English palen.

c1453 (c1437) Brut (Harl. 53) 574 (MED) Al þe cuntre þat was of þe Englisshe pale shuld come and bring..thaire goodes, and breke doun theire houses.

a1513 R. Fabyan New Cronycles Eng. & Fraunce (1516) II. f. cxliii A lytle beyonde Guynys w^tin y^e englysshe Pale, was a nother lyke Pauylyon pyght for kyng Rycharde.

a1549 A. Borde Fyrst Bk. Introd. Knowl. (1870) i. 120 The Cornyshe tongue [is spoken] in Cornewall,..and Frenche in the Englysshe pale.

1577 R. Holinshed Chron. II. 1535/2 A great number of men of ware lay at Bollongne,..which diuerse times attempted..to spoyle the English pale.

1622 F. Bacon Hist. Raigne Henry VII 75 Upon pretence of the safety of the English pale about Calais.

1852 R. B. Calton Ann. & Leg. Calais vi. 57 The English Pale, or Anglo-Calaisian colony, appears to have been defined by boundary, and to have had a sea-board of about eight leagues in extent.

1938 E. Casady Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey iii. 48 When the Princess Elizabeth was christened, Richmond and Surrey were still on their way toward the English Pale of Calais.

2000 R. M. Warnicke Marrying of Anne of Cleves v. 120 When she arrived at the English Pale..Lord Lisle..and officers in velvet coats..were there to welcome her. They then rode towards Calais.

a1549 A. Borde Fyrst Bk. Introd. Knowl. (?1555) iii. sig. C.iii Irland..is deuyded in ii. partes, one is the engly [sh] pale, & the other the wyld Irysh.

1556 Acts Privy Council Irel. (1897) 20 Corn heretofore hathe gone out of the English Pale into Irishemen's countreyes, and ys dayly..conveyid withoute lett or restraynte.

1616 B. Jonson Irish Masque in Wks. 1001 Don. Ty good shubshects of Ireland, and pleash ty mayesty. Den. Of Connough, Leymster, Vlster, Munster. I mine one shelfe vash borne in te English payle and pleash ty Mayesty.

1724 J. Swift Some Observ. Wood's Half-pence 21 A various Scene of War and Peace between the English Pale and the Irish Natives.

1816 Times 9 Jan. 2/3 The Earl of Sussex gained some military advantages, which enabled him to extend the English pale over the King's and Queen's counties.

1857 C. Knight Pop. Hist. England II. xxiv. 386 The English Pale, to which all early notices of Ireland refer, anciently comprised all the eastern coast from Dundalk bay to Waterford harbour, extending some fifty or sixty miles inland.

1919 Mod. Philol. 17 471 Kilcolman, far beyond the English pale..under the shadow of Arlo Forest still inhabited by ‘wild Irish’.

1985 D. Lowenthal Past is Foreign Country (1988) ii. 48 The saturations of time made rooted old Ireland seem a far richer landscape than the English Pale, perched in its thin and isolated present.

2004 S. Adams Northern Irel. (2006) 11 Irish resistance, Anglo-Irish rebellion, and English mismanagement meant that by the mid-1400s, English rule was reduced to the area around Dublin known as the English Pale.

1549 J. Henrison Mem. to Somerset xviii, in State Papers Scotl. Edward VI (P.R.O.: SP 50/5) lf. 53 Lands lying within the English Pale of Scotland on this syde the strayte water of muscellburughe.

1770 G. Bannatyne et al. Anc. Sc. Poems 279 Dunbar was a native of Salton in East Lothian, and..it appears that he was too apt to despise those who were born without the English Pale.

1834 P. F. Tytler Hist. Scotl. V. i. 30 Many of the ferocious borderers,..who promised themselves immunity because they robbed within the English pale, lamented on the scaffold the folly of such anticipation.

1996 J. Morrill Oxf. Illustr. Hist. Tudor & Stuart Brit. iii. 69 A revived English Pale there [sc. in southern Scotland] aimed to protect the ‘assured Scots’..and, as in Ireland, to reduce the risk of raids or invasion.

2001 J. Wormald Mary, Queen of Scots (rev. ed.) iii. 63 These were not the great nobles. They were lesser men, lairds, burgesses and others, mainly from southern Scotland—the area of the English ‘pale’.