That, seven years later, Chichester (after his removal from the Deputyship), as Lord Treasurer, asserted title to the River by means of false entries in the Crown ledgers;
That, by “favour” of the Duke of Buckingham, a King’s Letter was procured in 1620 for a regrant of his estates;
That on this warrant, through the knavery of escheators and inquisitors, another Patent giving him the non-tidal Bann was fabricated in 1621;
That in 1640 Strafford, on discovering the facts, enforced against his heirs a surrender of the river, with Lough Neagh; and
That for this they were lavishly recouped by a Patent granting them valid title to vast properties unjustly come by, with an allowance off their rent of £60 a year.
In the days of the Stuarts, truth and patents were estranged.
On the 10th April, 1662, the Charter to the Londoners was signed. Charles II. gave them once more the River Bann, from Lough Neagh to the sea, as if no adverse grant had been made to Chichester or Clotworthy. He did so in the same words as it had been conveyed to them by James I. and Cromwell.
Two Patents of the river to different interests, within 18 months, was a monstrosity, even for Anglo-Ireland; but not a ripple was raised thereby on the surface of official calm.
No idea of duty to the King appeared among his officers. The habit of taking “presents” undermined their sense of public obligation; and money was freely spent on them by suppliants. Cash payments preluded the success both of Lord Donegall and of Lord Massereene. Even the English Solicitor-General, for drafting the Act of Settlement, in 1662, to suit the ex-Cromwellians, was presented with a “small token of thankfulness” by them on the motion of Lord Massereene in the Irish House of Lords.
His lordship, though provided with such a willing penman as conveyancer, made no attempt to have inserted in the Act a clause to confirm his lease, while he availed of it to make all the rest of his estates secure. As a “Commissioner for the execution of the Royal declaration,” he wielded large influence in shaping its clauses, yet he avoided anything which would risk bringing the lease under discussion.