1

sated, and during the whole of the reign of James a perpetual effort was made to deprive the Irish of the residue which remained to them. The concessions intended in the plantation scheme were most imperfectly carried out. The commissioners,' writes a temperate Protestant historian, 'appointed to distribute the lands scandalously abused their trusts, and by fraud or violence deprived the natives of the possessions the king had reserved for them.' In the small county of Longford, twenty-five members of one sept were all deprived of their estates, without the least compensation, or any means of subsistence assigned to them.2 All over Ireland the trade of the Discoverer now rose into prominence. Under pretence of improving the King's revenue, these persons received commissions of inquiry into defective titles, and obtained confiscations, and grants at small rents for themselves. In a country which had but just emerged from barbarism, where English law had but recently become supreme, where most possession rested chiefly on immemorial custom, and where constant civil wars, many forfeitures, and a great and recent change in the tenure of land had all tended to confuse titles, it was totally impossible that the majority of the proprietors could satisfy the conditions that were required of them, and the proceedings in the law courts were soon an infamous mockery of justice. Grants made by Henry II. were revived to invalidate the undisturbed possessions of centuries. Much of the country had passed in the early Plantagenet period from Norman into Irish hands, as the circle of the Pale was contracted; and if the present proprietors could not establish their titles clearly and indisputably by documentary evidence, if, possessing such

'Leland, ii. 467. See several instances of the gross injustice perpetrated, in Carte's Ormond, i. 24, 25.

2 Carte, i. 25. See, too, Prendergast's Cromwellian Settlement, pp. 45-47.

evidence, the smallest technical flaw could be discovered, the land, in the absence of any other claimant, was adjudged to the Crown. Everywhere, says Carte, discoverers were at work finding out flaws in men's titles to their estates. The old pipe-rolls were searched to find the old rents reserved and charged upon them; the patent rolls in the Tower of London were ransacked for the ancient grants. It was discovered that several ancient grants had reserved rents to the Crown, which had for generations been unpaid and undemanded. Acquittances were now demanded, and as they could not be produced, some of the best titles were in this manner invalidated. The Judges, who were removable at pleasure, warmly supported the Government in straining the law to the utmost limits. In general, the terrified proprietors saved themselves by paying composition, surrendering their titles, and receiving them back with increased rents to the Crown. Every man's enjoyment of his property became precarious, and the natives learnt with terror that law could be made in a time of perfect peace, and without any provocation being given, a not less terrible instrument than the sword for rooting them out of the soil.2 In a case which Carte records it was found impossible, by any legal chicanery, to deprive a family named O'Byrne, in the County Wicklow, of an estate which was coveted. But another method was more successful. Sir William Parsons and his accomplices trumped up a false criminal charge against the proprietor.

1 Carte's Ormond, i. 27. Carte elsewhere says: 'Ireland had long been a prey to projectors and greedy courtiers who procured grants of conceded lands, and by setting up the King's title forced the right owners of them, to avoid the plague and expense of a litigation, to compound with

them on what terms they pleased.' This traffic, he adds, alienated the minds of the people from the Government, and raised continual clamours and uneasiness in every part of the kingdom.'-Ibid. p. 60.

2 Ibid. i. 25-28. Leland, ii. 465-470.

They induced men of the most infamous characters to support it, and one witness, who refused to give the evidence they required, was tortured into compliance by being placed on a burning gridiron.' It was this sept which first rose to arms in Leinster in the insurrection of 1641,

One fraud of a more gigantic description was contemplated. It was hoped that Sir John Perrot's great measure of the composition of Connaught had at least placed the titles of that province beyond all dispute, and given them the fullest security of English law. The measure, however, had been taken before the scheme for seeking confiscations by legal quibbles had been devised, and it had been somewhat carelessly carried out. The lords and gentlemen of Connaught had surrendered their estates to the Crown, had complied with the conditions of the new tenure, and had paid their compositions to the Crown with an acknowledged punctuality; but they had very generally neglected to enroll their surrenders or to take out their patents. The defect, however, was supplied by King James, who in the thirteenth year of his reign issued a commission to legalise the surrenders of the estates, which were reconveyed by new and regular patents under the Great Seal of England. The fees for the enrolment of these patents, amounting in all to 3,000l., were fully paid; but it was found, at the very time when the enthusiasm for plantations was at its height, that by the neglect of the officers of the Court of Chancery the patents and the surrenders had not been duly enrolled in the Court of Chancery. On the ground of this technical flaw, which was due exclusively to the neglect of the Government officials, and for which the Connaught proprietors were in no degree responsible, the titles of all the estates in the province, though

1 Carte's Ormond, i. 27-32.

guaranteed under the King's broad seal, were pronounced invalid, and the estates were said to be still vested in the Crown. The project of making a plantation of Connaught similar to the Plantation of Ulster was devised and adopted. The terror produced by this prospect was extreme, and the conviction of the Connaught gentry that no real justice could be obtained was so strong that they offered to purchase a new confirmation of their patents by doubling their annual compositions, and by paying to the King what was at that time the very large sum of 10,000l. It was estimated that this was as much as the King would gain by a plantation, and it is probable that the sum would have been accepted, when the death of James interrupted the scheme.1

It is not surprising under these circumstances, that on the accession of Charles I. a feverish and ominous restlessness should have pervaded Irish life. The army was increased. Religious animosities became much more apparent than before. The security of property was shaken to the very foundation. The native proprietors began to feel themselves doomed to certain and speedy destruction. Universal distrust of English law had grown up, and the murmurs of discontent, like the first moanings of a coming storm, might be plainly heard. One more effort was made by the Irish gentry to persuade, or rather to bribe, the Government to allow them to remain undisturbed in the possession of their property. They offered to raise by voluntary assessment the large sum of 120,0001, in three annual instalments of 40,000l., on condition of obtaining certain Graces from the King. These Graces, the Irish analogue of the Petition of Rights, were of the most moderate and equitable description. The most important were that undisturbed possession of sixty years should secure a landed proprietor

1 Leland, ii. 477, 478. Carte's Ormond, i. 47, 48.

from all older claims on the part of the Crown, that the inhabitants of Connaught should be secured from litigation by the enrolment of their patents, and that Popish recusants should be permitted, without taking the Oath of Supremacy, to sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches, and to practise in the courts of law. The terms were accepted. The promise of the King was given. The Graces were transmitted by way of instruction to the Lord Deputy and Council, and the Government also engaged, as a further security to all proprietors, that their estates should be formally confirmed to them and to their heirs by the next Parliament which should be held in Ireland.

The sequel forms one of the most shameful passages in the history of English government of Ireland. In distinct violation of the King's solemn promise, arter the subsidies that were made on the faith of that promise had been duly obtained, without provocation or pretext or excuse, Wentworth, who now presided with stern despotism over the government of Ireland, announced the withdrawal of the two principal articles of the Graces, the limitation of Crown claims by a possession of sixty years and the legalisation of the Connaught titles. The object of this great and wicked man was to establish a despotism in Ireland as a step towards a despotism in England. If the King could command without control a powerful army and a large revenue in Ireland, he would have made a great stride towards emancipating himself from the Parliament of England. The Irish Parliament was no serious obstacle. It was too dependent, too intimidated, and a great ruler might safely defy it. I can now say,' wrote Wentworth, that the King is as absolute here as any prince in the whole world can be.' It was necessary, however, to the

6

1 Strafford's Letters, i. 344.