Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/22

 law; but the titles of the great lords, as I have said above, would too often not have stood an investigation conducted on the lines of the English laws of inheritance.

Henry at once grasped the necessity of a settlement of the land question. As heir to the vast Mortimer inheritance he was already owner of Ulster, Connaught, Leix, and other lands. Here he could give legal titles to the actual occupiers, whether Irish or Anglo-Irish. But over the rest of the island any policy of settlement and reconciliation was hampered by claims of the settlers to lands actually held by the Irish.

The rebellion and forfeiture of the house of Kildare, and the famous statute of Absentees, greatly simplified this difficulty as regards Leinster and Munster, and left Henry free to deal directly with the Irish clans. It has often been said that what he did amounted in reality to a concealed system of confiscation. The lands belonging to the clan were to be handed over to the chief, and in case of his rebellion would then be seized and divided among English settlers. I have dealt with this theory elsewhere. It is sufficient to say here that, though in certain cases this was the actual result of Henry's settlement, there seems no evidence that he intended to vest in the chiefs the lands of their clansmen. As a matter of fact the lands of the O'Tooles of Powerscourt were divided among the clansmen, and again in negotiations