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He oversaw widespread persecution of Catholics, and ordered the execution of two bishops, including the aged and respected Conor O'Devany. Lord Deputy Chichester saw Irish Catholicism as a major threat to the crown. A year later in 1606 he married Lettice Perrot, widow successively of Walter Vaughan of Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, and John Langhorne of St Brides, Pembrokeshire, and daughter of Sir John Perrot, a former Lord Deputy of Ireland. O'Neill's weakening military position forced him to abandon and destroy his capital at Dungannon.įollowing the signing of the Treaty of Mellifont, he succeeded Charles Blount, 1st Earl of Devonshire as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 3 February 1605. While these tactics were not initially devised by Chichester, he carried them out ruthlessly, gaining a hate-figure status among the Irish. In a 1600 letter to Cecil he stated "a million swords will not do them so much harm as one winter's famine". He encircled O'Neill's forces with garrisons, effectively starving the Earl's troops. His tactics included a scorched earth policy. ĭuring the Nine Years' War Chichester commanded royal troops in Ulster. James Sorley MacDonnell, commander of the clan's forces at the Battle of Carrickfergus, was poisoned in Dunluce Castle on the orders of Robert Cecil to placate Chichester. It is said that John Chichester was decapitated, and his head used as a football by the MacDonnell clan after their victory.
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His career in Ireland began when in 1598 Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex appointed him Governor of Carrickfergus, following the death of his brother Sir John Chichester who had been killed at the Battle of Carrickfergus the previous year.
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He was wounded in the shoulder during the Siege of Amiens in September 1597 during which the city was captured from the Spanish. A year later he was with English forces in France fighting with King Henry IV against the Spanish in Picardy. Later in the Anglo–Spanish War he commanded a company during the 1596 raid on Cádiz, for which he was knighted. In 1595 he accompanied Sir Francis Drake on his last expedition to the Americas. CareerĪfter attending Exeter College, Oxford, favoured by many Devonians, Chichester commanded HMS Larke against the Spanish Armada in 1588. Arthur's mother was Gertrude Courtenay, a daughter of Sir William III Courtenay (1477–1535) "The Great", of Powderham, Devon, 6th in descent from Hugh Courtenay, 2nd Earl of Devon (died 1377), MP for Devon in 1529, thrice Sheriff of Devon, in 1522, 1525–6, 1533–4, an Esquire of the Body to King Henry VIII, whom he accompanied to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Several streets are named in honour of himself and his nephew and heir Arthur Chichester, 1st Earl of Donegall, including Chichester Street and the adjoining Donegall Place, site of the Belfast City Hall.Īrthur Chichester was the second son of Sir John Chichester (d.1569), of Raleigh, Pilton, in North Devon, a leading member of the Devonshire gentry, a naval captain, and ardent Protestant who served as Sheriff of Devon in 1550–1551, and as Knight of the Shire for Devon in 1547, April 1554, and 1563, and as Member of Parliament for Barnstaple in 1559. He was instrumental in the founding and expansion of Belfast, now Northern Ireland's capital. On the right hand column are shown the arms of Arthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester of Belfast, then Lord Deputy of IrelandĪrthur Chichester, 1st Baron Chichester (May 1563 – 19 February 1625), (known between 15 as Sir Arthur Chichester), of Carrickfergus in Ireland, was an English administrator and soldier who served as Lord Deputy of Ireland from 1605 to 1616. The Right HonourableĪnglo-Irish School portrait in the collection of Belfast Harbour CommissionersĪrms of Chichester: Chequy or and gules, a chief vairįrontispiece of the manuscript of the 1607 heraldic visitation by Ulster King of Arms Daniel Molyneux, undertaken in Dublin. For other uses, see Arthur Chichester (disambiguation).