In the year after Strafford’s arrival he provided a remedy for some of the evils which corroded justice by causing Acts to be passed extending the “Statute of Uses” to Ireland, and clothing the Commissioners for Defective Titles with far-reaching powers. The first Act made secret conveyances impossible; and the second authorised the Commissioners to issue Patents which should stand good against the Crown, even if wrongfully obtained or corruptly enlarged, provided fines were paid. The Government was in debt; and, in order to raise cash, many grants, new and old, were assailed. Fines were then exacted as the price of indefeasible Patents.
In 1635, when the Star Chamber at Westminster declared the Charter of the London Corporation forfeit, Strafford’s eye detected an unforeseen consequence. The Londoners, being compelled to surrender the Bann and the rest of their Irish estates, were left burdened with a rent of £100 a year to the Chichesters for Lough Neagh under the lease of 1622. Deprived of the river, Lough Neagh became useless to them; and they probably petitioned the Crown for relief. Strafford then caused the Chichester Patents to be scrutinised, and the misdeeds of his predecessor came to light. Yet he dealt not ungently with the dead peer’s heirs. Instead of re-seizing the whole of their ill-gotten possessions, he confined himself to demanding a surrender of Lough Neagh. At the outset the Chichesters resisted, but the stream of authority against the validity of their grants soon swelled to a torrent. Strafford knew that constant protests under two reigns had been lodged against them.
Their base origin in 1603-4, Sir James Balfour’s inquiry of 1618, Allen’s repugnant findings at Derry and Carrickfergus in 1621, the ruling of the Exchequer Barons in 1623, the “discovery” of Sir William Power in 1628, and the order of Charles I. on Colonel Forbes’s petition in the same year, covered them with discredit. In 1630 the “opinion” of ex-Baron Oglethorpe openly alleged “fraud”; and Strafford, backed by these accumulated condemnations, took action.
He first caused an inquisition to be held at Wicklow in 1636, to impeach one of the Wakeman grants. The result was that lands confiscated from the O’Tooles, which had been patented to Hamilton, were declared re-vested in the Crown. Grants springing from Thomas Irelande’s Letter (on which the title to Lough Neagh rested) evoked no greater respect. After the death of Lord Chichester, his heir did not even rely on the Patents of the fishery. For in 1625 Edward Lord Chichester (the second in succession) besought Charles I. to appoint his son Arthur (afterwords Lord Donegall) “Admiral and Commander of Lough Neagh” at a salary of £30 6s. 8d., and to give him a “licence” to fish in the Lough and the Bann. What owner would petition the Crown for a “licence” to enjoy his own fishery?
Such a request amounted to an admission that the Patents of Lough Neagh to Hamilton in 1606, to Bassett in 1608, and to Lord Chichester in 1621 were waste paper, and that the hope of the family lay in reviving the “life-estate” annexed to the quasi-military “command” created by the Patent of 1604. It was at least possible for them to argue that some germ of legality attached to that Patent, yet Charles I. never granted the request.
Strafford was unaware of any claim by the family to the Bann; but was resolute to enforce the surrender of Lough Neagh. The fact that since 1622 the Londoners had paid £100 per annum for it to the Chichesters, and would have continued to do so if the Star Chamber had not deprived them of the Bann, had to be taken into account. He made up for the loss by offering an attractive compensation. He proposed to allow Edward Lord Chichester to take out a fresh Patent for all his uncle’s acquisitions minus Lough Neagh—and this under the new Act would be valid for all time against the Crown. The family would thereby be forever quieted in the enjoyment of rich territories which had been stolen from the natives thirty years earlier. Negotiations on this basis were conducted through the Commissioners for Defective Titles, and lasted some years.
The records of that body were housed near Dublin Castle, and perished by fire in 1711; but from the “memorials” enrolled in Chancery the main story can be traced.
A King’s Letter of the 24th September, 1638, was obtained by the Commissioners to authorise them to accept the surrender. No mention was made of the Bann, for no one regarded it as Chichester’s. The King’s Letter cast doubt even on his right to Lough Neagh, and sarcastically narrates that his Majesty had been informed that the fishing and soil thereof were “granted away” by Letters Patent to the late Lord Chichester, but were found “so commodious for upholding the fishing of the Bann that the London Corporation were necessitated to farm the same at £100 a year—which fishing of the Bann is now come to our hands.” Short work was thus made of the 1621 Patent and of Allen’s “finding” at Carrickfergus. The Letter further recited that Viscount Chichester had compounded for a surrender of Lough Neagh in consideration of £40 a year; and that this sum could be deducted from the rent payable to the Crown under a new Patent. The Chichesters were to have liberty to take salmon for domestic use, and to retain the eel-weirs at Toome, subject to royal regulations.
On the 7th December, 1638, the Commissioners made an “Order of Composition” embodying these terms, but the family evidently contended that the allowance of £40 a year was not a fair set-off for the £100 paid by the Londoners. Brisk haggling followed, and at length Strafford agreed to an amended “Order of Composition,” dated the 19th September, 1639. This raised the £40 annual allowance to £60, but all privileges of fishing were withdrawn. The Chichesters agreed. This amendment brought their rent under the proposed new Patent to within £2 16s. 6d. of that previously paid, and the fine was fixed at £467 17s. 6d.
An indefeasible Patent was now to be granted them, and with this bargain they and Strafford were satisfied. The arrangement dealt a deathstroke at the oft-challenged title of the Devonians to the great Ulster fishery. It submerged the Patent of 1604 with those of 1606, 1608, and 1621 in a common condemnation.