Item, the said Robert Ledham, continuing in this wise, called unto him his said misgoverned fellowship, considering the absence of many of the well-ruled of the said hundred, of afore-cast malice concocted, purposed and laboured to the Sheriff of the shire that the said Robert Church, one of the said riotous fellowship, was made baillie of the hundred; and after caused the same Roger to be beginner of arising and to take upon him to be a captain and to excite the people of the country thereto. And thereupon, by covin of the said Robert Ledham, to impeach all these said well-ruled persons, and as well other divers substantial men of good fame and good governance that was hated by the said Robert Ledham, and promising the said Roger harmless and to sue his pardon by the men of Danyell; to the which promise the said Roger agreed, and was arrested and taken by the said Ledham by covin betwixt them, and impeached such persons as they list, to the intent that the said substantial men of the country should be by that means so troubled and endangered that they should not be of power to let and resist the misrule of the said Ledham and his misgoverned fellowship, the which matter is confessed by the said Robert Church. * * * * * Item, six or seven of the said Ledham's men daily, both work day and holy day, use to go about in the country with bows and arrows, shooting and playing in many closes among men's cattle, going from alehouse to alehouse and menacing such as they hated, and sought occasion to quarrel and debate. Item, notwithstanding that all the livelihood that the said Ledham hath passeth not £20, besides the repairs and out-charges, and that he hath no cunning nor true means of getting of any good in this country, as far as any man may conceive, and yet keepeth in his house daily twenty men, besides women and great multitude of such misgoverned people as [have] been resorting to him, as is above said, to the which he giveth clothing, and yet beside that he giveth to others that be not dwelling in his household; and of the said men there passeth not eight that use occupation of husbandry; and all they that use husbandry, as well as other, be jacked and saletted ready for war, which in this country is thought right strange, and is verily so conceived that he may not keep this countenance by no good means. Item, the said Ledham, hath a _supersedeas_ out of the Chancery for him and divers of his men, that no warrant of justice of peace may be served against him. * * * * * THE CONDITION OF IRELAND (1454). =Source.=--Ellis's _Original Letters_, Second Series, vol. i., pp. 117 _et seq._ (London: 1827.) [_A report, drawn up by the chief persons in the County of Kildare, to Richard Duke of York, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland._]