It was the decided policy of Henry VII. to act in the spirit of the Statute of Kilkenny, and to separate the English and Irish districts. The well-known name of the Pale, or the English Pale, seems to have come into general use about the close of the fifteenth century. A great number of ordinances remain to prove how necessary it was for the Englishry to bear arms, and the practice of fortifying the home district against the Irish became a subject of legal enactment at least as early as 1429. An Act of the Parliament of 1475 declares that a dyke had been made and kept up from Tallaght to Tassagard, at the sole cost of four baronies--Coolock, Balrothery, Castleknock, and Newcastle--and provision was made by statute for its future maintenance. This was an inner line for the defence of Dublin only, but the Parliament of Drogheda made a similar provision for the whole Pale. It was enacted that every inhabitant of the marches or inland borders of Dublin, Meath, Kildare, and Louth, should, under a penalty of 40_s._, make and maintain 'a double ditch of six feet above ground, at one side, which meareth next unto Irishmen,' the landlord forgiving a year's rent in consideration of this work. The legal provision was afterwards enforced by writs addressed to the sheriffs and justices, and the name of Pale was perhaps first given to the district so enclosed. The building of this Mahratta ditch may be considered to mark the lowest point reached by the English power in Ireland.[75] FOOTNOTES: [48] _History of St. Canice_, by Graves and Prim, especially pp. 187 and 193; also Mr. Graves's _Presentments_, p. 79; Archdall's _Lodge's Peerage_, art. 'Mount Garrett.' [49] It is hard to say whether the instructions for John Estrete, attributed by Mr. Gairdner to the very beginning of Henry's reign, are by him or by Richard III. Henry would hardly have promised to make Kildare Deputy for ten years on condition of his going to Court, and the allusions to Edward IV. are more likely to have been made by Richard.--_Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p. 91. The three letters in the Appendix cannot be earlier than 1488. [50] Writing to Morton or Fox, Octavian says, 'Profano coronationis pueri in Hiberniâ sceleri, me solo excepto, nullus obstitit manifeste.' This hardly gives due credit to the Bishop of Clogher.--_Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p. 383. Henry's letter to Pius II. is at p. 94. 'Armachanensis' must be a mistake on the King's part. [51] Lambert was crowned May 2, 1487. [52] _Book of Howth_, and an account in _Carew_ (followed by Smith), iv. p. 473. [53] Bacon; _Book of Howth_; O'Donovan's _Four Masters, ad ann._ 1485. The battle of Stoke was fought June 16, 1487. [54] Henry's letter to Waterford is in Smith's _Waterford_; the letter of the Dublin people in Ware's _Annals_. [55] Sir Richard Edgcombe's voyage, in Harris's _Hibernica_. [56] _Book of Howth_; _Letters of Richard III. and Henry VII._, vol. i. p. 384.