MORE “DISCOVERERS.”
Lord Falkland was appointed Deputy on the 1st April, 1622. This
change James I. emphasised a month later by the protest just
mentioned against the abuse of his Royal Letters under former
Deputies.
Shortly after Falkland’s coming (Chichester being in Germany) the
grants to Hamilton were impugned in the Irish Courts. Since the
breakdown of Sir James Balfour’s Inquiry in 1618, “discoverers”
had been dumb; but, in 1623, the Exchequer Barons took action, and
several “Wakeman” Patents were held to be invalid. The judgments
which condemned them are not extant; but Falkland was made aware
of their effect, and was urged to pursue still more sweeping
investigations. Counter-pressure, placed upon him by those to whom
exposure meant ruin, prevailed. He halted, and nothing further was
done.
At first the new Deputy (heedful of the warning of the King) tried to
enrich himself by ways which differed from those of his predecessors.
His most original proposal was to make Ireland a base for Algerine
corsairs, so as to draw wealth from their inroads on international
commerce. Large sums were offered by him to the Duke of Buckingham,
the Prince of Wales, and the Secretary of State for permission to
attract these raiders to prey on shipping from Irish harbours.
The design bespoke the man, and when it was rejected he gave
“protections” to Dutch pirates and other Freebooters who haunted the
coasts, trafficked with them, and dealt in their cargoes. Unsatisfied
by his gains from such sources, Falkland sought riches in other
fields. He applied for leave to confiscate the property of the loyal
Corporation of Waterford in order to seize it for himself, and when
courses like these proved unprosperous he fell back into the beaten
paths of previous Deputies.
Naturally he set his face against any attempt to unravel the threads
of the Patent scandals, but Chichester’s memory grew more and more
unfragrant, and in 1627 a Munster notable, Sir William Power,
lodged informations that the Wakeman Grants were “fraudulently
passed without the intention of King James.” Sir William at the
same time denounced the Patents lavished on Boyle, the new-made
Earl of Cork. Power was connected by marriage with Boyle, but was
at enmity with him over boundaries. On his complaint the English
advisers of the Crown proceeded to ransack Boyle’s title to the
42,000 acres of the Desmond Estate, which he captured from Sir Walter
Raleigh. The Attorney and Solicitor Generals for England, with three
Serjeants-at-Law, pronounced it void, yet no step was taken against
the “Wakeman” grants. A mysterious hand seemed outstretched to
protect them.
On the 28th August, 1627, Charles I. declared the Crown was
rightfully entitled to the Desmond lands annexed by Boyle under
Chichester, and in 1628 Sir William Power journeyed to London to feed
his grudge and fill his pocket. He saw Mr. Hadsor, the King’s Lawyer
in Irish affairs, who certified that Lord Cork’s Patent of 1614 was
unsigned, and that he “believed it may be false.” The reflection
on Chichester’s Deputyship which this carried was far-reaching.
Hadsor valued the Royal interest in the lands at £50,000 (now half
a million). He complained that the Attorney-General gave away his
legal secrets to Lord Cork, and on the 23rd August, 1628, the murder
of the venal Duke of Buckingham by Felton at Portsmouth removed one
mainstay to dishonesty. So on the 3rd September, 1628, King’s Letters
condemning the grant were sent to Lord Falkland by Hadsor. As to
the rest of Power’s “discovery” Hadsor (as before) said nothing.
Possibly after the Attorney-General’s treachery he thought his hands
too full to attack the Wakeman Patents. He was well-advised, for
hardly had he taken action when the inevitable fairy godfather to
rascaldom lit upon the scene. Lord Cork invoked the help of other
corrupt courtiers, and a “coat of darkness” was thrown over the
traffickings of landsharks both in Munster and Ulster. This saved the
Desmond Estate for Boyle, and by the same agencies the onslaught on
the Wakeman Patents was broken down. The knaves were all interlinked.
Later in the same year (1628) Colonel Forbes, a Scotch laird
(ancestor of Lord Granard), who had come to Ireland in 1620, with
his clan, to quell disturbances, appeared as a “discoverer.” Forbes
had been rewarded for past services with a baronetcy and grants of
land in Leitrim and Longford. Undiscouraged by former failures, he
brought the Wakeman Patents anew under the eye of Charles I.—probably
reckoning that Buckingham’s death had banished the chief obstacle to
justice.
Forbes’s petition was referred to the Commissioners for Irish Causes
in London, and they reported favourably on it to the King. Falkland
was ordered by his Majesty to recover the property for the Crown and
to confer on Forbes one-third of the Ulster Fisheries with a gift of
£300.
By this time, however, the Deputy was plunged in the throes of a
scandal springing from his own misdeeds. He had promoted the attempt
to seize the estate of the last Gaelic Chief, O’Byrne of Wicklow,
and dared not suffer his assistants to be impeached for former
wrongdoing. To allow Forbes to take the lid off the cauldron in
which the hell-broth of the previous reign lay simmering was not
Falkland’s notion of statecraft. The new “discovery” was no more to
him than that of Sir William Power or Sir James Balfour, and less
than that of the Exchequer Barons. Possibly he quieted Forbes with
the gift of £300, for the “discoverer” went abroad soon afterwards
and never returned, being killed in a duel in Hamburg in 1632. Still
his shipping-off did not benefit Falkland, whose agony was about
to begin. The eyes of England, as well as Ireland, were fastened
on his treatment of the O’Byrnes, and both kingdoms resounded with
rumour against him. Throughout two reigns and three Deputyships the
persecution of the O’Byrnes lasted. It comprised the whole art and
mystery of Patent-shuffling and confiscation. To understand the
story is to understand the methods and policy of Chichester and his
successors. It is the Southern counterpart of the Ulster tragedy.
The reasons which impelled the Northern Lords—O’Neill, O’Donnell,
and Maguire—to go into exile can best be realised by studying the
doom of the Wicklow chief who held his ground. Carte (an English
Protestant historian), writing in 1736, summarises the case as “very
extraordinary, and contains in it such a scene of iniquity and
cruelty that, considered in all its circumstances, it is scarce to be
paralleled in any age or country.” Since then, Carte’s disclosures
have been supplemented by State papers and other records which
furnish dates and details that he lacked. They confirm the judgment
on his work passed by Dr. Johnson, who styled it “that book of
authority.” Carte’s narrative largely follows the “Remonstrance”
lodged on behalf of the O’Byrnes, which fails to disentangle the
parts played by Chichester, by St. John, and by Falkland, but mingles
all together. In the following condensed account the action taken by
each Deputy is separately shown, while needful particulars are added
from the State Papers and Patent Rolls.