The system applied by Chichester to hoodwink the Crown and defraud the subject went undetected for years. It consisted in availing of spent King’s Letters, and issuing Patents upon them afresh—in many cases to an extent enormously beyond the powers originally contemplated. In this way the Ulster fisheries were annexed; and equally lawless appropriations were made in nearly every county. Where fishings were concerned, the Deputy’s maw was insatiable. Until the Stuart era, Hugh O’Neill and Sir Randal MacDonnell largely controlled the Bann; O’Donnell and O’Doherty Lough Foyle; and Maguire Lough Erne. The Lagan had been included by Sir Arthur in his Patents of 1603-4; when his scriveners conferred on him a life-estate in Lough Neagh and the Bann, with the title of Admiral. Upon taking Hamilton into partnership he treated his own Patents for both the Lagan and Lough Neagh as worthless, and prepared fresh dispositions. His old comrade, Captain Thomas Phillips, was commander of the fort at Toome (where the Bann issues from Lough Neagh), and had been allowed to become tenant of the fishery at Coleraine belonging to Sir Randal MacDonnell (afterwards Earl of Antrim). Sir Randal was brother-in-law of Hugh O’Neill, and had supported him in the war against Elizabeth. Chichester nourished an implacable hatred of MacDonnell and his clan, because in 1597 they defeated his brother, Sir John Chichester, and beheaded him. During O’Neill’s revolt he tried to get Sir James MacDonnell, Randal’s brother, poisoned; and used to write of Randal to Cecil as “MacSorley,” in order to recall the feud of his father, Sorley Bwee, with the Queen. The MacDonnells, as Lords of the Isles, were Scottish as well as Irish chieftains, and of old blood. King James was hardly six weeks on the united Thrones when he confirmed Sir Randal’s estate of 333,000 acres in County Antrim. This area MacDonnell occupied by ancient conquest; but the legal recognition of his ownership was hateful to Chichester, who planned to make the rival Scottish favourite the instrument of his revenge.