s and landowners, while their tribesmen rose
from subjects into tenants, owing only fixed and customary dues and
services to their lords. The tribal system of property in common was set
aside, and the communal holdings of the tribesmen turned into the
copyholds of English law. In the same way the chieftains were stripped
of their hereditary jurisdiction, and the English system of judges and
trial by jury substituted for their proceedings under Brehon or
customary law. To all these changes the Celts opposed the tenacious
obstinacy of their race. Irish juries, then as now, refused to convict.
Glad as the tribesmen were to be freed from the arbitrary exactions of
their chiefs, they held them for chieftains still. The attempt made by
Chichester, under pressure from England, to introduce the English
uniformity of religion ended in utter failure; for the Englishry of the
Pale remained as Catholic as the native Irishry; and the sole result of
the measure was to build up a new Irish people out of both on the common
basis of religion. Much however had been done by the firm yet moderate
government of the Deputy, and signs were already appearing of a
disposition on the part of the people to conform gradually to the new
usages, when the English Council under James suddenly resolved upon and
carried through the revolutionary measure which is known as the
Colonization of Ulster. In 1610 the pacific and conservative policy of
Chichester was abandoned for a vast policy of spoliation. Two-thirds of
the north of Ireland was declared to have been confiscated to the Crown
by the part that its possessors had taken in a recent effort at revolt;
and the lands which were thus gained were allotted to new settlers of
Scotch and English extraction. In its material results the Plantation of
Ulster was undoubtedly a brilliant success. Farms and homesteads,
churches and mills, rose fast amidst the desolate wilds of Tyrone. The
Corporation of London undertook the colonization of Derry, and gave to
the little town the name which its heroic defence has made so famous.
The foundations of the economic prosperity which has raised Ulster high
above the rest of Ireland in wealth and intelligence were undoubtedly
laid in the confiscation of 1610. Nor did the measure meet with any
opposition at the time save that of secret discontent. The evicted
natives withdrew sullenly to the lands which had been left them by the
spoiler, but all faith in English justice had