<358>The efforts made by James to assimilate the institutions of England and Scotland had been crowned with a very moderate amount of success. In pursuing the same policy in Ireland, he was likely to meet with even greater difficulties. The stage of civilisation which had been reached by Ireland, was so very different from that to which England had attained, that the best intentions of a ruler who did not sufficiently take into account this difference were likely to lead only to greater disaster.
The causes which had made the possession of Ireland a weakness rather than a strength to England were not of any recent growth. The whole history of the two countries had been so dissimilar, that it would have been strange if no disputes had arisen between them.
Both countries had submitted to a Norman Conquest, but the process by which England had been welded into a nation only The Norman Conquest of Irelandserved to perpetuate the distractions of Ireland. To the astonishment of their contemporaries, the great-grandchildren of the invaders sank, except in the immediate neighbourhood of Dublin, into the savage and barbarous habits of the natives. The disease under which England had suffered during the evil days of the reign of Stephen became the chronic disorder of Ireland. Every man whose wealth or influence was sufficient to attract around him a handful of armed men, was in possession of a power which knew no limits except in the superior strength of his <359>neighbours. Every castle became a centre from whence murder, robbery, and disorder spread over the wretched country like a flood. Against these armed offenders no law was of any avail, for no authority was in existence to put it in execution. In adopting the lawlessness of the natives, the descendants of the invaders also adopted their peculiarities in dress and manners. The English Government complained in vain of what they called the degeneracy of their countrymen. The causes of this degeneracy, which were so dark to them, are plain enough to us. Between the conquest of England and the conquest of Ireland there was differed from the Norman Conquest of England.nothing in common but the name. The army of William was obliged to maintain its organization after the Conquest, as the only means by which the English nation could be kept in check; and in the Middle Ages organization and civilisation were identical. In Ireland no such necessity was felt. No Irish nation, in the proper sense of the word, was in existence. There were numerous septs which spoke a common language, and whose customs were similar; but they were bound together by no political tie sufficiently extensive to embrace the whole island, nor were they united by any feelings of patriotism. Each petty chief, with his little knot of armed followers, was ready enough to repel invasion from his own soil, but he was by no means eager to assist his neighbour against the common enemy. If he had any interest in the conflict at all, he would probably be not unwilling to see the chieftain of the rival sept humbled by the powerful strangers from England.
There was, therefore, amidst the general disunion of the Irish, no sufficient motive to induce the conquerors to maintain Causes of the degeneracy of the conquerors.what organization they may have brought with them. No fear of any general rising urged them to hold firmly together. In some parts of the country, indeed, the native chieftains regained their ancient possessions. Such cases, however, were of merely local importance. A Fitzgerald or a Bourke did not feel himself less strong in his own castle because some inferior lord had lost his lands. On the other hand, if the O’Neill or the O’Donnell could hold his own at home, he did not trouble himself about <360>the fate of the other septs of the neighbourhood. It mattered little to the unfortunate peasants, who tended their cattle over the bogs and mountains, from which race their oppressors came. Everywhere bloodshed and confusion prevailed, with their usual attendants, misery and famine.
The only chance of introducing order into this chaos was the rise of a strong central government. But of this there did not seem to be Want of a central government.even the most distant probability. The power of the Lord-Deputy was only sufficient to maintain order in the immediate vicinity of Dublin; and the King of England wanted both the will and the means to keep on foot, at the expense of the English nation, a force sufficiently large to overawe his disorderly subjects in Ireland. Occasionally a spasmodic effort was made to reduce Ireland to submission by an expedition, conducted either by the King in person, or by one of the princes of the blood. But the effects of these attempts passed away as soon as the forces were withdrawn, and at last, when the war of the Roses broke out, they ceased altogether.
Unfortunately, what efforts were made, were made altogether in the wrong direction. Instead of accepting the fact of the gradual assimilation which had been working itself out between the two races, Measures to check the degeneracy of the English in Ireland.the Government, in its dislike of the degeneracy of the descendants of the settlers, attempted to widen the breach between them and the native Irish. Statutes, happily inoperative, were passed, prohibiting persons of English descent from marrying Irish women, from wearing the Irish dress, and from adopting Irish customs. If such statutes had been in any degree successful, they would have created an aristocracy of race, which would have made it more impossible than ever to raise the whole body of the population from the position in which they were.
The only hope which remained for Ireland lay in the rough surgery of a second conquest. The second conquest of Ireland.But for this conquest to be beneficial, it must be the work not of a new swarm of settlers, but of a Government free from the passions of the colonists, and determined to enforce equal <361>justice upon all its subjects alike. The danger which England incurred from foreign powers in consequence of the Reformation, compelled the English Government to turn its attention to Ireland. That Ireland should form an independent kingdom was manifestly impossible. The only question was, whether it should be a dependency of England or of Spain. Unhappily Elizabeth was not wealthy enough to establish a government in Ireland which should be just to all alike. Much was left to chance, and brutal and unscrupulous adventurers slaughtered Irishmen and seized upon Irish property at random.
Ireland was governed by a succession of officials whose term of office was never very long. As is generally the case under such circumstances, there were two distinct systems of government, which were adopted in turn. One Lord-Deputy would attempt to rule the country through the existing authorities, whether of native or of English descent. Another would hope to establish the government on a broader basis by ignoring these authorities as far as possible, and by encouraging their followers to make themselves independent. Government of Sir W. Fitzwilliams.Sir William Fitzwilliams, who was appointed Deputy in 1586, made it the main object of his policy to depress the native chiefs. This was in itself by far the more promising policy of the two, but it required to be carried out with peculiar discretion, and, above all, it could only be successful in the hands of a man whose love of justice and fair dealing was above suspicion. Unfortunately this was not the case with the Deputy. He was guilty of the basest perfidy in seizing and imprisoning some of the chiefs, and he not only accepted bribes from them, but had the meanness not to perform his part of the bargain, for which he had taken payment. Such conduct as this was not likely to gain the affections of any part of the population. The spirit of mistrust spread further under successive Deputies, till in 1598 the news that 1598.an English force had been defeated at the Blackwater roused the whole of Ireland to revolt. Never had any Irish rebellion assumed such formidable proportions, or approached so nearly to the dignity of a national resistance. At the head of the rebellion were the <362>two great chiefs of the North, the O’Neill and the O’Donnell, the former of whom now threw off the title with which Elizabeth had decorated him, in the hope that he would be an object of more veneration to his countrymen, under his native appellation than by his English title of Earl of Tyrone. 1599.A considerable army was despatched from England to make head against them, but Elizabeth insured the failure of her own forces by intrusting them to the command of Essex.
His successor, Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, was a Deputy of a very different character. He was known among the courtiers as a man of studious disposition, Lord Mountjoy in Ireland.and was considered as little likely to distinguish himself in active life. Elizabeth, however, with the discernment which rarely failed her, excepting when she allowed her feelings to get the mastery over her judgment, selected him for the difficult post. It would have been impossible to find a man more fit for the work which lay before him. Unostentatious and conciliatory in manner, he listened quietly to every one’s advice, and after weighing all that had been advanced, formed his own plans with an insight into the real state of affairs of which few others were capable, even in that age of statesmen and captains. His designs, when once formed, were carried out with a resolution which was only equalled by the vigour of their conception.
When Mountjoy landed in Ireland, he could scarcely command a foot of ground beyond the immediate vicinity of the Queen’s garrisons. 1600.Feb. 25.In three years he had beaten down all resistance. A large Spanish force, which had come to the assistance of the insurgents, had been compelled to capitulate. The Irish chiefs who had failed to make their peace were pining in English dungeons, or wandering as exiles, to seek in vain from the King of Spain the aid which that monarch was unable or unwilling to afford. The system by which such great results had been accomplished was very different from that which had been adopted by Essex. Essex had gathered his troops together, and had hurled them in a mass upon the enemy. The Irish rebellion was not sufficiently organized to make the most successful blow struck in one <363>quarter tell over the rest of the country, nor was it possible to maintain a large army in the field at a distance from its base of operations. Mountjoy saw at a glance the true character of the war in which he was engaged. He made war upon the Irish tribes more with the spade than with the sword. By degrees, every commanding position, every pass between one district and another, was occupied by a fort. The garrisons were small, but they were well-provisioned, and behind their walls they were able to keep in check the irregular levies of a whole tribe. As soon as this work was accomplished, all real power of resistance was at an end. The rebels did not dare to leave their homes exposed to the attacks of the garrisons. Scattered and divided, they fell an easy prey to the small but compact force of the Deputy, which marched through the whole breadth of the land, provisioning the forts, and beating down all opposition in its way.
The war was carried on in no gentle manner. Mountjoy was determined that it should be known that the chiefs were without power to protect their people against the Government. Horrible character of the war.He had no scruple as to the means by which this lesson was to be taught. Famine or submission was the only alternative offered. The arrival of an English force in a district was not a temporary evil which could be avoided by skulking for a few weeks in the bogs and forests which covered so large a portion of the surface of the country. Wherever it appeared, the crops were mercilessly destroyed, and the cattle, which formed the chief part of an Irishman’s wealth, were driven away. Then, when the work of destruction was completed, the troops moved off, to renew their ravages elsewhere. It is impossible to calculate the numbers which perished under this pitiless mode of warfare. From Cape Clear to the Giant’s Causeway, famine reigned supreme. Strange stories were told by the troopers of the scenes which they had witnessed. Sometimes their horses were stabbed by the starving Irish, who were eager to feast upon the carcases. In one place they were shocked by the unburied corpses rotting in the fields. In another, they discovered a band of women who supported a wretched existence <364>by enticing little children to come amongst them, and massacring them for food.
Before the spring of 1603, all was over. In the south, Sir George Carew, the President of Munster, had 1603.Submission of Ireland.reduced the whole country to submission.[489] In the north, the Lord Deputy himself had been equally successful. On April 8, Tyrone came in to make his submission, and with him all resistance in Ulster was at an end, O’Donnell having died at Simancas in the preceding autumn. When Tyrone arrived in Dublin, he was met by the news of the death of Elizabeth. The letter announcing her decease arrived in Ireland on the 5th. Within an hour after Mountjoy had read it, King James was proclaimed through the streets of the capital.[490]
The Deputy had achieved the difficult task which had been laid upon him. He had no desire to grapple with the Mountjoy wishes to return to England.still more difficult questions which were now pressing for solution. Enormous as had been the results which he had accomplished, the organization of his conquest into a civilised community required still greater labour and thought, and demanded the exercise of powers of a very different order. He himself was desirous to return to his country with the honours which he had acquired, and to leave to others the difficulties which were rising around him. He was drawn in the same direction by the unhallowed ties which bound him to Lord Rich’s wife. The first petition which he made to the new sovereign was a request to be relieved from his office.[491]
Before he received an answer, he was called away to repress commotions which had arisen in an unexpected quarter. For some time, the inhabitants of the seaport towns had felt <365>considerable dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the Government. Dissatisfaction in the towns.Their grievances were very different from those which gave rise to the discontent of the great chiefs and their followers. The chiefs knew well that the efforts of the Government at Dublin would be exerted in favour of their dependents, and that every advantage gained by the population over which they ruled, would diminish their own excessive and arbitrary power. They hated the English, therefore, with the hatred with which an abolitionist is regarded by a slave-owner. But the disaffection which prevailed in Cork and Waterford is to be traced to a different origin. It was not that the tendencies of the Government were too far advanced for the towns, but that they were themselves too far advanced for the Government under which they were living. They occupied in Ireland the same position as that which is now occupied in India by the non-official English. The general circumstances of the country required a strong executive, and it was necessary that the executive should determine questions which were absolutely unintelligible to the merchants of the towns. Yet though it was impossible to give them that influence over the Government of Ireland which was exercised by the citizens of London and Plymouth over the Government of England, it was inevitable that the weight of the Deputy’s rule should press hardly upon them.
That the Government should act wisely upon all occasions was not to be expected. A blunder which had lately been committed, with the most excellent intentions, Their grievances.had given rise to well-founded complaints. In order to starve out the rebels, it had been The debased coinage.proposed that the coinage should be debased, and that this debased coin should be exchangeable in London for good money by those who obtained a certificate of their loyalty from the Irish Government. After some hesitation, Elizabeth gave in to this scheme. The Irish, or ‘harp,’ shillings, as they were called, had always been worth only ninepence in English money. Shillings were now coined which were worth no more than threepence. It was supposed that if they fell into the hands of rebels, they would be worth no more than their own intrinsic <366>value, whereas in the hands of loyal subjects they would bear the value which they would command in London. As might have been foreseen, this proved to be a mistake. Even if the English Exchequer had made its payments with the regularity with which payments are now made at the Bank of England, the necessity of obtaining an order from the Government at Dublin, and of sending to England for the good coin, would have depreciated the new currency far below its nominal value. But such were the difficulties thrown in the way of those who wished to obtain payment from the impoverished Exchequer, that the currency soon fell even below the value which it really possessed. The misery caused by this ill-considered scheme spread over all Ireland. Government payments were made in the new coinage at its nominal value. The unhappy recipients were fortunate if they could persuade anyone to accept as twopence the piece of metal which they had received as ninepence. Gentlemen were forced to contract their expenditure, because it was impossible to obtain money which would be received by those with whom they dealt.[492] But whilst the rebels, against whom the measure was directed, felt but little of its effects, the greatest part of the evil fell upon the townsmen, whose trade was interrupted by the irregularity of the currency.
In addition to the evils caused by this unfortunate error, some of the towns complained of the presence of soldiers, who were The garrisons disagreeable to the towns.in garrison either within their walls or in their immediate neighbourhood. It was necessary that the Government should have the command of the ports by which foreign supplies might be introduced into the country. Garrisons were accordingly maintained in the port-towns, and soldiers were occasionally billeted upon the inhabitants. The presence of a garrison was by no means desirable in days when soldiers were levied for an uncertain term of service, and when, consequently, armies were composed, far more than at present, of men of a wild and reckless character. <367>But even if the soldiers had been models of order and sobriety, they could not have failed to be disagreeable to the citizens, who knew that, in the presence of an armed force, what liberties they had would wither away, and that their lives and fortunes would be dependent upon the arbitrary will of the Government. The feeling was natural; but the time was not yet come when their wishes could, with safety, be gratified. The withdrawal of the English troops would have been the signal for general anarchy, in which the citizens of the towns would have been the first to suffer.
To these causes of dissatisfaction was added the religious difficulty. Protestantism had never been able to make much way in Ireland. The churches in the hands of Protestants.In large districts the mass of the people were living in a state of heathenism. Wherever there was any religious feeling at all, the people had, almost to a man, retained their ancient faith. Even if other causes had predisposed the Irish to receive the new doctrines, the mere fact that Protestantism had come in under the auspices of the English Government would have been sufficient to mar its prospects. In general, the Irish in the country districts were allowed to do pretty much as they liked; but in the towns, though the Catholics were permitted to abstain from attending the churches, the churches themselves were in the hands of the Protestant clergy, and the Catholic priests were obliged to perform their functions in private.
The disaffection, which had long been smouldering, broke out into a flame even before the death of Elizabeth. A company of soldiers Proceedings at Cork.was ordered to Cork, to assist in building a new fort on the south side of the town. Sir Charles Wilmot and Sir George Thornton, who, in the absence of Sir George Carew, executed the office of President of Munster, sent a warrant to the mayor to lodge them in the city. The mayor was induced by the recorder, John Mead, a great opponent of the English, to shut the gates in their faces. The soldiers succeeded in forcing their way into the city, but were compelled to pass the night in a church. In reporting these occurrences to the President, the Commissioners had to add that the corporation had torn down the proclamation <368>ordering the use of the base coinage, that the citizens had closed their shops, and that they had refused to sell their goods unless they were paid in good coin.[493]
Upon receiving the news of the Queen’s death, the mayor, after some hesitation, published the proclamation of the accession of the new King.[494] On April 13, Disputes between the corporation and the soldiers.he wrote to Mountjoy, complaining of the disorderly conduct of the soldiers at the fort of Haulbowline, which guarded the entrance to the upper part of the harbour. He requested that the fort might be intrusted to the care of the corporation. A few days later the citizens demanded the restoration of two pieces of ordnance which had been carried to Haulbowline without the licence of the mayor, and threatened that, unless their property were surrendered to them, neither munitions nor provisions should pass into the fort. The garrison agreed to give up these guns, on condition that two others which were lying in the town, and which were undoubtedly the property of the King, should be surrendered in exchange. At first the mayor, hoping to starve out the garrison, refused; but upon the introduction of provisions from Kinsale, the exchange was effected.[495]
Meanwhile Mead was doing his utmost to incite the neighbouring cities to make a stand for liberty of conscience, and Proposed league between the towns.for the restoration of the churches to the old religion. At Cork, on Good Friday, priests and friars passed once more through the city in procession. They were accompanied by the mayor and aldermen, and by many of the principal citizens. In the rear came about forty young men scourging themselves.[496] At Waterford the Bibles and <369>Books of Common Prayer were brought out of the cathedral and burnt. At Limerick, Wexford, and Kilkenny mass was openly celebrated in the churches.
The magistrates of these towns felt that they were not strong enough to carry out the undertaking which they had commenced. They accordingly wrote to the Deputy, excusing themselves for what had been done.[497]
Mountjoy was by no means pleased with the work before him. He wrote to Cecil that he was determined to march at once against the towns, but that he knew that if they resisted he should have great difficulty in reducing them. His army could only subsist upon supplies from England, and he had never been worse provided than he was at that moment. He had in his time ‘gone through many difficulties,’ and he hoped to be able ‘to make a shift with this.’ The condition of the currency was causing universal discontent; the base money was everywhere refused. He knew ‘no way to make it current’ where he was ‘but the cannon.’ He hoped soon to be relieved of his charge. He had ‘done the rough work, and some other must polish it.’[498]
The Deputy left Dublin on the 27th. He took with him eleven hundred men. On the 29th he was met by the Earl of Ormond. April 27.Mountjoy marches against the towns.At the same time, the chief magistrate of Kilkenny came to make his submission, and to attribute the misconduct of the citizens to the persuasions of Dr. White, a young priest from Waterford. The Deputy pardoned the town, and passed on to Waterford. On May 1 he encamped within three miles of the city. He was met by a deputation demanding toleration, and requesting him not to enter the town with a larger number of soldiers than the magistrates should agree to admit. In support of this request, they produced a charter granted to them by King John. The clause upon which they relied granted it as a privilege to the town of Waterford, that the Deputy should not, without <370>their consent, bring within their walls any English rebels or Irish enemies. Mountjoy, of course, refused to be bound by any such clause as this. Next day he crossed the Suir, and approached the town. Dr. White came to him to try the effect of his arguments. The Deputy pushed him with the usual question, whether it was lawful to take arms against the King for the sake of religion. On White’s hesitating to answer, Mountjoy replied in language which now sounds strange in our ears, but which in those days truly expressed the belief with which thousands of Englishmen had grown up during the long struggle with Rome. “My master,” he said, “is by right of descent an absolute King, subject to no prince or power upon earth, and if it be lawful for his subjects upon any cause to raise arms against him, and deprive him of his Royal authority, he is not then an absolute King, but hath only precarium imperium. This is our opinion of the Church of England.”
In the evening the gates were thrown open. Mountjoy delivered Submission of Waterford.to the marshal for execution one Fagan, who had been a principal fomenter of the disturbances; but even he was pardoned at the intercession of his fellow-townsmen.[499]
Wexford submitted, upon a letter from the Deputy.[500] Sir Charles Wilmot, hurrying up to Cork from Kerry, had secured Limerick on his way.[501] Disturbance at Cork.From Cork alone the news was unsatisfactory. On April 28, the citizens discovered that Wilmot was intending to put a guard over some of the King’s munitions which were within the city. A tumult ensued, and the officers in charge of the munitions were put in prison. The word was given to attack the new fort, which was still unfinished. Eight hundred men threw themselves upon the rising walls, and almost succeeded in demolishing the gatehouse before Wilmot had time to interfere. Wilmot, who had no desire to shed blood, ordered his soldiers not to fire. As <371>soon, however, as the townsmen began firing at them, it was impossible to restrain them any longer. Discipline asserted its power, and the citizens were driven headlong into the town.[502] Wilmot and Thornton threw themselves into the Bishop’s house, where they awaited the Deputy’s arrival. Whilst there they were exposed to the fire from the guns of the city, but no great damage was done.
On Mountjoy’s arrival, the city immediately submitted.[503] All resistance in this ill-calculated movement was at an end. The rebels Submission of Cork.were treated with leniency. Three only of the leaders were executed by martial law. Mead, the principal instigator of the rebellion, was reserved for trial. If, however, Mountjoy expected that the most convincing evidence could obtain a conviction from an Irish jury, he was mistaken. At the trial, which took place at Youghal in the following December, the prisoner was acquitted. The jurymen were summoned before the Castle Chamber at Dublin, the Court which answered to the English Star Chamber, and were heavily fined. They were forced to appear at the sessions which were being held at Drogheda with papers round their heads, which stated that they had been guilty of perjury. This exhibition was to be repeated at the next sessions held at Cork amongst their friends and neighbours. They were also condemned to imprisonment during the pleasure of the Government.[504]
His work being thus successfully brought to a conclusion, Mountjoy received permission to leave his post. On his arrival in England, Mountjoy’s return.he was created Earl of Devonshire, and admitted to the Privy Council. As a special reward for his services, he obtained the honorary title of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, to which a considerable revenue was attached. During the few remaining years of his life, he continued to <372>devote much attention to the affairs of Ireland, and carried on a constant correspondence with the Deputies who succeeded him. His last years were not happy. Shortly after his arrival in England, Lady Rich left her husband, and declared that Devonshire was the father of her five children. Upon this Lord Rich obtained a divorce, and on December 26, 1605, she was married to the Earl of Devonshire by his chaplain, William Laud, who was afterwards destined to an unhappy celebrity in English history. The validity of the marriage was exceedingly doubtful,[505] and Devonshire himself only survived it a few months.
The post of Deputy was at first given to Sir George Carey, who had held the office of Treasurer-at-War. He, too, was anxious to return to England, and Sir George Carey appointed Deputy.it is not unlikely that his appointment was only intended to be of a temporary nature. One great reform marked the short term of his office. No sooner was he installed than he pressed the English Government to put an end to the miseries unavoidably connected with the depreciation of the currency.[506] At first, half-measures were tried. Orders were given to the Warden of the Mint to coin shillings which were to be worth ninepence, whilst their nominal value was to be twelvepence. The old base shillings, which in reality were worth only threepence, were expected to pass for fourpence.[507] Against these proceedings Carey immediately protested.[508] The currency restored.He was allowed to have his way. The new Irish shillings were declared by proclamation to be exchangeable, as they had originally been, for ninepence of the English standard.[509] It was not, however, till the autumn of the next year that the base <373>money was finally declared to be exchangeable at no more than its true value.[510]
At last Carey obtained the object of his wishes. In July 1604, leave of absence was granted him, which was followed, in October, by his permanent recall.[511]
The man who was selected to succeed him was Sir Arthur Chichester. A better choice could not have been made. He possessed Appointment of Chichester as Carey’s successor.that most useful of all gifts for one who is called to be a ruler of men — the tact which enabled him to see at once the limits which were imposed upon the execution of his most cherished schemes, by the character and prejudices of those with whom he had to deal. In addition to his great practical ability, he was supported by an energy which was sufficient to carry him through even the entangled web of Irish politics. Whatever work was set before him, he threw his whole soul into it. He would have been as ready, at his Sovereign’s command, to guard an outpost as to rule an empire. He had already distinguished himself in the war which had just been brought to a conclusion. At an earlier period of his life, he had commanded a ship in the great battle with the Armada, and had served under Drake in his last voyage to the Indies. He took part in the expedition to Cadiz, and had served in France, where he received the honour of knighthood from the hands of Henry IV. Shortly afterwards, when he was in command of a company in the garrison of Ostend, Elizabeth, at Cecil’s recommendation, gave him an appointment in Ireland. Mountjoy, who knew his worth, made him Major-General of the Army, and gave him the governorship of Carrickfergus, from whence he was able to keep in submission the whole of the surrounding country. The King’s letter,[512] appointing Chichester to the vacant office, was dated on October 15, 1604. Stormy weather detained the bearer of his <374>commission at Holyhead for many weeks, and it was not till 1605.February 3 that the new Deputy received the sword of office.[513]
Hopeless as the condition of the country might seem to a superficial observer, Chichester saw its capabilities, and felt confidence in his own powers of developing them. He perceived at once the importance of the task. It was absurd folly, he wrote a few months later, to run over the world in search of colonies in Virginia or Guiana, whilst Ireland was lying desolate. The reformation and civilisation of such a country would, in his opinion, be a greater honour for the King than if he could lead his armies across the Channel and could reduce the whole of France to subjection.[514]
The difficulties under which Ireland laboured were social rather than political. The institutions under which a large part of Social condition of Ireland.the soil was held in Ireland were those under which the greater part of the earth has at one time or other been possessed. When Theory of landed property.a new tribe takes possession of an uninhabited region, they generally consider the land which they acquire as the property of the tribe. Private property in the soil is at first unknown. A considerable part of the population support themselves by means of the cattle which wander freely over the common pasture-land of the tribe, and those who betake themselves to agriculture have no difficulty in finding unoccupied land to plough. As long as land is plentiful, it is more advantageous to the agriculturist to be freed from the burdens of ownership. When the soil has become exhausted by a few harvests, it suits him better to move on, and to make trial of a virgin soil. As population increases, the amount of land available for cultivation diminishes. To meet the growing demand, improved methods of agriculture are necessary, which can only be put in practice where the land has passed into private ownership.
In a large part of Ireland this change had not yet thoroughly taken place. No doubt the chiefs, and other personages <375>favoured by the chiefs, held land with full proprietary rights. But the bulk of the lands were held under a form of territorial communism, which was The Irish custom of gavelkind.known to English lawyers by the ill-chosen name of the Irish custom of gavelkind. Upon the death of any holder of land, the chief of the sept was empowered, not merely to divide the inheritance equally amongst his sons, as in the English custom of gavelkind, but to make a fresh division of the lands of the whole tribe. Such a custom excited the astonishment of English lawyers, and has ever since caused great perplexity to all who have attempted to account for it. In all probability, it was but seldom put in practice. The anarchy which prevailed must have stood in the way of any appreciable increase of the population, and when land was plentiful, the temptation to avail themselves of the custom can hardly ever have presented itself to the members of the sept. Meanwhile the tradition of its existence kept up the memory of the principle that land belonged to the sept, and not to the individuals who composed it.
When, therefore, the judges pronounced that the custom was barbarous and absurd, and contrary to the common law of England,[515] which was now It is condemned by the judges.declared to be law over the whole of Ireland, they put the finishing stroke to a system which the Irish were attached to by ties of habit, though it is possible that by judicious treatment they might have been easily persuaded to abandon it.
Such a change, indeed, rooted as the old system was in the habits of the people, required the utmost delicacy of treatment. The difficulty which Chichester was The septs and the chiefs.called upon to confront was considerably increased by the connection which existed between the tenure of land and the political institutions of the septs. Originally, no doubt, the power of the chief was extremely limited; but limited as it might be, it was necessary that he should be a man of full age, in order to preside over the assembly of the sept and to lead its forces in the field. In Ireland, as in other parts of the world, an attachment was formed in each tribe to one family; <376>but, a strictly hereditary succession being impossible, it became the custom to elect as successor to the chief, the one amongst his relatives who appeared best qualified to fulfil the functions of the office. The relative thus designated was called the Tanist. The chief had originally been nothing more than the representative of the sept. In process of time he became its master. The active and daring gathered round him, and formed his body-guard. The condition of the Irish peasant, like that of the English peasant before the Norman Conquest, grew worse and worse. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, he still held the theory that the land belonged to the cultivator. Little, however, of the small amount of wealth which Irishmen possessed consisted of cultivated land. Herds of cattle roamed over the wide pasture-lands of the tribe, and when land was worthless cattle were valuable. In time of war they fell into the hands of the chief who captured them, and these he delivered out to those whom he might favour. Those who received them, who ‘took stock’ of him, as the phrase went, were bound to him as a vassal in feudal Europe was bound to his lord. They were under obligation to support his cause, and to pay him a certain rent in cattle or money. In law, the chief had no right to anything more than to certain fixed payments. In practice everthing depended upon the mere will of the chief, and his arbitrary exactions appeared even in the guise of settled customs, and obtained regular names of their own. Under the name of coigne and livery, the chief might demand from the occupier of the land support for as many men and horses as he chose to bring with him. But, oppressive as such a custom was, it was as nothing to the unrecognised abuses which were continually occurring. Under such a condition of things, it was impossible for any salutary change in the tenure of land to be effected. If the cultivators were to obtain any fixed interest in the soil, it was necessary that the chiefs should obtain a similar interest. They must cease to be chiefs, and they must become landowners. As such, they must be led to take an interest in their estates, which they could not feel as long as they only held them for life. In other words, the custom of Tanistry must be abolished.
<377>The English Government had long been alive to the importance of the alteration required. In 1570 an Act had been passed, The Government anxious to abolish tanistry,establishing a form by which Irish lords might surrender their lands, and receive them back to be held under English tenure. In many cases this permission had been acted upon. In other cases lands forfeited by rebellion had been regranted, either to English colonists or to loyal Irishmen. In every case the grants were made only upon condition that the new lord of the soil should assign freeholds to a certain number of cultivators, reserving to himself a stipulated rent. By this transaction each party profited. The new lord of the manor lost, indeed, with his independent position, the privilege of robbing his followers at pleasure; but, under the old system, the property of his followers must have been extremely small, and, with the increasing influence of the English Government, his chances of being able to carry out that system much longer were greatly diminished. In return for these concessions, he gained a certainty of possession, both over the rents, which would now be paid with regularity, and over the large domains which were left in his own hands, and which would become more valuable with the growing improvement in the condition of the surrounding population. Above all, he would be able to leave his property to his children. The new freeholders would gain in every way by the conversion of an uncertain into a secure tenure. The weak point in the arrangement lay in the omission to give proprietary rights to every member of the sept, so as to compensate for his share of the tribal ownership, of which he was deprived. The precaution of building up a new system on the foundations of the old, was precisely that saving virtue which the men of the seventeenth century were likely to neglect.
It was indeed with no ill-will to the natives that the English Government was animated. Even those who set in motion the rule of the Council-table and the Castle Chamber were and to extend the privileges of the English Constitution.by no means desirous to extend unnecessarily the functions of the central Government. They wished that Ireland should become the sister of England, not her servant. The two countries were to be one, <378>as England and Wales were one, as it was hoped that, one day, England and Scotland would be one. They were ready enough to deal harshly with factious Parliaments, and to fine perjured juries; but they did not imagine it possible to civilise the country without all the machinery of freedom in the midst of which they had themselves grown up. The moment that they saw any prospect of converting the wandering Irish into settled proprietors, they were anxious to put the whole ordinary administration of the country into their hands. The new freeholders were to furnish jurymen, justices of the peace, and members of Parliament. If they were called upon to perform functions for which they were hardly fitted, at all events the mistake was one upon the right side.
During the reign of Elizabeth, in spite of many errors, considerable progress had been made. When Chichester entered upon his office, Progress during the reign of Elizabeth.the greater part of Leinster was in a settled and orderly condition. In the spring of 1604, assizes had been held in different parts of the province, and it was found that the gentlemen and freeholders were able to despatch business as well as persons of the same condition in England.[516] Condition of Leinster,But even in Leinster there were exceptions to the general tranquillity. The counties of Carlow and Wexford were overawed by a band of eighty or a hundred armed men, who found hiding-places for themselves and a market for their plunder amongst the Cavanaghs and the Byrnes. The latter sept, with that of the Tooles, still possessed, after the Irish fashion, the hilly country which is now known as the county of Wicklow, but which at that time had not yet been made shire-ground.
In Munster there had been, during the late reign, great changes in the ownership of the land. Many of the Irish chiefs of Munster,had been uprooted, and had given way either to English colonists, or to Irishmen who owed their position to the success of the English arms. Carew had been succeeded, as President, by Sir Henry Brouncker, a man of <379>vigour, who, though at times apt unnecessarily to provoke opposition, succeeded in maintaining good order in the province.
Connaught was, fortunately, in the hands of a nobleman who, like the Earl of Thomond in Clare, was wise enough to see where of Connaught,the true interests of himself and of his country lay. The Earl of Clanricarde was the descendant of the Norman family of the Burkes or the De Burghs, which had been counted during the Middle Ages amongst the degenerate English. At an early age he had attached himself to the Government, and had remained constant during the years when the tide of rebellion swept over his patrimony, and seemed to offer him the fairest prospect of obtaining an independent sovereignty. He was now invested with the office of President of his own province. He exercised the whole civil and military authority in Connaught, but in the spirit of a dependent prince rather than in that of a subordinate officer. The Deputy was contented to know that things were going on well in that distant province, and prudently refrained from exercising a constant supervision over the acts of the President.
If Chichester could look upon the condition of Connaught with complacency, it was far otherwise with regard to Ulster. It was of Ulster.difficult to say how civilisation was to be introduced into the northern province as long as barbarism was under the protection of the two great houses of the O’Neills and the O’Donnells. The O’Neills.The head of the O’Neills, the Earl of Tyrone, had submitted on condition of receiving back his lands, with the exception of certain portions which were to be held by two of his kinsmen.[517] The last The O’Donnells.O’Donnell had died in exile, and his lordship of Tyrconnell was disputed between his brother Rory and Neill Garve O’Donnell, a more distant relative. The latter had taken the title of The O’Donnell, which was looked upon as a sign of defection from the English Crown. The progress <380>of the war, however, made it plain that it would be impossible for either of the kinsmen to maintain himself without English aid. Upon Tyrone’s submission, the competitors hastened to seek the favour of the Government.[518] Mountjoy at once decided in favour of Rory. Not only was he the heir to the lordship, according to English notions, but the character of his rival was not such as to prepossess the Deputy in his favour. Neill Garve was violent and ambitious, and was not likely to prove a submissive subject.[519] He was, however, indemnified by the grant of a large extent of land in the neighbourhood of Lifford, which had formerly belonged to the chief of the sept, but which was henceforth to be held directly of the Crown. Rory O’Donnell received the remainder of the territory of his predecessor, having agreed to give up any land which might be needed by the Government for the support of garrisons. When Mountjoy returned to England, he took the two chiefs with him. They were well received by James, by whom O’Donnell was created Earl of Tyrconnell, and they both returned with the full assurance that the Deputy’s promises should be fulfilled.
During their absence, the Chief Baron, Sir Edward Pelham, went on circuit through Ulster. It was the first time that 1603.The first circuit in Ulster.an English judge had been seen in the North, or that the peasantry had ever had an opportunity of looking upon the face of English justice. The results were, on the whole, satisfactory. He reported that he had never, even in the more settled districts near the capital, been welcomed by a greater concourse of people. He found that ‘the multitude, that had been subject to oppression and misery, did reverence him as he had been a good angel sent from heaven, and prayed him upon their knees to return again to minister justice unto them.’ When, however, he came to apply to the more powerful inhabitants, he found that the fear of Tyrone was still weighing heavily upon them. It was in vain that he pressed them to allow him to enrol them in the commission of the peace. They told him that it was impossible for them to take such a step without the permission of their chief.[520]
<381>The position which was occupied by the two earls could not long continue. They were not strong enough to be independent, and Position of the earls upon their return.they were too proud to be subjects. It was only a question of time when the inevitable quarrel between them and the Government would break out. When Tyrone returned from England, he found that the cultivators of the land would no longer submit to the treatment which they had borne in silence for so many years. As soon as he attempted to renew his old extortions, a number of them 1604.The Government refuses to surrender Tyrone’s tenants.fled for refuge to the protection of the English Government. Upon hearing what had happened, he demanded their surrender. He was told that they were not his bondmen or villains, but the King’s free subjects.[521] It was by his own choice that he held back from holding his land by English tenure, and giving himself fixed rights over his tenants. He must take the consequences if they refused to submit to his irregular and exorbitant demands.
Another question between the great Earl and the Government arose from his refusal to allow the appointment of He declines to admit a sheriff in Tyrone.a sheriff in his county, as he justly regarded such a measure as the first step towards superseding his own rule by regular justice. At the same time, it must be allowed that he showed some activity in repressing thieves. He even went so far as to hang a nephew of his own.[522]
In Donegal, Neill Garve was still master of the whole county in Neill Garve in Donegal.the spring of 1604. The new earl was lying quiet within the Pale, ‘very meanly followed.’ In Fermanagh, The Maguires in Fermanagh.open war was raging between two of the Maguires, who were equally discontented with the share of land which had lately been allotted to them.
The military force upon which Chichester could rely was not large. Ireland was a heavy drain upon the English Treasury, and, with peace, the army had been considerably reduced. The proportions in which these troops were allotted to the different provinces, show plainly <382>where the real danger lay. The whole army consisted of three thousand seven hundred foot, and two hundred and twenty-nine horse. Of the infantry, five hundred men were sufficient to guard Connaught. Munster was held by nine hundred. Six hundred kept order in the neighbourhood of Dublin, and in the south of Leinster. Four hundred lay in Derry, and thirteen hundred were posted in the long line of forts by which Ulster was girdled round from Carrickfergus on St. George’s Channel, to Ballyshannon on the Atlantic.[523] By these garrisons the North of Ireland was held as in a vice.
In carrying out his plans Chichester had the assistance of a council, composed of persons who had long served the Crown, either in a civil or in a military capacity. The Council.They were active and industrious in the fulfilment of their duties; but none of them were men who rose above the level of an intelligent mediocrity. The only man of real ability, upon whom he could rely, was the new Solicitor-General, Sir John Davies. Sir John Davies.He had arrived in Ireland towards the end of 1603, and had at once thrown himself energetically into the work of civilising the country. His honesty of purpose was undoubted, and his great powers of observation enabled him at once to master the difficulties which were before him. The most graphic accounts which we possess of Ireland during the time of his residence in the country are to be found in his correspondence. He was indefatigable in his exertions. Far more than any of the more highly-placed law officers, he contributed to the decisions which were taken upon the legal and political questions which were constantly arising. Unhappily, his great powers were seriously impaired by one considerable defect: to a great knowledge of institutions he joined a profound ignorance of human nature. With him it was enough that he had the law upon his side, if he was sure that the law when carried out would be attended with beneficial consequences. It never occurred to him to consider the weaknesses and feelings of men, or to remember that justice is a greater gainer when a smaller measure of reform is willingly accepted, <383>than when a larger improvement is imposed by force. He was capable of becoming an excellent instrument in the hands of such a man as Chichester; but it might safely be predicted that if ever he should be able to induce the English Government to adopt a policy of his own, the most disastrous consequences would ensue.
Chichester had taken formal possession of his office on February 3, 1605. On the 20th he notified, by the issue of two proclamations, that 1605.The proclamation for the cessation of martial law, and for a general disarmament.the Deputy’s sword had not fallen into sluggish hands.[524] The first began by reciting the abuses committed by the Commissioners for executing Martial Law, and by revoking the greater number of such commissions. The other proclamation was of far greater importance. Carey had issued an order for a general disarmament, by which alone it would be possible to maintain peace for any length of time. He had ordered that persons travelling on horseback should carry nothing more than a single sword, and that persons travelling on foot should carry no arms at all. But Carey had allowed his directions to remain a dead letter, excepting in Connaught where they had been enforced by Clanrickard.[525] Chichester now repeated these directions, and ordered that all who contravened them should be imprisoned, and their arms brought to the commander of the nearest fort. In order to interest the commanders in the seizure, it was added that they should be rewarded with half the value of the confiscated arms. Exceptions were made in favour of gentlemen of the Pale and their servants, of merchants following their trade, of known householders within the Pale, and, finally, of any loyal subject who might receive special permission to carry arms.
These proclamations were shortly March 11.Proclamation of an amnesty,followed by another setting forth the principles upon which the government was to be carried on.[526]
Full pardon was at once granted for all acts committed <384>against the Government before the King’s accession. The officers of the Government through whom the pardons passed were forbidden to extort anything beyond the regular fees.[527] No complaints of robberies or outrages committed before November 1, 1602, were to be listened to. The proclamation then turned to lay down, in plain and strong language, the policy of the Government and of protection to the poor.towards the mass of the population. The Deputy promised to receive all poor persons under the King’s protection, ‘to defend them and theirs from the injuries, oppressions, and unlawful exactions of the chief lords and gentlemen of the several counties wherein they dwell, as also of and from the extortion and violence of all sheriffs, escheators, purveyors, and all other officers, ministers, and persons whatsoever which have, or pretend to have, any jurisdiction, authority, or power over them; and that as they are all His Highness’ natural subjects, so will His Majesty have an equal respect towards them all, and govern them all by one indifferent law, without respect of persons.’
Coming to particulars, the proclamation then noted several abuses which prevailed. Since the rebellion, many lords and gentlemen had Tenants to be admitted to their full rights.received grants of their lands, to be held by the English tenure. The patents were full of long phrases, as is usually the case with legal documents. These phrases had been interpreted by the landowners as giving them full power over their dependents. They proceeded to treat men whose ancestors had, as members of the sept, held land for generations, as if they were now no more than mere tenants-at-will. Another grievance was that the lords who received their lands back after losing them by attainder, not finding their tenants mentioned by name in the patents, pretended that the attainder included the tenants, whilst the pardon did not contain any reference to them at all. They inferred from this, that they were still affected by the attainder, and that their estates were now, by the new grant, vested in their lords. The Deputy declared these interpretations to be contrary to the <385>intention of the grants. He also adverted to the arbitrary exactions Arbitrary exactions to cease.which were levied, under various high-sounding names, by the Irish lords. He declared that they were nothing better than an organised system of robbery. He told the lords that these proceedings were illegal, and he enjoined upon them to let their lands at fixed rents.
Another source of complaint was that the lords still retained powers in their hands which were inconsistent with the establishment of a settled government. None but the legal redress of injuries to be permitted.It was therefore necessary to inform them that they were no longer to have the power of arresting their tenants for debt, or for any other cause, unless they were provided with a lawful warrant issued by the ordinary ministers of justice. They were not to levy fines on their tenants, excepting in such, ways as the law allowed, nor to remove their tenants from one place to another against their will, nor to treat them otherwise than as freemen.
The proclamation then proceeded to sum up the whole substance of the English policy in the following words:— ‘To the end the said All Irishmen are immediate subjects of the Crown.poor tenants and inhabitants, and every’ one ‘of them, may from henceforth know and understand that free estate and condition wherein they were born, and wherein from henceforth they shall all be continued and maintained, we do by this present proclamation, in His Majesty’s name, declare and publish, that they and every’ one ‘of them, their wives and children, are the free, natural, and immediate subjects of His Majesty, and are not to be reputed or called the natives,[528] or natural followers of any other lord or chieftain whatsoever, and that they, and every’ one ‘of them, ought to depend wholly and immediately upon His Majesty, who is both able and willing to protect them, and not upon any other inferior lord or lords, and that they may and shall from henceforth rest assured that no person or persons whatsoever, by reason of any chiefry or seignory, or by colour of any custom, use, or prescription, hath, or ought to have, any interest in the bodies or goods of them, or any of <386>them; and that all power and authority which the said lords of counties may lawfully claim or challenge is not belonging to their lordships, chiefries, or seignories, but is altogether derived from His Majesty’s grace and bounty, whereby divers of the said lords have received, and do enjoy, their lands, lives, and honours; and that His Majesty, both can and will, whensoever it seem good to his princely wisdom, make the meanest of his said subjects, if he shall deserve it by his loyalty and virtue, as great and mighty a person as the best and chiefest among the said lords. Howbeit we do, in His Majesty’s name, declare and publish unto all and every the said tenants, or other inferior subjects, that it is not His Majesty’s intent or meaning to protect or maintain them, or any of them, in any misdemeanour or insolent carriage towards their lords, but that it is His Majesty’s express pleasure and commandment, that the said tenants and meaner sort of subjects, saving their faith and duty of allegiance to His Majesty, shall yield and perform all such respects and duties as belong and appertain unto the said lords, according to their several degrees and callings, due and allowed unto them by the laws of the realm.’[529]
The Deputy knew well that mere words were not sufficient to carry out the noble policy which Chichester goes into Ulster.he had so deeply at heart. He accordingly determined to go in person into Ulster, accompanied by the Council and by some of the judges.
At Armagh, he persuaded O’Hanlon, who was His proceedings at Armagh,the chieftain in that part of the country, to surrender his land, and to receive it under English tenure, upon condition of making freeholders.
<387>At Dungannon, he succeeded in inducing Tyrone to create his younger sons freeholders. He was soon besieged with at Dungannon,petitions from the gentlemen of the county, requesting him to settle their differences with the earl. They desired to have their property completely in their own hands, and asserted that they had been freeholders beyond the memory of man. Tyrone, who took a different view of Irish tenure, declared that the whole country belonged to him. Chichester, perhaps to avoid giving offence to either party, told them that he had no time to consider the question then, but took care to order that the land should remain in the possession of the occupiers until his decision was given. From Dungannon and Lifford.he passed on to Lifford, where he persuaded the Earl of Tyrconnell and Neill Garve to submit their claims to his arbitration. To Neill Garve he assigned land to the extent of nearly thirteen thousand acres; the rest of the county was awarded to the earl. One exception was made. The Deputy was particularly struck with the situation of Lifford, and reserved it, not without giving umbrage to Tyrconnell,[530] for the purpose of establishing a colony there. The colony was to be composed of English and Scotch, and was to have attached to it a sufficient quantity of land to support the settlers, in order that they might not be dependent upon trade. Chichester was also successful in persuading Tyrconnell to create freeholders on his lands. Sir Cahir O’Dogherty, the most important of the lords dependent upon the earl, consented to adopt the same course in his own country in the peninsula of Innishowen.
Besides the use which he made of his time in gaining over the great men of the North to accept He inspects the fortifications.the new order of things, the Deputy was active in inspecting the condition of the fortifications at the different forts, and in holding assizes at the chief towns through which he passed.
Upon his return, Chichester sent a detailed report of his proceedings to the Government. He considered that he had <388>made some way, though he had not accomplished all that he could wish.[531] A few days later, His report to the Government.the dark side of the picture seems to have been uppermost in his mind. One of his chief difficulties was that of obtaining persons sufficiently independent to be fit for the office of justice of the peace. No Irishman could, as yet, be expected to maintain equal justice between rich and poor, and the Englishmen who were at his disposal were, on account of the smallness of their pay, liable to the temptation of bribery. The remedy that occurred to him was the introduction of English and Scotch colonists. The abbey lands, still in the King’s hands in Ulster, would put it into his power to introduce them without confiscating the property of a single Irishman.[532]
On his return to Dublin, Chichester found his attention called to a very different subject. During the greater part of the late reign Practical toleration during the Queen’s reign.no attempt had been made to compel the Irish Catholics to attend the Protestant service. There was indeed an Act in existence by which a fine of one shilling was imposed for every time of absence from church, but the impossibility of enforcing it over the greater part of the country, and the imprudence of making fresh enemies where it could have been imposed with less difficulty, had prevented the Government from taking any steps to put the law in force. In 1599, however, an attempt was made to enforce the fine, but the design was soon given up, greatly to the annoyance of the youthful Usher, who predicted that God’s judgments would fall upon a country where Popery was allowed to exist unchecked.[533] But with the submission of <389>the whole island, a temptation was offered to those in power to avail themselves of the means which were in their hands to enforce attendance upon the services. They had a strong feeling of the benefits which would result if the Irish could be induced to accept the religion under which England had grown in moral stature, and they had no idea of the evils which attended the promulgation of truth itself by the strong hand of power.
The strength of the old faith lay chiefly with the upper classes of the principal towns, and with the inhabitants of the more civilised country districts. Religious condition of Ireland.All those who would under a less centralised government have taken part in the administration of affairs, clung to the tenets of their ancestors as a symbol of resistance to foreign domination. In the wilder parts of the country that domination was rapidly becoming a blessing to the mass of the population, which was only loosely attached to any religious system at all; yet it may well be doubted whether the impressionable Irish Celt would ever have been brought to content himself with the sober religious forms which have proved too sober for considerable bodies of Englishmen.
Such a doubt was not likely to make itself heard at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Shortly after the accession of James, 1603.The Irish Bishops anxious to enforce the Recusancy Act.rumours reached Ireland that he intended to grant a general toleration. The Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Meath immediately wrote to the King, protesting against such a measure, and entreating him to put some check upon the priests, to send over good preachers, and to compel the people to come to church.[534]
James, who, at the beginning of his reign, had suspended the action of the Recusancy laws in England, took no notice of the first and last of these requests, 1604.State of the Irish church.but signified his intention of planting a learned ministry in Ireland. It was certainly time that something should be done. Excepting in the towns, scarcely anything worthy of the name <390>of a church existed, and in the towns the preachers almost universally failed in obtaining even a hearing.[535] In the country the condition of the Church was deplorable. It was generally believed that the majority of the clergy were unable even to read. During the times of anarchy, the livings had fallen into an evil plight. It frequently happened that the patrons took possession of a large part of the income of the benefice, whilst they nominated, for form’s sake, some illiterate person to the vacant post. This nominee usually agreed before his institution that he would be content with a mere fraction of his nominal income. Cases were known in which grooms and horse-boys held two or three benefices a-piece. Nor was this the worst. Even bishops, who should have stemmed the tide of corruption, took part in it themselves. Foremost in the ranks of these episcopal pluralists stood the Archbishop of Cashel. In addition to his archiepiscopal see, he held three bishoprics and seventy-seven other benefices. The infamous sale of promotions which took place in his diocese became afterwards the subject of a special inquiry. Hundreds of churches were lying in ruins over the whole of Ireland. In hundreds of parishes no divine service was ever celebrated, no sacrament administered, no Christian assemblies held of any kind. Here and there, to the disgust of the Government, a few benefices were in the hands of Jesuits, and the Papal Nuncio obtained an annual income of forty or fifty pounds from a living which he held within the Pale.[536] But these were exceptions. As a rule, heathenism would have settled down over the whole face of the country if it had not been for the ministrations of the Catholic priests.
On his way to the North in the course of his first progress, Chichester found 1605.Chichester’s proceedings at Armagh.the Cathedral at Armagh in ruins. There were dignitaries of various kinds, but all of them had received ordination from the Church of Rome, and held their posts in virtue of commissions from the <391>Pope. They refused to use the English service. There was attached to the church a college for twelve vicars choral, endowed with tithes, but its revenues had been confiscated by the dean without any lawful authority. It happened that the Archbishop, who rarely visited his diocese, was in the Deputy’s company. Chichester ordered him to provide a minister for the place, and directed that he should himself reside in Armagh for at least three or four months in the year. The tithes which had been so scandalously embezzled were, for the present, to be employed in maintaining poor scholars at the College in Dublin, till a sufficient number of educated men were provided for the service of the Church.
As soon as he had reached Dublin, the Deputy found that James had determined to make an attempt to drive the recusants to church. On July 4, Proclamation to enforce the Recusancy Act.a proclamation had been issued by the King himself, commanding all persons in Ireland to repair to their several churches, and directing that all priests who remained in the country after December 10 should be banished.[537] Directions were also given, that all the judges were to attend the Protestant services.
The Deputy, whose ideas on religious liberty were like those of the mass of his contemporaries, prepared to carry out his instructions. He sent for Sir J. Everard removed from the Bench.Sir John Everard, the only one of the judges who refused to conform, and entreated him to give way, offering to allow him as much time for consideration as he wished for. After the lapse of a year, as he still refused to comply, he was finally removed from his post.[538]
Against the recusants in general, the Deputy was furnished with fewer weapons than those which were at the disposal of the Government in England. Difficulty in dealing with the Irish recusantsNo Irish Act of Parliament existed which authorised the exaction of more than a shilling for every absence from church. Unhappily an idea occurred, either to Chichester or to some of his <392>advisers,[539] by which he hoped to be able to supplement the deficiency of the law. The elastic powers of the Castle Chamber might be stretched to cover a less urgent case. Chichester had set his heart upon the improvement of Ireland, and he was firmly convinced that, without the spread of Protestantism, all his efforts would be in vain, and he was too much in earnest to wait for the operation of time. The shilling fine indeed might drive the poor into submission, but it was ridiculous to expect that it would have much effect upon a wealthy merchant or shopkeeper. It was therefore necessary that stronger measures should at once be taken.
In the course of the month of October, the aldermen and several of the chief citizens of Dublin were summoned before the Council. The Aldermen of Dublin required to attend church.The Deputy distinctly disclaimed any desire to force their consciences. To change the faith of any person was the work of God alone. But the matter now before them was not a question of conscience at all. He merely asked them to sit in a certain place for a certain time. They were only required to listen to a sermon. They need not profess assent to the doctrines which they heard. It was a mere question of obedience to the law.
It was all in vain. With one voice they told the Deputy that they could not with a clear conscience obey the King in this point.[540] Accordingly, on November 13, They refuse, and are summoned before the Castle Chamber.formal mandates were served upon them, commanding them to attend church on the following Sunday.[541] They disobeyed the order, and sixteen of them were summoned before the Castle Chamber on the 22nd. Of the proceedings on this occasion, all that has come down to us is a speech delivered by one of the King’s Counsel, whose name is not given. In this speech the claims of the civil power to obedience were put forward in the most offensive way. After a long argument in favour of the King’s jurisdiction in <393>ecclesiastical matters, the speaker proceeded with the following extraordinary remarks:— “Can the King,” he asked, “make bishops, and give episcopal jurisdictions, and cannot he command the people to obey that authority which himself hath given? Can he command the bishop to admit a clerk to a benefice, and cannot he command his parishioners to come and hear him? … The King commands a man to take the order of knighthood. If he refuse it, he shall be fined, for it is for the service of the commonwealth. Can the King command a man to serve the commonwealth, and cannot he command him to serve God?”[542]
Before the proceedings were brought to a close, Chichester discovered that they were likely to awaken greater resistance than he had expected. The principal Petition presented by the lords and gentlemen of the Pale.lords and gentlemen of the Pale appeared before the Court with a petition in which, after protesting their loyalty, they begged that the execution of the King’s proclamation might be deferred until they had informed His Majesty of the injustice to which they were subjected.[543] Sentence was pronounced upon nine of those who had been summoned before the Court. Those of them who were aldermen were each Sentence of the Castle Chamber.to pay a fine of one hundred pounds; the others escaped with a payment of half that sum.[544] Chichester, who was afraid lest he should be accused of having set these prosecutions on foot for the purpose of replenishing the Exchequer, directed that the fines should be expended upon the repairing of churches and bridges, and other works of public utility.[545] A few weeks later the remainder of the sixteen were sentenced to similar fines, with the exception of one of the aldermen, who promised to come to church.
<394>The immediate result of these proceedings appeared to be satisfactory. The parish churches were better attended than they had been for many years.[546] Dec. 2.Imprisonment of some of the petitioners.The Deputy felt himself strong enough to imprison some of those who had been most forward in preparing the petition. Those who asked pardon were soon set at liberty; but one or two, who showed no signs of contrition, were retained in confinement. Upon this the petitioners forwarded their complaints to Salisbury. The Castle Chamber, they asserted, never before had been used as a spiritual consistory.[547] Before this letter could reach England, Sir Patrick Barnwall, who was believed to have been the contriver of the petition, was summoned before the Council. After a warm altercation with the Lord Deputy, Barnwall was committed to prison. “Well,” said the prisoner, “we must endure, as we have endured many things.” “What mean you by that?” asked Chichester. “We have endured,” replied Barnwall, “the late war and other calamities besides.” The Lord Deputy lost all patience. “You!” he cried, “endured the misery of the late war? No, sir, we have endured the misery of the war; we have lost our blood and our friends, and have, indeed, endured extreme miseries to suppress the late rebellion, whereof your priests, for whom you make petition, and your wicked religion, was the principal cause.” Barnwall was at once ordered off to prison.[548] It was an easy way to close a controversy which threatened to be endless. Ultimately Barnwall was sent to England, to tell his own story to the Government.[549]
The citizens who had been fined resorted to tactics which never fail to irritate a Government bent upon carrying out unpopular measures. On the Resistance to the payment of the fines.plea that the Castle Chamber had exceeded its jurisdiction, they all refused to pay the fines, or to admit into their houses the officers who came for the purpose of collecting the money. Orders were given that the doors of two of the <395>malcontents should be broken open. Next morning all Dublin was full of stories of the violent proceedings of the officers to whom this commission had been entrusted. Doors had been broken open, the privacy of families had been violated, and women and children had been terrified by this unseemly intrusion.
The next step was the empannelment of the jury which was to value the property to be seized in payment of the fines. The owners hoped to baffle the Government by making all their property over, by deeds of gift, to persons of their own selection. To make matters more sure, they had been at the pains to antedate their deeds by six months. In ordinary times these deeds would at once have been set aside as fraudulent; but such was the indignation felt by the whole city, that the jury gave in a verdict to the effect that no property existed which could be touched by the Crown. The Government had recourse to its usual remedy: both the persons who had given and those who had accepted the deeds of gift were cited before the Castle Chamber, where the documents were pronounced to be fraudulent and void, and the fines were at once levied.
Not content with bringing the richer citizens into court, Chichester determined to make an attempt, by means of the shilling fine, to force the poorer inhabitants of Dublin to attend church. Indictments were accordingly served upon four hundred persons. Of these, one hundred and sixty-nine were not forthcoming in court. Of the remainder, eighty-eight conformed, whilst the number of those who refused to submit, and were sentenced to pay a fine, was one hundred and forty-three.[550]
In Munster, an attempt was made to carry out similar measures. In most of the towns, many of the poorer inhabitants were 1606.Similar proceedings in Munster.compelled to pay the shilling fine. Verdicts of this kind were generally obtained only by threatening the jury with the terrors of the Castle Chamber. The richer citizens were summoned at once before the President and his Council, and were heavily fined. Some <396>of the members of the Irish Government were in high spirits. They believed that before long the majority of Irishmen would be reduced to the Protestant faith.[551]
It is plain, too, that Chichester’s experience as a persecutor was beginning to tell upon him, as experience of this kind will always tell upon natures such as his. Chichester’s opinion on persecution.Even whilst he was engaged in bringing the Dublin citizens before the Castle Chamber, he was struck with the state of feeling prevailing in the city. He had intelligence, by means of spies, from all parts of Ireland, and he was soon made aware that his measures, instead of drawing the people to conformity, had evoked a spirit which would have broken out into open resistance, if the country had not been completely cowed by the results of the late war.[552] His forces had lately been considerably reduced, and, in the spring of 1606, he was obliged to provide for keeping order in a large country with less than the numbers of a single modern regiment.[553] Six months later he began to discover that there were better means of conversion than those which had been practised in the Castle Chamber. In June he wrote to the English Council that he saw little chance of prevailing with the aged and the wealthy, though he thought that the young and the poor might yet be won. The best hope of success was to be sought for in the education of the children.[554]
In the meanwhile Barnwall had arrived in London and was committed to the Tower. On July 3 the English Privy Council July 3.The Council asks for an explanation.requested the Irish Government to justify its proceedings in issuing precepts under the Great Seal to compel men to come to church.[555] The reply[556] which was, after a long delay, sent in the name of the Irish Council is, <397>perhaps, the most curious monument which exists of the sentiments with which the question was regarded by men of the world in that age.
They began by treating the refusal of the aldermen to attend church as an act of disrespect to the Deputy, and to the Sovereign whose authority he bore, Dec. 1.Reply of the Irish Council.and argued that, even if there were anything in attendance upon Divine worship which did not properly come within the notice of the civil authorities, they had certainly a right to inflict punishment for disrespect to the King.
“And if,” they continued, “it should be admitted to be an ecclesiastical action, by reason that the circumstances are ecclesiastical, yet the King, being Supreme Head in causes as well ecclesiastical as civil, his regal power and prerogative do extend as large as doth his supremacy. And the statute giveth power to civil magistrates to enquire and punish, so the same is become temporal, or, at least, mixed, and not merely spiritual.”
With this unlimited belief in the power of an Act of Parliament to change the nature of things, they had no difficulty in proving, satisfactorily to themselves, that the King had always exercised this supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. They seem, however, to have felt that their argument would carry them too far. They therefore hastened to qualify it by adding that, though the King’s command ought to be binding in all things referring ‘to the glory of God as well as to the good of the commonwealth,’ yet it extended ‘not to compel the heart and mind, nor the religion of the parties, but only the external action of the body.’
They acknowledged that there were two cases in which the King ought not to interfere even with ‘the external action of the body,’ namely, either when the person was liable ‘to be drawn into the danger of hypocrisy,’ or when the action commanded was ‘prohibited by lawful and binding authority.’ They argued, however, that there was no danger of leading anyone into hypocrisy by ordering him to go to church. The other objection they met by saying that when a Catholic priest directed those who would listen to him to absent themselves from <398>the Protestant service, he was only giving them advice, and the mere reception of advice freed no one from the duty of obeying the King. Besides this it was necessary that the Castle Chamber should cover the deficiencies of the Irish statutes. If no English precedent could be found, it was because no such interference had been needed where the law itself was so much more perfect.
The Council then returned to the main point, as if conscious that their answers had not been altogether satisfactory. It was plain, they argued, that to come to church was commanded by the law of God, for it was impossible to admit that Parliament would command anything contrary to the law of God. He who resisted the law of God was in danger of damnation, consequently it was ‘a charitable thing, by terror of temporal punishments, to put such persons out of that state of damnation.’
After a few more remarks, they fell back on those general arguments to which most governments in the wrong have recourse when they are pressed hard. If men might disobey the law under pretence of conscience, no laws would be obeyed by anyone. “So that be the laws never so wise, wholesome, just, or godly, the common and unlearned people may discharge themselves of their duties by claiming or pretending the same to be against their erroneous or ignorant consciences, which is no other than to subject good laws to the will and pleasure not only of the wise, but of the simple.”
Chichester felt that, however desirable it might be to compel all Irishmen to attend church, it was an impracticable scheme. On the very day on which the letter of the Council was written, he sent off Chichester’s letter to Salisbury.another to Salisbury, in which he gave expression to his own feelings. “In these matters of bringing men to church,” he wrote, “I have dealt as tenderly as I might, knowing well that men’s consciences must be won and persuaded by time, conference, and instructions, which the aged here will hardly admit, and therefore our hopes must be in the education of the youth; and yet we must labour daily, otherwise all will turn to barbarous ignorance and contempt. I am not violent therein, <399>albeit I wish reformation, and will study and endeavour it all I may, which I think sorts better with His Majesty’s ends than to deal with violence and like a Puritan in this kind.”[557] Upon the receipt of this letter the English judges were consulted, and gave an opinion that the proceedings in Ireland were according to law. Barnwall was, upon this, sent back to Ireland, and required to make submission to the Deputy. He had achieved his object. In spite of the opinion of the English judges, no attempt was ever again made in Ireland to enforce attendance at church through the fear of a fine in the Council Chamber.[558]
Two or three months later, Salisbury received a letter from Lord Buttevant, protesting against the measures which were being taken in Munster by the President.[559] Upon this the English Council July, 1607.Relaxation of the persecution.wrote to recommend that a more moderate course should be taken with the recusants.[560] This order cannot have been otherwise than agreeable to the Deputy. He had engaged himself in repressive measures, not from any persecuting spirit, but because he believed that the religion of the Catholics made them enemies to order and government. He gave way, like the Duke of Wellington in 1829, without modifying his opinion in the least, as soon as he saw that his measures had provoked a spirit of resistance which was far more dangerous to the State than the elements which he had attempted to repress.
The death of Sir Henry Brouncker, in the summer of 1607, made a change of system easy in Munster. It was found that Death of Sir H. Brouncker.he had left the principal men of all the towns in the province either in prison, or on bond to appear when they were summoned.[561] The greater part of the prisoners were released.[562] For some little time indictments <400>were brought under the statute, and the shilling fines were levied; but even these were gradually dropped, and, for a time at least, the Government was convinced that the attempt to convert Irishmen by force was more dangerous than they had expected.
A trial which took place in the early part of 1607, can hardly be considered to have formed part of the persecution, which was at that time dying away. Lalor, Vicar-General in three dioceses.Amongst the priests who were lying in prison at the end of the preceding year, was Robert Lalor, Vicar-General in the dioceses of Dublin, Kildare, and Ferns. He obtained his release in December, by confessing that it was unlawful to hold the office which he occupied, and that the appointment of Bishops rightfully belonged to the Sovereign. He also promised to obey all the lawful commands of the King.
It soon came to the ears of the Government that he had been giving a false account of the confession which he had made. He had He is indicted under the Statute of Premunire.attempted to excuse himself to his friends by asserting that he had only acknowledged the authority of the King in temporal causes. Upon this he was indicted under the Statute of Premunire. The Government do not seem to have been animated by any vindictive feeling against the man, but they appear to have been glad to seize an opportunity of demonstrating that he could be reached by a statute passed in the reign of Richard II., and that the claims of the Catholic priesthood had been felt as a grievance, even by a Catholic Sovereign and a Catholic Parliament. He was accordingly charged with receiving Bulls from Rome, and with exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He had also instituted persons to benefices, had granted dispensations in matrimonial causes, and had pronounced sentences of divorce. At his trial he urged that he belonged to a Church whose decrees were only binding on the consciences of those who chose voluntarily to submit to them, and that therefore <401>the Statute of Premunire, framed to check a jurisdiction recognised by the State, had no longer any application. Davies, who had become Attorney-General in the course of the preceding year, would hear nothing of this argument. A verdict of guilty was brought in, and sentence was pronounced.[563] Lalor, having served the purpose for which his trial was intended, slipped out of sight. It is not probable that he was very severely punished.
Chichester betook himself to a more congenial mode of reforming the Church. He could not do much where the Archbishop of Cashel Chichester’s efforts to reform the Church.was plundering four dioceses,[564] and where scarcely a parish was sufficiently endowed for the support of a minister. But he did what he could. He had his eye upon every preacher of worth and ability in Ireland, and as the sees fell vacant one by one, he was ready to recommend a successor, and to propose some scheme by which to increase the pittance, which the last occupant had probably eked out by illegal means. The rule which he laid down for the choice of bishops for Ireland may be gathered from a letter in which he informed Salisbury of the death of the Bishop of Down and Connor. He reminded him that, in choosing successors to any of the Bishops, regard should be ‘had as well to their ability of body, and manners and fashion of life, as to their depth of learning and judgment: these latter qualifications being fitter for employments in settled and refined kingdoms than to labour in the reformation of this.’[565] Nor were these his only 1608.services to the Church. He was foremost in pressing on the translation of the Book of Common Prayer into Irish, and as soon as the work was accomplished in 1608, he took an active part in dispersing it through the country.[566]
The Deputy’s office was certainly not a bed of roses. Whilst the whole of the Catholic South was openly expressing <402>its detestation of his measures, the state of the North was such as to engage 1606.Affairs of Ulster.his most anxious attention. After his visit to Ulster in 1605, he had formed some hopes that the great chiefs would quietly submit to the new order of things. In the spring of the following year, he began to be doubtful of the success of any attempt to convert an Irish chief into a peaceful subject. The rule of the law had come near enough to the two northern earls to make them discontented. Tyrone himself promised that he would obey the laws. Chichester, who put little faith in his promises, was only confirmed by his intercourse with him in the opinion that Ulster would never prosper until it was brought under the settled government of a President and Council.[567] Tyrone must have had some inkling of this opinion of the Deputy, for, not long afterwards, he wrote to the King, protesting against such an indignity, and declaring that he would sooner pass the rest of his life in exile than come under any government but that of the King himself, or of the Lord Deputy;[568] or, in other words, that he would do anything rather than submit to any government which was near enough to reach him effectively.
Chichester determined to leave it to time to develope the results which were certain to ensue, and contented himself with employing the summer in Chichester at Monaghan.a progress through the three south-western counties of Ulster. His first resting-place was Monaghan, then a village composed of scattered cottages, chiefly occupied by the soldiers of the little garrison. The inhabitants of the surrounding country were, for the most part, members of the sept of the MacMahons. Monaghan had been made shire-ground sixteen years before, and had been divided into freeholds, to be held by the principal men of the district. But the flood of rebellion had passed over the unhappy country before the new order of things had well taken root, and had swept away every trace of these arrangements. The freeholders themselves had been a particular mark for those who had found their account in the old anarchy, and such of them as did not aid the rebels were <403>either slain or driven away. To restore order amidst the confusion which had set in was no easy task. Chichester set about it with his usual good sense and courtesy. He arranged the whole settlement so as to make as few changes as possible. Whenever he found that an alteration was necessary, he laid it before the chief persons present, and succeeded in securing their full consent to his proposals. It only remained to obtain the requisite powers from England before his final sanction could be given.
The necessity which existed for a change in the social condition of the country became apparent as soon as the assizes were opened. Assizes held.Prisoner after prisoner was brought to the bar; it was to no purpose that the most convincing evidence was tendered against them; in every case a verdict of Not Guilty was returned. The cause was soon discovered: the jurymen knew that if they returned a verdict of Guilty, they would be exposed to the vengeance of the relations of the prisoner, and that they might consider themselves fortunate if, as soon as the Deputy’s cavalcade was gone, they only saw their lands pillaged and their cattle driven away.
The county was plainly unfit for the exercise of trial by jury. The simplest remedy would have been temporarily to suspend the system. But such an idea never occurred to Englishmen at that time, except in cases of actual rebellion. In this case the jurymen were visited with ‘good round fines.’ The next jury was terrified into giving a true verdict. We are not told what became of the persons who composed it after the Deputy was gone.
One of the customs of the county was a nuisance which Chichester was determined to abate. The principal men of the district had long made it a habit to ‘eat their beef from the English Pale.’ In order to make this possible, an indispensable member of their household was The caterers of Monaghan.a professional thief, who went by the respectable appellation of ‘The Caterer.’ In order to give these people a hint that such proceedings must come to an end, two of the great men, whose tables had been supplied in this irregular way were <404>indicted as receivers of stolen goods. They acknowledged their fault upon their knees, and were immediately pardoned.
Before leaving Monaghan, Chichester obtained the consent of the chief men of the county to the building of a gaol and a sessions house, and persuaded them to contribute 20l. a year for the maintenance of a school.
In Monaghan there was some recollection of a land settlement. In Fermanagh the Irish tenures had prevailed uninterruptedly. Fermanagh.The county was in the hands of two of the Maguires. Connor Roe Maguire had joined the English at the time of the rebellion, and had been rewarded by a grant of the whole county. When the war was concluded, Mountjoy, wishing to bribe into submission the rebel chief Cuconnaught Maguire, took advantage of a legal flaw in Connor’s patent, and divided the county between them. No patent was, however, to be granted till freeholds had been established. Here, again, Chichester was called upon to solve the knotty question of the Irish tenures. On making inquiries, he found that here, as everywhere else, two theories prevailed. The lords, with one consent, declared that all the land belonged to them; the occupants no less stoutly protested that the land was theirs, and that the lords had only a right to certain fixed dues.[569] Chichester noted down in his memory the rival doctrines, and reserved them for future consideration. Davies, with characteristic readiness to grasp at any theory which made against the Irish lords, set down the case of the tenants as fully proved.
From Fermanagh the Deputy proceeded to Cavan, where he found the county in a state of unexampled confusion. Before the rebellion broke out, Cavan.a settlement of the questions connected with the land tenures had been proposed by which the greater part of the district was to have been allotted to Sir John O’Reilly and his immediate relations. But, if this arrangement had ever taken effect, no legal records of it <405>had been preserved, and Sir John himself had died in arms against the Queen. On his death, his brother Philip set at nought the arrangements of the Government, and took possession, as tanist, of the whole district, giving himself the title of The O’Reilly. He did not long survive his brother, and was succeeded by his uncle Edmond, who was afterwards killed in rebellion. Upon his death no successor was appointed. Whilst the greater part of the family had taken arms against the Queen, Sir John’s eldest son, Molinary O’Reilly, had served under the English Government, and had been slain fighting against his countrymen. Upon the restoration of peace, his widow, a niece of the Earl of Ormond, demanded the wardship of her son, and a third part of the land as her own dower. This claim was not supported by law, as Sir John had never taken out his patent to hold his land by English tenure, and consequently his son Molinary had never been the legal owner of the land. Carey, however, who was the Deputy to whom her request had been made, acceded to her wishes, though he gave the custody of the land to one of Sir John’s brothers. The inhabitants of the county took advantage of the confusion to refuse to pay rent to anyone. Chichester investigated the whole subject, and, as he had done in the case of the other two counties, reserved his decision till after his return to Dublin.
The results which were expected to ensue from the coming change were sketched out, by Davies, in warm, but by no means in too Results expected from the Deputy’s progress.glowing colours. “All the possessions,” he wrote, “shall descend and be conveyed according to the course of the common law; every man shall have a certain home, and know the certainty of his estate, whereby the people will be encouraged to manure[570] their land with better industry than heretofore hath been used, to bring up children more civilly, to provide for their posterity more carefully. This will cause them to build better houses for their safety, and to love neighbourhood. And there will arise villages and towns, which will draw tradesmen and artificers, so as we conceive a hope that these countries, in a short time, will <406>not only be quiet neighbours to the Pale, but be made as rich and as civil as the Pale itself.”[571]
When the proposed settlement in Cavan and Fermanagh was laid before the English Privy Council, it appeared that the view there taken of Nov. 14.Opinion of the English Council.the course to be pursued was more liberal than that of the Lord Deputy. They charged him to see that the natives were satisfied in the division of land, and that but few Englishmen should receive a share ‘lest, if many strangers be brought in among them, it should be imagined as an invention to displant the natives, which would breed a general distaste in all the Irish.’[572]
The summer, which had been employed by Chichester in his northern progress, had also seen the conversion into shire-ground of Wicklow made into shire-ground.the last southern Irish district which had maintained the independence of the English law. From henceforth the country of the Byrnes and Tooles was to be known as the county of Wicklow. On his return from Ulster, the indefatigable Davies accompanied the chief justice, Sir James Ley, on his circuit. For the first time, the new county was to be visited by the judges. They set out, without entertaining any very favourable expectations of the reception with which they were likely to meet, as it was generally understood in Dublin that the Wicklow hills were a mere den of thieves and robbers. They met with an agreeable surprise. The people flocked around the judges in such numbers that it was a matter of astonishment to them how the desolate mountains could support such multitudes. Old and young poured forth from the glens to welcome the magistrates, who were to confer upon the county the blessings of a settled and regular law. Nor was the feeling confined to the poorer classes. The gentlemen and freeholders paid the court the highest compliment which it was in their power to bestow, by <407>appearing in what was to them the awkward novelty of the English dress.[573]
If these unwonted signs of loyalty were manifested amongst the native population they were owing to the growing conviction that Chichester meant well by those who were subjected to his authority. Armed force he had but little to dispose of, but the knowledge that he was doing his best to establish justice weighed heavily on his side. By his attempt to force the Irish to conform to a religion which they detested, he had, from the best of motives, done much to weaken that impression; but that mistake was soon to be abandoned, and if only the settlement of Ireland could have been carried out in the spirit which had dictated the despatch of the English Council on the division of Cavan and Fermanagh, Irish history would have been more cheerful reading than it is.
[489] On March 26 Balingarry was the only castle which still held out. Wilmot to Carew, March 26, Irish Cal. i. 6. The reference is to the Calendar of Irish State Papers by Messrs. Russell and Prendergast, where the proper reference to the original documents will be found.
[490] Mountjoy to the Council, April 6, ibid. i. 10.
[491] Memorial enclosed in Mountjoy’s letter to the Council, April 6, 1603, ibid. i. 11.
[492] Lord Slane, for instance, was obliged to send for his son, who was being educated in England, on account of his inability to maintain him. Slane to Cecil, March 24, 1603, S. P. Irel. i. 4.
[493] Wilmot and Thornton to Carew, March 24, enclosing Captain Flower’s relation, Irish Cal. i. 2.
[494] Mayor of Cork to Mountjoy, April 13, enclosed by Mountjoy to Cecil, April 26, Irish Cal. i. 40; Annals of Ireland, Harl. MSS. 3544. This MS. contains the earlier portion of Farmer’s work, of which the later part only is printed in the Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica. He seems to have been an eye-witness of the scenes at Cork.
[495] Boyle to Carew, April 20, Irish Cal. i. 36.
[496] The description of the scene by the author of the Annals is a good specimen of the manner in which these ceremonies were regarded by the <369>ordinary Protestant. He takes care to mention that the scourgers did not strike themselves too hard.
[497] Mountjoy to Cecil, April 26, Irish Cal. i. 40.
[498] Mountjoy to Cecil, April 25, ibid. i. 38.
[499] Mountjoy and the Irish Council to the Council, May 4; Mountjoy to Cecil, May 5, Irish Cal. i. 48, 53. Harl. MSS. 3544.
[500] Mountjoy to Cecil, May 4, Irish Cal. i. 49.
[501] Wilmot to Carew, May 7, 1603, ibid. i. 59.
[502] Walley to Carew, May 6, Irish Cal. i. 55. Lady Carew, who was in the neighbourhood, showed no signs of timidity. She began a letter to her husband with these words, “Here is great wars with Cork, and I am not afraid,” May 5, 1603, S. P. Irel. 54.
[503] Mayor of Cork to Cecil, May 26, Irish Cal. i. 67.
[504] Harl. MSS. 3544. Carey to Cecil, April 26, 1604, Irish Cal. i. 240.
[505] The Ecclesiastical Courts only pronounced divorces a mensâ et thoro for adultery, and parties so divorced were prohibited by the 107th Canon from remarrying. The decree of the Star Chamber in the case of Rye v. Fuljambe (Moore, 683) was on the same side of the question. On the other hand Parliament had refused to consider such remarriages as felony (1 Jac. I. cap. 2).
[506] Carey and Irish Council to the Council, June 4, Irish Cal. i. 71.
[507] Proclamation, Oct. 11, ibid. i. 146.
[508] Carey to Cecil, Oct. 14, ibid. i. 149.
[509] Proclamation, Dec. 3, ibid. i. 170.
[510] Note in Cecil’s hand to the ‘Memorials for Ireland,’ Aug. 20, 1604, S. P. Irel. 324.
[511] The King to Carey, July 16. The King to Carey and the Irish Council, Oct. 15, Irish Cal. i. 295, 361.
[512] Account of Sir A. Chichester, by Sir Faithful Fortescue. Printed for private circulation, 1858.
[513] Bingley to Cranborne, Jan. 9, 1605, Irish Cal. i. 412; Harl. MSS. 3544.
[514] Chichester to Salisbury, Oct. 2, 1605, Irish Cal. i. 545.
[515] Davies’ Reports. Hil. 3 Jac.
[516] Davies to Cecil, April 19, 1604, Irish Cal. i. 236. He adds, “The prisons were not very full, and yet the crimes whereof the prisoners stood accused were for the most part but petty thefts.”
[517] Henry Oge O’Neill and Tirlogh McHenry. Note by Mountjoy, April 8, 1603, Irish Cal. i. 16. Three hundred acres were also reserved for the fort at Charlemont, and the same quantity for the fort of Mountjoy.
[518] Docwra to Mountjoy, April 8, 1603, Irish Cal. i. 20.
[519] Mountjoy to Cecil, April 25, 1603, ibid. i. 38.
[520] Davies to Cecil, Dec. 1, 1603, ibid. i. 109.
[521] Davies to Cecil, April 19, 1604, Irish Cal. i. 236.
[522] Chichester to Cecil, June 8, 1604, ibid. i. 279.
[523] List of the Army, Oct. 1, 1604, Irish Cal. i. 352. Another statement of the same date gives rather higher numbers.
[524] Proclamations, Feb. 20, 1605, Irish Cal. i. 433, 434.
[525] Davies to Cecil, April 19, 1604, ibid. i. 236.
[526] Proclamation, March 11, 1605, ibid. i. 448.
[527] A shilling in the case of a gentleman, and sixpence from any other person.
[528] i.e. serfs.
[529] In a Memorial in the Cott. MSS. Tit. vii. 59, Chichester attributes to himself the suggestion of this proclamation. He had, however, obtained the King’s consent before publishing it (see Chichester to Cranborne, March 12, Irish Cal. i. 450). Captain Philipps, in a letter to Salisbury (May 19, ibid. i. 480), says that he published it in Antrim. “The people will not endure any more wrongs of their chieftains and lords, but do presently search for redress, which they before durst never do, but were as bondmen. … As soon as I had the proclamation read among them there were many which complained against their chieftains and lords.”
[530] Tyrconnell to Salisbury [Sept. 30], Irish Cal. i. 539.
[531] Chichester and the Irish Council to the Council, Sept. 30, Irish Cal. i. 538-
[532] Chichester to Salisbury, Oct. 2 and 4, ibid. i. 545, 548.
[533] In preaching from Ezek. i. 6, he applied the forty years which are there spoken of to Ireland. ‘From this year,’ he said, ‘will I reckon the sin of Ireland, that those whom you now embrace shall be your ruin, and you shall bear their iniquity.’ It has been generally supposed that these words were spoken in 1601, and they have been considered to have been a prediction of the Rebellion of 1641; but Dr. Elrington has shown that the sermon cannot have been preached earlier than the end of 1602. — Usher’s Works (1847), i. 23.
[534] The Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Meath to the King, June 4, 1603, Irish Cal. i. 70.
[535] The Archbishop of Dublin and the Bishop of Meath to the Council, March 5, 1604, Irish Cal. i. 223.
[536] Davies to Cecil, February 20, 1604. Justice Saxey’s Discourse [1604], ibid. i. 213, 397.
[537] Proclamation, Irish Cal. i. 513.
[538] Chichester and the Irish Council to the Council, Oct. 5. Davies to Salisbury, Dec. 5, 1606, ibid. i. 554, ii. 69.
[539] It was certainly supported by Davies. Davies to Salisbury, Dec. (?), 1605, Irish Cal. i. 603. It looks very like one of his suggestions.
[540] Fenton to Salisbury, Oct. 26, ibid. i. 565.
[541] Mandate, Nov. 13, ibid. i. 573.
[542] Speech of Council, Nov. 22, Irish Cal. i. 579.
[543] Petition enclosed by Chichester to Salisbury, Dec. 7, 1605, ibid. i. 593.
[544] Decree of the Castle Chamber, Nov. 22, ibid. i. 604. In the course of the trial Salisbury’s letter arrived, giving an account of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot. Chichester read the letter in the presence of a large concourse of people who had assembled to watch the proceedings.
[545] Chichester to Salisbury, Oct. 29, ibid. i. 567.
[546] Chichester and the Irish Council to the Council, Dec. 5, Irish Cal. i. 588.
[547] Chichester to Salisbury, Dec. 9, ibid. i. 600.
[548] Davies to Salisbury, Dec., ibid. i. 603.
[549] Chichester to Salisbury, April 25, 1606, ibid. i. 709.
[550] Chichester and the Irish Council to the Council, with enclosures, March 7. Davies to Salisbury, Feb., Irish Cal. i. 648, 661.
[551] The Council to Chichester, Jan. 24, Irish Cal. i. 630.
[552] Chichester to Devonshire, Jan. 2, 1606, ibid. i. 622.
[553] April 1, 1606. Horse and foot in Ireland, ibid. i. 683. There were only 880 foot, and 234 horse.
[554] Chichester to the Council, June 3, ibid. i. 749.
[555] The Council to Chichester and the Irish Council, July 3, ibid. i. 779.
[556] Chichester and the Irish Council to the Council, Dec. 1.
[557] Chichester to Salisbury, Dec. 1, Irish Cal. ii. 64.
[558] The Council to Chichester and the Irish Council, Dec. 31, ibid. ii. 83.
[559] Buttevant to Salisbury, Feb. 11, ibid. ii. 137.
[560] The Council to Chichester, July 21, ibid. ii. 230.
[561] Moryson to Salisbury, June 25, ibid. ii. 266.
[562] Fourteen were kept in prison, who refused to sign a bond that they would not leave the province without leave, and that they would appear at <400>any time when summoned before the Council, and that they would not willingly converse with any priest. The late President had laid fines to the amount of 7,000l., but only 80l. was actually levied. — Chichester to Salisbury, Aug. 4, Irish Cal. ii. 316.
[563] State Trials, ii. 533.
[564] Note of Abuses, Aug. 4, Irish Cal. ii. 315.
[565] Chichester to Salisbury, Jan. 14, ibid. ii. 104.
[566] Harl. MSS. 3544. The translation of the New Testament had been completed in 1603.
[567] Chichester to Salisbury, May 10, Irish Cal. i. 726.
[568] Tyrone to the King, June 17, ibid. i. 763.
[569] Precisely the same opposite doctrines as those which arose in Russia about the land tenure during the discussions on the emancipation of the serfs.
[570] i. e. cultivate.
[571] Report of the Deputy’s visit to Ulster, enclosed by Davies to Salisbury, Sept. 20, 1606, Davies’ Historical Tracts, 215. Chichester and the Irish Council to the Council, Sept. 12, 1606. Chichester to the Council, Sept. 12, 1606, Irish Cal. i. 847, 848.
[572] The Council to Chichester, Nov. 14, ibid. ii. 37.
[573] Davies to Salisbury, Nov. 12, 1606, Irish Cal. ii. 33.