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

Mountnorris not a soldierMartial law in time of peaceThe King receives 6000l. for Mountnorris’s place

Mountnorris had a company, as was then customary with great men in Ireland, but he was not really a soldier, and knew nothing of military discipline. The words charged against him were spoken, if spoken at all, in private society, and it is not easy to see how they could possibly affect the discipline of the army. Yet Wentworth and his slavish council found that they constituted a breach of two articles of war. That which involved the death sentence was the thirteenth: ‘No man shall offer any violence, or contemptuously disobey his commander, or do any act or speak any words which are likely 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.’ This article is perhaps not too severe for its purpose, especially in time of war, but does any lawyer, does any soldier, does any man of common intelligence suppose that it was intended to be applied or could properly be applied to conversation at a dinner-party? And Mountnorris swore that he had never seen the articles at the time of his condemnation under them, and did not see them until June 1636. It does not appear that they had been acted on in time of peace. Besides all this, the court-martial was held without any notice; no time was given to summon witnesses; Wentworth himself, the prosecutor, presided in person, while the accused, who was not allowed counsel, was turned out of court, and one of the witnesses for the prosecution sat in judgment. At Court many wondered ‘that a peer of the kingdom, a Privy Councillor, a treasurer at war, though a captain, should be tried in a marshal’s court for words spoken six months before, no enemy in the field, nor the Lord Deputy in any danger of his life by these words.’ Wentworth’s energetic and talkative emissary, Captain Price, ‘laid about with his tongue’ as to this and other matters, but it was the King that really silenced the voice of criticism. It was his nature to approve harsh measures, and in this case he actually made 6000l. by the transaction. Wentworth advised Sir Adam Loftus to spend money freely to secure the succession; from which we may infer that he intended it to be lucrative in the hands of a friend. Loftus promised the money to Cottington, who promptly ‘gave it to him that really could do the business, which was the King himself.’ Probably only part of the money was for Cottington, and he was to give the rest to other officials, but he got the credit of surrendering the whole sum. Before it was actually received Charles assigned it in part payment of 22,000l. which he was spending on the purchase of an estate in Scotland. We may assume that the King was ‘roundly satisfied’ without delay, for Loftus was made Vice-Treasurer at the beginning of April. The fact that the money went to provide an endowment for the Scotch archbishoprics does not greatly improve matters. Clarendon says that Mountnorris was notoriously unloved, otherwise his treatment would have been thought ‘the most extravagant piece of sovereignty that in a time of peace had been ever executed by any subject.’226

Mountnorris under restraint for several months, 1635-37Deprived of his officeWentworth’s motives

Lord Mountnorris, said Wentworth, ‘was prisoner in the Castle some two days, but upon his physician’s certificate that the badness of his lodging might prejudice his health, I sent him upon good bond restrained only to his own house, where he is like to remain till I receive his Majesty’s further pleasure concerning him.’ Mountnorris makes the first confinement last six days, but the discrepancy is not of much importance. Chief Justice Shirley gave his bond for 2000l., and Mountnorris remained under restraint in his own house from the middle of December 1635 until the second week of April following. In February Lady Mountnorris petitioned for her husband’s release on the ground that his life was in danger, and reminded the Lord Deputy that he and his prisoner were connected by marriage; but Wentworth seems to have taken no notice of the lady’s letter; and Clarendon endorsed his copy as written by her to Wentworth ‘when her husband was under the sentence of death by martial law, and he was so hard-hearted that he gave her no relief.’ Lady Mountnorris went to London to try the King’s mercy, and Wentworth made this a reason for shutting his victim up again in the Castle. After three weeks he was again released by the doctors, in whose hands he remained for some time. In the meanwhile he had been superseded, and the Vice-Treasurership conferred on Loftus. Mountnorris was frequently brought before the Council on charges of malversation, but it does not appear that any actual sentence was given against him, and he refused to sue out his pardon in consequence. He signed a submission to the King, but the Deputy’s pride was not satisfied, and he was again imprisoned during the whole of February 1637. In July Lady Mountnorris obtained the King’s leave for her husband’s return to England, but this was not acted on for some months, and perhaps Charles did not intend it to be taken too literally. Writing from London to Wandesford, Wentworth directed that he should not be allowed to leave Ireland, claiming that the case should be decided in Dublin and by himself. It was not till the autumn of 1637 that Mountnorris got out of Ireland, ‘wondrously humbled as much as Chaucer’s friar’; and in a letter to his friend Conway Wentworth admitted his real motives. ‘I told him I never wished ill to his estate nor person further than to remove him thence where he was as well a trouble as an offence unto me.’ He had, in short, turned out an opponent and given his place to an adherent, and that seemed to him a sufficient explanation.227

The story told by Mountnorris himself, 1640

Mountnorris’s petition was presented to the House of Commons, November 7, 1640, along with the sentence of the Castle Chamber, pronounced December 12, 1635. He says Strafford ‘conceived a causeless distaste against him, and thereupon endeavoured the revenge of some supposed personal neglect’ by ruining him. Being already secretary of the Irish Council, King James gave him a patent of 200l. with other emoluments in reversion after Sir Dudley Norton’s death or retirement. But Strafford falsely accused him of incivility to his brother Sir George, obtained a surrender from Norton, and, ‘contrary to all right and justice, procured the said offices and fees to be conferred upon Sir Philip Mainwaring,’ and maintained him in possession by his despotic authority. King Charles had made him Vice-Treasurer and Receiver-General, and seven years later Treasurer at wars. He refused when Strafford required him to make a ‘dishonourable sale of the said offices,’ at which he was so enraged that he trumped up the prosecution and ‘in a time of public peace and serenity within that realm, December 12, 1635, did call a council of war and did accuse your petitioner of some words supposed to be spoken by your petitioner many months before tending in his lordship’s strained construction to the disturbance of government, and without allowing your petitioner liberty of clearing his innocence in a legal manner or so much as an hour’s time to make his just defence, proceeded to sentence at the same time, and although the said supposed words were no ways criminal sentenced a peer to death.’ He respited the execution for the further advancing of his ‘own ends,’ but used it to dispose of Mountnorris’s foot-company and kept him a prisoner in the Castle from December 12, 1635, until April 16, 1637. During that time all his effects and papers were ‘strictly searched by some of his greatest adversaries by his lordship’s direction.’ Twenty days of close confinement threatening his life obliged him to submit and accept a pardon. After this Strafford took advantage of his imprisonment to issue a commission of his own choice to inquire into his office, and made misrepresentations to the King, who made Sir Adam Loftus, ‘one of his accusers,’ Receiver-General and Treasurer at wars. Information was laid against him in the Castle Chamber during his imprisonment and sickness as to his supposed misdemeanour. He was conscious of no guilt, but finding he would be tried by the same ‘inquisitors,’ all prejudiced, he was reduced ‘to the miserable choice’ either to go on suffering even worse or to make a submission as Strafford wished, ‘whereupon your petitioner was enforced in ignominious manner to make submission, hoping thereby to purchase his liberty and go into England according to his Majesty’s directions,’ but he was kept in prison all the same. No one ever maintained that Star Chamber or Council, had any jurisdiction to try questions of title between man and man, yet he had been deprived on a ‘paper petition’ of a manor in Ireland after eighteen years’ quiet possession, and turned out by Strafford’s own warrant, and he was deprived of his legal remedy in other cases.228

The witnesses to the words about revenge were Lord Moore and Sir Robert Loftus, who were present, but were not the original reporters of the expression.

It is particularly stated that the sentence was unanimous, and that there was a breach of the 41st and 13th articles of war – sentence for the first, imprisonment, public disarming, and banishment from the Army, and for ever disabled to bear arms; and for the 13th death.

The articles of war were printed and published on March 13, 1633, and are the same as those used by Falkland, Wilmot, and others.

Case of Lord Chancellor LoftusThe Chancellor is suspended, and placed under arrest, April, 1638

Wentworth had probably distrusted Mountnorris from the first. The Lord Chancellor, on the contrary, had frequently earned his praise, and as late as the summer of 1636 a special grant of 3000l. was made to him on his recommendation. A few months afterwards the two men were engaged in an acrimonious correspondence about the appointment of a lawyer to do temporary duty on circuit. The explanation of this charge is to be found in certain legal proceedings which had taken place in the meantime. In the year 1621 the Chancellor’s eldest son, Robert, had married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Francis Rushe, whose sister long afterwards became the wife of Wentworth’s brother, Sir George. It was alleged that the Chancellor had promised to settle Monasterevan and 1500l. a year in land upon the young couple, and that the bride had paid over her dowry of 1750l. on this consideration. It was now sought after all these years to enforce specific performance of the Chancellor’s verbal promise. The proceedings were taken by Eleanor’s half-brother, Sir John Gifford, as her next friend, her husband refusing to be a party, though he had a solicitor to watch the case. It is not clear that ordinary courts of law had no jurisdiction in the case, but it was assumed to be matter of equity, and a King’s letter was obtained remitting it to the Council on the ground that the Lord Chancellor was chief equity judge and that he could not adjudicate in his own cause. Sir William Colley swore in a hesitating and inconsistent way at the trial in 1638 to what the Chancellor had said in 1621, who upon this ground was ordered to settle all the lands to the value of 1200l. a year upon Sir Robert Loftus and his heirs general, to the exclusion of the second son, Edward, who was to have an annual rent-charge of 200l. The King professed himself anxious for the maintenance of the peerage, but the judgment, had it been finally confirmed, would have had the contrary effect, for Sir Robert’s only son died shortly afterwards, and the property would have gone to his sister, whose uncle, as heir male, would have had the title with nothing to support it. This judgment was given on February 1, 1638, but the Chancellor was in no hurry to obey, having already appealed to the King himself, and on April 20 he was suspended by the Lord Deputy and Council, and ordered to give up the Great Seal next day. The seal not being so produced, Loftus was thereupon committed, and remained under restraint for sixteen months. It was afterwards pretended that this extreme severity to an octogenarian public servant was caused by evidence of judicial misconduct in another case, but Wentworth did not say so at the time. Loftus may have been guilty of some irregularities, but nothing like corruption was proved against him, and it is probable that little would have been heard of these grave misdemeanours if his daughter-in-law had not been Wentworth’s friend and if her sister had not lately been married to his brother. In one letter he calls the Chancellor’s wife ‘a fury,’ and in another he speaks of ‘that unclean-mouthed daughter of his, the Lord Moore’s wife.’229

Severe treatment of LoftusThe King supports WentworthLoftus submits, but appeals to the Long Parliament

More than ten years before Loftus had obtained a royal licence to go to England whenever he thought fit, and to put the Great Seal into commission. He did not now rely upon this, but asked for special leave, and Charles granted it at once. The King’s letter probably arrived before the suspension of the Chancellor, who sent over his second son Edward. The latter had been made a party to the suit against his father, and Wentworth considered that this aggravated his contempt, though Edward does not seem to have held any office. When the Chancellor was first summoned before the Council he was not required to kneel ‘considering his age and the eminency of his place,’ but a resolution was passed that neither he nor anyone else should be so excused in future. On the second occasion he said he would rather die than kneel, and on the following day maintained that no such compliance had been required from one of his rank and quality for a hundred years, and that ‘the Great Seal ought not to creep on knees and elbows to any subordinate person in the world.’ He refused to give up the seal or to bring it with him; having received it from the King he would surrender it only to an order under the royal hand. After this he was committed to the Castle until the King’s pleasure should be known. In his petition to Charles for release he stated that he was ‘very aged and the prison very close and pestered with many prisoners.’ But Wentworth and his subservient Council, fortified by a petition of Sir John Gifford, magnified the Chancellor’s refusal to kneel into a great offence, and urged the King not to allow him over to England until he had fully submitted to their decree as to Monasterevan and the rest. The despatch was sent over by Sir George Radcliffe, so that no means was neglected to prejudice Charles against the old Chancellor. The leave was suspended accordingly, and in a later letter the King even blamed the ‘over-much forbearance and patience’ of the Deputy and Council, and ordered that the prisoner should not be allowed to go without acknowledging his fault and suing for pardon. After about eleven months’ confinement the King ordered that the Chancellor should be kept a close prisoner, whereupon Lady Loftus was forced to leave her husband, ‘though the small sustenance whereby he liveth is ministered by her hands.’ His chaplains were also refused access to him. Afterwards just as much relaxation was allowed as to prevent the prisoner actually dying, and he was under restraint in his own house for a short time. A threat of further close confinement in the Castle at last broke his spirit, and he made over his property to trustees who were all Wentworth’s close allies – Wandesford, Sir Adam Loftus, Lord Dillon, and his secretary, Sir Philip Mainwaring. The Chancellor had already made a submission to the Lord Deputy in terms sufficiently humble. Lady Moore made great exertions, and in June 1639 she was seen on her knees before Charles at Berwick ‘very earnestly soliciting for her father’s coming over.’ His appeal to the King was fruitless, for Wentworth was in London before him and at the height of his power. In November 1639 the decree of the Irish Council was confirmed, and Sir Richard Bolton was appointed Chancellor a few days later. Less than twelve months after the decision of the appeal the Long Parliament was sitting, and Wentworth was in the custody of Black Rod. Sir Robert Loftus and his wife both died before the Chancellor, who lived long enough to see all the decrees against him reversed by the English House of Lords, but the litigation arising out of the case extended far into the reign of Charles II. During the civil war the Irish estates were not of much use to anyone.230

Judgement of contemporaries on this caseClarendonWarwickLady Loftus

Loftus was no doubt a difficult man to work with for he had been on bad terms with both Falkland and Cork. He was stiff-necked, and Wentworth demanded subserviency, as he showed in the cases both of Wilmot and Mountnorris. Having been acting viceroy for four years, Loftus was not inclined to step down too far, and he considered that a Chancellor’s rights and position were quite independent of the viceroy. That, no doubt, was the unpardonable sin. ‘Most men,’ says Clarendon, who had good opportunities of judging, ‘that weighed the whole matter, believed it to be a high act of oppression, and not to be without a mixture of that policy which was spoken of before in the case of the Lord Mountnorris; for the Chancellor, being a person of great experience, subtlety, and prudence, had been always very severe to departed deputies; and not over agreeable or in any degree submiss to their full power; and taking himself to be the second person of the kingdom during his life, thought himself little less than equal to the first, who could naturally hope but for a term of six years in that superiority; neither had he ever before met with the least check, that might make him suspect a diminution of his authority, dexterity, or interest.’ ‘The lofty humour of this great man,’ says Sir Philip Warwick, ‘engaged him too often and against too many. And particularly one dispute with the old Chancellor Loftus, which was sullied by an amour, as was supposed, betwixt him and his daughter-in-law.’ Clarendon has some ambiguous expressions to which the same meaning has been given, and the fact that Sir Robert Loftus refused to join in the suit against his father is capable of being construed in the same way. Such charges, however, are much easier to make than to disprove, and we are not called upon to believe that there was any intrigue. Writing to his friend Conway in August 1639, he announces young Lady Loftus’ death as that of ‘one of the noblest persons I ever had the happiness to be acquainted with; and as I had received greater obligations from her ladyship than from all Ireland besides, so with her are gone the greatest part of my affections to the country, and all that is left of them shall be thankfully and religiously paid to her excellent memory and lasting goodness.’231

The great Earl of CorkRaleigh’s successor. Church propertyCork and Wentworth

Richard Earl of Cork was certainly the most important man in Ireland, and was generally considered the King’s richest subject. He had made his great fortune himself, and it would be hard to show that it was not made honestly. There were many opportunities for speculation after the Desmond wars, and he used them to the utmost, buying in the cheapest market, and selling, if he sold at all, in the dearest. After Grandison’s death he was made Lord Treasurer, and he was a royalist to the backbone. If Wentworth had been a constitutional statesman, rather than a despotic viceroy, he would have made a friend of Cork; but he preferred to humiliate him, caring nothing for his hostility, provided some of his money could be diverted to the King’s coffers. Like most public men in Ireland, Lord Cork was in possession of some land which had belonged to the Church, and of some livings also. He purchased Raleigh’s vast possessions for 1500l., after their nascent prosperity had been destroyed in the last Desmond rebellion, and it was no fault of his if the Church had been badly treated at the time of forfeiture. Lismore Cathedral had been burned down by the White Knight and his crew, but even in this case Cork made some attempt at restoration, and might have done more if his title had not been disputed by Laud and Wentworth, who made Bishop Michael Boyle of Waterford their stalking horse in the attack on his great kinsman. ‘I knew the bishop well,’ said Laud, ‘and when he lived in the college (St. John’s) he would have done anything or sold anyone for sixpence profit.’ The see-lands at Lismore and Ardmore were leased to Raleigh by two bishops, and the blame should fall on him rather than upon Boyle, who purchased the property as it stood. Wentworth was right in trying to recover Church property which had been wrongly alienated, but not in making the holder personally responsible. In the end Ardmore was restored to the see, and Lismore was confirmed to the Earl of Cork. After the breaking up of the third Parliament in 1629, Cork was pressed to lend the King 15,000l. on the security of the Irish customs, and had some difficulty in getting his money back. Wentworth took care that he should pay his full share of the subsidy. ‘I do believe,’ he wrote in 1640, ‘there is no man living hath suffered so much by his (Strafford’s) oppressions and injustice as myself, who with truth affirm that I am the worse by 40,000l. for him in my personal estate, and 1200l. a year in my revenue; and all is taken from me by his power without any suit in law. He hath enforced me to pay 4200l. within this five years for subsidies, which might have ransomed me if I had been prisoner with the Turks, and was more than himself and all the lords of the Council paid, for the last subsidy in England.232

The case of Youghal CollegeWentworth demands a fine of 30,000l., and takes 15,000lReal reason of Wentworth’s hostilityCork presents 1000l. to the King

Of the many disputes between the Lord Deputy and the Lord Treasurer one must be noticed particularly. In 1464 Thomas Earl of Desmond founded at Youghal a college for a warden, eight fellows, and eight singing men, who were to serve the church hard by and perhaps others in the neighbourhood. The institution slipped through the net which swept away ordinary monasteries, but the celibate life in common came to an end after the Reformation, and Wetheread, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, became warden. He died in 1592, having let the house to Sir Thomas Norris, and this lease was afterwards renewed to Raleigh’s trustees, whose interest Boyle purchased. That he was thus in possession of Church property was evident, but it was in lay hands before he acquired it, and he had bought out those concerned without any secrecy. The original title was not very good, and Cork took every means possible to strengthen his position. His cousin, Richard Boyle, Bishop of Cork, was warden many years before Wentworth’s arrival, and in 1627 agreed with the three then surviving fellows to release their claims in consideration of life annuities, amounting altogether to 86l. 13s. 4d. a year. Both parties swore to fulfil their contract. Wentworth determined to prosecute Cork in the Castle-chamber for being privy to a fabricated bond and for taking or imposing an illegal oath. Something would be recovered for the Church, but the main object was to extract enough money from the Earl to pay off or reduce the existing Crown debts in Ireland. Wentworth demanded 30,000l. as a voluntary fine to avoid exposure. The charge of forgery was found to be false, and as to the oath Cork, who throughout maintained that he had done nothing wrong, could show that it was voluntary on both sides, and of a character not uncommon in Ireland. His friends, including his eldest son, knew perfectly well what the result of a trial would be, and induced the Earl to pay 15,000l., Wentworth pleasantly representing this as a saving of that sum to the accused. The day of trial was actually fixed, and Cork found his old antagonist, the Chancellor, sitting on a form in the gallery, who said he had read all the pleadings and that there was nothing in them. ‘Then,’ says Cork, ‘I told his lordship that I hoped he would deliver his vote for my clearing. “Nay, by my faith (quoth he) I will not promise you that.” I replied again that if he were in my case I would clear him if my conscience did assure me he were not guilty. His lordship answered that it was very necessary for me to be exceeding careful of myself; for that it was not my cause, but my judges, I was to fear.’ In the end Cork had the property confirmed to him by the King, abandoning certain tithes and presentations worth about 700l. a year, which were recovered for the Church, but which were in lay hands when Cork acquired them. ‘God’s wounds, sir,’ said Wentworth to the Earl, ‘when the last Parliament in England broke up you lent the King 15,000l. And afterwards in a very uncivil unmannerly manner you pressed his Majesty to restore it you. Whereupon I resolved before I came out of England to fetch it back again from you, by one means or other. And now I have gotten what I desired you and I will be friends hereafter.’ The money was duly paid within two years. Laud congratulated himself on having kept the King steady throughout; but Charles seems to have had some misgivings, for he excused Cork from subscribing towards the Scotch campaign, and afterwards graciously accepted a thousand pounds in gold, which were sent down to the North after him.233