Old English historian Richard Stanihurst (1547-1618) lamented that "When their posteritie became not altogither so warie in trying to keep, as their ancestors were being valiant in conquering, the Irish language was free dennized in the English Pale: this canker tooke these kinds of deep root, as the bodie that in advance of was total and sound, was by very little and little festered, and in method wholly putrified".