When the terms of the surrender came to be drawn up in 1639, although the King’s Letter mentioned Lough Neagh only, Strafford required that the Bann should be also renounced, and this was agreed to. Before he finally left Ireland the new Patent was not ready. It was sealed in September, 1640, by his Deputy, Wandesforde, after his departure. Everything was accepted by the Chichesters without a murmur. Neither on Strafford’s impeachment at Westminster in 1641 nor when the Planters in the Dublin Parliament impeached his chaplain, Bramhall, did they join in hounding him down.
Edward Lord Chichester then sat in the Irish House of Lords, and his son, Sir Arthur, in the Irish Lower House; but they never took the side of Strafford’s enemies, although both assemblies were worked upon by Sir John Clotworthy and the Earl of Cork to purvey testimony against him. This fact bears vitally on future events in view of allegations made in 1661 by Sir Arthur (then Lord Donegall) to befool Charles II. into making him a regrant of Lough Neagh and the Bann. Sir John Clotworthy, who was Pym’s instrument in promoting Strafford’s impeachment, sat with Sir Arthur in Dublin as member for Antrim; and, if the Chichesters had a grievance against the Lord Lieutenant, Clotworthy would not fail to refer to it in his evidence, even if the family kept silence. The report of Strafford’s trial proves that, while Clotworthy, Lord Cork, and others loudly testified against him, no complaint of injustice on Chichester’s behalf was made. This attitude amounted to a confession that the fisheries which had been wrongly come by were rightly taken away.
Still, amidst the uncertainties of the times, the family were ready to seize upon any chance that presented itself to win them back. Departing from an otherwise universal practice, they left the new Patent unenrolled, although the Crown at once enrolled the surrender. Their omission was the more striking because the Patent was the only unimpeachable evidence of title to their estates which they possessed. Neglect could not be imputed as the reason for it. Their calculation evidently was that, by keeping the terms of the Patent secret, they might by some turn of fortune be enabled to recapture the fisheries without the world knowing that they had been forced to yield them up.
Nor was this a far-fetched expectation in those days, as, even if the surrender became public, everyone knew that a surrender was not an unusual prelude to a regrant. No one, therefore, could affirm, as long as the Patent could not be inspected, that they had no claim to Lough Neagh or the Bann. Non-enrolment hid its scope from inquirers, and was part of a design to attempt the recovery of the coveted waters whenever occasion offered. Strafford’s execution, and the untimely death of Wandesforde, who perished in grief at the Lord Lieutenant’s fate, helped their plans. Then sudden as a lightning flash to sear the meshes of their webs broke the Ulster Rebellion of October, 1641.
Sir Arthur Chichester was at that time Governor of Carrickfergus, and his garrison there furnished the soldiers who massacred his Catholic tenants (with their women and children) by night in Island Magee. Whether this bloody business preceded the insurrection of 1641 and provoked it, or was a reprisal following thereon, is a moot point between the partisans of the Planters and those of the expelled natives. The first attempt at its “history” by Chichester’s muse laid the blame on Scottish regiments. It was soon proved that no Scotch soldiers landed in Ulster till after January, 1642, the date assigned for the crime by the Settlers. “January” was too hurriedly chosen by the apologists for slaughter, and this, perhaps, because the Governor of Carrickfergus would have been able to show that he was then somewhere else.
When the time of the arrival of the Scotch regiments was established it was too late to change “January” to another month. Sir Arthur himself remained mute. He offered no defence or explanation for the crime, nor announced that any of the garrison were punished, or even admonished. As to whether he was a man capable of perverting dates or inspiring falsehoods his conduct in other fields of enterprise may assist to a conclusion. One test of his character in this respect is supplied by the documents and statements he put forward to regain the fisheries when kingly power was re-established. If he made a false case concerning the title to real estate he may well have devised excuses to escape the blame of blood-guiltiness for the killing of his serfs.
Whenever massacre benefited the Planters enough murderers always survived to inspire pamphleteers and historians with their version of the “facts.” Native imitators generally ended their activities on the gallows, and their epitaphs are framed by their executioners. In tracing such incidents of conquest—from Gaul to Mexico—it is inevitable that the earliest and best opportunities for penmanship and “impression” should be always enjoyed by the triumphant faction.
That the rebellion of 1641 entailed sufferings on many Planters as severe as those endured by the natives whom they had driven out a generation earlier is beyond question. As the movement spread, the clansmen of the O’Neills, O’Dohertys, O’Cahans, O’Donnells, and Maguires retook their patrimonies, and again ate fish on Fridays without paying toll to strangers. The South then took fire, and England, having her own rebellion on hand, lost control over the greater part of Ireland for a dozen years.
Not until 1653, when Cromwell, in command of the English rebels, bloodily ended the struggle, was the country subdued. Then the clearances of the Ulster Plantation were extended to Leinster and Munster. “Commonwealth” ordinances proclaimed a new “settlement.” James I. aimed at planting a province. The Ironsides applotted a kingdom. One of the Statutes of the Long Parliament assured the Irish, in an amiable preamble, that “it was not intended to extirpate their nation as a whole.” Thanks to this moderation, only three of the four provinces were parcelled out among the soldiers, and the bracing crags and bogs of Connacht were left largely to the Catholics. Still Oliver’s Plantation, though thorough, did not meet with complete success. It withered with the despotism that begot it.
During his sway a strange chapter was added to the story of the Northern waters.