Transcriber’s Note
Italic text displayed as: _italic_
“STOLEN WATERS.”
SOME PRESS NOTICES.
“We can welcome Mr. Healy’s treatment of a difficult and obscure
episode in the history of Ulster as on the whole impartial, and
based on a judicial reading of a vast accumulation of documentary
evidence.... In his capacity as historical detective he is
fair-minded to a degree, which would amaze us if we were not so well
acquainted with the well-tempered quality of an intellect that for
subtlety and power and a dispassionate coolness is not surpassed
by that of any Irishman living.... The wonderful net of intrigue
by which all this was contrived has been carefully unravelled
by Mr. Healy with a pertinaceous ingenuity worthy of Sherlock
Holmes.”—_Morning Post._
“Mr. Healy has accomplished a difficult task with considerable
success. The result of his labours is an absorbing book.... The
author has succeeded in weaving a romantic story out of the dry
material of official records and legal documents.”—_Athenæum._
“The story that Mr. Healy tells has something of the flavour of
historical romance.... Mr. Healy’s method of argument on the main
issue is calm and temperate.... A wonderful effort in legal and
historical research.”—_London Daily Telegraph._
“It is a truism that only the busiest men have any time to spare,
and it is proved again by the publication of an elaborate historical
study by Mr. T. M. Healy, the famous Irish M.P., who is as
entertaining and brilliant with his pen as he is in speech. Mr. Healy
tells his story with enthusiasm and thoroughness.”—_London Express._
“Mr. Healy is a lawyer of original genius who, almost more frequently
than any other man of his time, has performed the unexpected. He has
done so once again in this extraordinary book, which tells, with many
touches of eloquence and here and there a characteristic sting, the
tangled story of a legal dispute.... A work of argument and legal
history written with sustained eloquence and frequent felicity.... A
task which only a passionate sense of duty and determined doggedness
could have achieved. As the author in his picturesque manner puts
it, the scent was often stale, but despite the difficulties and
uncertainties that confronted him, he has achieved what he sought,
and presents the result to the expert and the curious.”—_Outlook
(London)._
“Mr. Healy constructs a story of remarkable interest. By dipping
into it here and there some instructive glimpses will be obtained
of the fashion in which Irish history was made in bygone
centuries.”—_Observer (London)._
“It exhibits vividly enough some of the less favourable aspects of
past Irish administration, and it will serve the writer’s purpose of
stimulating a considerable amount of sympathy for the standpoint of
his contentions.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._
“Those who love to extract information from Blue Books will revel
in this volume of strange facts.... It would be a needless task to
expend words of praise upon this fair-minded volume, prepared by one
of the subtlest intellects of our time.”—_Review of Reviews._
“‘Stolen Waters’ has to be welcomed as a monument of disinterested
advocacy.... Mr. Healy’s vivid, yet archaic, style; at all manner
of odd points the unusual word flashes out at you, and relieves the
gloom of technical narration.”—_Truth._
“Of the utmost value.... Mr. Healy is to be congratulated on the
manner in which he has fulfilled this work.”—_Tablet._
“A notable volume, ‘Stolen Waters.’ The book, which was noticed at
length in the leader columns of this paper, is a monument of patient
research.”—_Manchester Guardian._
“A series of remarkable investigations.... The book has every
appearance of minute accuracy in detail, and gives proof of a
remarkable skill in marshalling evidence. We shall be surprised if
his conclusions are successfully challenged.”—_Glasgow Herald._
“It is a tribute to the skill of Mr. Healy that he has made so
interesting a narrative out of a record of legal chicanery. As told
by him, the history of the title in the seventeenth century is an
amazing story of fraud in high places.”—_Scotsman._
“Written in the pungent style of which Mr. Healy is so great a
master, the book is eminently readable throughout.... This erudite
and eloquent volume.”—_Dundee Advertiser._
“Mr. Healy contributes to Irish literature a valuable
volume.”—_Sheffield Independent._
“Elaborate in its thorough investigation of the historical side....
Mr. Healy’s book is a formidable impeachment of one more chapter in
the horrid story of English mis-government in Ireland.”—_Yorkshire
Observer._
“Mr. Healy has written a very elaborate treatise.... Is, indeed, a
most scholarly essay, the result of exhaustive research.”—_Yorkshire
Post._
“It is evidently the result of a wonderful amount of labour in
delving among official and legal records, and the student of
Irish affairs will find that the author has collected a mass
of matter not to be found elsewhere except at the cost of much
trouble.”—_Nottingham Guardian._
“Learned and comprehensive as it is, the book is most interesting
throughout.”—_Belfast News-Letter._
“The book is a monument of the sort of painstaking industry that
most orators shirk in favour of easier-won bravura effects. ‘Stolen
Waters’ is less a fiery philippic than a sober historico-legal
study of a phase of Irish history, a solid piece of research work
of which we have had all too little in this country. Mr. Healy is a
formidable tracker, combining the pertinacity of the Red Indian with
the ingenuity of Sherlock Holmes.... Even the layman must realise the
patient and laborious scholarship that has gone to the making of this
book, and cannot fail to be impressed by his power of marshalling
great unwieldy masses of facts and the subtlety and dexterity of his
analysis.... It abounds in strange contrasts and dramatic surprises,
unravels a tangled tale of corruption and chicanery that might have
inspired a score of novels of intrigue, and links up in a startling
fashion the events of three hundred years ago with the happenings of
the day before yesterday.”—_Northern Whig._
“The compiling of Mr. Healy’s book was about as hard and as
distasteful work as any historian could undertake. He had to delve
into records and wade through State papers practically untouched
since the day they were written. And when the facts were revealed he
had to piece them together the way one would reconstruct a jig-saw
puzzle. All this infinite toil and trouble has been faced....
Mr. Healy’s book, with its wealth of historical lore and its
fascinating if grim tale of the way the Plantation of Ulster was
carried.”—_Ulster Guardian (Belfast)._
“Mr. Healy’s remarkable book.”—_Irish Independent._
“One of the most valuable practical contributions ever made to the
as-yet-unwritten history of Ireland.... He has done more than any man
since Lecky to furnish the Irish Gibbon of the future with new light
on the most obscure problems of the Ulster Plantation.... As a mere
collection of quotations he would have produced a book of enthralling
interest. The connecting narrative in which he strings them together
is worthy of Mr. Healy’s clear-cut, caustic, and vigorous English at
its best. Indeed, his style seems to have caught a new charm of Old
Testament austerity. The book will be a _Memoire pour Servir_ of the
highest service to the students of Irish history.”—_Cork Free Press._
“Mr. Healy has taken much trouble in using the original documents....
A great wealth of evidence, giving careful reference.”—_Church of
Ireland Gazette._
“Full digestion of its contents leads one to the conclusion that, if
not a novel, it is at least a good deal more interesting than many
such pieces of literature.... The erudite and witty pages of Mr.
Healy.... The many sidelights thrown on history by the painstaking
researches of the author.”—_Journal of the Ivernian Society._
“The story Mr. Healy’s valuable work tells, and tells well.... No
one who peruses the work—no matter what judgment he may form upon
the argument it contains—will be likely to lay it down without
an expression of admiration for the almost marvellous ability
and industry which have been devoted to its production.... The
preparation of the volume must have involved an enormous amount
of labour and research. In France it would be crowned by the
Academy.”—_The Irish Catholic._
“Mr. Healy’s most interesting book.... Contains on every page the
evidence of unending pains and research, is full of sidelights
upon Irish history.... The erudite, yet fascinating, pages of Mr.
Healy.”—_Catholic Book Notes._
“A notable volume.... The book is a monument of patient
research.”—_Manchester Weekly Times._
“Mr. Healy has written a remarkable book which is of considerable
interest.... The whole story is one of absorbing historic
interest.”—_The Fish Trades Gazette._
“Mr. Healy has devoted much time to research, and he has produced a
fascinating story.”—_Natal Mercury._
“What will please the general reader in ‘Stolen Waters’ is the
incidental information, the look-as-you-go glimpses at the great
Irish chieftains and clans.... Information of an unusual historical
character.—_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
“The volume is important from a historical and legal standpoint....
Mr. Healy’s interesting book.—_Boston Globe._
“Mr. Healy’s long but interesting narrative.”—_Catholic University
Bulletin (Washington)._
“A learned work.... If the decision of the House of Lords is proved
to be based on documents that are either forgeries or letters patent
obtained by a criminal act, then legislation would at once be
introduced to deal with the matter.”—_Contemporary Review._
“Proves the patience of the writer, who gives us a narrative of
historical interest as well as a work of real legal worth.... Many
would surmise that a work on such a topic must be necessarily a
‘dry-as-dust’ book. We have found it interesting indeed. We do not
think it possible to get a real insight into the Irish questions that
loom so very large in politics to-day without reading of some of the
methods adopted in ‘settling Ireland’ in Tudor times. The earlier
chapters of this learned work give some valuable information on those
matters. Historical and legal students will be indebted to the author
for so many quotations of rather inaccessible documents.”—_Western
Morning News._
“Of decided value to students of Irish history, for its pages show
the chicanery and thirst for plunder that have been dominant in the
past government of Ireland.”—_The Nation._
“Mr. T. M. Healy, M.P., is the raciest—and the bitterest—speaker in
public life. His abilities are altogether uncommon. But if he will
forgive us for saying so, he cannot write a book.”—_Birmingham Post._
“Dull, even at times ungrammatical, from a perusal of its pages we do
get a very clear idea of the terrible extent to which legal chicanery
was used by English officials to enrich themselves and their friends
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.”—_Irish Times._
“For a full account one should read that epic of chicanery, Mr.
Healy’s ‘Stolen Waters’.”—_The New Witness._
“Mr. Healy has thrown some new light on an obscure and devious
by-path of Irish history.... The book is not pleasant reading, but
it illuminates the manner in which the English aristocracy has
‘governed’ Ireland.”—_Evening Post (New York)._
“A book which, founded though it is upon official records, will
challenge for rascality the most daring flights of fiction.... The
story is quite as thrilling as anything could be.... One of the most
readable books of our time.—_Sydney Freeman’s Journal._
“A monument to the extraordinary industry of Mr. Healy, and the time
and labour expended in the compilation.... Whether his law is good or
bad, affects not in the least the interest of his book, which is full
of fascinating details of Irish History.”—_Irish Law Times._
“We hope that it will be read, because the roots of many persistent
troubles in Ireland will never be understood until it is realised
that the cruelties committed under Elizabeth were accompanied—and
to a great degree followed in the next reign—by very clever and
systematic frauds upon the old inhabitants.”—_Saturday Review._
“The intrigues of past times, which are full of incident and
romance, written in such a way, make it a book to read carefully,
especially if one wants to understand the difficulties of Irish
history.”—_Scottish Historical Review._
“An interesting historical study which has its amusing sides.”—_New
York Sun._
“The author gives his authorities for every charge he brings.... The
hammer-like blows with which he clinches his statements are wearying
to a reader not as much absorbed as himself. But those who have the
patience to keep up with his argument ... will get many new lights
on the Tudor and Stuart period of Irish history. Especially clear is
the story of how the O’Neills were driven from Ulster.”—_American
Historical Review._
“This masterly volume of 500 pages ... sheds a luminous light on the
uses of legal machinery in the robbery of the Irish people. Mr. Healy
has the knowledge and ability to enrich his argument with a vast
amount of incidental information.”—_America._
“Sophistries, insinuations, mere rhetoric, and all kinds of
irrelevancies.... Prejudice and ignorance are invited to pronounce
judgment on what has already been determined by the highest judicial
authority.... But no mere list of mistakes could correct the false
impressions conveyed by innuendo, assumption, and special pleading.
It is simpler to regard the whole book as one vast _erratum_.”—_The
Times (London), 4th Sept., 1913._
THE GREAT FRAUD OF ULSTER
THE GREAT FRAUD
OF ULSTER
BY
T. M. HEALY, M.P.
Dublin:
M. H. GILL & SON, LTD.
50 UPPER O’CONNELL STREET
1917
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PRINTED BY
INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS, LTD.,
111 MIDDLE ABBEY STREET,
DUBLIN.
IN STEDFAST MEMORY
OF
JOSEPH GILLIS BIGGAR,
OF BELFAST.
M.P. FOR CAVAN, 1874-1890.
THE MOST UNSELFISH, FEARLESS,
AND STRAIGHTFORWARD
PUBLIC MAN
THAT I HAVE KNOWN.
PREFACE.
These pages give a shorter, and, it is hoped, a less legal, setting
to facts published for the first time some five years ago under
the title, “Stolen Waters.” They chiefly concern those counties of
Ulster lately threatened with severance from the rest of Ireland. The
story, such as it is, has been re-told and simplified in the hope
that acquaintance with it may quicken and heighten the spirit of
resistance to the statecraft of Partition.
A stubborn fight for a great stake has been waged in the disputed
area for three hundred years, and the struggle to clutch the prize
exhibits more starkly than any other single theme the felonious
continuity of Anglo-Ulster administration.
Those in control of Irish government calmly look down on the
spectacle of a noble public heritage abandoned to a “privy paw.”
Wiseacres advise the losers and the wronged to “forget the past.” No
people have more need to remember it.
That the past has no bearing on the present, and that “brooding”
on it is ill for soul and body, is a conceit of despotism. Other
races are taught at their mother’s knee that their welfare has been
influenced, hindered, or promoted by the tyranny or the heroism, the
crimes or the virtues, of vanished men.
Every presentation of Irish records is rated by the ruling caste as
distorted or perverse unless oppression is garbed in justification
and rapacity garnished with slanders on its prey. The cant of
conquest always seeks to make the invaders paladins of virtue, and
their victims brutish monsters. The conquered are even liable to be
misled by the writings of their enemies.
To-day in warring Europe the despoilers of prostrate nations
doubtless have all the printing presses and all the hired authors
going full blast in their favour. Three hundred years hence such
output will still not be without its effect. In the dark ages of
Ireland Chichester was almost canonised, and his co-rogue, Sir
John Davies, left in a state of minor beatification, on their own
certificates of self-praise. This sketch attempts, on other evidence,
to do justice to their memories and their works.
T. M. HEALY.
Glenaulin,
Chapelizod,
8th September, 1917.
ERRATA.
Page 19 “1572” _should be_ 1571.
” 100 “this investigation” ” ” a previous investigation.
” 116 “suffering” ” ” sufferings.
” 156 “damage” ” ” damages.
” 179 “1613” ” ” 1615.
ADDITIONAL ERRATA.
Page 105 “Mountmorris” _should be_ Mountnorris.
” 172 “by previous grants” ” ” by a previous grant.
” 173 “Patent of 1621” ” ” Inquisition of 1621.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE.
AUTHORITIES xvi.
LEADING DATES xvii.
I. THE MEN OF DEVON 1
II. THE RAPE OF THE LOUGH 9
III. CHICHESTER, DEPUTY 17
IV. AN EVIL PARTNERSHIP 27
V. A VICEROY’S LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT 32
VI. THE ULSTER LORDS 36
VII. CHIEFTAIN AND VASSAL 42
VIII. UPROOTING THE NOBLES 46
IX. WAR’S AFTERMATH 50
X. THE HARRYING OF SIR RANDALL 54
XI. THE DEPUTY’S NEPHEW 59
XII. CHEATING KING JAMES 65
XIII. DIVIDING THE SPOIL 71
XIV. THE PLANTERS’ PARLIAMENT 76
XV. A SCOTCH “DISCOVERER” 82
XVI. THE ESCHEATOR FOR ULSTER 88
XVII. MORE “DISCOVERERS” 94
XVIII. LORD FALKLAND’S SHAME 98
XIX. STRAFFORD, PATENT-BREAKER 109
XX. THE PURITAN SCRIVENERS 118
XXI. REBELLION REWARDED 124
XXII. THE “FAMOUS PAPER” 128
XXIII. LORD DONEGALL’S ROMANCES 137
XXIV. LAWLESS LORDS JUSTICES 144
XXV. HOW TO LOSE AN EMPIRE 148
XXVI. THE PLANTERS’ QUARREL 155
XXVII. TWO GREAT TRIALS 162
XXVIII. THE FINAL FORGERY 172
XXIX. THE LORDS DIVIDED 178
APPENDIX 185
INDEX 189
AUTHORITIES.
Abbotsford Club Miscellany.
Annals of the Four Masters (O’Donovan).
Appeal Cases, House of Lords (1878 and 1911).
Calendar of Border Papers.
” ” Carew Papers.
” ” Clarendon Papers.
” ” Patent and Close Rolls (Erck, and Morrin).
” ” State Papers.
” ” Treasury Papers.
Camden Society’s Publications.
Chartuleries of St. Mary’s Abbey (Gilbert).
Commonwealth Statutes.
Concise View of the Irish Society.
Cromwellian Settlement (Prendergast).
Davies’ (Sir John) Reports.
Davies’ Tracts.
Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica.
Dictionary of National Biography.
Docwra’s Narration.
Ecclesiastical Antiquities: Down, Connor, and Dromore (Dr. Reeves).
English in Ireland (Froude).
Fortescue Papers.
Granard, Life of Earls of (Forbes).
Hamilton MSS. (Lowry).
Hatfield MSS.
Hibernica (Harris).
Historical Manuscript Commission Reports.
History of Belfast (Benn).
History of Carrickfergus (McSkimin).
History of the Confederation (Gilbert).
History of Down and Connor (O’Laverty).
History of England (Froude).
History of England (Gardiner).
History of Gloucester (Rudder).
History of the Irish Presbyterian Church (Reid).
Histories of the Irish Rebellion, 1641 (Borlase and Temple).
History, Secret, of James I. (Sir A. Weldon).
History of London (Lambert).
Ireland (Sir James Ware).
Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (Lecky).
Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution (Prendergast).
Ireland Under the Stuarts (Bagwell).
Lansdowne Papers.
Liber Munerum (Lodge).
MacDonnells of Antrim (Hill).
Monasticum Hibernicon (Archdale).
Montgomery Manuscripts (Hill).
O’Donnell, Life of Hugh Roe (Rev. Denis Murphy, S.J.).
Old Belfast (Young).
O’Neill, Life of Hugh (Mitchel).
Ormonde (Carte).
Ormonde Papers.
Pacata Hibernia.
Plantation of Ulster (Hill).
Puritan and Cavalier (Lady Newdegate).
Ridgeway’s Reports, Vol. 2.
Salisbury Papers.
State Trials (Emlyn).
State Trials (Howell, Vol. 14).
State of Ireland, View of the (Spenser).
Strafford’s Letters.
Stuart Manuscripts.
Thurloe Papers (Birch).
Town Book of Belfast (Young).
Trevelyan Papers.
Tyrone and Tirconnell, Fate and Fortunes of (Meehan).
Types of Celtic Life (Hitchcock).
Ulster Land War (Bigger).
Ussher, Life of (Elrington).
LEADING DATES.
Con O’Neill accepts Earldom and Patent of Tyrone 1st October, 1542.
Title of King of Ireland conferred on Henry VIII. 23rd January, 1543.
Shane O’Neill slain by the MacDonalds June, 1567.
Act of Elizabeth confiscating Tyrone 1569.
Patent to Claneboy O’Neills 13th March, 1587.
Revolt of Hugh O’Neill 1594.
Sir Con O’Neill, of Claneboy, adheres to Elizabeth 1600.
O’Cahan, MacDonnell, and O’Byrne join Elizabeth 1602.
Submission of Hugh O’Neill 24th March, 1603.
Accession of James I. 24th March, 1603.
Mountjoy (Earl of Devonshire) sails with O’Neill and
O’Donnell for England 26th May, 1603.
Patent to MacDonnell includes fourth of tidal Bann 28th May, 1603.
King’s Letter appoints Chichester Governor Carrickfergus,
with Belfast estate 8th August, 1603.
King’s Letters regrant Tyrone to O’Neill 23rd August, and 1st
September, 1603.
Patents to Chichester under King’s Letter of 8th 10th September, and
August 5th November, 1603.
King’s Letter grants John Wakeman (Devonshire’s
nominee) £100 a year 8th November, 1603.
John Davies arrives as Solicitor-General 20th November, 1603.
King’s Letter to Chichester, amending Letter of 8th
August, 1603 29th December, 1603.
Wakeman’s Patent of St. Mary’s Abbey 28th February, 1604.
Wakeman’s Patent of Meath, Westmeath, and Kilkenny
lands 5th March, 1604.
Chichester’s Patents, under amended Letter, take
Lough Neagh and the Bann for life 9th May, 1604.
Chichester appointed Lord Deputy 15th October, 1604.
King’s Letter grants Thomas Irelande £100 a year 6th December, 1604.
Partition of Claneboy with James Hamilton and
Hugh Montgomery January, 1605.
Chichester sworn in as Deputy 3rd (? 24th) February,
1605.
Thomas Irelande assigns £100 a year to Hamilton 26th February, 1605.
King’s Letter to Hamilton for Claneboy, &c. 16th April, 1605.
Chichester’s protest to Cecil against Hamilton’s
grants 19th June, 1605.
Chichester’s Commission for Inquisition into Hamilton’s
grants 26th June, 1605.
Inquisition at Antrim as to Hamilton’s grants 12th July, 1605.
Chichester agrees to share spoil with Hamilton July, 1605.
Hamilton granted Coleraine Priory and Bann tithe
fishing (under Thomas Irelande’s Letter) 20th July, 1605.
Hamilton assigns Coleraine Priory and Bann tithe
fishing to Captain Thomas Phillips 23rd September, 1605.
Thomas Jones, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord
Chancellor 14th October, 1605.
Wakeman’s power-of-attorney to Auditor Ware 21st October, 1605.
Hamilton’s Patent for Claneboy (King’s Letter, 16th
April) 5th November, 1605.
Gunpowder Plot affects Anglo-Irish policy 5th November, 1605.
Hamilton’s Patent for Lough Neagh and Bann, &c.,
under Thomas Irelande’s Letter 14th February, 1606.
Auditor Ware (Wakeman’s assignee) granted tidal
Bann 2nd March, 1606.
Auditor Ware assigns tidal Bann to Hamilton 3rd March, 1606.
Hamilton’s Patent of Trim, &c., under Thomas Irelande’s
Letter 13th March, 1606.
Hamilton’s Patent of Westmeath lands under
Thomas Irelande’s Letter 17th March, 1606.
Earl of Devonshire’s will 2nd April, 1606.
Earl of Devonshire’s death 3rd April, 1606.
Hamilton assigns Lough Neagh and non-tidal Bann,
&c., to Chichester 10th April, 1606.
Hamilton’s Patent of Antrim and Down customs
under Wakeman’s Letter 11th April, 1606.
Hamilton assigns fourth of tidal Bann to Chichester 14th May, 1606.
Hamilton’s Patent, Westmeath and Longford lands
under Wakeman’s Letter 18th May, 1606.
John Davies promoted Attorney-General 29th May, 1606.
O’Cahan v. O’Neill tried by Chichester May and June, 1607.
Flight of the Earls (O’Neill and O’Donnell, &c.) 14th September, 1607.
O’Cahan’s imprisonment February, 1608.
Hamilton’s Patent of Wexford lands under Thomas
Irelande’s Letter 13th May, 1608.
Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s rebellion May-July, 1608.
Niall Garve O’Donnell’s imprisonment 1608.
Patent to Bassett of all Hamilton conveyed to
Chichester, with MacDonnell’s fourth of the
tidal Bann 1st July, 1608.
Bassett re-assigns contents of Patent to Chichester
23rd January, 1609.
King’s Letter to Chichester for Sir Cahir O’Doherty’s
estate 30th July, 1609.
Inquisition at Limavady declares Bann Chichester’s 30th August, 1609.
James I. grants Bann, Lough Foyle, and Derry to
City of London 28th January, 1610.
Hamilton’s additional Patent, St. Mary’s Abbey 23rd February, 1610.
Hamilton receives £4,500 compensation for Bann and
Lough Foyle June, 1610.
Chichester annuls grant to MacDonnell of “fourth”
of Bann November, 1610.
Chichester’s surrender, via Archbishop Jones, of
Bann and Lough Foyle 3rd April, 1611.
Sham Corporations created to pack Parliament 1612-1613.
Londoners’ Ulster Charter sealed 29th March, 1613.
Planters’ Parliament meets 18th May, 1613.
Recusants’ protest against packing Parliament July, 1613.
Chichester created a peer 25th February, 1614.
Planters’ Parliament escheats Ulster estates 1615.
Planters’ Parliament dissolved 24th October, 1615.
Sir John Davies’ legal reports published 1615.
Chichester dismissed from Deputyship 29th November, 1615.
Chichester appointed Lord High Treasurer 2nd July, 1616.
Hugh O’Neill dies in Rome 20th July, 1616.
Crown Rental describes Bann as Chichester’s 1618-1619.
Deputy St. John investigates Wakeman-Irelande
Patents October, 1618.
Archbishop Jones, Lord Chancellor, dies 10th April, 1619.
Davies resigns Attorney-Generalship 30th October, 1619.
King’s Letter for re-grant to Chichester 8th August, 1620.
Inquisition at Derry finds Bann for Londoners 26th March, 1621.
Inquisition at Carrickfergus finds Bann and Lough
Neagh for Chichester 6th April, 1621.
Patent to Chichester includes Lough Neagh and the
Bann 20th November, 1621.
Chichester made Ambassador to Palatinate January, 1622.
Chichester leases Lough Neagh to Londoners 1622.
Wakeman Patents condemned by Exchequer Barons 1623.
Chichester dies in London 19th February, 1625.
James I. dies 27th March, 1625.
Chichester’s embezzlements exposed 1625-1626.
Sir John Davies dies December, 1626.
Sir A. Forbes’ fishery “discovery” 21st October, 1628.
Opinion of ex-Baron Oglethorpe condemns Wakeman
Patents 26th April, 1630.
Strafford, Lord Lieutenant 3rd July, 1633.
Londoners’ Irish estate seized by Charles I. 1635.
Inquisition at Wicklow annuls Wakeman Patents 21st April, 1636.
King’s Letter requiring surrender of Lough Neagh
from Edward Chichester 24th September, 1638.
Edward Chichester surrenders Lough Neagh and
the Bann 1st July, 1640.
Patent to Edward Chichester for estate (less fisheries)
22nd September, 1640.
Commonwealth ordinance restores Londoners’ estate 4th September, 1655.
Cromwell leases Lough Neagh to Clotworthy 13th May, 1656.
Henry Cromwell inserts Bann in Clotworthy’s lease 14th August, 1656.
Cromwell’s Charter restores Londoners’ estate 24th March, 1657.
Oliver Cromwell dies 1658.
Charles II. confirms lease to Clotworthy 15th November, 1660.
Charles II. grants reversion of Clotworthy’s lease to
Lord Donegall 28th February, 1661.
Patent to Lord Donegall of reversion of Bann and
Lough Neagh 3rd July, 1661.
Charter of Charles II. restores estate to Londoners
10th April, 1662.
Chichester Patent of 1640 “enrolled” 1665.
Clotworthy’s lease expires 14th August, 1755.
Lord Donegall’s litigation with Londoners 1781-1801.
Londoners’ ejectment claims Bann from Lord
Donegall 1868.
Londoners accept lease of Bann under Lord Donegall 1872.
Public right in Lough Neagh challenged 1873-1878.
Public right in Lough Neagh annulled 1908-1910.
THE GREAT FRAUD OF ULSTER
CHAPTER I.
THE MEN OF DEVON.
When Elizabethan England blazed with glory, martial and poetic, when
the booty of the Spaniard enriched her adventurers, and the genius
of her minstrels charmed every heart, the hills and valleys of the
“sister island” echoed with horror, and her pleasant places were
filled with the groans of wounded men. A group of Devon captains
waged there a fearful war, led by the Queen’s Deputy, Lord Mountjoy.
Reckless of their own lives, their deeds of valour scarcely noted by
their countrymen, they ended their stubborn task, after a nine years’
death-grapple, by the levelling of every hostile stronghold and the
reduction of the clansmen and their shielings into “carcases and
ashes.”
At the moment when the victors expected to reap their reward and take
possession of the domains of their enemies the course of history was
changed by the death of Queen Elizabeth. As her successor the Privy
Council selected the King of Scots, who had at times been the secret
ally of the Irish chieftains. This choice baulked many a warrior’s
hope of prey. James I. forgave O’Neill and O’Donnell (who, indeed,
had never offended him), summoned them to London to receive pardon,
and restored them to their honours and estates. They had rebelled,
as he knew, to save their possessions from covetous officials who,
by inventing charges of treason against them, deceived Elizabeth in
order to make confiscation a virtue in her eyes.
In her reign the settled plan of the Executive was: to affect to
further the interests of the Crown by promoting forfeitures, and
then to divert them to the benefit of officials. The disgrace was a
legacy bequeathed to her Majesty, her heirs and successors; the booty
they kept for themselves. To-day the Crown lands of Ireland, despite
three general confiscations, yield only £19,000 a year. In England,
where, since the Wars of the Roses, there have been no wholesale
spoliations, the Crown estates enrich the Exchequer by £488,000 a
year. The cost of prostrating the Irish was borne by the British
taxpayer. The profit from it went into private pockets.
James I. tried to reward the conquerors without beggaring the
conquered. Lord Mountjoy, who, on the 6th June, 1603, led O’Neill and
O’Donnell through London, was given grants of lands and Custom duties
in England and was made Earl of Devonshire. His main assistants
in the rebellion were two other Devon men—Sir George Carew, who
commanded in Munster, and Sir Arthur Chichester, who ravaged Ulster.
Between Mountjoy and Carew a close friendship existed. Mountjoy’s
letters in the “Pacata Hibernia” manifest the warmth of their
relations. Carew was equally confidential with his comrade-in-arms.
His cipher of 1602 apprises Mountjoy of the dispatch of a poisoner to
follow Red Hugh O’Donnell into Spain, after the defeat at Kinsale.
Another tells of the murderer’s success, as O’Donnell was about to
secure fresh aids from the Spanish King. Such secrets are entrusted
only to bosom friends.
Sir Arthur Chichester was also the intimate of Mountjoy. He had, as
a short-cut to end the rebellion, tried to compass the assassination
of Hugh O’Neill; and, when this failed, he atoned for his ill-success
by devices equally ruthless. The Deputy supported them in everything;
and, when the Scotch succession came about, he wished that James I.
should repay them royally. Cecil, the most influential Minister of
the King, was the friend of all three; and he found it natural that,
when James took back to favour Irish noblemen lately in arms, the
recompense of those who had reduced them to submission should not be
stinted. Chichester came to London from Ireland to push his claims
and, accordingly, on the 8th August, 1603, he received in fee the
Castle of Belfast, with lands adjoining of undefined extent, and was
appointed Life Governor of Carrickfergus at 13s. 4d. a day.
Carew’s worth was recognised in what seemed a less grateful fashion,
for on the 28th September, 1603, he was allowed an estate of the
value only of £100 a year. This looked an unworthy return; but it
represents in present money £1,000 a year. Neither Chichester nor
Carew was content with his requital, for each believed that, if the
reconciliation between James and the Northern chiefs had not taken
place, their swords would have reaped a richer harvest. With this
feeling Mountjoy (now Earl of Devonshire) sympathised. So it came to
pass that a system was established by which the royal demesne was
stripped, for their benefit, and his own. There was at least plenty
of monastery plunder to be divided.
The looseness of the times, the feeling aroused among angry captains
at the favour shown to surrendered rebels, the grasping example of
the Scotch adventurers who swarmed over the Border after King James,
the readiness of his consort to lend herself to their petitions—all
tended to excite men in power in an unsettled land to batten on the
public treasure. The Earl of Devonshire knew that it was illegal
for him, as Deputy, or for his officials, to take or possess estate
without royal licence. Still the chances offering were too alluring
to be thrown away. Yielding to temptation, he abused his trust and
soiled his hands.
The plan on which he and his friends worked bore the semblance of
legality. A “King’s Letter” was employed to mask every fraud. Such
a Letter was a warrant obtained by a petitioner for royal favour.
It was usually submitted in draft by the applicant to his Majesty
engrossed on parchment. Sometimes two or three skins were sewn
together, making it of great size. Its terms, if approved, defined
the royal bounty or prescribed the royal will. It was sent to the
Signet Office in London when perfected, and was there copied into
the Signet Book. Then it was dispatched to Dublin, where a fiant (or
order) of the Law Officers to make it “patent” was issued. The Patent
was supposed to put the Letter into legal form, but, by official
connivance, it often included grants that had never been authorised.
When sealed under the Great Seal of Ireland by the Lord Chancellor, a
copy was generally “enrolled” in Chancery. This merely meant that its
words were inscribed in the vellum rolls kept by the Court officials.
In Stuart days no system of comparing or checking the King’s Letters
with the Patents existed, unless the Crown lawyers chose to direct
that precaution. If they were corrupt, the Crown was robbed. In
that era, official corruption was almost universal. No register of
Patents was kept, and grantees constantly strove to extend the limits
of their Letters, so as to secure more than the King intended. With
influential backing, any fraud was possible. If the grantee did not
enrol his grant the Crown was left without even a copy, and could not
always tell which of its possessions had been given away. Looseness
was fostered by lack of system as well as by lack of honesty.
The Attorney-General and Solicitor-General were supposed to oversee
the Patents. They were often needy adventurers, imported from
some London Inn of Court on the nomination of accomplices in the
Executive. The Lord Lieutenant was their master, and they did not
pretend to independence, but obeyed their superiors without question.
Honesty injured their prospects, and they seldom affected to practise
that unusual virtue. It was a time when much ecclesiastical property
was forfeit, especially in Ulster, where the downfall of the Gael
enabled the Statutes of Henry VIII. against the monasteries to be
at last enforced. St. Mary’s Abbey, Dublin, at its dissolution by
Henry VIII. reputed to be the richest in Ireland, held valuable
possessions in every province, and several fraudulent Patents made
raids on them. Many of these were given over to the Lord Lieutenant
and his confederates on flimsy pretences. Public advantage from the
confiscations was nil.
The King’s entourage was not fettered by vows of poverty. Courtiers
who boasted no virtue themselves did not look for shining examples
from Irish officials. They knew these men had left England for
their advancement, to make what they could out of a conquered
country. The Castle in Dublin was a coarse replica of the Court in
London. The spendthrift habits of James I. bred extravagance in his
underlings. To deceive that slobbering pedant seemed a small demerit
to the Anglo-Irish harpies who regulated their profligacy by London
standards.
The clearing-house of corruption in the metropolis for the sale
of offices and favours was kept by Michael Hicks of Ruckholt, son
of a Cheapside shopkeeper, who had been Burleigh’s secretary in
Elizabeth’s reign. Hicks was Cecil’s playfellow in youth; and at his
mart much was to be learnt of the schemes and foibles of great men.
After Devonshire’s arrival in England in June, 1603, he was held
in thrall by a love affair with the wife of Lord Rich, and never
returned to Ireland. He was made Lord Lieutenant by James I., and
was able at Court to lend countenance to the malpractices of his
friends. To hide his own share in them he worked behind nominees,
the principal being henchmen named John Wakeman and John King. The
latter he sent over from England to a post in Dublin. Devonshire’s
participation in the loot began on the 8th November, 1603. He then
secured a King’s Letter for a grant of lands to the value of £100
a year in favour of John Wakeman, on the plea that it represented
the Royal gratitude for “services done unto Us and to be done and
also in regard to a valuable consideration in money paid and to be
paid by our order to an ancient and well-deserving servant of ours
in Scotland” by Wakeman. The “old servant” was a myth. So was the
money payment by Wakeman to him. So was the £100 a year limit of
recompense. From November, 1603, till the Earl’s death in April,
1606, a stream of grants, nominally to John Wakeman, but really for
the Lord Lieutenant, flowed from this source. In yearly value they
amounted to several thousands of pounds.
Wakeman was a servant of the Levant Company who in 1603 had returned
from trading with the Emperor of Morocco. That he had made any
payment among the Moors to “well-deserving” Scotchmen in Elizabeth’s
reign was unlikely, yet over a dozen Patents of enormous value were
passed in his name, on pretence of rewarding him to the extent of
£100 a year. Devonshire’s second go-between, John King, was made
Clerk of the Crown in Dublin on the 12th July, 1603, and received
much property on pretexts equally flimsy.
In order that these practices might be safely carried out, the Lord
Lieutenant arranged with Cecil to dispatch to Ireland, as soon as
John King was appointed, a law officer on whom they could rely.
This was John Davies, a hungry lawyer from the Middle Temple, who
afterwards was knighted for his part in fleecing Hugh O’Neill.
Davies was nominated in September, 1603, and was sworn-in in Dublin
during November, 1603. His unscrupulousness and cunning were beyond
the common even of those spacious days. To him must be ascribed the
feats of conveyancing, the multiplication of Patents, the shady
trusteeships, the magnification of grants, and the plunder of the
Gaelic gentry, which defile the reign of James I. His arrival worked
an immediate improvement in the fortunes of Chichester and Carew.
On the strength of a warrant for £100 a year, Carew received three
Patents. Each included lands far exceeding that sum in annual
value. Like John King and John Wakeman, Sir George served as agent
for others in the obtainment of grants. In one case, on receiving
a King’s Letter in his own favour, he two days later assigned all
rights under it to Richard Boyle, the notorious Earl of Cork. This
helped Boyle to enlarge the huge estate in Munster which he had
snatched from Sir Walter Raleigh—who had himself seized it from the
Earl of Desmond. Other officials who dredged in the same muddy tide
were Hibbots, Chancellor of the Exchequer; Cooke, Secretary of State;
St. John, afterwards Deputy; and the law officers, Davies and Jacob,
with many besides.
Before any Patent could legally be made out, the law required
conditions to be fulfilled which these worthies entirely disregarded.
Notice should first be given to the public, and an inquiry held into
the nature of the grant, and the power of the King to make it. So
strict was Statute on this point that Patents issued in default of
prior inquiry were declared to be “void and holden for none.” This
did not trouble Davies or his confederates, who set aside legal
safeguards as lightly as moral principles. King James knew naught
of their devastations, and it would have touched him nearly to
hear the fate of St. Mary’s Abbey—which his predecessors were firm
in retaining. Neither Henry VIII. nor Elizabeth would permit its
possessions to be recklessly squandered.
Founded by a Gaelic Prince, its revenues were increased after the
Conquest by successive Norman Kings. The Abbey gave hospitality
to strangers who came overseas, and was frequently used as a
lodging by the Viceroys. Deputy Leonard Gray strove to save it from
confiscation, but he was recalled by Henry VIII., who suspected him,
and had him beheaded. Henry ordered the Dublin portion of the Abbey
to be reserved for the Royal ordnance; and Elizabeth, although she
gave a site to Trinity College out of its possessions, rejected
in 1567 the prayer of the Mayor and Burgesses of Dublin that some
portion should be let to them “in consideration of their loyal and
dutiful services.” The Queen requited their loyalty by a grant of
other lands; but her hold on St. Mary’s Abbey she would not lightly
relax.
This made the trick played on King James the more scurvy. Mere
monastery pickings, however, were trifles compared with the other
colossal thefts carried out under the new regime. At no period
before or since was there anything to equal them in hardihood. The
operations of Chichester were more extensive and ingenious than those
of his co-mates, and entailed larger historic consequences.