Notes

Rather more than a year after the Mountnorris court-martial Wentworth became involved in a dispute with another official which brought uponhim an even fiercer storm of obloquy. In his conflict with Cork he had had the support of Mountnorris and Loftus; he had afterwards had the support of Loftus in his conflict with Mountnorris. The Chancellor himself was destined to be the next victim. In 1621, on the occasion of his son’s marriage to the daughter of Sir Francis Raishe, his lordship had entered into an agreement to settle £300 a year on the bride, and £1,200 in land on her children. Fifteen years afterwards he attempted to evade his obligations, alleging some technical irregularity in the marriage contract. On the petition of Sir John Giffard, the legal representative of the lady’s family, the affair was referred to the Privy Council. Loftus protested that the claim of the Privy Council to interfere was unconstitutional, and that the plaintiff ought to have filed a bill against him in his own court. He would then have been judge as well as defendant—an arrangement which promised obvious advantages to a litigant with a lax conscience and a bad case.[129]But it is dangerous, the old proverb tells us, to prosecute Beelzebub in the court of Hell; and Giffard was no doubt of opinion that it would be equally imprudent to proceed against the Lord Chancellor in the Court of Chancery. The Privy Council decided against Loftus, whorenewed his protests—protests which came with a singularly bad grace from one who had repeatedly sat upon the same tribunal upon occasions when there had been much less cogent reasons for a departure from the orthodox method of procedure. He was thereupon deprived of the seals and imprisoned for contempt; but subsequently released on acknowledging the jurisdiction of the court. It does not appear that he had any defence on the merits; but the exalted position of the delinquent and an abominable, but apparently groundless rumour that his daughter-in-law had been Wentworth’s mistress, induced the enemies of the Lord Deputy to give the affair as much prominence as possible.[130]

Notes

56.In Harris’sFiction Unmasked, pp. 53-60, there is an excellent summary of the pretexts put forward for these plantations. The most important papers relating to the plantation of Leitrim will be found inDesiderata Curiosa Hibernica, II., 52-77. Miss Hickson (Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, II., 276-299) has printed some interesting papers relating to the plantations of Longford and Ely O’Carroll. For an Irish view of the plantations, see David Rothe’sAnalecta Sacra.

57.For the Composition of Connaught compare Roderick O’Flaherty’sChorographical Description of Iar-Connaught, pp. 309-362, where the articles are given in full;Government of Ireland under Sir John Perrott, pp. 79-86; Rawlinson’sHistory of Sir John Perrott, p. 149; Wentworth to Coke, August 25, 1635. (Strafford Letters, I., 450-454.) In theCalendar of Irish State Papers, 1615-1625, there are several letters containing suggestions for a plantation of Connaught.

58.Docwra to ——, March 3, 1618. (Calendar, 1615-1625, 399.)

59.Falkland to Conway, September 11, 1626. (Calendar, 1625-1632, 438.) Falkland, however, had recommended this step even before the death of James. Falkland to the Privy Council, December 11, 1624. (Calendar, 1615-1625, 1324.)

60.Diary of the Assembly. (Calendar, 1625-32, 713.)

61.Elrington’sLife of Usher, pp. 73-74.

62.A Remonstrance presented to his Majesty by the Parliament in June, 1628.

63.The Graces in their amended form are given in Wentworth’s letter to Coke, October 6, 1634. (Strafford Letters, I., 312-328.) The earlier draft is printed in theCalendar of State Papers, 1625-1632, 446. The eighth article runs: “The fine of 12d. a Sunday and holiday for not going to church shall be remitted for recusants except in particular cases.”

64.Rushworth’sHistorical Collections, II., 19.

65.These depositions, as well as the report of the Commissioners and Falkland’s defence, are printed in Gilbert’sHistory of the Confederation and War in Ireland, I., 167-217.

66.Proclamation, April 1, 1629. (Rushworth, II., 21.) Similar proclamations had been issued in 1617, 1623, and 1624, but they had had very little effect.

67.For the conduct of Archbishop Loftus, see Ware’sBishops of Irelandand Elrington’sLife of Usher, pp. 6, 115, and for that of some later members of his family Lecky’sHistory of Ireland, V. 295. With regard to the Chancellor himself, I have collected some evidence in a later part of this paper.

68.Lord Cork was the author of an extremely mendacious autobiographical fragment, entitledTrue Remembrances, which is prefixed to the collected edition of his son’s works. In Wright’sHistory of Ireland, Bk. V., ch. 21, this remarkableable paper is carefully analysed and its statements compared with the evidence of more trustworthy documents.

69.Charles to Wilmot, August 5, 1629. (Calendar, 1625-1632, 1449.) See also with regard to this quarrel the repeated and bitter attacks on Loftus in Lord Cork’s Diary (Lismore Papers, 1st series). The quarrel seems to have originated in the refusal of the Chancellor to decide a lawsuit in Lord Cork’s favour some years earlier.

70.Hammond L’Estrange,Annals of the Reign of Charles the First, p. 116. CompareFoxes and Firebrands, pt. 2, p. 71; Wilmot to Dorchester, January 6, 1629-30. (Calendar, 1625-1632, 1570.) “Tharchbishop of Dublin, and the Maior of Dublin, by the direction of vs, the Lords Justices, Ransackt the howse of f. fryer in Cook Street,” Lord Cork’s Diary, December 26, 1629.

71.The Catholic University seems to have given particular offence to the Protestant clergy. Thus Bedell, writing to Wentworth, complains that “his Holiness hath erected a new university at Dublin to confront his Majesty’s college there.” (Strafford Letters, I., 147.) The documents relating to the seizure of its property will be found in Mahaffy’sEpoch of Irish History, ch. V.For an account of St. Patrick’s Purgatory see Richardson’sFolly of Pilgrimages, p. 44, and for its destruction Lord Cork’s Diary, September 8, 1632. In October, 1638, the Queen wrote to Wentworth begging him to allow it to be restored. He declined on the ground that it was “in the midst of the great Scottish plantation.” (Strafford Letters, II., 221, 222.)

For an account of St. Patrick’s Purgatory see Richardson’sFolly of Pilgrimages, p. 44, and for its destruction Lord Cork’s Diary, September 8, 1632. In October, 1638, the Queen wrote to Wentworth begging him to allow it to be restored. He declined on the ground that it was “in the midst of the great Scottish plantation.” (Strafford Letters, II., 221, 222.)

72.Lords Justices to Wentworth, February 26, 1631-2. (Ibid., I., 67-70.)

73.Charles to the Lords Justices, January 12, 1631-2. (Ibid., I., 62-63.) Miss Hickson has quoted a most significant entry from the MS. journal of an Anglo-Irish official: “July 23, 1633. The Lord Viscounte Wentworth came to Ireland to govern ye kingdom: manie men feare.” (Ireland in the Seventeenth Century, I., 52.) Lord Cork expressed his dissatisfaction still more forcibly: “A moste cursed man to all Ireland and to me in particular.” Diary, July 23, 1633.

74.Wentworth to Cottington, October 1, 1632. (Strafford Letters, I., 74-77.)

75.Wentworth to Charles, April 12, 1634. (Ibid., I., 182-187.)

76.Charles to Wentworth, April 17, 1634. (Ibid., I., 233.)

77.Wentworth to Coke, June 24, 1634. (Ibid., I., 269, 270.)

78.Wentworth to Coke, August 18, 1634. (Ibid., I., 276-282.)

79.Wentworth to Coke, October 6, 1634. (Ibid., I., 304-328.)

80.“Your last public despatch has given me a great deal of contentment, and especially for keeping off the envy of a necessary negative from me of those unreasonable Graces that that people expected from me.”—Charles to Wentworth, October 23, 1634. (Ibid., I., 331.)

81.Wentworth to Coke, December 16, 1634. (Ibid., I., 345-353.) For the proceedings of this Parliament I have also consulted theIrish Commons’ Journals, I., pp. 59-119, but they add very little to our information. For its legislation seeIrish Statutes, 10 and 11, Charles I.

82.Charles to Wentworth, January 22, 1634-5. (Strafford Letters, I., 365.)

83.Wentworth to Laud, January 31, 1633-4. (Ibid., I., 187-189.)

84.Bedell to Laud, April I, 1630. (Burnet’sLife of Bedell, pp. 35, 36.)

85.A full Confutation of the Covenant, lately sworn and subscribed by many in Scotland: delivered in a speech at the visitation of Down and Connor, September 26, 1638.By Henry Leslie.

86.The Irish articles are printed in Elrington’sLife of Usher, Appendix, xxxiii.—L.

87.Bramhall to Laud, August 10, 1633. (Collier’sEcclesiastical History, VIII., 72-75.)

88.“Every parish hath its priest, and some two or three apiece; and so their mass-houses also; in some places mass is said in the churches.” Bedell to Laud, April 1, 1630. Compare a report some years earlier on the ecclesiastical state of the province of Armagh, from which long extracts are printed in Mant’sHistory of the Church of Ireland, I., 395-408.

89.Heylin’sHistory of Presbyterianism, p. 393.

90.See the autobiographies of Robert Blair and John Livingston, two of the ministers who obtained benefices by these means; also Adair’sTrue Narrative of the Rise and Progress of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, 1623-1670; and Dr. Killen’s preface.

91.Vesey’sLife of Bramhall.

92.Bedell to Laud, August 7, 1630. (Two Lives of William Bedell, pp. 311-314.)

93.Clogy’sLife of Bedell, p. 118.

94.See much evidence of this in Ware’sBishops of Ireland.

95.Wentworth to Laud, December, 1633. (Strafford Letters, I., 171-173.)

96.“My Lord, I did not take you to be so good a physician before as now I see you are; for the truth is, a great many Church cormorants have fed so full upon it that they are fallen into a fever; and for that no physic better than a vomit, if it be given in time; and therefore you have taken a very judicious course to administer one so early to my Lord of Cork. I hope it will do him good, though perchance he thinks not so, for if the fever hang long about him or the rest it will certainly shake either them or their estates in pieces.”—Laud to Wentworth, November 15, 1633. (Ibid., I., 155, 156.)

97.Laud to Wentworth, March 11, 1634. (Ibid., I., 211.) See also several letters in theLismore Papers, 2nd series, and Mason’sHistory and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St. Patrick, pp. liii., liv.

98.Ware’sAnnals of Ireland,A.D.1560.

99.The best accounts of the Convocations of 1613-15 and 1634-35 are in Elrington’sLife of Usher, pp. 39-49, and 165-187.

100.Wentworth to Laud, August 23, 1634. (Strafford Letters, I., 298-301.)

101.“The Popish party, growing extreme perverse in the Commons House, and the Parliament thereby in great danger to have been lost in a storm, had so taken up all my thoughts and endeavours that, for five or six days, it was not almost possible for me to take an account how business went among them of the clergy.”—Wentworth to Laud, December 16, 1634. (Ibid., I., 342-345.)

102.Ibid.

103.Mahaffy’sEpoch of Irish History, ch. VI.

104.Wentworth to Laud, January 31, 1633-34. (Strafford Letters, I., 187-189.)

105.Brief of his Majesty’s title to Connaught. (Ibid., I., 454-458.) For the history of the settlement of the De Burghs in Connaught compare Matthew Paris,Historia, p. 230, etc.;Annals of Lough Cé; preface to Lord Clanricarde’sMemoirs; The O’Conor Don’sO’Conors of Connaught, pp. 88-95.

106.Wentworth to Charles, December 9, 1636. (Strafford Letters, II., 41.)

107.Wentworth to Coke, July 14, 1635. (Ibid., I., 442-444.)

108.“Sir Lucas Dillon, the foreman of the jury, hath behaved himself with so much discretion and expressed all along so good affections, as I cannot choose but here to mention him, and hereafter to beseech his Majesty he may be remembered when upon the dividing of the lands his own particular come in question. In truth, he deserves to be extraordinarily well dealt withal.”—(Ibid.)

109.Wentworth and the Commissioners to Coke, August 25, 1635, and enclosures. (Ibid., I., 450-458.) For the fining of the jury we have Wentworth’s own admission; if his enemies may be believed, they were also “pilloried with loss of ears, bored through the tongue, and marked in the forehead with a hot iron, with other like infamous punishments.”—Irish Commons’ Journals.

110.Coke to Wentworth, September 20, 1635. (Strafford Letters, I., 464-465.)

111.It was finally abandoned in April, 1641. See Gardiner’sHistory of England, X., 45, where a letter of the Lords Justices is quoted.

112.“The Plantations prove a most laborious work; I could not imagine their march had been so heavy.”—Wentworth to Charles, June 5, 1638. (Strafford Letters, II., 175.) In another letter he recommends that a body of cavalry should be sent into Connaught “as fit lookers-on whilst the plantations are settling.” Wentworth to Coke, August 10, 1638. (Ibid., II., 197-201.) For the influence of Lord Clanricarde in preventing the plantation, see Wentworth to Coke, May 18 and July 9, to Charles, July 9 and August 13, 1639, (Ibid., II., 340, 366-369, 381.)

113.Wentworth to Charles, June 5, 1638. (Ibid., II., 175-176.)

114.Wentworth has been generally blamed for this sentence, which was one of the principal matters urged against him at his trial; but, though it is evident from several passages in hisLettersthat he regarded it with approval and was ready to turn it to the King’s advantage, the case had actually been pending for some years before he came to Ireland. See the correspondence between Charles I and the Lords Justices in 1631. (Concise View of the Irish Society.Appendix, pp. 185-188.)

115.Reid’sHistory of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, I., 213. Leland’sHistory of Ireland, III., 40, 41.

116.“There was little or no manufacture amongst them, but some small beginnings towards a clothing trade, which I had and so should still discourage all I could, unless otherwise directed by his Majesty and their lordships, in regard, itwould trench not only upon the clothings of England, being our staple commodity, so as if they should manufacture their own wools, which grew to very great quantities, we should not only lose the profit we made now by indraping their wools, but his Majesty lose extremely by his Customs, and, in conclusion, it might be feared they would beat us out of the trade itself, by under-selling us, which they were well able to do.”—Wentworth to Wandesford, July 25, 1636. (Strafford Letters, II., 13-23.) For his encouragement of the linen trade see the same letter.

117.Wentworth to Coke, November 28, 1636. (Ibid., II., 38-39.)

118.Wentworth to Coke, August 3, 1633. (Ibid., I., 97.)

119.Townshend’sLife and Letters of the Great Earl of Cork, pp. 180-181.

120.Wentworth to Coke, March 25 and April 7, 1635 (Strafford Letters, I., 391, 392, 400-407.)

121.Wentworth to Coke, December 15, 1635. (Ibid., I., 497-501.) Rushworth’sTrial of the Earl of Strafford. The account in Clarendon (History of the Great Rebellion, III., 111-114) is inaccurate.

122.Charles to Wentworth, July 31, 1635. (Strafford Letters, I., 448.)

123.Laud to Wentworth, January 2, 1635-6. (Laud’sWorks, VII., 216) and Wentworth’s reply, March 9. (Strafford Letters, I., 517.)

124.Wentworth to Coke, December 14 and 15, 1635. (Ibid., I., 497-501.) Sentence on Lord Mountnorris, enclosed in the preceding.Somers Tracts, IV., 202-208. Rushworth’sTrial of the Earl of Strafford, pp. 186-204.

125.Coke to Wentworth, October 26, 1635, enclosing Lord Wilmot’s submission. (Strafford Letters, I., 477.)

126.“This last packet advertised the death of the Earl of St. Albans, and that it is reported my harsh usage broke his heart. God and your Majesty know my innocency; they might as well have imputed unto me for a crime his being three-score and ten years old.”—Wentworth to Charles, December 5, 1635. (Ibid., 491-493.)

127.“I am full of belief they will lay the charge of D’Arcy the sheriff’s death unto me; my arrows are cruel that wound so mortally; but I should be more sorry by much the King should lose his fine.”—Wentworth to Wandesford, July 25, 1636. (Ibid., II., 13-23.)

128.Wentworth’s own defence of his administration is contained in the letter to Wandesford quoted in the preceding note.

129.“And, forasmuch as relief could only be sought for upon the said agreement in a course of equity, which was most proper to be had in the High Court of Chancery of this kingdom, where his lordship should become both judge and party; therefore, and to the intent justice might be done, he (Giffard) prayed that the said matter might be referred to the Lord Deputy and Council of Ireland to be by them heard and determined.”—Report by Arthur, Earl of Essex, August 18, 1674.

130.Report by J. T. Gilbert on the MSS. of the Marquis of Drogheda. (Historical MSS. Commission, 9th report, pp. 293-330.) Clarendon’sHistory of the Great Rebellion, III., 115-117.

STRAFFORDPART IITHE EVE OF “1641”ByPHILIP WILSON

STRAFFORD

PART II

THE EVE OF “1641”

ByPHILIP WILSON

Strafford

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