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Table of Contents

St. John becomes viceroy,

with an empty treasury,

but tries to enforce uniformity.

Sir Oliver St. John, who had been ten years Master of the Ordnance in Ireland, owed his appointment in part to the rising influence of Villiers; but the advice of Chichester is likely to have been in his favour. His competence was not disputed, and Bacon was satisfied of his ‘great sufficiency,’ but many people thought he was hardly a man of sufficient eminence. He landed at Skerries on August 26, 1616, but his Irish troubles began before he reached Chester. The soldiers who were to accompany him ran away when they could, and a Welsh company broke into open mutiny. He was sworn in on the 30th, after a learned sermon by Ussher in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and then handed the Lord Treasurer’s white staff to Chichester, ‘who with all humility upon his knees received the same.’ The new Lord Deputy found that there were many pirates on the coast who had friends in remote harbours, and that there was not money enough to pay the soldiers. Worse than this was the case of the corporate towns, where no magistrates could be found to take the obligatory oath of supremacy or the milder oath of allegiance which was voluntary in Ireland. St. John proceeded to carry out the law. Carew, who was not a violent man, and who was well informed as to Irish affairs, reported that ‘over eighty’ of the best sort of ‘citizens’ in Dublin and elsewhere were in prison. Jurors who refused to present known and obstinate Recusants were treated in the same way, and the prisons were filled to overflowing. Carew hoped that this course might be persevered in and the towns reduced to villages by revoking their charters. ‘God,’ he said, ‘I hope will prosper these good beginnings, which tend only to his praise and glory, and to the assurance of obedience unto his Majesty.’[137]

Bacon advises a wary policy,

but does not persuade St. John,

who tries to enforce the oath of supremacy.

Bacon was of a different opinion from Carew. The late Lords Justices had been mainly concerned with Limerick and Kilkenny, where they saw the difficulty but suggested no remedy, ‘rather warily for themselves than agreeably to their duties and place.’ Bacon himself was for proceeding very warily. He was against tendering the oath of supremacy to these town magistrates at all, and in favour of trusting to gradual remedies. The plantation of Protestant settlers, he said, ‘cannot but mate the other party in time’ if accompanied by the establishment of good bishops and preachers, by improvement of the new college, and by the education of wards. These were the natural means, and if anything stronger was necessary it should be done by law and not by force. And only one town should be taken in hand at a time so as not to cause panic. St. John himself was in favour of a general attack on the municipalities who refused to elect mayors or recorders, and of carrying this policy out to its logical consequences, otherwise he said the State would only spin and unspin. It was resolved to proceed in the case of Waterford by legal process as Bacon had advised. Before the end of 1615 a decree was obtained in Chancery for forfeiture of the charter, unless the corporation surrendered under seal by a certain day. In July 1616, over six months after the appointed time, Alexander Cuffe refused to take the oath of supremacy as mayor, and at the end of the year this matter was referred to the English Privy Council. In the dearth of magistrates there was no regular gaol delivery and the criminal law was at a standstill; but it was not till October 1617 that the Earl of Thomond and Chief Justice Jones, sitting as special commissioners, obtained a verdict from a county of Waterford jury ‘even as the King’s counsel drew it.’ As late as May 1618 the forfeiture was not complete, and the citizens were allowed to send agents to England. The charter was surrendered in the following year, and Waterford, ‘of whose antiquity and fidelity,’ in Docwra’s language, ‘the citizens were wont to brag, reduced to be a mere disfranchised village.’ And so it remained until the end of the reign.[138]

The Waterford charter is forfeited,

but a Protestant corporation is unobtainable.

The citizens of Waterford valued their charter, but the oath of supremacy was too high a price to pay, and they refused to make even a show of conformity, ‘preferring to sit still and attend whatever course the King directs.’ Local magistrates were therefore unobtainable, and James suggested that fitting persons should be imported from England. The Irish Government liked the idea, and suggested that thirty families, worth at least 500l. each, should be induced to settle. They were not to be violent or turbulent folk but able to furnish magistrates, and two ruined abbeys near the river might be assigned for their reception. If the owners took advantage of the situation to exact high prices, the Government would reduce them to reason. The mayor and aldermen of Bristol were accordingly invited by the English Privy Council to fill the gap, but after a month’s inquiry they were unable to find anyone who was willing to inhabit Waterford upon the terms proposed.[139]

Fresh plantations undertaken.

The Wexford case.

The people weary of Irish tenures.

When Sir William Jones was made Chief Justice of Ireland in the spring of 1617, Lord Keeper Bacon advised him to ‘have special care of the three plantations, that of the North which is in part acted, that of Wexford which is now in distribution, and that of Longford and Leitrim which is now in survey. And take it from me that the bane of a plantation is, when the undertakers or planters make such haste to a little mechanical present profit, as disturbeth the whole frame and nobleness of the work for times to come. Therefore hold them to their covenants, and the strict ordinances of plantation.’ Seven years had then passed since the Wexford project had been first mooted, and many difficulties had arisen. The lands in question comprised the northern part of Wexford county, with a small strip in Carlow and Wicklow, partly inhabited by representatives of ancient settlers or modern grantees, but more largely by Kinsellaghs, Kavanaghs, Murroes, Macdamores, and Macvadocks, who, as Chichester said, ‘when the chief of the English retired themselves upon the discord of the houses of Lancaster and York crept into the woody and strong parts of the same.’ The most important person among the English was Sir Richard Masterson of Ferns, whose family had been long connected with the district, and who had an annuity of 90l. out of it by Queen Elizabeth’s grant. Walter Synnott had a similar charge of 20l., and both received some other chief rents. The Commissioners who visited Ireland in 1613 reported that the tract contained 66,800 acres in the baronies of Gorey, Ballaghkeen, and Scarawalsh stretching from the borders of Carlow to the sea and from Arklow to somewhere near Enniscorthy, along the left bank of the Slaney, besides much wood, bog, and mountain. Many of the inhabitants were tired of disorder, though they had been followers of ‘the Kavanaghs and other lewd persons in time of rebellion,’ and were willing to give up lands of which they had but an uncertain tenure, and to receive them back in more regular form. They claimed their lands by descent, and not by tanistry, but the descent was in Irish gavelkind and the subdivision had therefore been infinite. The investigation of their titles followed, during which it was discovered that the whole territory was legally vested in the King. Art MacMurrough Kavanagh and other chiefs surrendered their proprietary rights to Richard II. who undertook to employ them in his wars, and to give them an estate of inheritance in all lands they could conquer from rebels. Art himself was to receive an annuity of 80 marks, which was actually paid for some years. The chiefs did homage, and then the King granted the whole territory in question to Sir John Beaumont, excepting any property belonging to the Earl of Ormonde and certain other grantees, and to the Church. Beaumont’s interest became vested in Francis Lord Lovel, who disappeared at the battle of Stoke and whose attainder brought all his possessions to the Crown.[140]

Opposition of Wexford landowners.

The dissatisfaction is general.

The lively proceedings in Parliament during the spring of 1613 drew attention to Ireland and to the Wexford plantation, among other things there. Walter Synnott took the lead among the petitioners who visited London, and the result was a particular reference of the Wexford case to the Commissioners sent over to inquire into Irish grievances. Even with their report before us it is not easy to understand all the details. The Commissioners say that 35,210 acres, or more than half of the whole territory, were assigned to Sir Richard Masterson, but in the schedule the figure is only 16,529. The general result was that 12,000 acres were declared without owners, and these it was intended to divide among certain military officers. Fifty-seven natives became freeholders under the scheme, of which only twenty-one retained their ‘ancient houses and habitations, some of the remoter lands being given to new undertakers, and in exchange they are to have others nearer to their dwellings, at which they are discontented, saying that they are not sufficiently recompensed.’ Even the lucky ones had to give up part of their land, while 390, who claimed small freeholds, got nothing, and all the other inhabitants, amounting to 14,500 men, women, and children, were left at the will of the patentees, ‘though few are yet removed.’ The new undertakers declared that they would disturb no one except in so far as was necessary to make demesnes about the castles which they were bound to build, Masterson, Synnott and others being ready to let lands to them at rates merely sufficient to satisfy the crown rents.[141]

The more the plan is known,

the less it is liked.

The scheme is revised.

But few are satisfied.

Chichester’s original project was not covetous on the part of the Crown, for it aimed at no greater revenue than 400l. instead of 279l. 3s. 4d. which had hitherto been the highest annual revenue. In consideration of being bound to build castles and to inhabit mountainous regions, the rent demanded from the undertakers, who were to be all Protestants, was somewhat less than that of the Irish freeholders. Whatever might be thought of the plan no one was satisfied with the way in which it worked out. Many such of the natives, say the Commissioners, as formerly ‘agreed to this new plantation now absolutely dislike thereof, and of their proportions assigned them in lieu of their other possessions taken from them, for that, as they affirm, their proportions assigned are not so many acres as they are rated to them, and because the acres taken from them are far more in number than they be surveyed at, which difference cannot be decided without a new survey, which some of the natives desire.’ If the case of the newly-made freeholder stood thus, what must have been the feelings of men who were made altogether landless? Most of the Irish had been concerned in Tyrone’s rebellion, but some had been always loyal, like the old English inhabitants. As for Walter Synnott and others in his position, they professed themselves willing to pay the King as much as the new undertakers, but not in any way to contribute to the expenses incurred by them. After receiving the report of the Commissioners, James agreed to a revised plan which was very favourable to the Irish, or at least to some of them. The new undertakers were to receive only 16,500 acres in all and those the least fertile, the rest, after satisfying Masterson, Synnott, and another, was to be divided among the Irish. When Chichester ceased to be Lord Deputy at the end of 1615, nothing had been finally settled, and recriminations continued for some time. On a fresh survey it was discovered that ‘half the country was before distributed under the name of a quarter only.’ Eighty Irish freeholders were then made in addition to the first fifty-seven, which still left 530 claimants unprovided for according to their own account, or 303 according to the official view. The fortunate ones were of course overjoyed, but by far the greater number were not fortunate. The patentees whose titles had been clearly made surrendered and received fresh grants on a somewhat reduced scale. Of the undertakers whose patents had not been fully perfected Blundell alone secured 500 acres by the King’s especial wish, and 1,000 were assigned to the Bishop of Waterford. The royal revenue was increased by about 300l. a year, and the expenses of the settlement were defrayed by the country.[142]

Report of Commissioners on the plantation.

The Irish inhabitants willing to make some concessions,

but are dissatisfied with the terms given.

The Commissioners above mentioned were instructed to inform themselves minutely as to the proceedings in the proposed plantation, which at the time of their inquiry had been going on for more than three years; they were to find out how many families were to be displaced, of what condition they were, whether they had been good subjects or not, and whether they held by descent or by tanistry. Similar particulars were to be given about the undertakers or settlers who were to take their places and ‘whether any of them be of the Irish and namely of the Kavanaghs.’ The Commissioners were ordered to discover whether the evictions had been so managed as to deprive the people of their growing crops, and as to the houses available for them on ejectment; and also whether they were capable of making the same improvements as the undertakers were bound to, and of paying the same rents. As Chichester was himself a member of the Commission, the report may be taken as a fair or perhaps as a favourable account of what was actually done. Most of the Irish inhabitants realised that their position as tenants in gavelkind was weak, and they were ready in 1609 to surrender on condition of getting an indefeasible title to three-fourths of their land, leaving the remainder for English settlers. They said there were 667 of them in this position, but the official record only mentioned 440: probably the discrepancy was owing to many of them not having put in their claims by the appointed day. Fourteen out of the whole number had patents from the Crown to show. Before anything was actually done the discovery of the King’s title was made, but at first this seemed to make little difference, and the Irish people were almost persuaded that nothing was intended but their good. They were told that the King would be satisfied with a small increase in his revenue, ‘and that the civilising of the country was the chief thing aimed at’; but that those who thwarted his Majesty’s excellent plans ‘should have justice, which is the benefit of subjects, but were to look for no favour.’ The general idea was that freeholds should not be less than 100 acres, or sixty in some rare cases, and that the rest of the peasants should become leasehold tenants to them or to English undertakers. The freeholders alone would have to serve on juries, and it was desirable not to have too large a panel, as the difficulty of getting verdicts would be increased thereby. Fifty-seven freeholders were accordingly made, of whom twenty-one were not disturbed, the others were shifted about and were not content, declaring that the land given in compensation was insufficient. ‘To the residue,’ the report continues, ‘which claim to be freeholders, being for the most part possessed of but small portions, no allowance of land or recompense is assigned or given.’ There were 390 of these and 14,500 persons besides remained in the country ‘at the will of the patentees.’ It was not proposed actually to remove them from their houses or holdings unless they interfered with a demesne, but for this forbearance there was no adequate security.

A Wexford jury will not find the King’s title,

and strong measures are taken.

These people, or many of them, had not been unwilling to see English gentlemen come among them, and even to give up some land in order to secure the remainder, but the wind changed when it was discovered that only something like one in ten would have any estate at all. The King’s title had been found by the lawyers, but it was necessary that there should be a verdict also, and in December 1611 a Wexford jury refused to find one. The case was removed into the Exchequer with the same jury, and after much argument eleven were ready to find for the King and five against him. The minority were sent to prison and fined in the Castle Chamber, and the case was remitted to Wexford, where the eleven obedient jurors were reinforced by Sir Thomas Colclough and John Murchoe or Murphy, ‘now a patentee in the new plantation,’ and therefore an interested party, and the King’s title by Lord Lovel’s attainder was thus found.[143]

Indecision of the King.

People who benefited by the settlement.

The King is convinced by the complainants,

but soon changes his mind.

The King approves of the plantation.

The tendency of James I. to give decisions upon one-sided evidence, and to veer round when he heard the other side, is well illustrated by his dealings with the Wexford settlement. The case for the Irish inhabitants, as matters stood at the end of 1611, may be taken as sufficiently stated in the petition presented by Henry Walsh on their behalf. Walsh seems to have been a lawyer, but he was in possession of 220 acres as a freeholder, which were reduced to 130 by the plan of settlement. He stated that he and his fellows had surrendered upon the faith of a regrant in common socage ‘reduced from gavelkind and other uncertain tenures’ in consideration of paying a head rent of 90l. to the Castle of Ferns and of 60l. into the Exchequer. The regrants were delayed, but on the King’s title being set up he was induced to grant patents to several undertakers, 1,500 acres apiece being assigned to Sir Laurence Esmond, ‘servitor, and a native of Wexford,’ and Sir Edward Fisher, also a servitor. It afterwards appeared that 19,900 acres were disposed of in this way, 500 to Nicholas Kenny the escheator, 1,000 to William Parsons the surveyor and future Lord Justice, 600 to Conway Brady, the Queen’s footman, 1,000 to Francis Blundell, afterwards Vice-Treasurer, 1,000 to Sir Robert Jacob the Solicitor-General, and so forth. Some of these were put into possession by the sheriff even before the issue of their patents, military force being employed. Walsh said a hundred thousand people were affected by these transactions, which was no doubt a great exaggeration, but he could state with some truth that the interests of Sir Richard Masterson and other old English settlers were threatened by the assertion of a title ‘dormant and not heard of time out of mind.’ The Commissioners for Irish causes in London so far supported the petition that they advised the revocation of all patents granted since the surrender of the native landowners, and that no advantage should be taken of them except to exact a moderate increase of the Crown rent. The King thereupon ordered Chichester to revoke the patents to Fisher and Esmond, to raise the rent from 45l. to 50l., and not to allow Henry Walsh to be molested. The petitioners, said the King, had been denied the benefit of the Commission of defective titles, and ‘advantage taken of their surrender to their own disherison.’ Chichester objected that the Commissioners for Irish causes had been misled by false statements, and that he would suspend all action until he had fresh orders. Whereupon the King, who had been having some talk with Sir John Davies, declared that Walsh’s petition was ‘full of false and cautelous surmises,’ and ordered him to be summoned before the Irish Council and punished in an exemplary manner if he failed to prove his statements. Chichester was directed to go on with the plantation, assured of his Majesty’s continued approbation, and encouraged to make the work his own by visiting the district in person.[144]

The critics to be punished.

The preparations for holding a Parliament may have hindered Chichester’s activity, but the King’s vacillations would have caused delay in any case. At the end of 1612 James revoked all former letters on the subject except that of May 7, 1611, by which the Lord Deputy had been authorised to receive the surrender of the natives and to make ‘regrants to such of them as he should think fit such quantities of land and at such rent and upon such conditions as he should think fit.’ There might then be made such an intermixture of English settlers as would civilise the country and ‘annoy the mountain neighbours if they should thereafter stir.’ Henry Walsh and Thomas Hoare, who had held public indignation meetings and ‘endeavoured seditiously to stir up the inhabitants’ against the King’s title and against his good work of plantation, were ordered to be duly punished for their ‘inordinate and contemptuous behaviour.’[145]

Nullum Tempus occurrit Regi.

Bishop Rothe’s view of the plantation.

He foretells future trouble.

It is a well-known maxim of our law that the Crown cannot lose its rights through lapse of time. In modern practice this doctrine has been somewhat modified by statute and by the decisions of judges; but in the time of James I. it was accepted literally, and no lawyer or official seems to have thought that there was anything extraordinary in setting up a title for the King which had not been heard of for generations. Those who suffered by the transaction pleaded that Art MacMurrough had no right to the country in the feudal sense, and could not therefore surrender it; and even if the effect of Lord Lovel’s attainder were admitted, there had been no attempt to act upon it for 120 years. The official correspondence has hitherto been followed here, but it is fair to append the criticism of a thoroughly competent observer who lived not far off and who understood the subject. The learned David Rothe, who was a very honest and by no means extreme man, appealed like Bacon to foreign countries and the next age, and published the story of the Wexford settlement in Latin. He showed how little chance rude and illiterate peasants had against lawyers, and he foresaw the consequences of driving them to desperation. ‘The Viceroy,’ he wrote, ‘ought to have looked closer before he suggested an imperfect and shaky title to the King, as a solid foundation for his new right, and before he drove from their well established and ancient possession harmless poor natives encumbered with many children and with no powerful friends. They have no wealth but flocks and herds, they know no trade but agriculture or pasture, they are unlearned men without human help or protection. Yet though unarmed they are so active in mind and body that it is dangerous to drive them from their ancestral seats, to forbid them fire and water; thus driving the desperate to revenge and even the more moderate to think of taking arms. They have been deprived of weapons, but are in a temper to fight with nails and heels and to tear their oppressors with their teeth. Necessity gives the greatest strength and courage, nor is there any sharper spur than that of despair. Since these Leinster men, and others like them, see themselves excluded from all hopes of restitution or compensation, and are so constituted that they would rather starve upon husks at home than fare sumptuously elsewhere, they will fight for their altars and hearths, and rather seek a bloody death near the sepulchres of their fathers than be buried as exiles in unknown earth or inhospitable sand.’[146]

Outlaws about the plantations.

In the autumn of 1619 St. John reported that 300 outlaws had been killed, most of them doubtless in the hills between Tyrone and Londonderry, but many also near the Wexford plantation, where small bands of ten to twenty escaped detection and punishment for a long time. Their own countrymen and neighbours proved the most efficient tools of the Government, and a grandson of Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne, whom St. John addressed as his loving friend, took money for this service. Means were found to satisfy a very few more native claimants, raising the number to 150, which was considered too many, since the really suitable cases had long been dealt with. Some of the Kavanaghs who boasted themselves the descendants of kings, but whom St. John was never tired of describing as bastards and rebels, ‘with a crew of wicked rogues gathered out of the bordering parts, entered into the plantation, surprised Sir James Carrol’s and Mr. Marwood’s houses, murdered their servants, burned their towns, and committed many outrages in those parts in all likelihood upon a conspiracy among themselves to disturb the settlement of those countries. For which outrage most of the malefactors have since been slain or executed by law.’ In London a tenant of Blundell’s, who was perhaps crazy and certainly drunken, asked him for a drink, after taking which he proposed to go to Ireland and help to burn his landlord’s house. Petitioners continued to bring their complaints both to London and Dublin, and in the summer of 1622 Mr. Hadsor, who knew Irish, looked into the matter and begged them to return to their own countries on the understanding that well-founded grievances should be reported to the King.

The undertakers settle down on the land.

By the time of Hadsor’s survey things had gone too far to be altered, and the undertakers had laid out large sums, though in many cases less than they were bound to do. St. John reported in 1621 that 130 strong castles had then been built. But Hadsor retained his opinion as to the injustice attendant on the Wexford plantation far into the next reign, and other able officials agreed with him. And so the grievance slumbered or rather smouldered until 1641.[147]

Plantation in Longford and King’s County.

The plan better than the execution

Persistence of tribal ideas.

The territory of Annaly, mainly possessed by the O’Ferralls and their dependents, had been made into the county of Longford by Sir Henry Sidney. Chichester marked it as a good field for plantation in 1610, but there were many difficulties, and nothing was actually done until St. John’s time. In this, as in other cases, the general idea was to respect the rights of all who held by legal title, to give one-fourth of the remaining land to English undertakers and to leave three-fourths to the Irish, converting their tribal tenures into freeholds where the portions were large enough, and settling the rest as tenants. There can be no doubt that the new comers on the whole improved the country, and much might be said for these schemes of colonisation if they had been always fairly carried out. The intentions of the King and his ministers were undoubtedly good, but many causes conspired against them. Not a few of the undertakers in each plantation thought only of making money, and were ready to evade the conditions as to building, and above all as to giving proper leases to their tenants whether English or Irish. And among the natives there were many who hated regular labour, and preferred brigandage to agriculture. The old tribal system was incompatible with modern progress, but the people were attached to it, and their priests were of course opposed to the influx of Protestants.

In the early part of 1615 James gave his deliberate decision that plantations of some kind offered the best chance for civilising Ireland. In this way only could the local tyranny of native chiefs be got rid of, and the people improved by an intermixture of British accustomed to keep order and qualified to show a good example. The turn of Longford came next to that of Wexford, and with it was joined Ely O’Carroll, comprising the baronies of Clonlisk and Ballybritt in King’s County not contiguous to the rest of the plantation. In Ely there were no chief-rents or other legal incumbrances, but 200l. a year were due to the heirs of Sir Nicholas Malby out of the whole county of Longford and 120 beeves to Sir Richard Shaen the grantee of Granard Castle. These rent-charges were irregularly paid, and were the source of constant bickerings. There were no similar incumbrances in Ely, and neither there nor in Longford was there any pre-eminent chief at the moment, which made the task somewhat easier. It was part of the plan that there should in future be no O’Ferrall or O’Carroll with claims to tribal sovereignty.[148]

Attempt to apply the Wexford lesson.

The O’Ferralls.

A careful survey.

Ely O’Carroll

Cases of hardship.

Troubles from landless men.

It was not till towards the end of 1618 that the conditions of the plantation were at last settled. The correspondence and notes of the survey were submitted to a committee of the Privy Council consisting of Archbishop Abbot, Sir George Carew, the Earl of Arundel, and Secretary Naunton, and their report was acted upon; but a commission to carry out the scheme was not appointed until the following autumn. Chichester as well as St. John were members, and the great care which was taken seems to have made the plantation less unpopular than that of Wexford. Many objections indeed were made to acting upon such an old title as the King had to Longford, and to ignoring grants made in the late reign; though perhaps the lawyers could show that they had for the most part been nullified by the non-performance of conditions. The O’Ferralls had on the whole been loyal, and promises had been made to them. Whatever the arrangements were, it was evident that many natives would have no land, and it was urged that they would be better subjects it if was all given to them. Having no other means of living they would be driven to desperation and commit all manner of villanies, as the tribesmen of Ulster were ready to do if they got the chance. The King, however, was determined to carry out his plan, and the O’Ferralls yielded with a tolerably good grace, objecting not so much to giving up one-fourth of the country to settlers as to having to redeem Shaen’s and Malby’s rents out of the remainder. The Wexford misunderstanding was avoided by having a careful survey taken from actual measurements, and it was found that in Longford 57,803 acres of arable and pasture were available for the purposes of the plantation, the remainder, amounting to over 72,000 acres, being occupied by old grantees or by bogs and woods. Ely was better, 32,000 acres out of 54,000 being described as arable and pasture. The general order was that no freeholder should have less than 100 acres, and those who had less were to have leases for three lives or forty-one years under a planter or some more fortunate native. The unlucky ones generally and naturally complained that the measurements were inaccurate, and that they were thus unfairly reduced to ‘fractions.’ The undertakers, whether English or Irish, were to keep 300 acres in demesne about their houses. There seem to have been some cases of hardship even in the opinion of the Irish Government. Of these the most important was that of Sir John MacCoghlan in King’s County, who had fought bravely on the side of Government, but who, nevertheless, lost part of his property. As late as 1632 he was noted as a discontented man who ought to be watched, and his clansmen generally joined in the rebellion of 1641. As in the case of Wexford trouble came from those who were excluded from freehold grants. They were to have taken up the position of tenants, but could get no land at reasonable rates, and in 1622, after St. John had left Ireland, the Lords Justices reported that they were preparing to come to Dublin in multitudes. The discontent never died out, and Longford was infested with rebels or outlaws so that a rising was feared in 1827 and in 1832. Hadsor, who knew all about the matter, attributed the failure of the plantation to the way in which the natives had been treated, the ideas of King James not having been carried out in practice. Strafford’s strong hand kept things quiet for a time, but in 1641 Longford was the first county in Leinster to take part in the great rebellion.[149]

The undertakers non-resident.

The natives not attracted by short leases,

with stringent covenants.

A survey of the plantations hitherto made was taken in 1622, and the Commissioners reported that some of the undertakers in Wexford were sometimes resident, and that they had built strongly, though not within the specified time. Their colleague, Sir Francis Annesley, had his demesne stocked and servants on the spot; and it was suggested that he should be enjoined to reside. Some natives complained that they had been cheated, but the patentees had been long in quiet possession, and the Commissioners prudently refused to meddle. In Longford and Ely no undertakers were resident, ‘Henry Haynes and the widow Medhope only excepted.’ In Ely there was no actual provision for town, fort, or free school, though lands had been assigned; but Longford was better off in these respects. Twenty-acre glebes were assigned by the articles to sixteen parishes in Ely, but these had not been properly secured to the incumbents. In Longford the King made large grants to Lord Aungier and Sir George Calvert, which were satisfied out of the three-quarters supposed to be reserved for the natives. Those of the old inhabitants whose interest was too small for a freehold were expected to take leases from the undertakers, ‘but we do not find that they have any desire to settle in that kind.’ They were not attracted by the maximum term of three lives or twenty-one years, at a rent fixed by agreement or arbitration, distrainable within fifteen days, and with a right of re-entry after forty days; nor by covenants to build and enclose within four years.[150]

Plantation of Leitrim.

General ill-success of the smaller plantations.

The land unfairly divided.

The whole county of Leitrim was declared escheated, and in this case there were no settlers either from England or from the Pale. Mac Glannathy or Mac Clancy, head of the clan among whom Captain Cuellar suffered so much in the Armada year, was independent in the northern district, represented by the modern barony of Rossclogher. The rest of the county was dependent on the O’Rourkes. Some two hundred landholders declared themselves anxious to become the King’s tenants and submit to a settlement. Lord Gormanston claimed to hold large estates as representative of the Nangle family, who had been grantees in former days; but this title had been too long in abeyance. Leitrim was not a very inviting country, and the undertakers were very slow to settle; so that the business was not done until far into the new reign, and was never done thoroughly at all. Carrigdrumrusk, now Carrick-on-Shannon, had been made a borough for the Parliament of 1613, and the castle there was held for the King, but was of little use in preventing outlaws and cattle-drivers from passing between Leitrim and Roscommon. A more vigorous attempt was made at Tullagh, a little lower down the Shannon, where a corporation was founded and called Jamestown. The buildings were erected by Sir Charles Coote at his own expense, and he undertook to wall the place as an assize town for Leitrim. It was further arranged that the assizes for Roscommon should be held on the opposite bank, and the spot was christened Charlestown. But as a whole the settlement of Leitrim was not successful. At the end of 1629 Sir Thomas Dutton, the Scoutmaster-General, who had ample opportunities for forming an opinion, declared that the Ulster settlement only had prospered, and that the rest of Ireland was more addicted to Popery than in Queen Elizabeth’s time. The Jesuits and other propagandists had increased twentyfold. In Wexford, King’s County, Longford, and Leitrim corruption among the officials had vitiated the whole scheme of plantation and made it worse than nothing. Hadsor, who thoroughly understood the subject, said much injustice had been done to the natives, and that the Irish gentlemen appointed to distribute the lands had helped themselves to what they ought to have divided among others. Carrick and Jamestown returned Protestant members to Strafford’s Parliaments, but the large grant to Sir Frederick Hamilton was the most important gain to the English interest. When the hour of trial came, Manor Hamilton was able to take care of itself.[151]

Irish soldiers in Poland.

Chichester’s policy of sending Irishmen to serve in Sweden had been only partially successful, many of them finding their way home or into the service of the Archdukes. St. John reported in 1619 that the country was full of ‘the younger sons of gentlemen, who have no means of living and will not work,’ and he favoured the recruiting enterprise of Captain James Butler, who was already in the Polish service. Protestantism was repressed to the utmost by Sigismund, but it was possible to represent him as a bulwark of Europe against the Turks. Later on, when the Prince of Wales and Buckingham had returned in dudgeon from Madrid, Poland was at peace with the infidel and allied with Spain against Sweden, and it was considered doubtful policy to encourage the formation of Irish regiments who would be used to crush Protestant interests on the Continent.[152]

Unpopularity of St. John.

He is praised by the King,

and by Bacon,

but is nevertheless recalled,

leaving a starving army in Ireland.

The Spanish match affected all public transactions during the later years of James’s reign. Before his departure for Madrid in 1617 Digby warned Buckingham that all the Irish towns were watching the Waterford case in hopes of getting better terms for the Recusants, and that Spain ‘relied upon no advantage against England but by Ireland.’ At this period he himself wished that the King would proceed roundly and dash all such expectations. St. John was willing enough so to proceed, but was constantly checked by diplomatic considerations; while the priests gave out that a Spanish invasion might be expected at any time. The Lord Deputy seems always to have satisfied the King, but he was evidently unpopular with the official class, and it was perhaps more to opposition of this kind that he owed his recall than to his too great Protestant zeal, as Cox and many other writers have assumed. He told Buckingham that there was a strong combination against him in the Irish Council, and that Sir Roger Jones, the late Chancellor’s son, openly flouted him. Jones was ordered to apologise and forbidden to attend the Council until he had done so; but the opposition were not silenced, and the Privy Council in England sided with them. It was reported that he had disarmed the Irish Protestants, for which there can have been no foundation. The pay of the army was heavily in arrear, but that was not his fault, though it must certainly have contributed to make his government unpopular. He had forwarded the plantation system largely, making more enemies than friends thereby, but James thought colonisation the only plan for Ireland, and appreciated his exertions in that way. In August 1621 the King declared that it was a glory to have such a servant, who had done nothing wrong so far as he could see. He had already created him Viscount Grandison with remainder to the issue of his niece, who had married Buckingham’s brother. It is possible that the support of the favourite may have been less determined when that honour had been secured to one of his family. The fall of Bacon, who thought St. John ‘a man ordained of God to do great good to that kingdom,’ may have lessened his credit. By the end of the year it had been decided to send a Commission to Ireland with large powers, and the Privy Council maintained that their inquiries could be better conducted in the Deputy’s absence. James said he had never been in the habit of disgracing any absent minister before he were heard; but in the end it was decided to recall Grandison. He left Ireland on May 4, 1622, and the Commissioners arrived about the same time. He had never ceased to call attention to the miserable state of the army and to the ‘tottered carcasses, lean cheeks, and broken hearts’ of the soldiers, whose pay was two years and a half in arrear and who had nevertheless retained their discipline and harmed no one. They were almost starving, ‘and I know,’ he said ‘that I shall be followed with a thousand curses and leave behind me an opinion that my unworthiness or want of credit has been the cause of leaving the army in worse estate than ever any of my predecessors before have done.’[153]

Lord Falkland made Viceroy, Feb. 1621–2.

Sermon by Bishop Ussher,

who wished to enforce the Act of Supremacy,

but is rebuked by the Primate.

The King’s, or Buckingham’s, choice fell upon Henry Cary, lately created Viscount Falkland in Scotland and best known as the father of Clarendon’s hero. Falkland was Controller of the Household, and sold his place to Sir John Suckling, the poet’s father, who paid a high price. The money may not all have gone to the new Lord Deputy, but his departure was delayed for seven months by the long haggling about it, Sir Adam Loftus and Lord Powerscourt acting as Lords Justices. He was sworn in on September 8, 1622, after hearing Bishop Ussher preach a learned sermon in Christchurch on the text, ‘He beareth not the sword in vain.’ This sermon, which is not extant, was looked upon by some as a signal for persecution; and no doubt the reports of it were much exaggerated. Ussher found it necessary to write an explanatory letter to Grandison summarising the argument he had used. It rested, he had said, with the King to have the recusancy laws executed more or less mildly, but the Established Church had a right to protection from open insult. He had alluded, without giving names, to the case of ‘Mr. John Ankers, preacher, of Athlone, a man well known unto your lordship,’ who had found the church at Kilkenny in Westmeath occupied by a congregation of forty, headed by an old priest, who bade him begone ‘until he had done his business.’ The Franciscans who were driven out of Multifernham by Grandison had retaken it, and were collecting subscriptions to build another house ‘for the entertaining of another swarm of locusts.’ He asked that the recusancy laws should be strictly executed against all who left the Establishment for the Church of Rome, but deprecated violence and ‘wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the badge of the whore of Babylon than of the Church of God,’ which is a little too like the common form of the Inquisition. On the day after this letter was penned, Primate Hampton wrote a mild rebuke from Drogheda. He thought it very unwise to trouble the waters, and suggested that Ussher should explain away what he had said about the sword, for his proper weapons were not carnal but spiritual. He also advised the Bishop of Meath to leave Dublin and spend more time in his own diocese, of which the condition, by his own showing, was unsatisfactory, and to make himself loved and respected there even if his doctrine was disliked. According to Cox, Ussher preached such a sermon as the Primate advised; but there seems to be no trace of it anywhere else.[154]

Effects of the Spanish marriage negotiations.

The King of Spain treated as sovereign.

Whatever may have been the Bishop of Meath’s exact meaning, Falkland was well inclined to use his authority for the support of the Establishment. But the Spanish match was in the ascendant, and not much was done until the Prince of Wales came back without his bride. While the prospect was still held out of having an Infanta as Queen of England, the priests became bolder than ever. A clergyman was attacked by a mob of eighty women when trying to perform the funeral service for Lady Killeen. At Cavan and Granard thousands assembled for worship, and Captain Arthur Forbes reported that, unless he knew for certain that the King wished for toleration, he would ‘make the antiphonie of their mass be sung with sound of musket.’ Some priests went so far as to pray openly for ‘Philip our king.’ At Kells fair it was publicly announced that the Prince of Wales was married and that the Duke of Buckingham had carried the cross before him. The return of the royal adventurer came as a surprise, and the Roman Catholics of the Pale proposed to send agents to London to congratulate him upon it, and to make it clear that they had no hand in obstructing the marriage. The newly made Earl of Westmeath and Sir William Talbot took the lead and proposed to raise a sum of money which seemed to Falkland quite disproportioned to the necessity of the case. Earls were expected to contribute ten pounds, and there was a graduated scale down to ten shillings for small freeholders, ‘beside what addition every man will please to give.’ Falkland was very suspicious, and it is clear enough that a general redress of grievances was part of the plan; but Westmeath and his friends were probably too loyal to excite much enthusiasm, and the whole scheme was given up because subscriptions did not come in.

Proclamation against the priests, Jan. 1624,

which takes little effect.

Charles reached England in October, and early in 1624 a proclamation was printed and published, apparently by the King’s orders, banishing on pain of imprisonment all Roman Catholic priests of every kind and rank. They were to be gone within forty days, and to be arrested if they came back. The only way of escape was by submitting to the authorities and going to church. The reason set forth for this drastic treatment was that the country was overrun by great numbers of ‘titulary popish archbishops, bishops, vicars-general, abbots, priors, deans, Jesuits, friars, seminary priests, and others of that sect,’ in spite of proclamations still in force against them. But the King, or Buckingham, wavered, and not much was done towards getting rid of the recusant clergy. An informer who started the absurd rumour that Westmeath was to be king of Ireland, acknowledged that he had lied; but Falkland was not satisfied, because on Friday in Easter week there was a great gathering some miles from the Earl’s house, ‘made by two titulary bishops under the title of visiting a holy anchorite residing therabouts.’ In the end, Westmeath went to England, where he was able to clear himself completely, the prosecution of his detractors was ordered, and Falkland was persuaded that his chief fault was too great a love of popularity.[155]

Alarmist rumours.

The tendency of the official mind in the days before the Long Parliament was to stretch the prerogative. Ministers were responsible only to the King. It was therefore natural for Irish viceroys to magnify their office and to claim within their sphere of action powers as great as those of the sovereign himself. Being of a querulous disposition, Falkland was even more than usually jealous of any restraint. During the early part of his government the Lord Treasurer Middlesex turned his attention to Irish finance, effecting economies which may or may not have been wise, but which were certainly distasteful to the Lord Deputy, who lost perquisites and patronage. Rumours that there was to be a general massacre of English were rife throughout Ireland, but Falkland admitted that there was never such universal tranquillity, though his pessimism led him to fear that this was only the lull before a storm. Not more than 750 effective men would be available in case of insurrection which might be encouraged from Spain after the marriage treaty was broken off. The English Government thought the danger real enough to order the execution of the late proclamation against Jesuits and others who ‘picked the purses of his Majesty’s subjects by indulgences, absolutions, and pardons from Rome.’ The number of horsemen was to be increased from 230 to 400, and of foot from 1,450 to 3,600; arrangements were made as to supplies, and the forts were to be put in better order. The scare continued until the end of the reign, but Olivares, though perhaps very willing to wound, had not the means for an attack on Ireland.[156]

Falkland’s grievances.

The Lord Deputy complained that his letters were not answered, but the home Government were occupied with the English Parliament, which was prorogued May 29, 1624; and it was also thought desirable to hear what Sir Francis Annesley had to say. Falkland did not get on either with him or with Lord Chancellor Loftus, who were also Strafford’s chief opponents. He granted certain licences for tanning and for selling spirits, which required the Great Seal to make them valid, but Loftus hesitated to affix it, saying that one was void in law and the other in equity. If the judges decided against him he would submit. Falkland’s contention was that the Chancellor must seal anything he wished, but Loftus said his oath would in that case be broken and his office made superfluous. An angry correspondence ended by a reference to the King, and Loftus was called upon to explain. He was able to show that he also had suffered by Middlesex’s economies, and that his official income was much smaller than that of his archiepiscopal predecessor’s had been. A considerable increase was granted. And so the matter rested when James I. died.[157]

Death of James I.

Henry IV. is reported to have said that his brother of England was the wisest fool in Christendom. Macaulay thought him like the Emperor Claudius. Gardiner tried to be fair, but admitted that the popular estimate of James is based upon the ‘Fortunes of Nigel’; and therefore it is not likely to be soon altered. He has been more praised for his Irish policy than for anything else, and perhaps with truth; for there is such a thing as political long sight, clear for objects at a distance and clouded for those which are near at hand. The settlement has preserved one province to the English connection, and has thus done much to secure the rest; but it may be doubted whether the unfairness of it was not the chief cause of the outbreak in 1641, and so to a great degree of the bitterness which has permeated Irish life ever since.