The great fraud of Ulster

by T. M. Healy

The Letters throw a piercing searchlight on the problem raised by the House of Lords, for they prove that James I. nowhere mentions the fisheries. Their silence, therefore, reveals that the origin of the grant lay not with the Crown, but in fraud. This fact being shut out from judicial cognisance, the cardinal principle laid down by the House of Lords was frustrated—viz., that the existence of Royal title to make a grant must be lawfully deduced.

To treat the Patent of 1606 as the earliest of the series not merely got rid of the necessity for coping with the fatal parchments of 1603-4, but enabled the contention to prevail that Hamilton’s Patent was based on a valid inquisition. For at the “office” at Antrim on 12th July, 1605, a jury was alleged to have found that a pool in Lough Neagh was owned by the Crown. This verdict was arrived at on the inquisition held by Parsons, and at the trial in 1908 it assumed a fundamental importance. The terms of the Commission authorising it became equally vital, and as to these the archivist swore:—

“The Commission for holding the inquisition is attached to the original inquisition, and is practically all illegible. The inquisition deals with the eastern side of Lough Neagh only, and lands adjoining.”

Judge Ross, with true insight, saw the necessity of trying to ascertain what powers the Commission conferred, so that he might estimate what were the matters Parsons was inquiring into. He, therefore, sent for the original parchment. It was sadly defaced, and he, too, found it illegible. Since then, although portions remain undecipherable, enough has been transcribed to show what the Commission covered and authorised. This transcription reveals that it was issued without any reference to Lough Neagh or the Bann. Despite the fact that the decipherment is only partial, it shatters the case the plaintiff made.

The Commission is set forth in the Appendix, and, although several words are missing, enough is left to demonstrate that no inquisition founded on such a Commission could establish Crown title to Lough Neagh or the Bann (save as to a few monastic fishings). For what duties were the Commissioners appointed to discharge? They were ordered merely to report on the boundaries and extent of Sir Con O’Neill’s possessions (to prepare for their partition between Hamilton and Montgomery), and also what “concealed lands” should have come to the Crown in Antrim and Down by reason of any forfeiture or attainder to provide for Thomas Irelande’s £100 a year. Nothing more.

It was issued not by the King, but by Chichester on the 26th June, 1605, when he was thwarting Hamilton, and only a week after his bitter complaint to Cecil of the extent of the grants to “the Scot.” Then it would have been as repugnant to the Deputy’s feelings as to his interest to allow Hamilton get a rood of land or a fathom of water more than his two King’s Letters covered. Just a year before, Chichester had concocted a Patent annexing to himself for life the fisheries of Lough Neagh and the Bann; and it was hardly likely that his earliest act after becoming Deputy should be to nominate Commissioners to assist a stranger to oust the “Admiral of Lough Neagh” from his new acquisitions and destroy the basis of his aquatic title.

The Commission recites that it was sped by reason of the two King’s Letters presented by Hamilton, one on behalf of Thomas Irelande for £100 a year, and the other, on his own behalf, for the acquisition of Sir Con O’Neill’s estate in Claneboy and the Great Ardes. The “metes and bounds” of Sir Con’s territory were fixed by a Patent to his father from Queen Elizabeth of the 13th March, 1587, and never embraced Lough Neagh or the Bann.

The grant to Thomas Irelande could not have included them, for it was to be carved out of “concealed or forfeited” lands in Antrim and Down. There had been no previous confiscation of the fisheries. They had never vested in the Crown, and could not have been captured under the terms of Thomas Irelande’s “Letter,” even if Chichester had not already seized them for himself, or was in the mood to befriend an intruder.

In face of such facts can anyone imagine that the Inquisition was appointed to help Hamilton to waters which the Deputy had appropriated to himself? Had Judge Ross been afforded assistance in deciphering the Commission the true effect of the Inquisition would have been understood, and failure would have befallen any attempt to wrest that record to purposes repugnant to what it imported.

Once the objects of the Commission are made clear, not even the most partisan could suggest that it or the Inquisition control the title to the Bann or Lough Neagh, or provide “office” for their transmission to or ownership by the Crown.