A picture of life in a Lecale castle at this time has been left to us by Captain Josias Bodley, of Mountjoy’s army. From Armagh to Newry he journeyed through a famished country where for a whole year Chichester’s and Morrison’s troops had been employed in completely devastating the land, so that O’Neill should get provision neither for man nor horse; and the poverty he saw in Newry shows their success. Thence skirting the Mourne Mountains he stopped at the island stronghold of Magennis in the lake at Castlewellan, and passing through a land of ancient cromlechs and souterrains, of earthworks ringed and conical, and of early Norman castles, entered Lecale. The scene of the final merry-makings, the Governor’s Castle at Downpatrick, was probably the fort which stood at the foot of the hill, the last remains of which, a tall square tower, were removed a few years ago. It was evidently not unlike the castle at Ardglass, and life was the same in both of them. The stairs led first to the guard-room, with its dresser laden with dishes, and a wide fire-place where heavy pots hung from iron crooks, and cooks were busy with interminable cooking of the fish and fowls and game for which Lecale was famous, pasties of marrow and plums, Irish curds, and other dishes from France, there designated “Quelq’ choses” (“kickshaws”), which were reckoned “vulgar” by the English officers, as being perhaps too little substantial. Thence the stairs led to the large hall where in the huge fire-place logs were burning, even as in Castle Shane of Ardglass to-day, “the height of our chins, as the saying is.” The hall was comfortable, for of a night one may sit in the Ardglass room with the unglazed windows in the thick walls on every side, and the door open to the winding stairs, and no flicker of candles betrays a draught: the wind seems carried up the turret staircase through the roof. The company in the hall amused themselves with smoking, cards, backgammon, and dice. There was much drinking of healths--many political pledges no doubt as in modern Ulster, bitter tests to Irish companions when the English officers might call on a newly-submitted chief such as Magennis to join in a “loyal” toast: Bodley had apparently taken part in some scenes of scruple and silence on the part of honourable men, “of all things the most shameful,” he says. For any special entertainment the servants crowded into the same room as the masters--the cook’s wife, the scullion, and all; and played to amuse them a game still common in the north. There came, too, the Irish Mummers or Rhymers, making their Christmas rounds with torches and drums, wearing the traditional pointed caps, and carrying their profits in the base money, one part of silver to three of brass, which Elizabeth forced upon Ireland in favour of her avaricious Treasurer there, Sir George Carey. Of this money, such as it was, the Rhymers were “cleaned out” by the officers