Chapter IV: Part I: The Graces (2)

And now comes the mysterious part of the business. The Commission sat in 1635; the Lord Deputy continued to hold office until the spring of 1641; yet the plantation was never carried out. No satisfactory explanation has yet been offered for this omission. It is certain that, so long as Wentworth lived, the scheme was never definitely abandoned.[111] In all probability the task was found to be more difficult than had been anticipated. The settlement of Ulster had been a simple matter in comparison. In the northern province Mountjoy had prepared the way for the planters by exterminating the best part of the original inhabitants; and the flight of the earls had left the scanty remnant destitute of their natural leaders. In Connaught, which had been comparatively peaceful during the Elizabethan wars, there was a numerous and warlike population, not yet cowed by famine and massacre, to be reckoned with; and their leader, Lord Clanricarde, a great English noble as well as a great Irish chieftain, could exert more influence at the Court of England than any “mere Irishman” could have done. These considerations may have induced Wentworth to proceed slowly and with caution. During 1636 and the two following years the province continued to be strongly garrisoned, and a few English settlers seem to have been introduced; but they were very few, and Connaught was still almost wholly in Catholic hands when the troubles that broke out in Scotland compelled the Lord Deputy to turn his attention elsewhere.[112]

During the next three years Wentworth devoted himself to securing for his master a revenue independent of Parliamentary control. With this object, inquisitions into defective titles were held not only in Connaught, but in every part of the island. No fresh plantations were made; but any landlord in whose title the smallest technical flaw could be discovered was compelled to pay heavily for a fresh patent. These exactions pressed hard upon natives and colonists alike. The former had generally inherited their lands according to some Irish custom not recognised by English lawyers; while many of the latter had neglected to fulfil the onerous and intricate conditions imposed upon them by the Articles of the plantations. The O’Byrnes of Wicklow, who had already been so harshly treated, were compelled to pay £15,000 before they recovered their estates.[113] The London companies were prosecuted in the Star Chamber on a charge of mismanaging their Ulster property, and condemned to forfeiture and a fine of £70,000.[114]

At the same time the Lord Deputy exerted himself with characteristic energy to develop the material resources of the country. The extraordinary advances which Irish commerce made under his government have been acknowledged by historians the most hostile to his memory.[115] In one respect, it is true, his commercial policy deserves severe blame. He found in Ireland, on his arrival, the beginnings of a flourishing woollen manufacture; and this manufacture, out of deference to the jealous fears of English traders, he promptly proceeded to destroy. The injury thus inflicted was more than compensated by the enormous development of the linen trade; a development which must be ascribed in large measure to the judicious and munificent patronage of Wentworth. He imported great quantities of flax from Holland at his own expense; introduced skilled workmen from France and the Low Countries; and did so much for the improvement of this industry that, although it had existed in Ireland at least as early as the fifteenth century, he is still spoken of in popular tradition as its founder.[116]

In spite, however, of the increasing prosperity of the country, the Lord Deputy continued to be an object of aversion to every section of the community. His unpopularity was due in almost equal measure to the merits and to the faults of his administration. The more violent Protestants were indignant at the introduction of the English Articles, as well as at Wentworth’s persistent refusal to exact the recusancy fines. The Catholics were kept in constant alarm by the inquiries into defective titles, and by the penal laws, which, though their execution was temporarily suspended, the Lord Deputy, as they were probably aware, was fully resolved to enforce, as soon as he should feel able to do so with impunity.[117] At the same time a crowd of rapacious officials, who had enriched themselves under the government of his incompetent predecessor, were exasperated by his vigorous attempts to repress jobbery and extortion. For this at least must be acknowledged to Wentworth’s honour, that, if he was a tyrant, he suffered no tyranny but his own.

The hostility of these men proved far more injurious to the Lord Deputy than the indignation of the native gentry. Of his quarrel with Lord Cork I have already spoken. His treatment of two other officials was made the subject of still harsher criticism. At the beginning of his administration Wentworth had been opposed by a majority of the Irish Council, but supported by a minority led by Lord Chancellor Loftus and Lord Mountnorris, both conspicuous for their hostility to his predecessor.[118] Within a very few years he had made both these men his bitter enemies. Mountnorris, when Wentworth took office, was Vice-Treasurer, and was believed by Lord Cork, then Treasurer, to have been guilty of gross mismanagement, if not of actual malversation.[119] Wentworth was not as a rule disposed to pay much attention to Cork’s statements; but misappropriation of public moneys was the last thing which he felt inclined to tolerate; and he instituted an inquiry which resulted in the conviction of Mountnorris, not, indeed, of personal corruption, but of scandalous negligence in tolerating the corruption of his subordinates.[120] Although Mountnorris was not at once deprived of his office he evidently considered himself aggrieved, and thenceforth intrigued persistently against the Lord Deputy. In the spring of 1635 the quarrel came to a head. A younger brother of Mountnorris, an officer in Wentworth’s own regiment, was guilty of some trivial breach of military discipline. He was rebuked by Wentworth, and answered with an impertinent gesture. The Lord Deputy, whose naturally choleric temper was at this time aggravated by an attack of gout, struck him lightly with his cane, telling him that, if the offence was repeated, “he would lay him over the pate.” A few days later, at a levée at Dublin Castle, a gentleman-in-waiting, who was also related to Mountnorris, contrived to overturn a stool on the Lord Deputy’s gouty foot. At a dinner party given not long afterwards by the Lord Chancellor, the occurrence was discussed, and Mountnorris hazarded an opinion that it had not been entirely accidental. “Perhaps,” said he, “it was done in revenge of that public affront that the Lord Deputy had done me formerly. But,” he added, “he has a brother who would not take such a revenge.”[121]

What Mountnorris may have meant it is impossible to say. In all probability he meant nothing, for the words were uttered after dinner, and he was not a man of abstemious habits. Be that as it may, he had soon reason to rue his imprudence. His words were repeated to the Lord Deputy, probably by Adam Loftus the younger, who was anxious to succeed him as Vice-Treasurer. Wentworth, who had previously been in communication with the king on the subject of Mountnorris’s financial irregularities, now wrote to request his Majesty’s permission to bring the Vice-Treasurer before a court-martial on the monstrous charge of inciting to a mutiny in the army. The permission was granted in July,[122] but it was not until six months later that the trial was held. The delay may have been due to the affairs of Connaught, which left the Lord Deputy little leisure to prosecute a personal quarrel; but it is also possible that Wentworth did not intend to proceed further in the matter unless fresh provocation was given. In the autumn, unfortunately for himself, Mountnorris engaged in an intrigue which kindled afresh the smouldering anger of the Lord Deputy. He proposed to the king an iniquitous scheme of taxation, which would, if it had been adopted, have increased his Majesty’s revenue from £8,000 to £20,000.[123] Wentworth, eager as he undoubtedly was “to raise a good revenue for the Crown,” was wise enough to understand that there is a point beyond which taxation cannot advantageously be pushed. He also knew his master quite well enough to feel sure that the permanent interest of the country would have little weight with him against the prospect of an immediate pecuniary gain. He resolved to crush Mountnorris without delay.

On December 12th, the unfortunate officer was summoned to a council of war at Dublin Castle. On his arrival he found several other persons present, but no one could inform him of the purpose for which their attendance was required. Wentworth presently arrived and told the company that it would be their duty to hold a court-martial on Lord Mountnorris, whose language at the Lord Chancellor’s dinner-party constituted a breach of two of the articles of war by which the army was governed. By the 41st article it was ordered that no man should “give any disgraceful words or commit any act to the disgrace of any person in the army or garrison, or any part thereof, upon pain of imprisonment, public disarming, and banishment from the army”; by the 13th that “no man should offer any violence, or contemptuously disobey his commander, or do any act or speak any words which are like to breed any mutiny in the army or garrison, or impeach the obeying of the general or principal officer’s directions, upon pain of death.” The words, “a brother who would not take such a revenge” were intended, according to the Lord Deputy’s interpretation, as an instigation to young Annesley to revenge himself in some more violent fashion than by the mere dropping of a footstool.

Mountnorris was stunned by this unexpected blow. He could neither deny the words imputed to him, nor offer any plausible explanation of them. The court, after a short deliberation, returned a verdict of guilty; and Mountnorris was sentenced “to be shot to death or to lose his head at the pleasure of the General.” Wentworth, who had been present at the proceedings but had taken no part in them, then addressed the prisoner and told him that he need be under no apprehensions so far as the capital sentence was concerned. “I had rather,” he said, “lose my hand than you should lose your head.” Mountnorris was kept for a short time in prison, deprived of his office of Vice-Treasurer, and dismissed from the army.[124]

These oppressive proceedings added yet another to the numerous enemies of Wentworth. Lord Cork, who had been compelled to disgorge the plundered revenues of the Church, and Lord Wilmot, who had been disgraced for embezzling the property of the Crown,[125] were already intriguing to procure his recall. With greater justice the De Burghs complained of his severity to the Galway jury. The Earl of Clanricarde was lately dead; and, though he was certainly an old man, his end was generally believed to have been hastened by vexation at the tyranny of the Lord Deputy.[126] D’Arcy, the sheriff of Galway, had also died not long after his committal to prison; and his death too was laid at Wentworth’s door.[127] By the beginning of the following year the outcry against him had become so loud that he found it advisable to proceed in person to London to justify himself before the king. He pointed with a not unjust pride to the undoubted reforms which he had effected in the government of Ireland. He had found the country on the verge of bankruptcy; he had established a large and rapidly-increasing revenue, and that without resorting to the dangerous and unpopular expedient of exacting the recusancy fines. He had transformed the Irish army from a disorderly rabble into a disciplined and efficient force; had suppressed piracy; and had developed the material resources of the island. He had set his foot upon the jobbery of the Dublin officials, and had done something, if not much, to improve the scandalous condition of the Established Church. His most arbitrary acts had been committed in his master’s interests, and were therefore such as that master was only too ready to condone. Charles signified his approval in the most gracious terms. After a few months’ absence Wentworth returned to Ireland with his enemies silenced and his position apparently impregnable.[128]

Rather more than a year after the Mountnorris court-martial Wentworth became involved in a dispute with another official which brought upon him 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, who renewed 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]

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Notes

Footnote 56:

In Harris’s _Fiction 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
in _Desiderata 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’s
_Analecta Sacra_.

Footnote 57:

For the Composition of Connaught compare Roderick O’Flaherty’s
_Chorographical 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’s _History of Sir John Perrott_, p.
149; Wentworth to Coke, August 25, 1635. (_Strafford Letters_, I.,
450-454.) In the _Calendar of Irish State Papers_, 1615-1625, there
are several letters containing suggestions for a plantation of
Connaught.

Footnote 58:

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

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 60:

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

Footnote 61:

Elrington’s _Life of Usher_, pp. 73-74.

Footnote 62:

_A Remonstrance presented to his Majesty by the Parliament in June,
1628._

Footnote 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 the _Calendar 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.”

Footnote 64:

Rushworth’s _Historical Collections_, II., 19.

Footnote 65:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 67:

For the conduct of Archbishop Loftus, see Ware’s _Bishops of Ireland_
and Elrington’s _Life of Usher_, pp. 6, 115, and for that of some
later members of his family Lecky’s _History of Ireland_, V. 295. With
regard to the Chancellor himself, I have collected some evidence in a
later part of this paper.

Footnote 68:

Lord Cork was the author of an extremely mendacious autobiographical
fragment, entitled _True Remembrances_, which is prefixed to the
collected edition of his son’s works. In Wright’s _History of
Ireland_, Bk. V., ch. 21, this remarkable able paper is carefully
analysed and its statements compared with the evidence of more
trustworthy documents.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 70:

Hammond L’Estrange, _Annals of the Reign of Charles the First_, p.
116. Compare _Foxes 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.

Footnote 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’s _Epoch of Irish History_, ch. V.

For an account of St. Patrick’s Purgatory see Richardson’s _Folly 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.)

Footnote 72:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 74:

Wentworth to Cottington, October 1, 1632. (_Strafford Letters_, I.,
74-77.)

Footnote 75:

Wentworth to Charles, April 12, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 182-187.)

Footnote 76:

Charles to Wentworth, April 17, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 233.)

Footnote 77:

Wentworth to Coke, June 24, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 269, 270.)

Footnote 78:

Wentworth to Coke, August 18, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 276-282.)

Footnote 79:

Wentworth to Coke, October 6, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 304-328.)

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 81:

Wentworth to Coke, December 16, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 345-353.) For the
proceedings of this Parliament I have also consulted the _Irish
Commons’ Journals_, I., pp. 59-119, but they add very little to our
information. For its legislation see _Irish Statutes_, 10 and 11,
Charles I.

Footnote 82:

Charles to Wentworth, January 22, 1634-5. (_Strafford Letters_, I.,
365.)

Footnote 83:

Wentworth to Laud, January 31, 1633-4. (_Ibid._, I., 187-189.)

Footnote 84:

Bedell to Laud, April I, 1630. (Burnet’s _Life of Bedell_, pp. 35,
36.)

Footnote 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.

Footnote 86:

The Irish articles are printed in Elrington’s _Life of Usher_,
Appendix, xxxiii.—L.

Footnote 87:

Bramhall to Laud, August 10, 1633. (Collier’s _Ecclesiastical
History_, VIII., 72-75.)

Footnote 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’s _History of the Church of Ireland_, I.,
395-408.

Footnote 89:

Heylin’s _History of Presbyterianism_, p. 393.

Footnote 90:

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

Footnote 91:

Vesey’s _Life of Bramhall_.

Footnote 92:

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

Footnote 93:

Clogy’s _Life of Bedell_, p. 118.

Footnote 94:

See much evidence of this in Ware’s _Bishops of Ireland_.

Footnote 95:

Wentworth to Laud, December, 1633. (_Strafford Letters_, I., 171-173.)

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 97:

Laud to Wentworth, March 11, 1634. (_Ibid._, I., 211.) See also
several letters in the _Lismore Papers_, 2nd series, and Mason’s
_History and Antiquities of the Collegiate and Cathedral Church of St.
Patrick_, pp. liii., liv.

Footnote 98:

Ware’s _Annals of Ireland_, A.D. 1560.

Footnote 99:

The best accounts of the Convocations of 1613-15 and 1634-35 are in
Elrington’s _Life of Usher_, pp. 39-49, and 165-187.

Footnote 100:

Wentworth to Laud, August 23, 1634. (_Strafford Letters_, I.,
298-301.)

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 102:

_Ibid._

Footnote 103:

Mahaffy’s _Epoch of Irish History_, ch. VI.

Footnote 104:

Wentworth to Laud, January 31, 1633-34. (_Strafford Letters_, I.,
187-189.)

Footnote 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’s _Memoirs_; The O’Conor Don’s _O’Conors of
Connaught_, pp. 88-95.

Footnote 106:

Wentworth to Charles, December 9, 1636. (_Strafford Letters_, II.,
41.)

Footnote 107:

Wentworth to Coke, July 14, 1635. (_Ibid._, I., 442-444.)

Footnote 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._)

Footnote 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._

Footnote 110:

Coke to Wentworth, September 20, 1635. (_Strafford Letters_, I.,
464-465.)

Footnote 111:

It was finally abandoned in April, 1641. See Gardiner’s _History of
England_, X., 45, where a letter of the Lords Justices is quoted.

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 113:

Wentworth to Charles, June 5, 1638. (_Ibid._, II., 175-176.)

Footnote 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 his _Letters_ that 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.)

Footnote 115:

Reid’s _History of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland_, I., 213.
Leland’s _History of Ireland_, III., 40, 41.

Footnote 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, it would 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.

Footnote 117:

Wentworth to Coke, November 28, 1636. (_Ibid._, II., 38-39.)

Footnote 118:

Wentworth to Coke, August 3, 1633. (_Ibid._, I., 97.)

Footnote 119:

Townshend’s _Life and Letters of the Great Earl of Cork_, pp. 180-181.

Footnote 120:

Wentworth to Coke, March 25 and April 7, 1635 (_Strafford Letters_,
I., 391, 392, 400-407.)

Footnote 121:

Wentworth to Coke, December 15, 1635. (_Ibid._, I., 497-501.)
Rushworth’s _Trial of the Earl of Strafford_. The account in Clarendon
(_History of the Great Rebellion_, III., 111-114) is inaccurate.

Footnote 122:

Charles to Wentworth, July 31, 1635. (_Strafford Letters_, I., 448.)

Footnote 123:

Laud to Wentworth, January 2, 1635-6. (Laud’s _Works_, VII., 216) and
Wentworth’s reply, March 9. (_Strafford Letters_, I., 517.)

Footnote 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’s _Trial of the Earl of Strafford_,
pp. 186-204.

Footnote 125:

Coke to Wentworth, October 26, 1635, enclosing Lord Wilmot’s
submission. (_Strafford Letters_, I., 477.)

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 128:

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

Footnote 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.

Footnote 130:

Report by J. T. Gilbert on the MSS. of the Marquis of Drogheda.
(_Historical MSS. Commission, 9th report_, pp. 293-330.) Clarendon’s
_History of the Great Rebellion_, III., 115-117.

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STRAFFORD

PART II

THE EVE OF “1641”

BY PHILIP WILSON

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Strafford