after various wanderings reached Rome, where they were received with no
little honour. Neither, however, long survived their exile. Tyrconnel
died the following year, and Tyrone some eight years later, a sad,
blind, broken-hearted man.
Nothing could have been more convenient for the Government than this
departure. Under the circumstances, it meant, of course, a forfeiture of
all their estates. Had the extent of territory which personally belonged
to the two exiles alone been confiscated, the proceeding, no doubt,
would have been perfectly legitimate. Whatever had led to it, the fact
of their flight and consequent renouncement of allegiance was
undeniable, and the loss of their estates followed almost as a matter of
course. A far more sweeping measure than this, however, was resolved
upon. The lawyers, under the direction of the Dublin Government, so
contrived matters as to make the area forfeited by the two earls cover
no less a space than six entire counties, all of which were escheated to
the Crown, regardless of the rights of a vast number of smaller tenants
and sub-proprietors against whom no plea of rebellion, recently at all
events could be urged; a piece of injustice destined, as will be seen,
to bear tragic fruit a generation later.
The plan upon which this new plantation was carried out was projected
with the utmost care by the lawyers, the Irish Government, and the king
himself. The former plantations in Munster were an acknowledged failure,
the reason assigned being the huge size of the grants made to the
undertakers. Many of these resided in England, and merely drew their
rents, allowing Irish tenants to occupy the land. This mistake was now
to be avoided. Only tracts that could be managed by a resident owner
were to be granted, and from these the natives were to be entirely
drawn. "As well," it was gravely stated, "for their greater security, as
to preserve the purity of the English language."
The better to ensure this important result marriages were strictly
forbidden between the native Irish and the settlers, and in order to
avoid that ever-formidable danger the former were ordered to remove
themselves and their belongings bodily into certain reserved lands set
apart for them.
The person who took the most prominent part in this undertaking was the
well-known Sir John Davis, a distinguished lawyer and writer, who has
himself left us a minute account of his own and his colleagues'
proceedings. That those proceedings should have aroused some slight
excitement and dismay amongst the dispossessed owners was not, perhaps,
astonishing, even to those engaged in it. In some instances, the
proprietors even went the length of bringing lawyers from Dublin, to
prove that their estates could not legally be forfeited through the
attainder of the earls, and to plead, moreover, the king's recent
proclamation which undertook to secure to the inhabitants their
possessions. In reply to this, Sir John Davis and the other
commissioners issued another proclamation. "We published," he says, "by
proclamation in each county, what lands were to be granted to British
undertakers, what to servitors, and what to natives, to the end that the
natives should remove from the precincts allotted to the Britons,
whereupon a clear plantation is to be made of English and Scottish
without Irish." With regard to the rights of the king he is still more
emphatic. "Not only," he says, "his Majesty may take this course
lawfully, but he is bound in conscience to do so."
These arguments, and probably still more the evident uselessness of any
resistance, seem to have had their effect. The discomfited owners
submitted sullenly, and withdrew to the tracts allotted to them. In Sir
John Davis' own neat and incisive words, "The natives seemed not
unsatisfied in reason, though they remained in their passions
discontented, being grieved to leave their possessions to strangers,
which they had so long after their manner enjoyed."
[Illustration: DOORWAY OF ST. CAEMIN'S CHURCH, INISMAIN, ARAN ISLES.]
XXXII.
THE FIRST CONTESTED ELECTION.
In 1613, it was resolved by the Government to summon an Irish
Parliament, for the purpose of giving legality to their recent
proceedings in Ulster, and also to pass an Act of formal attainder upon
the two exiled earls.
The great difficulty felt by the executive was how to secure an adequate
Protestant majority. Even after the recent large introduction of
Protestants the great mass of the freeholders, and nearly all the
burgesses in the towns were still Roman Catholics. In the Upper House,
indeed, the nineteen Protestant bishops and five temporal lords who were
Protestant, made matters safe. The House of Commons, therefore, was the
rub. Carew and Sir John Davis set their wits energetically to this
problem. The new towns, or rather agricultural forts, in Ulster were all
converted into Corporations, and each given the power of returning two
members. The Pale and the Leinster towns, though loyal, were nearly all
Catholic. In the west, except at Athlone, there was "no hope," the
president reported, "of any Protestants." From some of the other
garrison towns better things were hoped for, still there was not a
little alarm on the part of the Government that the numbers might still
come short.
On the other side the Catholics were equally alive to the situation, and
equally keen to secure a triumph. A belief prevailed, too, all over
Ireland, that the object of summoning this Parliament was to carry out
some sweeping act of confiscation, and this naturally added to the
excitement. For the first time in Irish history a genuinely contested
election took place. Both parties strained every nerve, both felt their
future interests to depend upon the struggle. When at last all the
members were collected it was found that the Government had a majority,
though a narrow one, of twenty-four. Barely, however, had Parliament
assembled, before a violent quarrel broke out over the election of a
speaker; the Catholic party denouncing the irregularity by means of
which many of the elections had been carried, and refusing therefore to
consider themselves bound by the decision of the majority. Sir John
Davis had been elected speaker by the supporters of the Government, but,
during the absence of the latter in the division lobby, the recusants
placed their own man, Sir John Everard, in the chair, and upon the
return of the others a hot scuffle ensued between the supporters of the
two Sir Johns, each side vehemently supporting the claims of its own
candidate. In the end, "Mr. Treasurer and Mr. Marshall, two gentlemen of
the best quality," according to a "Protestant declaration" sent to
England of the whole occurrence, "took Sir John Davis by the arms, and
lifting him from the ground, placed him in the chair upon Sir John
Everard's lap, requiring the latter to come forth of the chair; which,
he obstinately refusing, Mr. Treasurer, the Master of the Ordinance, and
others, whose places were next the chair, laid their hands gently upon
him, and removed him out of the chair, and placed Sir John
Davis therein."
The gravity with which we are assured of the gentleness of these
proceedings is delightful. The recusants, with Sir John Everard at their
head, departed we are further told "in most contentious manner" out of
the House. Being asked why they did not return, they replied that "Those
within the House are no House, and the Speaker is no Speaker; but we are
the House, and Sir John Everard is our Speaker[9]."
[9] Lodges, "Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica," pp. 410-411.
Not being able to be otherwise settled, the quarrel was at last referred
to the king, and representatives of both sides went to England to plead
their cause. In the end twelve of the new elections were found to have
been so illegally carried that they had perforce to be cancelled, but
Sir John Davis was at the same time confirmed in the Speakership.
After this delay the House at last got to work. A formal Act of
attainder was passed upon Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and some of the other
Ulster landowners. Every portion of Ireland was next made into
shireland, and the last remnants of the Brehon law abolished. Upon the
other hand, the statutes of Kilkenny was at length and finally repealed.
Henceforth English and Irish were alike to be admitted to plead their
own cause in the courts of law.
XXXIII.
OLD AND NEW OWNERS.
The zeal for Irish colonization had by no means subsided after the
Ulster settlement had been established; on the contrary, it was the
favourite panacea of the hour, especially in the eyes of the king
himself. After one such resounding success, why, it was asked, not
extend so evident a blessing to the rest of Ireland? "A commission to
inquire into defective titles" was set on foot, whose duty it was to
collect evidence as to the condition of estates, and to inquire into the
titles of owners. The pipe rolls in Dublin and the patents, kept in the
Tower of London were alike eagerly ransacked, and title flaws found to
be discoverable with the most delightful facility. There was a strong
feeling too about this time in England that something good was to be
made of Ireland. When tens of thousands of acres were to be had almost
for the asking, who could be so slow or so mean-spirited as to hang back
from doing so.
Something like a regular stampede of men ambitious to call themselves
undertakers, began to cross over from the larger to the smaller island.
Nor was the Government anxious to check this spirited impulse. In
Wexford alone over 60,000 acres had been discovered by the lawyers to
belong to the king, and of these a large portion were now settled with
English undertakers. In Longford, Leitrim, Wicklow, and many other parts
of Leinster, it was the same. Even where the older proprietors were not
dispossessed heavy fines were levied in return for fresh grants. No
proof of recent surrender or former agreement was allowed to count, and
so ingeniously was the whole scheme carried out, and so inextricable was
the jungle of legal technicalities in which it was involved, that what
in reality was often sheer confiscations sounded like the most equitable
of judicial arrangements.
The case of the Connaught landowners is particularly characteristic, and
as space dwindles rapidly, may serve as an example of the rest. Nearly
all the Connaught gentry, native and Norman alike, had surrendered their
estates either to Elizabeth or to her father, and had received them back
again upon new terms. Legal transfer, however, was so little understood,
and the times were so rough and wild, that few had received patents, and
title-deeds were all but unknown. In James I.'s reign this omission was
rectified and patents duly made out, for which the landowners paid a sum
little short of £30,000, equal to nearly £300,000 at the present day.
These new patents, however, by an oversight of the clerks in Chancery,
were neglected to be enrolled, and upon this plea fresh ones were called
for, and fresh fees had to be paid by the landowners. Further it was
announced that owing to the omission--one over which the owners, it is
clear, had no control--all the titles had become defective, and all the
lands had lapsed to the Crown. The other three provinces having by this
time received plantations, the Connaught landowners were naturally not
slow to perceive the use that might be made of so awkward a technical
flaw. To appeal against the manifest injustice of the decision was of
little avail, but a good round sum of money into the king's own hands
was known to rarely come amiss. They agreed accordingly to offer him the
same sum that would have fallen to his share had the plantations been
carried out This was accepted and another £10,000 paid, and the evil day
thus for a while, but only, as will be seen, for a while averted.
Charles's accession awakened a good many hopes in Ireland, the Catholic
party especially flattering themselves that a king who was himself
married to one of their faith would be likely to show some favour to his
Catholic subjects. In this they found their mistake, and an attempt to
open a Catholic college in Dublin was speedily put down by force. In
other directions a certain amount of leniency was, however, extended to
recusants, and Lord Falkland, who a few years before had succeeded Sir
Oliver St. John as deputy, was a man of conspicuous moderation and
tolerance. In 1629, however, he resigned, worn out like so many others
before and after him by the difficulties with which he had to contend,
and not long afterwards a man of very different temperament and widely
different theories of government came to assume the reins.
XXXIV.
STRAFFORD.
In 1632, Wentworth--better known as Strafford--arrived in Ireland,
prepared to carry out his motto of "Thorough." Only three years before,
he had been one of the foremost orators in the struggle for the Petition
of Right. The dagger of Fenton had turned him from an impassioned
patriot and constitutionalist into a vehement upholder of absolutism.
His revolt had been little more than a mask for his hostility to the
hated favourite Buckingham, and when Buckingham's murder cleared the
path to his ambition, Wentworth passed, apparently without a struggle,
from the zealous champion of liberty to the yet more zealous champion of
despotic rule.
[Illustration: THOMAS WENTWORTH, EARL OF STAFFORD, 1641.]
He arrived in Ireland as to a conquered country, and proceeded promptly
to act upon that understanding. His chief aim was to show that a
parliament, properly managed, could be made not a menace, but a tool in
the hand of the king. With this end he summoned an Irish one immediately
upon his arrival, and so managed the elections that Protestants and
Catholics should nearly equally balance one another. Upon its
assembling, he ordered peremptorily that a subsidy of £100,000, to cover
the debts to the Crown, should be voted. There would, he announced, be a
second session, during which certain long-deferred "graces" and other
demands would be considered. The sum was obediently voted, but the
second session never came. The parliament was abruptly dissolved by the
deputy, and did not meet again for nearly four years.
The Connaught landlords were the next whom he took in hand. We have seen
in the last chapter that they had recently paid a large sum to the
Crown, in order to ward off the dangers of a plantation. This did not
satisfy Wentworth. Their titles were again called into question. He
swept down in person into the province, with the commissioners of
plantations at his heels; discovered, to his own complete satisfaction,
that _all_ the titles of all the five western counties were defective,
and that, as a natural consequence, all lapsed to the Crown. The juries
of Mayo, Sligo, and Roscommon were overawed into submission, but the
Galway jury were obstinate, and refused to dispossess the proprietors.
Wentworth thereupon took them back with him to Dublin, summoned them
before the Court of the Castle Chamber, where they were sentenced to pay
a fine of £4,000 each, and the sheriff £1000, and to remain in prison
until they had done so. The unfortunate sheriff died in prison. Lord
Clanricarde, the principal Galway landlord, died also shortly
afterwards, of anxiety and mortification. The others submitted, and were
let off by the triumphant deputy with the surrender, in some cases, of
large portions of their estates, in others of heavy fines.
By these means, and others too long to enter into here, he contrived to
raise the annual Irish revenue to a surplus of £60,000, with part of
which he proceeded to set on foot and equip an army for the king of
10,000 foot and 1,000 horse, ready to be marched at a moment's notice.
This part of the programme was intended as a menace less against Ireland
than England. Charles was to be absolute in both islands, and, to be so,
his Irish subjects were to help him to coerce his English ones.
Let us, however, be just. Strafford was a born tyrant--worse, he was the
champion of an absolutism of the most odious type conceivable, one
which, if successful, would have been a death-blow to English liberty.
But he was also a born ruler. No petty tyrants flourished under his
sway. His hand was like iron upon the plunderers, the pluralists, the
fraudulent officials, gorged with their ill-gotten booty. What he did,
too, he did well. If he struck, he could also protect. He ruthlessly
suppressed the infant woollen trade, believing that it might in time
come to be a rival to the English one, but he was the founder of the
linen trade, and imported Flemish weavers to teach it, and the best
flax-seed to sow in the fields. He cleared the sea of the pirates who
swarmed along the coasts, and had recently burnt the houses and carried
off the inhabitants of several villages. The king's authority once
secured he was anxious to secure to the mass of the people, Catholic as
well as Protestant, a just and impartial administration of the law. No
one in Ireland, he was resolved, should tyrannize except himself.
[Illustration: JACOBUS USSERIUS, ARCHIEPISCOPUS ARMACHANUS, TOTIUS
HIBERNIAE PRIMAS]
He and Laud, the primate, were close allies, and both were bent upon
bringing the Church of Ireland to an absolute uniformity with that of
England, and, with this object, Wentworth set a Court of High Commission
to work to root out the Presbyterian ministers and to suppress, as far
as possible, dissent. The Irish bishops and episcopalian clergy were,
with hardly an exception, Low Churchmen, with a leaning to Calvinism,
and, upon these also his hand was heavy. His regard for the Church by no
means stood in his way either in his dealings with individual churchmen.
He treated the Primate Ussher--one of the most venerated names in all
Irish history--with marked contempt; he rated the Bishop of Killaloe
upon one occasion like a dog, and told him that "he deserved to have his
rochet pulled over his ears;" boasting afterwards, to his correspondent,
of how effectually he had "warmed his old sides."
In another letter to Laud, we get a graphic and rather entertaining
account of his dealings with Convocation. The Lower House, it seems, had
appointed a select committee, which had drawn up a book of canons upon
the lines of what were known as the "Nine Articles of Lambeth."
Wentworth was furious. "Instantly," he says, "I sent for Dean Andrews,
that reverend clerk, who sat, forsooth, in the chair at this committee,
and required him to bring along the aforesaid book of canons; this he
obeyed, ... but when I came to open the book, I confess I was not so
much moved since I came into Ireland. I told him certainly not a Dean of
Limerick, but an Ananias had sat in the chair at that committee, and
sure I was that Ananias had been there in spirit if not in body[10]."
[10] Earl of Stratford's "Letters and Despatches," vol. i. p. 342.
The unhappy Ananias naturally submitted at once to the terrible deputy,
and, although Archbishop Ussher and most of the bishops defended the
attacked canons, Wentworth carried his point by a sheer exercise of
power. Throwing the list of canons already drawn out aside, he drew up
another of his own composition, and forced the Convocation to accept it.
"There were some hot spirits, sons of thunder, amongst them," he tells
Laud boastfully, "who moved that they should petition me for a free
synod, but, in fine, they could not agree among themselves who should
put the bell about the cat's neck, and so this likewise vanished[11]."
The cat, in truth, was a terrible one to bell!
[11] Ibid.
But the career of the master of Ireland was nearing its end. By the
beginning of 1640 the Scotch were up in arms, and about to descend in
force upon England. The English Puritans, too, were assuming a hostile
attitude. Civil war was upon the point of breaking out. Charles summoned
Wentworth over in hot haste from Ireland, and it was decided between
them that the newly-organized Irish forces were to be promptly employed
against the Scotch rebels. With this purpose Wentworth--now with the
long-desired titles of Earl of Strafford and Lord-Lieutenant of
Ireland--hurried back to make the final arrangements. Fresh subsidies
were obtained from the ever-subservient Irish parliament; more recruits
were hastily summoned, and came in readily; the army was put under the
command of the young Earl of Ormond, and Stratford once more returned to
England. He did so only to find all his calculations upset. A treaty had
been made in his absence with the Scots; the Long Parliament had
assembled, and the fast-gathering storm was about to break in thunder
over his own head. He was impeached. Witness after witness poured over
from Ireland, all eager to give their evidence. Representatives even of
the much-aggrieved Connaught landlords--though their wrongs did not
perhaps count for much in the great total--were there to swell the tide.
He was tried for high treason, condemned and executed. In England the
collapse of so great and so menacing a figure was a momentous event. In
Ireland it must have seemed as the very fall of Lucifer himself!
[Illustration: SHRINE OF ST. PATRICK'S BELL.]
XXXV.
'FORTY-ONE.
Stafford's fall and death would alone have rendered this year, 1641, a
memorable one in Irish history. Unhappily it was destined to be made yet
more so; few years, indeed, in that long, dark bead-roll are perhaps as
memorable, both from what it brought forth at the time, and, still more,
from what was afterwards to follow from it.
The whole country, it must be remembered, was in a state of the wildest
and most irrepressible excitement. The fall of such a ruler as
Strafford--one under whose iron will it had for years lain as in a
vice--would alone have produced a considerable amount of upheaval and
confusion. The army collected by him, and mainly recruited by Catholics,
was regarded with strong disfavour both by Irish Protestants and by the
English Parliament, and Charles, much against his will, had been forced
to disband it, and the arms had been stored in Dublin Castle. The men,
however, remained, and among the leading Irish as well as English
royalists there was a strong desire that they should be kept together,
so as to serve if required in the fast nearing struggle.
Nor was this all. Stafford's persecution of the Presbyterians had done
its work, and the feeling between them and the Irish Church party had
been greatly embittered. Amongst the Catholics, too, the most loyal even
of the gentry had been terror-stricken by his confiscations. No one knew
how long his property would remain his own, or upon what pretence it
might not next be taken from him. Add to these the long-gathering
passion of the dispossessed clans in the north, and that floating
element of disaffection always ready to stir, and it will be seen that
the materials for a rebellion were ready laid, and needed only a spark
to ignite them.
As usually happens in rebellions the plans of the more prudent were
thwarted by the impetuosity of the more violent spirits. While Ormond,
Antrim, and the barons of the Pale were communicating with the king, and
considering what were the best steps to take, a plot had been formed
without them, and was now upon the point of exploding.
Two men, Rory or Roger O'Moore, one of the O'Moores of Leix, and Sir
Phelim O'Neill, a connection of the Tyrones, were its main movers, and
were joined by Lord Maguire, a youth of about twenty-two, Hugh McMahon,
the Bishop of Clogher, and a few other gentlemen, belonging chiefly to
the septs of the north. The plan was a very comprehensive one. They were
to seize Dublin Castle, which was known to be weakly defended; get out
the arms and powder, and redistribute them to the disbanded troops; at
the same time, seize all the forts and garrison towns in the north; turn
all the Protestant settlers adrift--though it was at first stipulated
without killing or otherwise injuring them--take possession of all the
country houses, and make all who declined to join in the rising
prisoners.