PHILIP WILSON, M.A.
“1641” 169
ARTHUR HOUSTON, K.C., LL.D.
THE CONFEDERATION OF KILKENNY 225
DR. DONELAN, M.CH., M.B.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER
BY THE REVEREND S. A. COX, M.A., T.C.D.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Plantation of Ulster
“The truth is, they that gape after poor Irishmen’s lands do what
they can to have a colour to beg them”—(_State Papers_, _Ireland_,
1610, p. 415).
THESE words were written in an appeal for justice, or even the formality
of a trial, by one who was betrayed by the English whom he had served.
Sir Donnell O’Cahan had left his own people to seek an English alliance,
and was rewarded by an imprisonment of nineteen years, without ever
being brought up for trial. He was goaded into a just indignation by
rumours that reached him in the early days of his imprisonment in
Dublin, of Lady O’Cahan’s destitution and insanity, but after a couple
of years he was moved to the Tower of London, where he, and other
noblemen who were confined because men hungered after their lands,
languished away till death gave them release. It will not surprise most
of our readers to know that his letters were intercepted and carefully
studied with a view to finding something treasonable in them. Truly
Ireland’s share in the privileges of Magna Carta has been a small one.
The opening of James I’s reign in Ireland was auspicious enough. The
battle of Kinsale was an effort of an United Ireland, aided by Spanish
troops, to meet and expel the English in the battle-field: it failed,
and with it came to an end the hopes of the great Irish lords to do
anything by open warfare. James found Ireland decimated by war and
famine: some parts like the Ards in the County Down had been literally
cleared of their inhabitants.[1] The chiefs were willing enough to
submit, if submission meant that they were to become great Palatine
lords, with no interference from the Crown in their relations with their
vassals, or in the exercise of their religion. The once turbulent
Anglo-Irish lords had nearly all conformed to the Protestant religion,
and become loyal. The people, with the gaunt figures of famine and
desolation that they remembered so well, would have been glad to have
peace, if not “at any price,” at any rate at any price that might allow
them to remain in their own land and worship as their fathers had done.
By his descent James had claims upon the loyalty of the Irish that could
not have been urged for the Tudor line. And it looked at first as if a
new era of prosperity was dawning upon Ireland.
James began by a policy of conciliation and toleration. He actually
appointed a man as a bishop in 1603, because of his knowledge of the
Irish language (this was Robert Draper, Rector of Trim, who was made
Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh).[2] He accepted Tyrone’s homage, and
created Rory O’Donnell Earl of Tyrconnell. The public worship of the
national religion, if not legalized, was at least tolerated: and the
people hoped that his mother’s son would continue to pursue a friendly
policy. But a few short years showed how vain this idea was. Perhaps the
king was really in terror from the Guy Fawkes conspiracy; perhaps he did
really believe that Spain was still intriguing against England’s power;
perhaps he was in hopes that somehow the acquisition of Irish land might
help him to make money to meet his financial needs. Whatever the real
cause may have been, a wretched anonymous charge was levelled against
the two Northern Earls, and they fled for their lives. This may look
like weakness, but the memory of the sufferings endured by Tyrconnell’s
brother, Hugh Roe,[3] in his imprisonment and his assassination in
exile, would naturally make Irish leaders of that time very shy in
placing themselves in English hands when a serious charge was made
against them.
Juries of the time were pliable, or, if they showed signs of
independence, there was a court of Castle Chamber, corresponding with
the Star Chamber of English history, that could use means to bring them
into line. That the two Earls were innocent of the plot alleged against
them is a moral certainty. The fact that when they fled, it was not to
Spain they went, seems strong evidence of this. Any evidence of a plot
depends on the word of St. Lawrence, Lord Howth, whose character may be
judged from what we read about him in the State Papers.[4] There was an
armed fight in 1609 between him and Sir Roger Jones, the son of the Lord
Chancellor. Speaking of it Sir A. Chichester refers to the “wrongs done
by the Earl of Howth to the Lord Chancellor”; while the latter writes to
the king of “the murderous attack made by Howth and his cut-throat
(sicariorum) retainers upon his son.” Plowden gives the following
quotations to show the unreality of the whole alleged conspiracy, and
the base character of St. Lawrence. “Dr. Anderson in his _Royal
Genealogies_ (p. 786), dedicated to the Prince of Wales in 1736, says:
‘Artful Cecil employed one St. Lawrence to entrap the Earls of Tyrone
and Tyrconnell, the Lord Delvin, and other Irish chiefs into a sham
plot, which had no evidence but his. But those chiefs being basely
informed that witnesses were to be hired against them, foolishly fled
from Dublin, and so taking guilt upon them, they were declared rebels,
and six entire counties in Ulster were at once forfeited to the Crown,
which was what their enemies wanted.’ That this St. Lawrence was a fit
instrument for such a design is clear, from what Camden relates of him
(Eliz. 741), viz., that he offered to murder Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir
Thomas Gerald, to prevent their conveying reports of Essex to the Queen;
which bloody service Essex rejected with indignation. No history
whatever mentions any symptoms of rising in the North at this time.”[5]
In the subsequent references to the flight of the Earls, even the king
himself tacitly dropped the charge of conspiracy, and dwelt upon the
disaffection they showed in quitting the kingdom without leave, which
was treated in those days as a crime. Sir John Davies says that the Bill
laid before the Grand Jury in Donegal was read in public in English and
in Irish, “so as to discover a great deal of the evidence to all the
hearers to the end that all the country might be satisfied that the
State proceeded against them upon a most just ground, and that the
people, knowing their treacherous practices, might rest assured that
their guilty consciences and fear of losing their heads was the only
cause of their running away, and not the allurements of any foreign
prince.”[6] Possibly the Earls may have had communications with Spain or
Rome that they thought would compromise them. On their arrival in Rome
they sent King James a statement of their grievances. These embraced
arbitrary interference with their own rights and possessions; exactions
of cattle and other goods levied on their tenants, who were miserably
poor after the late war; pretended claims to church lands of enormous
extent; and what, perhaps, are the worst things, in each case they
showed that attempts were perpetually being made to have charges of
treason supported against them, and also their free exercise of religion
was interfered with. Tyrconnell gave an instance of one Owen M’Swyne who
was to be executed. Sir Henry Folliott, with the authority of the Lord
Deputy, sent privately promising him his life and large rewards if he
would charge the Earl with some detestable crime. “Furthermore,” he
says, writing in the third person, “the said Earl can justify by good
proofs, that of twenty and seven persons that were hanged in Connaught
and Tyrconnell, there was not one but had the former promises, upon like
conditions, made to them.” Of Chichester’s threat to Tyrconnell that he
must attend church, the latter says, “For this only respect of not going
to church, he resolved rather to abandon lands and living, yea, all the
kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his, than to be forced utterly
against his conscience and the utter ruin of his soul to any such
practice.” Tyrone wrote in a somewhat similar way.[7] It speaks well for
the loyalty of the peasantry to the Earls that the attempts to get up
charges against them failed so completely. I shall have to refer later
on to the unreality of the religion which the English party tried to
introduce by bribes and threats into the land. It is plain that the
leaders of Irish government knew of the unreliable character of Lord
Howth, who admitted having gone to England looking for employment or
pension from the king: but indeed there has never been a time in Ireland
when the use of base means has not been practised.
However, the dreary record of the illegalities and confiscations
inflicted upon a half-famished nation is somewhat relieved by the
grotesque absurdities which the State Papers sometimes reveal. For
example, Government stooped to accept the evidence of a professional
beggar. This worthy’s name was Teig O’Falstaf, and he had gone to Spain
simply to beg his way, and we find the Government solemnly accepting his
evidence that he had heard the Irish priests in Spain cursing the Lord
Deputy in public service.[8] Salisbury’s espionage on Tyrone after his
flight was a most elaborate affair: his pilot was a spy, and when he got
to Rome another spy named Richardson was ever watching his movements to
fix something treasonable upon him, and we have his instructions,
endorsed by Salisbury himself, in which he is told of the roundabout way
he is to send his information to England, writing as if to a Mr. James
Brokesby: he is minutely instructed how he is to write, as if from one
Catholic to another, and we have a specimen in a letter (endorsed by
Salisbury) which gives an account of a canonization at Rome, conveying
news of several religious Orders, enclosing a packet of Agnus Deis with
apologies for not sending more, and sending Father Parson’s
commendations.[9] In a previous reign Mountjoy’s plots against Tyrone
are recorded in Docwra’s _Narrative_.[10] What did all this tissue of
espionage before submission, after rendering homage, and in exile,
succeed in proving? Nothing against Tyrone, but much against the persons
who employed such unworthy methods. From those days down to the forgery
that _The Times_ paraded against Parnell, and possibly even to a later
date, England has been industriously cherishing everything that tends to
lead her astray about Ireland, and forgetting the solid fact that, in
the length and breadth of the Empire on which the sun never sets, there
is not another of her colonies or dependencies that she could hold for a
week if she applied the methods of Irish government to it.
The idea of colonization was not a new one. It had been tried officially
and unofficially in various parts of Ireland. When done officially the
attempts had been failures, but the private colonizations had
occasionally been successful—from the colonists’ point of view. Early in
King James’s reign Chichester had brought over a number of Englishmen
from Devonshire and planted them in Carrickfergus and Malone, near
Belfast, and it was undoubtedly this which led to the bold project of
colonizing six whole counties in Ulster. If the matter had been left to
Chichester it would have taken a milder form. But Sir John Davies began
to take a lead in the project, and in the end he became the working
agent of the whole affair. He was Irish Attorney-General. This was just
the time for unscrupulous and cunning men to rise to power, for
practically everything in the country was in a state of transition. It
had been even suggested that the standing seat of the Deputy and the law
should be translated from Dublin to Athlone, as being the centre of
Ireland. The proposal was that the Deputy should have two presidents,
one in Munster at Kylmalocke, the other in Ulster at Lyeller (probably
for Lyffer or Lifford).[11] Such proposals as these show the feeling of
powerlessness that marked the English councils, and when the idea of a
plantation was put forward, it became more and more popular with the
Government, increasing in the harshness of the method of plantation
until in the end it became only a grotesque parody of what was put
forward, a parody in fact so grotesque that it never worked and never
would have worked. Salisbury and Chichester seem to have had some idea
of humanity in their proposals, but Davies’ suggestions were cunning,
specious, and harsh. Salisbury proposed to Chichester to take natives as
tenants of part of the lands, not giving too much to one planter. Sir
Oliver St. John advised that no part of the land to be planted should be
given away, but that it should be let to the natives at high and dear
rates. Chichester though doubtless acquisitive in the extreme seems to
have had some feeling for the sufferings of others; in a letter to
Salisbury he says, “the word of removing and transplanting is as welcome
to the natives as the sentence of death.”[12] His proposal was to divide
the land among the inhabitants, letting each have as much as he can
manage by himself or his tenants; the rest of the land to be bestowed
upon servitors and men of worth. This was the plan he preferred, but he
felt the need of immediate action, because when he wrote in September,
1607, after the flight of the Earls, he said the people were gone to put
on their arms, so he gave as an alternative, the plan to drive out the
natives of Tyrone, Tyrconnell and Fermanagh, over the rivers of the
Bande (Bann), Blackwater, and Lough Erne, there to inhabit the waste
lands.[13] Sir John Davies favoured the policy of rooting out the
natives from their holdings, for their own good, of course! He says
transplanting the natives is like moving a fruit tree, to make it bring
forth better fruit, and not to destroy it. His plan was accepted.
Notwithstanding his learned lore about fruit trees, we shall see that
there was no enthusiasm about the farming operations of the Davies
clique in the subsequent enquiries and surveys of the plantation. To him
was due the idea of excluding the Irish from the colonies.
But before the lands could be handed over to the English and Scotch
adventurers, there was a little preliminary violation of a solemn
pledge. Perhaps a Stuart’s word never counted for very much, yet in
passing we may as well record that after the flight of Tyrone and
Tyrconnell, James solemnly declared that their vassals (for such they
were rather than tenants) should be protected in their rights. There are
no less than three proclamations to this effect, of the dates 7th
September, 1st November, and 9th November, 1607. Let me quote the title
of one. “Proclamation declaring that the King had taken into his hands
all the lands and goods of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell,
Cowconnaght Oge Magwir and their other fellow-fugitives, and that he
would preserve in their estates and protect all the inhabitants of those
counties who held under the persons who had thus forfeited.”[14] It
would appear that the rising of Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, which was limited
to Inishowen, a small portion of Tyrconnell, was made the excuse for
violating the solemn pledges we have quoted, pledges which referred to
the Celts of six counties. The fact was that after these proclamations
were made, Davies the Irish Attorney-General and Bacon, then the English
Solicitor-General, decided that the natives must be rooted out, and if
O’Dogherty’s rebellion had not occurred, some other convenient excuse
would have been made. O’Dogherty’s rising originated in the violent and
overbearing disposition of Sir George Paulett, the governor of the
colony at Derry. Sir Richard Cox says,[15] “Undoubtedly the Government
well enough understood, that this rebellion was designed to be the most
general that had ever been in Ireland; and that the Confederates had
better assurance, or at least a stronger expectation of foreign aid,
than in any rebellion heretofore.” These words can surely have no truth
in them. There seems to have been a dispute concerning rent between
O’Dogherty and Tyrone. Sir Cahir had been foreman of the Grand Jury of
Donegal when the Commission met that was sent to inquire into the
attainted estates of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.[16] In fact until he
resented the personal indignity put upon him by Paulett (who struck him)
he had been a loyal and willing subject of the Crown, and there was
naturally nothing in his previous career to make him a leader who could
rally a large force of insurgents around him. Instead of showing a great
organized revolt, the comparative success of his brief rising points to
the deep detestation of the Ulster men against their English rulers, and
their willingness to follow any leader who could assume the headship
over them. The following is quoted from the Celtic Society’s
_Miscellany_, a note on Docwra’s _Narration_[17]: “It is not generally
known that Sir Cahir O’Dogherty was knighted for his bravery in fighting
against the O’Neills. Such, however, was the case, as is clear from our
author’s text. He was as great an enemy to O’Domhnaill as was Niall
Garbh, and his rebellion when too late had its origin in a personal
insult.” In fact until he went out into open revolt, Sir Cahir and Lady
O’Dogherty (and especially the latter) had always shown a preference for
English society.[18]
The rules for the Plantation of Ulster are to be found in MacNevin’s
_Confiscation of Ulster_. The lands were to be divided into portions of
1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 acres. They were originally to have been given by
lot, but this was afterwards abandoned. The rent for the English and
Scotch adventurers was £5 6s. 8d. for 1,000 acres, or 1⅓d. per acre.
Taking the value of money then at 12 or 13 times the present value, this
was not a heavy charge. Any “meer Irish” who got grants of land had to
pay double;[19] besides, the rent for the English and Scotch was
remitted for the first two years, but the natives were not excused, on
the ground that they had no charges for transportation. The Plantation
acre was invented to make up for any deficiency in the acreage caused by
mountain and bog. The expressions ‘Fengal measure,’ and ‘great country
measure,’ are also to be met with in the documents of the period: I do
not know what their exact significations are.[20] Every undertaker was
to build in proportion to his grant: the 2,000 acre man was within two
years to build a castle, with a strong court or bawn around it. The
1,500 acre man a stone or brick house with a bawn about it; and the
1,000 acre undertaker to build at least a strong court or bawn. They
were to have free timber for the two years. They were to have a store of
arms. Thus in a grant to Lady Lambert it is specified that in the house
she is to build at Cavan, they are “to keep therein 21 muskets and
callivers, and 21 hand weapons as arms for 42 men, for defence against
rebels and enemies; also 9 muskets and callivers, and 9 hand weapons,
and also 12 muskets and callivers and 12 hand weapons, according to the
instructions for the Plantation of Ulster.” A formidable little
provision for arming 84 men in one house.[21] Every undertaker to take
the oath of Supremacy; not to demise any land to the meer Irish; not to
leave the country for five years. Restrictions were put upon their
demising the land within five years. They were not to create tenancies
at will, but for a number of years, for life, in tail or in fee-simple.
Irish systems of tenure were abolished. The undertakers were given
special privileges in the remission of customs, both for the importation
of manufactured goods, and the exportation of the produce of their
lands. It would be a mistake to suppose from these insolent rules about
the “meer Irish” that none of them got any land. The outside undertakers
got the good grants, but the natives got their leavings. The mountainous
slopes and remote lands and other parts that were not likely to be
productive, were given to the native element. The plan was to
concentrate the intruders into villages and towns, and to scatter the
Irish as much as possible, putting the servitors (or English who had
been in Ireland for some years in military service) near to the natives
to keep them in awe. There was always some land that it was quite
necessary to let the Irish get, if it was ever to be saved from becoming
absolutely waste land. Sir R. Jacob (the Solicitor-General for Ireland)
showed both humour and acuteness in a letter he wrote to Salisbury in
1609, in which he urged the safety of allowing the natives to keep some
land, and also suggests that the very inferior parts might go to them,
he says: “The arrantest knave of the Byrne’s answered Sir Henry Sydney,
when accused of dwelling on the Archbishop’s lands without paying rent,
‘My Lord, if I dwelt not there, none but thieves and outlaws would.’ So
he says civil men will not plant themselves in mountain, rocks or desert
places, even if they have it for nothing.... The Irish had no leader and
no arms; they had 20,000 fighting men in Ulster if they had arms.
O’Dogherty could not have made the progress he did, if he had not first
lighted upon the king’s storehouse so as to arm his men.”[22] Those
natives who got grants of a substantial amount obtained them as a
special reward for subserviency in some form or other: for instance, Art
McBarron was given 2,000 acres in Orior to induce him to clear out of
O’Neilan, Chichester considering that his removal would be a great help
in getting other natives to go out. In that case the grant was only for
the lives of Art McBarron and his wife.[23] Similarly when Sir Tirlagh
McHenry O’Neale was willing to be moved out of the Fewes, a request was
made that orders be sent to the Lord Deputy to provide some convenient
place in Cavan or elsewhere to settle him, in order to plant servitors
in his country. Are we really so like sheep? There is yet to be told
even a more absurd illustration than the case of McBarron to show how
much our rulers in King James’ day believed we played the game of
“follow my leader.” As a matter of fact, so far was this from being the
case, that the native gentry who got grants of land became degraded in
position, so that those who were gentry children in 1610 were in 1670
old men in frieze coats, farming small scraps of land. Few of the Irish
who got somewhat liberal grants were able to retain them until the time
of Pynnar’s inspection in 1618-1620.
It is not clear that conforming to the Act of Supremacy was essential in
the native grantees, though we may be sure from what we see about the
encouragements given to Irishmen of position who conformed, that as much
use as possible was made of the plan of bribing people into
Protestantism. So we must seek for other reasons for the failure to keep
their possessions: there was the requirement of an English or stone
house to be built; the abolition of the old tribal land systems and
introduction of another system that they did not understand; the
depression resulting from the discovery that they were now become a part
of the English garrison. To which we must remember to add, that the
natives’ grants of lands were in the most barren and rocky parts of
Ulster. As a people we are mainly pastoral, and this was more
conspicuously the case in the days of the Plantation, as everyone who
has read Spenser’s _View of Ireland_ will remember. The only hope of
doing much with nearly all of the land given to the natives lay in
tillage, a thing which the Irish of that day had a very imperfect
knowledge of. Hill mentions one case where the ownership of the land
continued on all right: it was in the grant to Tirlagh Oge O’Neale’s
widow; and in that case the Irish custom was specially permitted by the
Government grant.[24] In his Survey Pynnar says the English did not
plough or use husbandry, being afraid to incur the risk, and that the
Irish did not because they did not know when they might be moved. So the
Scotch were the only ones who supplied food. The British lived on the
heavy rents paid them by the Irish grazing tenants. If the Irish were to
take away their cattle, he says, the British must either forsake their
dwellings or endure great distress on the sudden. “Yet,” he says, “the
co-habitation of the Irish is dangerous.” This report tells us there
were most Irish on the London Company’s lands; five proportions were not
estated; it was more profitable to take Irish on them; seven proportions
were leased for 61 years, and the lessees affirmed they were not bound
to plant English on them. There were sixty natives in Tyrone who got
small grants, generally of 60 acres each. They were all transplanted
into portions of the barony of Dungannon which neither undertakers nor
servitors would occupy.[25] Here are some of the figures of natives
grants. It is necessary to mention that it very often happens that one
grant is made out for a number of persons.
Oriel, 4,080 acres in forty grants.
Dungannon, 4,080 acres in forty-nine grants.
Kilmacrenan, 13,752 acres in nineteen grants.
Clonemahowne, 3,587 acres in eight grants.
Tullagarvy, 6,012 acres in eight grants.
Clinawly, 6,208 acres in fifty-two grants.
Coole and Tircannada, 4,160 acres in five grants.
Tullaghah, Cavan, 4,900 acres in twenty-one grants.
Castle Rashen, 5,700 acres in eighteen grants.
Concerning the district among these in which the largest amount of land
was assigned to the natives, Kilmacrenan, let us hear what its character
was. After a mention of the commencement of some work having been made
by Captain Will Stewart, in Kilmacrenan, we are told “the rest of the
servitors have done nothing by reason of the wildness of the land, being
the worst in all the country, insomuch that the natives are unwilling to
come to dwell upon it until they be forced to remove.”[26]
Grants of refuse land having been assigned to a few hundred of the
natives, what became of the others, the unfortunate people who found
aliens suddenly planted upon the land of their fathers, and had no other
provision made for them? Government provided that they should go. It
does not seem to have been at all a worry to Government where they
should go, as long as they went. The only thing needful was that they
should be got away from the lands to be planted. Some were impressed
into the service of the King of Sweden, some were transported to the
newly-formed colony of Virginia, some went to the natives’ parts, and
some to work on the Bishops’ or servitors’ lands. The great thing was
that they should go. The leading Irishmen were all killed; banished or
imprisoned on frivolous charges, or occasionally on no charges at all.
The most brilliant of them, Brian MacArt O’Neill, the son of Art
McBarron, was accused on a false charge of slaying a man at a family
party in the house of Turlough McHenry O’Neill of the Fews, and was
arrested and hanged. He had been the rising hope of the natives; it was
thought he would proclaim himself “The O’Neill.” His name is perpetuated
near Belfast in MacArt’s Fort, on the Cave Hill, Ballymacarrett, and
O’Neill’s Fort.[27] Three men of high position, all bearing English
titles, were imprisoned in the Tower by Chichester. Sir Donnell Ballagh
O’Cahan was one of Tyrone’s sons-in-law; he had left Tyrone in 1600 when
Docwra landed at Derry with a large force. A promise was made him that
he would be given a territory independent of Tyrone. Sir Henry Docwra
honourably maintained this promise, but after the Queen’s death it was
repudiated by Chichester. O’Cahan spoke bitterly. He does not seem to
have contemplated any violent step, but when he heard of the two Earls
making for Derry, he hastened to join them, as if he wanted to quietly
leave the land that was now cursed by the wiles and the falsehood of the
strangers. But haste as he would, the poor man failed to join the two
Earls, and then like a squeezed lemon, he was cast aside. He was
imprisoned first in Dublin and then in the Tower. Never tried; he had
committed no crime save that of Esau; for he wanted to escape from his
responsibilities, and to leave his lands and his vassals to the
possession of the race he could now trust no longer. For nineteen years
in lonely imprisonment he lived to curse the day when he allowed himself
to be overcome by English blandishments. Another person whose existence
was inconvenient was Sir Cormac O’Neill, the brother of Tyrone. He
brought to Dublin Castle the news of the flight of the Earls; he asked
to be custodian of his brother’s lands and premises till his return; but
lawyer Davies had already an eye to the plunder of the Ulster lands, so
with grim humour he wrote, “We took a custodian of the knight himself.”
The third prisoner, Sir Neal Garve O’Donnell, had a claim to the chiefry
of Tyrconnell, he was married to the Earl’s sister, Nuala. It was
impossible to get a jury to convict him.[28] It was some consolation to
Sir Neal in his imprisonment to know that his wife was not starving or
insane like Sir Donnell O’Cahan’s; for Lady O’Donnell went into exile
with her brother, and soothed his dying hours. Many of the people
preferred voluntary exile to remaining in Ireland under the altered
conditions. The Earls and leaders were banished or in prison or dead. In
1611 Chichester revived a proclamation of 1605 for the banishment of
priests; so many went of their own accord to Spain or the Netherlands.
Then with a thoughtful feeling for Irish prejudices, Government even
provided some of the people with free passages out of the country; but
in this case they were not sent to Spain, but into the service of the
King of Sweden. When we remember that it was in the days of Gustavus
Adolphus, “the Lion of the North, and the Champion of the Protestant
Faith,” it will be seen that this measure of emigration was eminently
calculated to show the considerateness of our English rulers. The men
who took the people to Sweden were Captains Sandford and Bingley. I
shall quote the reference from the Calendar of Patent Rolls. “King’s
letter for a grant to Captain John Sandford, for ever, of all the
mountain lands, bogs and woods in Ulster, escheated to the Crown, by the
attainders of the Earls of Tyrone and Tierconnell, or any of their
adherents, or any other traitors, or which otherwise belong to the
Crown, and are not now in charge, to be holden under the conditions of
the Plantation of Ulster, at a yearly rent of £10. This grant is to be
made in consideration of Captain Sandford’s absence, during the
distribution of the escheated lands in Ulster, in consequence of which
no portion was assigned to him, he being then engaged in conducting the
loose kerne and swordsmen of that province to the service of the King of
Sweden, disburthening the country by that means of many turbulent and
disaffected persons who would otherwise have troubled the peace.” (It
will, perhaps, be satisfactory to learn that, in addition to this grant,
Sandford secured lands in Donegal from Sir Richard and Sir Ralph
Bingley, and Sir John Davies.) This Sweden business seems to have been
eminently successful from the Government point of view. Sir R. Jacob
wished that 1,000 more could be sent from each province; and hopes were
expressed that the swordsmen, not only of Ulster, but of Connaught,
could be transmitted to Sweden or Virginia.[29] We have the
follow-my-leader theory again; for the Lords of the Council proposed to
Chichester that native gentlemen should be sent to be leaders and heads
for the troops who were transported into Gustavus Adolphus’s service.
The charges were £1 each for clothing, 5d. per day per man for
thirty-one days, carriage 10s. per man, and a sum amounting to 10s. per
man for fee for pressing them into a foreign service.
If the rules about the non-employment of natives, and not letting them
get on the land, had been strictly observed, it would certainly have led
to a complete turning out of the people, and perhaps have precipitated
the rising of 1641. And it was from no want of will on the part of the
intruders that the law was not rigidly followed. The truth was, English
and Scotch settlers were difficult to get; so, however unwillingly, the
undertakers admitted Irish tenants and labourers, who in their despair
were willing to come to any terms. Chichester saw clearly all along that
an impossible thing was being attempted. He wrote in 1610 strongly
opposing any change of policy about the natives, and speaks of the folly
of crowding large numbers of servitors and natives in half a barony (as
in Tyrone),[30] and says the natives will rather die than be removed to
the small proportions assigned to them, or will seek a new dwelling in
other counties. The Viceroy, as we see, was never in earnest in
enforcing the laws for the expelling of natives; and so those laws were
never fully carried out. The squatters required the Irish as hewers of
wood and drawers of water. These restrictions were abolished before the
end of James’ reign, and in 1626 the original undertakers, having failed
to comply with the Plantation rules preventing them having native
tenants, and having thus rendered themselves liable to forfeiture under
Charles I, were allowed to surrender their titles, and get a re-grant
under new conditions, one of which was that one quarter of each
proportion was to be let to native tenants.
Thus a period of less than two decades saw the final disappearance of
the obnoxious parts of the Plantation system. But they had never had
vitality, and indeed the agents of the Irish Society from the very
beginning insisted on letting their lands to Irish tenants. When the
representatives of the Londoners came over on a tour of inspection, the
officials who met them were given strict injunctions to put everything
in the best light, and one of their cares was to prevent the Londoners
from having any unnecessary fears of the Irish. In this they succeeded
so well that they overshot the mark. The London Companies could get very
few British tenants in O’Cahan’s country or Laughinsholin, where the
people kept so many pikes, so they insisted on having Irish tenants.
Hill says, “The Companies stoutly maintained the right of holding the
Irish as their tenants, of preventing their expulsion; and to these
Londoners we are indebted, more perhaps than to the servitors or
Bishops, for the thriving and vigorous native population in Ulster at
the present day. Indeed the whole business furnishes a curious
illustration of the following words of the poet:—
The best laid schemes of mice and men,
Gang aft aglee,
And leave them naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.”[31]
In 1622 the king sent a charge to enforce the law requiring the natives
to leave the planted land. In it he admits that the law has not been at
all carefully complied with. He speaks of “the continual unconformity,
as well of those natives as of the undertakers, upon whose portions they
remain,” and concludes, “In this particular we were always resolved, and
yet are, not to spare those undertakers and their tenants, until we have
reformed them, but rather if they persist still in their ingratitude and
disobedience, to use the advantages which our laws and their own
manifold contempt have given us against them, in a more severe manner
than hitherto we have done.”[32]
The treatment of the aged Eochaidh or Oghie O’Hanlon, the chieftain of
Orior in County Armagh, seems to have been unnecessarily harsh, though I
can hardly agree with the denunciations of the Rev. Geo. Hill on the
meanness of it. This venerable man, who represented a race which had
been supreme in Ulster ages before the O’Neills had any prominence, was
uniformly loyal to the English connexion. He had a son who was a leading
man in Sir Cahir O’Dogherty’s rising, and the aged father was guilty of
the crime, if such it could be called, of giving his son shelter for a
night in his castle at Tandragee during the revolt. This, of course, was
treason, and the father might have been hanged. But he had often borne
the standard of the Irish on the English side, so his penalty was
commuted to the forfeiture of his estates, and he was offered £80 a year
pension as compensation. He did not live to draw one quarter’s payment,
for he was a broken-hearted old man, and died, literally of grief, on
hearing that his son’s wife, who was a sister of Sir Cahir O’Dogherty,
had perished in the woods after having given birth to a child.[33]
Nowadays £80 is a small sum, but it would seem that three hundred years
ago, it was worth about £1,000 of our money. So we can hardly agree with
Mr. Hill’s statement that there was meanness in giving O’Hanlon such a
pension. O’Hanlon Junior kept up his guerilla warfare as the leader of a
number of outlaws of the Robin Hood type, called woodkerne, and the
trouble they gave was only brought to an end when they allowed
themselves to be transported to Sweden, to fight for Gustavus Adolphus,
a service which they hated, and took every opportunity of deserting to
his opponent, the King of Spain.
It is only fair, too, to mention that the Lady Mary, Sir Cahir
O’Dogherty’s widow, was given an annual pension of £80,[34] and that the
widow of Sir Cowconnaght Macgwire received compensation for the lands
she had to surrender in Fermanagh. I am not sure whether she got £100 or
£200 a year. The legal documents first mention a surrender of her lands
for an annuity of £100 a year, and then a pension of £100, and I do not
know whether the two statements refer to one salary of £100 or two. Also
that Tyrconnell’s widow, Bridget, Countess of Tyrconnell, was given a
yearly pension of £300. Compared with the posthumous savagery of
Government to Pamela, Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s widow, this was
generosity indeed.
Now who were the planters in Ulster, and what rules were made about the
distribution of the land? The new owners were formally divided into
three classes, (i) English and Scottish, who were to plant their
proportions with English and Scottish tenants; (2) Servitors in Ireland,
who might take English or Irish tenants at their choice; (3) Natives of
Ulster, who were to be freeholders. But in reality they included samples
of a great many social grades. “Cook’s son, duke’s son,” were to be
found among them. English gentlemen of little or no property, Scotch
lairds and noblemen with their innumerable clans of relations, soldiers
and adventurers, royal grooms and servants. Shurley and Case were
footmen when they received grants of land in Longford.[35] Wray was a
groom when he was appointed to the responsible task of seeing that the
natives were cleared off the escheated lands; he was to levy fines on
them and to keep the money. Then there were the London Companies. Then
there were the true patriots; the men who at home had distinguished
themselves by crime, or by debt, and found it desirable to leave their
native land; these fulfilled the saying of the famous Irish pickpocket,
Barrington, in the prologue that he wrote for a play performed by
convicts in Botany Bay:
True patriots we, for be it understood
We’ve left our country for our country’s good.
Among these we should class the Graemes, who had been outlaws,
cattle-lifters, and border-robbers on the banks of the Tweed. They had
been transplanted in a body to Roscommon in Elizabeth’s reign; but even
the residence in the Land of Saints did not reform their ideas of
property, so they were dispersed and scattered through Ulster in 1610.
All were unanimous in one thing only, that they would make as much as
they could out of the property, and then go. But, owing to the force of
circumstances, the Scotchmen stuck with more pertinacity to their
possessions than did most of the other settlers. The English undertakers
were mainly from the Eastern counties, Norfolk and Suffolk. They brought
no following with them. So they met with difficulty in getting workers
and tenants, being forbidden to accept the natives. There were constant
bickerings among the undertakers themselves, and with the Bishops about
church rights, real or pretended. None of these things worried the canny
North Britons, who looked upon Ulster as a veritable Eldorado. A ferry
was established between Donaghadee and the Rynnes of Galloway or
Portpatrick.[36] Over it there poured such a ragged regiment as the
Irish Sea has never witnessed before or since. Not singly they came, but
in battalions; the Scotch Bishop of Raphoe (Montgomery, Bishop of
Clogher, Derry and Raphoe, grand-uncle of William Montgomery of the
Manuscripts) received permission at one grant for the denization of
three hundred of his countrymen whom he should bring over. They had
candidates for denization among all classes: younger brothers and
sons-in-law and cousins to get grants of land, and workmen and farmers
ready to settle down on industrial pursuits. As they did not absolutely
rely on the offices of the State church for their religion, we find many
ministers of the Presbyterian community coming over and being given
licence of denization, and in course of time this third religion became
a settled thing in the land. Oily and smooth-tongued these were;
willing, with some canting expressions, to change over and become
clergymen of the English Church if an opportunity of making anything by
the change came in their way. The descriptions of the careers of some of
these men (in Reid’s _Presbyterianism in Ulster_) are very amusing.
Hamilton was ordained by the Protestant Bishop of Down (Echlin). Robert
Blair left Glasgow where he had a professorship, because Dr. Cameron,
who had been appointed Principal, with the view of bringing the college
to approve of prelacy, had opposed Blair. The latter came to Ireland,
and Lord Claneboy proposed he should be rector of Bangor, County Down.
But about his opposition to prelacy? The Bishop said, “Will you not
receive ordination from Mr. Cunningham and the adjacent brethren, and
let me come in among them in no other relation than a presbyter?” So
thus, hungering after the flesh-pots of prelacy, he entered into a
church whose fundamental tenets he disagreed with.[37]
The Scotch undertakers had previously been made acquainted with Ulster
by the colonizations in Elizabeth’s reign in Down and Antrim. They felt
more at home in a land where their friends had gone previously. The
geographical position was favourable to them. So they and their
followers settled permanently in sufficient numbers to give the movement
a thoroughly Scotch aspect. Yet for all that, Mr. Prendergast says,[38]
“Ulster continued to be the dangerous part of Ireland till after the war
of the Revolution, when it was nearly colonized anew by the Scotch
settlers and camp-followers of King William’s foreign forces. Eighty
thousand small Scotch adventurers came in between 1690 and 1698 into
different parts of Ireland, but chiefly into Ulster.”
Let me give a contemporary picture that is pleasant enough of a set of
these Scotch settlers of James I’s reign. They were the holders of land
in the barony of Mountjoy, Co. Tyrone; they had fallen into a goodly
possession, and the industry we see them all conspicuous for is not to
be looked upon as typical of all the adventurers, but only of those who
were favoured by circumstances and surroundings. The men were, Andrew
Stewart, Lord O’Chiltree; he was of old Scottish descent, and the fourth
Lord O’Chiltree. He had fallen into difficulties, and was obliged to
sell his barony to Sir James Stewart; the title went with the barony, so
it was only a courtesy title by which he was called; but the king, to
encourage him and his son, conferred on the young man the title of Earl
of Castlestuart; Robert Stewart of Hilton, an Edinburgh man; Sir Robert
Hepburn, a Scotch soldier; George Crayford or Crawford, Laird of
Loughnorris, an Ayrshire man, belonging to an old family; Bernard and
Robert Lindsay, who belonged to Leith; Robert Stewart of Rotton, an
uncle of Lord O’Chiltree, and finally a brother of Robert Stewart of
Hilton. These two Stewarts of Edinburgh, and the two Lindsays were all
servants or caterers in some fashion to the king. In 1611, a year after
they had taken out their patents, Carew makes the following report[39]:
“Lord Ucheltrie, 3,000 acres; being stayed by contrary winds in
Scotland, arrived in Ireland (at the time of our being in Armagh, upon
our return home) accompanied with 33 followers, gents of sort [_i.e._,
gentlemen of position], a minister, some tenants, freeholders and
artificers, unto whom he hath passed estates; he hath built for his
present use three houses of oak timber, one of 50 feet long and 22 feet
wide, and two of 40 feet long, within an old fort, about which he is
building a bawne. There are two ploughs going on his demesne, with some
fifty cows and three score young heifers landed at Island Magy in
Clandeboy which are coming to his proportion, with some twelve working
mares. Sir Robert Hepburn, Knight, 1,500 acres; sowed oats and barley
the last year upon his land, and reaped this harvest 40 hogsheads of
corn; is resident; hath 140 cows young and old, and 8 mares; is building
a stone house 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, already a storey high;
intends to have it three stories high, and to cover it, and the next
spring to add another storey to it; good store of timber felled and
squared, and providing materials to finish the work. The Laird
Loughnorris, 1,000 acres; being deceased himself, as we are informed,
had his agent here, Robert O’Rorke; hath timber felled and is preparing
materials for building against the spring. Bernard and Robert Lindsay,
1,000 acres apiece; have taken possession personally in the summer,
1610, returned into Scotland’s agent, Robert Cowties resident; a timber
house is built on Robert Lindsey’s proportion; hath eight mares, and
eight cows with their calves, and five oxen, with swine and other small
cattle, and a competent portion of arms. Robert Stewart of Haulton,
1,000 acres: hath appeared in person, and brought some people; timber
felled, and preparing materials for building. Robert Stewart of
Robstone, 1,000 acres, hath appeared in person, with tenants and cattle;
timber felled and squared, and providing materials for building. The
Castle of Mountjoy, upon Lough Chichester [Lough Neagh] beside the old
fort, wherein are many inhabitants both English and Irish, together with
Sir Francis Roe’s foot company. Here is a fair castle of stone and
brick, covered with slate and tile, begun in the late Queen’s time, and
finished by his Majesty. It is compassed about by a good strong rampier
of earth, well ditched and flanked with bulwarks. In this Castle Sir
Francis Roe, the constable, and his family dwell.” This seems a happy
sort of family; it represents the most industrious type of undertaker,
who brings his family influence to bear in getting workers into the
place. One would look upon them as intending to settle with their
families for ever; but, alas for the good intentions of King James, when
Pynnar’s survey was made in 1619 five of these proportions had passed to
other hands, mostly by sale. Just as the young fellows who improve land
now in Canada try to make something on it in a few years by sale, so a
large number of the Ulster Plantation lands went the same way. Nearly
all the king’s servants who obtained grants, sold them as soon as
possible. Sir James Craig was clerk of the wardrobe and had probably
begun life as a tailor. The brothers Achmootie were also servants of the
king, and sold their lands.[40] Their common greed for money was the
distinguishing point of all these worthies. Some of them are specially
worthy of note for their acquisitiveness. Touchet, Lord Audelay, and his
clan, were amongst these. This nobleman came from Staffordshire, and had
entirely failed as a planter in Munster. When the northern confiscations
began, he made a modest request for 100,000 acres. I don’t know whether
the word “land-grabber” was then in vogue, but at any rate his demand
was rejected; but he and his interesting family got the barony of Omagh
among them, which was set down as having 11,000 arable acres. Lord
Audelay got 3,000 acres; Sir Marvin Audley, his son, 2,000; Sir
Ferdinand Audley 2,000; Sir John Davies, his son-in-law, 2,000; Edward
Blount, another son-in-law, 2,000. The old man was made Earl of
Castlehaven, and Davies the lawyer became ancestor of the Earls of
Huntingdon, by his daughter marrying a Mr. Hastings. Davies’ grants in
all parts of Ulster were enormous; many of the properties were beyond
his powers to manage, and he sold them. Here is a report of work done,
the date is 1611. “Cavan Precinct of Loughtie. Sir John Davys, Kt.,
2,000 acres, has made over his proportion to Mr. Richard Waldron, who
passed the same to Mr. Regnold Home, who sold his estate to Sir Nicholas
Lusher, Kt., nothing done.”[41]
Davies got grants of land, confiscated properties and so forth,
literally in every county in Ireland. He also received a grant of 100
marks for his services about the parliament. The grant just quoted in
Omagh alone must have worked out for the family at nearly the 100,000
acres asked for. On Lord Audley’s death it was found that his property
contained not only the 3,000 acres granted, but also 3,000 of meadow,
3,000 of pasture, 2,000 of wood, 2,000 of briars and whins, and 200 of
bog; thus extending his original 3,000 to 13,200, these additions having
been thrown in as unprofitable or waste land. So greedy were these men
that there was a special commission appointed to correct any blunders
that had been made in the grants to the little family group. Davies,
Touchet’s son-in-law, the Irish Attorney-General, and the evil genius of
the whole Plantation, was described by Tyrone as being more fitted to be
a stage-player than a lawyer. In the case of this Audley crew, the
enquiries showed that they neglected the land shamefully, and did not
even reside.
Hamilton, the first Earl of Abercorn, and his crowd, were an example of
the hungry Scotch lairds. James Hamilton was the head of this family
party; he was grandson of the second Earl of Arran. He, his brother Sir
Claud, his brother Sir George, his kinsman another George, his
brother-in-law Sir Thomas Boyd, got out of O’Neill’s property the
greater part of the barony of Strabane. Sir George afterwards incurred
Royal displeasure and lost his property by becoming a Roman Catholic,
and his grandson was a general in the Jacobite army in Ireland.[42] Sir
Arthur Chichester got Inishowen as his plunder for having been viceroy,
and especially for his subserviency in the Parliamentary dispute. He
also got large tracts of country where Belfast now is. These three, the
Chichesters, the Hamiltons, and the Touchets must have taken an enormous
amount of land amongst them.
Then there were the London Companies. The city was very slow in taking
up the idea of a settlement in Ireland, and when they did consent to the
plan insisted on getting their own way, without any regard to the
Plantation rules. As one looks back on the history of the Irish Society,
and a chequered history it has been, the best we can say of it is that
this gigantic system of absenteeism has not been as bad as one might
have prophesied.
The grants and leases to the natives were of very small value, mostly 60
acres, and were only given to a small number. In a great number of cases
they were limited either by being only given for one or two lives, with
remainders to Englishmen, or by the possibility of forfeiture under the
regime of a new landlord. The Derry see lands were at first let out
thus; to English or Scotch on lease for sixty years; to Irish for
twenty-one years or three lives, with power of revocation by the
succeeding Bishop.[43] Before eight years had elapsed we find that the
tenants had been compelled to surrender their leases and take out new
ones “on increased rents, by means whereof the revenues were well
increased, to the honour of Almighty God.” Occasionally a native appears
with 1,000 acres opposite his name, but it is pretty rare. For example,
“Only forty natives in the whole extensive County of Donegal obtained
small grants in the dreary regions of Doe and Fanet, now Kilmacrenan.
Several of them were representatives of noble Irish families, and the
remainder belonged to the class of native gentry. The prevailing
surnames amongst them were those of O’Donnell, MacSwyne, O’Gallagher,
and O’Boyle. A few very old people got pretty liberal grants, but with
remainders to Sir Ralph Bingley and Sir Richard Hansard.”[44] Some of
the conditions attached to grants in this reign are very striking:
Dowry to be forfeited on marrying an Irishman.
Not to take tenants nor employ anyone who could only speak Irish.
Not to destroy passes or bridges unless they led into the Irishmen’s
land.
Not to take the names of O’Rourke, O’Mulloy, The Fox, McCoghlan,
O’Doyne, The Great O’Ferrall, The Great O’Carroll.[45]
It looks a little absurd when some Smith or Brown of an English county,
or a Menzies or a Montgomery from Scotland, is enjoined so seriously
that he must never take the name of The Fox, or The Great O’Carroll.
We must turn now to the religious ideals of the Plantation, and we all
know King James was nothing if not religious. I shall try to approach
the subject with a dispassioned candour, and speak as an Irishman who
loves his country, and as a churchman who longs to see the day when the
Protestant Church in Ireland shall become converted to Irish ideas in
politics. That Church has been given ecclesiastical Home Rule, and has
made full use of its privileges, for it treats theological matters in a
way quite independent of English churchmanship. May we not hope for the
day when politically it shall cease to allow itself to be dragged at the
tail of one English political party? In the Plantation it was intended
that the church by the State established should have an endowment in
every place; the idea being that in every 1,000 acres sixty should be
reserved for the support of the clergyman. And an additional endowment
was given by the lands and the patronage of parishes handed over to
Trinity College, Dublin. It was, doubtless, hoped that a settled and
established Protestant ministry would lead the people all to turn over
in time to that faith. And in the meantime, Government was prepared to
do all it could by fears and bribery to lead the people in the way it
was wished they should go. For a native squire or peasant to conform was
the passport to get a miserable patch of land. Lord Coursye was given a
pension of £100 a year for good service, and it was continued and
increased to £150 to his eldest son because he had become a Protestant.
In another case, Sir James Dillon was made Lord Dillon and Baron of
Kilkenny because his eldest son had conformed.[46] Yet with all these
brilliant prospects before them, the people did not flock in their
thousands around the preachers of the Established Church. The reason of
this was that there was practically no Protestant church in Ulster. It
existed only on paper; it was a regular Army Corps. The ecclesiastical
buildings were ruinous and desolate; the clergy, where such existed,
were the offscourings of the English church, men of depraved life, or so
ignorant that they could hardly perform their duties properly. From the
bishops down, pluralities were the common and recognized thing;
occasionally even we see a man actually holding an English living and a
lot of Irish ones at the same time; thus the same man was Archdeacon of
Dublin, Treasurer of Cashel Cathedral, Vicar of Galballydrome and
Leighlin Macvoge, and Rector of Battersea in Surrey.[47] John Todd, who
seems to have been even below the average of the Irish clergy of that
time, as we shall see presently, is found on his appointment as Bishop
of Down in 1610 writing to Norton to ask him to intercede with Salisbury
that he may not lose his right to the mastership of the Savoy. Even men
of high character like Archbishop Usher themselves benefited by these
abuses. The fines of the recusants—_i.e._, the Catholics—were to go to
pious purposes like the building of Protestant churches, or were
impounded by the Archbishop of Armagh for charity, and no account given.
The Ulster bishops were mostly ignorant and greedy Scotchmen, for ever
quarrelling with all the other planters about their church possessions,
and not always getting the best of the quarrels either. This is what we
read in one place in the Patent Rolls: “King’s Letter to the Lord Deputy
to confirm Andrew Moneypenny in the Archdeaconry of Connor by putting in
force all the orders made by Lord Viscount Grandison against Nicholas
Todd, a tailor by profession, an unlearned man, placed in that situation
by his unworthy brother John Todd, late Bishop of Down and Connor, and
deprived of said dignity for notorious causes, both of insufficiency of
learning and corruption in manners.” Chichester as usual impresses us as
seeing into these abuses in a clearer and more sensible way than the
rest of the Castle set of that time. We find him writing to the Lord
Justice and Davies about religion, when he says all is confused and out
of order, as if it were in a wilderness where neither Christianity nor
religion was ever heard of. He says, “the Bishops claim too much land
and have too little.” He wishes the king would make a new allotment, as
if in a new Plantation in America. The state of Munster was even worse,
owing to the rapacity of the notorious Miler Magrath, who bled immense
numbers of parishes for his children. In Mullognony or Newchapel, County
Tipperary, (where I was rector from 1895 to 1898) Miler’s son Terence
had got the profits of the prebend from the nominal incumbent, who was
in such a wretched state that in 1607 Terence Magrath had to give him a
cloak to present himself before the Commission that enquired into the
abuses. The undertakers, not, I suppose, seeing that the Established
Church was making much way, with its grasping Bishops and ruined
churches, and absentee ministers, opposed the episcopal claims with all
the ardour of Wee Free Kirkmen appealing to the House of Lords, and in a
great many cases imported Presbyterian ministers from Scotland. So we
can see that even if the native element had been willing to conform,
there was practically no established religion for them to join. James
began to recognise this when too late in the day, and there is an
amusing State Paper in which we see a patent plan of his, that young
natives should be caught up, and educated in Trinity College Dublin, to
work as Protestant clergymen among the natives, and then if any livings
of small value should become vacant, they should be appointed to them.
It was twenty-seven years since a Parliament had been held in Dublin,
and when the Ulster Plantation was finished it was decided to convene
one in 1613. The histories mostly say that it was called to give legal
sanction to the Plantation; if so, it was a case of a late locking of
the stable door. It seems more likely that the object, if any, of the
Parliament was for the dominant English party to triumph over the fallen
natives, and to pass Bills of a further intolerant character. We can see
in its constitution, but in a more pronounced form than they would have
dared to show in England, symptoms of the abuses and the arbitrary acts
which culminated in the total overthrow of the Stuart dynasty. We shall
follow the usual order of that period, to execute first, and judge
afterwards; so first we shall look into the Parliament and its doings,
and then take a brief survey of the subsequent enquiries into its
constitution.
It was a most disorderly scene, especially in its earliest stage. Each
party had hoped for a majority, but the numbers were slightly in favour
of the English party. These latter proposed Davies as Speaker in the
Lower House; whereupon Sir James Gough, Sir Christopher Nugent, and
William Talbot, late Recorder of Dublin, proposed Sir John Everard, late
a judge of the Queen’s Bench, but displaced by King James on account of
his religion. The affirmative (the supporters of Davies) went out to be
numbered; the negative, as was the custom then, remaining behind. But
instead of letting themselves be numbered, the Irish party proceeded as
if they were the whole house, chose Everard, and put him in the chair.
The Englishmen, coming in and finding they numbered 125 in a house of
226, knew they had a majority, and put Davies on Everard’s lap. The
English then began to remove Everard, by pulling at his legs, while the
Irish held him in his place by the collar, Davies still sitting on his
knees. Sir John Everard was old and infirm; he was got out of his place
with only slight injuries to his leg, whereupon the Irish members
withdrew altogether from the house. Then the Catholic lords wrote to the
king, and the Irish commoners wrote to the Privy Council of England,
both complaining of the business about the Speakership, and the legality
of the new boroughs, the members of the Lower House also asking to be
excused from attending. To the Lords’ complaints answer was made that
the Commons’ business did not concern them, to which they replied that
though not in the Lower House, they made yet but one body and one
Parliament. Then the Lord Deputy commanded the Irish commoners to attend
to pass the Act of recognition of the King’s Title; upon which they sent
him a petition recognizing the King’s Title, but utterly refusing to sit
in the house, unless their Speaker Everard was approved, and the new
burgesses rejected. The Lords now acted similarly, and as the Irish
element was strong in Dublin, Parliament was adjourned to the 27th of
July, 1614.[48]
Looking at the matter from the standpoint of mere legality, we are
obliged to acknowledge that the Irish party were in the wrong more than
once in these transactions. When they had been left together for the
purpose simply of being numbered, they chose to ignore the other party,
and would not let themselves be counted, but proceeded forcibly to put
Everard in the chair. Then, of course, the Lords were interfering in a
way that would not be allowed nowadays, when they declined to go on till
the matters in the Commons had been settled. And finally, if there were
any illegalities in the new boroughs (and there were many, as we shall
see), the correct thing, of course was for Parliament first to meet, and
then for any errors in the returns to be dealt with. But we need not
blame the Irish party for these little blunders. There had not been a
meeting of Parliament for a generation, and they went there in a high
state of tension and exasperation, first at the confiscations, and then
at the conduct of the returning officers.
On the return of the Parliament, there was a controversy about the
precedence of the Lord of Slane over the Lord of Kerry; this being
ended, Parliament passed ten Acts: An Act of recognition of the King and
his action in Ulster, stating with delicate irony, that James had
established his government in the hearts of his people. One removing
benefit of clergy in certain cases. Repeals of old Acts against
admitting and associating with Scots, and against having commerce with
the Irish enemies. An Act of General Pardon. An Attainder of Tyrone,
Tyrconnell, Sir Cahir O’Dogherty and others. And a subsidy. Sir R. Cox,
who was a violent Protestant, tells us, that on Chichester’s being
summoned to England, “Irish affairs were so well managed by the Lord
Deputy, that the King was fully convinced of the seditious designs of
the Irish.”
When the recusant lords appealed to the king, his reply was insolent and
silly; it was intended to drive them into further opposition. It is not
worth quoting. He admits that two returns were proved false, and he
foreshadowed the future failures of the Stuart race by such violent
words as these, written to the noblemen: “You that are of contrary
religion must not look to be the only law-makers. You that are but
half-subjects should have but half privilege; you that have an eye to me
one way and to the Pope another way.”
Now let us turn to the Commission and its findings.[49] They were
directed not only to inquire into the disputes about the elections, but
to find out if any of the elected members could not speak English, and
to find out whether there were any combinations or conspiracies not to
elect Protestants, and to see if any Jesuits or priests had any meddling
in such matters. They also were directed to see if any general
assessments and levies of money were made without authority, and to
report if the priests and Jesuits were responsible; also to report
generally on abuses in Ireland; and on the prospects of a Plantation in
Wexford. The names of the Commissioners were, Lord Chichester, Sir
Humphrey Winche, Sir Charles Cornwallis, Sir Roger Wilbraham, and George
Calvert. They found that: In Armagh an Irish freeholder and candidate
was kept out by an armed man at the door, upon which he, Henry McShane
O’Neale, withdrew with most of the Irish freeholders. That in Cavan,
Captain Fleming, an Irish freeholder, had appealed to the sheriff for an
adjournment of nominations, and had been given hopes of one, but, the
sheriff not adjourning, the Irish were not represented at the election.
In the King’s County, the Irish candidates, one of whom could not speak
English, had the greater number of names on their nomination paper, yet
the under-sheriff returned the two English candidates. In this case two
whose names were written down for the Irish candidates, disavowed their
signatures, and another confessed to having put his name on the list
after the election was done, and Sir Terence O’Dempsey gave his vote by
proxy. In Limerick it was questioned whether the English or Irish
candidates had the greater number of freeholder votes; the sheriff did
not take the obvious course of numbering the freeholders, but returned
the Englishmen. He denied that it was his duty to number the polls. In
Fermanagh, neither of the Irish candidates responded to the
Commissioners’ invitation to be present, for good reasons: one could not
speak English, and the other “indicted for treason, broke prison, and
hath betaken himself to the woods.” They found that at this election
Captain Gower did not pull Brian McGuire’s beard from his face, but only
shook him by the beard. In Roscommon the Irish candidates’ witnesses
seem to have been rejected, because of their “speaking only the Irish
language, and being men of mean condition, as they seemed to us.” In
passing we may mention that two of Sir John Everard’s supporters in
Parliament could only speak Irish. In Dublin, the Mayor being absent,
the recusants duly elected two aldermen at the County Court; later the
Mayor proclaimed an election at Hoggin, when two English candidates were
nominated by the Mayor. To see which had a majority, he made the parties
divide, and then, without counting the polls, he declared the
Englishmen, his nominees, elected. In Trim there were two elections, as
there did not seem to be any proper authority for fixing a date. In
Kildare borough, the sovereign returned two, whom the Commission
declared to be not elected, deciding that the Irish candidates were
returned. In Wicklow there was a confusion between the reputed portriff
and the deputy-constable about the proper date, and finally two English
candidates were returned. In Cavan, the sovereign and inhabitants held
an election, without waiting for the sheriff’s permission, and declared
two natives elected. The Ulster men all resented the intrusion of the
sheriffs upon them.[50] Then the sheriff directed his warrant to the
sovereign, and another election was held. The greater number voted for
the natives, yet the sovereign declared the English candidates returned,
though they had fewer voices. The Commission here says: “At this
election Sir Oliver Lambert with a little walking-stick, did strike one
George Brady, one of the inhabitants, for using towards him some rude
behaviour, and giving him some unfitting speeches; and upon view by us,
it did not appear to us, that his head had been broken.”
They found there was a general combination against electing Protestants;
the reason being, the natives believed laws would be propounded
concerning religion and for banishment of priests. They found that the
Roman Catholic knights of the shire and burgesses levied contributions
to pay for sending their agents for their appeal to England. And the
moneys obtained by the priests seem to have been dues of the most
ordinary kind. In fact, the dragging in of the priests and Jesuits,
first suggested in James’s commands to the Commission, proved to be a
perfect mare’s nest. They found that two burgesses were returned from
Clogher, which had never sent members before, and had no charter to do
so. The Commission then went on to describe the disorderly scene at the
meeting of Parliament. It appeared that several of the new corporations
had no right to return members, their charters bearing date after the
Commission for the holding of the Parliament, and some after the summons
to the Parliament.
After that, they go into the general grievances of the country. Juries
will not present recusants. “The small number, less sufficiency, and
little residence of the ministers. The want and defect of churches,
either wholly ruined, or so out of repair as to be unfit for the service
of God.” Remedy, to enforce the laws of conformity, and to do away with
idle and scandalous ministers. The soldiers extort; officers take money
not to cess; the provost-marshal’s men extort. The people are afraid to
make complaint for fear of worse impositions. The extortion of clerks
and multiplying of new offices. The clearing out of Wexford for a new
plantation; some old freeholders restored to their land or portion, but
with some of the English party holding it in trust for them; while 390
freeholders, and 14,500 other people “may be removed at the will of the
patentees, notwithstanding few are yet removed.” For this plantation a
jury was appointed and found “ignoramus” to the King’s title. They were
bound over to appear again, and then eleven agreed to find for the
title; but five, who refused, were committed to prison, and censured in
the Castle Chamber. After that come figures about the Wexford Plantation
and the rent reserved, which was £5 per 1,000 acres for the English, and
£6 6s. 8d. for the natives.
Here ends the Commissioners’ finding. It was worded with caution, but we
can see they felt that the condition of Ireland was one of gross
misgovernment. In fact, it would be impossible to feel anything else, if
the subject were dealt with from the point of view of legality. Notice
that no fault or crime was urged against the native population except
those violations of the law which come from their adhesion to their own
views in politics and religion. On the other hand, every constitutional
law was being broken by the misgovernors of the land. How James could
assert there were only illegalities in the cases of two members of
Parliament, it is difficult to say. Even if the King’s County case was
doubtful, the Kildare case, the Cavan case, and the Clogher case, would
clearly make six. Some of these findings, as about the military
impositions, and the Wexford peasantry being tenants at will, must have
been bitter reading for Sir John Davies, who had written so strongly
against that sort of thing, and who, though rapacious and heartless, may
be fairly described, in the writer’s humble opinion, as the father of
the Ulster custom.
The Commission, as far as it touched Parliamentary matters, dealt only
with the House of Commons. The constitution of the House of Lords was as
bad. On the eve of the meeting of the Parliament, on 31st March, 1613, a
King’s letter was issued to call to the Upper House by writ, Lord
Abercorn, Lord Henry Brian, son of the Earl of Thomond, Lord Audley,
Lord Ochiltree, and Lord Burleigh. The letter also said if the right of
Lord Barry, Viscount Buttevant was questioned because he had an elder
brother who is deaf and dumb, the question was to be silenced by the
king’s commandment, because of his dutiful behaviour, and because he had
enjoyed the title for many years without contradiction. A letter in the
Carew Papers shows that Lord Henry Brian or O’Brien was summoned because
he was a Protestant, where we also read that Lord Athenrie, who was too
poor to attend, was to be induced to give his proxy to some Protestant
lord.[51]
A good many of the intended mushroom boroughs came to nothing. Virginia
was meant to be a borough, but was never incorporated. Charlestown and
Jamestown were intended to be the county towns respectively of the
counties of Roscommon and Leitrim, but the ill-omened names have
disappeared from our maps, though the village of Jamestown became a
pocket borough, returning two members till the Union.[52]
It may be necessary to mention that the colonization of Down and Antrim
are quite separate matters. About the beginning of the fifteenth
century, the MacDonnells, Lords of the Isles, came to Antrim, and in
1584 a thousand Scottish highlanders, called “Redshanks,” of the septs
of the Cambiles, MacDonnells and Magalanes, led by Surleboy, a Scottish
chieftain, invaded Ulster. And early in James’s reign some English from
Devon were brought over by Chichester and settled in Carrickfergus and
Malone, near Belfast. These formed the Planters of Antrim; and Down was
colonized through the interference of a laird named Montgomery. Con
O’Neill had got into trouble with the Government, and his wife (a lady
of great abilities, and a sister of Brian MacArt and half-sister of Owen
Roe MacArt) appealed to Montgomery to help him to secure his pardon.
Montgomery did secure it; but with the result that the patent for his
share of Con’s land specified that the lands should be planted by
British undertakers, and that no grants of fee-farms should be given to
any of Irish extraction.[53] Then James Hamilton came in and got a
share, Con, Hamilton and Montgomery having one-third each. In 1606
O’Neill had to part with his property, giving it up to Montgomery. The
latter founded Newtown (or Newtownards), Donaghadee, Comber and
Grey-Abbey; and Hamilton founded Bangor, Holywood, Killileagh, and
Ballywalter. So these wily Scotchmen got practically the whole of the
County Down; and the Scotch settlers who came over in hundreds filled up
the land. The barony of Iveagh, which contained so much highlands, was
held by the Magenises. They seem to have been astute enough. Though
often law-breakers, they did not transgress politically, and when the
barony was specially settled in 1617 they got most of the land in
Iveagh, and they had only to pay twice as much as the English.[54] Here
is a brief contemporary description of the head of the family. “Sir Hugh
McEnys was the civilest of all the Irishry of those parts. He was
brought by Sir Nicholas Bagnall from the Bonaghe of the O’Neyles to
contribute to the Queen. In this place only amongst the Irish of Ulster
is the rude custom of tanistship put away. Maginis is able to make 60
horsemen and 80 footmen. Every festival day he wears English garments.”
Besides the Ulster counties, in this reign there were also plantations
of King’s County and Longford at a rent to the Crown of 2½d. per acre
for pasture land, and ½d per acre for bog and wood, Wexford at rent 1¼d.
per acre, Upper Ossory (Queen’s County) at 3d. per acre. Westmeath and
Cork. There were also grants in Meath and Louth; but, though large, they
hardly professed to be the basis of a plantation.
Many continental immigrants became naturalized in Ireland in this reign;
they hailed mostly from Antwerp and Brabant.[55]
Now what has the introduction of the North Britons done for Ireland? It
has added complications to the religious problems of the country, by
adding a third element. To all who study the history of Ireland, it
tends to increase the sense of injustice and wrong, to see how the North
and its industries have always been pampered for the three centuries
intervening. It has not tended to the consolidation of the Empire, for
every Ulster so-called “Loyalist” is a Home Ruler of a type of his own,
for he approaches all Imperial problems from a local point of view. In
the troublous times when political convulsions come in Belfast, as in
1886 and 1892, the most hated class of men is found to be the body that
is representative of law and order, the Royal Irish Constabulary. Ulster
is loyal as long as she gets her own way. Her good temper is very like
what Sir Antony Absolute says of himself, “You know I am compliance
itself—when I am not thwarted; no one more easily led—when I have my own
way.” Her vices are worse than the traditional vices of the rest of the
land. In morality the South and West of Ireland people are superior;
while in temperance, it may at least be said they are not inferior. The
virtues of Ulster are economy and industry and determination. They have
an unreasoning decision, a blind enthusiasm, in political and religious
matters that carries them along in a way that will never be copied by
the more thoughtful and more depressed Southern. Ulster has shown the
rest of Ireland that, however attractive the land may be, it is well to
have trades and industries that do not depend, or only depend partly on
the land. The crowning merit of James’s work in Ulster is that there is
one part of the country where landlord and tenant, squire and labourer,
think very much alike in religion and politics, so that a good
understanding should be looked for between the various parties. Had he
left Tyrone and Tyrconnell and O’Dogherty with their vassals, the same
result would have been arrived at, without all the unconstitutional
things I have referred to. Unconstitutional! We have seen the beginning
of the Stuart rule; we know how it ended.
And in the struggles that intervened, Ulster was invariably against the
Crown. To the English and Scotch squatters, and the Irish Society, were
given arable and pasture lands, fishings, courts leet and baron,
ferries, bishoprics and livings, mountain-lands and bogs, courts of
pie-powder, exemptions, titles, licences to beg, recusants’ fines,
wardships and marriages of minors, charters of the staple, customs on
tobacco-pipes, and monopolies of all kinds, and in a few score years the
grandchildren of these favoured persons made themselves famous by their
bitter opposition to James’s grandson. Thus the whirligig of time brings
its revenges.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes
Footnote 1:
Tract by Sir Thomas Smith on the Colonisation of Ards, in Co. Down,
1572.
Footnote 2:
_Patent Rolls_, 1 James I., lxx., 22, Dorso, p. 5.
Footnote 3:
See _The Broken Sword of Ulster_, by R. Cuninghame.
Footnote 4:
_State Papers, Ireland_ (1609), p. 330, (1608), pp. 108, 109.
Footnote 5:
Plowden’s _History_, I., p. 341.
Footnote 6:
_Calendar State Papers, Ireland_ (1608-10), Preface.
Footnote 7:
_Broken Sword of Ulster_, p. 153, &c. For the earlier plots of
Mountjoy against Tyrone, see Docwra’s _Narrative_, Celtic Society’s
_Miscellany_, Notes, p. 315.
Footnote 8:
_State Papers, Ireland_ (1608), p. 31.
Footnote 9:
_State Papers, Ireland_ (1608), Preface, p. xli.
Footnote 10:
Celtic Society’s _Miscellany_, Docwra’s _Narrative_, Notes, p. 315.
Footnote 11:
_Carew Papers_, “Discourse for the Reformation of Ireland” (1583). See
also Sir J. Perrott’s Proposals, same vol., II., p. 368; II., p. 415.
Footnote 12:
Hill, _Plantation of Ulster_, p. 222.
Footnote 13:
_State Papers, Ireland_ (1607) Preface, p. lvii.
Footnote 14:
Enrolled _Patent Rolls_, 16 James I., pp. 419, 420.
Footnote 15:
_History_, Vol. II., p. 14.
Footnote 16:
_Broken Sword of Ulster_, pp. 153, 168.
Footnote 17:
P. 313. Note.
Footnote 18:
_Broken Sword of Ulster_, p. 179.
Footnote 19:
MacNevin (_Confiscation of Ulster_, p. 137, note) says the Irish had
to pay £10 13s. 4d. for 60 acres. He does not state how he gets at
this fact. The grants to the natives seem to have been at the rate of
£1 1s. 4d. for 100 acres, which would work out at £10 13s. 4d. for
1,000. (See _Patent Rolls_, James I., passim.)
Footnote 20:
Rev. George Hill, _Montgomery MS._, p. 55, note. _Patent Rolls_, 14
James I., lxiii., 4, Dorso, and 15 James I., xll., 3, Dorso.
Footnote 21:
_Patent Rolls, Ireland_, 19 James I., Part II., xvii., 41.
Footnote 22:
_State Papers, Ireland_ (1609), p. 196.
Footnote 23:
Hill, _Plantation of Ulster_, pp. 220, 223.
Footnote 24:
Hill, _Plantation Papers_, p. 77.
Footnote 25:
_Plantation Papers_, p. 77.
Footnote 26:
_Carew Papers_, p. 228.
Footnote 27:
_Plantation Papers_, pp. 13, 14.
Footnote 28:
Hill, _Plantation of Ulster_. See Sir J. Davies’ letter to Salisbury,
27th June, 1609, about Sir Neale. When the jury were found to be
favourable to him they were dismissed by a trick. Davies recommends to
have him tried by a jury in Middlesex, or kept till the colonies of
English or Scotch may be planted in Tyrconnell.
Footnote 29:
_Patent Rolls_, II James I.; 5 lv., 31, p. 250. 14, March 10th. See
pp. 257, 293. _Carew MS._, pp. 49, 88; _State Papers, Ireland_ (1609),
pp. 264, 299; (1610), p. 416.
Footnote 30:
_State Papers_ (1610), pp. 502, 503.
Footnote 31:
_Plantation Papers_, p. 96.
Footnote 32:
_Patent Rolls_, 20 James I., Part III., lxii., 27 Dorso.
Footnote 33:
_Plantation Papers_, p. 29. An early and unsuccessful attempt to plant
had been made on Sir Oghie O’Hanlon’s land in 1569; it had been taken
from him and given to Captain Chatterton. Chatterton was killed, and
as nobody would venture to plant the land, it was restored to
O’Hanlon. An interesting proclamation of Carew’s in 1603, on the
subject of the rate of wages in the North of Ireland, is given in
_Plantation Papers_, p. 79.
Footnote 34:
_Patent Rolls_, 12 James I., I., viii., 2. Lady O’Dogherty was about
to proceed to London in pursuit of relief, and as Chichester found
that her marriage money had never been paid by her brother, Lord
Gormanstown, he got the king to give her £40 a year during pleasure
out of the rents of Inishowen. _State Papers_ (1609), p. 216. _Patent
Rolls_, 14 James I., lxxxii., 14 Dorso, Part I., and 14 James I., vi.,
8, Part 2, Facie.
Footnote 35:
_Patent Rolls_, James I., pp. 48, 443. _Plantation Papers_, pp. 19,
190, 119.
Footnote 36:
_Patent Rolls_, James I., pp. 312, 314. _Plantation Papers_, pp. 19,
119, 190.
Footnote 37:
Reid, _Presbyterianism in Ulster_, I., pp. 103, 104.
Footnote 38:
Prendergast, _Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution_
(1660-1690), p. 98.
Footnote 39:
Hill, _Plantation Papers_, p. 67, ff.
Footnote 40:
_Plantation Papers_, pp. 26, 189.
Footnote 41:
See _Patent Rolls_, passim; _Carew Papers_, p. 227; _Plantation
Papers_, p. 52.
Footnote 42:
Sir R. Cox, _History_, II., p. 29. _Plantation Papers_, p. 64.
Footnote 43:
_Patent Rolls_, 14 James I., Part I., cvi., 27 Dorso.
Footnote 44:
_Plantation Papers_, p. 146.
Footnote 45:
See _Patent Rolls_, James I., pp. 492, 512, 532, &c.
Footnote 46:
_Patent Rolls_, James I., pp. 455, 473.
Footnote 47:
_Patent Rolls_, 11 James I., 5, cv., 17 Dorso; 18 James I., lxxxvii.,
37 Dorso; pp. 314, 555. 22 James I., cxiv., 47 Dorso. _State Papers_
(1610), pp. 31, 64, 391. See also the Inquiry into the state of
Dioceses of Cashel and Emly and Waterford and Lismore in the _State
Papers_. _Patent Rolls_, 18 James I., xxxiv., 6 Dorso.
Footnote 48:
Sir R. Cox’s _History_; _Plowden_; and the report of Commission
mentioned below and printed in the _Patent Rolls_. The fullest account
is by Cox, where the Acts of the Parliament and the King’s letter to
the remonstrant Lords are described.
Footnote 49:
_Patent Rolls_, 16 James I., pp. 369-401.
Footnote 50:
Camden’s _Ireland_, pp. 123, 125.
Footnote 51:
_Patent Rolls_, 11 James I., lxv., 36 Facie. _Carew Papers_, p. 147.
Footnote 52:
_Patent Rolls_, 10 James I., 1, v. 7 Facie. 20 James I., xlii., 11
Dorso. See Lewis’s _Topographical Dictionary of Ireland_.
Footnote 53:
_Patent Rolls_, James I., p. 236.
Footnote 54:
_Patent Rolls_, 16 James I., xv., Dorso. _State Papers, Ireland_
(1608), 10, Preface, p. xi.
Footnote 55:
While these people were coming over from Belgium, it is of interest to
note that as well as at Louvain, there was an Irish College at Tournai
in 1607. _State Papers_ (1607), p. 230.
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STRAFFORD