Fact-free Mr. Froude frames the wretch’s portrait as “the great Viceroy of Ireland—of all Englishmen who settled in the country the most useful to it.” Mr. Bagwell certifies in “Ireland Under the Stuarts” that “his integrity is unquestionable”!
CHAPTER XVII.
MORE “DISCOVERERS.”
Lord Falkland was appointed Deputy on the 1st April, 1622. This change James I. emphasised a month later by the protest just mentioned against the abuse of his Royal Letters under former Deputies.
Shortly after Falkland’s coming (Chichester being in Germany) the grants to Hamilton were impugned in the Irish Courts. Since the breakdown of Sir James Balfour’s Inquiry in 1618, “discoverers” had been dumb; but, in 1623, the Exchequer Barons took action, and several “Wakeman” Patents were held to be invalid. The judgments which condemned them are not extant; but Falkland was made aware of their effect, and was urged to pursue still more sweeping investigations. Counter-pressure, placed upon him by those to whom exposure meant ruin, prevailed. He halted, and nothing further was done.
At first the new Deputy (heedful of the warning of the King) tried to enrich himself by ways which differed from those of his predecessors. His most original proposal was to make Ireland a base for Algerine corsairs, so as to draw wealth from their inroads on international commerce. Large sums were offered by him to the Duke of Buckingham, the Prince of Wales, and the Secretary of State for permission to attract these raiders to prey on shipping from Irish harbours. The design bespoke the man, and when it was rejected he gave “protections” to Dutch pirates and other Freebooters who haunted the coasts, trafficked with them, and dealt in their cargoes. Unsatisfied by his gains from such sources, Falkland sought riches in other fields. He applied for leave to confiscate the property of the loyal Corporation of Waterford in order to seize it for himself, and when courses like these proved unprosperous he fell back into the beaten paths of previous Deputies.
Naturally he set his face against any attempt to unravel the threads of the Patent scandals, but Chichester’s memory grew more and more unfragrant, and in 1627 a Munster notable, Sir William Power, lodged informations that the Wakeman Grants were “fraudulently passed without the intention of King James.” Sir William at the same time denounced the Patents lavished on Boyle, the new-made Earl of Cork. Power was connected by marriage with Boyle, but was at enmity with him over boundaries. On his complaint the English advisers of the Crown proceeded to ransack Boyle’s title to the 42,000 acres of the Desmond Estate, which he captured from Sir Walter Raleigh. The Attorney and Solicitor Generals for England, with three Serjeants-at-Law, pronounced it void, yet no step was taken against the “Wakeman” grants. A mysterious hand seemed outstretched to protect them.
On the 28th August, 1627, Charles I. declared the Crown was rightfully entitled to the Desmond lands annexed by Boyle under Chichester, and in 1628 Sir William Power journeyed to London to feed his grudge and fill his pocket. He saw Mr. Hadsor, the King’s Lawyer in Irish affairs, who certified that Lord Cork’s Patent of 1614 was unsigned, and that he “believed it may be false.” The reflection on Chichester’s Deputyship which this carried was far-reaching. Hadsor valued the Royal interest in the lands at £50,000 (now half a million). He complained that the Attorney-General gave away his legal secrets to Lord Cork, and on the 23rd August, 1628, the murder of the venal Duke of Buckingham by Felton at Portsmouth removed one mainstay to dishonesty. So on the 3rd September, 1628, King’s Letters condemning the grant were sent to Lord Falkland by Hadsor. As to the rest of Power’s “discovery” Hadsor (as before) said nothing. Possibly after the Attorney-General’s treachery he thought his hands too full to attack the Wakeman Patents. He was well-advised, for hardly had he taken action when the inevitable fairy godfather to rascaldom lit upon the scene. Lord Cork invoked the help of other corrupt courtiers, and a “coat of darkness” was thrown over the traffickings of landsharks both in Munster and Ulster. This saved the Desmond Estate for Boyle, and by the same agencies the onslaught on the Wakeman Patents was broken down. The knaves were all interlinked.
Later in the same year (1628) Colonel Forbes, a Scotch laird (ancestor of Lord Granard), who had come to Ireland in 1620, with his clan, to quell disturbances, appeared as a “discoverer.” Forbes had been rewarded for past services with a baronetcy and grants of land in Leitrim and Longford. Undiscouraged by former failures, he brought the Wakeman Patents anew under the eye of Charles I.—probably reckoning that Buckingham’s death had banished the chief obstacle to justice.
Forbes’s petition was referred to the Commissioners for Irish Causes in London, and they reported favourably on it to the King. Falkland was ordered by his Majesty to recover the property for the Crown and to confer on Forbes one-third of the Ulster Fisheries with a gift of £300.
By this time, however, the Deputy was plunged in the throes of a scandal springing from his own misdeeds. He had promoted the attempt to seize the estate of the last Gaelic Chief, O’Byrne of Wicklow, and dared not suffer his assistants to be impeached for former wrongdoing. To allow Forbes to take the lid off the cauldron in which the hell-broth of the previous reign lay simmering was not Falkland’s notion of statecraft. The new “discovery” was no more to him than that of Sir William Power or Sir James Balfour, and less than that of the Exchequer Barons. Possibly he quieted Forbes with the gift of £300, for the “discoverer” went abroad soon afterwards and never returned, being killed in a duel in Hamburg in 1632. Still his shipping-off did not benefit Falkland, whose agony was about to begin. The eyes of England, as well as Ireland, were fastened on his treatment of the O’Byrnes, and both kingdoms resounded with rumour against him. Throughout two reigns and three Deputyships the persecution of the O’Byrnes lasted. It comprised the whole art and mystery of Patent-shuffling and confiscation. To understand the story is to understand the methods and policy of Chichester and his successors. It is the Southern counterpart of the Ulster tragedy.