At Elizabeth’s accession Carew was received into favour, but that peculiar Court did not suit his humour, and he offended Gloriana by joining the ranks of those who urged her to marry. Her resentment was not very long or deep, and she ‘gave him very good things, which were as liberally, if not wastefully, consumed.’ In 1560 he was sent on a confidential mission to Scotland, where the dissensions of Norfolk and Grey, and her Majesty’s own double dealing, threatened disaster to the English arms. Fearing to trust anyone, he was obliged to write his own letters with a hand more used to the sword than the pen. On his return Elizabeth acknowledged his good service, and ‘being somewhat pleasant with him, thanked him for his letters of his own penning, commending him to be a very good secretary, for indeed he wrote them with no more pain than she had labour to read them, for as he spent a night in writing, so she spent a whole night in reading.’[147]
Carew’s claims to property in Ireland.
A country life can seldom satisfy a man of action, even though he be reckoned ‘the wisest justice on the banks of Trent,’ and Carew found it very dull in Devonshire. To beguile the time, and having some vague inkling of castles in Ireland, he ransacked the archives at Mohuns Ottery, and found many parchments which he was unable to read. His curiosity increasing daily, he sought the aid of John Hooker, Chamberlain of Exeter, who loved records as much as Mr. Welbore Ellis loved Blue-books. This eminent antiquary had for his nephew the famous Richard Hooker, and to his learned uncle the great author of the ‘Ecclesiastical Polity’ owed his University education and the patronage of Bishop Jewell. To Hooker’s eye the value of Carew’s parchments was at once apparent, and he succeeded in making a fair transcript, though the oldest document had been trodden under foot and nearly obliterated. Sir Peter, being satisfied of his descent from men who had held great possessions in Ireland, went to the Queen and asked leave to recover his own. This was but too readily granted, and orders were sent from her Majesty in Council requiring the help of all royal officers in Ireland. Hooker was straightway despatched thither, and his arrival caused a commotion which might have disheartened anyone less determined than his employer. He obtained leave to search the Dublin archives, and proved to his own satisfaction that Sir Peter was entitled to the Barony of Idrone in Leinster, to certain great seignories in Munster, and to Duleek and other manors in Meath, ‘and that nothing could be found to prejudice or impeach his title, but only prescription, which in that land holdeth not.’[148]
A prescription of 170 years against Carew.
Sir Peter claimed a vast inheritance in Munster as heir to the conqueror Robert FitzStephen, whose only daughter was supposed to have married a Carew. Unfortunately for this theory Giraldus twice states in the plainest language that FitzStephen had no legitimate offspring, and it is hard to see how his testimony can possibly be shaken on such a point. Carew may perhaps have married his natural daughter, but that would give him no title at all under the grant of Henry II.; and his claims over the vast region between Lismore and St. Brandon’s Head in Kerry may therefore be dismissed. That the Carews did, however, by some means become possessed of much land in Munster is none the less clear. There was a Marquis Carew who, at some period before the accession of Henry IV., had a revenue of 2,200l. in the county of Cork, besides the possession and profits of Dursey and other havens there. The Carews seem to have left Ireland altogether in the time of Richard II., so that in any case there was a prescription of 170 years against Sir Peter. The English heralds manufactured a pedigree for him ‘in colours very orderly,’ bringing down his title from FitzStephen’s mythical daughter: and had not political considerations stood in the way, it is probable that his title would have been admitted by the Crown.[149]
Carew comes to Ireland and claims Idrone.
Hooker took a house in Dublin for his principal, and warned him that most things would have to be brought from England, and that it was difficult to raise even 20l. in the Irish capital. The raw material of good housekeeping—fish, flesh, and fowl—was to be had; but sugar and spices, a steward, a cook, a physician, and a surgeon, would all have to be imported. These preparations being at last completed, Carew set sail from Ilfracombe, and landed at Waterford, whither Hooker lost no time in repairing. Thither also came two other men of Devon, Thomas Stukeley, at this time Constable of Leighlin, the stormy petrel of Elizabeth’s time, and Henry Davells, afterwards the victim of a frightful tragedy. Both professed themselves anxious to help their countryman in his attempt to recover the Barony of Idrone in Carlow, which had formerly belonged to his family, and which Hooker had already inspected. Davells and Stukeley accompanied Carew to Leighlin, where the latter entertained him, and where he received several chiefmen of the Kavanaghs, which clan had been in possession of Idrone since Richard II.’s day at least. Sir Peter informed them that he was their lord, and was come to claim his own, ‘which speeches were not so hard unto them but they more hardly digested them.’[150]
The Council allow Carew’s claim in the Cheevers case.
Having so far advanced his claim to Idrone, Carew repaired to Dublin, where he kept open house pending Sidney’s arrival. His claim was naturally the general subject of conversation, and an old lady professed to see in his coming the fulfilment of a prophecy that the dead should rise again. He decided to make his first serious attack in Meath upon the manor of Maston, held by Sir Christopher Cheevers, a gentleman of old family, and connected with the principal people of the Pale and the principal lawyers in Dublin. But one Irish barrister could be got to take his brief, and it seems that he afterwards threw it up, for an Exeter man, William Peryam, of the Middle Temple, afterwards Chief Baron, was brought over specially for the occasion. A Bill was filed before the Lord Deputy and Council, but the common lawyers retained by Cheevers advised that the suit could not be maintained there. Peryam rested his case on naked prerogative, and the two Chief Justices gave a private opinion in his favour, on the ground that Carew could have no fair trial at law. Sir Christopher had no chance of a fair trial before the Council, and was therefore fain to compromise the case. The weight of documentary evidence, a prescription of at least 170 years being allowed no weight at all, seems to have been on Sir Peter’s side, and Cheevers offered him eighteen years’ purchase for the lands in dispute. Carew voluntarily offered them for fifteen, and he did not insist even on this. Cheevers seems to have worked on his generosity by talking of his wife and children, and in the end had ‘the whole land released unto him almost for nothing, saving a drinking nut of silver worth about 20l., and three or four horses worth about 30l.’ Carew’s adventurous nature may have been satisfied with the honours of war, or he may have thought it good policy to make friends in Dublin before embarking on the greater undertakings which he had in view.[151]
Carew is adjudged entitled to Idrone.