forfeiture of their lands and titles. Planning the plantation A colonization of Ulster had been proposed since the end of the Nine Years' War. The original proposals were smaller, involving planting settlers around key military posts and on church land, and would have included large land grants to native Irish lords who sided with the English during the war, such as Niall Garve O'Donnell. However, in 1608 Sir Cahir O'Doherty of Inishowen launched a rebellion, capturing and burning the town of Derry. The brief rebellion was ended by Sir Richard Wingfield at the Battle of Kilmacrennan. The rebellion prompted Arthur Chichester, the Lord Deputy of Ireland, to plan a much bigger plantation and to expropriate the legal titles of all native landowners in the province. John Davies, the Attorney-General for Ireland, used the law as a tool of conquest and colonization. Before the Flight of the Earls, the English administration had sought to minimize the personal estates of the chieftains, but now they treated the chieftains as sole owners of their whole territories, so that all the land could be confiscated. Most of this land was deemed to be forfeited (or escheated) to the Crown because the chieftains were declared to be attainted. English judges had also declared that titles to land held under gavelkind, the native Irish custom of inheriting land, had no standing under English law. Davies used this as a means to confiscate land, when other means failed. The Plantation of Ulster was presented to James I as a joint "British", or English and Scottish, venture to 'pacify' and 'civilise' Ulster, with half the settlers to be from one country. James had been King of Scotland before he also became King of England and needed to reward his Scottish subjects with land in Ulster to assure them they were not being neglected now that he had moved his court to London. Long-standing contacts between Ulster and the west of Scotland meant that Scottish participation was a practical necessity. James saw the Gaels as barbarous and rebellious, and believed Gaelic culture should be wiped out. For centuries, Scottish Gaelic mercenaries called gallowglass (gallóglaigh) had been migrating to Ireland to serve under the Irish chiefs. Another goal of the plantation was to sever Gaelic Ulster's links with the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. Six counties were involved in the official plantationDonegal, Londonderry, Tyrone, Fermanagh, Cavan and Armagh. In the two