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PRE trate beyond the border territories of O'Hanlon and Magennis, which he devastated with fire and sword; he, however, reduced the castle of Carlow, held by the FitzGeralds. The Anglo-Irish Parliament met at Drogheda in December. All the royal grants made for the preceding one hundred and sixty-eight years were revoked; the family war cries, such as "Crom-a-boo" and "Butler-a-boo," were interdicted; it was enacted that none but Englishmen should be entrusted with the care of any royal castle in Ireland, and that a ditch should be thrown up to defend the Pale against the Irish on the borders. Other laws were passed in this Parliament for the safety of the Anglo-Irish colony, amongst which was Poynings' Act, which has made his name memorable in Irish history. It extended the English law to Ireland, and subverted the independence of the Anglo-Irish Parliament, by providing that no Irish statutes should take effect until approved by the Viceroy and his Privy-Council, and sanctioned by the King and Council. It is known as 10 Henry VII. cap. 22. The enacting part is as follows: "All estatutes late made within the said realm of England, concerning or belonging to the common and publique weal of the same [shall] from henceforth be deemed good and effectuall in the law, and over that be acceptyd, used, and executed within this land of Ireland, in all points at all time requisite according to the tenor and effect of the same; and over that by authority aforesaid, that they and every of them be authorised, proved, and confirmed in this said land of Ireland.

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The Lords of the Pale were induced to pass the measure on the representation that it would be a protection against the legislative oppressions occasionally attempted by the Viceroys. In the July 1495, Poynings made a successful expedition to relieve Waterford, then beleaguered by Warbeck and the Earl of Desmond. He took three of Warbeck's ships, and compelled him to retire to Scotland. It was part of his policy to propitiate by regular subsidies the chiefs whose territories bordered on the Pale, and, to O'Byrne, O'Neill, MacMurrough, MacMahon, O'Conor, and other magnates, he gave presents of cloth, wine, arms, and money. The castle of Carlow was entrusted to the Kavanaghs, and Sir James Ormond's troops were kept up at a ruinous expense. Sir Edward was recalled in 1496. The date of his death is not mentioned.

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Preston, Thomas, Viscount Tara, son of the 4th Viscount Gormanstown, was born, probably in Ireland, towards the close of the 16th century. He was educated in the Low Countries, where he entered the service of Spain. In 1634, during the viceroyalty of Strafford, he visited Ireland, and raised a regiment of 2,400 men in Leinster for the Spanish service. This force assisted at the defence of Louvain against the Dutch in June 1635. Preston gives a full account of the siege in a letter to Strafford, dated 6th July. A month later he sent agents to Ireland to raise new levies for the King of Spain. Indeed, it is supposed that he and Owen Roe O'Neill had the Deputy's warrant for recruiting as many men as they pleased in Ireland. Preston and his Irish troops were actively engaged in the war in the Netherlands for six years after the siege of Louvain. In the summer of 1641 he lost nearly 800 of his men in the defence of Genep; and although obliged to capitulate on 27th July, marched out with all the honours of war, and retired to Venlo. "Asforthebesieged," says a contemporary writer, "and Preston in particular, they earned for themselves the most consummate glory, and this was willingly accorded to them by the plaudits of their veriest enemies."

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Events in Ireland next called him home. Supplied by Cardinal Richelieu with three frigates and a considerable store of arms and ammunition for the Irish Confederates, he sailed from Dunkirk, and anchored in Wexford harbour about the middle of September 1642. He was accompanied by his son, a great number of engineers, and 500 officers, including Colonels Sinnott, Cullen, Plunket, and Bourke, who had distinguished themselves in the Dutch war. General Preston was appointed by the Supreme Council to the command of the Leinster forces, and was a prime actor in the affairs of Ireland for the next few years, siding on the whole with the Anglo-Irish rather than the Old Irish party. He was consequently often in opposition to Owen Roe O'Neill. Clarendon sketches broadly the differences of policy that divided Preston and O'Neill: "They of the more moderate party, and whose main end was to obtain liberty for the exercise of their religion, without any thought of declining their subjugation to the King, or of invading his prerogative, put themselves under the command of General Preston; the other, of the fiercer and more savage party, and who never meant to return to their obedience of the Crown of England, and looked upon all the estates which had ever been in the possession of any of their ancestors, though forfeited by their treason and rebellion, as justly due to them, and 445