jure" would not invalidate their claim to freeholds, now maintaining the exact opposite view, and quoting with approval the arguments with which the Crown lawyers had defeated the claims of the inhabitants.[1]
The details of the actual colonisation of the six counties are so well known that it is unnecessary to mention them here. There is, however, one feature of special note in the scheme. Every effort was made to keep the colonists and the original inhabitants distinct. British "Undertakers" were not to have any Irish tenants whatsoever: all Irish residing on the lands set out to them—by far the largest share of the six counties—were to be removed.[2]
The whole Irish population of the planted area was to be concentrated on the lands assigned to "servitors"[3] and to "natives." By what seems to be a concession of a date later than the original plan the Bishops might have Irish tenants on the Erenagh and other lands finally adjudged to them, provided that at least one-third of such lands was planted with Britons.[4]
In particular the lands granted to the Londoners in County Derry were to be cleared of the Irish
- ↑ See Davies: Letter to Salisbury, 1606, and to the same, 1610.
- ↑ According to one list, of the 511,000 acres at which the six counties were estimated, about 163,000 were assigned to Undertakers and 61,400 to the Londoners. Servitors got about 50,000, and natives just over 52,000 acres. Corporate towns, Trinity College, the Church, schools, certain favoured Irish, and certain grants of abbey lands not included in the general scheme account for the remainder. It must be remembered in each case that to obtain the true area we must multiply by seven in each case.
- ↑ "Servitors" were those who had served the Crown in Ireland.
- ↑ Cal. St. Paps., 1610, p. 410.
