Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/14

 confirmed all previous laws and customs, and left all loyal subjects in enjoyment of their own.

Practically, at first a considerable number of Englishmen kept their lands, and though this number was afterwards greatly reduced, there was no legal barrier to the acquisition of land by an Englishman, and no Englishman could be deprived of any lands he had, unless under some alleged ground for dispossessing him.

The result was that in a hundred years the two races began to amalgamate, and that at the death of King John, if not sooner, the amalgamation was complete.

But the procedure in Ireland was quite different.

The Irish, with but very few exceptions, were dispossessed of their lands in the conquered districts. Even Giraldus Cambrensis comments on this as likely to hinder the process of conquest. And Sir John Davies in his "Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never Entirely Subdued" devotes several pages to showing how the native Irish were shut out from the enjoyment of English laws, and were reputed as aliens. And in particular he dwells on the fact that the native Irish were deprived of their lands. He says—"And though they (the Anglo-Normans) had not gained the possession of one-third of the whole kingdom, yet in little they were owners and lords of all, so as nothing was left to be granted to the