The Desmond forfeitures.
Opposition to the undertakers.
In order to clear up some of the claims made upon the forfeited Desmond estates, it was thought wise to send over no less a person than Chief Justice Anderson. His law could not be gainsaid, and he was not likely to err on the side of leniency. The English lawyers joined in commission with him were Sir Robert Gardiner, Chief Justice of Ireland, Thomas Gent, Baron of the Exchequer in England, and Jesse Smythe, Chief Justice of Munster; and upon these four fell the principal part of the work. Of eighty-two claims only one was allowed, a conveyance from Desmond being produced in that case, of a date prior to his first treasonable act. In the absence of such proof, the Queen was held to be seised in fee of all the Earl’s estate. The materials exist for a detailed account of the Munster settlement, but they are more properly available for histories of Cork, Kerry, Limerick, and Waterford than for that of Ireland. One of the suitors aggrieved by the decision of the commissioners was Lord Roche, and his case is especially interesting because of its connection with Spenser. He made seven distinct claims, and on the first being dismissed, because he had ‘sinisterly seduced’ the witnesses, he refused to proceed with the others, and threatened to complain to the Queen, whereupon the commissioners sent him to gaol. The imprisonment was short, but he declared that one of the undertakers had shot an arrow at him, professed to be in fear of his life, and begged Ormonde to lend him some house on the Suir, where he might be safe for a time. In the meantime he managed to make the country very unsafe for some other people.
Spenser.
Spenser had Kilcolman and 4,000 acres allotted to him, but he complained that the area was really much less. Less or more, he was not allowed to dwell in peace, and his chief enemy was Lord Roche, who accused him of intruding on his lands, and using violence to his tenants, servants, and cattle. The poet retorted that the peer entertained traitors, imprisoned subjects, brought the law into contempt, and forbade all his people to have any dealings with Mr. Spenser and his tenants. An English settler named Keate asked Morris MacShane, one of Lord Roche’s men, why he had no fear of God; and it was sworn that he answered, ‘he feared not God, for he had no cause; but he feared his Lord, who had punished him before and would have his goods.’ Lord Roche was charged with many outrages, such as killing a bullock belonging to a smith who mended a settler’s plough, seizing the cows of another for renting land from the owner of this plough, and killing a fat beast belonging to a third, ‘because Mr. Spenser lay in his house one night as he came from the sessions at Limerick.’ Ultimately the poet’s estate was surveyed as 3,028 acres at a rent of 8l. 13s. 9d., which was doubled at Michaelmas 1594, making it about five farthings per acre. Spenser maintained himself at Kilcolman until 1598, when the undertakers were involved in general ruin. Troubles with Lord Roche continued to the end, and it may be doubted whether even the happy marriage which inspired his finest verses ever reconciled him to what he has himself described as—
My luckless lot
That banished had myself, like wight forlore,
Into that waste, where I was quite forgot.
Raleigh.
Fatal defects of the settlement.
Raleigh, whose society was one of Spenser’s few pleasures in Munster, settled a very large number of English families upon his great estate in Cork and Waterford. Passing afterwards into Boyle’s skilful hands, this settlement became of the greatest importance, but it was overrun like the rest in 1598. Ten years before the crash came, Raleigh could see that Thomas of Desmond and his son James were dangerous neighbours. Sir Richard Grenville and Fane Beecher had the whole barony of Kinalmeaky between them, and at the end of 1589 there were only six Englishmen there, upon land estimated at 24,000 acres. The hero of Flores had a very poor opinion of the prospect unless questions which proved insoluble could be speedily settled, and the English settlers found their position everywhere very disagreeable. Grenville and St. Leger planted a considerable number in the district immediately south of Cork, and Arthur Hyde did pretty well on the Blackwater; but, as a rule, the newcomers were greatly outnumbered by the natives. Nor can it be doubted that many returned to England when they found that Munster was not Eldorado. Irish tenants were easily got to replace them, and even to pay rents to the undertakers until it was possible to cut their throats. When the day of trial came, the remaining settlers were easily disposed of; they cried, and there was none to help them.[189]