as were given to your Lordship this St Gorges Fest anno 1578’, but numerous scratchings-out and repetitions rendered it too imperfect for a true fair copy. The heading on the OB is slightly different: ‘The note of all suche presents as weare gyven to your Lordship by the gentlemen of the Country this St Gorges Fest anno 1578.’Footnote 13 The final page of the OB hints at the discontent over Sidney’s governorship, recording the number of food donations given over to the political prisoners the viceroy had detained in Dublin Castle.Footnote 14
Fifty-six donors are on the list, many of whom are well-attested in the state papers for the offices they held or often for suits that they wished to have furthered; unfortunately, several donors are unknown and probably unknowable, only their surname given with no further distinguishing remarks or address, including two women. Twelve donors are positively identifiable as not belonging to the Old English community of the Pale, and their occupations were military captains and crown servitors active in the Dublin administration. One obviously Gaelic donor is present, while the overwhelming majority (up to forty-three donors) were from the local Anglo-Irish community.Footnote 15 This list details who had benefitted, or hoped still to benefit, from the patronage of the viceroy.
While household accounts can chart daily changes in consumption patterns and the expenditure of wealthier households, gift lists — like the New Year’s gift rolls — capture potential flashpoints in the festal calendar.Footnote 16 Gift lists help to ‘identify the personnel who mattered’ at court and in high political circles.Footnote 17 They are also evidence of civic positioning: the material by-product of social occasions that ‘either encouraged alliance or affinity, or had an adverse effect on relationships’.Footnote 18 Documentary limitations include incomplete survival, hampering the comparison of successive annual events by tracking changes in donors, gifts and rewards. Gift lists record the participation of donors but do not record their motives for giving. Those who abstained from giving are entirely absent. Contextual corroboration of contemporary sources can help with pattern-based inference as to motives for participation or boycott.
II
All echelons of society were drawn together by public pageants, such festivities acting as an ‘integrative service for urban elites’, allowing them to ‘expres[s] political connection’ and build honour.Footnote 19 Like many ceremonies, the celebration of St George’s Day underwent many changes throughout the Reformation. In England, up until the end of Henry VIII’s reign, the feast day was celebrated with public processions and plays featuring St George, a princess and the dragon, which in the cities were particularly elaborate.Footnote 20 Though many feast days were abrogated after 1536, St George’s Day was not one of them.Footnote 21 The dramatic elements of the processions were severely curtailed under the reign of Edward VI, but the element of communal feasting remained.Footnote 22 Pageantry was revived under Mary I, although altered in some locations, and officially revoked in 1561.Footnote 23
Common characters featured in the pageantry in many locations, specifically St George and a princess; during the reign of Edward VI and later, these were removed from the ceremony, with only the dragon remaining. Increasing numbers of civic magistrates were included in the procession, juxtaposed against the dragon, which suggests that the messaging of the ceremony had shifted. The dragon still represented ‘harmful forces … [but] the task of containing and/or slaying it now fell to the magistrates’.Footnote 24 Instead of a saint, civic leaders assumed ‘the role of champion against wickedness, danger and disorder’.Footnote 25 Despite the projection of order, religious and civic public rituals were not uncomplicated expressions of communal harmony; they often provided a platform ‘for individuals and communities to voice criticism’, as well as support, through open dissent or abstention.Footnote 26
In 1498, the particulars of the pageant were laid out by the Dublin Corporation. Along with the eponymous saint and a dragon, the Dublin pageant featured a large cast of other characters, and the actors were procured and paid by the current mayor, the outgoing mayor, the guild master and guild warden.Footnote 27 The regulations stated that the chapel of St George was to be ‘well hanged and apparelled to every purpose with cushi[o]ns … rushes and other necessaries’, but that was their extent.Footnote 28 The emphasis centred on the religious spectacle of the pageant and less so on the temporal men who funded it. As the Reformation spread across Europe, the tenor and focus of the celebration changed, with emphasis on the processing of the city fathers rather than the pageantry of mythical or saintly characters.
III
Sidney was not the first to use St George’s feast as a cover for conflict. In 1575, it had been co-opted in a power struggle between Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam and the earl of Essex. Essex had arrived in Ireland in 1573 with a licence and funding from the queen to ‘plant’ north-east Ulster, and it was briefly floated in 1574 that he should serve as the next viceroy of Ireland.Footnote 29 In April 1575, Fitzwilliam and Essex butted heads over whose soldiers should be ‘cashed’ (i.e. paid) first, from the limited government funds.Footnote 30 The soldiers ran riot through the Pale, and Essex accused the viceroy of trying to frame him as the ‘Author of all this disorder that necessity, ffamin, and desperacon shall drive the soldiers to doe’.Footnote 31 Fitzwilliam for his part left on a ‘journey to Wexforde’, abdicating any responsibility for the chaos in the Pale.Footnote 32
Under the guise of St George’s Day preparations, the earl lavished money on the city’s merchants to restore harmony. He spent £600 alone with Dublin merchants on purple velvet and gold fringe for the canopy of estate, new clothes for his servants and escutcheons painted with the coat of St George.Footnote 33 Fitzwilliam, lacking ‘sufficient resources’ from Whitehall to run the government, was quite unable to create a similar ‘bastard feudal’ display through such open liberality.Footnote 34 Even Lady Fitzwilliam did not attend the feast but remained in Dublin Castle.Footnote 35 Essex’s following grew, Fitzwilliam’s did not.
Sir Henry Sidney prioritised visual communication, from stamping his badge on bridges and monuments to hosting communal festivities, as well as commissioning depictions of his ‘good governance’ in The image of Irelande.Footnote 36 Prior to 1578, in preparation for a St George’s Day feast, he paid for standards to be made, the gilding of banqueting dishes, and for scutcheons — little plaques in the shape of a shield bearing coats of arms — to be displayed.Footnote 37 Instead of patronising local artisans as Essex had done, in 1578, Sidney paid £6 3s. 4d. to have ‘Armes and hautchments sent into Yreland’.Footnote 38 The viceroy spent far more emblazoning his coat of arms across Dublin than rewarding the local community for their gifts of food.
But that was not his only appropriation of the feast. Though ‘the mayor with hys brethren was accustomed with great triumphe and pageants yearely on S. George his feast to repayre to that chappell’, Sidney ensured he was centre-stage:Footnote 39
Upon St Georges day the right honorable Sir Henrey Sidnay … ‘did ride’ with a worthey company to christ church … Then the governor him selffe with the nobyletey all on fote clothes besid a sixscore Gentelmen which went before them … And so he kepte a royall feste and open house to such as wold come.Footnote 40
Though 120 of Dublin’s civic elite walked behind Sidney in the pageant, less than half that number contributed to the feast. This was in part because Sidney had been alienating the traditionally loyal Pale lords and gentry by using printed proclamations, denouncing them as greedy landlords who exploited loopholes and shunted their fiscal responsibility for the cess onto their tenants.Footnote 41 Such proclamations were made to ‘disconnect the Old English’ elite from the majority of the Pale community, shifting the ‘discontent of the poor’ from the viceroy to their neighbours.Footnote 42
The issue of the cess dominated Sidney’s last deputyship. The cess was an ad hoc system by which large landowners and tenants were required to provide goods to provision the viceroy’s household at a rate well below the market value. It was similar to purveyance — ‘the right of a monarch to acquire provisions, labour, or transport for a royal household by means of compulsory purchase at a price fixed by a royal official’, but where this system was progressively restrained in England by statute over time, in Ireland, it grew to ‘ever wider application[s]’.Footnote 43 The lord deputy was hamstrung by his own proposal to govern Ireland with £20,000 annually from the English exchequer; the shortfall was to be re-couped through the cess.Footnote 44 Sidney took more than was actually required to provision his household and sold his cut-price takings in the market at a discount, pocketing the proceeds.Footnote 45
Many in the Pale had ‘clamoured’ for Sidney’s return, but he lost community goodwill when he used inflated numbers for victualling his household and the army to impose the largest cess ever, proposing to convert it to a fixed cash payment.Footnote 46 Many Palesmen predicted that this extra-parliamentary composition would become a permanent tax.Footnote 47 Though Sidney’s ‘composition aimed at stabilising relations at all levels in Irish society’, it had the opposite effect.Footnote 48 In 1577, a trio of lawyers acting as spokesmen for the local landowners went to court to plead directly with the crown, but Sidney framed their opposition as denial of the monarch’s prerogative, and the representatives were temporarily imprisoned.Footnote 49 After the privy council consulted a handful of Irish nobles as to the validity of the delegates’ grievance, Lord Chancellor Gerrard was sent to court to counter the complainants’ arguments.Footnote 50 However, Gerrard was not wholly supportive of Sidney’s scheme and recommended compromise with the Palesmen.Footnote 51 The delegation returned to Ireland to seek a resolution, but compromise could not be reached. Sidney had nineteen of his main opponents imprisoned twice in Dublin Castle and fined them heavily.
Those he imprisoned were significant figures. They included four titled peers, four knights and a prominent government officer: Viscount Baltinglass; the barons of Delvin, Howth and Trimleston; Sir Patrick Hussey, Sir Oliver Plunkett, Sir William Sarsfield and Sir Christopher Cheevers; and Nicholas Nugent, second baron of the exchequer, who was stripped of office and imprisoned. Members of the landed gentry included Patrick Nangle, Edward and George Plunkett, Thomas, Lavalen and James Nugent, William Talbot, lawyer John Netterville, and Patrick Bermingham; all were leading landowners whose families had enjoyed power and influence in the region for centuries and were noted for their steadfast loyalty to the crown.Footnote 52 Viscount Baltinglass and the barons of Delvin and Howth were fined £500 each; Trimleston was fined £300, and all the knights were fined 200 marks. The lowest fine, imposed on a member of the gentry, was £20 or approximately £20,000 today.Footnote 53 Such fines were designed to undermine their status as community leaders, likely requiring rent hikes on their tenants to cover the cost.
IV
But what of those who supported Sidney and gave him a gift? Historians have detected in the 1570s a definitive break with previous political conditions due to the preference for, and emerging dominance of, English-born administrative and military servitors.Footnote 54 The list (included as an appendix to this article) provides an opportunity to explore this suggestion. The first group of donors under examination can loosely be termed ‘government men’: those who made their careers and fortunes by seeking position in the Dublin administration, particularly the judiciary. A mix of Old English and New English servitors filled the highest positions in the administration, with fewer top positions being granted to the Old English as the sixteenth century progressed.
Several members of the Irish Council did not contribute to the feast for various reasons: William Gerrard and the earl of Ormond were at court, and while Gerrard may have donated to the feast had he been in Ireland, Ormond was a bitter enemy of Sidney and likely would have boycotted it.Footnote 55 Also missing was the vice-treasurer of Ireland, Edward Fitton, who was in dispute with Sidney at the time. These councillors aside, a significant number of top government office-holders appear on the 1578 gift list, but their inclusion does not indicate total harmony.
Some of the most prominent donors were members of the judiciary, who sat on the Irish Council and worked closely with the viceroy. They were chief baron of the exchequer, Sir Lucas Dillon; lord chief justice of Ireland, Sir John Plunket; former attorney general, John Bathe; and secretary of state, John Challoner.Footnote 56 Donors from the ranks of junior government were: second justice of the chief bench, Robert Dillon; third justice of the queen’s bench, Bartholomew Russell; master sergeant-at-law, Edward FitzSimons; the queen’s solicitor, Richard Belling; and chirographer of the exchequer and protonotary of the common pleas, Robert Bis or Bisse.Footnote 57 The only churchman on the list was John Garvey, dean of Christ Church Cathedral, who had served as a council member since 1573.Footnote 58 Their long working relationships with successive viceroys and each other meant gift-giving/hospitality was virtually obligatory, denoting their supposed social cohesion. Most of these contributors were from the Old English community and represented an inner circle of government officials who were still willing to follow the viceroy even if their neighbours disapproved.
Unsurprisingly, the top donors had been promoted by Sidney and benefitted under his tenure; Sidney knighted Plunket and put forward Lucas Dillon for the office of chief baron of the exchequer in 1570, immediately knighting him upon his return to Ireland in 1575.Footnote 59 Chief Justice Plunket was one of the few Palesmen who wholeheartedly supported the levying of the cess, and Sidney had called the chief baron ‘meus fidelis Lucas’ [my faithful Lucas].Footnote 60 Englishman John Challoner was a personal friend of the lord deputy, accompanying him on at least two missions around Ireland and receiving a gift of a horse from him when the low fees of his office did not meet his costs.Footnote 61 Robert Bisse was another Sidney appointee and acknowledged the appointment with a large donation to the feast.Footnote 62 Having directly benefitted from Sidney’s patronage, these men consistently supported his agenda in the face of opposition.
The fiction of social and political cohesion, materialised by food gifts, breaks down upon further inspection, as Sidney was gravely dissatisfied with other Anglo-Irish privy councillors and high-ranking members of the judiciary. Sidney had been lobbying for their replacement for years, stating that they were variously ‘sick and impotent … much spent in years, and decayed both in sense and body’.Footnote 63 The lord deputy blamed the incompetence of his councillors for the ‘hindrance’ of his mission in Ireland, exclaiming that he was ‘swarm[ed]’ by them as soon as he returned from any ‘martial actions’.Footnote 64 Sidney’s opinion of the majority of the law officers remained low in his final deputyship, and he lobbied for the removal of several of them as they had been Fitzwilliam’s appointees. In 1576, he asked the privy council for ‘Three English lawyers for Chief Justices, and an Attorney General’, seeking to replace attorney general John Bathe, appointed by Fitzwilliam the previous year.Footnote 65 In November 1577, Sidney’s oft-repeated request was fulfilled; Bathe was removed from office and one Thomas Snagg was sent to Ireland to act as attorney general.Footnote 66 The ousted attorney general’s donation suggests that he was trying to persuade Sidney to find him another position, since such a gift had pleased his predecessor.Footnote 67 Sidney was not swayed.
Intent on cleaning house, removing Bathe was the first step in removing other high office holders, for there had long been a suspicion that the judiciary in Ireland was not only incompetent but corrupt. John Symcott, the second remembrancer of the exchequer appointed to root out corruption and ‘reform the customs administration’, accused the entire cohort of Irish-born government officials of endemic corruption: ‘If any matter touch a cousin, both justice, judge, serjeant, and attorney will find for him contrary to all right, equity, and conscience.’Footnote 68 The master of the rolls, Nicholas White, was the first target of this clear-out, precipitated by a rift between Sidney and White that began in 1569.Footnote 69 Snagg targeted White as ‘negligent in his office’, accusing him of exonerating any Irish defendant no matter the charge.Footnote 70 The lord deputy praised Snagg’s persecution of White, stating that ‘more of his sorte are nedefull’.Footnote 71 White opposed Sidney’s decision to arrest the Pale landowners for non-payment of cess fees and was himself imprisoned shortly after the feast in 1578. Unsurprisingly, White did not contribute to the celebration. However, his temporary replacement, Edward Fitzsimon, gave a very large donation.Footnote 72
Sidney’s determination to ‘clean house’ may have precipitated gifts from other holders of high office, fearful of losing their positions. Richard Belling (alternatively Beylings/Belyn/Bealinge) was another Fitzwilliam appointee, and it is not inconceivable that Belling’s gift was given to ward off his potential dismissal.Footnote 73 Fear may have equally motivated Bartholomew Russell to contribute. Though appointed to office years earlier, Russell’s position was imperilled. He had been ordered in 1567 to go to England ‘for one year, to gain experience in his duties’ and again in 1577 ‘for two years for better experience and practice in his offices’.Footnote 74 Evidently there was doubt about his qualifications for the position he held. For these men, gift-giving may have been an attempt to ward off any potential negative consequences from having been promoted by Sidney’s predecessor or from a history of ineptitude.
The 1578 gift list also reflects many of the changes to the Irish political landscape in the wake of the fall of the house of Kildare in the 1530s — the scramble for power and the formation of new alliances after the Kildare hegemony was smashed. The eleventh earl of Kildare was at that very moment at court, manoeuvring against Sidney, along with Ormond. As David Edwards notes, such an ‘alliance with Kildare appalled certain English officials who hitherto had capitalised on ancient factional divisions among the ruling Irish lineages to increase Crown control over the provinces through a policy of divide and rule’.Footnote 75 Setting aside their differences to present a united front against the viceroy and his methods of governing, they ascribed their names agreeing to the offer put forward by the representatives of the Pale.Footnote 76 This ‘combination’ to undermine Sidney was no doubt troubling to those who had made gains in Kildare’s absence.Footnote 77
Certain Old English gentry families, like the Dillons, had been constrained by the magnate house, but gained importance and prestige in the absence of the powerful and well-connected overlord. Having risen by appointment and direct service under Cromwell, they continued to expand their position long after their initial gains.Footnote 78 Robert Dillon of Riverstown grew rich from generous leases of attainted Kildare lands; when Queen Mary reversed the Kildare attainder, the Dillons’ generous leases were in danger of reversion.Footnote 79 As Robert Dillon rose to the higher levels of the judiciary, he used his proximity with each new administration to shore up viceregal support to pre-emptively gain the upper hand in any clashes with the earl of Kildare. Though Robert Dillon’s gift may have been a matter of convention or duty it is equally possible that fear of a Geraldine reprisal motivated Dillon to ingratiate himself with the embattled lord deputy.Footnote 80
A cohort of New English soldiers made donations of various kinds, likely hoping for remuneration of expenses and grants of land for their service. The queen’s reluctance to finance her officers in Ireland meant that her captains’ out-of-pocket expenditure on soldiers’ wages, supplies and spies could remain unpaid for years. Sidney and his predecessors lacked the necessary funds to complete the colonisation of the Gaelic territories in Laois/Offaly, and utilised the practice of martial law — ‘military government superseding ordinary law for a time’ — giving the captains carte blanche to accuse people in their jurisdiction of treason, or even potential treason.Footnote 81 Court proceedings were dispensed with and following summary executions, ‘a third of the movable goods and possessions’ became the property of the commissioner.Footnote 82 The lord deputy gave captains a ‘free hand’, incentivising peremptory violence against both the Gaelic and Old English populace as a show of government force, for which the commissioners were able to remunerate themselves with a share of the moveable goods and possessions of those they punished.Footnote 83 However, the problem of paying the captains and their men remained acute. The 1578 gift list suggests that some resorted to giving gifts to the viceroy to ‘prime the pump’ for payment of debts.
Nine/ten donors on the 1578 list can be identified as captains, or soldiers-turned-planters at the end of their military service. Active military donors were master gunner Thomas Elliot, captains William Forz/Furres/Fyrres, William Collior, Robert Pifold/Phypho and the marshal of Ireland, Sir Nicholas Bagenal. Former/retired soldiers were Arthur Brereton/Brewerton, Mr Robert Quick of Drogheda, Sir Henry Colley and Richard Mainwaring/Mannering. A number of these donors gave gifts of horses to Sidney from the period 1575–6; this latter list will be cross-referenced.
Gift lists show who was — or who wanted to be — in the viceroy’s good books; in a system that was perpetually underfunded, inclusion was a prerequisite for recompense and reward. Knight marshal of Ireland, Sir Nicholas Bagenal, and Sir Henry Colley had their military service rewarded with positions on the Irish Council, though position did not necessarily equate to payment.Footnote 84 Colley had continuously petitioned for redress since 1570 and was at times forced to disband his men unpaid, being owed over £1,819; he was still owed this money after Sidney left Ireland.Footnote 85 Captain William Furres was one of only seven donors who gave Sidney a horse and contributed towards the 1578 feast.Footnote 86 Yet, he was far from affluent: reportedly illiterate and innumerate he had been swindled by an army clerk who had pocketed his and his soldiers’ wages, driving him into debt.Footnote 87 His gift of the horse to Sidney coincided with the viceroy’s giving him his first commission of martial law; similarly, he had received his second commission six months before the feast.Footnote 88 Very likely these and other servitors, such as captains Robert Piphoe and Robert Harpole, gave Sidney the gifts they did hoping to ‘prime the pump’, but there was only so much he or any other viceroy could do to answer their needs given the tight financial reins imposed by Whitehall.Footnote 89
By far the largest group of contributors to the 1578 feast were the minor gentry or landowners of the Pale, totalling forty-four persons. Some of these have been already noted, as members of the high judiciary and those who had served on the Irish Council. But those who enjoyed less frequent access to the viceroy than his councillors also contributed to the city-wide celebration. Their participation in the exchange is particularly worthy of notice considering they were the cohort most impacted by the cess exactions. Though it is not possible to examine every one of the roughly forty-four donors from this group, some individuals stand out due to their protracted engagement with the government.
One of the top non-judicial Old English donors was Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam of Merrion in Dublin. On the face of it, Sir Thomas appears to have been a loyal subject of the crown, building amicable relationships with whatever viceroy was in power. Sidney personally knighted him in 1566 and stayed overnight at his home before making his grand entry into Dublin as lord deputy that same year.Footnote 90 Equally enmeshed with Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam, Sir Thomas and his wife frequently gave food gifts and hosted the viceroy and his wife at their home.Footnote 91 A donation from Sir Thomas might be expected given his long-standing, amicable relationship with Sidney. He was no stranger to consequences, having objected to the cess in 1569 and lost his position as an alderman as a result.Footnote 92 He may have objected in principle to the even higher rate of cess, but donating to the feast was part of achieving a larger goal.
Sir Thomas’s brother-in-law, John Finglas of Tobersole, was another donor, albeit one who did not share his documented history of gift-giving.Footnote 93 Sir Thomas and John Finglas were trustees of Dame Alice FitzLyons, widow of Roger Finglas, who was respectively brother-in-law to Sir Thomas and brother of John. These two donors brought a case to court for their dead relative’s widow two days after the feast.Footnote 94 While Sir Thomas may have given towards the feast despite any objections, his co-trustee’s presence on the list does hint at an ulterior motive for giving — namely, that contribution might persuade Sidney and his councillors to find in their favour in their lawsuit. Their combined presence on the gift list suggests that when personal stakes were high enough, aggrieved community members might quell their own grievances to achieve a larger objective.
Avoiding the repercussions from dereliction of duty may have been a motivating factor for Laurence Hamond/Hammond, constable of Trim Castle, and New English master gunner Thomas Elliot. While donations from government office-holders might be expected, neither had given a gift of food to Fitzwilliam. However, in 1578, they were facing impending charges for professional misconduct. Ten days after the feast, Hammond bore a letter from Sidney to Walsingham containing a glowing recommendation that he was ‘cherished and lyked for his willingnes and readiness to serve her matie at all tymes’.Footnote 95 Hammond circumspectly covered multiple bases, also securing letters from captain Nicholas Malby, and Sidney’s replacement, William Drury.Footnote 96 By late July, Hammond, Elliot and their co-accused were in receipt of a pardon.Footnote 97
Ameliorating a fine may have motivated Lady Marion Barnewell of Turvey to donate; two months before the feast, she was fined for ‘greate Disobedience and Contempt’ in failing to provide supplies and ‘five archers on horseback’ towards the hosting against Rory Oge O’More and the Connors.Footnote 98 Lady Barnewell was fined the whopping sums of 63s. for failing to provide supplies and £15 5s. for the mounted archers, a greater sum than any levied on her co-accused.Footnote 99 Despite the straightened circumstances brought on by widowhood, Lady Barnewell made a large gift, a tactic that none of her co-accused tried.Footnote 100 Her pardon in July 1578 was no doubt aided by her marriage to Sidney’s friend, chief baron Lucas Dillon, later that same year.Footnote 101 Giving a gift as an expression of contrition, sincere or otherwise, and utilising network connections to her advantage was an effective move in an environment of general dissent against Sidney’s cess.
Old rifts between members of the Old English community and the earl of Kildare may have motivated some donors to seek the viceroy’s protection through gifting. Justice Robert Dillon, his brother-in-law John Allen, captain Henry Colley and Old English landowner Nicholas Herbert had produced sworn testimony to Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam about the depredations they suffered at the hands of Kildare’s Gaelic allies — depredations, they alleged, that were wrought at the earl’s instigation.Footnote 102 Colley alleged he had ‘a hawke’ stolen from him and Herbert had cattle raided from his lands, ‘xviii of the best kyne thereof were sent to the Erle’.Footnote 103 This was their evidence of Fitzgerald’s master-minding of the theft in an attempt to ‘rule of the whole [country] as his ancestors had’.Footnote 104
On this testimony, Kildare was taken to England and interrogated for these and other alleged crimes. Though cleared, he was still at court as of April 1578 but would not stay in England for long. The presence of so many members of this ‘anti-Geraldine League’ — Dillon, Colley, Allen and Herbert — on the gift list suggests that they were fearful of Kildare’s imminent return and any vengeance he might exact upon them for their accusations. Allen and Herbert did not have the access to Sidney that Dillon and Colley enjoyed, and so their gifts were less likely an expression of support for the cess and more as a protective measure against future retribution.Footnote 105
The gentry of the Pale were an extensive community; at least 393 noble or gentry families were counted in Dublin, Louth, Meath and Kildare sometime before 1585.Footnote 106 Rather than a testimony of their support, this gift list casts into sharp relief the miniscule number of donors from this cohort. If good government had been a reality instead of a fiction, this list should have contained hundreds of names; yet so few of the traditionally loyal gentry are named. Most were incensed at the onerous demands placed upon them to maintain an ‘extensive military establishment’ in a time of relative peace, their denouncement by proclamation and the heavy-handed manner in which Sidney cancelled landowners’ exemptions for cess payments.Footnote 107 Equally, Whitehall took a dim view of his mishandling of the Pale community and his over-reliance on martial law to govern the Pale.Footnote 108 Sidney was ordered to ready himself to return to England in April 1578.Footnote 109 Those who did give did not do so out of unalloyed support for the viceroy, but possibly from their need to protect their interests before his imminent recall.
The merchants of Dublin were equally absent from the list despite a documented history of giving food gifts. Contemporaneous accounts from English and European cities record the enthusiastic participation of the guilds in welcoming dignitaries. Wealthy aldermen all over Europe subsidised rounds of civic feasting, and holding such offices helped ‘identify individual citizens with the regime’; Ian Archer has theorised that loyalty from this particular social group was probably stronger as their participation in civic rituals was greater.Footnote 110 Martha Howell has noted that amongst Dutch aldermen, gifts could seal personal bonds, materialising relationships in a way that commercial exchange could not; in short, gift-giving conferred honour and social legitimacy among this class of subject that boosted their credit in the marketplace.Footnote 111 Therefore, absence is noteworthy.
Bristol — a city comparable in size to Dublin — provides a contrasting example of guild expenditure for public pageantry and hospitality. Though it is an unequal comparison to contrast the civic support given to Lord Deputy Sidney at St George’s Day with the welcome shown to the queen herself on progress in 1574, or to her favourite, the earl of Leicester, on his visit in 1587, there are marked differences in the financial participation of the civic elite that are worth exploring.Footnote 112 In the hopes of obtaining Leicester’s help to procure a licence, the Corporation of Bristol sent him gifts of wine, sugar, marmalade, figs and raisins, and spent over £100 on his two-day visit.Footnote 113 Every member of the corporation must have contributed to procure the gifts or the money. By comparison, the negligible number of donors from Dublin’s most powerful guild, the Trinity Guild, is rather more indicative of a general boycott. Guild members had previously engaged with the administration by extending lines of credit that kept the administration afloat, as well as participating in honour-building activities like gift-giving. Their history of direct and indirect support would lead to the conclusion that there would be near total participation by the guild during the 1578 St George’s Day feast. Yet, this was not the case.
The Trinity Guild was the largest of all the guilds in Dublin and its membership was comprised of the leading merchants of the city. The wealth of the guild meant that the Trinity Guild contributed ‘two-thirds of the town cess, while all the other gilds paid only one-third’ combined; however this greater wealth gave them a greater share of the seats at the table of power, and it was exclusively from the members of the Trinity Guild that the sheriffs, aldermen and mayors of the city were drawn.Footnote 114 The Trinity Guild had at least 168 members at any one time. Ninety-six of these were freemen of the city and the lowest-ranking members of the guild, who could hope to one day be elevated to the next highest level which contained forty-eight members. From this forty-eight were drawn the sheriffs of the city, some of whom could hope to eventually be raised to the highest level — the twenty-four, who were all aldermen of the city. From the aldermen one man was chosen to serve the city as mayor for the duration of one year, and the new mayor was elected at the end of June.Footnote 115 Holding this office was a great honour, but also came at great financial cost, for requisite to the office of mayor was a duty of hospitality; the fee for the office was raised to £45 in 1574, but it was reckoned that it cost the office holder circa £500 in expenses.Footnote 116
From this pool of 168, only four aldermen definitely contributed to the feast — Christopher Segryff/Sedgrave, Nicholas FitzSimons, Thomas Cosgrave and Christopher Fagan — while the wife of an alderman, Margaret Sedgrave Duffe, made a donation and can be considered a fifth donor as Guild-adjacent. A sixth donor, William Foster/Forster, is described as a merchant in the state papers. He was not an alderman in 1578, so was possibly the only freeman of the Trinity Guild to give a gift. A seventh donor, ‘Allen of Allen town’, might indicate Giles Allen, alderman and mayor of Dublin for 1578, but it is highly unlikely.Footnote 117 Giles Allen’s address was Allenscourt not Allentown, and the protocol of such clerks lists was to record donors by their title, not merely by their last names.Footnote 118 If Giles Allen had given a gift, it would have been written ‘the Mayor of Dublin’ as had been the ‘Maior and Cittie of Watterford’ when they donated expensive, imported delicacies to the feast.Footnote 119
Out of all the members of the Trinity Guild, only six of the city’s most wealthy and politically active merchants or their wives, contributed to the feast in 1578. In light of how the guild celebrated and organised the St George’s feast prior to the Reformation — with guild members actively involved in procuring the actors and furnishings for the pageant — versus how the celebration transformed to a procession of the lord deputy with his heralds and the Trinity Guild trailing behind, the general non-participation of donating gifts of food to Sidney’s feast is suggestive of a boycott by the disaffected merchants. Those who did give did not do so disinterestedly but based on self-interested calculation.
The merchant donors were among the top lenders to the underfunded Dublin administration. ‘Loans were constantly given to the state government by wealthy individuals in the city throughout the Elizabethan period’ and in turn such creditors were rewarded with ‘opportunities for investment’ and the ability to charge interest.Footnote 120 However, just like the captains who waited years and sent multiple missives chronicling their service to recoup their out-of-pocket expenses, Dublin’s merchants were often left waiting for payment by the crown. Christopher Sedgrave was ‘the most important lender to the crown in Ireland up to his death in 1589’ and had loaned ‘£1,191 4s 6d … for victualling and clothing the army’.Footnote 121 Nicholas Fitzsimon also loaned a vast sum of money to the crown — £773 9d.Footnote 122 It is no surprise to find these creditors donating to the feast, perhaps with the goal that Sidney would keep pressing for the settlement of their loans. Sedgrave, however, gave a relatively small donation for such a wealthy man who had a history of personal dealings with Sidney, and the reward was equally small.Footnote 123 Many less wealthy donors gave much larger donations than these large creditors to the crown, and the disparity in their working relationship with Sidney and their meagre contributions to his feast suggests their giving was perfunctory and calculated.
Further merchant donors may have found it prudent to give to Sidney’s feast to ensure favourable legal outcomes. Christopher Fagan was no stranger to the court and was ‘active in the organising of the petition to the court in London for an expansion of the Trinity Guild’s privileges’ in 1577.Footnote 124 Furthermore, he was master of the Trinity Guild for the year 1578 and, by rights, should have participated in donating to the feast.Footnote 125 However, neither the mayor nor any of the other officers of the Trinity Guild gave to the feast that year, and Fagan’s reason for giving may have had more to do with the lawsuit which Lady Marion Barnewell faced. Fagan acted as her representative in court, and so his gift to the feast may have been part of a concerted effort to assist in reducing Lady Barnewell’s fine.Footnote 126
Nicholas Duffe was another creditor of the Dublin administration, albeit to a lesser extent than his father-in-law, the aforementioned Christopher Sedgrave.Footnote 127 Duffe did not give to the feast, however ‘Margret Segryff Duffes wyfe’ did.Footnote 128 It is unknown why Nicholas did not give a gift in his own stead, but it was not unusual for wives to give gifts in their own name and for their own agendas. Nicholas was frequently in England, as he was agent for the Dublin merchants in their business transactions; he was possibly not in the country to give a gift towards the feast.Footnote 129 Equally possible was that Margaret acted of her own accord — and for a scandalous reason. Around that time, one Robert Street was killed in Margaret and Nicholas’s home in Winetavern Street and the accused, William Kelly, was pardoned for the crime in June 1578.Footnote 130 Perhaps Margaret contributed to the feast to expunge the whiff of scandal attached to having bloodshed in her house, or to help persuade Sidney and the council to exonerate Kelly of the crime.
V
Just as important as who contributed to Sidney’s celebration of St George’s feast is who did not, for the vast majority of the Trinity Guild’s 168 members did not donate. Like their brethren who gave gifts of food, equally large merchant-creditors and holders of high office opted out of contributing to the feast. The celebration transformed from a pageant that largely fell under the guild’s purview to organise, fund and take credit for to one that relegated the aldermen and freemen to background characters as Sidney took centre stage in the procession as the distributor of festal largesse. The breakdown in social cohesion between the merchant community and the lord deputy is best exemplified by the missing merchants.
Tracing every single member of the Trinity Guild would be impossible, but there are some outstanding members who held high office in 1578, who were large creditors, or who had a history of giving food to Sidney’s predecessor — that is, men who could reasonably be expected to donate to a celebration of this kind. The most noteworthy of such absentees is John Ussher, treasurer of the Trinity Guild in 1578, a high office that necessitated a working relationship with the viceroy. Ussher had a history of reciprocal hospitality with Lord Deputy and Lady Fitzwilliam, hosting and being hosted, during his tenure as mayor from 1574–5; he was clearly familiar with protocol and with the need to maintain bonds of respect and amity through commensality.Footnote 131 Furthermore, Ussher was extremely active in affairs of the Dublin Corporation, having unsuccessfully worked with Sidney from 1569–71 to ‘wrest the leather hide monopoly from the staplers’.Footnote 132 Temporarily removed as alderman in 1573 for this scheme, he was quickly reinstated and served as mayor from 1574–5 due to his ‘access to government ministers’, which relationships were formed on his frequent visits to court as agent for the Dublin Corporation.Footnote 133 In 1577, he travelled to the court to petition the queen for the renewal and expansion of the Trinity Guild’s charter, which mission was successful.Footnote 134 Ussher was a formidable figure in the merchant community, making his non-participation in the feast noteworthy. Perhaps Ussher did not feel the need to contribute to the feast because the lord deputy was not his strongest or most effective advocate, since Ussher had his own contacts within the London merchant community and with Burghley. Having much more reliable associates in England, he did not waste a gift on a viceroy who would not remain in Ireland much longer.
Even non-office-holding members of the Trinity Guild would ordinarily have contributed, considering their financial relationship with the Dublin administration and its changing viceroys. Alderman John Gaydon loaned Sidney £150 in 1572, while John Lennan and Simon Growe were fellow signatories on Ussher’s petition to the queen to expand the guild’s charter in 1577.Footnote 135 Walter Sedgrave and James Barry were sheriffs for Dublin for the years 1577–8, yet none of these men were donors. More participants from the merchant community of Waterford contributed to the feast than merchants of Dublin.Footnote 136 Even aldermen charged with assessing and gathering the cess from their neighbours on 20 January 1578 — Richard Runcell, Patrick Browne, tanners William Picott and Richard Haie, shoemaker Robert Seyle and baker William Browne — did not donate to the feast, suggesting their dissatisfaction with Sidney.Footnote 137
The merchant community’s opposition is further suggested by the fact that a number of Trinity Guild members — George Russell (clerk of the Tholsel), William Turner and John Quyne (a sheriff in 1577) — gave gifts of food or showed hospitality to Lord Deputy Fitzwilliam throughout 1574–5, but did not contribute to Sidney’s feast.Footnote 138 Several merchants of Dublin and Drogheda, with whom the earl of Essex had opened accounts during his time in Ireland, are absent from the 1578 list. Walter Ball and Henry Cusack were the biggest providers of luxury and everyday fabrics to the said earl, while Patrick Dowdall of Drogheda supplied a range of goods for Essex’s household; a contribution from merchants of this calibre should have been unquestioned.Footnote 139 Essex, however, had banked goodwill with such merchants by settling his debts quickly — sometimes less than a year after their commission.Footnote 140 Sidney’s creditors, by contrast, had their accounts outstanding for years, a delay that no doubt alienated many in the merchant community. Though these Trinity Guild leaders presumably marched in the procession behind the lord deputy, they withdrew their support of his leadership by not giving any more of their own resources to augment his flagging reputation.
Patronage politics was undoubtedly the reason behind why the mayor of Dublin for 1578, Giles Allen, did not contribute to the viceroy’s feast: the slight by such a prominent civic officer was due to his patron, the earl of Ormond. Ormond had cultivated a number of clients amongst the Dublin merchants through business ventures and leased a property to Allen in 1558. One of the terms of the lease was that the earl could reside in Allen’s home while Ormond was in Dublin, underlining their patron-client relationship.Footnote 141 In the following decades, Allen acted as witness to many leases and indentures between Ormond and his tenants and was joined by fellow aldermen, Patrick Goghe and John Dongan, in the earl’s legal dealings.Footnote 142
The antipathy between Sidney and Ormond was no secret. Ormond openly criticised Sidney to the queen, and Sidney tried to wrest control from the earl, by unleashing ‘one of his most reliable servants, Francis Lovell’, in the Ormond lordship.Footnote 143 Lovell and other captains used their commissions of martial law to terrorise Ormond’s clients, attempting to weaken his power base. It is no surprise then that Ormond’s Dublin-based clients — Allen, Goghe and Dongan — expressed their loyalty to Ormond by boycotting their patron’s nemesis. Though they did not risk imprisonment for vociferously speaking out against Sidney like the nineteen in Dublin Castle, by abstention, they tacitly showed their blatant disregard for the viceroy and his policies.
VI
The 1578 St George’s feast gift list inadvertently records the tangled dynamics of obligation, negotiation and withdrawal under viceregal patronage. Its brevity points to the growing rift between the crown and its most loyal Irish subjects. Though Sidney had created a clientele amongst some of the top-ranking Pale judiciary, the viceroy alienated large swaths of the merchant, gentry and nobles of the Pale with his accusatory proclamations, high cess exactions and overbearing use of martial law. Whereas Sidney constructed an image of himself as the head of an English state in Ireland, ‘Irish citizens and burgesses regarded themselves as guardians of local and national public interest’.Footnote 144 Historically, giving gifts to the viceroy had been a symbolic expression of the Pale’s centrality to royal government in Ireland, one of the means through which the Old English community expressed ‘civic sociability’ and their cultural and political alignment as English subjects.Footnote 145
While awaiting the next new viceroy, some of the gentry and merchants of the Pale opted out of directly investing in the Dublin administration apparatus in silent protest. In this regard they were not dissimilar to their contemporaries in England. Though civic participation was widespread when the queen went on progress, not all contributed willingly.Footnote 146 Beyond Dublin, resource scarcity and increasing demands on royal patronage prompted civic communities in the later Tudor period to respond to administrative pressure with ‘negotiating strategies’: libels, resistance and rioting.Footnote 147 Perfunctory gift-giving, or abstention from gift exchange, can be added to these negotiating strategies as part of the lexicon of civic discontent.
Acknowledgements
This manuscript is published by kind permission of Viscount De L’Isle from his private collection. The author would like to thank the Women’s History Association of Ireland for granting the necessary funding through the Anna Parnell Travel Grant (2021) to obtain access to this manuscript. Funding was also gratefully received through a UCC Excellence Scholarship (2020–3) and Irish Research Council Grant (2023–4).
Appendix: ‘The note of all such presents’, 1578
The note of all suche presents as weare gyven to your Lordship by the gentlemen of the Country this St Gorges Fest anno 1578
Ffyrst my Lorde of Slayn j oxo iiij dossyn of pidgons xx cupell Of Rabotte j turkey vj lambes xviii skore of appoles______}vjs viiid
Sir Lucas Dillon Knight on oxe ix duck and mallard iij corlewes ij moor koks i hethe hen viij copell of Rabotte ij - dossyn of pidgons__________} vis vid
Sir Thomas fitz Williams knight iij corlewes iiij plovers ij dossyn of pidgons xij lobsters x mallard i swann_______} ijs.
Justes Plonket j oxo j velle j heren ij fezonte vi plovers ij hethe hennes xij pidgons ij capons i turkey viij mallard ij corlewes i pound of butter_________} vijs viiid
Sir Patrick Barnewell vj herren Hennes____________viijd
Allen of Allen town vj lambes vj capones i bakon_________} iis iiiid
Mr Quick of Drogheda i turkey ii capons vi copell of rabott i dossyn dimidium of pidgons _______} xiid
The Maior and Cittie of Watterford i sugar loaf weinge xii £ ii boxes marmelad ii of suckett ____________} [nil]
Suma__________xxvis xd
Mr Richard Mainring ii pekoks______________} vid
Mr William Hollywodd of Artayn i brawn_________} iis
Mr William bathe recorder of Drogheda i torkey iiii capons xii duck and mallard iiii lambe iiii tame[?] ducks______} iis
Delay hide i brawn ii velles ii lambe ii turkey__________} iis
Mr Hussey the Erle of Kildares Steward i velle ii lambes iii capons 15 pigeons______} xiid
Mr Artur Brereton i velle xii hennes viii lambe i torkey i dossyn of pidgons vi capones vi harres ___________} iis
Mr John Bathe X copell of rabotte vi capons ii corlewes iii lambes i turkey_______} xviiid
Justes Dillon of Ryvers town i oxo vi lobsters________} vs
Mr Henry Brandon iii hennes ii capons ii lambes i velle_______} xiid
John Adrey Vi duck & mallard v plovers i fezant________} [nil]
Mr Bartholamew Russell I turkey xx {pidgones} xiid
Suma_______xviiis
Mr Nicolas Harbart ii dossyn viii pidgones i ponde of butter i storgen I barrell of olde [olev?] oille_______} iiis
Mr J eustes Of Castle Marton i motton iiii lambes i dossyn and x pidgones xxiiii eggs______} xiid
Thomas Elyot i turkey vi capons______} xiid
Capton Forz iii hennes iii capons rabotte iiii copell iii chicken redd derre dimidium hares Ii fyve dossyn of pidgons__________} xviiid
Mr William Holleywodd 40 appolles ii dossyn of pidgones______} viiid
Mr John Allen of St Wolstonns i velle i pehen iii dossyn of pidgones ii lambes iiii capons____} xviiid
Mr Sargent fitz Simonsy iiii chicken iii dossyn of pidgones v lambes vii copell of rabott i velle vi plovers viii greene Plovers xvi Smilts iii corlewes iii corless ____} iis viiid
Mr Christopher Fagan i velle i turkey___} [nil]
Mr [Stephen] Fitz Williams of Jobston i velle i torkey i dozzyn dimidium of pidgones____} xiid
Mr Simon Barrenwell i velle iii dossyn of pidgones ii torkey iiii capones____} xvid
Suma___xiiis viiid
Mr Bis i velle iii lambes ii capones i pige vi plovers i dossyn of pigeons____} xiid
Mr Nicolas fitz Simons i torkey vi capones vi cupell of rabotte i dossyn and viii pigeons ii lambes______} xvid
Mr Lutrell of Lutrellstown i turkey i velle iii lambes____} xviiid
Capton Collyor i wild gosse 4 copell of mallard 4 widgones______} [nil]
Mrs Forde i marche payne i pottel of ipocrys___} xiid
Mr Sherlock of Watterford ii barrels of sucky ii boxes of marmelad___} vid
Mr Pifold ii great black koky half a fallow dow x pidgones xii copell of rabotte___} xiid
Sir Henry Colley knight i velle ii dossyn of pidgon___} xviiid
Mr Edward Dowdolh Of glaspistoll vi copell of rabotte ii dossyn of pidgons____} viiid
Loronce Hamon ii dossyn of pigeons i turkey ii capones___} xiid
Thomas Darcey of domeny i turkey v dossyn of pigeons iiii capones___} xiid
Mr Michel Cusack of Rohaldon iiii capones xx pigeons___} iis
Suma___xiis vid
Mr Wesley of the Dangan vi lambes x cupell of Rabotte iiii cupell of Connes Viii capones iiii dossy of pigeons i velle iiii mottons___} iis vid
My Ladey Barrenwell vi lambes i velle i swanne vii duck and mallard viii cupell of Rabott viii capons vii chicken iiii pigges iiii dossyn of pidgons___} iiis iiiid
Mr Belling the Queens Solisitor i mutton vi lambe i pig iiii capons iiii copell of Rabott xiiii pigeon iii chicken i turkey___} iis iiiid
Mr Challoner ii capons x pigeons 47 copell of Rabotte___} xiid
Mr Christopher Segryff i velle i mutton i torkey ii lambes___} xiid
John Finglas of Tobershole xvi pigeons 24 lobsters vi chicken___} xiid
Sr Nicolas Bagnoll x capons a pestre of venson 500 of oysters___} xviiid
William Foster Vi heren shunes ii dossyn of pigeons___} xiid
The Deanne of Christ Church i swan___} xiid
Torlough mackaboy i mutton i kid 100 of egges i pound of butter___} vid
Suma___xvs iid
Mrs Margret Segryff Duffes wyfe i turkey ii lambes ii dossyn dimidium of pigeons___} vid
Edmond fitz harres xii lobsters___} iiiid
Mrs Strainge ii dossyn of pidgones___} iiiid
Suma___xiiiid
Suma total___iiii£ viis iiiid
The total of every kind collected and gathered to gether presently gyven to yor Lordship by the gentle men of the country at St Gorges Fest 1578
Oxon___iii
Muttons__xi
Lambes___mxx xviii
Borres___ii
Turkey___xxi
Pekocky___iii
Capones___c v
Hennes___xix
fezants___iii
Heren hennes___xiii
Malards___mxx viii
Pidgones___mxx.viii dossyn & 8 pidgons
Pigges___v
Corlewes___xiii
Corless___iii
Black koky___ii
More koky___ii
Hethe hennes___iii
Snipe___xvi
widgones___iiii
Wilde gosse___i
Swannes___iii
Chicken___xix
Venson Redd___i dimidium
Venson Falow___dimidium
hayres___viii
Connes___iiii cupell
Rabotte___c xlvi cupell
Butter___iii hund
Egge__C iiiixx
Appoles__iiiic
Socket___iiii
Marmelad___iiii
Sugar i loff xii£
Gyven to the Lordes prisoners in the Castle upon St Gorge’s Daye
Lambes___ii
Herens___i
Mallarde___ii
Pidgones___ii dossyn
Rabotte___x copell
Capons___ii
Baked mette___viii
Cosgraves and Birns obligacion delyvered unto Mr Jacques Wingfeild
Presented a lyve after the Fest in Gilbarts Kepinge
Capones___xii cupell
Turkey__iii.
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