The great fraud of Ulster

by T. M. Healy

Grim would have been the chuckling of the Deputy in 1605 had some seer foretold to him that in the twentieth century three Courts would decide that he signed the Antrim Commission to enable his rival and enemy to claim the fisheries which he had taken over for himself the year before!

In Claneboy there were attached to some of its fifteen religious houses near Lough Neagh riparian fishings. All monasteries had vested in the Crown since the Acts of Henry VIII., but these Acts had not previously been enforceable in Ulster, which was unconquered ground. So, after fixing the bounds of Sir Con’s estate, the Commissioners set down what the monks owned in order that their property might be the more readily placed at the disposal of James I. One of the “findings” inserted in the portion of the verdict relating to the monasteries declared that Queen Elizabeth was seized of various religious houses in Claneboy and of fishings in Lough Neagh “towards Claneboy,” of eel-weirs near Toome, and of another fishery on the Bann in Claneboy, and that these vested in the King.

Whether this “finding” was really pronounced need not be discussed. Parsons may have “spatch-cocked” it into the parchment which his scribes prepared after his return to Dublin when he learnt that the Deputy had joined hands with Hamilton in a conspiracy to utilise Thomas Irelande’s Letter to manufacture Patents and divert the property to himself.

That theory, however, is now immaterial; although Chichester elsewhere speaks of “false inquisitions returned of latter times.” Taking it to be the genuine “finding” of the local jury, what bearing could it have on the ownership of the largest lake and richest river in the kingdom? Its terms are set out in the Appendix.

At that date no “forfeiture or attainder” from which grants under the Thomas Irelande “Letter” were to spring had been suffered by anyone except the monks. It was under Irelande’s Letter they were given to Hamilton, and, leaving Lough Neagh out of account, a test can be applied to the bearing of the Commission and Inquisition by the “finding” as to the Bann. This contained no allegation that the river belonged to the Crown. In 1605-6 the owners of the Bann were as well known and as rightfully in possession as the owner of the Throne of England. If “half Lough Neagh” was found to be the King’s, why did not the Inquisition declare the Bann to be Crown property, instead of dealing merely with monastery fishings therein? Yet the whole non-tidal river was seized as completely as the Lough by Hamilton’s Patent seven months later.

The reason was that Chichester had made friends with Hamilton, and arranged to pervert the grant into a conduit-pipe by which the fisheries were passed to himself. Thereupon his “life-estate” blossomed gaudily into flower as fee-simple by the magic of a secret conveyance from “the Scot.” This was done without the payment of a penny to Hamilton—so cheap was “the price of Admiralty” in Chichester’s day.

The infected grants of 1603-4, therefore, are the real fount of title, and furnish the clues which the House of Lords in 1878 declared should be traced. No confiscations had taken place in Ulster in 1603-4 save those affecting monasteries. The province was in profound peace under the treaty with O’Neill. Chichester had not become Deputy, and the absence of royal authority or foreknowledge as to the gift of fishery in the Patents is plain from the King’s Letters. These were withheld at the trial as completely as the grants they were supposed to sanction, for the archivist was “satisfied” such trumpery was not to be met with in the Record Office—although he declared himself “thoroughly acquainted” with searches there.

Another omission from the archivist’s list is markworthy. This was the non-mention of the second master-Patent in the series—that by Chichester to his nephew, Bassett, of the 1st July, 1608. It alone provided a clue to the frauds. The list of documents, sworn to be complete, was dank with error—however unwitting. Yet no thumbing of musty vellum or conning over script in crabbed Latin was necessary to discover the missing grants. Bassett’s Patent is printed both in the State Papers and in the Calendar of the Record Office. Those of 1604 were published in 1846 in Mr. Erck’s “Repertory.”

The absence of such signal parchments from the archivist’s roster contrasts oddly with what he put forward to enhance the value of the grant of 1621—which flowed from Allen’s misconduct at Carrickfergus. This was the only Patent purporting to give Lough Neagh and the Bann direct to the “great Deputy.” It was the last in his lifetime. The affidavit deposed that it reserved to the Crown a rent of £920 a year (or in present moneys £9,000). So large a rent made for belief in its genuineness; and the Courts were struck by the figure. Yet, plain on the face of the enrolment, the true rent was shown to be £30 15s. 6d. (thirty pounds fifteen shillings and six pence). Amazement is palsied by such artistry.

A wry presentation was made of facts and Patents which it was essential to justice to have rightly understood. The high position of the archivist led to his affidavits being accepted trustingly, while the fishermen were ill-equipped for a struggle needing years of research.