One of the conundrums of the Ulster Plantation is how the Crown got away with it - how did the Crown, with a force in Ireland (the years between 1600 and 1610) a force of 1,014 men, how did they manage to seize the entire Province of Ulster, dispossess the native landowners and their followers, and give all the best land to newcomers? My research in recent years has begun to come up with some of the answers for this. In particular, you have the prevalence of martial law: in England, martial law is always a reactionary measure - it is used once rebels have rebelled. From the middle of the 16th century in Ireland, martial law is rather different - it’s pre-emptive. It was used by the Government from the 1550s onwards to target suspect groups, groups who would not embrace the growth of English Royal power.

One of the myths of Irish historiography is that the government in the early 17th century was no longer militarised, the government was essentially civil, that the King’s writ ran from one end of the country to the next. Early 17th century Ireland is covered in martial law, pre-emptive martial law, so that before the Plantation - even before The Flight of the Earls - there had been a marked increase in the use of martial law in Ulster.

In the years after the Treaty of Mellifont, and before The Flight of the Earls, Tyrone’s country and the territories of his confederates and so on, was treated by martial law commissioners and Provosts Martial. Now what’s so interesting about the behaviour of these men is, you have to understand again the mechanics of their authority: a martial law commissioner has a vested interest in killing; by the terms of a martial law commission, a martial law commissioner will identify suspect groups, execute them summarily, for which service to the state he is entitled to at least one-third of the moveable goods and possessions of those he kills. Therefore it is in his interests to kill and kill a lot, he makes more money: also, to kill the elite, the gentry, the landowners because they’ve got the moveable goods and possessions that can really make you rich quick.

And these martial law commissioners had been on the rampage in the late 16th century, and in the early 17th century they do not go away. In Ulster, one particular character raises his head more so than others - Moses Hill; and Moses Hill is the ancestor of the Hills of Hillsborough, and he was Provost Martial of east Ulster: and from 1603 onwards, he’s starting out in Carrickfergus, subsequently pushing further and further into Tyrone’s country and into the, sort of, Donagh O’Neill, the O’Neill country. He basically imposed martial law on anyone who got in his way. In 1606 he was given a pre-emptive pardon for any murders of innocents that he may commit in the course of his duty as Provost Martial of east Ulster, and that’s of course just as the government, and Davies, and Chichester and so on are beginning to really tighten the grip around Tyrone’s country - Moses Hill is their stalking-horse.