In 1341 Edward took sweeping measures for a general reform of the Anglo-Norman lords, or, more probably, he hoped, by threats of such measures, to obtain subsidies for his continental wars.  The colonists, however, were in possession, and rather too powerful to brook such interference.  Sir John Morris was sent over to carry the royal plans into execution; but though he took prompt and efficient measures, the affair turned out a complete failure.  The lords refused to attend his Parliament, and summoned one of their own, in which they threw the blame of maladministration on the English officials sent over from time to time to manage Irish affairs.  They also protested strongly against the new arrangement, which proposed that all the offices then held in Ireland should be filled by Englishmen having no personal interest whatever in Ireland.  The certainty that they would have a personal interest in it the very moment there was a chance of bettering their fortunes thereby, appears to have been quite overlooked.  The settlers, therefore were allowed to continue their career as before, and felt all the secure for their effectual resistance of the royal interference.

In 1334 Sir Ralph Ufford, who had married Maud Plantagenet, the widow of the Earl of Ulster, was appointed Justiciary of Ireland.  He commenced with a high hand, and endeavoured especially to humble the Desmonds.  The Earl refused to attend the Parliament, and assembled one of his own at Callan; but the new Viceroy marched into Leinster with an armed force, seized his lands, farmed them out for the benefit of the crown, got possession of the strongholds of Castleisland and Inniskisty in Kerry, and hanged Sir Eustace Poer, Sir William Grant, and Sir John Cottrell, who commanded these places, on the charge of illegal exactions of coigne and livery.[355] The Viceroy also contrived to get the Earl of Kildare into his power; and it is probable that his harsh measures would have involved England in an open war with her colony and its English settlers, had not his sudden death put an end to his summary exercise of justice.

It is said that his wife, Maud, who could scarcely forget the murder of her first husband, urged him on to many of these violent acts; and it was remarked, that though she had maintained a queenly state on her first arrival in Ireland, she was obliged to steal away from that country, with Ufford’s remains enclosed in a leaden coffin, in which her treasure was concealed.  Her second husband was buried near her first, in the Convent of Poor Clares, at Camposey, near Ufford, in Suffolk.

The Black Death broke out in Ireland in the year 1348.  The annalists give fearful accounts of this visitation.  It appeared in Dublin first, and so fatal were its effects, that four thousand souls are said to have perished there from August to Christmas.  It was remarked that this pestilence attacked the English specially, while the “Irish-born”—­particularly those who lived in the mountainous parts of the country—­escaped its ravages.  We have already mentioned the account of this calamity given by Friar Clynn, who fell a victim to the plague himself, soon after he had recorded his mournful forebodings.  Several other pestilences, more or less severe, visited the country at intervals during the next few years.