Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642. Bagwell, Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ found his most determined enemies among the humbler Scots, and he seriously thought of banishing them all. Even under Cromwell they did not get on too well with the English, but in the long run Anglicanism and Presbyterianism combined sufficiently to give a permanently Protestant tone to the northern province. The rebellion of 1641 prevented the colonists from dividing their forces as they might otherwise have done, and the alliance held good in 1688, and even, after a very short hesitation, in 1798. By the partiality of James a very great quantity of land was given to the Church, and especially to the Bishops, most of whom did not do very much for the common defence. Of the whole land granted in the six escheated counties, little more than one-tenth was given as property to the natives; the rest of them lived chiefly as dependants on the undertakers, and without legal interest in the land which they were forced to till for a subsistence. And there were a large number whose business had been fighting, and who lived on those who worked when there was no longer any fighting to be done. Thus very few of the Ulster Irish had anything to lose by a successful revolt, and many might think they had a great deal to gain. The acreage of the grants was far less than the actual contents of the different counties, and thus there was still plenty of room for the nomad herdsmen whose descendants flocked to Owen Roe’s standard.

Distribution of land

      From what seems to be authentic abstracts it appears that out of a nominal total of 511,465 acres in the escheated counties rather more than two-fifths were assigned to British undertakers. Outside of the Londoners’ district at least, the shares of Scotch and English grantees were about equal. Rather more than one-fifth went to the Church, including 12,300 acres for education, and rather more than one-fifth to servitors and natives combined, about 60,000 acres to patentees outside the settlement, and something over 6,000 acres to individual Irishmen of whom Connor Roe Maguire’s share was the largest. To servitors and natives about an equal area was given; but the latter were many times as numerous, so that their lots were very small, often as little as forty or fifty acres. 8,536 acres were devoted to schools at Enniskillen and Mountnorris, and to sites for towns at those places, as well as at Dungannon, Rathmullen, and Virginia. Many sales, exchanges, and dispositions by will were made during the reign of James, but the proportional distribution remained about the same.80

Results and expectations

      The permanent effects of the Ulster settlement have been very great, though statesmen like Carew could see that there were many dangers ahead. The tone of the Court and of all who wished to please the King by prophesying smooth things may be gathered from the masque which Ben Jonson produced at Somerset’s marriage. Four Irishmen are brought on the stage, who speak in an almost unintelligible jargon. An epilogue in verse alludes to the plantation, whereby James was to raise Ireland from barbarism and poverty, ‘and in her all the fruits of blessing plant.’ The letter-writer Chamberlain says many people disliked the performance, thinking it ‘no time as the case stands to exasperate the nation by making it ridiculous.’ And most modern readers will be of the same opinion.81

      CHAPTER VI

      CHICHESTER’S GOVERNMENT TO 1613

Optimism of Sir John DaviesEstablishment of circuits

      In the course of a very thorough investigation Carew found that while much had been done by the settlers, much still remained to do. There were indeed many surveys and inquiries yet to come, before the outbreaks which he foresaw. He knew Ireland thoroughly, and was not to be deceived by false appearances of quiet and contentment. Davies, whose acquaintance with the island was of much later date, remained optimistic. ‘When this plantation,’ he wrote in 1613, ‘hath taken root, and been fixed and settled but a few years … it will secure the peace of Ireland, assure it to the Crown of England for ever; and finally make it a civil, and a rich, a mighty, and a flourishing kingdom.’ He had been one of the first commissioners of assize who ever sat in Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and the justice which he administered, ‘though it was somewhat distasteful to the Irish lords, was sweet and most welcome to the common people.’ Davies has left a pretty full account of some of his various circuits. He visited every part of Ireland, and as his power of observation and description were unusually great it may be as well to follow him in his journeys. General peace having been made possible, first by arms and afterwards by an Act of Oblivion, it was from the establishment of justice that the greatest good was to be expected, and it was necessary to make it visible by regular assizes held in every county. ‘These progresses of the law,’ Davies wrote, ‘renew and confirm the conquest of Ireland every half year, and supply the defect of the King’s absence in every part of the Realm; in that every judge sitting in the seat of justice, doth represent the person of the King himself.’82

Leinster Assizes, 1604King’s and Queen’s CountiesCarlow and WexfordChurches in ruinsPoverty of priests and people

      Davies’s first assize appears to have been in Leinster in the spring of 1604. The country was on the whole quiet, and the gaols only half full of petty thieves. As for the King’s and Queen’s counties, the O’Mores and O’Connors had been nearly rooted out by the war: ‘the English families there begin to govern the country, and such of the Irishry as remain, such as M’Coghlan, O’Molloy, O’Doyn, O’Dempsey, they seem to conform themselves to a civil life, and gave their attendance very dutifully.’ Carlow and Wexford, however, were infested by a band of 100 kerne, Donnel Spaniagh Kavanagh and the sons of Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne being at the bottom of the mischief. Pardons had always been granted so easily that the outlaws had little to fear. At Carlow it appeared that there had lately been a conference between Tyrone, Mountgarret, Phelim and Redmond MacFeagh O’Byrne and Donnel Spaniagh. There was much drinking and swords were drawn. Davies did not know the object of the meeting, but dared affirm that it was not that religion and peace might be established in this kingdom. As for religion, indeed, there would be good hope of filling the churches if they were first repaired. In fact he found them everywhere in ruins, and the State clergy were lazy and ignorant, which did more harm than could be done by the diligence of priests and Jesuits whose object was political and not religious, but only ‘to serve the turn of Tyrone and the King of Spain. They would be glad to be banished by proclamation, for they that go up and down the Cross of Tipperary get nothing but bacon and oatmeal, the people are so poor.’83

Justice in ConnaughtIn UlsterIn MunsterAssizes at WaterfordAt Cork, 1606

      Later in the year Davies was with Lord Clanricarde at Athlone, where he held his presidential court. Clanricarde, though he had but a weak council, not only did his business very well, but kept house in a very honourable fashion. It had been reported on both sides of the Channel that Lady Clanricarde, the daughter of Walsingham, the widow of Sidney and Essex, was not satisfied with her position, but he found her ‘very well contented and every way as well served as ever he saw her in England.’ Davies was in London during part of the following year. He was on circuit as commissioner of assize in Ulster before leaving Ireland, and in the spring of 1606 after his appointment as Attorney-General he was associated with Chief Justice Walshe as circuit-judge in Munster. The arrangement was contrary to modern ideas, but no doubt it was convenient to have a judge who could draw bills of indictment himself and afterwards pronounce upon their validity. He rightly thought Munster the finest province of the four, but it had one thing in common with Ulster, and that was the readiness of the people to accept the services of the judges. The poor northern people were glad to escape from the lewd Brehons who knew no other law but the will of the chief lords, and the Munster men, though not dissatisfied with the President, felt that the local justices might have interested motives, and were ‘glad to see strangers joined with them, and seemed to like the aspect of us that were planets, as well as that of their own fixed stars.’ At Waterford, where they held their first sittings, the judges found very few prisoners that were not ‘bastard imps of the Powers and Geraldines of the Decies.’ They always had cousins on the jury, and no convictions could be had unless the evidence was absolutely clear, when threats of the Star Chamber generally СКАЧАТЬ