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Plantation of Ulster begins

1608-9: SPAIN TURNS A DEAF EAR:

Richard Bartlett was a mapmaker for Mountjoy, the English general. On top he depicts a ruined Armagh town and below is Mountjoy's Blackwater fort, rebuilt for the third time on the site where O'Neill had defeated Mountjoy in 1600. Courtesy Trinity Maps Library.

During the summer of 1608 the Irish in Rome got news of O'Doherty's revolt. The Earls there quickly realised that the opportunity offered by the rebellion would be lost unless the Spanish sent immediate military aid. On July 9 th they wrote to King Philip:

"Señor,

"By order of Your Majesty we wrote from Flanders saying what our requests were, how anxious the Irish Catholics were to show their zeal in defence of the Holy Catholic Faith and how they hoped that Your Majesty would deliver them from the intolerable persecution and tyranny they are suffering . . . Although up to the present we have waited patiently, believing that Your Majesty's delay was due to the great care and consideration being given to the matter, we can no longer disguise our feelings.

"We have been informed that in Ulster four thousand of our people have revolted and are causing great losses to the English. The rising is spreading to the other provinces for, knowing that we are here, all firmly believe that Your Majesty will not fail to send help with us to Ireland . . .

"The only wish of the Catholics of Ireland is to be free of their troubles and to become subjects of Your Majesty . . . if you were to send them some help now, and indeed the Irish wish to open all the ports to Spanish help, within a few days Ireland would belong to Your Majesty and the English and the Dutch would be held in check."

Philip III did, indeed, toy briefly with the idea of joining forces with Pius V to send an expedition to Ireland but by September he had dropped the idea. Realising this, Tyrone rather desperately made an approach to James I seeking some sort of reconciliation and a return to his lands. King James, however, was already making preparations for the Plantation of Ulster.

While the campaigns still raged in Tyrconnell, Sir John Davies was already planning ahead. From the army camp near Coleraine on August 5th, 1608, the Attorney General wrote to the King that he had six counties "now in demesne and actual possession in this province; which is a greater extent of land than any prince in Europe has to dispose of ". He urged James to colonise the whole area thoroughly, for the enterprise would be jeopardised "if the number of civil persons who are to be planted do not exceed the number of the natives, who will quickly overgrow them as weeds overgrow the good corn".

King James was more than ready to agree to a full-scale plantation, for his enthusiasm had already been kindled by the success of pioneering settlements in Antrim and Down. There Sir Randal MacDonnell, who had fought with O'Neill and O'Donnell at Kinsale, and now anxious to ingratiate himself with James, had encouraged the Adairs, Shaws and other Lowland Scots to settle on his estates - an initiative which earned him the reward of being created the Earl of Antrim. The King had also agreed to the tripartite division of Upper Clandeboye in north Down between Sir Hugh Montgomery (the bishop's brother), Sir James Hamilton, and Sir Conn O'Neill, the original lord of the territory recently sprung from prison in Carrickfergus. By all accounts these colonies in eastern Ulster were flourishing.

The scheme which King James now unfolded for Ulster west of the River Bann was undoubtedly the most ambitious plan of colonisation ever devised in western Europe. Following O'Doherty's rebellion, the summer assizes of 1608 had judged that almost all of the counties of Tyrconnell, Coleraine, Tyrone, Armagh, Fermanagh and Cavan were in the King's hands.

For James this provided a unique opportunity to reward at little cost the many who claims on his patronage. Besides, a plantation would quieten Ulster and free the province from the risk of further native rebellion and foreign invasion. The project would be, the King observed to Chichester, a civilising enterprise which would "establish the true religion of Christ among men . . . almost lost in superstition". This was the era of colonial expansion when England sought to catch up with Spain, Portugal and Holland - just a few months before the Flight of the Earls the first successful bands of English settlers had embarked for Virginia. Indeed, Virginia in the New World and Virginia in Co Cavan were founded at the same time and in the same spirit. As for Chichester, he declared that he would rather "labour with his hands in the plantation of Ulster than dance or play in that of Virginia".

In January 1609 King James issued orders for the Plantation, printed under the title: "A Collection of such Orders and Conditions as are to be observed by the Undertakers upon the Distribution and Plantation of the escheated lands of Ulster". In Rome a copy came into the hands of Fr Florence Conry, recently appointed Archbishop of Tuam, and he wrote in May to the Spanish Council of State:

"A small English pamphlet has come into my hands. It was printed in London a few months ago and contains the articles by which the King of England declares, without stating the reasons, to have confiscated the lands of the Earls of Tiron and Tirconnell to the extent of six counties. The English King offers these lands in perpetuity for themselves and their descendants to any English or Scots who may wish to take possession of them provided that they comply with the following conditions:

"They must first swear that the King is head of the Church; they may not sublease these lands to any Irish of the ancient race of Ireland; each county must have schools for the instruction of youth in the Calvinistic religion; instead all parish churches must have heretical ministers who will consume the income of the heretical church . . ."

Somewhat bitterly he remarked that the Earl of Tyrone "believes that this would not have happened if the English had not seen that the King of Spain is not so inclined to help him now as was at first expected . . . With the help of God and the assistance of His Catholic Majesty, who will not consent to such an extraordinary and renewed extirpation and oppression of Catholics and of the Holy Faith, I hope that those iniquitous articles of the King of England will resolve themselves into air . . ."

The "iniquitous articles" did not resolve themselves into air. James issued another "Printed Book" of conditions in April 1609 for three categories of planters: "undertakers", the largest group, who had to clear their estates completely of native Irish inhabitants and bring in English or "inland" Scots who had taken the Oath of Supremacy (that is, they had to be Protestants); "servitors" who were not required to plant but were to pay lower rents if they did so; and "deserving" native Irish who had proved their loyalty to the Crown. The book included obligations to build stone houses and defensive works; deadlines were set for arriving, colonising, building and rent payment; and conditions were laid down for building towns, bringing in craftsmen, founding schools and erecting parish churches.

On reading the "Printed Book", the Lord Deputy was filled with a deep sense of foreboding. He saw that the Attorney General's counsels had prevailed. Chichester doubted if the undertakers, given more than one quarter of the confiscated territory, had the resources to carry out their obligations. The "deserving" Irish favoured with grants were left in possession of only around a fifth of the confiscated lands and some had these estates only during their lifetimes. The Lord Deputy's dream of creating a large class of anglicised and converted native landowners had now to be abandoned. Ruthless commander and harsh governor though he was, Chichester believed that the Ulster Irish had been too harshly treated with dire consequences for the future stability of the province.