[9] Lodges, “Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica,” pp. 410-411.

Not being able to be otherwise settled, the quarrel was at last referred to the king, and representatives of both sides went to England to plead their cause.  In the end twelve of the new elections were found to have been so illegally carried that they had perforce to be cancelled, but Sir John Davis was at the same time confirmed in the Speakership.

After this delay the House at last got to work.  A formal Act of attainder was passed upon Tyrone, Tyrconnel, and some of the other Ulster landowners.  Every portion of Ireland was next made into shireland, and the last remnants of the Brehon law abolished.  Upon the other hand, the statutes of Kilkenny was at length and finally repealed.  Henceforth English and Irish were alike to be admitted to plead their own cause in the courts of law.

XXXIII.

OLD AND NEW OWNERS.

The zeal for Irish colonization had by no means subsided after the Ulster settlement had been established; on the contrary, it was the favourite panacea of the hour, especially in the eyes of the king himself.  After one such resounding success, why, it was asked, not extend so evident a blessing to the rest of Ireland?  “A commission to inquire into defective titles” was set on foot, whose duty it was to collect evidence as to the condition of estates, and to inquire into the titles of owners.  The pipe rolls in Dublin and the patents, kept in the Tower of London were alike eagerly ransacked, and title flaws found to be discoverable with the most delightful facility.  There was a strong feeling too about this time in England that something good was to be made of Ireland.  When tens of thousands of acres were to be had almost for the asking, who could be so slow or so mean-spirited as to hang back from doing so.

Something like a regular stampede of men ambitious to call themselves undertakers, began to cross over from the larger to the smaller island.  Nor was the Government anxious to check this spirited impulse.  In Wexford alone over 60,000 acres had been discovered by the lawyers to belong to the king, and of these a large portion were now settled with English undertakers.  In Longford, Leitrim, Wicklow, and many other parts of Leinster, it was the same.  Even where the older proprietors were not dispossessed heavy fines were levied in return for fresh grants.  No proof of recent surrender or former agreement was allowed to count, and so ingeniously was the whole scheme carried out, and so inextricable was the jungle of legal technicalities in which it was involved, that what in reality was often sheer confiscations sounded like the most equitable of judicial arrangements.