had at all times in all matters the power of defeating the best intentions he might form, some of his courtiers from whom better things might have been expected, and their greedy hangers-on, Irish and English, were bent on tempting him to further plantations, not for the benefit of either island, but to gratify their purely selfish designs by the spoliation of the Irish and Anglo-Irish. The southern and western districts of Wexford, as the name shows, had in early times received not a few Scandinavian settlers. British colonists also came. thither, and the county was afterwards well planted by the followers of Robert Fitz Stephen and Maurice FitzGerald. The descendants of those early colonists married and intermarried with the Irish, and grew more Irish than the Irish themselves in their love of the island, while at the same time they retained many of the best characteristics of their English and Scandinavian ancestors. The petition of the inhabitants of Wexford against the plantation will be found at length in the appendix, as well as the counter-statement of the royal commissioners, sent over to inquire into Irish grievances, so that it is only necessary to give a brief summary of both here.

The petitioners state that their ancestors had enjoyed their lands for many generations by the English law of descent, and not by tanistry, as they themselves now enjoy them, and intend to transmit them to their descendants; that, in accordance with the invitation given them under the King's gracious Commission for the Remedying of Defective Titles, they had, on February 8th, 1609, surrendered their lands to his Majesty, feeling sure that they would be regranted under the new patents promised to those who made such surrenders, which patents would secure them so long as they continued loyal subjects against all claims of the Crown or others on their inheritances, but that, contrary to all faith and justice, the lands were not regranted to them; that William Parsons, Esq., Sir Lawrence Esmond, Sir Edward Fisher, and others, had managed to obtain possession of the whole of the said lands as undertakers, 'under colour of an ancient pretended title found for the Crown;' that they, the

said undertakers, empannelled a jury at Wexford to find this title by inquisition, but that the jury refused to find it, believing it to be obsolete, and declared that the ownership was vested in the petitioners; that on this, Parsons, Esmond, and Fisher had the jurors summoned to Dublin, punished, and imprisoned for adhering to their just verdict; that the petitioners were then about to prove their title by an appeal to the Common Law, but that, before they could do so, Fisher entered upon their lands, and by force of arms' evicted them and their families and friends, to the number of many thousands.

The report of the English Commissioners, on the other hand, states that the Wexford petitioners did surrender their lands in 1609, but that, the time by proclamation limited for the natives to proceed with such surrenders being past,' it was decided that no return should be made thereof, and also that the King's learned counsel had discovered that his Majesty had an ancient title to the lands, as follows; in the reign of Richard II., after that king had received the homage of the MacMurroghs, FitzGeralds, and other ancient owners, he granted to Sir John Beaumont the said lands, comprising 68,000 acres, between the rivers Slaney and Arklow, to be held by knight's service in capite; the granddaughter and heiress by survival of Beaumont carried this territory into the Lovel family, and when Francis Lord Lovel was attainted of treason, temp. Henry VII., it was vested in the Crown and still belonged to it, notwithstanding the intrusion' of the old proprietors. The report admits that five jurors out of sixteen refused to find this old title valid against the petitioners, that therefore the five jurors were censured in the Star Chamber and two others appointed in their place, who with the remaining eleven unanimously found the title for the Crown. On July 27th, 1611, Esmond, Fisher, and Parsons, with Nicholas Kenny the escheator, were sent by the Lord Deputy to assure the petitioners that, although the King's title to the land must not be disputed, he meant to regrant good portions of it at reasonable rents to such of them as were fit to be made large freeholders, and smaller portions for terms of lives or years to others. The report goes on to

say that on this the principal men of the district submitted, and that Chichester divided 35,210 acres amongst them.' Twenty-one of them were to have their ancient inheritances, and the rest had new portions, with which, however, we are told they were much dissatisfied. Sixteen more were accepted as tenants by Esmond, Fisher, and Sir Richard Cook, three hundred and ninety of the old owners of small freeholds had no land left them, nor had they any compensation for their losses; and fourteen thousand five hundred men, women, and children remained on the land subject to removal at the will of the undertakers, old and new, but the report adds, 'few of those 14,500 have been removed, and the undertakers are willing to receive all as tenants, at such easy rents as their own rents to the Crown will admit of.'

In the end, all that the petitioners were able to obtain by their petitions and earnest remonstrances was a new measurement of the escheated lands, which proved that half of it had been granted away as though it had only been a quarter, by which discovery,' writes Sir Henry Docwra, on March 3d, 1618, 'a fourth part is cast back again to the natives, and by that means about fourscore more of them were made freeholders than formerly, for which unexpected good befallen them they are heartily thankful to the King. His Majesty's rent is raised upon the whole, about 300l., and the charge of the work is defrayed by the country.' Notwithstanding the pleasing vision disclosed by Sir Henry's letter, the thousands left out in the cold on the Wexford plantation continued loud in their anger and disappointment. Two hundred of them went over to England to implore redress, and the undertakers and new patentees in both islands had an uneasy time of it amongst the Kavanaghs, Dorans, Kinshelas, MacGeralds, and MacRedmonds. It was, ere long, found necessary to send troops to keep the peace and protect the planters' lives in and

2

1 Carte's account of the Wexford plantation is most disingenuous. He writes as though only 16,000 acres had at the first been set apart for the undertakers. V. Life of Ormond, vol. i. p. 44, and compare with the Commissioners' Report in Appendix.

2 MSS. Rolls House.

around Enniscorthy. Sir Francis Blundell, who had received a thousand acres in that neighbourhood, wrote, from his London residence, to the English Council, on July 20th, 1620:

'One MacEdmund, or MacRedmund, of Temple Shannon, in the county of Wexford, came to me to my house on Sunday morning last, and asked me to give him some money to drink. I told him I would. He answered he would drink it, and then he would go to Ireland and there he would first burn his own house, and after would help to burn mine. There are many people from that country now called hither by one Patrick Doran, as I have been told, to complain to his Majesty and your lordships against the plantations of Wexford. I humbly desire that they may be dismissed home, and Doran punished and sent away. This poor man MacEdmund is my tenant, much given to drink, and idletongued, and I think he was not well when he spoke those words to me.'

Patrick Doran was one of the small freeholders, who had received neither land nor compensation for his losses. He petitioned to be restored to his own escheated freehold, but his petition was refused and he was sent to prison. Several of the dispossessed were transported to Virginia, the rest settled down as tenants-at-will or labourers on the lands of the undertakers.

Wexford having been thus settled,' as the phrase went, the next plantation undertaken was that of Longford. The O'Farrells, who were the native owners, having submitted to Elizabeth and even fought in her armies, had obtained from her patent grants of their lands. Of late years they had shown a marked inclination to adopt peaceful and civilised habits, building houses, and tilling the ground like their neighbours of the Pale. Recognising those symptoms of improvement, James, writing to Chichester in 1611, directed that Elizabeth's patent grants to certain of the sept should not be interfered with, but that, when small parcels of the territory were claimed by many under colour of gavelkind, the grant should be to the worthiest native in every cartron, who should then be required to grant estates to others for lives or a term of not less than twenty-one years. At the same time the royal letter

orders the Commissioners for the plantation to remember that a multitude of small freeholders beggars a country, and that therefore no freeholder on the plantation was to have less than a cartron of land. If the natives loyally submitted to the new arrangements they were to be secured against all claims of the Crown (except those to Church and abbey lands); their rent to the Crown was, however, to be increased from 150l. to 2001. yearly, and the expenses of the survey were to be borne by them.

On August 12th, 1615, an inquisition was taken before Sir John Blennerhassett, Sir Patrick Barnewall, and William Parsons, Esq., and the jurors found that the territory of Annaly, otherwise Longford, containing 999 cartrons, had been granted by Henry II. to Hugh De Lacy, who had built castles and planted English there; that in the reign of Edward I. those English colonists had been dispossessed by the rebellious Irish, that Faghney O'Farrell had submitted and surrendered the country to Queen Elizabeth, who had made him a patent grant of the same, but that the Crown of England had a right prior to the surrender under the Statute of Absentees as applied to the heirs of De Lacy, and that therefore the whole was now vested in the King, who might re-distribute it as he pleased. The Lord Deputy St. John drew up two projects for the plantation of Longford, which, with other documents of great interest on the same subject, are now printed for the first time in the Appendix. St. John's second project, with some amendments, seems to have been the one finally adopted. One of the conditions imposed upon the planters was the following:

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The lessor and lessees of Longford are to treat together for. the rent of every acre, and in case they cannot agree, then two Commissioners are to repair to the land to be demised, and are

'Cartron signifies a quarter, and is derived, through the French quarteron, from the medieval quarteronus: it was in very common use in Connaught as well as in Longford and Westmeath and King's County, and was applied to a parcel of land varying in amount from 100 to 160 acres.' (Joyce's Irish Names of Places, 1st Series, vol. i. p. 225.) The land in ancient Ireland was measured more by quality than area. A denomination or division of land in a poor country was of a larger extent than in a rich one.' (Professor O'Curry's Lectures,