The colonial New English refused to acknowledge these differences in religion and culture that distinguished the Old English and Gaelic Irish communities. As articulate members of the Old English community asserted their civility and loyalty, the New English actively stripped them of both qualities. Nicholas Canny has shown that a dramatic reconceptualization of the Gaelic Irish and Old English identities accompanied, and indeed justified, the widespread colonization of Ireland. Sidney was profoundly critical of the Old English feudal society but admitted that English colonization would reform it on the model of English civility. William Gerrard, one of Sidney's subordinates, argued similarly that only force could subdue the Gaelic Irish but that the "rodd of justice" would reform the feudal Old English, for "in theim yet resteth this instincte of Englishe nature generally to feare justice."(73) By the 1590s, however, New English perceptions had begun to change. Edmund Spenser's A View of theState of Ireland, written around the year 1598, reflected a subtle yet striking shift in the New English understanding of the task of reforming Ireland. Spenser's View revealed neither a recognition of the differences between the Old English and the Gaelic Irish nor any suggestion that the Old English could participate in the reformation process. The conditions of Irish society, he argued, had made legal reform impossible:

So the lawes were at first intended for the reformation of abuses, and peaceable continuation of the subject; but are sithence disannulled, or quite prevaricated through change and alternation of times, yet they are good still in themselves; but, in that commonwealth that is ruled by them, they worke not that good which they should, and sometimes also that evill which they would not.(74)

Spenser condemned both the Act for the Kingly Title and the parliament of 1584, instances of Old English self-assertion, as detrimental to the English reformation of Ireland; both suggested to Spenser the intractability of the Old English and their disloyalty to the crown. Nothing, however, revealed this disloyalty more clearly than did the Old English allegiance to Roman Catholicism:

[T]here bee many ill disposed and undutifull persons of that realme, like as in this point there are also in this realme of England, too many, which being men of good inheritance, are for dislike of religion, or danger of the law, into which they are run, or discontent of the present government, fled beyond the seas [to the Catholic kingdoms of the continent], where they live under Princes, which are her Maiesties professed enemies, and converse and are confederat with other traitors and fugitives which are there abiding. The which nevertheless have the benefits and profits of their lands here, by pretence of such colourable conveyances thereof, formerly made by them unto their privie friends heere in trust, who privily doe send over unto them the said revenues wherwith they are there maintained and enabled against her Majestie.(75)

For Edmund Spenser, the Roman Catholicism of the Old English community made it inherently traitorous and set it, for all intents and purposes, outside the civil Pale community. The suppression and reformation of Ireland that Spenser advocated involved a suppression and reformation of the Old English community. Indeed, that community, in its political action and popish loyalties, had emerged as a more inimical threat to English colonial interests than the Gaelic Irish had ever been.

In a lengthy treatise published for the first time in 1612, Sir John Davies, Solicitor-General for Ireland and Speaker of the Irish parliament of 1613-1615, attempted to explain how this transformation of the Old English from loyal subjects to enemies of the crown had come to pass. James P. Myers, Jr., has stressed the importance of this document to an understanding of New English perceptions at the turn of the seventeenth century; the treatise, he has suggested, may properly be read as "Observations on the State of Ireland in 1612" written by the commonwealth's highest administrator.(76) Davies' treatise shared structural similarities with Finglas' earlier "Breviat of the getting of Ireland, and of the Decaie of the Same"; both relied on historical frames of reference to account for deficiencies in the government of Ireland that demanded swift and comprehensive reform. However, while Finglas attributed these deficiencies to the neglect of the crown administration, Davies located them within the nature of the relationship between the Old English community and the crown:

[T]he State of England ought to be cleared of an imputation, which a vulgar error hath called upon it, in one point: namely, that Ireland long since might have been subdued and reduced to Civility, if some Statesman in policy, had not thought it more fit to continue that Realm in Barbarism . . . ever since Our Nation had any footing in this Land, the State of England did earnestly desire, and did accordingly endeavor from time to time, to perfect the Conquest of this Kingdom, but that in every age there were found such impediments and defects in both Realms, as caused almost an impossibility, that things should have been otherwise than they were.(77)

The theme of degeneracy pervades Davies' Discovery. He argued that, through their contact with the Gaelic Irish surrounding the Pale, the Old English became degenerate, adopted Irish ways, lost their English identity, and thus became crude and ungovernable.

These were the Irish Customs, which the English Colonies did embrace and use, after they had rejected the Civil and Honorable Laws and Customs of England, whereby they became Degenerate and Metamorphosed like Nebuchadnezzar: who although he had the face of a man, had the heart of a beast; or like those who had drunk of Circes Cup, and were turned into very Beasts; and yet took such pleasure in their beastly manner of life, as they would not return to the shape of man again; Insomuch, as within less time than the age of a man, they had no marks or differences left among them of that noble Nation, from which they were descended. For, as they did not, onely forget the English language and scorn the use thereof, but grew to be ashamed of their very English names . . . and took Irish Sirnames and Nick-names.(78)

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