[Sidenote: New Royal Commission on the Pale, 1563.]
Having pacified Ulster, or rather shut her eyes to its true state, Elizabeth turned her attention to the state of the Pale. The complaints of the Irish law students in London, of Parker, of Bermingham, and of Shane O'Neill himself, had been partially investigated by Arnold. Matthew King, Clerk of the Check, was found to have been very remiss, and declared that some of his gravest misdeeds had been done under direct orders from the Lord-Lieutenant. Nothing could much exceed the ill-feeling shown by Sussex to the party of inquiry, though he did not actually obstruct Arnold, who, on his return to London, made out a case too strong to be safely neglected. Parker and Bermingham were consulted again, and Arnold received a new commission. To make the investigation thorough, all members of the Irish Council who had no men in the Queen's pay under them, and most of the principal gentlemen of the Pale, were put into the Commission. Sir Thomas Wrothe was associated with Arnold, and William Dixe, a professional auditor, was afterwards joined to them. Their instructions involved inquiry into almost all civil and military, and into some ecclesiastical affairs. The Queen notified her intention of establishing provincial presidencies, and suggested a plan for a University in Dublin, to be endowed out of the revenue of St. Patrick's.[72]
The indefatigable Cusack, whose great idea was the conciliation of Ireland by arrangements with the native nobility, was as anxious to obtain terms for Desmond as for Shane. The Earl was tired of his detention in England, where he was hard pressed for so moderate a sum as 4_l._ He agreed to be responsible for order in Munster, to see that the Queen got her feudal dues, and to pay her a tax of 4_d._ a year on every cow. He promised to put down the Brehon law, as well as the bards or rhymers who seem to have been thought still more important; 'for that they do by their ditties and rhymes made to divers lords and gentlemen in Ireland, in the commendation and high praise of extortion, rebellion, rape, raven, and other injustice, encourage those lords and gentlemen rather to follow those vices than to leave them.' For every shilling paid to these men, two were to be forfeited to the Queen, whose Commissioners were to have power to fine the rhymers at discretion.[73]