Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/242

 and that they may and shall from henceforth rest assured that no person or persons whatever, by reason of any chiefry or seignory, or by colour of any custom, use, or prescription, hath, or ought to have, any interest in the bodies or goods of them, or any of them.' On the other band, the tenants were to pay to their lords 'such respects and duties as belong and appertain unto the said lords, according to their several degrees and callings, due and allowed unto them by the laws of the realm.' Chichester's proclamation has been objected to in modern times as subverting too rapidly one organisation before there was time to replace it by another. Such an objection was not likely to occur to an Englishman in the seventeenth century, and the plan of the lord deputy was at least better than an attempt to rule by force alone, and was based on the hope that the hearts of the bulk of the Irish people might be gained by attention to their material interests. In his visit to Ulster in the summer of 1605, where the Irish customs were most difficult to eradicate, he attempted to win over the chiefs to the new order of things by inducing them to create freeholders — that is to say, to content themselves with fixed payments in the place of uncertain ones. Some of them gave way, but as it was a question not merely of the material interests of the chief, but also of his political position, Chichester's plan failed to meet with general assent among them. Tyrone especially resented all interference with his tribal independence.

Such an experiment could only be carried out with any prospect of success, if the sentiments of the people, and especially their religious sentiments, had been left unassailed. In those days religion and politics were closely intertwined, and Chichester, impelled by James, found himself embarked on an attempt to lessen the influence of the Roman catholic church in Ireland. A Roman catholic judge was removed from the bench, and the Dublin aldermen who refused to attend the protestant service were fined by the Castle chamber, a court which answered to the Star-chamber in England. An attempt was made to enforce upon poorer Roman catholics the payment of the shilling fine for absence from church. The spirit aroused by these harsh measures told on Chichester, whose mind was always open to practical difficulties. 'In these matters of bringing men to church,' he wrote on 1 Dec. 1606, 'I have dealt as tenderly as I might, knowing well that men's consciences must be won and persuaded by time, conference, and instructions, which the aged here will hardly admit, and therefore our hope must be in the education of the youth; and yet we must labour daily, otherwise all will turn to barbarous ignorance and contempt. I am not violent therein, albeit I wish reformation, and will study and endeavour it all I may, which, I think, sorts better with his majesty's ends than to deal with violence and like a puritan in this kind.' In the summer of 1607 Chichester's advice was taken, and the persecution was relaxed. The lord deputy did his best to walk in the better way which he preferred, by recommending for ecclesiastical benefices as they fell vacant persons of good life and conversation, more important, as he observed, in such a country, than 'depth of learning and judgment,' and he urged on the translation of the common prayer-book into Irish, taking an active part in dispersing it through the country, as soon as the work was accomplished in 1608.

The difficulty of bringing the north of Ireland into order was still formidable. Chichester again visited Ulster in 1606, but the irritation of Tyrone and Tyrconnell at the course which events were taking was a standing obstacle in his way. A dispute had arisen between Tyrone and one of his dependents, O'Cahan. In May 1607 O'Cahan appealed to Chichester. The contending parties were summoned before the lord deputy. Tyrone, unable to brook this sign of his subordination to the crown, snatched from O'Cahan's hands the papers which he was reading in the presence of the representative of the king, and tore them up before his face. On this, apparently with the consent of both parties, Tyrone and O'Cahan were summoned to England that their case might be decided by James in person. Tyrone, if he had seriously given his consent to the plan, was soon frightened, believing that he would be thrown into the Tower as soon as he landed in England. He therefore resolved to fly to the king of Spain for protection, and on 25 Sept. he, together with Tyrconnell, left Ireland forever.

On 17 Sept. Chichester sketched a plan for the future settlement of Ulster, on the lines which he had adopted in his proclamation on the subject of Irish tenancies. The fugitive earls having forfeited their right, every native Irishman of note or good desert was to receive his share of the land thus placed at the disposal of the crown. Only when the natives had been satisfied was the remainder to be made over to English and Scottish colonists to whom the surplus lands might be given on condition of building and garrisoning castles on them. The actual plantation of Ulster was carried out on a different principle, and the forfeited country was treated as a sheet of white paper, to be