This could only mean that Buckingham was to get the secret procedure (which the King had ordained) quashed; and allow St. John to hold any future inquiry in public before the Privy Council, where Chichester’s creatures held the majority. Blundell’s “arguments” were so powerful that Buckingham prevailed on the King to drop the proceedings, and Balfour’s mission ended in smoke. The “articles exhibited” by him, and the correspondence between the English and Irish Executives, are not given a place in the State Papers. Only for disjointed entries and letters in the family archives of Hamilton and Chichester, posterity would never have heard of the perils they ran or the struggles of St. John to rescue them. The official records must have been made away with. Balfour before long was consoled for the abandonment of the investigation. To keep his mouth shut he was presented with lands in Ulster after his return to England, and therewith rested content. Amongst his papers printed in 1837 by the Abbotsford Club (Edinburgh) were copies of Hamilton’s “Thomas Irelande” Letter of the 6th December, 1604, and that of the 16th April, 1605, granting Sir Con O’Neill’s estate. These evidently formed part of his “brief” for the Discovery.
Even if Balfour’s inquiry had been pressed home, the resourceful Chichester would not have been taken unawares. He had skilfully tampered with the State ledgers to prepare a bulwark of defence if challenged as to his part in the seizure of the fisheries. On becoming Lord High Treasurer, the rent-rolls of the Exchequer lay under his hand, and these were manipulated with clerkly art. An insertion in them in 1618 correlates with the period of Balfour’s inquiry. It casually records that Lord Chichester is owner of the Bann and Lough Neagh, although everyone knew that the river had been granted to the Londoners in 1610—apart from the “surrender” by the ex-Deputy in 1611. The entry seemed quite business-like, and reads:—“Arthur, Lord Chichester, assignee of James Hamilton, knight, holds the entire fishery of the lake called Lough Neagh, and the river Bann—per annum 12s. 6d.” A casual scribe might have ledgered it; yet the words amounted to a royal recognition of his title. No earlier Crown rent-roll contains such a record, and it was made seven years after the Bann had been awarded to the Londoners, by Charter, rent free.
Chichester’s “surrender” disclaimed the river and acknowledged the receipt of compensation. Still, embedded in the Crown rental, by way of a scrivener’s note of the trifling rent of 12s. 6d., lurked an official declaration that the Bann and Lough Neagh belonged to him. The humblest clerk in State employ knew that no rent for the Bann was due by anybody. Yet a ledger in Government custody was burdened with this falsehood in the year in which Balfour “exhibited articles unto his Majesty against Sir James Hamilton.” No reason can be assigned for the entry save one—an attempt to build up a defence to meet an expected attack by the “discoverer.”
The “cooked” ledger consorts with the Lord Treasurer’s past, and with what remains to be told of his future. The sequel unfolds the same unending game of grab. Each development reveals a fresh crime, and evokes renewed wonder at the miscreant’s resourcefulness. As fertile in the closet as he was ruthless in the camp, Chichester may be regarded as the embodiment of those vices which, amongst the people he oppressed, made a byword of the rule he represented and the creed he sought to spread.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE ESCHEATOR FOR ULSTER.
Once Buckingham’s protection had been purchased by the Lord High Treasurer his confidence grew apace. Alive to the danger he had escaped, Chichester strove to prevent further risks by providing legal cover for his acquisitions. His attempt to shelter them behind an Act of Parliament in 1615 had failed, but they would still, he hoped, be safe if he could obtain a Patent for everything he held, lawful or lawless, in his own name. The grants which Sir James Balfour assailed rested on unenrolled assignments from Hamilton and Bassett. Their origin could easily be traced by legal or official prying; and Balfour’s foray, though thwarted, filled him with concern. Since he had been appointed Deputy in 1605, Chichester had not dared to take out any Patent in his own name unless with royal authority, however freely he practised in the names of others. He felt, nevertheless, that the stalking-horse system was out-worn; and resolved to apply for an omnibus grant, directed to himself, which should include the whole of his possessions—and as much of other people’s as could be arranged for.
In 1619, assured of Buckingham’s help, he besought a King’s Letter sanctioning a fresh Patent in his own name. In 1620 his Majesty’s consent was signified; but it was limited to “a confirmation of all his former grants by a re-grant.” The King, as a further precaution, ordered a Commission “to ascertain the other persons in possession of the territory, and to establish their rights.” His Majesty evidently suspected his former Deputy’s pranks; but the royal attempt to prevent their repetition was in vain. Chichester overleaped every barrier; and, now armed with the King’s Letter, accomplished a feat more daring than any he had previously ventured on.
The provision that the Commission was “to establish the rights of others” he overcame by having his own backers named as Commissioners. With a view to beguiling the Londoners as to the Bann, these partisans ordered an inquisition respecting its ownership without giving the city notice of their sittings.
They were given no authority to inquire into the Londoners’ property, yet they met in Chichester’s pocket-borough of Carrickfergus, and empanelled a jury of his friends and underlings to decide on the title to the river. The legal extravaganza there enacted seems so grotesque that, were it not vouched for by stiff parchment, it would be scouted as impossible.
The principal Commissioner was Stephen Allen, Escheator for Ulster, who owed his post to Chichester. At Derry, a fortnight before, Allen held an inquisition for the Barons of the Exchequer, to ascertain by a local jury the number of “royal” fisheries in Ulster, and the rents payable thereout to the Crown. Allen truthfully recorded the Derry jury’s finding as to the Bann, which was that the Londoners owned the entire river from the sea to Lough Neagh, rent free. In this verdict its fishing-places, tidal and non-tidal, were enumerated in the most formal way. Yet, scarcely was the ink dry upon it when, at Carrickfergus, the same Allen got a jury to make a wholly contrary finding, and to bring in a verdict that the Bann, from Lough Neagh to Coleraine, was Chichester’s. He bolstered up this enormity by another. Allen’s duty was to lodge forthwith the Derry “return” in the Exchequer in Dublin. Instead of doing so, he kept it back for nine years. On the other hand, he lodged the Carrickfergus “return” instanter, knowing that it was to be made the basis of a Patent granting the Bann to his old patron. Highly-placed Commissioners, including a Bishop, abetted this misconduct.