UPROOTING THE NOBLES.
Chichester had a second plan in reserve to undo O’Neill in case his
London plot should miscarry. One of his creatures called Weston, whom
he employed as a collector or farmer of “fines and amerciaments,”
claimed to hold a mortgage on the Earl’s fisheries in the Bann and
on those of O’Donnell in Lough Foyle. The Attorney-General certified
that O’Donnell had “suffered a recovery” in a suit against him by
Weston in 1605. O’Cahan was also registered as being in Weston’s
toils. The Deputy’s reckoning was that, if the design to send O’Neill
to the Tower failed, he could decree a foreclosure of his estate,
or at least of the fisheries. The news of the Flight of the Earls
reached him as unlooked-for good tidings. At one blow the great
Ulster chiefs were got rid of, and with them away the lesser thanes
could easily be dispatched or despoiled.
O’Cahan was the first of the remnant to taste the fruit of the
downfall of Gaelic power which he so largely brought about. Instead
of reaping the fulfilment of the hope that his bargain of 1602 would
be carried out, Sir Donal was seized by Captain Phillips and, without
cause assigned or pretence of trial, was lodged in Dublin Castle, and
thence transported to the Tower. There he was kept a close prisoner
till his death twenty years later. His treachery to O’Neill met its
reward in the only sterling current at Chichester’s mint.
Other native aids of the Deputy were similarly guerdoned. Queen
Elizabeth had no sturdier ally in Ulster than Niall Garve O’Donnell.
In the belief that he would be rewarded with the chieftaincy of
Tirconnell he gave her precious and constant help. When peace came
Niall expected a Patent, but the royal pardon to the Earls forbade
such a hope. Some years later he applied for a grant of the fishery
of Lough Foyle as part of his inheritance. To make him this award
would have been but a stunted acknowledgment of his loyalty, but
Chichester had now seized that prize for himself. Hamilton was
advanced from Tyrone to Donegal and put in possession when the Earls
fled. So the Deputy, on the 22nd May, 1608, suavely replied to Niall
Garve:—
“You shall have all the fishing which is the King’s on the Tirconnell
side, and you may make use of it for this season; but what belongs
to private men, as Mr. Hamilton and others, we cannot take from them
without agreeing with them, which you may do if you desire it for
your profit.”
This, of course, was mere byplay, and in a few months Niall Garve
discovered that, as the Tower was so convenient for the caging of
O’Cahan, he, too, was to be similarly housed. Blameless of aught
against the State save the wish to have a living in his own glens,
the Queen’s O’Donnell was arrested and deported to London. With
him went his son, Naghten, and his two brothers. Everything was
done quietly, without trial, charge, indictment, or legal parade.
There was no scandal—not even a court martial. Niall Garve and his
son, like O’Cahan, spent the rest of their lives in the Tower. His
brothers, when the Plantation was complete, were set free, only to
find on reaching their native shore that their lands were partitioned
among strangers.
In the Tower with O’Cahan and O’Donnell was lodged Sir Cormac O’Neill
of Augher Castle, Tyrone, a brother of the fugitive. His crime was
that he was the first to inform the Deputy of the Earl’s departure
and ask for a “custodium” of his estate while he was away. Sir Cormac
was married to Red Hugh O’Donnell’s sister, and as the kinsman of
suspects he, too, was deported to London and perished in the Tower.
Before the Earl’s flight Chichester had hanged the most brilliant of
the young O’Neills, Brian Art, for killing in self-defence a brawler
who assaulted him. The humbled Tyrone vainly offered ransom for his
kinsman (a brother of Owen Roe), whom he loved, but the Deputy’s
justice was the greatest of all his works. So the youth was slain
according to law.
This left few notables in the North. Young Sir Cahir O’Doherty,
with his taking carriage, was an eyesore for a short time, but he
was hunted down and killed without undue commotion. O’Doherty had
been brought up by the English, to whom his father presented the
site of Derry City. His Patent from King James in 1603 confirmed
an arrangement made by Sir John O’Doherty with Queen Elizabeth,
whereby in time of war his castle of Culmore, with 300 acres and the
fishery of Lough Foyle, should be reserved to the Crown. Chichester
took advantage of Sir Cahir’s youth to appoint in time of peace
a crony, Captain Hart, Governor of Culmore. In further breach of
treaty he gave Hart a “custodium” (or lease) of the castle in 1606,
with its 300 acres and the fishery, at 10s. a year for 21 years.
This faithless act he turned to his own advantage two years later.
In October, 1607, O’Doherty was made foreman of the Grand Jury at
Lifford to find the true bill which declared Hugh O’Neill an “outlaw”
for the crime of quitting Ireland. Sir Cahir was thanked by King
James for this service; but in May, 1608, on visiting Sir George
Paulett, the Governor of Derry, about his private affairs, occasion
was taken to insult him. The high-mettled stripling resented the
affront, whereupon Paulett struck him before the soldiery. Stung to
madness, Sir Cahir sought his kinsmen and flew to arms. He attacked
Culmore, took Hart prisoner, burnt Derry, and slew Paulett. In July,
1608, he was himself killed by the forces which the Deputy held in
readiness.
Chichester’s breach of trust as to Culmore then bore fruit. Hart was
sent to London to excuse himself for yielding up the castle, and was
removed from the Governorship. To console him he received an adequate
scope of ground elsewhere, but the transfer of his “custodium” to the
Deputy underlay the exchange. Chichester took possession of Culmore,
with its lands and fishery—as, by a like transfer of a “custodium”
held by Sir Ralph Lane in 1603 he acquired a Patent for the castle
and lands of Belfast. He dispatched Davies to London to crave a grant
of O’Doherty’s territory, although Innishowen or Culmore was not the
King’s, but the clan’s. James I. “granted” him Innishowen, with its
fourteen castles; but in his Patent reserved Culmore to the Crown
with the 300 acres and the fishery.
This the Deputy resented, and he removed the blot in his own staunch
way. The assignment of Culmore from Hart lay in his coffers, and he
applied it to defraud his Majesty of everything the King reserved. In
spite of the restraints of the Patent, he brazenly held himself out
as the owner of whatever appertained to the O’Dohertys. Their coveted
fishery he at once got into his clutches, and it was only rescued
later on by the payment of heavy compensation from the Crown. Davies,
who had just been knighted for his share in browbeating and banishing
Hugh O’Neill, abetted his patrons’ misdeeds.
In circumventing limitations in his own Patents and discovering flaws
in those of others there was no such artist as Chichester.