Founded by a Gaelic Prince, its revenues were increased after the Conquest by successive Norman Kings. The Abbey gave hospitality to strangers who came overseas, and was frequently used as a lodging by the Viceroys. Deputy Leonard Gray strove to save it from confiscation, but he was recalled by Henry VIII., who suspected him, and had him beheaded. Henry ordered the Dublin portion of the Abbey to be reserved for the Royal ordnance; and Elizabeth, although she gave a site to Trinity College out of its possessions, rejected in 1567 the prayer of the Mayor and Burgesses of Dublin that some portion should be let to them “in consideration of their loyal and dutiful services.” The Queen requited their loyalty by a grant of other lands; but her hold on St. Mary’s Abbey she would not lightly relax.
This made the trick played on King James the more scurvy. Mere monastery pickings, however, were trifles compared with the other colossal thefts carried out under the new regime. At no period before or since was there anything to equal them in hardihood. The operations of Chichester were more extensive and ingenious than those of his co-mates, and entailed larger historic consequences.
CHAPTER II.
THE RAPE OF THE LOUGH.
The ingenuity of Davies helped to distend beyond all honest limits the grants allotted to Chichester, who coveted properties too unique and vast to be openly proposed for his reward. Sir Arthur’s Castle at Carrickfergus lay neighbourly to Lough Neagh, and on this great prize, with its outlet, the fishful Bann, he had set his heart. To crave such guerdon for his services would have been in vain. It was not the King’s to bestow, and never had been seized or claimed by the Crown. With official connivance he might lay hands on it, but his power in the State was limited. James I. had chosen him with Sir Henry Docwra and Sir William Godolphin as a partaker in the Government during Devonshire’s absence; but he shared a divided authority, and had to beware of jealousy or exposure.
Lough Neagh lay outside the territory of every native chieftain, while the Bann belonged to notables whose rights could not lightly be trespassed on. In 1542 the Lough was fixed as the Eastern boundary of Tyrone in the Patent of Henry VIII. to Con O’Neill after Con’s acceptance, at Greenwich, of English allegiance. When that Patent was renewed by James I. to Hugh O’Neill in 1603, the same landmarks were maintained. On the opposite side dwelt the Claneboy O’Neills; but, beyond their shore-fishings and those of the monks, they laid no claim to it. Their Patent of 30th March, 1587, is confined to County Down, and makes no mention of Lough Neagh. Queen Elizabeth gave Sir Thomas Smith a Charter to conquer East Ulster in 1571, but the Lough was not included in his grant.
The limits of tribal ownership were at all times acutely studied; and to interfere with them without provocation or legal excuse, once peace was established, would arouse angry protests and appeals to the Throne. It was plain, moreover, that, whether English Law or Brehon Law prevailed, there was no one against whom a forfeiture could be enforced for Lough Neagh as a whole.
Inconvenient as this was for the official despoiler, with his nice sense of quiddities, Sir Arthur saw its usefulness from another point of view, since no great owner would suffer if a confiscation were carried out. On this basis he laid his plans. Queen Elizabeth, during her nine years’ struggle for supremacy, had established war-boats on Lough Neagh, from which O’Neill’s territory was raided. The crews hindered the natives from fishing when their kine and corn were destroyed; and, after famine had enforced peace, the galleys were ordered to be kept serviceable. Hugh Clotworthy, one of Chichester’s warriors, remained in charge of them, and received from Sir Arthur the lands of Massereene, near the shore, out of his own grant, at a cheap rate. He calculated that, with proper backing, Lough Neagh might be put under his “command” as Governor of Carrickfergus, and that on this foundation a beginning might be made from which ownership could be built up. The Lord Lieutenant was not privy to this purpose; and had never conceived such an annexation, even for his own benefit. He would have been staggered by its audacity in a subordinate, but he unwittingly helped to bring about what Chichester sought.
It has been told that on his visit to Court with the subjugated Earls, Devonshire secured Sir Arthur’s life appointment as Governor of Carrickfergus, with a gift of the property lying between the Castles of Carrickfergus and Belfast. This served as a basis from which Chichester operated. Most of these lands had been awarded to Sir Ralph Lane, Muster-Master-General to Queen Elizabeth, under a “custodium” (or lease) of 1598. They included Belfast Castle, with its adjacent fishery of the Lagan, and other valuable perquisites. Large areas comprised in the grant had, in Lane’s day, to be won from the natives; and in 1603 the rightful owner, Sir Con O’Neill, was held prisoner in Carrickfergus Castle by Chichester on a charge of treason invented with a view to stealing what remained of his property.
Before Sir Con could be brought to trial he escaped to Scotland; and, Lane being displaced, everything in the “custodium” was given to Chichester. The King’s Letter of the 8th August, 1603, ordered his grant to be made rent free in perpetuity. Thus the soil on which the City of Belfast now stands, under the name of “the Fall, Mylone, and the Tuogh called the Sinament,” fell to a penniless freebooter with scantier ritual than would to-day mark the transfer of an acre from an African savage.
This recognition of Sir Arthur’s merits, though princely, left him ungrateful. On the 23rd August, 1603, he wrote Cecil pretending that the King’s Letter had been “by the learned counsel found defective,” and praying that “some other to better purpose may be signed by his Majesty.” He did not disclose what was amiss with the Letter, or that its only “defect” was that it did not authorise what he coveted. The help of the vulnerable Viceroy was also enlisted, but to him the plea put forward was that the Letter “was not so ample as his Majesty intended.” Without awaiting Cecil’s reply Chichester stretched the Letter by taking out two Patents, in each of which he inserted grants greater than his Majesty had sanctioned.