CHIEFTAIN AND VASSAL.
O’Neill, seeing his brother-in-law fall under evil influences, tried
to enforce payment of his rent by “distress.” In 1606 he resumed
possession from O’Cahan of the fishery of the Bann, and took a prey
of his cattle. This dispute was greedily welcomed by the enemies of
the chiefs. O’Cahan lodged a protest with “the State” against the
seizures; and O’Neill, although the King gave him sovereign control
in his territory, was cited to appear before the Privy Council in
Dublin to answer Sir Donal’s complaint. A splendid opening for the
spread of the Gospel loomed in sight of the “reformers.”
When the case came on the Deputy majestically presided over the
Council as supreme judge. The suit concerned a river for which,
a year earlier, he issued a Patent to Hamilton, and then had it
conveyed to himself. Montgomery attended the trial to give it a
spiritual solemnity and support O’Cahan. Without at first entering
deeply into the merits, Chichester—to gain time to prejudice the
King—ordered O’Cahan to send in a formal petition and O’Neill to
lodge a written reply. He then appointed the Attorney-General
(Davies) and the Solicitor-General (Jacob) to act as counsel for
O’Cahan, and adjourned the trial for a month. O’Neill, bereft of
legal assistance, was left to his own devices. Before the next
hearing Davies sent a report on the case to Cecil. He threw out that
O’Neill’s Patent was bad, but spared mention of the fact that a
petition for its amendment had been rejected on his advice—although
in other cases “defective title” was cured for the asking. Nor did
the Attorney-General relate that the Bann had been seized by the
Deputy, or that he sat, and would again sit, to try the title to its
waters without informing the litigants that he held spurious Patents
for it in his pocket.
In June, 1607, the Court re-assembled in Dublin Castle, and Davies
at once raised objections to O’Neill’s grant. He argued that,
notwithstanding the treaty of Mellifont, “Tyrone” did not include
“O’Cahan’s Country”: and, therefore, that the Earl’s seizures from
his vassal were unlawful. As no map was attached to the Patent
(which embraced several counties) it was easy to wrangle over
boundaries. The Deputy and his confederates patiently listened to the
Attorney-General. They thought his contention ingenious; although
it was marred by the blot that its logic required a decision in
O’Cahan’s favour. This would no more have suited than a victory for
O’Neill. Sir Donal had served his turn. Davies, therefore, also
argued that the Earl’s Patent was altogether bad. True, he was the
lawful heir to Tyrone under a prior Patent to his grandfather, Con,
from Henry VIII.; but that did not count, for had he not risen in
rebellion against Elizabeth? His subsequent pardon by King James
without attainder was not to be made too much of; and Davies rattled
on by the hour berating the fallen chief. Chichester gloated over
his victim’s plight; chid him betimes when he exploded against his
adversary; and in the end gave judgment against both of them. This
feat was unexpected by Sir Donal, but the decree was ingenious. It
ran:—“Upon examination of the whole matter, it seemed to them that
the right to that country still remaineth in his Majesty.” In other
words, the Treaty of Mellifont was broken, and O’Neill’s Patent
was declared void. Punic faith was honour bright with Sir Arthur
Chichester.
A trap was then laid for the Earl by a proviso that, until his
Majesty’s pleasure should be signified, O’Cahan was to have
two-thirds of the lands, and the Earl one-third, but that meanwhile
O’Neill was to repair to London before the following November,
to await the Sovereign’s pleasure. As to the Bann, the decree was
marvellously mute. Davies wrote to prepare Cecil for his victim’s
visit, and make up the King’s conscience. His falsehoods, dated 1st
July, 1607, were plenary:—“Plainly neither of them hath any title.
It is now, and ever hath been, vested in the actual possession of
the Crown since the 11th Elizabeth. Howbeit, the land lying in those
remote parts, the ignorance and negligence of officers was such that
it was never brought into charge.” All this, four years after the
Patent of 1603, and the pardon from James I. which alone would have
revived his rights (as grandson of Con O’Neill) under the Patent of
Henry VIII.
After such a trial O’Neill felt that the command to proceed to
London covered a plot to get rid of him altogether. London held a
grim keep called the Tower, familiar to the owners of Irish estates,
whither scores of chieftains had been lured aforetime. His experience
disinclined him to make the pilgrimage. He knew that the Deputy had
clouded the King’s mind with suspicions as to his loyalty, and he
brooded over some earlier essays to compass his assassination. The
dungeon or the scaffold was, he feared, to end the trip to Court.
An estate so unwholesomely extensive as his forbade much hope of
justice. The partition of Sir Con O’Neill’s patrimony in Claneboy was
not two years old, and the alliance between Hamilton, who contrived
it, and the Deputy, who abetted it, remained in full force. The Earl,
therefore, came to the conclusion that he was a doomed man, whether
he went to London or whether he remained at home. He took counsel at
Mellifont with Sir Garret Moore (who had persuaded him to sign the
treaty of 1603), and resolved to go into exile. Then he bade farewell
to Moore, and having also taken leave of the Deputy at Slane,
O’Neill, in September, 1607, sailed for France from Rathmullen, with
Maguire, Lord of Fermanagh, O’Donnell, Earl of Tirconnell, and their
kinsfolk. Such was the terror of Chichester that they were denied
water for their ship in one creek in Donegal.
Bards and Brehons have lamented that these Gaelic lords did not hold
their ground. Their critics have not explained whether the Earl of
Tyrone should have gone to London and risked being mewed up in the
Tower, or have disobeyed the order and resisted arrest without an
army to back him. The victim himself, living and acting in days when
he could measure and appreciate the consequences of obedience or
revolt, decided on flight. It may not have been a heroic course, but
it was a decision taken by a seasoned captain, who had faced death
on a score of battlefields, and whose deeds of daring still rang
throughout Europe.