of the said land, the best and nearest to the Castle of Athlone. By virtue of which grant Richard de Burgo was seized in fee of twentyfive cantreds, as appears by sundry records in the Exchequer, where the said rent of 500 marks for twenty-five cantreds was put in charge. It also appears by an old ledger-book of the Abbey of Multifarnham, that Connaught anciently contained thirty cantreds. From this. Richard de Burgo these twenty-five cantreds descended lineally to King Edward IV., according to the pedigree following, viz.: Richard, Walter, alias Redmond, Richard, John, William, Elizabeth, his daughter and heiress, married to Lionel, Duke of Clarence, Phillipa, their daughter and heiress, married to Edmond Mortimer, Earl of March; Roger Mortimer, Anne, married to Richard Earl of Cambridge, Richard Duke of York, King Edward IV. And thus King Edward IV. was seized again of all Connaught, viz., of five cantreds saved out of De Burgo's grant, which continued still in the Crown, and were put in charge in the Exchequer in Ireland as lands in demesne; and of the said twenty five cantreds, from descent by de Burgo; and the right thereof continued in the Crown ever since. But by reason of the continued wars and rebellions in Ireland and especially in these parts, the Crown made little benefit of these lands; but the profits were in a manner wholly taken by the inhabitants, most whereof were rebels; and the records and evidences which should entitle the Crown to these lands amongst others, were embezzled out of the Treasury of Trim, to the disherison of the Crown. For remedy whereof, by a statute made in Ireland in the tenth year of Henry VII., it was declared that the lordship of Connaught was annexed to the Crown; and it was further enacted, that it should be lawful for the King and his heirs to enter and seize on all such manors, honours, lordships, castles, and tenements, rents, services, moors, meadows, pastures, waters and mills, with their appurtenances, &c., appertaining to the said Lordship of Connaught.

The patents granted to the possessors of lands under Elizabeth by Sir John Perrott, were asserted to be voided by the non-performance of the conditions under which they were granted; those issued by James I. in 1615, to have been obtained by false suggestions and executed without due regard to the royal will and directions.*

The inhabitants of Leitrim had already acknowledged the King's title to their lands, and submitted to a plantation. The work began with the county of Roscommon. Before the opening of the Commission, Wentworth ordered that a return should be sent in of all the wealthiest men in the county; these, having a heavy stake, would be examples for good or evil in the ensuing inquisition; besides, if they proved defaulters or disobedient in any way, "round fines in the Castle Chamber" could be inflicted on them. The sheriff was ordered to select "such jurors only as might be made amenable in case they should prevaricate; for this being a leading case for the whole province, it would set a value in their estimation upon the goodness of

*Leland, B. V. C. I. The reader will find in "Fiction Unmasked," by Walter Harris, a detailed account of the various technical errors for which the patents were declared by the Crown lawyers to be void. See also Letters, &c., I. 455.

the King's title, if found by those persons of quality." This was not enough. "He inquired after fit men to serve upon juries and treated with such as would give furtherance to the King's title." He also proposed to raise “ 4,000 horse, as good lookers on whilst the planta tions were settling." When the jury was returned, and the Commissioners had arrived, with Sir William Parsons at their head, Wentworth sent for six of the principal gentlemen of the county. "Understanding that divers affrights had been put into men's minds concerning the King's intention in this work," he told them, in presence of the Commissioners, what his purpose was. He begged them to repeat his words to the rest of the county, that the object of the Commission was nothing less than to find for the King a clear and undoubted title to the whole of that province, beginning first with Roscommon. Yet he would grant them a favour never before granted in such an inquisition. If any man asserted a title to any possessions in Connaught, it was his Majesty's gracious pleasure that his counsel should be fully heard in defence of his client's rights. And if there was anything else they desired, he was ready to listen and return a fair answer thereunto, as the King had strictly enjoined him, and to afford to all his Majesty's good people all respect and freedom in the setting forth and defence of their several rights and claims." This language, so different from his usual style, modified his first announcement, and "left his hearers marvellous much satisfied." He was a master of speech, and he knew that "good words pleased them more than one can imagine."t

The next morning they appeared before him with a petition numerously signed, begging that the inquiry might be put off for a time, as they were wholly unprepared to state their cases. He replied that the fault was all their own, since he had caused a scire facias to be issued from Chancery full twenty days before, in order that every one might have fair notice and ample time for preparation; in giving that warning he had exceeded what had been done before in similar cases. He therefore begged them to excuse him; but under these circumstances he could not think of adjourning the inquiry.

The proceedings began on the 10th of July, in the Abbey of Boyle. The Commission was read publicly, in the Deputy's presence. The jury was called and sworn. Sergeant Catelin, the Speaker of the late Parliament, stated the case for the Crown from the brief already given. The counsel for the defence replied. Wentworth, who was seated by the side of the judge, proceeded to charge the jury. He told them that the chief motives that induced his Majesty to inquire into his undoubted title to the province of Connaught, were his princely desires to render the inhabitants a civil and rich people; this could be brought about by no other means so well as by a plantation, which he had resolved to undertake. He was far from wishing to take from them any of their possessions; he intended rather to bestow on them a portion of his own. It was his gracious resolution to question no man's patent that had been granted formerly upon good consideration and was of itself valid in law. His Great Seal was his

public pledge of faith, and should be kept sacred in all things; he did not come to ask theirs; his rights were so plain, that he could not in justice have been denied possession. The court, in an ordinary way of Exchequer, would have pronounced in his favour at the first word of the Attorney-General. But he was desirous in these public services to take his people along with him; and therefore he was graciously pleased they should have a part with him in the honour as in the profit of so glorious and excellent a work for the commonwealth. As for his own interests, he was indifferent whether they found for him or not; he had directed the Deputy to put no pressure in a case where the right was so palpable. But he, of his own accord, as one that must ever wish prosperity to their nation, desired them first to descend into their own consciences and take them to counsel; and then, he was convinced, they would find the wisdom of the Crown clear and conclusive.

In the next place, he warned them to beware how they showed any obstinacy against so manifest a truth; or how they let slip out of their hands the means to weave themselves into the royal thoughts, through a cheerful and ready acknowledgment of these rights and a due and full submission thereunto. If they inclined to the truth, to do what was best for themselves, they would find for the King; but if, on the other hand, they were passionately resolved to overleap all bounds to obtain their own will, and, without any regard to their own good, to do what was most profitable to his Majesty, then he should advise them roughly and pertinaciously to deny the King's title altogether. After this he left them "to chant together over their evidence."

The jury retired to consider their verdict. What it would be, was not long left in doubt. "The next day they found the King's title good, without scruple or hesitation." To their verdict they added the following petition: "1. That their patents might be found in hæc verba in the office, to stand or fall afterwards according as they should prove good or not in law. 2. That all Abbey lands might be excepted, as they had already come to the Crown by the Act of Dissolution, and so were still lodged there, unless well conveyed to the subject since. 3. That all possessions of bishops, deans, parsons, &c. should be excepted." The three requests were readily granted by the Deputy; "the two first his Majesty would never deny them; if their patents be good, as, God knows, very few or none of them are, it is reason they enjoy them; if otherwise, this manner of finding makes them neither better nor worse." The last request fell in with his own wish, and he granted it readily. An Act of State was soon after passed confirming the Deputy's reply. Wentworth asked the King to confirm it for form's sake; "because he loved ever to reserve something to flow ex abundantia from his Majesty to his people, more than they asked, at least looked for, he added two particulars more than they mentioned in their petition." These were, that the confirmation of the Act of State should be printed and distributed; and that it should not be confined to one county alone but extended to the other three. The title was then reduced into a legal inquisition, with all the necessary formalities.† + Ibid, 443.

*Letters, &c., I. 441.

Wentworth, as usual, forwarded to the King the names of those who had shown most zeal in carrying out his wishes. "I confess," he wrote to the King, "I delight to do well for such as I see ready to serve my master the right and cheerful way, albeit it be no more than we are all bound to do, and churlish enough I can be to such as do otherwise." The foreman of the jury, Sir Lucas Dillon, "who having behaved with so much discretion, and expressed all along good affection, deserved to be extraordinarily well dwelt with," was specially recommended that he might be remembered in the dividing of the lands. He received a large tract of country, which is still in the hands of his descendants. Lowther, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and the Chief Baron, got, as their reward, four shillings in the pound of the first year's rent raised under the Commission of Defective Titles. This money, Wentworth declared "he found on observation to be the best given that ever was; for by these means they did intend that business with as much care and diligence as if it were their own private, and every four shillings once paid would better his Majesty's revenue four pounds."*

The Commission for the county of Sligo opened at Sligo on the 20th of July; that for Mayo at Ballinrobe on the 31st. The juries in both places followed the example of Roscommon "with the like freedom and forwardness of affection." He then set about Galway. "Being a county lying out at a corner by itself, and all the inhabitants wholly natives and Papists, hardly an Englishman among them, for they keep them out with all the industry in the world, therefore it would be of great security they were thoroughly lined with English.f He was told that he should meet with difficulties in carrying out his purposes, that there was "much muttering" among the people. But such news only cheered him on. "I could wish," he wrote to the English Secretary of State, "that the county would hold out, for I am well assured it shall turn out to his Majesty's advantage if they do. Ulick de Burgh, Earl of Clanrickarde and St. Albans, was the most extensive landed proprietor and the most influential nobleman in Connaught. He was allied by blood with the chief families of the English nobility, and much esteemed by the King. At this time he was absent with his son in England; it may be that he thought it prudent to keep out of the way and thus evade the wrath which his overt opposition would be sure to bring on his head. But his interests were confided to the safe keeping of his nephew, the Viscount Clanmorris, who no doubt was secretly incited by his uncle to offer whatever resistance he safely could to the claims of the Crown. He presented himself openly in court, and declared that he was ready to enter on the defence.

To prove the King's title to Galway, the Crown lawyers brought forward the same arguments that had been admitted without a murmur

* Letters, &c., II. 41.

+ Ibid, I. 444.

He was married to Frances, only daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth; Clanrickarde was her third husband, she having been previously married to Sir Philip Sidney and to the Earl of Essex. See Lodge,

I. 33.

by the juries of the three other counties. The counsel on the opposite side contended that the grant of Henry III. was confined to the royalties, and did not affect the lands; that the descent of Edward IV. from Richard de Burgo could not be proved, for one important link was wanting; that the statute of Henry VII. related rather to tenures than to lands. The Crown replied that as no grant could be produced from the Crown to any ancestors of the possessors to prove their right, the King's title must of necessity be good. The Deputy thought the arguments of the Crown lawyers "most just, honourable, and unquestionable to all equal-minded men that heard them." But the jury thought otherwise. In spite of the example of the neighbouring counties, the jurors, all but two, "remaining, as it seemed, resolute in the averseness they had proposed to themselves, all out of will, and accompanied in many of them with great want of understanding, neither regarding the clearness of the evidence nor the example of the neighbouring counties, most obstinately and perversely refused to find for his Majesty."

As they were all Catholics, their obstinacy was particularly gratifying to Wentworth; he would have an opportunity of laying a heavier fine on them than on the other counties. 'We bethought ourselves," he wrote to Coke, "of a course to vindicate his Majesty's honour and justice not only against the persons of the jurors, but also against the sheriff for returning so insufficient, indeed we conceived, so packed a jury; and therefore we fined the sheriff" (Martin Darcey of Kiltullagh) "in the sum of £1,000 to his Majesty, and bound over the jury to appear in the Castle Chamber, where it is fit their pertinacious carriage be followed with all just severity." The jurors were fined in £4,000 each; they were to be imprisoned until the fines were paid and they acknowledged their offence in court upon their knees. One of the jurors, who, "with unsufferable boldness, pulled a fellow juror by the sleeve, while the Lord Deputy was speaking, he found it just and necessary to fine in the further sum of £500." The lawyers who pleaded for the proprietors were stripped of their gowns; Wentworth recommended that they should be called on to take the oath of supremacy; and if they refused, they should be excluded from all practice in courts of law.§

This was not the first time such means had been employed to promote justice in Ireland. The Star Chamber was declared by the Deputy Chichester, in 1613, to be the proper place to punish jurors that would not find for the King "upon good evidence."||

The sheriff died in prison. How little compunction Wentworth felt is proved by his letter to his friend Wandesford. "I am full of belief," he wrote, "that they will lay the charge of Darcy the sheriff's death unto me; my arrows are cruel that wound so mortally.

*Letters, &c., 451.

+ His brother was a member of the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholics, in 1642. Lodge's Peerage of Ireland " gives an account of this family, I. 123. Letters, &c., I. 451.