century, however, a branch of the O'Neills—O'Neill of Clandeboy—had expelled most of the settlers, and seized the greater part of the district east of the Bann and Lough Neagh. Some remnants of the settlers remained in the peninsulas of Lecale and the Ards in Down; and in Antrim the lands along the coast at one time held by the Missetts or Bissetts were claimed by a branch of the Scotch MacDonalds in virtue of the marriage of one of their chiefs to a Bissett heiress. As the MacDonalds were alien enemies it is doubtful if this claim was good in law.[1]
But in the rest of Ulster matters were different. Here, whatever grants may have been made by De Courcy or the De Burgos, no permanent settlements had ever been made, and the native Irish had never been dispossessed. Furthermore, by accepting rent or tribute from some at least of them their position as landowners had to some extent been recognised. And Henry VIII. had received all the chiefs as subjects, and hence, implicitly at least, recognised their rights to the territories they held, although in only one case, that of Con O'Neill, had he secured those rights by an actual grant.
The Act of Attainder gets over all these difficulties with considerable ingenuity. It traces the Queen's title to Ireland and Ulster from King Gormund, second son of the noble King Belin of Great Britain (both needless to say entirely unknown to history) then gets to surer ground with the "conquest" of Henry II., then comes to the
- ↑ This branch of the MacDonalds ultimately became known as MacDonnells.
