Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642

Debate on the gracesPetition of the CommonsThe King’s promise as to titlesFree Trade demanded

The Lords had discussed the graces, and had ventured to suggest what laws should be passed to carry out the remedial policy foreshadowed by them. The debates had no conclusion, but Wentworth protested even against talk as an infringement of Poynings’ Act. According to him they had no business to do anything more than offer humble prayers to the Lord Deputy; and that was the course adopted by the Commons. The petition begins by reciting that titles in Ireland were generally uncertain, many documents having been lost or stolen during rude and disturbed times, and others being defective through the ignorance of those who drew or engrossed them; ‘whereof divers indigent persons, with eagle eyes piercing thereinto commonly took advantage to the utter overthrow of many noble and deserving persons, that for the valuable consideration of service unto the Crown, or money, or both, honourably and fairly acquired their estates, which is the principal cause of the slow improving planting and building in this land.’ While this uncertainty existed no one had the courage to make improvements, and everyone longed for the English law of James I., which made sixty years possession a good title even against the Crown. This grace, the Commons said, had been ‘particularly promised by his Majesty, approved by both the Councils of State of England and Ireland, and published in all the Irish counties at the assizes, and was most expected of all the other graces.’ They also protested, though in very guarded language, against the common law being overridden by the Council and the Star Chamber. Next to the security of real property the most important matter was the encouragement of trade and manufactures, for want of which Ireland swarmed with ‘vagabonds and beggars, sound of limb and strong of body.’ Free trade was what they really asked for, which was for the benefit of both King and people. On the faith of the graces which they believed would give them prosperity, the subjects of Ireland had already given 310,000l. and now they had voted six subsidies more, which was far in excess of what had been done in past ages. They acknowledged Wentworth’s ‘strong propension’ to advancing the good of the country, and exhorted him to increase his reputation by persuading his Majesty to redeem past promises and thus to ‘conserve a right intelligence between the best of Kings and his most faithful and dutiful subjects of Ireland.’198

The King’s promises are not keptThe King can do no wrongProrogation August 2Second session, Nov. 4The Commons are unmanageableSir Piers Crosbie

Wentworth’s answer was what might have been expected. Official extortion he was ready to repress, and all administrative reforms he would further to the utmost, but rather by way of concession from the King than by law. Orders in Council were to be preferred to Acts of Parliament, unless the latter were likely to bring profit to the Exchequer. Nothing was to be done to limit the royal power in any way. The much-desired sixty years’ title was not to be established by law, for it would involve the loss of fees and fines under the commission for confirmation of defective titles, it would interfere with the King’s profit upon tenures, and it would almost entirely prevent the colonisation schemes from which Wentworth expected so much. These ideas were readily adopted at Court, and the word of a King was once more shown to be of none effect. Wentworth dreaded the imputation of refusing to redress grievances after the price of reform had been paid, but hardly seems to have realised that he was doing that very thing. He had the courage of his opinions, and he knew his ‘great master’ as he is fond of calling Charles. ‘In these particulars,’ he said, ‘wherein the request of the petition shall be yielded to by your Majesty, we desire to reserve entirely to yourself the beauty of the act, and the acknowledgment thereof; so in the other particulars, wherein there is reason to deny them their requests, we your servants will assume the same to ourselves.’ The Chancellor, Lord Cork, and Sir William Parsons lent the weight of their signatures to Wentworth’s memorandum, but the name of Mountnorris is wanting. Rumours that the graces would be withheld were soon in circulation, and on November 4, after a three months’ recess, Parliament met again in very bad humour. There had been some delay in transmitting final instructions from England, and it was not till the 27th that Wentworth announced the denial of the most important graces. In the House of Commons the Roman Catholics, through the negligence or secret sympathy of some Protestants, found themselves in a majority upon that day, and at once broke into open revolt. They rejected every Bill presented to them, though some were evidently useful and harmless, and business was at a standstill. ‘Had it continued two days in that state,’ said Wentworth, ‘I had certainly adjourned the House, advertised over, and craven his Majesty’s judgment.’ For a moment the lead of the Opposition was assumed by Sir Piers Crosbie, member for the Queen’s County, a Protestant and a Privy Councillor, and here Wentworth saw his opportunity. He summoned the Council, and easily persuaded them to suspend Crosbie, and he afterwards had instructions from England to expel him altogether. He then went to the House of Lords. ‘I told them,’ he said, ‘what a shame it was for the Protestant party, that were in number the greater, to suffer their religion to be insensibly supplanted, his Majesty in some degree disregarded, the good ordinances transmitted for their future peace and good government to be thus disdainfully trodden under foot by a company of wilful, insolent people, envious both to their religion and to their peace, and all this for want of a few days’ diligent attendance upon the service of the public.’

Wentworth rallies the Protestant majorityExpulsion of Geoffrey Baron

He urged each peer to exert his influence with friends in the House of Commons; this was done, and a working majority was again secured. Among the wilful insolent people was Geoffrey Baron, member for Clonmel, ‘a young man, a kind of petty chapman’s son, who by peddling left him some 200l. a year,’ who opposed everything and who recklessly misstated facts. Wentworth determined to make an example of him, and the motion for his expulsion was carried by sixteen. After this things went smoothly, and all the Government Bills were passed into law.199

Sir Vincent Gookin’s caseAn impeachment threatenedJudicial functions of ParliamentGookin on the English settlers

Soon after the beginning of the second session both Houses were much excited by a letter of Sir Vincent Gookin, an enterprising English settler who had much property in the county of Cork. It was addressed to the Lord Deputy, though never delivered to him, and it is doubtful whether it was printed or not. In any case it was freely circulated in Munster, and a copy of it read out in the House of Commons. It was, says Wentworth, ‘a most bitter invective against the whole nation, natives, old English, new English, Papist, Protestant, captains, soldiers and all … it was evident they would have hanged him if they could. The libel indeed is wondrous foul and scandalous.’ An impeachment was threatened, and the two Houses had a conference, where Lord Mountnorris pointed out that the House of Commons had no power to administer an oath, but that the Lords would examine their witnesses and give sentence even in the delinquent’s absence. The judges were consulted, and declared that his land could not be seized as security for his appearance. Mountnorris said nothing about the Deputy and Council, and Wentworth, to prevent the assumption of judicial authority by Parliament, had already sent a pursuivant to arrest Gookin, who made haste to get out of Ireland, where his life was hardly safe. Wentworth in person informed Parliament that the principle of Poynings’ Act extended to judicial as well as to legislative functions, and that moreover the case was already in his hands. He observed that the King had no reason to be pleased with the exercise of parliamentary jurisdiction in England, and having always an eye to revenue, he added that Sir Vincent, who was a very rich man, was well able to bear a fine great in proportion to his offence. Early in the following year Gookin was brought back from England and imprisoned in the Castle, and Wentworth received the thanks of Parliament with a request that he would continue the prosecution, which the English Government left in his hands. It does not appear whether this was done, but Gookin, who paid 1,000l. a year to labourers and fishermen in the neighbourhood of Bandon, and who had thirty years’ experience of Ireland, came into frequent collision with Lord Cork, which was likely to make Wentworth lenient. Gookin was a strong Protestant, who hated the Irish and their priests, and was quite willing to be hated by them in return, but he thought the English Irish even worse. It might have been different if the settlers could have been kept to themselves, but as it was the English influence had a constant tendency to grow weaker. ‘As soon as any Englishman cometh over and settleth himself in this country and hath gotten any estate, he findeth himself environed with the Irish, and hath no safety both for himself and posterity but by some way to stick themselves by marriage and gossiping or the like.’ Gookin died some four years later, and his son, who played a considerable part during the Commonwealth, took a somewhat different view of the country.200

Wentworth’s regard for privilege of ParliamentSubmissiveness of the CommonsA parliamentary bravo

Another incident occurred during this same session which is important only as an illustration of Wentworth’s high-handed methods. Sir John Dongan having made a speech unpleasing to the official party in the House of Commons, Captain Charles Price remarked in a loud tone that he did not know what he was doing. An altercation followed which Dongan evidently tried to avoid, for he said he meant no harm. Price then called him saucy, and Sir John very naturally gave him the lie. All this happened inside the bar of the House of Commons, yet the Council took the case up. Dongan was imprisoned in the Castle, forced to give a written apology, fined, and ordered to be brought by the constable of the Castle to the bar of the House and to repeat his submission there upon his knees. This was carried out to the letter a few days later, and entered in the journals, without comment. A committee of six was appointed to wait on the Lord Deputy and beg him to remit the penalty for offending the King, the offence to Parliament and to the Lord Deputy having been already purged. Price was employed by Wentworth as an agent at Court, for which purpose he had very long leave from his military duties. We may judge from a letter of Lord Keeper Coventry what sort of man he was. ‘Your servant, Captain Price, is now with us, and I assure you is not silent in anything that concerns your honour, and in truth serves you with his tongue and protests he will not fail to do it with his sword. I hope your lordship hath no need of the latter in Ireland, and your friends here are well pleased to hear how he lays about him with the former, and therefore it is hoped you will yet spare him from his garrison till he have done here what is meet to be done.’201

Assessment of the subsidiesWentworth wishes to keep his Parliament together, but the King insists on a dissolutionParliament dissolved, April 18, 1635

No subsidy had hitherto yielded more than about 30,000l., but there had been many exemptions and many cases of fraud whereby the great transferred their share of the burden to the poor. Wentworth succeeded in raising each subsidy to rather more than 40,000l. from the Commons, with over 6,000l. from the nobility, and 3,000l. from the clergy. The two last sums were to be levied by the Government, but the House of Commons, fearing lest the Deputy should be tempted to take even more than had been agreed upon, themselves assessed the amount which their constituents were to pay in each county. Leinster was set down for 13,000l., Ulster for 10,000l., Munster for 11,200l., and Connaught for 6,800l. The highest rated county was Cork, which with the city paid nearly 4,000l. Dublin city and county were assessed at 1,000l. apiece. The House of Commons also inquired into arrears due by the Crown, and these they found amounted to about 130,000l. They recommended that certain sums due to the Archbishop of Dublin, the Bishop of Meath, and the Dean of Christchurch should be paid at once in full. The next to be satisfied were ladies, the attainder of whose husbands or fathers had enriched the Crown; Lady Desmond and her daughters, Lady Mary O’Dogherty, and Lady Mary O’Reilly being mentioned by name. Arrears of pay due to civil or military officers were to be satisfied in proportion to the actual benefit derived from their services, sinecurists being left in the lurch, and all useless places recommended to be abolished. When the work of the Parliament was done, Wentworth wished to prorogue it. ‘This House,’ he said, ‘is very well composed; so as the Protestants are the major part, clearly and thoroughly with the King, which would be difficult to compass again, if you were now to call another.’ He thought that the existence of this obedient majority would serve to overawe the Roman Catholics, who alone were dangerous, and who would be deterred from opposing schemes of colonisation by the knowledge that the English recusancy laws might be passed over their heads at any moment. But Charles was of opinion that Parliaments ‘are of the nature of cats, they ever grow curst with age,’ and directed Wentworth to dissolve as soon as the necessary business was done. Coke had intercepted a large budget of letters between the Irish Recusants and their French friends, and he had no doubt that as soon as there was danger either from Spain or France ‘all would join together to replant themselves at home.’ Wentworth thought a Parliament well in hand would be a useful instrument to have ready, but he was not allowed to keep it. The royal consent was given to a number of Acts, and the subsidy arrangements being complete, the two Houses had little to do except to squabble about matters of etiquette, and were dissolved without settling them. ‘We have now,’ Wentworth wrote, ‘under the conduct of our prudent and excellent master, concluded this Parliament, with an universal contentment, as I take it.’ He thought it had done more than all former Parliaments put together, both for King, Church and subject, and that Charles was ‘more absolute master by his wisdom,’ than his predecessors had ever been by the sword.202

Meeting of Convocation, 1613-1615The Hundred and Four ArticlesCharacter of the Irish Articles

‘Proctors in the Convocation House’ are officially mentioned in Henry VIII.’s time, but the first regular Convocation of the Irish Church was held in connection with the Parliament of 1613. It was summoned by the King’s writ, and met in St. Patrick’s Cathedral on May 24 in that year. It consisted of the bishops and of representatives from the four provincial synods. Lord Chancellor Jones as Archbishop of Dublin presided in the Upper, and Randolph Barlow, after wards Archbishop of Tuam, in the Lower House; both were Cambridge men. The principal business of this assembly was to pass the Articles, one hundred and four in number, which are generally attributed to James Ussher, then professor of divinity in Dublin. Ussher’s Puritanism was more pronounced in his earlier days than afterwards, and James was less hostile to that school than he later became. These Articles, which superseded those of 1566, received the royal assent, though they practically incorporated those promulgated at Lambeth in 1595. They were more Calvinistic and more polemical than the thirty-nine received by the Church of England upon which Burnet, in the interest of peace and comprehension, expended his latitudinarian casuistry. It may suffice to note that of the Irish Articles the twelfth declares that ‘God hath predestinated some unto life and reprobated some unto death: of both which there is a certain number, known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished’; and the eightieth that the Pope is ‘that man of sin foretold in the Holy Scriptures whom the Lord shall consume, &c.’ In 1615 this Convocation granted one subsidy to the King.203

The Thirty-nine Articles are adopted, 1634, but without repealing the othersHow Wentworth treated ConvocationNon-subscribers to be excommunicated

Convocation met at the same time as Parliament, Ussher presiding in the Upper and Henry Leslie Dean, and afterwards Bishop, of Down in the Lower House. Wentworth’s ‘thorough’ extended to Church as well as to State, and his great object was to have the Thirty-nine Articles established. Ussher and others were attached to the Irish Articles of 1615, and the Lord Deputy thought it prudent to leave them unrepealed while superseding them in practice, a course in which Laud acquiesced. ‘I was,’ says Bramhall, now Bishop of Derry, ‘the only man employed from him to the Convocation, and from the Convocation to him.’ Wentworth had, however, private discussions with Ussher, and of these Bramhall may have known nothing. The ‘dovelike simplicity’ of the Primate, to use Bramhall’s phrase, was easily borne down by the imperious viceroy, and the House of Bishops adopted the English Articles readily enough, as well as the canon which directed their use. The Lower House appointed a Committee, over which George Andrews, Dean of Limerick, presided, whose draft report excited Wentworth’s wrath, for it provided among other things that the Articles of 1615 should be received on pain of excommunication. The Lord Deputy sent for Andrews and called him Ananias, impounded his papers, and forbade him to report anything to the House. He then wrote to the prolocutor Leslie, enclosing a form of canon drawn up by himself, after rejecting one composed by Ussher, and ordered him to put it to the House ‘without admitting any debate or other discourse.’ The Articles of the Church of England were not to be disputed, and the names of those who voted aye and no were to be sent to him. This drastic procedure succeeded, and there was but one dissentient. As a formal concession to the independence of the Irish Church, the canons agreed upon were not quite identical with those of England, but the first, which established the Thirty-nine Articles, effected all that Wentworth wanted. It provided that ‘if any hereafter shall affirm that any of those Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated, and not absolved before he make a public revocation of his error.’ Ussher and Bramhall are agreed that the Articles of 1615 were not abrogated, but the latter informs us that any bishop ‘would have been called to an account’ who had required subscription to them after the English Articles were authorised under the Great Seal of Ireland.204

Wentworth and the Queen of BohemiaUnpopularity of Laud

The veteran diplomatist Sir Thomas Roe was so much struck by Wentworth’s success that he advised the unfortunate Queen of Bohemia to make him her friend. ‘He is severe abroad and in business, and sweet in private conversation, retired in his friendships but very firm, a terrible judge, and a strong enemy; a servant violently zealous in his master’s ends, and not negligent of his own; one that will have what he will, and though of great reason, he can make his will greater when it may serve him; affecting glory by a seeming contempt; one that cannot stay long in the middle region of fortune, but entreprenant; but will either be the greatest man in England or much less than he is; lastly one that may – and his nature lies fit for it, for he is ambitious to do what others will not – do your Majesty very great service if you can make him.’ Laud had been misrepresented, and he also might be very useful. Elizabeth took Roe’s advice, and afterwards corresponded pretty often with the Lord Deputy, whom she had never seen. Her great object was to get some provision made for the poor ministers who were driven out of the Palatinate. ‘As for Laud,’ she said, ‘I am glad you commend him so much, for there are but a few who do it.’205

CHAPTER XIII

STRAFFORD AND THE ULSTER SCOTS

Rise of a Presbyterian community in UlsterTwo tolerant bishopsExtension of Laud’s system to Ireland

The Scottish settlers in Ulster gave trouble from the first, for crossing the sea did not change their nature, nor their religious opinions. When Presbyterianism was oppressed at home, Ireland received its ministers; when persecution came there, they could go back to Scotland. Always glad to promote his own countrymen, James I. appointed them to Irish bishoprics; they in their turn ordained others, often without much inquiry as to their views on Church government. Andrew Knox, who was Bishop of Raphoe from 1611 to 1633, was not over particular about the regularity of orders, and many Presbyterians were preferred by him. ‘Old Bishop Knox,’ says Adair, ‘refused no honest man, having heard him preach. By this chink John Livingston and sundry others got entrance.’ Knox died about the time of Wentworth’s coming to Ireland, and up to that time another Scotch bishop, Robert Echlin of Down, followed in his footsteps. Livingston had been silenced by Spottiswood in Scotland, but brought recommendations from eminent laymen, and Knox told him he thought his own life had been prolonged only to do such offices as ordination. He did not care about being called my Lord, and he allowed the imposition of hands to be by presbyters in his presence. He gave Livingston the book of ordination, desiring him to draw a line through any words to which he objected. ‘I found,’ says the latter, ‘that it had been so marked by some others before that I needed not mark anything; so the Lord was pleased to carry that business far beyond anything that I had thought or ever desired.’ This was in 1630. Seven years before Echlin had done a like service for Robert Blair, acting only as one of several presbyters. ‘This,’ says Blair, ‘I could not refuse, and so the matter was performed.’ Knox was succeeded by John Leslie, and Echlin by Henry Leslie, neither of whom was much inclined to make terms with Presbyterianism. The Laudian canons had altered the position for them, and later on the Covenant made the breach irreparable.206

Wentworth, Laud, and Bramhall, 1634A conference where no one is converted, 1636Bramhall’s rhetoricSilenced ministers go to Scotland

In May 1634 Bramhall became Bishop of Derry in succession to Downham, who had been a strong Calvinist and a friend of Presbyterians. He was soon in correspondence with Wentworth, who encouraged him to insist on strict conformity, and with Laud, whose confidence he enjoyed throughout. Very many of the Scotch ministers were driven back to their own country, there to swell the growing discontent and to prepare the way for the lay crowds whom Wentworth’s later policy was to drive out of Ulster. Bramhall did not confine himself to his own diocese, but gave his services to Down also, where Echlin was driven to enforce conformity without much conviction on his own part. Henry Leslie succeeded on Echlin’s death, and a conference was held at Belfast on August 11, 1636, between the two bishops and five Presbyterians who refused to subscribe the new canons. Among them was Edward Brice, who is regarded as the founder of that church in Ulster. Their spokesman was James Hamilton, Lord Claneboy’s nephew, who had been ordained by Echlin ten years before. Both sides were no doubt satisfied that they were wholly in the right, but Bramhall was more extreme even than Leslie, who as bishop of the diocese of course conducted the controversy. According to the Bishop of Derry, who intervened frequently, Hamilton was a prattling Jack, a fellow fit to be whipped, who might worship the devil if he pleased. He prescribed hellebore to purge the Scot’s brain, reminding him with a bold metaphor that the weight of Church and State did not hang ‘upon the Atlas shoulders of such bullrushes’ as he was; and he blamed Leslie, not without something like a threat, for allowing so much liberty of discussion. The five ministers were sentenced to perpetual silence so far as the diocese of Down was concerned. Outward conformity was for a time achieved, but only by the temporary effacement of the Scotch colony in Ulster. Brice did not long survive the Belfast conference, but Hamilton, Cunningham, Ridge and Colwort all retired to Scotland. Among other ministers silenced by Leslie the most noteworthy were John Livingston and Robert Blair, both of whom went to Scotland and helped materially to defeat Laud. They had attempted to lead about 140 of the faithful to New England, but were beaten back by storms from a point nearer to the banks of Newfoundland than to any place in Europe. ‘That which grieved us most,’ says Livingston, ‘was that we were like to be a mocking to the wicked; but we found the contrary, that the prelates and their followers were much dismayed, and feared at our return.’207