#remonstrance

William Carlos Williams, Paterson, Book One

Wallace Polsom, Remonstrance (2020), paper collage, 18.3 x 25.1 cm.

The English of Ireland, "the middle nation", differ so widely in their principles of morality from those of England and all other nations that they may be called a nation of the most extreme degree of perfidy. Lay and cleric, they assert that it is no more sin to kill an Irishman than it is to kill a dog. All the land that they occupy in Ireland they occupy by usurpation. By their scheming they have alienated us from the king of England, hindering us from holding our lands as voluntary tenants under the Crown. Aliens from us in language, circumstance, and actions, all hope of maintaining peace with them is out of the question. We have made long attempts to obtain legal equality; for example two years ago several of our nobles addressed the King through John de Hotham, now bishop of Ely, describing our wrongs and offering to hold our lands directly of the King (according to Adrian's Bull, of which we send your Holiness a copy) or that he should with consent of both parties divide the land between us, but we have had no answer from him or his Council. Therefore, if we are driven to fight against both him and our enemies here, we cannot be accused of disloyalty or perjury, inasmuch as neither we nor our ancestors ever did homage or fealty to him and his ancestors. All this we verify by testimony of twelve bishops. Finally, despairing of justice, we have called in Edward Bruce, a descendant of some of the most noble of our ancestors, and by letters patent have granted to him our whole right and—for the establishing of justice and equity in the land, which have failed hitherto for want of a proper supreme authority—have constituted him our Lord and King by unanimous consent. May it please your Holiness, then, to sanction our proceedings, forbidding the king of England and our adversaries here from molesting us further, or at least enforce from him and them the due requirements of justice.

After Laeri, native kings ruled Ireland till Pope Adrian, on false representations and blinded by English prejudices, handed the dominion of Ireland de facto over to Henry II though he had no right de iure to do so. Through the oppressions of the English we he been driven to the woods and the rocks, and fifty thousand of both races have perished by the sword alone in virtue of Adrian's Bull. The English kings moreover have violated the very Bull and narrowed the bounds of the Church, yet our bishops are so slavishly timid that they never venture to appeal to your Holiness. The Irish have been depraved, not improved, by intercourse with the English who have deprived them of their ancient written laws and introduced other infamous ones such as that no Irishman may sue an Englishman: no man of this race is punished for the murder of an Irishman, even the most eminent: an Irishwoman, no matter how noble, who marries an Englishman is deprived at his death of her dowry: on the death of an Irishman the English seize his property, thus reducing to bondage the blood which flowed in freedom from of old. Further, an iniquitous statute has of late been passed at Kilkenny forbidding Irishmen to be received into monasteries in English land, and this by counsel of certain bishops, the principal being the archbishop of Armagh, a person of small discretion and no knowledge. 

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