In her reign the settled plan of the Executive was: to affect to further the interests of the Crown by promoting forfeitures, and then to divert them to the benefit of officials. The disgrace was a legacy bequeathed to her Majesty, her heirs and successors; the booty they kept for themselves. To-day the Crown lands of Ireland, despite three general confiscations, yield only £19,000 a year. In England, where, since the Wars of the Roses, there have been no wholesale spoliations, the Crown estates enrich the Exchequer by £488,000 a year. The cost of prostrating the Irish was borne by the British taxpayer. The profit from it went into private pockets. James I. tried to reward the conquerors without beggaring the conquered. Lord Mountjoy, who, on the 6th June, 1603, led O’Neill and O’Donnell through London, was given grants of lands and Custom duties in England and was made Earl of Devonshire. His main assistants in the rebellion were two other Devon men—Sir George Carew, who commanded in Munster, and Sir Arthur Chichester, who ravaged Ulster. Between Mountjoy and Carew a close friendship existed. Mountjoy’s letters in the “Pacata Hibernia” manifest the warmth of their relations. Carew was equally confidential with his comrade-in-arms. His cipher of 1602 apprises Mountjoy of the dispatch of a poisoner to follow Red Hugh O’Donnell into Spain, after the defeat at Kinsale. Another tells of the murderer’s success, as O’Donnell was about to secure fresh aids from the Spanish King. Such secrets are entrusted only to bosom friends. Sir Arthur Chichester was also the intimate of Mountjoy. He had, as a short-cut to end the rebellion, tried to compass the assassination of Hugh O’Neill; and, when this failed, he atoned for his ill-success by devices equally ruthless. The Deputy supported them in everything; and, when the Scotch succession came about, he wished that James I. should repay them royally. Cecil, the most influential Minister of the King, was the friend of all three; and he found it natural that, when James took back to favour Irish noblemen lately in arms, the recompense of those who had reduced them to submission should not be stinted. Chichester came to London from Ireland to push his claims and, accordingly, on the 8th August, 1603, he received in fee the Castle of Belfast, with lands adjoining of undefined extent, and was appointed Life Governor of Carrickfergus at 13s. 4d. a day.