[125] Irish Statutes, 1612, chaps. 6-9. Titles of proposed Acts, 1612, No. 530 in Calendar of State Papers, Ireland. St. John to Winwood. November 28, and December 9, 1614.
[126] Parliament was dissolved October 24, 1615. The King to Chichester, August 22, and October 17; Lords of Council to Chichester, June 26; Chichester to Winwood, October 31.
[CHAPTER VIII]
LAST YEARS OF CHICHESTER’S GOVERNMENT, 1613-1615
The Ormonde heritage.
A new Earl of Desmond.
The palatinate of Tipperary.
Interference with property was not limited to the ancient Irish, but was extended by James to the greatest and most loyal of the Anglo-Norman families. The tenth Earl of Ormonde, known as Black Thomas, who played so great a part in Elizabeth’s time, had been blind ever since the King’s accession. During these years his chief care was to keep the estates and the title together, and he took every possible precaution both by will and deed. Having no son living, he married his only daughter Elizabeth to her cousin Theobald, Lord Tullophelim, who was the nearest male heir, and who was in great favour both with the King and Chichester, but not with the old Earl, who accused him of ill-using his wife and of keeping bad company. Tullophelim died childless early in 1613, and a son of Lord Thomond’s immediately sought the widow’s hand; but the King insisted on her marrying Richard Preston, a Scotch gentleman of the bedchamber, who, had been about him from his childhood, accompanied him to England, and was knighted at the coronation. The marriage took place, and the favourite, who in 1607 had been created Lord Dingwall in Scotland, became Earl of Desmond in Ireland in 1619. It was actually the intention of James to endow the new coronet with everything that had belonged to the old Desmonds; but little came of this, for the forfeited lands were already occupied by others. Dingwall was with his father-in-law when he died in 1614, and was immediately involved in litigation which lasted longer than his life. In announcing Ormonde’s death, Chichester pointed out that there was now an opportunity of abolishing the palatinate of Tipperary ‘so long enjoyed by that house to the offence of most of the inhabitants of that county and of the neighbouring counties adjoining.’ No doubt it was very desirable to get rid of such an anomaly, provided it were done openly on public grounds, and with some reasonable compensation for the financial loss. But that was not James’s way of doing things. The political advisability of dividing the great Ormonde heritage went for something with him, but the really important matter was to secure a large part of it for a Scotch courtier.[127]
Litigation about the Ormonde estates.
James I. as an arbitrator.