The great fraud of UlsterHealy, T. M. (Timothy Michael)
History
The great fraud of Ulster
Healy, T. M. (Timothy Michael)
Ireland -- History -- 17th century; Ulster (Northern Ireland and Ireland) -- History
Before setting out he performed a miracle worthy of his pen. This
was to “annex” to the spent Commission of 1606 “certain articles
of instruction under the Great Seal of Ireland” so that he should
be enabled “to inquire of divers things in the said Commission and
articles of instruction.” In vagueness nothing could be more studied.
The added “articles” were dated the 21st July, 1609, and they
completely altered the scope of the Commission. The King had directed
a merely ecclesiastical inquiry, but the Deputy, who for three years
neglected to hold it, “amended” the royal instructions in his own
behoof. Great was the magic of “amendment.” He was careful not to
enrol or record the alterations; and, therefore, the added “articles”
remain as undiscoverable as the Bassett-Hamilton conveyances, or the
Patents of 1603.
Under their authority Chichester sat with Davies and others at
Limavady on the 30th August, 1609, and held a Court. His purpose was
to set up a claim to the Bann in order to oust the Londoners, and
so overreach them that their Charter in that respect must prove a
nullity. In the castle of his prisoner, O’Cahan, knowing that the
Crown was striving to perfect the contract with the Undertakers,
he empanelled a jury of Brehons and leading natives to defeat
the intentions of his royal master. The jury, under the original
Commission, could only have ascertained the title to and scope of
Church rights, but under the invented “articles of instruction” the
Deputy got them to add a finding which declared that the Bann, from
Coleraine to Lough Neagh, with its bed and soil, belonged to himself.
The Brehon jury was first set on to make voluminous ecclesiastical
pronouncements; and, having spent the day thereat, they completed
their work with the verdict in Chichester’s favour. He presided over
the inquiry himself, as he did in the suits of “O’Cahan against
O’Neill” and “Hamilton against MacDonnell.” Doubtless, he strove
to impress the “lewd” Brehons by his judicial bearing, but they
understood little of his purpose. They spoke Gaelic and Latin, but
not English; and Sir Arthur laid before them his grant of the river
to Hamilton in Latin, and Hamilton’s Latin assignment to himself.
Their “finding” he set down in English—a tongue then rarely used in
legal documents. Its import was unknown to them, and his scribes,
doubtless, wrote out whatever he desired. It is tacked on at the
end of a long ecclesiastical verdict, with which it is wholly
disconnected. The Brehons had been assembled to declare and earmark
the local belongings of the Church, and were asked by the presiding
judge to decide that the Bann was his property. If they really did so
and if the “tack” was not subsequently made Davies must have enjoyed
the sight of the Deputy “charging” a wild Irish jury in Latin in his
own interest, and availing of their lack of English to cheat the
English King.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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