Hello everyone and welcome to the history of England, episode 336, the Jack

Abeam Plantations of Ireland. Now that everyone at its time the time has come

to introduce you to a character called Arthur Chichester. As I was reading up about

our art, one historian discussed how he was up there in the pantheon of the most hated

figures in Irish history. Almost all of those figures of course for obvious reasons

are English. I will have to explain why Chichester makes it into said pantheon, although

I might leaven the bread of his reputation just a wee bit.

Today gentleston is therefore we are going to talk about James and his policy in Ireland

and the impact of said policy and governance upon the Irish.

Arthur Chichester then was a military man and a Devonian born in 1563. He became a career

soldier in the wars against Spain rising to become a captain of the Marines. He was part

of France's Drakes last voyage where he excelled himself and he was given a command in

northern France in 1597. So far so good, but then in 1598 the trouble starts with the

nine years war against Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone.

Obviously, Mount Joy, the commander of the English forces in that conflict, was on the

lookout for experienced and capable military men, though after Tyrone's victory at Yellow

Ward, fighting in Ireland looked like a risky business.

But Arthur had a personal interest in joining Mount Joy. His brother, John Chichester, had

been a governor of Carrick Ferguson Island and had been killed in the fighting and his

head used as a football in Tyrone's camp, which he considered rude. As you may remember

the nine years war came at the end of Elizabethan rule in Ireland a period described by one

historian as the Age of Atrocitors. We went through some of those atrosters and you may

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