Page:Confiscation in Irish history.djvu/39

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THE TUDOR CONFISCATIONS
27

one hundred beeves.[1] Part of the lands of the latter—the baronies of Iveragh and Magunihy in Kerry—had actually been in possession of the Earl's ancestors in the thirteenth century. The MacCarthys had long since expelled the settlers from these districts, but the Earl still claimed superiority overMacCarthyM6r,a claim which the latter strenuously disputed, as well as a yearly payment of £214 11s. 2d.[2] Concerning this we know that portion of it was assessed on specified townlands in Bere and Bantry, but we may well have some doubts as to the regularity with which it was paid.

Now, the question at once arose—what of all this great inheritance had actually fallen to the Crown by the attainder of the Earl and his adherents?

Acts were passed (28th Elizabeth, Chaps. 7 & 8) attainting the Earl and a large number of his adherents by name. The second Act further attainted all who had died and been slain in their actual rebellion, or had been executed by martial law. But all who had survived the rebellion and who were not mentioned in these Acts had at one time or another been pardoned, and so, to use Sir J. Davies' phrase, "stood upright in law." Those attainted by name had almost all perished during the rebellion, and of the survivors some of the principals were afterwards pardoned.[3]

At first the idea of the Government was to take the widest possible view of the extent of the for-

  1. These Earl's beeves were paid by the freeholders of Carbery long after the death of the last Earl, to various grantees. See Cox: Regnum Corcagiense.
  2. Cal. St. Paps. 1581, p. 368.
  3. The White Knight, The Knight of Glyn, Patrick Condon, or their heirs were all ultimately restored to their lands.