New influences, however, were setting in which affected every claimant to property in Ulster. The King, finding the North swept of its Chiefs, and knowing naught of the practices of the Deputy, determined to root Scottish and English settlers in the seats of the stubborn septs. A Plantation would solve the Irish difficulty. Chichester differed from his Majesty as to the future of the Province, and saw in its desolation a means of personal aggrandisement. James hoped to strengthen his garrison by planting the battle-wasted area with British Protestants. The Deputy felt that disarmed natives would be easier to deal with than cross-Channel adventurers protected by royal favour. The King’s policy, besides, exposed him to the risk that his crimes might be laid bare. He could show no title, save what Bassett’s Patent afforded, to his most important acquisitions. Excluding that document, the only parchment he held for Lough Neagh and the Bann, or the countless acres seized therewith, was a secret assignment from Hamilton. This had, for its sole foundation, grants as shaky as Bassett’s, springing from his own wrongdoing. James I., ignorant of all this hocus-pocus, busied himself throughout the year 1609 with the question of bestowing County Derry, the Bann, and Lough Foyle, on the London Corporation. In January, 1610, a treaty with the City was signed on behalf of his Majesty, and the Ulster Plantation was begun. The play of forces in the struggle between MacDonnell and Chichester now took new forms, and the final bout in their long duel was postponed. CHAPTER XII. CHEATING KING JAMES. When Chichester realised that the Charter to the Londoners was to include the Bann and Lough Foyle, he began a game of cross-purposes to undermine the royal project. On the return of Sir John Davies from London, bringing him the gift of O’Doherty’s barony of Innishowen (July, 1609), he got the Attorney-General to join him in a fresh intrigue against the King. They planned an excursion to Ulster, ostensibly for the purpose of executing a Commission—long out of date—to ascertain the ecclesiastical lands of the Sees of Derry, Raphoe, and Clogher; but in reality to devise means to thwart his Majesty’s policy. The Commission was issued on the 2nd May, 1606, three years earlier, and, therefore, was utterly stale. The Flight of the Earls was already an event two years old, and one which left Bishop Montgomery in undisputed enjoyment of Catholic dues. Yet the Deputy was smitten with such heady zeal for Church interests in 1609 that he must needs visit the Ulster vineyard in haste to care for the elect under the pastoral eye of the Attorney-General.