Colonisation of Ulster. Sir Thomas Smith, 1572.
The failure of colonisation projects in Munster did not prevent the Queen from listening to those who imagined that they could found private principalities in Ireland. The district of Ards, in what is now the County of Down, being almost surrounded by the sea, was by its position well suited for such an experiment. On the north-west a land frontier of barely ten miles might seem to require no great number of defenders. Various offers were made, those of Secretary Smith being accepted by Elizabeth. Tremayne, who foresaw the commotion that would be caused by any scheme of colonisation, was in favour of a more extended experiment; but strongly advised that the Queen should appear as the patroness of a country already her own, and not as a conqueror. The people should be told that their rights would not be infringed, and this should be published everywhere in the Irish language. Had Sir Thomas Smith taken this advice he would still have had many difficulties to encounter; but he did not take it, and the Ulster Irish had their first notice from a pamphlet written in English and published in London. Sir Thomas thought that ‘the little book was evil done,’ but was induced to agree to its being put forth by his son, who was to have the actual direction of the business, and whom he was even content to lose in the glorious work of reconquering the Queen’s land without burden to her or to the English State. The writer of the pamphlet, whether young Smith or another, set forth at length the historical reasons why the English power had waned in Ireland, and proposed to restore it by colonisation. A permanent garrison was to be established, and ‘every soldier to be made master of his own land, to him and his heirs for ever.’ It was supposed that 600 or 700 men would be enough, and that the penniless younger sons, who could no longer fall back on the decent idleness of the abbeys, would seize upon this golden opportunity. The examples chosen to prove how easily a small English force might overcome a larger body of Irish were singularly inapplicable to a plan of colonisation. It was true that Gilbert with 100 men had driven the Munster rebels before him, that Collyer with one company had discomfited 1,000 Redshanks, that Randolph with 300 had beaten 3,000 O’Neills before Derry. But it was equally true that the rebels were as strong as ever when Gilbert’s back was turned, that Scots continued to pour in, and that the settlement at Derry was abandoned. It was argued that 300 horse and 400 foot would be enough to settle the Ards, and their pay would amount to 10,000l. a year. For the first three years they were to pay no rent for their holdings, after which it was estimated that they would be self-supporting. How Sir Thomas Smith could imagine that private adventurers would lend 10,000l. a year without interest for three years, upon the security of Irish land still unconquered, may well puzzle us; but sanguine hope was a characteristic of the sixteenth century.
‘Many shall say,’ the candid pamphleteer admits, ‘that they shall go into a place where they shall want meat, housing, and all things necessary, for that no prince yet hath been able to victual their army ... that the soldier is always constrained to march through the bogs and rivers, and in the night to lodge upon the grass without meat and fire. This is indeed a great misery ... but consider the difference that is between the Deputy’s journey who seeketh to apprehend the rebels’ bodies ... and his enterprise, who desireth the land only.’[214]
The O’Neills are alarmed.
Whatever English adventurers may have thought of Thomas Smith and his pamphlet, there was nothing in the movement which could possibly be pleasing to the Irish. The Norman family of Savage had from early times enjoyed dominion in the Ards, and their title to considerable estates in the southern half had been acknowledged in 1559. It was evidently not intended to interfere with them, and though pretty thoroughly Hibernicised, they seem on the whole to have favoured Smith’s enterprise. Had the plan been strictly confined to the peninsula, and adequately supported until the cultivation of wastes became profitable, a small English Pale might have been created in Ulster. But Sir Brian MacPhelim O’Neill, chief of a clan which had long lorded it over the southern part of Antrim and the northern part of Down, took fright at once. Even in the Ards he claimed superiority, and he rightly guessed that Smith’s operations would extend further. Old Captain Piers at Carrickfergus promptly reminded the Lord Deputy that it was the nature of Irishmen to let land lie idle rather than to see others work, and that the Clandeboye O’Neills had been too long loose to brook the curb easily. Piers circulated a letter purporting to be a copy of one sent by the Lord Deputy, and denying the whole story; ‘but the truth,’ he added, ‘will soon be known, in spite of my feigning.’ He advised Fitzwilliam to gain time by pretending that the intruders were brought in entirely against the Scots, and to take timely pledges from Sir Brian MacPhelim. He would do his best; but when all shifts were exhausted the Irish would revolt, and the result was only too certain.[215]
Sir Brian MacPhelim O’Neill.
Fitzwilliam himself reported that the immediate effect of the pamphlet had been to strengthen the Scots, whose alliance all the Northern tribes now sought, and that a common danger had made O’Donnell and O’Neill friends. The expense of restoring peace was likely to be greater than any private interest could warrant. Sir Brian MacPhelim pleaded his own cause with considerable force. He had served Sussex, Croft, and Sidney faithfully, and had lately borne the whole cost of victualling Carrickfergus; and the Queen, ignorant as he believed of his daily usefulness, was now about to give away his inheritance to Saxons. In her service he had spent more cows and horses than were in any one English county, and so it should always be while he was left in command. Clandeboye had been in the hands of his family for fourteen generations, and he now begged for a royal grant in consideration of faithful service from his childhood. Whatever may have been the Queen’s actual intention towards Sir Brian MacPhelim and the other Irish, it is clear that no good was intended them. Smith covenanted to suppress all rebels not only in Ards but in Clandeboye, to divide the lands among the adventurers, and not to sell to any Irishman or Scot. English settlers were forbidden, except by royal license, to intermarry with Irish or Scots, and they were all bound to attend the Deputy anywhere in Ulster for forty days.
Vain attempts to reassure Sir Brian.
Fitzwilliam vainly tried to explain away Smith’s project: for all answer the unlucky pamphlet was laid before him. Smith himself would fain have counteracted by a letter the mischief done by his ‘books spread in print.’ He said he was not coming to rob Sir Phelim, but to help that loyal chief, and he was willing to have any points in which their interests might differ decided by a lawful judge rather than by an appeal to arms. As a beginning of friendship he begged Sir Brian to be the protector of his people. The language was not ill chosen, and had it been followed by wise action, the scheme might yet have succeeded. The Queen also wrote to Sir Brian, promising, in language which ‘gladded’ him, that his lands should not be taken away. Had Sir Brian and his friends been frankly invited, as Tremayne advised, to co-operate with the Queen in a well-designed scheme for planting some thinly peopled districts within the Earldom of Ulster, they might perhaps have been friendly, though even that is very doubtful: managed as it was, the project was foredoomed to failure.[216]
Fitzwilliam has no money.