THE PLANTERS’ PARLIAMENT.
With the coming of the Planters, Chichester, being by law disabled
from holding land without the King’s sanction, grew anxious as to
the title of his ill-gotten estates. Many of his Deeds were open to
attack, and safety could only be found in confirmation by Act of
Parliament. James I. had contemplated, on his accession, the calling
together of the Irish Legislature. His order of the 11th September,
1603, as to the pardoned chiefs, mentions “an Act to be passed in
the next assembling of Parliament there for the restoration in
blood of the Earl of Tyrone, his brother, and their heirs.” On the
16th October, 1604, when appointing Chichester Deputy, he informed
him that he “intended to call a Parliament” in Ireland. Sir Arthur
disliked the idea and blocked it, as he wished to compass the ruin
of the native princes. Besides, a Parliament would have created a
counter-authority to dwarf his power.
After the Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster the
situation changed. Sway had forsaken the Gael, and a Parliament
which native chiefs might control was no longer to be feared. As
for the mass of the people, if the manufacture of a majority were
attended to with foresight the Deputy knew they could easily be
mastered. Conquered Ireland was now shired and sheriffed, with 17 new
counties added. In the previous Parliament of Elizabeth only fifteen
counties were represented. The drawback that the greater part of the
inhabitants of the island were Catholics was one which called for
circumspection lest a majority of their representatives should belong
to that “damnable superstition.” It had become a cardinal part of
State policy that the handful of imported Protestants should control
everything, and arrangements were made accordingly.
In 1612 the King agreed that a Parliament should be summoned for the
following year, and the Deputy was to see to it that the Planters
should be enabled to outvote the natives. When Henry VIII. shired
Wales, and admitted its representatives to a voice at Westminster, a
different spirit prevailed. No trickery was practised on the Cymri;
but in Ireland King James issued charters to 40 hamlets whereby sham
“Corporations” exclusively Protestant, returning two members each,
were set up at various cross-roads. In the quaint language of the
day:—“They were erected in places that constantly pass the rank of
the poor villages in the poorest country in Christendom.” Bunches of
“freemen,” numbering a dozen or a score, were named in each charter
to elect a brace of representatives, and thus at a stroke 80 reliable
Protestants were secured. The sheriffs did the rest. In 1613 by this
strategy a Protestant majority of 28 was created in the House of
Commons of a country where the Catholics were twenty to one. To mark
the King’s approval of Chichester’s courses he was made a peer and
highly commended.
The Anglo-Irish gentry of the ancient faith protested against his
electoral arrangements, but were laughed at. They carried their
plaints to the King in London, and were imprisoned or abused as
“recusants.” Such of them as were not lodged in the Tower or the
Fleet were only allowed to return home to witness the Deputy’s
triumph. “Hurly-burlies and other unnecessary stirs were moved in
sundry places,” but all to no purpose. The packed Parliament met,
and the Commons made Sir John Davies Speaker, after a feverish
protest from the Anglo-Irish. When it proceeded to business its
first enactment was that O’Neill and the Northern chiefs, dead or
alive, stood attainted of high treason; that their estates were
forfeited, and their Letters Patent void. The cleavage between the
Anglo-Catholics and the disfranchised natives was such that the
Bill of Attainder passed unanimously, and was proposed by Sir John
Everard, the “recusant” candidate for Speaker, who had renounced a
judgeship rather than take the oath of apostacy. Six Ulster counties
were then made the Royal demesne.
Now came the moment for Chichester’s privy turn. He had a year before
procured the assent of the English Privy Council to the “heads” of
several measures which he desired to pass, including one “to confirm
the Patents of Ulster Undertakers.” Some shift of wind afterwards set
in at Whitehall against him, and his Majesty, scenting his purpose,
thwarted it. No sufficient ground for this sudden disfavour anywhere
appears. The records of State are often a blank at the most critical
moments.
Perhaps the King was smarting at the havoc wrought by his lordship’s
grants; perhaps he bemoaned the £2,500 “compensation” paid from his
purse to free the Bann and Lough Foyle; perhaps he grudged the Deputy
the £10,000 he extracted from Parliament “for extraordinary equipage
and porte.” Perhaps he learnt of the £10,000 of the embezzled
Ulster rents. At any rate, James I. was vexed with his new peer,
and determined he would not allow him to “cook” statutes as he had
cooked Patents. Cecil was dead, and the influence which the hunchback
wielded was lacking. In the royal councils Cecil’s enemies openly
complained of the way in which he had tolerated the devastation
of Crown lands. Sir Richard Cooke, the Irish Chancellor of the
Exchequer, urged Chichester’s removal, and wrote bitterly of the
disorders he witnessed, although formerly he had supported the Deputy.
The first sign of royal estrangement appears in a Letter of the
25th March, 1615, which complains of slackness in forwarding the
Plantation. To it the King added a postscript in his own hand,
requiring “zeal and uprightness” from the Deputy. Accompanying this
querulous dispatch came a request for a subsidy, and his Majesty
promised that, if it were voted, the sittings of Parliament would
be prolonged. Chichester meekly bore the rebuke in order to get the
Bills he wanted passed, and asked Parliament to grant the money.
Both Houses obsequiously agreed, but no sooner had the subsidy
been sanctioned than James, in spite of his promise, dissolved the
assembly before the Bills could even be brought in.
This blow fell on the 22nd August, 1615; and deadlier thunderbolts
were to descend. The King’s excuse for breaking faith was the
expense to the public of “Members’ wages.” It was a hollow plea, for
the total cost only came to £223. Chichester dispatched a protest
against the Dissolution, and sent Davies to London to represent how
important, in the interests of a distracted people, were the measures
he needed. He hurried to Ulster himself, and from there sent a
cunning letter to the King describing the hardships of the Planters
and his zeal in their regard.
James was not moved, and even displayed a temper which the “subsidy”
had not sweetened. The crestfallen Attorney-General brought back
word from Court that “heavy imputations” had been laid against the
authors of the mis-government and maladministration of the country.
The alarmed Deputy tremblingly penned an elaborate defence, but a
week later (22nd November, 1615) a royal missive dismissing him
was signed. The packed Parliament had been dispersed without doing
anything to validate his grants.
The want of “zeal and uprightness” in forwarding the Plantation,
of which James I. accused the Government, is probably the smallest
fault that can be laid at the ex-Deputy’s door. The character of the
Planters affords some clue to this lack of enthusiasm. Chichester
had no wish to stimulate the import of undesirables, whereas the
King knew nothing of their calibre. The best justification of the
slackness alleged in encouraging such migrants is to be found in the
description of them by their own clergymen. Who and what they were
is told by the Rev. Mr. Stewart:—
“From Scotland came many, and from England not a few, yet all of them
generally the scum of both nations; who, from debt or breaking and
fleeing from justice, or seeking shelter, came hither, hoping to be
without fear of man’s justice, in a land where there was nothing,
or but little as yet, of the fear of God. And in a few years there
flocked such a multitude of people from Scotland that these northern
counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry, etc., were in a good measure
planted, which had been waste before. Yet most of the people were
all void of godliness, who seemed rather to flee from God to this
enterprise than to follow their own mercy.... Thus on all hands
atheism increased, and disregard of God; iniquity abounded, with
contention, fighting, murder, adultery, etc., as among people who,
as they had nothing within them to overawe them, so their ministers’
example was worse than nothing.... For their carriage made them to
be abhorred at home in their native land, insomuch that going for
Ireland was looked on as a miserable mark of a deplorable person.
Yea, it was turned into a proverb; and one of the worst expressions
of disdain that could be invented was to tell a man that Ireland
would be his hinder end.”
Professor Reid, the historian of the Irish Presbyterian Church,
paints the same picture:—“Ulster was now occupied by settlers, who
were willing enough to receive and respect ministers when sent, but
who were far from being generally characterised by a desire for
enjoying religious ordinances. On the contrary, a great number of
those who accompanied the original proprietors, and who occupied
their lands, were openly profane and immoral in their conduct, and
were generally inattentive to the sacred institutions of the Gospel.”
A third minister, the Reverend Mr. Blair, writes:—“The most part
were such as either poverty, scandalous lives, or, at the best,
adventurous seeking of better accommodation, had forced thither,
so that the security and thriving of religion was little seen to
by those adventurers; and the preachers were generally of the same
complexion with the people.”
The Londoners sent a respectable contingent to County Derry; and
Chichester’s antipathy to them can only be connected with his
designs on the fisheries and his hope to break down the Plantation.
Constant complaint of his henchman, Captain Phillips, was made by
the Corporation, who, doubtless, represented their grievances to
the King. They left on record a protest against the antagonism of
Phillips, who was but a stirring-stick of mischief for the Deputy.
Commentators on the sudden “disburthenment” of that powerful satrap
have groped in the dark for an explanation. There can now be little
doubt that it was provoked by the remonstrances of the Corporation.
His lordship’s hostility to them sprang from the wish to upset their
enterprise in order to fasten a hold on Lough Neagh and the Bann.