GOVERNMENT OF WENTWORTH, 1632-1634
[Sidenote: Wentworth Lord Deputy, Jan. 1632. His antecedents.]
[Sidenote: His rapid promotion.]
Dr. James Welwood, physician-in-ordinary to William III., wrote a short
history of the hundred years preceding the Revolution and dedicated
it to the King. He gave Strafford full credit as a great orator and
greater statesman, and as a zealous opponent of illegal taxation during
the first three Parliaments of Charles I., but goes on to say that 'the
Court bought him off, and preferred him to great honours and places,
which lost him his former friends, and made the breach irreconcilable.'
That was the orthodox Whig view of the case, which prevailed when the
Stuart monarchy had been finally converted into the parliamentary
system of Walpole. The Puritans were satisfied to call Strafford an
apostate, and the Whigs followed them. But he never really belonged to
the popular party, and he sought office from the first, not only from
ambition but from a love of efficient government. He became Custos
Rotulorum of the West Riding in 1615, when he was only twenty-two, and
a member of the Council of the North less than four years afterwards.
A year later he was a successful candidate for the representation of
Yorkshire, with a Secretary of State as his colleague, no other than
Sir George Calvert, who became the Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore. In
seeking the support of an influential neighbour at the election held on
Christmas Day, 1620, Wentworth said: 'In London I will carry you to Mr.
Secretary, make you known to him, not only procure you many thanks from
him, but that you shall hereafter find a readiness and cheerfulness to
do you such good offices as shall be in his way hereafter. Lastly, I
hope to have your company with me at dinner that day, where you shall
be most welcome.'
[Sidenote: His breach with the Puritans.]
[Sidenote: Wentworth and Pym.]
Early in 1626, when he was only thirty-two, Wentworth applied to be
made Lord President of the North in the event of a vacancy which
was then expected. He stated that he had no wish to rise except by
Buckingham's means, and that he reposed under the shadow of his favour.
He was at that time out of Parliament, the favourite having had him
made sheriff of Yorkshire on purpose to exclude him. The death of
Buckingham cleared the way for Wentworth, and in a little more than
a year after his commission to the Marshalsea for refusing to pay
the forced loan, he had found no difficulty in accepting a barony,
a viscounty, and the coveted Presidency of the North. His action
was really analogous to that of a modern politician who opposes the
Government of the day, not with a view to overthrow it, but in order
that he himself may be taken inside. Though this kind of thing is never
admirable we find no great difficulty in tolerating it, but it was
different in the time of Charles I.; men were too much in earnest and
the principles at stake were too great. It is, therefore, possible to
believe Welwood's story about Wentworth's relations to Pym, for which
there does not appear to be any contemporary authority, but which may
have been derived from those who were alive at the time. According to
this account Wentworth, when he had determined to make his peace with
the Court, asked Pym to meet him alone at Greenwich, where he enlarged
upon the danger of extreme courses, and advised him to make favourable
terms for himself and his friends while there was yet time. 'You need
not,' answered Pym, 'use all this art to tell me that you have a mind
to leave us, but remember what I tell you, you are going to be undone.
Remember that though you leave us now, I will never leave you while
your head is on your shoulders.'[173]
[Sidenote: Wentworth's alliance with Laud.]
[Sidenote: 'Thorough']
A close union between Church and State formed a necessary part of
Wentworth's political system. He hated sectaries, though he does not
seem to have had any very strong theological bias. Archbishop Abbot was
accused by his enemies at Court of being too intimate with Sir Thomas
Wentworth, when still in opposition, the real fact being that they had
met once in nine months, and then only for consultation about a young
Saville to whom they were joint guardians. With Laud Wentworth had much
more in common, and sought his acquaintance as soon as he became a
Privy Councillor, late in 1630. 'Coming to a right understanding of one
another,' says Heylin, 'they entered into such a league of inviolable
friendship' as only death could part, and so co-operated for the honour
of the Church and his Majesty's service. They were in correspondence
about Irish affairs before Wentworth left England, and agreed upon a
policy of 'Thorough' both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. Very
soon after his arrival in Dublin Wentworth congratulated the bishop
upon his translation to Canterbury, and the latter pointed out in
reply that the Church was much 'bound up in the forms of the common
law,' and that there were many clogs to the State machinery. 'No such
narrow considerations,' wrote Wentworth soon after, 'shall fall into
my counsels as my own preservation, till I see my master's power and
greatness set out of wardship and above the exposition of Sir Edward
Coke and his year-books, and I am most assured the same resolution
governs in your lordship. Let us then in the name of God go cheerfully
and boldly; if others do not their parts I am confident the honour
shall be ours and the shame theirs, and thus you have my Thorough and
Thorough.'[174]
[Sidenote: Wentworth's assistants]
[Sidenote: Wandesford.]
[Sidenote: Radcliffe.]
In one of his first letters from Ireland Wentworth says he trusted
nobody on that side of the channel but Christopher Wandesford and
George Radcliffe, who were his cousins and had made themselves
useful in Yorkshire. Both had begun in opposition, and had followed
their leader when he espoused the cause of prerogative. Wandesford
became Master of the Rolls, and was the last holder of that office
in Ireland who sat as a judge until quite modern times. It became a
sinecure in the hands of Sir John Temple, who succeeded him, was held
by the Duke of Leinster in 1789, and on his resignation was granted
in co-partnership to the Earls of Glandore and Carysfort. Radcliffe,
who was attorney-general of the northern presidency, was compensated
for the loss of his English practice by a grant of £500 a year, and
became the Lord Deputy's secretary. He preceded him to Ireland and
prepared his way there. The rest of the Irish officials Wentworth
treated as mere clerks. After a year and a half's experience on the
spot he considered nothing 'more prejudicial to the good success of
these affairs than their being understood aforehand by them here. So
prejudicial I hold it indeed, that on my faith there is not a minister
on this side who knows anything I either write or intend, excepting
the Master of the Rolls and Sir George Radcliffe, for whose assistance
in this government and comfort to myself amidst this generation I am
not able sufficiently to pour forth my humble acknowledgments to his
Majesty. Sure I were the most solitary man without them that ever
served a king in such a place.'[175]
[Sidenote: Radcliffe and Mainwaring.]
Radcliffe retained the Lord Deputy's full confidence to the end. He
was his chief adviser always, and his representative when away from
Ireland; but it was found necessary after a time to appoint another
secretary through whose hands most of the official correspondence
passed. The person chosen was Philip Mainwaring, of a Cheshire family,
but on pretty intimate terms with Wentworth, with whom he may have
become acquainted from having sat in Parliament for Boroughbridge. He
is well-known from Vandyke's picture, where he looks up in astonishment
or dismay at the angry face of the master who is dictating a despatch
to him. Cottington for some reason thought Mainwaring a dangerous man
to appoint, and while recommending him at Wentworth's request, declared
that the latter would burn his fingers; but he became chief secretary
in the summer of 1634, and remained in office until the outbreak of the
civil war. Laud had a good opinion of him.[176]
[Sidenote: Sir George Wentworth, Lord Dillon and Adam Loftus.]
In matters of state Wentworth seems to have given his full confidence
only to Wandesford and Radcliffe, but he got a good deal of help from
his brother George, who married Frances Rushe of Castle Jordan in
Westmeath. Amongst the natives of Ireland he chiefly trusted Robert,
Lord Dillon, whose son James married his sister Elizabeth, and Adam
Loftus of Rathfarnham, the Archbishop's grandson and cousin to the
Chancellor, who supported his policy from the beginning.
[Sidenote: Delay about Wentworth's appointment,]
[Sidenote: by which the King hopes to make money.]
[Sidenote: Wilmot's warning.]
If we are to believe the letter-writer Howell, who had dealings with
Wentworth in the summer of 1629, the latter was then already talked
of for the Irish viceroyalty. In the autumn of 1631 Weston more than
once urged him to come to Court 'for some important occasions' not
specified. Some of his friends thought there was a plan to ruin him by
imposing the thankless Irish service, but he himself went no further
than to hint that there were probably powerful people who would be glad
to set him 'a little further off from treading on anything themselves
desire.' The appointment did not take place until the beginning of
1632, but the King's intention had then been for some time known, and
Wentworth may have occupied himself with Irish affairs long before
the public announcement. Lord Wilmot, who was commander-in-chief as
well as president of Connaught, wrote from Dublin to Cottington that
the appointment was expected and freely discussed in Ireland. Wilmot
thought his own long service might possibly have made him Lord Deputy,
but things being as they were he was ready to give his best support to
the man who had been preferred before him. He saw clearly that money
would be a main object with Charles, and gave emphatic warning that it
would not be safe to economise by reducing the army, consisting as it
did of 2,000 foot and 400 horse distributed in companies of 50. 'Such
as they are,' he said, 'they give countenance unto justice itself,
and are the only comfort that the poor English undertakers live by,
and at this hour the King's revenues are not timely brought in but by
force of soldiers ... out of long experience I have seen these people
are ready to take the bit in their teeth upon all advantages, as any
people living, although they pay for it, as many times they have done
before, with all they are worth.' A little, he declared, might be done
in Ireland even with a small army, but if he had the means to make a
great display of force the King might do what he liked. Wilmot wished
to leave Ireland, where there was little to look forward to, and he was
soon to find that thirty years' laborious service was no valid title to
royal favour.[177]
[Sidenote: Conditions of the appointment.]
[Sidenote: Advice of Parsons.]
[Sidenote: The Lords Justices give offence.]
[Sidenote: Death of Sir John Eliot.]
When announcing the appointment of a new Deputy to the Lords Justices
of Ireland, the King asked for a detailed account of the revenue and
of the state of the army. He required them 'not to pass any pardons,
offices, lands, or church livings, nor to confer the honour of
knighthood upon any, or to dispose of any company of horse or foot
there in the interim.' While waiting for the Deputy, they were to
confine themselves to the administration of civil justice and the
maintenance of military discipline. Wentworth wrote himself a few days
later asking for information as to the state of Ireland. Sir William
Parsons, with whom as well as with the Lords Justices he was quite
unacquainted, wisely advised him to do nothing until he crossed the
channel and could see for himself. In the meantime he made arrangements
with the King by which power was concentrated in his hands. To secure
secrecy and promptness it was agreed that he should correspond on
financial matters direct with the Lord Treasurer, and on general
business direct with Secretary Coke, instead of with the Privy Council
or any committee of it. The whole patronage, civil and ecclesiastical,
was made to depend on the Lord Deputy, while grants of places in
reversion were annulled for the past and forbidden for the future.
No new office was to be created without the Deputy's advice, and it
was promised that no Irish complaint should be entertained in England
unless it had been made to him first. By direct orders from the King
the Lords Justices were directed to pay no arrears or other debts, but
to confine their expenses of government strictly to the current cost
of the establishment. They nevertheless sanctioned payment of a large
sum to Sir Francis Cook. Wentworth was highly indignant, but Cottington
wrote that Mountnorris as Vice-Treasurer would probably refuse to pay
the money out of an almost empty Exchequer. 'Your old dear friend Sir
John Eliot,' he added, 'is very like to die.' He did die six weeks
later in the unwholesome prison where he lay, as a consequence of
adhering to the cause which the new Lord Deputy had deserted. Yet
Wentworth seems to have been surprised at the abuse which his rather
late found loyalty brought upon himself. He had bound himself hand and
foot to the service of the magnanimous prince who had ordered that Sir
John Eliot should be buried in the Tower, in the church of that parish
where he died.[178]
[Sidenote: Deficiency of the revenue.]
[Sidenote: Fines for not going to church.]
[Sidenote: First difference with Lord Mountnorris.]
[Sidenote: The Lords Justices reprimanded.]
Wentworth was well inclined to take the advice given by Parsons, but
there was one department of Irish affairs which would not wait, and
that was the revenue. The Lords Justices announced that they would
have to begin the financial year on April 1, 1632, with less than
£14,000 still to be raised out of the £120,000 promised in 1628. This
was not enough to pay the army till December, and they realised that
it was impossible to decrease that force. They could suggest no better
means of making the ends meet than by ruthlessly exacting the fines
of one shilling a Sunday from the Irish Roman Catholics who refused
to go to church. A worse kind of tax could scarcely be devised, but
it was legal, and Wentworth had made no scruple of levying it in
Yorkshire. He sent over a Roman Catholic agent to Ireland, who obtained
a promise of £20,000 from his co-religionists on condition of escaping
the Sunday dues for another year. This provided money for immediate
necessities, but he had no idea of letting the Protestants escape.
He told Cottington that it was safer to displease the minority than
the majority, and grounded his action upon this. It is not surprising
that he made enemies of the Protestants in the long run, and that he
did not make friends of the Roman Catholics. Nor was he particularly
anxious to conciliate the men with whom he would have to work in
Ireland. Lord Mountnorris lingered at Chester on account of his wife's
health, and Wentworth ordered him to go over at once and attend to his
financial business. The letter is civil enough in form, but contains
the scarcely-veiled threat that Mountnorris would be the sufferer if he
were untrue to him or suspicious of him in any way. Considering that
he himself evidently distrusted the Vice-Treasurer it was hardly wise
to bid him send over £2,000 of the new Deputy's salary at once, 'for,'
he said, 'I have entered fondly enough on a purchase in Yorkshire of
£14,000, and the want of that would very foully disappoint me.' To the
Lords Justices Wentworth was still more outspoken. They had disobeyed
orders by keeping secret the King's letter of instructions which they
had been ordered to publish, by ordering the payment of Sir Francis
Cook's arrear, and by failing to send over a detailed statement of
the Irish revenue. Wentworth said plainly that he would not allow
such presumption in them as to 'evacuate his master's directions, nor
contain himself in silence, seeing them before his face so slighted,
or at least laid aside very little regarded.'[179]
[Sidenote: Wentworth's journey delayed by pirates.]
[Sidenote: Radcliffe goes before with Lady Wentworth.]
[Sidenote: Audacity of the pirates,]
[Sidenote: who plunder the Lord Deputy's baggage.]
Wentworth intended to be in Ireland by Christmas 1632, but he did not
go till more than six months later. One good reason for the delay
was that the narrow seas were infested by pirates, though this did
not prevent him from sending over his lately married third wife in
January 1633. George Radcliffe escorted her and she lay hidden in the
Castle for several months, which was considered most mysterious, and
her identity was not disclosed until after her husband's arrival. The
Irish Government feared further attacks by the Algerines upon Baltimore
or some other defenceless place; but it was not only Algerines who
threatened the coasts and plundered the shipping, and the Lords
Justices declared that the Irish revenue could hardly bear the expense
of two pinnaces called the 5th and 9th Whelps, which were assigned to
them as a protecting force. One or more rovers frequented the Welsh
coast, preying on the trade from Ireland, and carrying off men from the
Isle of Man where there was no means of resistance. Another cruised
about Youghal, while the _Pickpocket_ of Dover lay off Dublin. Trade
was at a stand, and the Irish customs made unproductive. 'The fear of
being thought to linger unprofitably' in England induced Wentworth
to send over most of his household goods in May 1633, and the plate
escaped, but the _Pickpocket_ took £500 worth of his linen. The same
pirate drove a Dutch ship on shore close to Dublin, took out the cargo,
and burnt her to the water's edge, the flames being visible from the
Castle. 'The loss and misery,' said Wentworth, 'is not so great as the
scorn that such a picking villain should dare to do these violences in
the face of that state, and to pass away without control.' A notable
pirate named Nutt had the impudence to send Wentworth word that he was
ready to convoy him over. A powerful ship under an excellent seaman,
Captain Richard Plumleigh, was provided after much delay, but she did
not get out of the Medway till June, and it was July before Wentworth
heard that the passage to Dublin was safe. He then hastened over, and
lost no time in showing that King Stork had succeeded to King Log. Laud
became Archbishop of Canterbury a few days later.[180]
[Sidenote: Essex in Ireland.]
[Sidenote: Wentworth lands,]
[Sidenote: and is welcomed by Lord Cork.]
[Sidenote: Visits of ceremony.]
A few days before the Lord Deputy's arrival Essex, accompanied by Lord
Cromwell, landed some miles from Dublin, and was met by the Lords
Justices and Lord Primate with all persons of quality about town. The
streets were so crowded with spectators that the coaches could hardly
pass, and an old Irish woman called out 'Blessed be the time that I
live to see a son of thy father there.' When Wentworth appeared on
July 23 the water was very rough, and he was probably not inclined to
eat the dinner which Lord Howth had prepared for him. At all events he
declined to land near the head, and came ashore close to Dublin, nearly
opposite to where the Custom House now stands. He was unexpected, and
not a gun was fired, but Lord Justice Cork was quickly on the spot
with his coach, and the news spread fast. The Lord Deputy, with Lord
Castlehaven, Sir John Borlase, Sir Francis Cook, and others started to
walk, but Cork invited them all into his coach, and by the time they
reached the Castle there was such a crowd that the drawbridge had to be
raised behind them. Afterwards, Cork records in his diary, 'I having
the precedency, the Lord Deputy brought me to my coach.' Next day was
given to receiving visits, which were for the most part scrupulously
returned, that of Essex the first, precedency as an Earl being granted
him until the viceroy was sworn. Essex soon departed to his estate at
Carrickmacross, but was back in London early in the following year,
whence he wrote a letter of four lines thanking the Lord Deputy for
his 'noble usage.' Wentworth replied very civilly in a letter of eight
lines, but there appears to have been nothing like intimacy between
the two. 'I visited both the Justices,' Wentworth wrote, 'at their
own houses, which, albeit not formerly done by other Deputies, yet I
conceived it was a duty I owed, being then but a private person, as
also to show an example to others what would always become them to the
supreme governor.'[181]
[Sidenote: Wentworth receives the sword, July 25, 1633.]
[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor's speech.]
[Sidenote: Wentworth's speech.]
[Sidenote: Wentworth makes obeisance to the King's picture.]
At two o'clock on the third day Wentworth received the sword in
the Council-chamber. The ceremony had generally been performed in
Christchurch, but some said the Archbishop of Dublin would not let the
Primate deliver his prepared sermon, or perhaps the Lord Deputy wished
to avoid publicity. After a short discussion with some of the Council
'in his ear whispering like,' he decided to go in procession through
the rooms of the Castle instead of slipping in quietly by the gallery,
as he originally proposed. When the Council were seated the Lord Deputy
remained standing, while Wandesford, as Master of the Rolls, read the
commission; then Lord Mountnorris, as acting secretary (having it in
reversion after Sir Dudley Norton, who may well be 'jubilayed') read
the King's letter ordering the Lords Justices to deliver the sword,
and explaining the reasons for the new governor's late arrival. When
he had been sworn, Lord Chancellor Loftus spoke of the state in which
he and his colleague left the government. No fresh debt, he said, had
been contracted during their time of office, everything was quiet, and
they were ready to advise their successor as to many desirable reforms.
'I for my part,' says Cork in his diary, 'did most willingly surrender
the sword, the rather in regard the kingdom was yielded up in general
peace and plenty.' Wentworth then took the chair, and with the sword
in his hand made 'a very good speech.' He said he would be no upholder
of factions, but would most esteem those who did most for the King's
service. He had heard that there was some discontent about two men
having been drafted from each company in order to raise a troop for
himself. He did not want one, he said, but the creation of a permanent
guard for the viceroy had caused his delay in England. The men should
be restored at the first vacancy, and he thought it very unfit that
a departing Deputy should retain his company. 'Herein he touched the
Lord of Falkland, who retained his.' Grandison had done the same,
with continuous leave of absence. On the return journey the sword was
carried by the Earl of Castlehaven, a knight having been thought good
enough to bear it before the Lords Justices, who now brought up the
rear. When he came before the cloth of estate, in the presence chamber,
Wentworth halted and made 'two humble courtesies to the King's and
Queen's picture which hang on each side, and fixing his eyes with much
seriousness showed a kind of devotion.' He knighted his brother George,
his cousin Danby, who was the husband of Wandesford's daughter, and a
very young Mr. Remington, 'not of age, who hopes to save his wardship
thereby, his father being very old and sickly.' On reaching the privy
chamber, where Lady Wentworth stood with Lady Tyrconnel and others, he
introduced the late Lords Justices to his wife, presenting her to be
saluted with a kiss from each of them ... who until that instant had no
title or place given her here but that of Mistress Rhodes.'[182]
[Sidenote: Wentworth's opinion of his Council.]
[Sidenote: A Parliament proposed to provide money.]
[Sidenote: Speech of Wentworth, who finds Parsons 'dry.']
[Sidenote: First appearance of Ormonde.]
'I find them in this place'--so runs Wentworth's first published letter
from Dublin--'a company of men the most intent upon their own hands
that ever I met with, and so as those speed, they consider other things
at a very great distance.' Three weeks later he found the officials
very sharp about their own interests, but 'with no edge at all for
the public,' and all in league to keep the Deputy as much in the
dark as possible. He determined from the first to trust no one but
his friend Wandesford, who had just been made Master of the Rolls,
and his secretary Radcliffe, who had been in Ireland since January,
and who was made a Privy Councillor within a few weeks of his chief's
arrival. To these was afterwards added Sir Philip Mainwaring, who owed
his appointment to Wentworth and Laud jointly. On the day week after
taking the reins of office Wentworth summoned the Council to consider
how money might be raised for the payment of the army. The members of
the Board were slow to begin the discussion, but Sir Adam Loftus of
Rathfarnham at last proposed to continue the voluntary contribution
for another year, and thus to provide the necessary funds until the
end of 1634. At the same time he suggested a Parliament, not only
for supply but for the settlement of disputed titles. Then there was
another silence, and at last Wentworth called upon Parsons to give his
opinion. The result was an expression of doubt as to the power of the
Council to bind others, and a hint that the army might be provided for
out of the King's ordinary revenue, which Wentworth found 'reduced
to fee-farms' and therefore quite unelastic. 'I was then,' he said,
'put to my last refuge, which was plainly to declare that there was no
necessity which induced me to take them to counsel in this business,
for rather than fail in so necessary a duty to my master, I would
undertake upon the peril of my head to make the King's army able to
subsist, and to provide for itself amongst them without their help.'
He had been but a week in Ireland, and was already talking about
risking his head, which tends to show that Pym had really uttered the
threat attributed to him, and that his old ally remembered it. The
Chancellor, Cork, and Mountnorris thereupon agreed to the proposal
of Loftus, and all, especially Cork, were eager for a Parliament.
Wentworth, who had championed the Petition of Right, had so completely
given himself to prerogative that he seems hardly to have realised that
men might be very willing to pay a parliamentary tax, while shrinking
from arbitrary exactions and from troops at free quarters. 'As for
Sir William Parsons,' he said, 'first and last I found him the driest
of all the company.' It was not Parsons, however, but Loftus, Cork,
and Mountnorris who were destined to feel the weight of his hand,
although they now received his thanks. The young Earl of Ormonde came
next morning to the Lord Deputy, and for himself, his friends, and his
tenants agreed to what had been done.[183]
[Sidenote: Miserable state of the army.]
[Sidenote: Case of Lorenzo Cary.]
[Sidenote: Wentworth restores discipline.]
[Sidenote: An amateur general.]
[Sidenote: Improvement in arms.]
Having thus provided money, Wentworth lost no time in looking closely
into the state of the army upon which his government rested. There
were but 2,000 foot and 400 horse, but Wilmot had solemnly warned the
English Government that no revenue could be collected and no English
settler subsist without their help. A larger force would do wonders
if money could be found, but it was impossible to make any reduction.
Discipline was very slack, officers having been in the habit of taking
their duties lightly, and even of going to London without leave and
staying there for an indefinite time. Before leaving England Wentworth
procured a letter from the King checking such irregularities, and
giving the Deputy power to cashier obstinate offenders. But Charles's
own conduct was not calculated to support his viceroy's authority.
It was the undoubted privilege of a Deputy to dispose of military
commissions on the Irish establishment, and Wentworth had promised
before he left England to give the first vacancy to Mr. Henry Percy,
Lady Carlisle's brother. He had told the King of this promise, and
Charles had made no objection. Nevertheless when Lord Falkland, whom
Wentworth believed to be his enemy and detractor, died in September
from the effects of an accident the King gave his company, which he
had left in very bad order, to his second son Lorenzo, who was little
more than a boy, though he had seen service abroad. Wentworth struggled
hard, but was obliged to submit. Charles had the excuse of yielding
to the prayer of a dying man, and he may have thought that Falkland
had not been very well treated. His elder son had lost his place and
suffered imprisonment, and he actually held a patent for transmitting
this command to the younger. Knowing that he kept his commission in
spite of the Lord Deputy, Cary took little pains to please him, while
Wentworth never ceased to resent his presence in the Irish army, and
tried to get him transferred. He took care that neither Cary nor any
one else should have a sinecure, where there was so much work to be
done. The men were undrilled, their arms and armour defective, their
horses of the worst kind. The captains left everything to their
subalterns, while both officers and men were scattered about the
country and seldom or never paraded. Every captain was now furnished
with a paper describing the defects of his company, and he was ordered
to make them right within six months on pains of severe punishment,
and of being ultimately cashiered. Weekly field days were ordered,
while two companies of foot and one troop of horse were to be always
quartered in Dublin, but changed every month. Thus the whole army would
be ready to march at any time, and would pass under the General's
eyes at least once in two years. Wentworth showed a good example by
putting his own troop into a thoroughly efficient state, sixty such
men and horses as had not been seen in Dublin before. He trained them
himself, said a letter-writer, 'on a large green near Dublin, clad
in a black armour with a black horse and a black plume of feathers,
though many there looked on him and on this action with other eyes than
they did on the Lord Chichester, who had been bred a martial man.'
Clarendon observes that, 'though not bred a soldier, he had been in
armies, and besides being a very wise man had great courage and was
martially inclined.' The artillery was in as bad order as other things,
and Wentworth asked for Sir John Borlase, an experienced soldier, as
master of the ordnance; and this appointment was made in due course.
Steps were also taken to see that landowners who were bound to furnish
armed men or horses should have them actually available. The cavalry
were armed for the first time with musket-bore carbines, and they were
expected to fight on foot if required. Wentworth took steps to abolish
the obsolete light pieces called calivers, of which the bore varied.
'Muskets, bandileers, and rests' were substituted, and Borlase knew how
to prevent swords worth less than four shillings from being rated at
ten, and the purchase at 23_s._ of firearms which were worth nothing at
all.[184]
[Sidenote: Church and State. Bishop Bramhall.]
[Sidenote: Bramhall reports to Laud. A dismal story.]
[Sidenote: Simony and pluralism.]
The Church of Ireland was in no better case than the army, and
Wentworth resolved to be guided by the new Archbishop of Canterbury.
John Bramhall, whom Laud had recommended to Wentworth for a stall in
York Minster, was now his chaplain, and was very soon given the rich
archdeaconry of Meath. He became Bishop of Derry a few months later.
Bramhall's first task was to make a general investigation into Irish
church affairs, and to report on them to Laud, who had already begun to
inform himself on the subject. A fortnight after Wentworth's arrival
Bramhall had collected enough information to inform the Archbishop
that it was 'hard to say whether the churches be the more ruinous and
sordid, or the people irreverent.' One parish church in Dublin was the
viceroy's stable, a second a nobleman's residence, and a third a tennis
court where the vicar acted as keeper. The vaults under Christchurch
were from end to end hired to Roman Catholic publicans, and the
congregation above were poisoned with tobacco smoke and with the fumes
of beer and wine. The communion table in the middle of the choir was
'made an ordinary seat for maids and apprentices.' The deanery was
held by the English Archbishop of Tuam, and the state of the cathedral
was an instructive comment on the prevailing system of pluralities.
Passing from the churches to the clergy, Bramhall found 'the inferior
sort of ministers below all degrees of contempt, in respect of their
poverty and ignorance; the boundless heaping together of benefices by
_commendams_ and dispensations but too apparent; yea, even often by
plain usurpation.' Simoniacal contracts were common, the stipends
reserved for the curates in charge being often as little as forty
shillings and seldom as much as ten pounds. One bishop was reported to
hold twenty-three benefices with cure. Few thought it worth while to
ask for less than three vicarages at once. No one knew what livings
were in the Deputy's gift, and even some whole bishoprics were left out
of the book of first fruits. Leases of church lands had been made at
trifling rents, and this practice was general in spite of prohibitions
by the Government. 'It is some comfort,' Bramhall grimly adds, 'to see
the Romish ecclesiastics cannot laugh at us, who come behind none in
point of disunion and scandal.'[185]
[Sidenote: The Boyle tomb in St. Patrick's.]
[Sidenote: Lord Cork as a benefactor.]
[Sidenote: Laud is puzzled,]
[Sidenote: but Wentworth has no doubts.]
[Sidenote: The monument is shifted.]
The Earl of Cork held a good deal of what had once been church land.
Wentworth had long been hostile to him, as appears abundantly from
his letters, and his zeal for the restitution of temporalities was
in this case sharpened by personal dislike. The Earl was rich and
powerful, and the Deputy was impatient of any influence independent
of his own. Lady Cork died in February 1630, and was buried in St.
Patrick's Cathedral with her father, Sir Geoffrey Fenton, and her
grandfather, Lord Chancellor Weston, in a vault under the place where
the high altar had formerly stood. Her husband then purchased that part
of the church from Dean Culme for 30_l._, and proceeded to raise an
immense monument of black marble in the pseudo-classical style then in
fashion. The position of this monument did not strike him as odd, for
his Protestantism was not of the Laudian type, and it seemed natural
to him that the communion-table should stand detached in the middle
of the church. He told Laud that he had been a benefactor rather than
a defacer of St. Patrick's: 'Where there was but an earthen floor at
the upper end of the chancel, which was often overflown, I raised the
same three steps higher, making the stairs of hewn stone, and paving
the same throughout, whereon the communion table now stands very dry
and gracefully.' Both Ussher and Bulkeley,' wrote Laud, 'justify that
the tomb stands not in the place of the altar, and that it is a great
ornament to that church, so far from being any inconvenience.... I
confess I am not satisfied with what they say, yet it is hard for me
that am absent to cross directly the report of two Archbishops.' The
Lord Treasurer was inclined to resent the attack on his kinsman's tomb,
and Laud warned his ally against the danger of making enemies. But
Wentworth pressed the matter on Charles's own notice, and procured from
him full powers to a commission consisting of the Lord Deputy, the two
archbishops, four other bishops chosen by Wentworth, and the deans and
chapters of the two Dublin cathedrals. The commissioners held, very
rightly no doubt, that the tomb was ill-placed, and Cork, who had more
important interests at stake, was too prudent to contest the matter. By
the following spring the monument had been taken down stone by stone,
and Wentworth reported with vindictive glee that it was 'put up in
boxes, as if it were marchpanes and banqueting stuffs, going down to
the christening of my young master in the country.' It was re-erected
on the south side of the choir, where it still stands, and the story is
important only for the light it throws on Wentworth's other dealings
with Lord Cork, and with all others who opposed him.[186]
[Sidenote: Algerine pirates.]
[Sidenote: Sack of Baltimore, June 19, 1630.]
[Sidenote: Weakness of the Admiralty. Christian Turks.]
The south-west coasts, both of England and Ireland, were infested
with pirates from Sallee and Algiers. In June 1631 a rover of 300
tons with 24 guns and 200 men and another of 100 tons with 12 guns
and 80 men lay between the Land's End and the Irish coast. Their
commander was Matthew Rice, who is called a Dutch renegade. Rice sunk
two French ships and one from Dartmouth, taking the crews on board as
well as everything that was worth keeping. Two days later he caught
a Dungarvan fishing smack and ordered the skipper, John Hackett, to
pilot them into Kinsale. Hackett said there was a fort and a man of war
there, and offered to take them to Baltimore instead. The castle of
the O'Driscolls still stands there, but the inhabitants at that time
were English Protestants, which caused its selection as a parliamentary
borough, and Hackett may not have disliked the service; but Fawlett,
the Dartmouth captain, also helped the Algerines, and was not carried
off by them finally. During the night of June 19, Rice having first
explored the harbour in boats with muffled oars, attacked the town with
the first morning light, plundered about sixty houses and took away 107
persons. The attack was so sudden that there was little fighting, and
only two of the townsmen were killed. Rice had forty other prisoners of
various nations. Captain Hook, who was at Kinsale with a King's ship,
which want of provisions kept generally in port, put to sea as soon as
he heard the news, but the Algerines got clean away. Hackett, who was
allowed to go ashore, was hanged at Cork for his share in the business,
and his body exposed on the headland at the mouth of Baltimore harbour;
but the little settlement never recovered its prosperity. The Sallee
rovers long continued to infest the south-west coast, for the Crown was
weak and the jealousy of the Admiralty officials prevented the maritime
population from protecting themselves. The French, whom Wentworth
called 'most Christian Turks,' allowed English prisoners to be led
in chains across France and shipped from Marseilles to Algiers. Five
years after the Baltimore disaster these pirates entered Cork harbour,
and carried off prisoners in open day. Lord Conway, who was serving in
the fleet a few months later, wrote to Wentworth: 'When I come home,
I will make a proposition to go with some ships to Sallee, the place
whence the pirates come into Ireland; and I do firmly believe they may
be brought to render all their prisoners, and never to trouble us more:
the like peradventure might be done by Algier, but our King cannot do
it alone.' A successful expedition went to Sallee a year later under
Captain Rainsborough, and some captives from Ireland were surrendered,
after which the rovers ceased to be troublesome.[187]
[Sidenote: Pirates of many nations.]
[Sidenote: The whole Irish coast infested by them.]
[Sidenote: Wentworth frees the Irish seas, 1637]
After the defence of the Irish seas was entrusted to Plumleigh and
James, the Algerines found the Welsh or Cornish coasts safer for their
purpose. But English pirates were not wanting, and Edward Christian,
governor of the Isle of Man under Lord Derby, seems to have had an
understanding with some of them. Wentworth's chief trouble was with
privateers who issued from St. Sebastian with Spanish letters of
marque or commissions against the Dutch, but who did not confine their
depredations to them. Men were murdered in the Isle of Man, a French
ship was boarded at sea, and honest traders of all nations were afraid
to stir. There was always one squadron on the Irish coast, another
returning, and another refitting. Dutch ships were seized in the
Shannon, in the Liffey, and in Belfast Lough; a breach of the law of
nations which the captains excused to their own crews by pretending a
licence from the King of England to 'pull the Hollanders by the ears
out of every port.' Wentworth, on the other hand, maintained that
the whole of St. George's Channel 'being encompassed on every side
with his Majesty's dominions, hath ever been held the chief of his
harbours.' Nicolalde, the resident Spanish agent in London, not only
gave commissions to buccaneers of English birth, but interceded for
them when they became obnoxious to their own government. Wentworth had
a bad opinion of Nicolalde, but he humoured him, and made proposals for
trade between Ireland and Spain. The English Admiralty were induced
to grant the Lord Deputy a vice-admiral's commission for Munster,
while Plumleigh and James continued to scour the narrow seas. Thus by
a mixture of force and diplomacy, piracy was put down for the time,
and on August 15, 1637, Wentworth was able to announce to Coke that
there was 'not so much as the rumour of Turk, St. Sebastian's men, or
Dunkirker--the merchant inward and outwards secured and assured in his
trade.'[188]
FOOTNOTES:
[173] Welwood's _Memoirs of the most Material Transactions, etc._,
being short and well written, may have had a good deal to say to
forming public opinion. There are a great many editions, and Lord
Chatham praised the book. Wentworth to Conway, January 20, 1625-6
in State Papers, _Domestic_. Wentworth's letter to Sir Robert
Askwith, December 7, 1620, is in _Camden Miscellany_, vol. ix. Other
electioneering letters are in the _Strafford Letters_, i. 8-13. Hobbes
says it is hard to judge motives, but that Wentworth's promotion was a
sign of the King's weakness, 'for in a market where honour and power is
to be bought with stubbornness, there will be a great many as able to
buy as my Lord Strafford was' (_Behemoth_, part ii.)
[174] Hacket's _Life of Williams_, pt. ii. p. 67, ed. 1692; Heylin's
_Life of Laud_, pt. i. lib. 3, pp. 184, 196, ed. 1671; Laud to
Wentworth, July 30, 1632 (misprinted 1631), April 30, and September
9, 1633, _Strafford Letters_; Wentworth to Laud, October 1633, 'in
a letter not printed,' _Additional MSS._, 38, 538, f. 197. See also
Gardiner's _History of England_, vii. 152.
[175] Wentworth to Coke, August 3, 1633; to Lord Treasurer Weston,
January 31, 1633-4, _Strafford Letters_; The King to Radcliffe,
November 13, 1632 in State Papers, _Ireland_, and to the Lord Deputy,
_ib._ May 17, 1633.
[176] Philip Mainwaring to Wentworth, October 29, 1630; Laud to
Wentworth, March 11 and October 20, 1634; the King to Wentworth, June
16, 1634, in _Strafford Letters_.
[177] Howell's _Letters_, July 1, 1629. Viscount Wilmot to Cottington,
January 10, 1631-32; Weston to Wentworth, October 11, 1631; Wentworth
to Sir E. Stanhope, October 25--all in _Strafford Letters_. The letter
from Laud placed by Knowler at July 30, 1631, certainly belongs to
1632, when Wentworth was meditating his passage to Ireland (Laud's
_Works_, vi. 300).
[178] The King to the Lords Justices, January 12, April 14, 1632;
the Lord Deputy's Propositions, February 22; Wentworth to the Lords
Justices, January 18, October 15; Sir W. Parsons to Wentworth, February
4; Lord Cottington to Wentworth, October 18; Wentworth to Weston,
October 21--all in _Strafford Letters_.
[179] Wentworth to Cottington, October 1, 1632; to Lord Mountnorris,
August 19; to the Lords Justices, October 15, _Strafford Letters_.
[180] The Lords Justices to Wentworth, February 26, 1631-2; Wentworth
to Lord Carlisle, May 20; to Weston, June 9; to Coke, August 3; Edward
Christian to Wentworth, October 4, all in _Strafford Letters_. Captain
Plumleigh to Nicholas, July 29, 1633, in State Papers, _Ireland_.
_Court and Times_, ii. 189.
[181] Earl of Cork's Diary, 23-25 July, 1633, in _Lismore Papers_, 1st
series, 'a most cursed man to all Ireland and to me in particular.'
Wentworth's friendly visit on the 24th is noted. Newsletter from
Walsingham Gresley for Lord Bristol's information in _Additional MSS._
29, 587, f. 17. Wentworth to Coke, August 3, 1633; to Essex, April 13,
1634, in answer to his letter of February 18, _Strafford Letters_.
Shirley's _Hist. of Monaghan_, 265.
[182] _Lismore Papers_, 1st series, iii. 203; Gresley's newsletter,
_ut sup._; Captain Plumleigh to Nicholas, July 29, 1633, in State
Papers, _Ireland_; Radcliffe's statement in _Strafford Letters_, ii.
430. Wentworth had been privately married in the previous October to
Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Godfrey Rhodes, only one year after his
second wife's death. The shortness of the time may have been a reason
for concealment, and once in Dublin it was evidently desirable that she
should not become the centre of intrigue in her husband's absence.
[183] Wentworth to Weston and Coke, August 3, 1633, in _Strafford
Letters_, and to Carlisle, August 27, in vol. viii. of the _Camden
Miscellany_, p. 5.
[184] Wilmot to Cottington, January 10, 1631-2; the King to Wentworth,
May 27, 1633; Wentworth to Coke, January 31, 1633-4. As to the King's
excuse for appointing Cary, see Lord Carlisle to Wentworth, February
10, 1633-4, _Strafford Letters_. Third Report of _Hist. MSS. Comm._
283, August 4, 1634. Clarendon's _Hist. of the Rebellion_, vol. i. p.
184 in Macray's edition.
[185] Laud to Wentworth, July 30, 1631, in _Strafford Letters_;
Bramhall to Laud, August 10, 1633, in the Oxford ed. of Bramhall's
_Works_, i. lxxix.
[186] Mason's _Hist. of St. Patrick's_; Budgell's _Memoirs of the
Boyles_; Laud to Wentworth, November 15, 1633, March 11, 1633-4;
Wentworth to Laud, August 23, 1634, March 10, 1634-5, in _Strafford
Letters_. The King's letter is in _Lismore Papers_, 2nd series, iii.
194. Elrington's _Life of Ussher_, p. 159.
[187] The documents concerning Baltimore are printed in Caulfield's
_Council Book of Kinsale_, xxxiii. Smith's _Hist. of Cork_. Cal. of
State Papers, _Ireland_, 1631, No. 1973. Conway to Wentworth, July 14,
1636, in _Strafford Letters_. _Court and Times_, ii. 253, 259, 265. The
Baltimore of 1630 did not occupy the same ground as the modern fishing
village, but ran inland from O'Driscoll's castle. Thomas Davis wrote a
fine ballad on the sack of Baltimore:
High upon a gallows tree, a yelling wretch is seen,
'Tis Hackett of Dungarvan--he, who steered the Algerine!
He fell amid a sullen shout, with scarce a passing prayer,
For he had slain the kith and kin of many a hundred there.
[188] _Strafford Letters_, _passim_, from 1633 to 1637; see
particularly Plumleigh's letter of October 11, 1633.