What Forfeiture Means

Full passage

Ireland, 1752. Declan watches his family placed before the court as living evidence of what Crown forfeiture would take from them.

That stayed with me.

Until then, I had thought forfeiture meant land, deeds, the farmhouse, the fields, the barn, the cattle, the name on papers. Flanagan wanted the court to see faces.

He placed Alex at the front beside him. Jeanne-Marie sat beside Alex, close enough that their sleeves touched. Christina sat just behind Alex’s shoulder. I sat behind Alex and Christina, where I could see the side of my brother’s face and the back of Flanagan’s hand as he arranged the papers. Margaret and Elizabeth sat near us with the children, doing their best to keep Charles quiet and Marie-Louise content.

We had been arranged not as a family at table but as visible evidence of what the Crown proposed to dispossess.

Judge Edmund Ó hAodha entered in black robes.

Everyone rose.

I had never seen a judge before. I had imagined someone grander, perhaps, or crueller. He was neither. That made him worse. He looked composed, dry-eyed, unhurried, the sort of man who could hear disaster spoken and still ask for the next paper. His face held no warmth, but no malice either. Flanagan had warned Alex that Ó hAodha was strict in law and not easily moved by sentiment. I had not understood why that frightened everyone. Surely a man unmoved by sentiment might also be unmoved by gossip.

I was still young enough to think coldness and fairness were kin.

The judge sat, and the clerk called the court to order. The chamber became a place where spoken words and written law could take everything from us.

‘We are gathered here today,’ Judge Ó hAodha began, his voice carrying across the chamber, ‘to determine the rightful ownership of Killiecrankie Farm, following the execution of one Robert MacKail for murder, theft, and conspiracy against the Crown.’

Jeanne-Marie’s hand tightened on Alex’s arm.

I saw his jaw set, but he did not move.

Robert MacKail—not Father or Robbie, nor the man who had looked at me while standing in chains.

Only Robert MacKail, convicted and dead, now useful to the Crown as a reason to seize what remained.

Flanagan stood.

He was stout, steady, and not young, but that morning he seemed larger than the table before him.

‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘we are here to prove that my client, Alexander MacKail, had no involvement in or knowledge of the alleged crimes for which his father was convicted. At the time of the alleged offences, Alexander MacKail was living in France and had no involvement in his father’s activities.’

A murmur passed through the room.

The judge’s gaze sharpened.

‘And what proof do you have of this, Mister Flanagan? Mere words will not suffice in my court.’

Flanagan gestured towards the bundle of letters on the table.

‘These letters, Your Lordship, written by Alex MacKail and witnessed by Antoine Laurent, a respected merchant in Paris, confirm his presence there during the time in question. We have also gathered testimonies from others in France who can corroborate his alibi.’

Alibi.

That was one of the words I learnt that week.

At first it sounded like the name of an illness. I later understood that it meant proof that a man had been elsewhere when an offence occurred. Alex had been elsewhere. Therefore he could not have done what they tried to hang upon his name.

The judge leaned forward, eyeing the letters.

Then he nodded to the prosecutor.

A thin man rose.

I noticed his name before anything else, because the clerk had spoken it clearly.

Declan Byrne.

Declan.

I remember the irritation of it. It was childish, perhaps, but I resented him at once. My name in another man’s mouth would have been bad enough. My name attached to the man arguing that our home should be taken felt like a theft so small no court would ever notice it.

He was narrow in body, with a long face and careful hands. His wig sat too neatly. His voice was sharp without being loud.

‘Your Lordship,’ Byrne said, ‘while it may be true that Alex MacKail was not in Ireland when these crimes took place, that does not absolve him of responsibility for the property he now claims. Killiecrankie Farm was, and remains, a part of the estate of Robert MacKail, a convicted criminal. As such, under the laws of forfeiture, the Crown retains full right to seize the property.’

The Crown.

I looked around, half expecting some visible thing to answer to the name.

There was only the judge, the prosecutor, the clerk, the papers, and the men on the benches who had come to watch whether we would be stripped.

Flanagan rose again.