Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum (Vol.1-3). Bagwell Richard

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

      Distribution of land.

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

      Results and expectations.

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

      FOOTNOTES:

       Table of Contents

      [55] Le Case de Gavelkind, 3 Jac., and Le Case de Tanistry, 5 Jac., in Davies’ reports, 1628.

[56] A Ballyboe varied from sixty to 120 acres, and a Ballybetagh was about 1,000. An introduction to the very large and complicated question of Celtic tenures may be had through Maine’s Early History of Institutions and Joyce’s Social History of Ancient Ireland, 1903.

[57] Fenton to Salisbury, September 9, 1607; Chichester to same, September 17; St. John to same, October 9; Salisbury to Chichester and Privy Council to same, September 27.

[58] Chichester to Salisbury, October 2, 1605; to the King, October 31, 1610. Bacon to Davies, October 23, 1607, in Spedding’s Life, iv. 5, and his ‘Considerations touching the plantation of Ireland, presented to the King’ on January 1, 1608–9, ib. pp. 123–125.

[59] Hill’s Montgomery MSS., p. 19.

[60] Letters of Mrs. Susan Montgomery (née Stayning) in Part III. of Trevelyan Papers (Camden Society), May 20, 1605; August 21, 1606; October 8, 1606 (from Derry). Bishop Montgomery’s letter of February 16, 1614, ib.

[61] The King to Chichester, May 2, 1606; Bishop Montgomery to Salisbury, July 1, 1607; Chichester to Salisbury, January 26, 1607; Tyrone’s petition calendared at 1606 No. 89 with the references there; Davies to Salisbury, August 28, 1609; Todd’s St. Patrick, p. 160. The speculations of Ussher and Ware on this subject are obsolete.

[62] Davies to Salisbury, August 5, 1608.

[63] Instructions to Ley and Davies, October 14, 1608; Chichester to the King, October 15, and to Salisbury, October 18; Project of the Committee for the plantation of Tyrone, December 20.

[64] ‘Orders and Conditions of Plantation,’ printed in Harris’s Hibernica, p. 63, and in Hill’s Plantation in Ulster, p. 78. Project for the Plantation in Carew, dated January 23, 1608, but evidently belonging to 1608–9; it does for the other escheated counties what was done for Tyrone only in the MS. dated December 20, 1608.

[65] Chichester to the Privy Council, March 10, 1609, and to Davies, March 31.

[66] The Commission is calendared at July 19, 1609, and printed in Harris’s Hibernica, and by Hill. Davies to Salisbury, August 28, 1609.

[67] The ‘Project,’ dated January 23, 1608–9, is printed in Carew, vi. 13, in Harris’s Hibernica, 53, and in Hill’s Plantation of Ulster, 90. The passages concerning Lord Audley and his family are collected by Hill.

[68] The negotiations are detailed in Hill’s Plantation. Instructions to Sir John Bourchier, May 1611.

[69] Chichester to Cecil, June 8, 1604; Phillips to Salisbury, May 10, 1608, September 24, 1609; Chichester to Salisbury, April 7, 1609. A tolerable understanding of the Ulster settlement generally, and of the Londoners in particular, may be arrived at through Hill’s Plantation in Ulster, 1877, and J. C. Beresford’s Concise View of the Irish Society, 1842.

[70] Davies to Salisbury, September 24, 1610. A more elaborate version, intended probably for private circulation, is printed from a Harleian MS. in Davies’ Tracts and dated November 8. Same to same, January 21, 1610–11. B. Rich’s New Description of Ireland, London, 1610, dedicated to Salisbury.