THE ESCHEATOR FOR ULSTER.
Once Buckingham’s protection had been purchased by the Lord High
Treasurer his confidence grew apace. Alive to the danger he had
escaped, Chichester strove to prevent further risks by providing
legal cover for his acquisitions. His attempt to shelter them behind
an Act of Parliament in 1615 had failed, but they would still, he
hoped, be safe if he could obtain a Patent for everything he held,
lawful or lawless, in his own name. The grants which Sir James
Balfour assailed rested on unenrolled assignments from Hamilton and
Bassett. Their origin could easily be traced by legal or official
prying; and Balfour’s foray, though thwarted, filled him with
concern. Since he had been appointed Deputy in 1605, Chichester had
not dared to take out any Patent in his own name unless with royal
authority, however freely he practised in the names of others. He
felt, nevertheless, that the stalking-horse system was out-worn; and
resolved to apply for an omnibus grant, directed to himself, which
should include the whole of his possessions—and as much of other
people’s as could be arranged for.
In 1619, assured of Buckingham’s help, he besought a King’s Letter
sanctioning a fresh Patent in his own name. In 1620 his Majesty’s
consent was signified; but it was limited to “a confirmation of all
his former grants by a re-grant.” The King, as a further precaution,
ordered a Commission “to ascertain the other persons in possession of
the territory, and to establish their rights.” His Majesty evidently
suspected his former Deputy’s pranks; but the royal attempt to
prevent their repetition was in vain. Chichester overleaped every
barrier; and, now armed with the King’s Letter, accomplished a feat
more daring than any he had previously ventured on.
The provision that the Commission was “to establish the rights of
others” he overcame by having his own backers named as Commissioners.
With a view to beguiling the Londoners as to the Bann, these
partisans ordered an inquisition respecting its ownership without
giving the city notice of their sittings.
They were given no authority to inquire into the Londoners’ property,
yet they met in Chichester’s pocket-borough of Carrickfergus, and
empanelled a jury of his friends and underlings to decide on the
title to the river. The legal extravaganza there enacted seems so
grotesque that, were it not vouched for by stiff parchment, it would
be scouted as impossible.
The principal Commissioner was Stephen Allen, Escheator for Ulster,
who owed his post to Chichester. At Derry, a fortnight before, Allen
held an inquisition for the Barons of the Exchequer, to ascertain by
a local jury the number of “royal” fisheries in Ulster, and the rents
payable thereout to the Crown. Allen truthfully recorded the Derry
jury’s finding as to the Bann, which was that the Londoners owned
the entire river from the sea to Lough Neagh, rent free. In this
verdict its fishing-places, tidal and non-tidal, were enumerated in
the most formal way. Yet, scarcely was the ink dry upon it when, at
Carrickfergus, the same Allen got a jury to make a wholly contrary
finding, and to bring in a verdict that the Bann, from Lough Neagh
to Coleraine, was Chichester’s. He bolstered up this enormity by
another. Allen’s duty was to lodge forthwith the Derry “return” in
the Exchequer in Dublin. Instead of doing so, he kept it back for
nine years. On the other hand, he lodged the Carrickfergus “return”
instanter, knowing that it was to be made the basis of a Patent
granting the Bann to his old patron. Highly-placed Commissioners,
including a Bishop, abetted this misconduct.
In framing the verdict, care was taken that the assertion of
Chichester’s title should be made indirectly, only. The jury were
got to do just enough to enable the Dublin confederates, when the
“return” reached them, to shape the grant in the form he required.
Nor was what Allen put on record untrue. All that was set forth was
that Hamilton and Bassett obtained Patents for the Bann and Lough
Neagh, and that these were assigned to Chichester—no more. There was
no falsehood here—omission alone conveyed untruth. The Commissioners
“forgot” the Charter to the Londoners; they “overlooked” Allen’s
proceedings at Derry a fortnight before; they failed to remember
the “surrender” of 1611 before the Archbishop of Dublin; or the
“compensation” paid to Sir Arthur. As skilled practitioners they
operated on the sheltry side of the law, and left the draftsmen of
the Patent to do the rest.
If the trick had been discovered before the Patent was ready, Allen
would have explained that no wrong to the Londoners was intended;
and would rely on the fact that he had previously registered at
Derry their title as the real owners. Any repugnancy between the two
verdicts, he would protest, was for lawyers to settle, and not for
a poor escheator like himself. Others of the Commissioners might
have found it less easy to invent a plausible excuse if exposure had
befallen them; but in those days honesty had no sentinel, and the
ruse was entirely successful.
“Our trusty and well-beloved, the right reverend father in God,
Theophilus, Lord Bishop of Dromore,” and Sir Francis Annesley,
“knight and baronet, one of our principal Secretaries in our Kingdom
of Ireland,” were of the party. They endorsed at Carrickfergus the
verdict which gainsaid the Londoners’ Charter, and handed over the
Bann to the official who not only did not own it, but had been
rewarded for giving up a fraudulent claim to it. Both magnates were
acquainted with State policy. They knew the wishes of the King, and
of the gift of the river to the City. Yet they soiled their hands
as readily as if they had served an apprenticeship to the office of
Deputy. Nothing was then too dirty for a dignitary.
As for the Londoners, being denied notice, they were left in the dark
and made no sign. Their title having been affirmed by Allen at Derry
on the 26th March, 1621, they could hardly have foreseen that on the
6th April, 1621, he would strive to undermine it at Carrickfergus.
Still less were they likely to imagine that the nobleman, in whose
Deputyship the Bann was made theirs, could be engaged in a plot with
a prelate and a Secretary of State to filch it for himself. So they
lost the non-tidal river. When the Carrickfergus “return” reached
Dublin Chichester’s joy was made full. A Patent was sealed for him on
the 20th November, 1621, in which the Bann, from the Salmon Leap at
Coleraine to Lough Neagh, with its bed and soil, were declared his
property, in the King’s name. Lough Neagh, too, was included, and the
grant conferred a power to spread nets on the banks both of river and
lake.
Everyone responsible for this knew that justice was outraged, but
that mattered not. Lord Chichester could now boast that the fisheries
were set in his grasp as firmly as parchment and the Great Seal
could assure them. This achievement placed him on the pinnacle of
conveyancing greatness. He had successfully brigaded a Bishop and
a Secretary of State with an escheator, to flout the King, and got
his Deputy to grant a Patent by which the Londoners were robbed. No
treachery to Irish chiefs, or slaughter of kern or cleric, could
compare with such a triumph.
In one respect he slightly changed his tactics. Instead of working
on a single Patent, he got two made out for him—one containing the
estates lawfully his, and the other those he had crookedly come by.
This plan of a double issue had not been sanctioned by the King, and
in other respects he also disregarded the Royal Letter.
Not long, however, was he left in peace. Probably the Corporation got
wind of the cheat, for within two months James I. took significant
action. The Lord High Treasurer was suddenly ordered abroad on
a mission to the Palatinate in January, 1622. His co-mate and
brother-in-exile, Sir Oliver St. John, who had just been raised to
the peerage as Lord Grandison, was at the same time removed from
the Deputyship. It was an unexpected downfall; and evidently some
detractor had again slandered them to his Majesty. Both had to quit
Ireland forthwith; but their removal was dignified with solemn
rites, as befitted their estate. No occasion for malicious glee was
afforded to the watchful natives. Wholesome monitions were privily
administered, and a new discipline as to Patents was laid down, but
public scandal was avoided.
In the following May, when they were well away, the King issued
a biting direction to “make stay” of future grants, surrenders,
and confirmations “till some safe course might be taken for the
preserving of his rents and tenures.” Chichester, too, was forced
before his departure to make a lease of Lough Neagh to the Londoners
in perpetuity at a rent of £100 a year. As the Lough feeds the Bann,
this undid much of his victory, and amounted to an admission that the
river belonged to the Corporation.
It was through Buckingham’s favour that the Lord High Treasurer was
sent abroad, and, as his cash defalcations had probably became as
notorious at Court as his Patent conjurings, the King, doubtless,
sanctioned his German mission to rid Ireland of his presence. An
outcry which, had he remained at home, might have led to his being
brought to justice, was thereby stifled. He was told to his face
in the King’s presence by one of the Privy Council that he had so
profited by the Plantation that his conduct was “against the honour
of the King and the justice of the Kingdom.”
Chichester never returned to the country which for twenty years he
had afflicted. In January, 1625, he died in London, three weeks
before the death of James I. Within three months steps were taken by
Charles I. to compel his heir to make good the £10,000 embezzled from
the Crown out of the rents of the forfeited estates.
Fact-free Mr. Froude frames the wretch’s portrait as “the great
Viceroy of Ireland—of all Englishmen who settled in the country the
most useful to it.” Mr. Bagwell certifies in “Ireland Under the
Stuarts” that “his integrity is unquestionable”!