Claims of the MacDonnells.
The MacDonnells had always rested their Irish claims upon their relationship to the extinct Bissetts. The extent of the lands once held by that family was very uncertain; but Sorley Boy never ceased his efforts to get rid of the MacQuillins, who had long held the Route, and upon whom the garrison of Coleraine habitually depended for provisions. Lady Agnes O’Neill, on the other hand, had the Campbell instinct for annexation, and endeavoured to set up her own son Donnell Gorme Macdonnell against his uncle. As the elder brother’s son he had perhaps the better legal right; but Sorley was supported by the clan. Tirlogh Luineach was under his wife’s influence, but had enough to do to hold his own against Shane O’Neill’s sons, and against the Baron of Dungannon. Norris said Tirlogh could do nothing without the Queen’s help; but even he seems to have been persuaded by Lady Agnes that Sorley’s followers resented his tyranny, and were ready to leave him.
After the loss of Dunluce Sorley went to Scotland for help, and Perrott agreed that Donnell Gorme should have a grant of the Bissetts’ lands in consideration of reasonable service. Donnell, on his part, undertook to entertain none but Irish-born Scots, to book the men of his country and be responsible for them, and to serve against his uncle or any other foreign Scot. MacQuillin made a contract for victualling Coleraine, and O’Donnell, whose wife was Donnell Gorme’s sister, made a treaty with Tirlogh Luineach, who agreed to maintain 300 English soldiers and to perform other services. Magennis and the Clandeboye O’Neills also made terms, and Perrott, finding no enemy in the field, returned to Dublin.[124]
Perrott, Ormonde, and Norris lift 50,000 cows.
The forest of Glenconkein.
The war being at an end for want of an enemy, Perrott thought that Scottish raids could best be prevented by clearing the country of cattle. Norris and Ormonde entered Glenconkein, now the south-western portion of Londonderry, but then considered part of Tyrone, and 50,000 cattle were collected in what was then an almost impenetrable stronghold. Twenty-five years later Sir John Davies described Chichester’s march though the district, ‘where the wild inhabitants wondered as much to see the King’s Deputy as the ghosts in Virgil wondered to see Æneas alive in hell.’ The woods were then said to be among the best in Ireland, and to be as extensive as the New Forest; but they had been wastefully treated, and it was feared that they would soon be exhausted. So completely was the work of destruction carried out that a report written in 1803 declared the county of Londonderry to be the worst wooded in the King’s dominions. In the sixteenth century a considerable population inhabited Glenconkein, who tilled such portions as were fit for tillage, and who looked upon the O’Neills as their superior lords. As had been the case in Kerry, fires marked the course of Ormonde’s march. Norris took much the same view of the Ulster problem as Sidney had done. Permanent garrisons must be maintained, and this would be the cheapest way in the long run. ‘Ireland,’ he said, ‘is not to be brought to obedience but by force; and albeit that some governments have been performed with fewer men, yet have these times served for nothing but to give breath for a further trouble, and then the country ruled by entreaty and not by commandment.’[125]
Perrott proposes to dissolve St. Patrick’s,
and to endow a university.
Among the private instructions given to Perrott by the Privy Council was one directing him to consider ‘how St. Patrick’s in Dublin, and the revenue belonging to the same, might be made to serve, as had been theretofore intended,’ for the erection of a college. This old plan of Archbishop Browne’s had been revived in 1564, and again abandoned in deference to the remonstrances of the threatened foundation; but it was very much to Perrott’s liking, and he adopted it with additions. The dean, Thomas Jones, had just been promoted to the see of Meath, and a principal obstacle had thus been removed. The Courts of Justice were at this time held in the Castle over the powder magazine, but the lawyers had also claims upon the house of Black Friars, on the left bank of the Liffey, where the Four Courts now stand. Ormonde and others had conflicting interests, but the Judges and Bar petitioned that they might be otherwise compensated, and that the law might be permanently lodged by the riverside. This was the plan favoured by the late Lords Justices, but Secretary Fenton, with whom Perrott agreed, cast eyes on the Friars as a convenient landing-place, and wished to turn it into a Government victualling-store. The Lord Deputy’s idea was to combine the two schemes; to let the judges sit in St. Patrick’s church, to convert the residence of the chapter into inns of court, and to found a university with the revenues. The two cathedrals, he urged, were too near together to be both useful, and St. Patrick’s was ‘held in more superstitious veneration’ than the one named after Christ. He thought 2,000l. might suffice for the erection of two colleges, and the surplus, which he estimated at about 700l., could go to eke out the revenue of Christ Church. ‘For the conversion of the whole church of St. Patrick,’ he told Burghley, ‘whatsoever shall or can be said to the contrary, it proceedeth from particular covetous humour without regard to the general good. I could name the sink if I listed whereinto the whole profit falleth under the colour of maintenance of a few bad singers.’ A reformer who begins in this way, though he be a king and not merely a viceroy, very seldom succeeds in effecting reforms.[126]