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

While at Doncaster, after the treaty of Berwick, the King saw a messenger from Wentworth, who gave him his latest ideas on the Loftus case. Charles reached London on August 2 1639, and within three weeks it was known that the Lord Deputy would be sent for and perhaps made Lord Treasurer. He arrived at his own house in Covent Garden on September 21, and became virtually chief minister until the meeting of the Long Parliament, though his advice was not always taken. Juxon remained in charge of an empty Treasury. Lord Dillon and Wandesford had been left in Ireland as Lords Justices, but Radcliffe was more trusted than anyone. Wentworth did not neglect the affairs of Ireland, but he had no time to write at length, though he was able to bring the Loftus affair to the conclusion he desired. He was particularly anxious that Lady Carlisle’s interests in Ireland should not be neglected, and no doubt he often saw her. While devoting himself heart and soul to the King’s affairs, he was under no illusion as to their evil condition. Writing from St. Albans on the morning of the day when he reached London, ‘I find,’ he told Radcliffe, ‘a great expectation is drawn upon me, for which I am most sorry; and the nearer I come to it the more my heart fails me; nor can I promise unto myself any good by this journey.’[242 - R. Weckherlin to Sir John Coke, August 25, 1639, Melbourne Hall Papers; W. Raylton to same, August 13, ib.; Wentworth to Radcliffe, September 21 and October 28 in Whitaker’s Life of Radcliffe, 181-3.]

Wentworth advises a Parliament

He is made Lord Lieutenant and Earl of Strafford

On November 19, in the King’s presence, the Privy Council gave judgment for Wentworth against the Irish Chancellor. Very soon afterwards it was decided on his recommendation that a Parliament should be held both in England and Ireland, and he fancied that some popularity had come to him in consequence. So much did Charles lean on him, that his presence at the opening of both Parliaments was considered necessary. He tried to maintain Sir John Coke in office, but indeed the Secretary was superannuated, and he failed to obtain the succession for Leicester, the appointment being given to Vane, whom he hated and despised. But he was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a title which had not been conferred since Devonshire’s time, with power to appoint a deputy, and so to direct affairs on both sides of St. George’s Channel; and he received the earldom which had been twice refused. He had the bad taste to take a second title from Vane’s house at Raby, and the latter bitterly resented what was probably an intentional insult on Strafford’s part; ‘and I believe,’ says Clarendon, ‘it was the loss of his head.’[243 - Wentworth to Radcliffe, December 10, 1639, in Whitaker’s Life of Radcliffe, 187. Speech on being made an Earl, January 12, 1639-40, Strafford Letters, ii. 390. Coke’s dismissal from the secretaryship was decided before December 13, Melbourne Hall Papers, ii. 245. ‘The King declared his resolution for a Parliament in case of the Scottish rebellion. The first movers to it were my Lord Deputy of Ireland, my Lord Marquis Hamilton, and myself’ – Laud’s Diary, December 5, 1639, Works, iii. 233, 283.]

Strafford reconciled to the Queen

An Irish army to subdue Scotland

An Irish Parliament, March, 1640

Before taking leave of the King, Strafford attended a meeting of the Council, where a subscription was opened to meet his Majesty’s most pressing needs, and he headed the list with 20,000l. He left London on March 5 in the Queen’s coach and six, which shows that he had been reconciled to her, and carried with him instructions as to the Irish Parliament. The King enlarged upon the enormities of the Scots, professing himself sure of Ireland, and demanding six subsidies to be paid in three years, but holding out hopes of two being remitted if the misguided faction in North Britain should submit to his just desires. That he did not much expect such submission is clear from his determination to raise 8,000 foot and 1000 horse in Ireland, ‘the better and more speedily to reduce those others in Scotland to their due obedience.’ Strafford was attacked by gout at Beaumaris, but hastened over to Ireland, determined, whatever pain he might have, to be back in time for the opening of Parliament at Westminster – ‘I should not fail, though Sir John Eliot were living.’ Halt, lame, or blind, he would be true to the King’s service, and he reflected on what he might be able to do with legs, since he was so brave without them. The Irish Parliament had been summoned for March 16, and the Lord-Lieutenant did not land until two days later. The Lords Justices and Council had already determined to ask for four subsidies, for six had been voted on a former occasion, and they feared an exact repetition lest the taxpayers might take alarm at the prospect of a recurrent charge. Nothing was actually done until Strafford arrived on the 18th, after forty-eight hours tossing in the channel. On the 19th he summoned the Council, and next day opened Parliament in state, and confirmed the election of Sir Maurice Eustace as Speaker of the House of Commons. Eustace made a pompous oration, containing six long quotations from Horace and abundance of other Latin. ‘The Brehon law,’ he said, ‘with her two brats of tanistry and Irish gavelkind, like the children of the bondwoman, are cast out as spurious and adulterate.’ Everyone rejoiced to see that the son of the free woman prevailed, and the King’s subjects should boast that they only had peace, while France, Germany, Spain, and the dominions of the House of Austria were laid waste by war.[244 - Irish Commons Journals; Council of Ireland to Windebank, March 19; Strafford to the King, March 23, Strafford Letters, ii. 394-6.]

Four subsidies voted

Subservience of Parliament

Declaration in praise of Strafford

In his opening speech to Parliament, which the journals say was excellent, Strafford, having heard Wandesford and the rest, ventured slightly to vary the King’s instructions. Instead of demanding six subsidies he allowed four to be moved for, and they were granted with such alacrity that he acknowledged the plan of the Council to be best, and confidently affirmed his belief that the Commons would be ready to give as many subsidies more after the first four had been levied. Some members, indeed, declared themselves ready to give the fee of their estates, if occasion required, and to leave themselves nothing but hose and doublet. The native representatives were loud in their loyalty, and there were no dissentient voices, ‘all expressing even with passion how much they abhorred the Scotch Covenanters.’ Not only were the subsidies voted, but a declaration of the most extreme character was agreed to. Both Houses were ready to give their all for the reduction of the Covenanters, and desired that this should be ‘published in print for a testimony to all the world and succeeding ages that as this kingdom hath the happiness to be governed by the best of kings, so they are desirous to give his Majesty just cause to account of this people amongst the best of his subjects.’ To complete the Lord Lieutenant’s momentary triumph, the preamble of the Subsidy Bill was a panegyric upon that ‘just, wise, vigilant, and profitable governor.’ He was given full credit for the Commission for defective titles, for restoring the Church and reforming the army, for his justice and impartiality, and for his ‘care to relieve and redress the poor and oppressed.’ On March 31 he came down again to the House of Lords in state, and gave the royal assent to the Subsidy and eight other Bills. The declaration had been entered on the Parliament roll, and Strafford took care to have some hundreds of copies printed for distribution by him in England. The clergy taxed themselves very heavily, and so a revenue was provided for some years. Strafford seems actually to have believed that the King was infinitely reverenced in Ireland, and that he himself was quite popular, though some spiteful people had asserted the contrary. ‘God forgive their calumnies,’ he said, ‘and I do.’[245 - Irish Commons Journals; Irish Statutes, 15 Car. I.; Strafford Letters, March 16-April 3, 1639-40, ii. 394-403. The Declaration is in Nalson, i. 283. If further evidence were needed of Strafford’s complete reconciliation with the Queen, we have Madame de Motteville’s: ‘Il avait été brouillé avec la Reine, mais depuis quelque temps il était lié à ses intérêts,’ Mémoires, chap. 9. There is a useful itinerary for Strafford in the ninth volume of the Camden Miscellany. Cork says in his diary that Strafford left London very early ‘to avoid the concourse of myself and many others that desired to wait upon him,’ Lismore Papers, 1st series, v. 129.]

CHAPTER XVII

STRAFFORD’S ARMY

Plan to reduce the Scots. Lord Antrim

Antrim’s plan of invasion

Wentworth disapproves of his schemes

As soon as the troubles in Scotland began it was natural that Charles should expect help from Ireland. The first proposals came from Tyrone’s grandson, Randal MacDonnell, second Earl of Antrim, whose handsome person had recommended him to the widowed Duchess of Buckingham. Having conformed to the State Church to please her first husband, she reverted to her original faith to please her second. The marriage of his friend’s wife was displeasing to Charles, and perhaps this made her second husband the more anxious to do some signal service, or at least to have the credit of intending it. Antrim was a man of much ambition and some cunning, but his practical abilities were small, and neither Strafford, Ormonde, nor Clarendon rated him highly. He had been ‘bred in the Highland way, and wore neither hat, cap, shoes, nor stockings till seven or eight years old,’ and a Highlander he remained to the end. His extravagance at Court had involved him in debt to the enormous amount of 80,000l., and Wentworth believed that the sale of his whole estate would not fetch such a sum. Hatred of the Campbells was his strongest passion. In July 1638 he asked Wentworth to supply him with arms to be kept in a magazine in Coleraine ready to use in case of an invasion by the dreaded clan, and six months later he credited Argyle with the intention of getting a law passed ‘that to the end of the world no MacDonnell should be allowed to enjoy a foot of land in Scotland.’ Charles was doubtful how far it would be wise to entrust a magazine of arms to one of Antrim’s creed, but desired the Lord Deputy and Council to ‘favour him as much as anyone of his profession in religion.’ In February Wentworth told the King that the demand for arms had not been pressed, ‘my lord of Antrim perceiving I am not ignorant of his great want of money, his credit to be so low, as not able at this very instant to take up in Dublin poor three hundred pounds.’ Charles, however, wrote to Antrim, encouraging him to fit out an expedition against the Scottish isles by way of making a diversion in his favour. Windebank prudently sent a copy of the letter to Wentworth, who was thus prepared for a sudden visit from Antrim on March 9. The Lord Deputy’s caustic criticism had taken some effect, and the proposed 20,000 men were reduced to 5400, but the conditions of even this modified plan might have displeased a much more patient man than Wentworth. Among Antrim’s demands were the right to appoint his own officers, power to cut timber in the royal woods, a loan of 20,000l., and four of the King’s ships under his own command. Twelve field pieces, bows and arrows, muskets, carbines, pistols, swords, armour, and buff coats were all to be provided by Government, and more barrels of powder than the royal stores contained. One hundred old soldiers were to be detached to drill the new levies, and Antrim talked of bringing Irish officers over from Spain.[246 - Strafford Letters, ii. 184, 211, 266-306. For personal details see Hill’s Macdonnells of Antrim. Lord Deputy and Council to Coke, Melbourne Hall MSS. calendared by Hist. MSS. Comm. under July 1637, but apparently belonging to 1639.]

Antrim’s plan is abandoned

A primitive commissariat

Danger of a Celtic army

Wentworth knew that the raw material of an army was plentiful in Ireland, and that 40,000 ‘bodies of men,’ to use an old phrase of Sir Henry Sidney’s – might easily be had. But to pay, feed, and train them was another matter, and no one knew better the difference between an army and a mob. Neither money, arms, material, nor drill-sergeants could be spared to such a projector as Antrim. ‘I desired,’ said Wentworth, ‘to know what provision of victual his lordship had thought of, which for so great a number of men would require a great sum of money. His lordship said he had not made any at all, in regard he conceived they should find sufficient in the enemy’s country to sustain them, only his lordship proposed to transport over with him ten thousand live cows to furnish them with milk, which he affirmed had been his grandfather’s (Tyrone’s) play.’ It was suggested that Argyle might drive off his cattle, and that Cantire and the Hebrides were barren tracts. Antrim said his men could ‘feed their horses with leaves of trees, and themselves with shamrocks.’ Wentworth doubted whether there were any trees in the Western Islands, and was at all events sure that they would not be in full foliage in the early spring, so that there would be no hurry. The end of it all was that Antrim found he could not have the whole resources of the Government at his disposal. Having no money or credit, he could do nothing of himself, though the King gave him a commission of lieutenancy over the western Highlands and islands. Wentworth saw clearly the danger of raising a force in Ireland which it would be impossible to pay. ‘What sudden outrage,’ he wrote prophetically, ‘may be apprehended from so great a number of the native Irish, children of habituated rebels, brought together without pay or victual, armed with our own weapons, ourselves left naked the whilst? What scandal of his Majesty’s service it might be in a time thus conditioned to employ a general and a whole army in a manner Roman Catholics? What affright or pretence this might give for the Scottish, who are at least fourscore thousand in those parts, to arm also, under colour of their own defence?’ With a general and soldiers alike ignorant the whole scheme would be much more likely to draw a Scotch invasion upon Ireland than to strengthen the King in Scotland. Antrim had not even decided in his own mind which island to land on – any one of eighty, he thought, would do.[247 - Wentworth to Windebank, March 20, 1638-9, enclosing Antrim’s written proposals, Strafford Letters. Charles’s informal commission to Antrim, dated June 5, 1639, is printed in Hill’s Macdonnells of Antrim, Appx. 12, Melbourne Hall MSS., ut sup.]

Plans for a diversion in Scotland

A garrison for Carlisle. Sir F. Willoughby

The idea of using the Irish army in Great Britain originated with Charles himself. In July 1638 he inquired what help he might expect in the event of an outbreak in Scotland. Wentworth answered that he had only 2000 foot and 600 horse, and that it would not be safe to send away any, especially since the Ulster Scots undoubtedly sympathised with their countrymen. He would have Charles trust his English subjects, but could only recommend the most ruthless repression for Scotland. Leith might be permanently fortified and garrisoned at the expense of the Scots ‘till they had received our common prayer-book used in our churches of England without any alteration, the bishops settled peaceably in their jurisdiction,’ and English law substituted for Scotch. For his own part he could only propose to concentrate a large part of his small army in north-east Ulster. At the King’s suggestion he raised 400 additional horse, a troop of 110 cuirassiers being given to Ormonde as the man in Ireland most able and willing to maintain them effectively. Money was sent to Holland to provide arms for the new men, and the equipment of the foot was also much improved. On October 22 Charles wrote to propose that Wentworth should provide a garrison of 500 men for Carlisle, and also some cannon if they could be spared from Ireland. The business was taken in hand at once, Sir Francis Willoughby, governor of Galway, being selected to command the expedition. The pay in Ireland was sixpence a day, in England eightpence, and Wentworth asked that they might be paid on the higher scale after crossing the channel. Charles promised, but could not perform this, though he did give some money by way of bounty, and in June 1641 the regiment was back in Ireland, and their pay heavily in arrear. Willoughby had been forty years a soldier, twenty-five in the Netherlands, and his experience at Carlisle confirmed him in the opinion that the discipline of great garrisons was best maintained by paying the men well and punishing their misdemeanours.[248 - Willoughby to Wentworth, six letters in May and June 1639 in Strafford Letters; to Vane, June 18, 1641, in State Papers, Ireland; to Coke, July 23, 1639, in Melbourne Hall Papers.]

Nucleus of the new Irish army

Each captain of foot was ordered to pick thirteen of the best unmarried men out of the ranks, and the number was thus made up. Scots were carefully weeded out, lest they should be tempted to correspond with their own countrymen. The drafts were ordered to Ulster on pretence of garrisons being required for Carrickfergus, Londonderry, and Coleraine. ‘For keeping a place,’ said Wentworth, ‘shot is of more use than pike, and without controversy muskets of more execution than calivers.’ Three hundred and fifty were therefore musketeers and the residue pikemen. Willoughby landed at Whitehaven on April 1, 1639, and was at Carlisle a few days later, where he remained until all idea of fighting the Scots had been given up. His regiment was the admiration of the whole country, and commanding officers begged eagerly ‘for the loan of some of our soldiers to come and learn their soldiers to exercise.’ No glory was to be gained in that war, but the excellence of Willoughby’s men was so evident, that Charles determined to raise a new Irish army of 8000 men, expressly ‘to reduce those in Scotland to their due obedience.’ Wentworth had conceived this idea long before, but he intended all the men to be Protestants, and of British extraction as far as possible. By the middle of 1639 he had not only his standing army of 3000 men in perfect order, but had provided 8000 spare arms with twelve field pieces and eight heavy guns.[249 - Strafford Letters, ii. 187, 228, 244, etc. There are six letters from Willoughby to Wentworth during April and May 1639, and see his letter to Vane of June 18, 1641, in State Papers, Ireland; Wentworth to Cottington, February 10, 1638-9, in vol. ix. of Camden Miscellany.]

9000 men to be raised

Strafford sees the danger

Wentworth was in England from September to March 1639-40, and as the result of this visit steps were taken to levy 8000 foot and 1000 horse in Ireland. This was the germ of the policy which ruined both Charles I. and James II., and which has never succeeded with any statesman. To lean upon Irish Roman Catholic support in order to crush opposition in Protestant England was plainly the idea of Charles himself much more than of Strafford; for the latter saw the danger clearly enough, though he wilfully neglected it in pursuit of his ‘thorough’ ideal. It may be said that Strafford would have succeeded if his King had seconded him properly, but then no really able sovereign would have adopted such a scheme. Lady Carlisle has recorded that in addition to that which Charles consulted there was ‘another little junto, that is much apprehended,’ consisting of Strafford, Laud, and Hamilton only. ‘They have met twice, and the world is full of guesses for the occasion of it.’[250 - Lady Carlisle to Leicester, October 17, 1639, Collins’s Sidney Papers.]

The sinews of war

Charles promises to find money, but fails to do so

The King’s order to raise the new army was issued on March 2, and Strafford hurried over to provide funds in Ireland; he seems really to have believed that love and not fear made the Irish Parliament so subservient as to vote what he asked for. The raising of the new men was taken in hand at once, and he hoped to have them all ready at Carrickfergus by the middle of May, and in Scotland by the end of June. He would keep them together and pay them for eighteen months, provided the King did his part. The conditions were that 10,000l. should be at once given to buy necessaries in Holland, and 40,000l. more at short intervals. ‘We are resolved,’ Strafford told Windebank, ‘to bring as much as possible to Ireland in specie, which will give a life even to the payment of our subsidies here, by the passing of so much ready money from hand to hand, than which I assure you nothing is so much wanting in this kingdom.’ The rents of Londonderry and Coleraine were to be remitted from the English to the Irish Exchequer. All powder was to be provided in England without payment. The King’s ships were to keep the channel clear, two thousand foot and five hundred horse were to join the Irish army in Cumberland, and Ireland was to be relieved from payment of the garrison at Carlisle. Orders were sent to London to draw the 10,000l. at once, but when Strafford, suffering agony and borne in a litter, reached Coventry in the middle of April, he was told that there was no money in the Exchequer. Strafford had done his part, but the King could give him no help, and the Irish army never crossed the channel. The mere fact that it had been raised cost them both their heads.[251 - Northumberland to Leicester, December 12, 1639, Collins’s Sidney Papers, ii. 624; Strafford to Coke, March 16, 1639-40; to the King, March 23; to Windebank and Hamilton, March 24; to the King, April 16, 1640, Strafford Letters.]

Danger of enrolling native Irish soldiers

Command given to Ormonde

Most of the men Roman Catholics

The Irish army is kept up after Newburn

No one saw possible danger more clearly than Strafford, but his political position forced him into courses which in his cooler moments he knew to be desperate. To enlist no Scots was an obvious precaution, but there were other dangers not less real though more remote. The Irish, he told the King, might do good service, for they hated the Scots and their religion; ‘yet it is not safe to train them up more than needs must in the military way, which, the present occasion past, might arm their old affections to do us more mischief, and put new and dangerous thoughts into them after they are returned home (as of necessity they must) without further employment or provision than what they had of their own before.’ Nevertheless, his first and much safer plan of a Protestant army was forgotten, and he proceeded to impress large numbers of Irish Roman Catholics. The dreaded result followed, but before that time he had perished on the scaffold, and the evil that he had done lived after him. The command of the new army was given to Ormonde, the enrolment and preliminary drill being left to St. Leger with the title of Sergeant-Major-General. The commissioners for raising the subsidies were entrusted with the levy, and officers were appointed at once. The old army consisted entirely, or almost entirely, of Protestants, and one thousand men, drafted proportionally from each company, became the nucleus of the new force. Carte would have us believe that in consequence of these veterans ‘being invested with authority or in a state of superiority over the rest of the new army, had it absolutely in their power; and it was of little or no consequence what religion the other private sentinels which composed it professed.’ This might have held good if the army had been kept together with regular pay and under a stable Government. But it was the day of disbandment that Strafford feared, and it was the disbanded soldiers who made the greatest difficulty when the struggle between King and Parliament had almost paralysed the Irish Government. The bulk of the men who were raised to put down the Scotch Covenanters were Irish Roman Catholics, and would be sure to take sides against England when occasion offered. Even the officers were to some extent open to the same objection. In the regiment raised by Colonel John Butler in Leinster Rory Maguire and Arthur Fox, both well-known in the subsequent rebellion, had companies. Theobald Taaffe was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment raised by Coote in Connaught, and Sir John Netterville had a company in that levied by Bruce in Connaught, and there were many Roman Catholics among the junior officers. The headquarters staff were all English Protestants, but their influence ceased with disbandment. There were many delays, but the whole force was at Carrickfergus by the middle of July, and a month later St. Leger was able to say that no prince in Christendom had a better or more orderly army. The rout at Newburn took place a few days later, and after the treaty of Ripon there could be no real chance of using the Irish army against the Scots. They were, however, kept together, and when the Long Parliament met in November this was not unnaturally regarded as a threatening cloud.[252 - Wentworth to the King, July 28, 1638, Strafford Letters; Carte’s Ormonde, book ii. Army List among Carte transcripts, vol. i., to which is appended a note that ‘this army was the 10,000 men raised for the expedition into Scotland.’]

The Irish army disbanded

One regiment goes to France

Those engaged for Spain are stopped

Sir B. Rudyard’s speech

Strafford was beheaded on May 12, 1641. Four days before Charles ordered Ormonde to disband the new army, adding that to prevent disturbance he had licensed certain officers to transport 8000 foot ‘for the service of any prince or state at amity with us.’ These officers were Colonels James Dillon, Theobald Taaffe, John and Garret Barry, Richard Plunket, John Butler, John Bermingham, George Porter, and Christopher Bellings. Of these the first seven at least were afterwards active confederates. Bellings alone sought to secure a regiment for the French service, and, as became one who worked for Richelieu, he lost no time, but slipped away ‘very quietly’ with a thousand picked men before the end of June, in spite of the efforts of priests and friars. Lieutenant Flower, who understood Irish, heard a priest tell the soldiers at Drogheda that they ought to stay, though they got only bread and water. Flower said the King allowed them to go, to which he answered that the King was but one man. The other colonels, having to deal with Spain, were of course late, and did not appear until Bellings had gone. Then, yielding to parliamentary pressure on both sides of the channel, Charles changed his mind in August and would only give leave to the two Barrys, Porter, and Taaffe to transport a thousand men each. In the end no shipping could be had, for the English House of Commons passed a resolution against the transportation of soldiers by merchants from any port in the King’s dominions. The Spaniards had no ships of their own, and so the men remained in Ireland. Colonel John Barry did manage to embark some 400 men, but his vessel never left the Liffey. There can be no doubt that the disbanded soldiers were more dangerous in Ireland than they would have been in Spain, but it is unnecessary to suppose that the parliamentary leaders had any wish to make mischief in this way. Rudyard probably expressed the ideas of the majority when he objected to strengthen France by recruiting her armies, or Spain in order to enable her to crush Portugal. ‘It was never fit,’ he said, ‘to suffer the Irish to be promiscuously made soldiers abroad, because it may make them abler to trouble the State when they come home. Their intelligence and practice with the princes whom they shall serve may prove dangerous to that kingdom of Ireland.’ He thought work could be found for them as harvesters in England.[253 - The King to Ormonde, May 8, 1641, and Vane to same, August 20, Carte’s Ormonde, vol. iii.; Council of Ireland to Vane, June 30; Petition of Irish Colonels to the King, August 8, State Papers, Ireland. Rudyard’s speech, August 28, in Rushworth. Resolution of embargo in Nalson, ii. 477.]

The disbandment quietly effected, May 1641

The new army of which St. Leger had been so proud had become somewhat disorderly when their pay began to be irregular. But the actual disbandment was quietly effected. Pay ceased on May 25, but the Council managed to scrape up 8000l., out of the 18,000l. due. Each soldier was persuaded to take seven shillings as a donative and three shillings on account of pay, while 50l. was assigned to each company for the officers, many of whom got nothing more until the Restoration. The men gave up their arms quietly, and dispersed, having been reminded that they were amenable to the law and not privileged in any way. There were no outrages, and sheriffs of counties were specially charged to keep the peace.[254 - An unsigned paper of May 7, 1641, as to pledging private credit for the money; Lords Justices and Council to the Sheriffs, May 21, and to Vane, June 1; Ormonde to Vane, May 21 and June 9, State Papers, Ireland.]

French and Spanish crimps

English settlers pressed

The disbanded soldiers in Ireland constituted a grave danger, as every one could see when the rebellion had actually broken out, and which some saw at the time of disbanding. But the other danger from great bodies of Irishmen in the pay of foreign powers seemed to many greater at the time, and was certainly not small. Antrim had failed, but Lord Barrymore had succeeded in raising men for service in England, most of whom must have drifted back to Ireland after the treaty of Ripon. Barrymore complained bitterly of a ‘swarm of interloping French mountebanks who wander on their levies with titles and commissions of their own stamp and coinage, with which they are so prided up, as some of them have dared to contest for pressed men with my employed servants.’ Three hundred volunteers, collected for him by an O’Sullivan were thus enticed away, and he believed that Strafford’s enemy Sir Piers Crosbie was at the bottom of it all. Barrymore landed in Lancashire before the middle of June 1639, but with much less than the thousand men whom he was authorised to raise. He had no money to tempt recruits, and when his agents visited Kinsale the common people ran away as from an enemy. They took bribes from the better sort. These crimps even seized men actually engaged by the Government and employed in the public service, and appear to have taken a malicious pleasure in pouncing on English settlers whenever possible. Strafford observed that this was not the way to encourage English enterprise, nor to make intended plantations a success. If the King wanted Irish soldiers let him send over money to the regular officials, and they would do the work much better and cheaper than these Irish lords, ‘who always either out of too much love to their own, or out of over little knowledge of the customs of England in these cases, express some Irish manner or other, either very unseemly in itself, or pretending their own greatness, further than well consists with the modesty of subjects.’ Barrymore, however, proved a brave and loyal soldier in spite of this bad beginning.[255 - Barrymore to Cork, May 26, 1639, Lismore Papers, 2nd series, vol. iv.; Wentworth to Coke, May 18, 1639, Strafford Letters, ii. 342; letters of Sir Adam Loftus in State Papers, Ireland, April 26 and 29, 1641.]

Recruiting for Spain allowed

Owen Roe O’Neill and Preston