“The truth is, they that gape after poor Irishmen’s lands do what they can to have a colour to beg them”—(State Papers, Ireland, 1610, p. 415).

These words were written in an appeal for justice, or even the formality of a trial, by one who was betrayed by the English whom he had served. Sir Donnell O’Cahan had left his own people to seek an English alliance, and was rewarded by an imprisonment of nineteen years, without ever being brought up for trial. He was goaded into a just indignation by rumours that reached him in the early days of his imprisonment in Dublin, of Lady O’Cahan’s destitution and insanity, but after a couple of years he was moved to the Tower of London, where he, and other noblemen who were confined because men hungered after their lands, languished away till death gave them release. It will not surprise most of our readers to know that his letters were intercepted and carefully studied with a view to finding something treasonable in them. Truly Ireland’s share in the privileges of Magna Carta has been a small one.

The opening of James I’s reign in Ireland was auspicious enough. The battle of Kinsale was an effort of an United Ireland, aided by Spanish troops, to meet and expel the English in the battle-field: it failed, and with it came to an end the hopes of the great Irish lords to do anything by open warfare. James found Ireland decimated by war and famine: some parts like the Ards in the County Down had been literally cleared of their inhabitants.^[1] The chiefs were willing enough to submit, if submission meant that they were to become great Palatine lords, with no interference from the Crown in their relations with their vassals, or in the exercise of their religion. The once turbulent Anglo-Irish lords had nearly all conformed to the Protestant religion, and become loyal. The people, with the gaunt figures of famine and desolation that they remembered so well, would have been glad to have peace, if not “at any price,” at any rate at any price that might allow them to remain in their own land and worship as their fathers had done. By his descent James had claims upon the loyalty of the Irish that could not have been urged for the Tudor line. And it looked at first as if a new era of prosperity was dawning upon Ireland.

James began by a policy of conciliation and toleration. He actually appointed a man as a bishop in 1603, because of his knowledge of the Irish language (this was Robert Draper, Rector of Trim, who was made Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh).^[2] He accepted Tyrone’s homage, and created Rory O’Donnell Earl of Tyrconnell. The public worship of the national religion, if not legalized, was at least tolerated: and the people hoped that his mother’s son would continue to pursue a friendly policy. But a few short years showed how vain this idea was. Perhaps the king was really in terror from the Guy Fawkes conspiracy; perhaps he did really believe that Spain was still intriguing against England’s power; perhaps he was in hopes that somehow the acquisition of Irish land might help him to make money to meet his financial needs. Whatever the real cause may have been, a wretched anonymous charge was levelled against the two Northern Earls, and they fled for their lives. This may look like weakness, but the memory of the sufferings endured by Tyrconnell’s brother, Hugh Roe,^[3] in his imprisonment and his assassination in exile, would naturally make Irish leaders of that time very shy in placing themselves in English hands when a serious charge was made against them.

Juries of the time were pliable, or, if they showed signs of independence, there was a court of Castle Chamber, corresponding with the Star Chamber of English history, that could use means to bring them into line. That the two Earls were innocent of the plot alleged against them is a moral certainty. The fact that when they fled, it was not to Spain they went, seems strong evidence of this. Any evidence of a plot depends on the word of St. Lawrence, Lord Howth, whose character may be judged from what we read about him in the State Papers.^[4] There was an armed fight in 1609 between him and Sir Roger Jones, the son of the Lord Chancellor. Speaking of it Sir A. Chichester refers to the “wrongs done by the Earl of Howth to the Lord Chancellor”; while the latter writes to the king of “the murderous attack made by Howth and his cut-throat (sicariorum) retainers upon his son.” Plowden gives the following quotations to show the unreality of the whole alleged conspiracy, and the base character of St. Lawrence. “Dr. Anderson in his Royal Genealogies (p. 786), dedicated to the Prince of Wales in 1736, says: ‘Artful Cecil employed one St. Lawrence to entrap the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the Lord Delvin, and other Irish chiefs into a sham plot, which had no evidence but his. But those chiefs being basely informed that witnesses were to be hired against them, foolishly fled from Dublin, and so taking guilt upon them, they were declared rebels, and six entire counties in Ulster were at once forfeited to the Crown, which was what their enemies wanted.’ That this St. Lawrence was a fit instrument for such a design is clear, from what Camden relates of him (Eliz. 741), viz., that he offered to murder Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir Thomas Gerald, to prevent their conveying reports of Essex to the Queen; which bloody service Essex rejected with indignation. No history whatever mentions any symptoms of rising in the North at this time.”^[5]

In the subsequent references to the flight of the Earls, even the king himself tacitly dropped the charge of conspiracy, and dwelt upon the disaffection they showed in quitting the kingdom without leave, which was treated in those days as a crime. Sir John Davies says that the Bill laid before the Grand Jury in Donegal was read in public in English and in Irish, “so as to discover a great deal of the evidence to all the hearers to the end that all the country might be satisfied that the State proceeded against them upon a most just ground, and that the people, knowing their treacherous practices, might rest assured that their guilty consciences and fear of losing their heads was the only cause of their running away, and not the allurements of any foreign prince.”^[6] Possibly the Earls may have had communications with Spain or Rome that they thought would compromise them. On their arrival in Rome they sent King James a statement of their grievances. These embraced arbitrary interference with their own rights and possessions; exactions of cattle and other goods levied on their tenants, who were miserably poor after the late war; pretended claims to church lands of enormous extent; and what, perhaps, are the worst things, in each case they showed that attempts were perpetually being made to have charges of treason supported against them, and also their free exercise of religion was interfered with. Tyrconnell gave an instance of one Owen M’Swyne who was to be executed. Sir Henry Folliott, with the authority of the Lord Deputy, sent privately promising him his life and large rewards if he would charge the Earl with some detestable crime. “Furthermore,” he says, writing in the third person, “the said Earl can justify by good proofs, that of twenty and seven persons that were hanged in Connaught and Tyrconnell, there was not one but had the former promises, upon like conditions, made to them.” Of Chichester’s threat to Tyrconnell that he must attend church, the latter says, “For this only respect of not going to church, he resolved rather to abandon lands and living, yea, all the kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his, than to be forced utterly against his conscience and the utter ruin of his soul to any such practice.” Tyrone wrote in a somewhat similar way.^[7] It speaks well for the loyalty of the peasantry to the Earls that the attempts to get up charges against them failed so completely. I shall have to refer later on to the unreality of the religion which the English party tried to introduce by bribes and threats into the land. It is plain that the leaders of Irish government knew of the unreliable character of Lord Howth, who admitted having gone to England looking for employment or pension from the king: but indeed there has never been a time in Ireland when the use of base means has not been practised.

However, the dreary record of the illegalities and confiscations inflicted upon a half-famished nation is somewhat relieved by the grotesque absurdities which the State Papers sometimes reveal. For example, Government stooped to accept the evidence of a professional beggar. This worthy’s name was Teig O’Falstaf, and he had gone to Spain simply to beg his way, and we find the Government solemnly accepting his evidence that he had heard the Irish priests in Spain cursing the Lord Deputy in public service.^[8] Salisbury’s espionage on Tyrone after his flight was a most elaborate affair: his pilot was a spy, and when he got to Rome another spy named Richardson was ever watching his movements to fix something treasonable upon him, and we have his instructions, endorsed by Salisbury himself, in which he is told of the roundabout way he is to send his information to England, writing as if to a Mr. James Brokesby: he is minutely instructed how he is to write, as if from one Catholic to another, and we have a specimen in a letter (endorsed by Salisbury) which gives an account of a canonization at Rome, conveying news of several religious Orders, enclosing a packet of Agnus Deis with apologies for not sending more, and sending Father Parson’s commendations.^[9] In a previous reign Mountjoy’s plots against Tyrone are recorded in Docwra’s Narrative.^[10] What did all this tissue of espionage before submission, after rendering homage, and in exile, succeed in proving? Nothing against Tyrone, but much against the persons who employed such unworthy methods. From those days down to the forgery that The Times paraded against Parnell, and possibly even to a later date, England has been industriously cherishing everything that tends to lead her astray about Ireland, and forgetting the solid fact that, in the length and breadth of the Empire on which the sun never sets, there is not another of her colonies or dependencies that she could hold for a week if she applied the methods of Irish government to it.

The idea of colonization was not a new one. It had been tried officially and unofficially in various parts of Ireland. When done officially the attempts had been failures, but the private colonizations had occasionally been successful—from the colonists’ point of view. Early in King James’s reign Chichester had brought over a number of Englishmen from Devonshire and planted them in Carrickfergus and Malone, near Belfast, and it was undoubtedly this which led to the bold project of colonizing six whole counties in Ulster. If the matter had been left to Chichester it would have taken a milder form. But Sir John Davies began to take a lead in the project, and in the end he became the working agent of the whole affair. He was Irish Attorney-General. This was just the time for unscrupulous and cunning men to rise to power, for practically everything in the country was in a state of transition. It had been even suggested that the standing seat of the Deputy and the law should be translated from Dublin to Athlone, as being the centre of Ireland. The proposal was that the Deputy should have two presidents, one in Munster at Kylmalocke, the other in Ulster at Lyeller (probably for Lyffer or Lifford).^[11] Such proposals as these show the feeling of powerlessness that marked the English councils, and when the idea of a plantation was put forward, it became more and more popular with the Government, increasing in the harshness of the method of plantation until in the end it became only a grotesque parody of what was put forward, a parody in fact so grotesque that it never worked and never would have worked. Salisbury and Chichester seem to have had some idea of humanity in their proposals, but Davies’ suggestions were cunning, specious, and harsh. Salisbury proposed to Chichester to take natives as tenants of part of the lands, not giving too much to one planter. Sir Oliver St. John advised that no part of the land to be planted should be given away, but that it should be let to the natives at high and dear rates. Chichester though doubtless acquisitive in the extreme seems to have had some feeling for the sufferings of others; in a letter to Salisbury he says, “the word of removing and transplanting is as welcome to the natives as the sentence of death.”^[12] His proposal was to divide the land among the inhabitants, letting each have as much as he can manage by himself or his tenants; the rest of the land to be bestowed upon servitors and men of worth. This was the plan he preferred, but he felt the need of immediate action, because when he wrote in September, 1607, after the flight of the Earls, he said the people were gone to put on their arms, so he gave as an alternative, the plan to drive out the natives of Tyrone, Tyrconnell and Fermanagh, over the rivers of the Bande (Bann), Blackwater, and Lough Erne, there to inhabit the waste lands.^[13] Sir John Davies favoured the policy of rooting out the natives from their holdings, for their own good, of course! He says transplanting the natives is like moving a fruit tree, to make it bring forth better fruit, and not to destroy it. His plan was accepted.

Notwithstanding his learned lore about fruit trees, we shall see that there was no enthusiasm about the farming operations of the Davies clique in the subsequent enquiries and surveys of the plantation. To him was due the idea of excluding the Irish from the colonies.

But before the lands could be handed over to the English and Scotch adventurers, there was a little preliminary violation of a solemn pledge. Perhaps a Stuart’s word never counted for very much, yet in passing we may as well record that after the flight of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, James solemnly declared that their vassals (for such they were rather than tenants) should be protected in their rights. There are no less than three proclamations to this effect, of the dates 7th September, 1st November, and 9th November, 1607. Let me quote the title of one. “Proclamation declaring that the King had taken into his hands all the lands and goods of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, Cowconnaght Oge Magwir and their other fellow-fugitives, and that he would preserve in their estates and protect all the inhabitants of those counties who held under the persons who had thus forfeited.”^[14] It would appear that the rising of Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, which was limited to Inishowen, a small portion of Tyrconnell, was made the excuse for violating the solemn pledges we have quoted, pledges which referred to the Celts of six counties. The fact was that after these proclamations were made, Davies the Irish Attorney-General and Bacon, then the English Solicitor-General, decided that the natives must be rooted out, and if O’Dogherty’s rebellion had not occurred, some other convenient excuse would have been made. O’Dogherty’s rising originated in the violent and overbearing disposition of Sir George Paulett, the governor of the colony at Derry. Sir Richard Cox says,^[15] “Undoubtedly the Government well enough understood, that this rebellion was designed to be the most general that had ever been in Ireland; and that the Confederates had better assurance, or at least a stronger expectation of foreign aid, than in any rebellion heretofore.” These words can surely have no truth in them. There seems to have been a dispute concerning rent between O’Dogherty and Tyrone. Sir Cahir had been foreman of the Grand Jury of Donegal when the Commission met that was sent to inquire into the attainted estates of Tyrone and Tyrconnell.^[16] In fact until he resented the personal indignity put upon him by Paulett (who struck him) he had been a loyal and willing subject of the Crown, and there was naturally nothing in his previous career to make him a leader who could rally a large force of insurgents around him. Instead of showing a great organized revolt, the comparative success of his brief rising points to the deep detestation of the Ulster men against their English rulers, and their willingness to follow any leader who could assume the headship over them. The following is quoted from the Celtic Society’s Miscellany, a note on Docwra’s Narration^[17]: “It is not generally known that Sir Cahir O’Dogherty was knighted for his bravery in fighting against the O’Neills. Such, however, was the case, as is clear from our author’s text. He was as great an enemy to O’Domhnaill as was Niall Garbh, and his rebellion when too late had its origin in a personal insult.” In fact until he went out into open revolt, Sir Cahir and Lady O’Dogherty (and especially the latter) had always shown a preference for English society.^[18]

The rules for the Plantation of Ulster are to be found in MacNevin’s Confiscation of Ulster. The lands were to be divided into portions of 1,000, 1,500 and 2,000 acres. They were originally to have been given by lot, but this was afterwards abandoned. The rent for the English and Scotch adventurers was £5 6s. 8d. for 1,000 acres, or 1?d. per acre. Taking the value of money then at 12 or 13 times the present value, this was not a heavy charge. Any “meer Irish” who got grants of land had to pay double;^[19] besides, the rent for the English and Scotch was remitted for the first two years, but the natives were not excused, on the ground that they had no charges for transportation. The Plantation acre was invented to make up for any deficiency in the acreage caused by mountain and bog. The expressions ‘Fengal measure,’ and ‘great country measure,’ are also to be met with in the documents of the period: I do not know what their exact significations are.^[20] Every undertaker was to build in proportion to his grant: the 2,000 acre man was within two years to build a castle, with a strong court or bawn around it. The 1,500 acre man a stone or brick house with a bawn about it; and the 1,000 acre undertaker to build at least a strong court or bawn. They were to have free timber for the two years. They were to have a store of arms. Thus in a grant to Lady Lambert it is specified that in the house she is to build at Cavan, they are “to keep therein 21 muskets and callivers, and 21 hand weapons as arms for 42 men, for defence against rebels and enemies; also 9 muskets and callivers, and 9 hand weapons, and also 12 muskets and callivers and 12 hand weapons, according to the instructions for the Plantation of Ulster.” A formidable little provision for arming 84 men in one house.^[21] Every undertaker to take the oath of Supremacy; not to demise any land to the meer Irish; not to leave the country for five years. Restrictions were put upon their demising the land within five years. They were not to create tenancies at will, but for a number of years, for life, in tail or in fee-simple. Irish systems of tenure were abolished. The undertakers were given special privileges in the remission of customs, both for the importation of manufactured goods, and the exportation of the produce of their lands. It would be a mistake to suppose from these insolent rules about the “meer Irish” that none of them got any land. The outside undertakers got the good grants, but the natives got their leavings. The mountainous slopes and remote lands and other parts that were not likely to be productive, were given to the native element. The plan was to concentrate the intruders into villages and towns, and to scatter the Irish as much as possible, putting the servitors (or English who had been in Ireland for some years in military service) near to the natives to keep them in awe. There was always some land that it was quite necessary to let the Irish get, if it was ever to be saved from becoming absolutely waste land. Sir R. Jacob (the Solicitor-General for Ireland) showed both humour and acuteness in a letter he wrote to Salisbury in 1609, in which he urged the safety of allowing the natives to keep some land, and also suggests that the very inferior parts might go to them, he says: “The arrantest knave of the Byrne’s answered Sir Henry Sydney, when accused of dwelling on the Archbishop’s lands without paying rent, ‘My Lord, if I dwelt not there, none but thieves and outlaws would.’ So he says civil men will not plant themselves in mountain, rocks or desert places, even if they have it for nothing.... The Irish had no leader and no arms; they had 20,000 fighting men in Ulster if they had arms. O’Dogherty could not have made the progress he did, if he had not first lighted upon the king’s storehouse so as to arm his men.”^[22] Those natives who got grants of a substantial amount obtained them as a special reward for subserviency in some form or other: for instance, Art McBarron was given 2,000 acres in Orior to induce him to clear out of O’Neilan, Chichester considering that his removal would be a great help in getting other natives to go out. In that case the grant was only for the lives of Art McBarron and his wife.^[23] Similarly when Sir Tirlagh McHenry O’Neale was willing to be moved out of the Fewes, a request was made that orders be sent to the Lord Deputy to provide some convenient place in Cavan or elsewhere to settle him, in order to plant servitors in his country. Are we really so like sheep? There is yet to be told even a more absurd illustration than the case of McBarron to show how much our rulers in King James’ day believed we played the game of “follow my leader.” As a matter of fact, so far was this from being the case, that the native gentry who got grants of land became degraded in position, so that those who were gentry children in 1610 were in 1670 old men in frieze coats, farming small scraps of land. Few of the Irish who got somewhat liberal grants were able to retain them until the time of Pynnar’s inspection in 1618-1620.

It is not clear that conforming to the Act of Supremacy was essential in the native grantees, though we may be sure from what we see about the encouragements given to Irishmen of position who conformed, that as much use as possible was made of the plan of bribing people into Protestantism. So we must seek for other reasons for the failure to keep their possessions: there was the requirement of an English or stone house to be built; the abolition of the old tribal land systems and introduction of another system that they did not understand; the depression resulting from the discovery that they were now become a part of the English garrison. To which we must remember to add, that the natives’ grants of lands were in the most barren and rocky parts of Ulster. As a people we are mainly pastoral, and this was more conspicuously the case in the days of the Plantation, as everyone who has read Spenser’s View of Ireland will remember. The only hope of doing much with nearly all of the land given to the natives lay in tillage, a thing which the Irish of that day had a very imperfect knowledge of. Hill mentions one case where the ownership of the land continued on all right: it was in the grant to Tirlagh Oge O’Neale’s widow; and in that case the Irish custom was specially permitted by the Government grant.^[24] In his Survey Pynnar says the English did not plough or use husbandry, being afraid to incur the risk, and that the Irish did not because they did not know when they might be moved. So the Scotch were the only ones who supplied food. The British lived on the heavy rents paid them by the Irish grazing tenants. If the Irish were to take away their cattle, he says, the British must either forsake their dwellings or endure great distress on the sudden. “Yet,” he says, “the co-habitation of the Irish is dangerous.” This report tells us there were most Irish on the London Company’s lands; five proportions were not estated; it was more profitable to take Irish on them; seven proportions were leased for 61 years, and the lessees affirmed they were not bound to plant English on them. There were sixty natives in Tyrone who got small grants, generally of 60 acres each. They were all transplanted into portions of the barony of Dungannon which neither undertakers nor servitors would occupy.^[25] Here are some of the figures of natives grants. It is necessary to mention that it very often happens that one grant is made out for a number of persons.

Oriel, 4,080 acres in forty grants.

Dungannon, 4,080 acres in forty-nine grants.

Kilmacrenan, 13,752 acres in nineteen grants.

Clonemahowne, 3,587 acres in eight grants.

Tullagarvy, 6,012 acres in eight grants.

Clinawly, 6,208 acres in fifty-two grants.

Coole and Tircannada, 4,160 acres in five grants.

Tullaghah, Cavan, 4,900 acres in twenty-one grants.

Castle Rashen, 5,700 acres in eighteen grants.

Concerning the district among these in which the largest amount of land was assigned to the natives, Kilmacrenan, let us hear what its character was. After a mention of the commencement of some work having been made by Captain Will Stewart, in Kilmacrenan, we are told “the rest of the servitors have done nothing by reason of the wildness of the land, being the worst in all the country, insomuch that the natives are unwilling to come to dwell upon it until they be forced to remove.”^[26]

Grants of refuse land having been assigned to a few hundred of the natives, what became of the others, the unfortunate people who found aliens suddenly planted upon the land of their fathers, and had no other provision made for them? Government provided that they should go. It does not seem to have been at all a worry to Government where they should go, as long as they went. The only thing needful was that they should be got away from the lands to be planted. Some were impressed into the service of the King of Sweden, some were transported to the newly-formed colony of Virginia, some went to the natives’ parts, and some to work on the Bishops’ or servitors’ lands. The great thing was that they should go. The leading Irishmen were all killed; banished or imprisoned on frivolous charges, or occasionally on no charges at all. The most brilliant of them, Brian MacArt O’Neill, the son of Art McBarron, was accused on a false charge of slaying a man at a family party in the house of Turlough McHenry O’Neill of the Fews, and was arrested and hanged. He had been the rising hope of the natives; it was thought he would proclaim himself “The O’Neill.” His name is perpetuated near Belfast in MacArt’s Fort, on the Cave Hill, Ballymacarrett, and O’Neill’s Fort.^[27] Three men of high position, all bearing English titles, were imprisoned in the Tower by Chichester. Sir Donnell Ballagh O’Cahan was one of Tyrone’s sons-in-law; he had left Tyrone in 1600 when Docwra landed at Derry with a large force. A promise was made him that he would be given a territory independent of Tyrone. Sir Henry Docwra honourably maintained this promise, but after the Queen’s death it was repudiated by Chichester. O’Cahan spoke bitterly. He does not seem to have contemplated any violent step, but when he heard of the two Earls making for Derry, he hastened to join them, as if he wanted to quietly leave the land that was now cursed by the wiles and the falsehood of the strangers. But haste as he would, the poor man failed to join the two Earls, and then like a squeezed lemon, he was cast aside. He was imprisoned first in Dublin and then in the Tower. Never tried; he had committed no crime save that of Esau; for he wanted to escape from his responsibilities, and to leave his lands and his vassals to the possession of the race he could now trust no longer. For nineteen years in lonely imprisonment he lived to curse the day when he allowed himself to be overcome by English blandishments. Another person whose existence was inconvenient was Sir Cormac O’Neill, the brother of Tyrone. He brought to Dublin Castle the news of the flight of the Earls; he asked to be custodian of his brother’s lands and premises till his return; but lawyer Davies had already an eye to the plunder of the Ulster lands, so with grim humour he wrote, “We took a custodian of the knight himself.” The third prisoner, Sir Neal Garve O’Donnell, had a claim to the chiefry of Tyrconnell, he was married to the Earl’s sister, Nuala. It was impossible to get a jury to convict him.^[28] It was some consolation to Sir Neal in his imprisonment to know that his wife was not starving or insane like Sir Donnell O’Cahan’s; for Lady O’Donnell went into exile with her brother, and soothed his dying hours. Many of the people preferred voluntary exile to remaining in Ireland under the altered conditions. The Earls and leaders were banished or in prison or dead. In 1611 Chichester revived a proclamation of 1605 for the banishment of priests; so many went of their own accord to Spain or the Netherlands.

Then with a thoughtful feeling for Irish prejudices, Government even provided some of the people with free passages out of the country; but in this case they were not sent to Spain, but into the service of the King of Sweden. When we remember that it was in the days of Gustavus Adolphus, “the Lion of the North, and the Champion of the Protestant Faith,” it will be seen that this measure of emigration was eminently calculated to show the considerateness of our English rulers. The men who took the people to Sweden were Captains Sandford and Bingley. I shall quote the reference from the Calendar of Patent Rolls. “King’s letter for a grant to Captain John Sandford, for ever, of all the mountain lands, bogs and woods in Ulster, escheated to the Crown, by the attainders of the Earls of Tyrone and Tierconnell, or any of their adherents, or any other traitors, or which otherwise belong to the Crown, and are not now in charge, to be holden under the conditions of the Plantation of Ulster, at a yearly rent of £10. This grant is to be made in consideration of Captain Sandford’s absence, during the distribution of the escheated lands in Ulster, in consequence of which no portion was assigned to him, he being then engaged in conducting the loose kerne and swordsmen of that province to the service of the King of Sweden, disburthening the country by that means of many turbulent and disaffected persons who would otherwise have troubled the peace.” (It will, perhaps, be satisfactory to learn that, in addition to this grant, Sandford secured lands in Donegal from Sir Richard and Sir Ralph Bingley, and Sir John Davies.) This Sweden business seems to have been eminently successful from the Government point of view. Sir R. Jacob wished that 1,000 more could be sent from each province; and hopes were expressed that the swordsmen, not only of Ulster, but of Connaught, could be transmitted to Sweden or Virginia.^[29] We have the follow-my-leader theory again; for the Lords of the Council proposed to Chichester that native gentlemen should be sent to be leaders and heads for the troops who were transported into Gustavus Adolphus’s service. The charges were £1 each for clothing, 5d. per day per man for thirty-one days, carriage 10s. per man, and a sum amounting to 10s. per man for fee for pressing them into a foreign service.

If the rules about the non-employment of natives, and not letting them get on the land, had been strictly observed, it would certainly have led to a complete turning out of the people, and perhaps have precipitated the rising of 1641. And it was from no want of will on the part of the intruders that the law was not rigidly followed. The truth was, English and Scotch settlers were difficult to get; so, however unwillingly, the undertakers admitted Irish tenants and labourers, who in their despair were willing to come to any terms. Chichester saw clearly all along that an impossible thing was being attempted. He wrote in 1610 strongly opposing any change of policy about the natives, and speaks of the folly of crowding large numbers of servitors and natives in half a barony (as in Tyrone),^[30] and says the natives will rather die than be removed to the small proportions assigned to them, or will seek a new dwelling in other counties. The Viceroy, as we see, was never in earnest in enforcing the laws for the expelling of natives; and so those laws were never fully carried out. The squatters required the Irish as hewers of wood and drawers of water. These restrictions were abolished before the end of James’ reign, and in 1626 the original undertakers, having failed to comply with the Plantation rules preventing them having native tenants, and having thus rendered themselves liable to forfeiture under Charles I, were allowed to surrender their titles, and get a re-grant under new conditions, one of which was that one quarter of each proportion was to be let to native tenants.

Thus a period of less than two decades saw the final disappearance of the obnoxious parts of the Plantation system. But they had never had vitality, and indeed the agents of the Irish Society from the very beginning insisted on letting their lands to Irish tenants. When the representatives of the Londoners came over on a tour of inspection, the officials who met them were given strict injunctions to put everything in the best light, and one of their cares was to prevent the Londoners from having any unnecessary fears of the Irish. In this they succeeded so well that they overshot the mark. The London Companies could get very few British tenants in O’Cahan’s country or Laughinsholin, where the people kept so many pikes, so they insisted on having Irish tenants. Hill says, “The Companies stoutly maintained the right of holding the Irish as their tenants, of preventing their expulsion; and to these Londoners we are indebted, more perhaps than to the servitors or Bishops, for the thriving and vigorous native population in Ulster at the present day. Indeed the whole business furnishes a curious illustration of the following words of the poet:—

In 1622 the king sent a charge to enforce the law requiring the natives to leave the planted land. In it he admits that the law has not been at all carefully complied with. He speaks of “the continual unconformity, as well of those natives as of the undertakers, upon whose portions they remain,” and concludes, “In this particular we were always resolved, and yet are, not to spare those undertakers and their tenants, until we have reformed them, but rather if they persist still in their ingratitude and disobedience, to use the advantages which our laws and their own manifold contempt have given us against them, in a more severe manner than hitherto we have done.”^[32]

The treatment of the aged Eochaidh or Oghie O’Hanlon, the chieftain of Orior in County Armagh, seems to have been unnecessarily harsh, though I can hardly agree with the denunciations of the Rev. Geo. Hill on the meanness of it. This venerable man, who represented a race which had been supreme in Ulster ages before the O’Neills had any prominence, was uniformly loyal to the English connexion. He had a son who was a leading man in Sir Cahir O’Dogherty’s rising, and the aged father was guilty of the crime, if such it could be called, of giving his son shelter for a night in his castle at Tandragee during the revolt. This, of course, was treason, and the father might have been hanged. But he had often borne the standard of the Irish on the English side, so his penalty was commuted to the forfeiture of his estates, and he was offered £80 a year pension as compensation. He did not live to draw one quarter’s payment, for he was a broken-hearted old man, and died, literally of grief, on hearing that his son’s wife, who was a sister of Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, had perished in the woods after having given birth to a child.^[33] Nowadays £80 is a small sum, but it would seem that three hundred years ago, it was worth about £1,000 of our money. So we can hardly agree with Mr. Hill’s statement that there was meanness in giving O’Hanlon such a pension. O’Hanlon Junior kept up his guerilla warfare as the leader of a number of outlaws of the Robin Hood type, called woodkerne, and the trouble they gave was only brought to an end when they allowed themselves to be transported to Sweden, to fight for Gustavus Adolphus, a service which they hated, and took every opportunity of deserting to his opponent, the King of Spain.

It is only fair, too, to mention that the Lady Mary, Sir Cahir O’Dogherty’s widow, was given an annual pension of £80,^[34] and that the widow of Sir Cowconnaght Macgwire received compensation for the lands she had to surrender in Fermanagh. I am not sure whether she got £100 or £200 a year. The legal documents first mention a surrender of her lands for an annuity of £100 a year, and then a pension of £100, and I do not know whether the two statements refer to one salary of £100 or two. Also that Tyrconnell’s widow, Bridget, Countess of Tyrconnell, was given a yearly pension of £300. Compared with the posthumous savagery of Government to Pamela, Lord Edward Fitzgerald’s widow, this was generosity indeed.

Now who were the planters in Ulster, and what rules were made about the distribution of the land? The new owners were formally divided into three classes, (i) English and Scottish, who were to plant their proportions with English and Scottish tenants; (2) Servitors in Ireland, who might take English or Irish tenants at their choice; (3) Natives of Ulster, who were to be freeholders. But in reality they included samples of a great many social grades. “Cook’s son, duke’s son,” were to be found among them. English gentlemen of little or no property, Scotch lairds and noblemen with their innumerable clans of relations, soldiers and adventurers, royal grooms and servants. Shurley and Case were footmen when they received grants of land in Longford.^[35] Wray was a groom when he was appointed to the responsible task of seeing that the natives were cleared off the escheated lands; he was to levy fines on them and to keep the money. Then there were the London Companies. Then there were the true patriots; the men who at home had distinguished themselves by crime, or by debt, and found it desirable to leave their native land; these fulfilled the saying of the famous Irish pickpocket, Barrington, in the prologue that he wrote for a play performed by convicts in Botany Bay:

Among these we should class the Graemes, who had been outlaws, cattle-lifters, and border-robbers on the banks of the Tweed. They had been transplanted in a body to Roscommon in Elizabeth’s reign; but even the residence in the Land of Saints did not reform their ideas of property, so they were dispersed and scattered through Ulster in 1610. All were unanimous in one thing only, that they would make as much as they could out of the property, and then go. But, owing to the force of circumstances, the Scotchmen stuck with more pertinacity to their possessions than did most of the other settlers. The English undertakers were mainly from the Eastern counties, Norfolk and Suffolk. They brought no following with them. So they met with difficulty in getting workers and tenants, being forbidden to accept the natives. There were constant bickerings among the undertakers themselves, and with the Bishops about church rights, real or pretended. None of these things worried the canny North Britons, who looked upon Ulster as a veritable Eldorado. A ferry was established between Donaghadee and the Rynnes of Galloway or Portpatrick.^[36] Over it there poured such a ragged regiment as the Irish Sea has never witnessed before or since. Not singly they came, but in battalions; the Scotch Bishop of Raphoe (Montgomery, Bishop of Clogher, Derry and Raphoe, grand-uncle of William Montgomery of the Manuscripts) received permission at one grant for the denization of three hundred of his countrymen whom he should bring over. They had candidates for denization among all classes: younger brothers and sons-in-law and cousins to get grants of land, and workmen and farmers ready to settle down on industrial pursuits. As they did not absolutely rely on the offices of the State church for their religion, we find many ministers of the Presbyterian community coming over and being given licence of denization, and in course of time this third religion became a settled thing in the land. Oily and smooth-tongued these were; willing, with some canting expressions, to change over and become clergymen of the English Church if an opportunity of making anything by the change came in their way. The descriptions of the careers of some of these men (in Reid’s Presbyterianism in Ulster) are very amusing. Hamilton was ordained by the Protestant Bishop of Down (Echlin). Robert Blair left Glasgow where he had a professorship, because Dr. Cameron, who had been appointed Principal, with the view of bringing the college to approve of prelacy, had opposed Blair. The latter came to Ireland, and Lord Claneboy proposed he should be rector of Bangor, County Down. But about his opposition to prelacy? The Bishop said, “Will you not receive ordination from Mr. Cunningham and the adjacent brethren, and let me come in among them in no other relation than a presbyter?” So thus, hungering after the flesh-pots of prelacy, he entered into a church whose fundamental tenets he disagreed with.^[37]

The Scotch undertakers had previously been made acquainted with Ulster by the colonizations in Elizabeth’s reign in Down and Antrim. They felt more at home in a land where their friends had gone previously. The geographical position was favourable to them. So they and their followers settled permanently in sufficient numbers to give the movement a thoroughly Scotch aspect. Yet for all that, Mr. Prendergast says,^[38] “Ulster continued to be the dangerous part of Ireland till after the war of the Revolution, when it was nearly colonized anew by the Scotch settlers and camp-followers of King William’s foreign forces. Eighty thousand small Scotch adventurers came in between 1690 and 1698 into different parts of Ireland, but chiefly into Ulster.”

Let me give a contemporary picture that is pleasant enough of a set of these Scotch settlers of James I’s reign. They were the holders of land in the barony of Mountjoy, Co. Tyrone; they had fallen into a goodly possession, and the industry we see them all conspicuous for is not to be looked upon as typical of all the adventurers, but only of those who were favoured by circumstances and surroundings. The men were, Andrew Stewart, Lord O’Chiltree; he was of old Scottish descent, and the fourth Lord O’Chiltree. He had fallen into difficulties, and was obliged to sell his barony to Sir James Stewart; the title went with the barony, so it was only a courtesy title by which he was called; but the king, to encourage him and his son, conferred on the young man the title of Earl of Castlestuart; Robert Stewart of Hilton, an Edinburgh man; Sir Robert Hepburn, a Scotch soldier; George Crayford or Crawford, Laird of Loughnorris, an Ayrshire man, belonging to an old family; Bernard and Robert Lindsay, who belonged to Leith; Robert Stewart of Rotton, an uncle of Lord O’Chiltree, and finally a brother of Robert Stewart of Hilton. These two Stewarts of Edinburgh, and the two Lindsays were all servants or caterers in some fashion to the king. In 1611, a year after they had taken out their patents, Carew makes the following report^[39]: “Lord Ucheltrie, 3,000 acres; being stayed by contrary winds in Scotland, arrived in Ireland (at the time of our being in Armagh, upon our return home) accompanied with 33 followers, gents of sort [i.e., gentlemen of position], a minister, some tenants, freeholders and artificers, unto whom he hath passed estates; he hath built for his present use three houses of oak timber, one of 50 feet long and 22 feet wide, and two of 40 feet long, within an old fort, about which he is building a bawne. There are two ploughs going on his demesne, with some fifty cows and three score young heifers landed at Island Magy in Clandeboy which are coming to his proportion, with some twelve working mares. Sir Robert Hepburn, Knight, 1,500 acres; sowed oats and barley the last year upon his land, and reaped this harvest 40 hogsheads of corn; is resident; hath 140 cows young and old, and 8 mares; is building a stone house 40 feet long and 20 feet wide, already a storey high; intends to have it three stories high, and to cover it, and the next spring to add another storey to it; good store of timber felled and squared, and providing materials to finish the work. The Laird Loughnorris, 1,000 acres; being deceased himself, as we are informed, had his agent here, Robert O’Rorke; hath timber felled and is preparing materials for building against the spring. Bernard and Robert Lindsay, 1,000 acres apiece; have taken possession personally in the summer, 1610, returned into Scotland’s agent, Robert Cowties resident; a timber house is built on Robert Lindsey’s proportion; hath eight mares, and eight cows with their calves, and five oxen, with swine and other small cattle, and a competent portion of arms. Robert Stewart of Haulton, 1,000 acres: hath appeared in person, and brought some people; timber felled, and preparing materials for building. Robert Stewart of Robstone, 1,000 acres, hath appeared in person, with tenants and cattle; timber felled and squared, and providing materials for building. The Castle of Mountjoy, upon Lough Chichester [Lough Neagh] beside the old fort, wherein are many inhabitants both English and Irish, together with Sir Francis Roe’s foot company. Here is a fair castle of stone and brick, covered with slate and tile, begun in the late Queen’s time, and finished by his Majesty. It is compassed about by a good strong rampier of earth, well ditched and flanked with bulwarks. In this Castle Sir Francis Roe, the constable, and his family dwell.” This seems a happy sort of family; it represents the most industrious type of undertaker, who brings his family influence to bear in getting workers into the place. One would look upon them as intending to settle with their families for ever; but, alas for the good intentions of King James, when Pynnar’s survey was made in 1619 five of these proportions had passed to other hands, mostly by sale. Just as the young fellows who improve land now in Canada try to make something on it in a few years by sale, so a large number of the Ulster Plantation lands went the same way. Nearly all the king’s servants who obtained grants, sold them as soon as possible. Sir James Craig was clerk of the wardrobe and had probably begun life as a tailor. The brothers Achmootie were also servants of the king, and sold their lands.^[40] Their common greed for money was the distinguishing point of all these worthies. Some of them are specially worthy of note for their acquisitiveness. Touchet, Lord Audelay, and his clan, were amongst these. This nobleman came from Staffordshire, and had entirely failed as a planter in Munster. When the northern confiscations began, he made a modest request for 100,000 acres. I don’t know whether the word “land-grabber” was then in vogue, but at any rate his demand was rejected; but he and his interesting family got the barony of Omagh among them, which was set down as having 11,000 arable acres. Lord Audelay got 3,000 acres; Sir Marvin Audley, his son, 2,000; Sir Ferdinand Audley 2,000; Sir John Davies, his son-in-law, 2,000; Edward Blount, another son-in-law, 2,000. The old man was made Earl of Castlehaven, and Davies the lawyer became ancestor of the Earls of Huntingdon, by his daughter marrying a Mr. Hastings. Davies’ grants in all parts of Ulster were enormous; many of the properties were beyond his powers to manage, and he sold them. Here is a report of work done, the date is 1611. “Cavan Precinct of Loughtie. Sir John Davys, Kt., 2,000 acres, has made over his proportion to Mr. Richard Waldron, who passed the same to Mr. Regnold Home, who sold his estate to Sir Nicholas Lusher, Kt., nothing done.”^[41]

Davies got grants of land, confiscated properties and so forth, literally in every county in Ireland. He also received a grant of 100 marks for his services about the parliament. The grant just quoted in Omagh alone must have worked out for the family at nearly the 100,000 acres asked for. On Lord Audley’s death it was found that his property contained not only the 3,000 acres granted, but also 3,000 of meadow, 3,000 of pasture, 2,000 of wood, 2,000 of briars and whins, and 200 of bog; thus extending his original 3,000 to 13,200, these additions having been thrown in as unprofitable or waste land. So greedy were these men that there was a special commission appointed to correct any blunders that had been made in the grants to the little family group. Davies, Touchet’s son-in-law, the Irish Attorney-General, and the evil genius of the whole Plantation, was described by Tyrone as being more fitted to be a stage-player than a lawyer. In the case of this Audley crew, the enquiries showed that they neglected the land shamefully, and did not even reside.

Hamilton, the first Earl of Abercorn, and his crowd, were an example of the hungry Scotch lairds. James Hamilton was the head of this family party; he was grandson of the second Earl of Arran. He, his brother Sir Claud, his brother Sir George, his kinsman another George, his brother-in-law Sir Thomas Boyd, got out of O’Neill’s property the greater part of the barony of Strabane. Sir George afterwards incurred Royal displeasure and lost his property by becoming a Roman Catholic, and his grandson was a general in the Jacobite army in Ireland.^[42] Sir Arthur Chichester got Inishowen as his plunder for having been viceroy, and especially for his subserviency in the Parliamentary dispute. He also got large tracts of country where Belfast now is. These three, the Chichesters, the Hamiltons, and the Touchets must have taken an enormous amount of land amongst them.

Then there were the London Companies. The city was very slow in taking up the idea of a settlement in Ireland, and when they did consent to the plan insisted on getting their own way, without any regard to the Plantation rules. As one looks back on the history of the Irish Society, and a chequered history it has been, the best we can say of it is that this gigantic system of absenteeism has not been as bad as one might have prophesied.

The grants and leases to the natives were of very small value, mostly 60 acres, and were only given to a small number. In a great number of cases they were limited either by being only given for one or two lives, with remainders to Englishmen, or by the possibility of forfeiture under the regime of a new landlord. The Derry see lands were at first let out thus; to English or Scotch on lease for sixty years; to Irish for twenty-one years or three lives, with power of revocation by the succeeding Bishop.^[43] Before eight years had elapsed we find that the tenants had been compelled to surrender their leases and take out new ones “on increased rents, by means whereof the revenues were well increased, to the honour of Almighty God.” Occasionally a native appears with 1,000 acres opposite his name, but it is pretty rare. For example, “Only forty natives in the whole extensive County of Donegal obtained small grants in the dreary regions of Doe and Fanet, now Kilmacrenan. Several of them were representatives of noble Irish families, and the remainder belonged to the class of native gentry. The prevailing surnames amongst them were those of O’Donnell, MacSwyne, O’Gallagher, and O’Boyle. A few very old people got pretty liberal grants, but with remainders to Sir Ralph Bingley and Sir Richard Hansard.”^[44] Some of the conditions attached to grants in this reign are very striking:

Dowry to be forfeited on marrying an Irishman.

Not to take tenants nor employ anyone who could only speak Irish.

Not to destroy passes or bridges unless they led into the Irishmen’s land.

Not to take the names of O’Rourke, O’Mulloy, The Fox, McCoghlan, O’Doyne, The Great O’Ferrall, The Great O’Carroll.^[45]

It looks a little absurd when some Smith or Brown of an English county, or a Menzies or a Montgomery from Scotland, is enjoined so seriously that he must never take the name of The Fox, or The Great O’Carroll.

We must turn now to the religious ideals of the Plantation, and we all know King James was nothing if not religious. I shall try to approach the subject with a dispassioned candour, and speak as an Irishman who loves his country, and as a churchman who longs to see the day when the Protestant Church in Ireland shall become converted to Irish ideas in politics. That Church has been given ecclesiastical Home Rule, and has made full use of its privileges, for it treats theological matters in a way quite independent of English churchmanship. May we not hope for the day when politically it shall cease to allow itself to be dragged at the tail of one English political party? In the Plantation it was intended that the church by the State established should have an endowment in every place; the idea being that in every 1,000 acres sixty should be reserved for the support of the clergyman. And an additional endowment was given by the lands and the patronage of parishes handed over to Trinity College, Dublin. It was, doubtless, hoped that a settled and established Protestant ministry would lead the people all to turn over in time to that faith. And in the meantime, Government was prepared to do all it could by fears and bribery to lead the people in the way it was wished they should go. For a native squire or peasant to conform was the passport to get a miserable patch of land. Lord Coursye was given a pension of £100 a year for good service, and it was continued and increased to £150 to his eldest son because he had become a Protestant. In another case, Sir James Dillon was made Lord Dillon and Baron of Kilkenny because his eldest son had conformed.^[46] Yet with all these brilliant prospects before them, the people did not flock in their thousands around the preachers of the Established Church. The reason of this was that there was practically no Protestant church in Ulster. It existed only on paper; it was a regular Army Corps. The ecclesiastical buildings were ruinous and desolate; the clergy, where such existed, were the offscourings of the English church, men of depraved life, or so ignorant that they could hardly perform their duties properly. From the bishops down, pluralities were the common and recognized thing; occasionally even we see a man actually holding an English living and a lot of Irish ones at the same time; thus the same man was Archdeacon of Dublin, Treasurer of Cashel Cathedral, Vicar of Galballydrome and Leighlin Macvoge, and Rector of Battersea in Surrey.^[47] John Todd, who seems to have been even below the average of the Irish clergy of that time, as we shall see presently, is found on his appointment as Bishop of Down in 1610 writing to Norton to ask him to intercede with Salisbury that he may not lose his right to the mastership of the Savoy. Even men of high character like Archbishop Usher themselves benefited by these abuses. The fines of the recusants—i.e., the Catholics—were to go to pious purposes like the building of Protestant churches, or were impounded by the Archbishop of Armagh for charity, and no account given. The Ulster bishops were mostly ignorant and greedy Scotchmen, for ever quarrelling with all the other planters about their church possessions, and not always getting the best of the quarrels either. This is what we read in one place in the Patent Rolls: “King’s Letter to the Lord Deputy to confirm Andrew Moneypenny in the Archdeaconry of Connor by putting in force all the orders made by Lord Viscount Grandison against Nicholas Todd, a tailor by profession, an unlearned man, placed in that situation by his unworthy brother John Todd, late Bishop of Down and Connor, and deprived of said dignity for notorious causes, both of insufficiency of learning and corruption in manners.” Chichester as usual impresses us as seeing into these abuses in a clearer and more sensible way than the rest of the Castle set of that time. We find him writing to the Lord Justice and Davies about religion, when he says all is confused and out of order, as if it were in a wilderness where neither Christianity nor religion was ever heard of. He says, “the Bishops claim too much land and have too little.” He wishes the king would make a new allotment, as if in a new Plantation in America. The state of Munster was even worse, owing to the rapacity of the notorious Miler Magrath, who bled immense numbers of parishes for his children. In Mullognony or Newchapel, County Tipperary, (where I was rector from 1895 to 1898) Miler’s son Terence had got the profits of the prebend from the nominal incumbent, who was in such a wretched state that in 1607 Terence Magrath had to give him a cloak to present himself before the Commission that enquired into the abuses. The undertakers, not, I suppose, seeing that the Established Church was making much way, with its grasping Bishops and ruined churches, and absentee ministers, opposed the episcopal claims with all the ardour of Wee Free Kirkmen appealing to the House of Lords, and in a great many cases imported Presbyterian ministers from Scotland. So we can see that even if the native element had been willing to conform, there was practically no established religion for them to join. James began to recognise this when too late in the day, and there is an amusing State Paper in which we see a patent plan of his, that young natives should be caught up, and educated in Trinity College Dublin, to work as Protestant clergymen among the natives, and then if any livings of small value should become vacant, they should be appointed to them.

It was twenty-seven years since a Parliament had been held in Dublin, and when the Ulster Plantation was finished it was decided to convene one in 1613. The histories mostly say that it was called to give legal sanction to the Plantation; if so, it was a case of a late locking of the stable door. It seems more likely that the object, if any, of the Parliament was for the dominant English party to triumph over the fallen natives, and to pass Bills of a further intolerant character. We can see in its constitution, but in a more pronounced form than they would have dared to show in England, symptoms of the abuses and the arbitrary acts which culminated in the total overthrow of the Stuart dynasty. We shall follow the usual order of that period, to execute first, and judge afterwards; so first we shall look into the Parliament and its doings, and then take a brief survey of the subsequent enquiries into its constitution.

It was a most disorderly scene, especially in its earliest stage. Each party had hoped for a majority, but the numbers were slightly in favour of the English party. These latter proposed Davies as Speaker in the Lower House; whereupon Sir James Gough, Sir Christopher Nugent, and William Talbot, late Recorder of Dublin, proposed Sir John Everard, late a judge of the Queen’s Bench, but displaced by King James on account of his religion. The affirmative (the supporters of Davies) went out to be numbered; the negative, as was the custom then, remaining behind. But instead of letting themselves be numbered, the Irish party proceeded as if they were the whole house, chose Everard, and put him in the chair. The Englishmen, coming in and finding they numbered 125 in a house of 226, knew they had a majority, and put Davies on Everard’s lap. The English then began to remove Everard, by pulling at his legs, while the Irish held him in his place by the collar, Davies still sitting on his knees. Sir John Everard was old and infirm; he was got out of his place with only slight injuries to his leg, whereupon the Irish members withdrew altogether from the house. Then the Catholic lords wrote to the king, and the Irish commoners wrote to the Privy Council of England, both complaining of the business about the Speakership, and the legality of the new boroughs, the members of the Lower House also asking to be excused from attending. To the Lords’ complaints answer was made that the Commons’ business did not concern them, to which they replied that though not in the Lower House, they made yet but one body and one Parliament. Then the Lord Deputy commanded the Irish commoners to attend to pass the Act of recognition of the King’s Title; upon which they sent him a petition recognizing the King’s Title, but utterly refusing to sit in the house, unless their Speaker Everard was approved, and the new burgesses rejected. The Lords now acted similarly, and as the Irish element was strong in Dublin, Parliament was adjourned to the 27th of July, 1614.^[48]

Looking at the matter from the standpoint of mere legality, we are obliged to acknowledge that the Irish party were in the wrong more than once in these transactions. When they had been left together for the purpose simply of being numbered, they chose to ignore the other party, and would not let themselves be counted, but proceeded forcibly to put Everard in the chair. Then, of course, the Lords were interfering in a way that would not be allowed nowadays, when they declined to go on till the matters in the Commons had been settled. And finally, if there were any illegalities in the new boroughs (and there were many, as we shall see), the correct thing, of course was for Parliament first to meet, and then for any errors in the returns to be dealt with. But we need not blame the Irish party for these little blunders. There had not been a meeting of Parliament for a generation, and they went there in a high state of tension and exasperation, first at the confiscations, and then at the conduct of the returning officers.

On the return of the Parliament, there was a controversy about the precedence of the Lord of Slane over the Lord of Kerry; this being ended, Parliament passed ten Acts: An Act of recognition of the King and his action in Ulster, stating with delicate irony, that James had established his government in the hearts of his people. One removing benefit of clergy in certain cases. Repeals of old Acts against admitting and associating with Scots, and against having commerce with the Irish enemies. An Act of General Pardon. An Attainder of Tyrone, Tyrconnell, Sir Cahir O’Dogherty and others. And a subsidy. Sir R. Cox, who was a violent Protestant, tells us, that on Chichester’s being summoned to England, “Irish affairs were so well managed by the Lord Deputy, that the King was fully convinced of the seditious designs of the Irish.”

When the recusant lords appealed to the king, his reply was insolent and silly; it was intended to drive them into further opposition. It is not worth quoting. He admits that two returns were proved false, and he foreshadowed the future failures of the Stuart race by such violent words as these, written to the noblemen: “You that are of contrary religion must not look to be the only law-makers. You that are but half-subjects should have but half privilege; you that have an eye to me one way and to the Pope another way.”

Now let us turn to the Commission and its findings.^[49] They were directed not only to inquire into the disputes about the elections, but to find out if any of the elected members could not speak English, and to find out whether there were any combinations or conspiracies not to elect Protestants, and to see if any Jesuits or priests had any meddling in such matters. They also were directed to see if any general assessments and levies of money were made without authority, and to report if the priests and Jesuits were responsible; also to report generally on abuses in Ireland; and on the prospects of a Plantation in Wexford. The names of the Commissioners were, Lord Chichester, Sir Humphrey Winche, Sir Charles Cornwallis, Sir Roger Wilbraham, and George Calvert. They found that: In Armagh an Irish freeholder and candidate was kept out by an armed man at the door, upon which he, Henry McShane O’Neale, withdrew with most of the Irish freeholders. That in Cavan, Captain Fleming, an Irish freeholder, had appealed to the sheriff for an adjournment of nominations, and had been given hopes of one, but, the sheriff not adjourning, the Irish were not represented at the election. In the King’s County, the Irish candidates, one of whom could not speak English, had the greater number of names on their nomination paper, yet the under-sheriff returned the two English candidates. In this case two whose names were written down for the Irish candidates, disavowed their signatures, and another confessed to having put his name on the list after the election was done, and Sir Terence O’Dempsey gave his vote by proxy. In Limerick it was questioned whether the English or Irish candidates had the greater number of freeholder votes; the sheriff did not take the obvious course of numbering the freeholders, but returned the Englishmen. He denied that it was his duty to number the polls. In Fermanagh, neither of the Irish candidates responded to the Commissioners’ invitation to be present, for good reasons: one could not speak English, and the other “indicted for treason, broke prison, and hath betaken himself to the woods.” They found that at this election Captain Gower did not pull Brian McGuire’s beard from his face, but only shook him by the beard. In Roscommon the Irish candidates’ witnesses seem to have been rejected, because of their “speaking only the Irish language, and being men of mean condition, as they seemed to us.” In passing we may mention that two of Sir John Everard’s supporters in Parliament could only speak Irish. In Dublin, the Mayor being absent, the recusants duly elected two aldermen at the County Court; later the Mayor proclaimed an election at Hoggin, when two English candidates were nominated by the Mayor. To see which had a majority, he made the parties divide, and then, without counting the polls, he declared the Englishmen, his nominees, elected. In Trim there were two elections, as there did not seem to be any proper authority for fixing a date. In Kildare borough, the sovereign returned two, whom the Commission declared to be not elected, deciding that the Irish candidates were returned. In Wicklow there was a confusion between the reputed portriff and the deputy-constable about the proper date, and finally two English candidates were returned. In Cavan, the sovereign and inhabitants held an election, without waiting for the sheriff’s permission, and declared two natives elected. The Ulster men all resented the intrusion of the sheriffs upon them.^[50] Then the sheriff directed his warrant to the sovereign, and another election was held. The greater number voted for the natives, yet the sovereign declared the English candidates returned, though they had fewer voices. The Commission here says: “At this election Sir Oliver Lambert with a little walking-stick, did strike one George Brady, one of the inhabitants, for using towards him some rude behaviour, and giving him some unfitting speeches; and upon view by us, it did not appear to us, that his head had been broken.”

They found there was a general combination against electing Protestants; the reason being, the natives believed laws would be propounded concerning religion and for banishment of priests. They found that the Roman Catholic knights of the shire and burgesses levied contributions to pay for sending their agents for their appeal to England. And the moneys obtained by the priests seem to have been dues of the most ordinary kind. In fact, the dragging in of the priests and Jesuits, first suggested in James’s commands to the Commission, proved to be a perfect mare’s nest. They found that two burgesses were returned from Clogher, which had never sent members before, and had no charter to do so. The Commission then went on to describe the disorderly scene at the meeting of Parliament. It appeared that several of the new corporations had no right to return members, their charters bearing date after the Commission for the holding of the Parliament, and some after the summons to the Parliament.

After that, they go into the general grievances of the country. Juries will not present recusants. “The small number, less sufficiency, and little residence of the ministers. The want and defect of churches, either wholly ruined, or so out of repair as to be unfit for the service of God.” Remedy, to enforce the laws of conformity, and to do away with idle and scandalous ministers. The soldiers extort; officers take money not to cess; the provost-marshal’s men extort. The people are afraid to make complaint for fear of worse impositions. The extortion of clerks and multiplying of new offices. The clearing out of Wexford for a new plantation; some old freeholders restored to their land or portion, but with some of the English party holding it in trust for them; while 390 freeholders, and 14,500 other people “may be removed at the will of the patentees, notwithstanding few are yet removed.” For this plantation a jury was appointed and found “ignoramus” to the King’s title. They were bound over to appear again, and then eleven agreed to find for the title; but five, who refused, were committed to prison, and censured in the Castle Chamber. After that come figures about the Wexford Plantation and the rent reserved, which was £5 per 1,000 acres for the English, and £6 6s. 8d. for the natives.

Here ends the Commissioners’ finding. It was worded with caution, but we can see they felt that the condition of Ireland was one of gross misgovernment. In fact, it would be impossible to feel anything else, if the subject were dealt with from the point of view of legality. Notice that no fault or crime was urged against the native population except those violations of the law which come from their adhesion to their own views in politics and religion. On the other hand, every constitutional law was being broken by the misgovernors of the land. How James could assert there were only illegalities in the cases of two members of Parliament, it is difficult to say. Even if the King’s County case was doubtful, the Kildare case, the Cavan case, and the Clogher case, would clearly make six. Some of these findings, as about the military impositions, and the Wexford peasantry being tenants at will, must have been bitter reading for Sir John Davies, who had written so strongly against that sort of thing, and who, though rapacious and heartless, may be fairly described, in the writer’s humble opinion, as the father of the Ulster custom.

The Commission, as far as it touched Parliamentary matters, dealt only with the House of Commons. The constitution of the House of Lords was as bad. On the eve of the meeting of the Parliament, on 31st March, 1613, a King’s letter was issued to call to the Upper House by writ, Lord Abercorn, Lord Henry Brian, son of the Earl of Thomond, Lord Audley, Lord Ochiltree, and Lord Burleigh. The letter also said if the right of Lord Barry, Viscount Buttevant was questioned because he had an elder brother who is deaf and dumb, the question was to be silenced by the king’s commandment, because of his dutiful behaviour, and because he had enjoyed the title for many years without contradiction. A letter in the Carew Papers shows that Lord Henry Brian or O’Brien was summoned because he was a Protestant, where we also read that Lord Athenrie, who was too poor to attend, was to be induced to give his proxy to some Protestant lord.^[51]

A good many of the intended mushroom boroughs came to nothing. Virginia was meant to be a borough, but was never incorporated. Charlestown and Jamestown were intended to be the county towns respectively of the counties of Roscommon and Leitrim, but the ill-omened names have disappeared from our maps, though the village of Jamestown became a pocket borough, returning two members till the Union.^[52]

It may be necessary to mention that the colonization of Down and Antrim are quite separate matters. About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the MacDonnells, Lords of the Isles, came to Antrim, and in 1584 a thousand Scottish highlanders, called “Redshanks,” of the septs of the Cambiles, MacDonnells and Magalanes, led by Surleboy, a Scottish chieftain, invaded Ulster. And early in James’s reign some English from Devon were brought over by Chichester and settled in Carrickfergus and Malone, near Belfast. These formed the Planters of Antrim; and Down was colonized through the interference of a laird named Montgomery. Con O’Neill had got into trouble with the Government, and his wife (a lady of great abilities, and a sister of Brian MacArt and half-sister of Owen Roe MacArt) appealed to Montgomery to help him to secure his pardon. Montgomery did secure it; but with the result that the patent for his share of Con’s land specified that the lands should be planted by British undertakers, and that no grants of fee-farms should be given to any of Irish extraction.^[53] Then James Hamilton came in and got a share, Con, Hamilton and Montgomery having one-third each. In 1606 O’Neill had to part with his property, giving it up to Montgomery. The latter founded Newtown (or Newtownards), Donaghadee, Comber and Grey-Abbey; and Hamilton founded Bangor, Holywood, Killileagh, and Ballywalter. So these wily Scotchmen got practically the whole of the County Down; and the Scotch settlers who came over in hundreds filled up the land. The barony of Iveagh, which contained so much highlands, was held by the Magenises. They seem to have been astute enough. Though often law-breakers, they did not transgress politically, and when the barony was specially settled in 1617 they got most of the land in Iveagh, and they had only to pay twice as much as the English.^[54] Here is a brief contemporary description of the head of the family. “Sir Hugh McEnys was the civilest of all the Irishry of those parts. He was brought by Sir Nicholas Bagnall from the Bonaghe of the O’Neyles to contribute to the Queen. In this place only amongst the Irish of Ulster is the rude custom of tanistship put away. Maginis is able to make 60 horsemen and 80 footmen. Every festival day he wears English garments.”

Besides the Ulster counties, in this reign there were also plantations of King’s County and Longford at a rent to the Crown of 2½d. per acre for pasture land, and ½d per acre for bog and wood, Wexford at rent 1¼d. per acre, Upper Ossory (Queen’s County) at 3d. per acre. Westmeath and Cork. There were also grants in Meath and Louth; but, though large, they hardly professed to be the basis of a plantation.

Many continental immigrants became naturalized in Ireland in this reign; they hailed mostly from Antwerp and Brabant.^[55]

Now what has the introduction of the North Britons done for Ireland? It has added complications to the religious problems of the country, by adding a third element. To all who study the history of Ireland, it tends to increase the sense of injustice and wrong, to see how the North and its industries have always been pampered for the three centuries intervening. It has not tended to the consolidation of the Empire, for every Ulster so-called “Loyalist” is a Home Ruler of a type of his own, for he approaches all Imperial problems from a local point of view. In the troublous times when political convulsions come in Belfast, as in 1886 and 1892, the most hated class of men is found to be the body that is representative of law and order, the Royal Irish Constabulary. Ulster is loyal as long as she gets her own way. Her good temper is very like what Sir Antony Absolute says of himself, “You know I am compliance itself—when I am not thwarted; no one more easily led—when I have my own way.” Her vices are worse than the traditional vices of the rest of the land. In morality the South and West of Ireland people are superior; while in temperance, it may at least be said they are not inferior. The virtues of Ulster are economy and industry and determination. They have an unreasoning decision, a blind enthusiasm, in political and religious matters that carries them along in a way that will never be copied by the more thoughtful and more depressed Southern. Ulster has shown the rest of Ireland that, however attractive the land may be, it is well to have trades and industries that do not depend, or only depend partly on the land. The crowning merit of James’s work in Ulster is that there is one part of the country where landlord and tenant, squire and labourer, think very much alike in religion and politics, so that a good understanding should be looked for between the various parties. Had he left Tyrone and Tyrconnell and O’Dogherty with their vassals, the same result would have been arrived at, without all the unconstitutional things I have referred to. Unconstitutional! We have seen the beginning of the Stuart rule; we know how it ended.

And in the struggles that intervened, Ulster was invariably against the Crown. To the English and Scotch squatters, and the Irish Society, were given arable and pasture lands, fishings, courts leet and baron, ferries, bishoprics and livings, mountain-lands and bogs, courts of pie-powder, exemptions, titles, licences to beg, recusants’ fines, wardships and marriages of minors, charters of the staple, customs on tobacco-pipes, and monopolies of all kinds, and in a few score years the grandchildren of these favoured persons made themselves famous by their bitter opposition to James’s grandson. Thus the whirligig of time brings its revenges.