even those whose feoffors or ancestors had been attainted or killed in rebellion were to be restored. A noteworthy point is the following direction: "Where small parcels are claimed by many through colour of gavelkind, the grant to be to the eldest and worthiest in each cartron, he being required to grant estates to others (if need be); yet they are to consider that the multitude of small freeholders beggars the country, whereof none to have less than one cartron."
Here there is a deliberate crushing out of the small landowners, who were to become leaseholders on the estates granted to the wealthier clansmen.
So far there had been no question of any confiscation or plantation. There is a gap in the records relating to Longford of four years, during which nothing seems to have been done towards securing the O'Ferralls in their lands. Then in 1615 came a letter from the King to Chichester, reversing all his former decisions. He finds "no remedy for the barbarous manners of the mere Irish which keeps out the knowledge of literature and of manual trades … so ready and feasible as, by first, by settling a firm estate in perpetuity on such of the present inhabitants as have the best disposition to civility … and, secondly, by intermixing among them some of the British. He is given to understand of some titles he has as well general as special to all or part of Longford, Leitrim and other Irish countries." Chichester was to inquire into these titles.[1] In other words, founding his right to Longford not on the surrender of the O'Ferralls
- ↑ Cal. St. Paps., 1615, April, p. 35.
