Londonderry and Coleraine

The city of Londonderry and the town of Coleraine – situated respectively on the Rivers Foyle and Bann in northern Ulster – owed their seventeenth century form to the London companies’ plantation established in 1610. Existing settlements at both sites were swept away as new walls, roads and houses were laid out; but after this initial burst of activity, the building of both towns slowed considerably. J.S. Curl, The Londonderry Plantation (Chichester, 1986), 26-7, 43-53; A. Thomas, Derry-Londonderry (Irish Historic Towns Atlas no. 15, Dublin, 2005), 2-4. Later in James I’s reign, one writer found little to comment on, as: ‘they are like new palaces, they are not slated nor the floors laid yet’. Stowe 180, f. 39. An official report was less forgiving: both towns needed more settlers and more houses; Coleraine lacked proper gates; Londonderry’s walls were incomplete; and the site of the latter was deemed vulnerable to attack from the sea. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 325. The City of London’s lack of success in rectifying such abuses was one reason for the crown’s confiscation of the entire plantation in 1635, and despite efforts to regain the lease in the next few years, the king refused to reverse his decision. CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 182-3, 192-211. The resultant political vacuum affected the elections for the 1640 Irish Parliament. In 1634, before the forfeiture, the boroughs had mostly chosen men employed by the London companies, especially those associated with the influential local figure, Tristram Beresford senior; but six years later the MPs were a mixture of local landowners and protégés of Lord Deputy Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†). H. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. (Cambridge, 1989), 258-9; McGrath, Biographical Dict. The hiatus had physical as well as political consequence. Few new improvements had been undertaken to either borough in the later 1630s: in May 1641 it was reported that the quays were defective, the need for new houses had not been addressed, and the incomplete fortifications were weakened further by a dearth of ordnance at Culmore Fort, which guarded the seaward approaches to Londonderry. Acts of Corporation of Coleraine ed. B. McGrath (Dublin, 2017), 81n; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 295.

In the event, the walls of Londonderry and Coleraine seem to have withstood the Irish rebellion easily enough. Yet the Irish occupation of the surrounding countryside and the influx of refugees (in Coleraine’s c.3-4,000 sought sanctuary), caused enormous problems of supply for both boroughs in the early months of the rising. Curl, Londonderry, 91-2. Equally worrying was the threat posed by divisions within the Protestant camp. From the spring of 1642 Coleraine was the principal garrison and supply-base for the Scots forces in western Ulster, with up to 900 men being billeted on the town, while Londonderry remained under English control. Coleraine ed. McGrath, 124; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 194. As tensions started to grow in the mid-1640s, not only between the Scots and the New English in Ulster (over such issues as the cessation of arms and the Covenant), but also between the Scottish and English Parliaments on the mainland, relations between the two garrisons started to worsen. CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 386, 417. Throughout this period, Londonderry was also riven by religious and political factionalism within the garrison and city itself. The city government was under investigation for corrupt accounting as early as the winter of 1644, and for the next two years claims and counter-claims were adjudicated at Westminster. The main protagonists were the mayor for 1642-4, Robert Thornton, who led an Episcopalian party which rejected the Covenant, the garrison captains (including Thomas Newburgh* and Tristram Beresford*), and a merchant group led by Alderman Alexander Geering. SP28/255, unfol.; SP28/256, unfol.; SP28/139/9; CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 504, 562; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 441; 1645-7, pp. 188, 205, 212, 217. The absence of the governor, Lord Folliot (appointed in August 1645) did little to improve matters, and it was only when Parliament appointed the veteran Connaught soldier, Sir Charles Coote*, as acting governor in the spring of 1647 (after an attempt by an army officer to murder the then mayor) that the internecine disputes were settled. CSP Dom. 1645-7, pp. 60, 67, 147; CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 587, 599.

After the crushing defeat of the Ulster Scots at Benburb in June 1646, Coleraine became the headquarters of General Robert Monro and his remaining forces. Their sojourn was extremely unpopular with the townspeople, who refused to contribute to loans and resisted free quarter, leading to supplies being taken by force. Coleraine ed. McGrath, 161-2, 164-5, 172. On the renewal of civil war in England in 1648 the growing tensions between the Scots at Coleraine and the English at Londonderry erupted into violence, and after the execution of the king in January 1649, the Scots joined forces with the royalist ‘Laggan’ regiments to besiege Coote in Londonderry for many months. Irish Confederation ed. J.T. Gilbert, vi. 286; Bodl. Tanner 56, f. 76; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 788; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 40, 42, 120; 1649-50, pp. 93-4, 459. The siege was lifted after the intervention of Owen Roe O’Neill’s army in July; a few months later Cromwellian forces commanded by Colonel Robert Venables* had arrived in the area and with their support Coote was able to wrest Coleraine from Scottish control. Curl, Londonderry, 93. Coote was greeted with some enthusiasm by the Coleraine corporation, which agreed to pay a yearly sum to the new garrison in January 1650, subscribed the Engagement in April, and in May made his brother, Colonel Thomas Coote*, an alderman. Coleraine ed. McGrath, 207, 210, 212. The remainder of northern Ulster was subdued after the defeat of the Ulster Irish by Coote and his English allies at Scarrifhollis, west of Londonderry, in June 1650. Ludlow, Mems. i. 255; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 295-6.

The Irish wars completely changed the political geography of western Ulster, and this had a knock-on effect on Londonderry and Coleraine. In the early 1650s the Scottish planters were in disgrace; the London companies, although hopeful of being restored to their possession, had little influence on the ground; and in this power vacuum, the Coote family – whose political influence had previously been centred on Connaught – established themselves as the dominant presence in whole of the north west of Ireland. By 1651 Coleraine had been garrisoned by the regiment of Sir Charles Coote’s brother, Colonel Thomas Coote*, and Londonderry continued to be manned by Sir Charles Coote’s own troops. SP28/75, f. 31. The latter town’s attachment to the commonwealth (under the watchful eye of Sir Charles Coote) prompted Mercurius Politicus to contrast its position with that of the recalcitrant City of London

From Londonderry letters say the Engagement goes down there like butter with a Dutchman: nor was there any scruple of conscience made up with all the pills that were swallowed there by the mayor, aldermen and common council; for hey down derry, that order of men begins to be the wisest in the both Londons. Mercurius Politicus no. 2 (13-20 June 1650), 26-7 (E.603.13).

The influence of the Cootes over the area seems to have continued into the mid-1650s, as confirmed by the parliamentary elections held in the combined constituency of Londonderry and Coleraine under the protectorate. The two settlements were allowed one MP under the guidelines drawn up by the protectorate council, with elections being held at Londonderry. CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 800; Mercurius Politicus no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), 3710 (E.809.5). The election held on 27 July 1654, with the sheriff, Michael Beresford, presiding, was decided by the ‘aldermen, burgesses and inhabitants’ of the two boroughs, at least 45 of whom signed the indenture. C219/44, unfol. The signatories included such prominent local figures including Simon Pitts, Henry Finch and Henry Osborne from Londonderry, and a smaller contingent from Coleraine, including Richard Brasier, Edward Cossens and Stephen Cuppage. SP16/539/2, f. 49; McGrath, Biographical Dict.; CJI i. 592; Coleraine ed. McGrath, 246. In both 1654 and 1656 the electors returned Ralph King, the mayor of Londonderry in 1654, who had been a client of Sir Charles Coote since 1647. C219/45, unfol.

King was re-elected as MP in 1659, but by then the Coote interest in the region had declined. This process may have been accelerated by the City of London, which was making concerted efforts to win back its plantation lands, with encouragement from the government at Whitehall. CSP Dom. 1654, p. 269; 1655, p. 315. In March 1656 London was restored to its rights over County Londonderry; the city of Londonderry received a new charter in 1657; and the 12 London companies regained their lands in 1658. Curl, Londonderry, 95; The Bishopric of Derry ed. T.W. Moody and J.G. Simms (2 vols. Dublin, 1968), i. 246-320; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 117. The granting of the charter reinforced the growing sense of corporate identity within Londonderry, and a similar process may have been happening in Coleraine, where the Beresfords were reasserting their autonomy. In a bold step in April 1659 the corporation ‘displaced’ Thomas Coote as alderman for his ‘constant absence for many years past’. Coleraine ed. McGrath, 266. It is also telling that in the elections for the General Convention, which sat in March 1660, Londonderry chose its recorder, John Godbold, and Coleraine returned Michael Beresford, who had served as its mayor in 1658-9. Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 178-80.

Although after the Restoration Sir Charles Coote was created earl of Mountrath and lord justice of Ireland, his influence in Londonderry and Coleraine did not return to the level of the early 1650s. Nor were the attempts of the London companies to win over Charles II received with much favour, as the plantation was still officially under forfeiture, and rights granted under the protectorate were deemed invalid. CSP Dom. 1660-1, pp. 309, 399. The elections for the Irish Parliament in 1661 suggest that, in the absence of outside interference, the inhabitants of both boroughs were electing their own representatives: John Godbold was joined by Hugh Edwards at Londonderry, while Randolph Beresford and Stephen Cuppage were returned for Coleraine. CJI i. 592. It was not until 1662 that the City of London succeeded in securing the renewal of its charter for the whole plantation, including the city of Londonderry and the town of Coleraine. A New Hist. of Ireland, vol. iii. ed. Moody, Martin and Byrne (1975), 423.