panied by a sinister social policy which in time wrecked everything. This policy can be defined in an Englishman's words. Before Elizabeth died Francis Bacon had analyzed the three fundamental difficulties with Ireland from the point of view of England's policy. "The first, the ambition and absoluteness of the chiefs of the families and septs." The chiefs, in other words, stood in the way of English "ambition and absoluteness." "The second, the licentious idleness of their kerns and soldiers, that lie upon the country by cesses and such like oppressions." In brief, the soldiers. "And the third, the barbarous laws, customs, their brehon laws, habits of apparel, their poets or heralds that enchant them in savage manners, and sundry other dregs of barbarism and rebellion." In other words, the Irish national culture and cohesion. To root out the chiefs, the soldiers, and the national culture was now the task to which English statecraft applied itself. 2 It was, on the whole, not meant to be malicious. Scotland and England were no longer embroiled, and King James was no longer in need of Hugh O'Neill's kerns or money. The royal mind could be given to the business of settling a country which had long been a distraction but which now was silent, leaderless, and limp. It was from Machiavelli's political philosophy that England gleaned its principles at this juncture, not from the King James version of the Bible. Machiavelli counseled colonies. "A prince does not spend much on colonies, for with little or no expense he can send them out and keep them there, and he offends a minority only of the citizens from whom he takes lands and houses to give them to the new inhabitants; and those whom he offends, remaining poor and scattered, are never able to injure him; whilst the rest being uninjured are easily kept quiet, and at the same time are anxious not to err for fear it should happen to them as it has to those who have been despoiled. In conclusion, I say that these colonies are not costly, they are more faithful, they injure less, and the injured, as has been said, being poor and scattered, cannot hurt." This suited James down to the ground. "From Machiavelli," says Lord Acton, James "took the idea of the state ruling itself, for its own ends, through experts, not depending on the forces of society or the wishes of" common men. James's experts agreed on the desirability of loyal colonists. Blennerhasset wanted to crush the Irish harder, on Machiavelli's theory that injury ought to be of such a kind "that one does not stand in fear of revenge." But Blennerhasset's recommendations were considered excessive. Ireland had been decapitated. It looked absolutely powerless to the advisers of James. 3 The first practical business in Ulster was to clear the Irish out, the second to move the non-Irish in, the third to let no Irish return except safe Irish, in safe territory, at double the settlers' rent. The legality of the clearance is interesting. The crown had pardoned O'Neill and O'Donnell and had at last made the Irish people legal “denizens” of their own country. With the departure of O'Neill and O'Donnell it was held right and proper to attaint them. This brought Donegal, Derry, Tyrone, and Armagh into the receptive lap of the state. O'Dogherty's spurt 1 of rebellion in 1607 cost him his life and whatever land he had held in these counties. As to Fermanagh and Cavan, Maguire and O'Reilly had also been "traitors," which gave the crown its legal grip on two more counties. Unfortunately for British law, the judges had played fast and loose. They had made some grants on the English theory that the land belonged to the chief, but in other cases on the Irish theory that the land belonged to the clansmen: in Cavan and Fermanagh they had clearly committed themselves in respect of the clansmen as occupiers and freeholders. But to make the Irish into tenants at will was now demanded by the clearance policy, and it was necessary for England to break its word. The English took all of these six counties except about one-eighth. Nearly three hundred Irish proprietors were given English title to 586,000 acres in view of their showing a right attitude toward the crown. The remaining 3,000,000 acres went to Englishmen and Scotsmen; "laborers in the vineyard," as the Welsh lawyer Sir John Davies termed them. These laborers in the vineyard were recruited from two nations and two classes-but all from the state Protestant or Scottish Presbyterian religion. The |