Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 3.djvu/458

438 maintain, by any manner of mean, such malefactors, shall be deemed traitor of high treason, and suffer the penalties of the same; the Lord Leonard, nevertheless, comforted and abetted one Kedagh O'More, an Irishman, with a company of horsemen and footmen, to come twenty miles within the county of Kildare, to rob the barony of Oughtryn, and safely to return with the prede and spoil of the country, the like whereof hath not been seen. And a servant of his lordship's, called Edmund Asbold, was guide and conductor to the said malefactors, commanding the men of war of the country not to stir in the resistance of the same, for it was my Lord Deputy's commandment the same acts should be committed. And the said Asbold, with the principal malefactors, after the same act committed, and after they were for the same indicted of high treason, were as conversant and familiar with his Lordship as they were before, without attaching; and the inhabitants of the county, if the justices would have received the indictment, did present my lord as principal in the act committed. And touching the same, my lord confessed with advisement, in open council, sufficient matter to convict him of the same. And because the matter of itself is so evident against my lord, the King's council and justices ordered that his lordship should be chargeable to the poor people for their losses.'

After this exploit, and after having, in addition, released from Dublin Castle a number of Irish prisoners