-^fl^-. "!3 #l'c"5'. i| ,1 -*i !«>. ' -.n THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of James Colllne, Drumcondra, Ireland. Purchased, 1918. 3AL5fe ff^ Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. University of Illinois Library L161— H41 iP^W"riP»^5!>K8''|*PI''"^^Ff'"'''^'^'7'vw:y^yT^^ Studies in Irish History 1 60 3-1 649 Being a Course of lectures Delivered before the Irish Literary Society of London EDITED BY R. BARRY O'BRIEN SECOND SERIES BROWNE AND NOLAN, LIMITED DUBLIN, BELFAST 6- CORK London : Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd. Stationers' Hall Court, E.C. 1906 Contents PA6B THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER . i The Rev. S. A. COX, M.A. STRAFFORD Part L—^The Graces ... 69 " " Part II.—The Eve of 1641 . 137 PHILIP WILSON. M.A. "I64I" 169 ARTHUR HOUSTON, K.C., LL.D. THE CONFEDERATION OF KILKENNY 225 Dr. DONELAN, M.Ch., M.B. •'"'' " { THE PLANTATION OF ULSTER By the reverend S. A. COX, MA, T.C.D. — The Plantation of Ulster " The truth is. they that gape after poor Irishmen's lands do what they can to have a colour to beg them " {Statt Pap4rs, Ireland, 1610, p. 415). These words were written in an appeal for justice, or even the formality of a trial, by one who was betrayed by the English whom he had served. Sir Donnell O'Cahan had left his own people to seek an English alliance, and was rewarded by an imprisonment of nineteen years, without ever being brought up for trial. He was goaded into a just indignation by rumours that reached him in the early days of his im- prisonment in Dublin, of Lady O'Cahan's desti- tution and insanity, but after a couple of years he was moved to the Tower of Londonj where he, and other noblemen who were confined because men hungered after their lands, lan- guished away till death gave them release. It will not surprise most of our readers to know that his letters were intercepted and carefully 3 The Plantation of Ulster studied with a view to finding something treason- able in them. Truly Ireland's share in the pri- vil^es of Magna Charta has been a small one. The opening of James I's reign in Ireland was auspicious enough. The battle of Kinsale was an effort of an United Ireland, aided by Spanish troops, to meet and expel the English in the battle-field: it failed, and with it came to an end the hopes of the great Irish lords to do anything by open Weirfare. James found Ireland decimated by war and famine: some parts like the Ardes in the County Down had been literally cleared of their inhabitants.^ The chiefs were willing enough to submit, if sub- mission meant that they were to become great Palatine lords, with no interference from the Crown in their relations with their vassals, or in the exercise of their religion. The once tur- bulent Anglo-Irish lords had nearly all con- formed to the Protestant religion, and become loyal. The people, with the gaunt figures of famine and desolation that they remembered so well, would have been glad to have peace, if not "at any price," at any rate at any price that might allow them to remain m their own land and worship as their fathers had done. By his descent James had claims upon the loyalty of the Irish that could not have been urged for 4 The Plantation of Ulster the Tudor line. And it looked at first as if a new era of prosperity was dawning upon Ireland James began by a policy of conciliation and toleration. He actually appointed a man as a bishop in 1603, because of his knowledge of the Irish language (this was Robert Draper, Rector of Trim, who was made Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh).2 He accepted Tyrone's homage, and created Rory O'Donnell Earl of Tyrconnell. The public worship of the national religion, if not legalized, was at least tolerated: and the people hoped that his mother's son would con- tinue to pursue a friendly policy. But a few short years showed how vain this idea was. Perhaps the king was really in terror from the jGuy Fawkes conspiracy ; perhaps he did really beheve that Spain was still intriguing against England's power ; perhaps he was in hopes that somehow the acquisition of Irish land might help him to make money to meet his financial needs. Whatever the real cause may have been, a wretched anonymous charge was levelled against the two Northern Earls, and they fled for their lives. This may look like weakness, but the memory of the sufferings endured by Tyrconnell's brother, Hugh Roe,3 in his im- prisonment and his assassination in exile, would naturally make Irish leaders of that time very 5 The Plantation of Ulster shy in placing themselves in English hands when a serious charge was made against them Juries of the time were pliable, or, if they showed signs of independence, there was a court of Castle Chamber, corresponding with the Star Chamber of Englidi history, that could use means to bring them into line. That the two Earls were innocent of the plot alleged against them is a moral certainty. The fact that when they fled, it was not to Spain they went, seems strong evidence of this. Any evidence of a plot depends on the word of St Lawrence, Lord Howth, whose character may be judged from what we read about him in the State Papers.* There wa^ an armed fight in 1609 between him and Sir Roger Jones, the son of the Lord Chancellor. Speaking of it Sir A. Chichester refers to the "wrongs done by the Earl of Howth to the Lord Chancellor " ; while the latter writes to the king of " the murderous attack made by Howth and his cut-throat (sica- riorum) retainers upon his son." Plowden gives the following quotations to show the unreality of the whole alleged conspiracy, and the base character of St. Lawrence. "Dr. Anderson in his Royal Genealogies (p. 786), dedicated to the Prince of Wales in 1736, says: 'Artful Cecil employed one St. Lawrence to entrap the Earls 6 '-•^ The Plantation of Ulster of Tyrone and Tyrconnell, the Lord Delvin, and other Irish chiefs into a sham plot, which had no evidence but his. But those chiefs being basely informed that witnesses were to be hired against them, foolishly fled from Dublin, and so taking guilt upon them, they were declared rebels, and six entire counties in Ulster were at once forfeited to the Crown, which was what their enemies wanted' That this St Lawrence was a fit instrument for such a design is clear, from what Camden relates of him (Eliz. 741), viz., that he ofiFered to murder Lord Grey de Wilton and Sir Thomas Gerald, to prevent their conveying reports of Essex to the Queen ; which bloody service Essex rejected with indignatioa No history whatever mentions any symptoms of rising in the North at this time."* In the subsequent references to the flight of the Earls, even the king himself tacitly dropped the charge of conspiracy, and dwelt upon the disaffection they showed in quitting the kingdom without leave, which was treated in those days as a crime. Sir John Davies says that the Bill laid before the Grand Jury in Donegal was read in public in EngHsh and in Irish, "so as to discover a great deal of the evidence to all the hearers to the end that all the country might be satisfied that the State 7 ; The Plantation of Ulster proceeded against them upon a most just ground, and that the people, knowing their treacherous practices, might rest assured that their guilty consciences and fear of losing their heads was the only cause of their running away, and not the allurements of any foreign prince."^ Pos- sibly the Earls may have had communications with Spain or Rome that they thought would compromise them. On their arrival in Rome they sent King James a statement of their grievances. These embraced arbitrary inter- ference with their own rights and possessions exactions of cattle and other goods levied on their tenants, who were miserably poor after the late war ; pretended claims to church lands of enormous extent ; and what, perhaps, are the worst things, in each case they showed that attempts were perpetually being made to have charges of treason supported against themj and also their free exercise of religion was inter- fered with. Tyrconnell gave an instance of one Owen M'Swyne who was to be executed Sir Henry FoUiott, with the authority of the Lord Deputy, sent privately promising him his life and large rewards if he would charge the Earl with some detestable crime. "Further- more," he says, writing in the third person, "the said Earl can justify by good proofs, that of 8 The Plantation of Ulster twenty and seven persons tli^:W<irei4«nged in Connaught and Tyrconnell, there was not one but had the former promises, upon like condi- tions, made to them." Of Chichester's threat to Tyrconnell that he must attend churdi, the latter says, " For this only respect of not going to church, he resolved rather to abandon lands and living, yea, all the kingdoms of the earth, with the loss of his, than to be forced utterly against his conscience and the utter ruin of his soul to any such practice." Tyrone wrote in a somewhat similar way.^ It speaks well for the loyalty of the peasantry to the Earls that the attempts to get up charges against them failed so completely.