LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER VI

       CHICHESTER’S GOVERNMENT TO 1613

       Table of Contents

      Optimism of Sir John Davies.

      Establishment of circuits

In the course of a very thorough investigation Carew found that while much had been done by the settlers, much still remained to do. There were indeed many surveys and inquiries yet to come, before the outbreaks which he foresaw. He knew Ireland thoroughly, and was not to be deceived by false appearances of quiet and contentment. Davies, whose acquaintance with the island was of much later date, remained optimistic. ‘When this plantation,’ he wrote in 1613, ‘hath taken root, and been fixed and settled but a few years … it will secure the peace of Ireland, assure it to the Crown of England for ever; and finally make it a civil, and a rich, a mighty, and a flourishing kingdom.’ He had been one of the first commissioners of assize who ever sat in Tyrone and Tyrconnel, and the justice which he administered, ‘though it was somewhat distasteful to the Irish lords, was sweet and most welcome to the common people.’ Davies has left a pretty full account of some of his various circuits. He visited every part of Ireland, and as his power of observation and description were unusually great it may be as well to follow him in his journeys. General peace having been made possible, first by arms and afterwards by an Act of Oblivion, it was from the establishment of justice that the greatest good was to be expected, and it was necessary to make it visible by regular assizes held in every county. ‘These progresses of the law,’ Davies wrote, ‘renew and confirm the conquest of Ireland every half year, and supply the defect of the King’s absence in every part of the Realm; in that every judge sitting in the seat of justice, doth represent the person of the King himself.’[82]

      Leinster Assizes, 1604.

      King’s and Queen’s Counties.

      Carlow and Wexford.

      Churches in ruins.

      Poverty of priests and people.

Davies’s first assize appears to have been in Leinster in the spring of 1604. The country was on the whole quiet, and the gaols only half full of petty thieves. As for the King’s and Queen’s counties, the O’Mores and O’Connors had been nearly rooted out by the war: ‘the English families there begin to govern the country, and such of the Irishry as remain, such as M’Coghlan, O’Molloy, O’Doyn, O’Dempsey, they seem to conform themselves to a civil life, and gave their attendance very dutifully.’ Carlow and Wexford, however, were infested by a band of 100 kerne, Donnel Spaniagh Kavanagh and the sons of Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne being at the bottom of the mischief. Pardons had always been granted so easily that the outlaws had little to fear. At Carlow it appeared that there had lately been a conference between Tyrone, Mountgarret, Phelim and Redmond MacFeagh O’Byrne and Donnel Spaniagh. There was much drinking and swords were drawn. Davies did not know the object of the meeting, but dared affirm that it was not that religion and peace might be established in this kingdom. As for religion, indeed, there would be good hope of filling the churches if they were first repaired. In fact he found them everywhere in ruins, and the State clergy were lazy and ignorant, which did more harm than could be done by the diligence of priests and Jesuits whose object was political and not religious, but only ‘to serve the turn of Tyrone and the King of Spain. They would be glad to be banished by proclamation, for they that go up and down the Cross of Tipperary get nothing but bacon and oatmeal, the people are so poor.’[83]

      Justice in Connaught.

      In Ulster.

      In Munster.

      Assizes at Waterford

      At Cork, 1606

Later in the year Davies was with Lord Clanricarde at Athlone, where he held his presidential court. Clanricarde, though he had but a weak council, not only did his business very well, but kept house in a very honourable fashion. It had been reported on both sides of the Channel that Lady Clanricarde, the daughter of Walsingham, the widow of Sidney and Essex, was not satisfied with her position, but he found her ‘very well contented and every way as well served as ever he saw her in England.’ Davies was in London during part of the following year. He was on circuit as commissioner of assize in Ulster before leaving Ireland, and in the spring of 1606 after his appointment as Attorney-General he was associated with Chief Justice Walshe as circuit-judge in Munster. The arrangement was contrary to modern ideas, but no doubt it was convenient to have a judge who could draw bills of indictment himself and afterwards pronounce upon their validity. He rightly thought Munster the finest province of the four, but it had one thing in common with Ulster, and that was the readiness of the people to accept the services of the judges. The poor northern people were glad to escape from the lewd Brehons who knew no other law but the will of the chief lords, and the Munster men, though not dissatisfied

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