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

The French service found better than the Spanish

The Spaniards were allowed to recruit in Ireland during the whole of Strafford’s reign, though he had his misgivings from the first, and though he warned Charles even before he crossed the channel for the first time. ‘It had been the safer for your Majesty to have given liberty for the raising five times as many here in England; because these could not have been debauched in their faith, where those were not free of suspicion, especially being put under command of O’Neill and O’Donnell, the sons of two infamous and arch-traitors, and so likely not only to be trained up in the discipline of war, but in the art of rebellion also. Secondly, as your Majesty’s deputy I must tell him, if the state of this kingdom were the same as in Queen Elizabeth’s time, I should more apprehend the travel and disturbance which two hundred of these men might give us here, being natives, and experienced in their own faculty as soldiers, being sent to mutiny and discipline their own countrymen against the Crown, than of as many more Spaniards, as they sent in those days to Kinsale for relief of the rebels.’ This opinion he retained to the end. He was allowed to appoint two officers, and he selected men who could be trusted to give him a true account of what went on in the Spanish Netherlands. Owen Roe O’Neill became the favourite leader of the Irish in Belgium, but Wentworth preferred Preston. Nevertheless men who were engaged for the latter’s regiment very often went over to the former. The French also got no small number of Irish recruits, though they were less favoured by the Government of Charles I. Intercepted letters in 1635 showed that Paris was ‘pestered with Irish of all sorts, from all parts,’ while whole companies raised for the Spanish Netherlands ‘suffered themselves to be debauched by the French ambassador, and now serve under the French colours.’ Irish officers deserted the Spanish for the French service to get better and more regular pay, and Secretary Coke was clear-sighted enough to see that the Irish troops of both powers would probably turn against England in the end, ‘and join together to replant themselves at home.’[256 - Wentworth to the King, July 16, 1633; to Preston, October 1, 1635; Coke to Wentworth, January 21, 1634-5; Colonel Thomas Preston to Wentworth, July 6, 1635, Strafford Letters.]

CHAPTER XVIII

TRIAL AND DEATH OF STRAFFORD

Strafford leaves Ireland. Wandesford Deputy, 1640

Strafford advises the King

Having done what was required of it, the Irish Parliament was prorogued to June 1, and on April 3 Strafford sailed for the last time, leaving Wandesford behind as Deputy. The gout, which he had neglected, took its revenge at Chester, preventing him from being at the opening of the Short Parliament, and he had to stay at Bishop Wright’s house for a full week. He then travelled by litter all the way to London, and reached Leicester House on April 18, where he remained, generally very ill, until August 24. Few believed that he would recover, still fewer that he would return to Ireland, and when the next session began Wandesford found that the Government was no longer feared. Of course it had never really been loved. But of the old Irish army which he had improved, or of the much larger force which he had given orders to raise, Strafford had no doubts. Ill as he was, he wrote to the King from Coventry begging him to provide the necessary funds, otherwise he would lose the fourth part of his army, and that the part most to be depended on for absolute, unquestioning obedience. Charles paid him several visits when he was unable to go out, but he did sometimes get to the Council, and it was by his advice that the King went to the House of Lords and persuaded them to declare that supply ought to have precedence of grievances. It is not quite certain how far Strafford was to blame for the fatal dissolution of the Short Parliament. He had advised that it should be called, and he urged the King not to run great risks because he could not get exactly what he wanted. But the popular fury fell upon him and Laud. Lambeth was attacked and the archbishop withdrew to Whitehall, whereupon a lady remarked: ‘Black Tom hath more courage than his Grace, and therefore will not be so apprehensive as he is, nor suffer a guard to attend him, knowing he hath terror enough in his bended brows to amaze the ’prentices.’[257 - Strafford to the King, April 15, 1640, Strafford Letters, ii. 411; Gardiner’s Hist. of England, chap. xci.; Lady Essex Cheeke to Lord Mandeville, May 16; Eighth Report of Hist. MSS. Comm., appx. ii. 56 b.]

The Irish Parliament turns against Strafford

The power of the purse

When Wandesford met his Parliament on June 1, the wind had changed. Strafford was believed to be at the point of death, and the subsidies were being assessed upon an increased estimated value. This was arrived at by fixing a quota for each county, and spreading it as equally as possible upon the properties therein contained. The Government had hitherto been able to secure a majority by the votes of public servants in the Commons, but many were now absent with the army, and the Roman Catholic members were in power, nor, as it was a question of money, were they without plenty of allies. Radcliffe was in England, and it was found impossible to resist the passing of a declaration against the new method of taxation. Wandesford was forced to allow the enrolment of the document in chancery and elsewhere, and thus the administration of Supply was transferred from the Executive to the House of Commons. The constitutional point having been gained, the first subsidy was allowed to be levied as assessed, and yielded over 46,000l. The second and third together, raised in the old ‘parliamentary way,’ came to less than 24,000l., and the fourth was never levied at all. Seeing that he could do no better, and that the House became more intemperate daily, Wandesford prorogued Parliament on June 17 until October 1.[258 - Wandesford to Radcliffe, June 12, 1640, in Whitaker’s Life of Radcliffe. Writing to Ormonde in March, 1664-5, Sir W. Domville estimated a subsidy at 15,000l., Carte MSS. vol. xxxiv.]

Strafford in England very ill

Charles intends to send Strafford back to Ireland, but makes him General instead

Meanwhile the man upon whom the weight of both kingdoms lay was so ill that his recovery was doubtful. He could not turn in his bed, and relief was obtained by losing twelve ounces of blood. In writing to Ormonde Wandesford mourned over the unhappy dissolution of the Short Parliament. Strafford’s mind was wearing out his body, and he could hardly bear to speak of him, ‘if you did not love this man well. It is true, if the favour and grace of a Prince shall recover him he shall not perish, for those are heaped upon him every day; but if the good man’s heart be more willing to spend himself in great business than to contemplate his own safety, or to live upon such favours, who can help him? I know you love him, and you shall know when we hear better of him.’ When he seemed to be recovering Charles paid him a visit that nearly proved fatal. Strafford left off his warm gown to receive the King, which caused a relapse and involved the loss of eighteen ounces of blood; it is surprising that the doctors did not bleed him to death. It was not till a month later, at the end of June, that Radcliffe reported steady progress towards recovery. Early in July Strafford was at Sion House, and can have derived little comfort from association with Northumberland, who disagreed with his views and believed an invasion of Scotland impossible. But Charles was determined to go to the north, and at this time intended that the Lord Lieutenant should return to Ireland and take charge of the new army. In the meantime he ordered him to attend every day at Oatlands until he himself started for York, which was not till August 20, and at that moment Wandesford was expecting him in Ireland. But Northumberland was ill, and Strafford became commander-in-chief. Conway had been routed at Newburn, and the Scots were in possession of Newcastle before the unfortunate general had time to do anything. ‘Pity me,’ he wrote to Radcliffe, ‘for never came any man to so lost business. The army unexercised and unprovided of all necessaries. That part which I bring now with me from Durham the worst I ever saw. Our horse all cowardly, the country from Berwick to York in the power of the Scot, an universal affright in all, a general disaffection to the King’s service, now sensible of his dishonour. In one word, here alone to fight with all these evils without any one to help. God of His goodness deliver me out of this the greatest evil of my life.’[259 - Wandesford to Ormonde, May 26 and 29, June 7, 12, and 30, 1640, Carte transcripts; Strafford to Radcliffe, July 3 to September 1 in Whitaker’s Life of Radcliffe, p. 202.]

Strafford at York, September 1640

Strafford denounced by the Scots

Proposals as to the Irish army

After Newburn there was no serious attempt to fight the Scots, and Strafford never had any opportunity of showing what he could do as a general. His health was bad, his army unpaid and without enthusiasm, and the people generally but half-hearted. Even his own Yorkshiremen were anxious for a new Parliament, and many could see clearly that the Scots were upholding the cause of both nations. Still he had influence enough to get the gentlemen of the county to undertake for the payment of their train-bands, and for this last piece of service he was made a Knight of the Garter. He had now reached the utmost height to which, according to the last Roman poet, the Gods raise men in order that their fall may be the heavier. The Great Council of Peers met at York on September 25, and sat till October 28, and Strafford took an active part in the debates. He had a sharp encounter in the King’s presence with the new Lord Clanricarde, ending in the latter’s Connaught titles being confirmed and all his privileges restored. The negotiations with the Scots were carried on at Ripon, by commissioners representing both sides, but ‘the Earl of Strafford,’ says Clarendon, ‘had not amongst them one friend or person civilly inclined towards him.’ The King wished them to meet under his eye at York, but the Scots positively refused to put themselves into the power of an army commanded by Strafford, whom they denounced as a chief incendiary. They were quite justified in saying that he talked freely of them as traitors and rebels, and desired their utter ruin. He had already suggested the use of his Irish army against them, and ten days later he offered to bring over at two days’ warning 8000 foot, 2000 horse and 60 guns ‘if there be shipping to convey them.’ In Scotland it was believed that these troops had actually landed in England, and a battle was expected. The Scots at Ripon were so far successful as to have an allowance made to their forces of 850l. a day for two months, and to get the negotiations adjourned to London, where they would be among friends. At the head of an army whose discipline he might be able to improve Strafford was still formidable, and he had more friends in Yorkshire than anywhere else; but both King and Queen urged him to leave this comparative safety, and to trust himself in London. After looking his last on Wentworth Woodhouse, where he spent three or four days, he set out for the south, having the King’s written assurance that he ‘should not suffer in his person, honour, or fortune.’[260 - Minutes of York Council in Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 241, 284, September 29 and October 18, 1640; Answer of the Scots Commissioners, October 8, in Rushworth, iii. 1292; Whitaker’s Life of Radcliffe; Baillie’s Letters, October 1, i. 257; Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion, ii. 107; Ulick Earl of St. Albans and Clanricarde to Windebank, York, October 26, 1640. Hardwicke State Papers, ii. 207.]

Strafford under arrest, Nov. 1640

Strafford sent to the Tower

Impeachment of Radcliffe

‘I am to-morrow to London,’ wrote Strafford to Radcliffe, ‘with more dangers beset, I believe, than ever any man went with out of Yorkshire.’ He arrived on Monday the 9th, rested the next day, and on Wednesday morning went down to the House of Lords. That he intended to attack the Parliamentary leaders is clear, but the plan was not mature, and he went away without speaking. This gave Pym his chance, and later in the day he appeared to impeach Strafford and demand his arrest. The accused man was with the King, but he hurried back to the House as soon as he knew what had been done. He was not allowed to speak, and had to kneel at the bar, when he was told that he must remain in custody until he had cleared himself from the Commons’ charges. The Usher of the Black Rod, James Maxwell, a Scotchman, took his sword and carried him off in his coach. Baillie, who gloats over the fallen statesman, notes that he had to walk some distance through gazing crowds, ‘no man capping to him, before whom that morning the greatest of England would have stood discovered.’ Maxwell was not a severe gaoler, and for a while his prisoner had many visitors, but the Commons objected, and a few days later he was sent to the Tower, of which another Scot, Sir James Balfour, was Lieutenant. Balfour, whom Baillie calls ‘our good kind countrieman,’ might be trusted to obey the orders of the House. Ultimately Strafford was confined to three rooms, in the outer one of which was a guard, and no visitors were admitted to see him without the Lieutenant’s special permission. It must, however, be supposed that he was allowed some exercise. Communication of any kind was forbidden with Sir George Radcliffe, who was soon brought to London and imprisoned in the Gatehouse. Clarendon is probably quite justified in saying that the object of impeaching Radcliffe was to prevent Strafford having his help as a counsellor or witness. When the principal was once condemned, it was not found worth while to continue proceedings against the accessory.[261 - ‘His Lordship was called into the House as a delinquent, and brought to the bar upon his knees, I sitting in my place covered’ – Cork’s Diary, November 11, 1640, in Lismore Papers, 1st series, v. 164; Rushworth, viii. 1-15, from November 6 to 30, 1640; Baillie’s Letters, i. 276, December 2; and 282, December 12, Strafford Letters; and November 5 in Whitaker’s Life of Radcliffe, p. 218.]

Wandesford’s last session, Oct. 1640

A committee sent to England

The Irish Parliament repudiate Strafford

The Irish Parliament was prorogued from June to October, when Wandesford found it as unmanageable as before. The House of Commons lost very little time in attacking the method of levying the subsidies, and then agreed to a Remonstrance which criticised adversely all Strafford’s policy, and formed the basis of the charges at his trial. This document was presented to the Lord Deputy, and he was several times asked for an answer. While waiting for this, the House appointed a committee of twelve members to go to England and represent the Irish case there. Clarendon says, and there can be no doubt of the fact, that Strafford’s fate was largely determined by the conduct of this committee, who kept up communications between the revolutionary wire-pullers on both sides of the channel; some of the members were afterwards engaged in the Irish rebellion. They were empowered to call for all public papers in Ireland, and to have copies free of charge. The Remonstrance was carried over by them, and was reported to the English House of Commons a few days later. On the next day Wandesford gave his answer by proroguing Parliament. During the recess, by the King’s special order, he had the journals brought before the Council, and there in the presence of several members of Parliament, tore out the two orders relating to the subsidies. Afterwards, when the tide had turned hopelessly against Strafford, Charles ordered the leaves to be reinserted, but they do not appear in the printed journals. The Lords were surprised by the sudden prorogation, but most of those who were in Dublin met and deputed Lords Gormanston, Dillon, and Kilmallock to carry their grievances to London. When Parliament reassembled this action was confirmed, and Lord Muskerry was added to the number.[262 - Irish Lords Journal, February 18, 1640-41; Irish Commons Journal, November 7, 11, 12, 19, 1640, February 10, 1640-1. The Remonstrance is printed in the Journal and also in Rushworth, viii. Lords Justices and Council to Vane, February 13, 1640-1, in Cal. of State Papers, Ireland. On January 26, 1640-1, the Irish Commons voted 5,086l. for the expenses of the London Committee, which consisted of Sir Donough MacCarthy, Sir Hardress Waller, Sir Roebuck Lynch, Sir James Montgomery, John Walsh, N. Plunkett, N. Barnewall, Richard Fitzgerald, Simon Digby, Geoffrey Brown, and Edward Rowley.]

Death of Wandesford, Dec. 3, 1640

Wandesford died three weeks after Strafford’s arrest. The autopsy showed that his heart was diseased, so that distress of mind may have killed him, though his daughter does not say so. He was not long enough at the head of affairs to make much figure in Irish history, but he was an upright judge, made many reforms in the Rolls Court, and seems to have been generally liked. He advised his son to lead a country life, excusing himself for having done the contrary. ‘The truth is, my affection to the person of my Lord Deputy, purposing to attend upon his lordship as near as I could in all fortunes, carried me along with him wherever he went, and no premeditated thoughts of ambition.’ Bramhall attended him on his deathbed and preached his funeral sermon in Christchurch. His daughter says there were not many dry eyes among the multitude present, and ‘the Irish did set up the lamentable hone, as they call it, for him in the church, which was never known before for any Englishman.’[263 - Wandesford’s Book of Instructions to his son George, Cambridge, 1727. Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton, Surtees Society, 1875. Wandesford’s letters have not been collected, but seventeen are printed in the Cal. of Ormonde MSS., Hist. MSS. Comm., 1902.]

Trial of Strafford, March-April, 1641

Not guilty of treason in the ordinary sense

The trial of Strafford, with the intrigues and discussions leading to it, belongs to the general history of these islands. The impressive scene in Westminster Hall has been dwelt on by historians, and is indeed of surpassing interest. The King and Queen were present throughout, and the concourse was such as England had never seen till then. Even hostile witnesses have testified to the inimitable life and grace with which the prisoner under every disadvantage maintained his cause against the accusing Commons, and before judges who had little sympathy with him. Lord Cork, though only a peer of Ireland, had been called up by writ, and Baillie noticed that he sat covered daily, his black cloak being conspicuous among the coloured robes. As the trial proceeded Strafford’s courage and eloquence gained him many supporters; the ladies were all on his side, and the Queen had ample opportunities of admiring his beautiful white hands. His object was to show, and it is generally thought he succeeded in showing, that no single count of the impeachment amounted to treason, and that he was entitled to an acquittal even if every charge was proved. In Fuller’s homely phrase, no number of frogs will make a toad. The Commons, on the contrary, maintained that he had persistently striven to upset the fundamental laws, that there was a cumulative force in repeated offences, and that he ought to die the death of a traitor.[264 - Strafford’s trial occupies Rushworth’s eighth volume. The report in Howell’s State Trials is founded upon A Brief and Perfect Relation of the answers and replies of Thomas Earl of Strafford, London, 1647. A third contemporary account is in Baillie’s Letters, i. 313-353. These three are the reports of eye-witnesses. The historian May was probably also present; his book was licensed May 7, 1647, and has some touches not found elsewhere. Nalson was an infant when Strafford died, and his account, which was published after Rushworth’s, has no independent value. Madame de Motteville (Mémoires, chap. ix.), reporting Henrietta Maria’s conversation, says Strafford ‘était laid, mais assez agréable de sa personne; et la Reine, me contant toutes ces choses, s’arrêta pour me dire qu’il avait les plus belles mains du monde.’ May says many thought of Ovid’s lines: ‘Non formosus erat, sed erat facundus Ulysses, et tamen æquoreas torsit amore deas’ – Earl of Cork’s Diary in Lismore Papers, v. 164, 170, 176. ‘The natural pity and consideration of women, sympathising with his afflictions, with sadness of his aspect, their facility with his complacences, their lenity with his pathetical oratory’ – Earl of Strafford characterised, 1641, Somers Tracts, iv. 231.]

The articles of impeachment

Strafford’s line of defence

The articles of Strafford’s impeachment were twenty-eight in number, and of these seventeen, from the third to the nineteenth, bore directly upon his government in Ireland. The third article charged that he had in a public speech in 1634 declared that Ireland was a conquered nation, and that the King might do what he liked there; and that the charters of cities were obsolete and at the royal discretion. This was proved by several witnesses, of whom Cork was one, who declared that he had come to England with Strafford’s leave, that he had determined to make no complaint, and that he had purposely left all his papers behind him. The answer to this evidence was that Ireland was in fact conquered, that the charters had been often violated, and that the object of his dealing with the corporation of Dublin was to encourage the English Protestants who had been depressed by native competition and combination. All that he had done, however, was at most a misdemeanour, and no treason. In support of the fourth article, which declared that the prisoner had seized property by Order in Council, Cork deposed that this had been done in his case, that he had tried to appeal to the law and ‘that my lord of Strafford answered “call in your writs, or if you will not, I will clap you in the Castle; for I tell you I will not have my orders disputed by law nor lawyers”’; and that on another occasion the Lord Deputy had told him that he would make an Act of State as binding as an Act of Parliament. There were other witnesses on the latter point. Strafford replied that there was no breach of Magna Charta, since the law and custom of Ireland had been followed, and that during the long interval between Parliaments it was necessary to depend upon the action of the Executive. The fifth and sixth articles dealt with Lord Mountnorris’s case, which has been sufficiently discussed, and the eighth with the Loftus case and other accusations of arbitrary treatment by the Lord Deputy and Council, the general defence being that they had acted according to the established custom of Ireland. The ninth article contained a charge of unlawfully stretching the secular arm to support the power of certain bishops. One case was proved, but Strafford answered that he had discontinued the practice when he found its legality was doubtful.

Strafford’s financial measures: the customs

Tobacco and linen

Strafford discouraged Irish woollens

The tenth article charged Strafford with procuring the customs to be farmed, and the rates upon merchandise raised for his own profit. The facts could scarcely be denied, but the accused was able to show that he had objected to having a personal interest in the revenue, and that he was persuaded to do so by Portland as the only means of inducing other speculators to undergo the risk. The twelfth article attacked the tobacco monopoly which Strafford had created by proclamation, and the thirteenth with doing something of the same sort in the case of linen. He looked upon tobacco as a superfluity, and therefore a fit subject for heavy taxation, but there can be no doubt that many traders suffered severely. The linen business had always existed in Ulster, and he tried to improve and regulate it, but no doubt he went too fast and much hardship was caused. ‘He did observe,’ he said, ‘that the wool of that kingdom did increase very much, that if it should there be wrought into cloth, it would be a very great prejudice to the clothing trade of England, and therefore he was willing, as much as he might lawfully and fairly, to discourage that trade; that on the other side, he was desirous to set up the trade of linen cloth, which would be beneficial there and not prejudice the trade of England.’ He made rules for the management of the manufacture which he believed would greatly add to its value, but they had turned out too rigid for the working people, who could not so quickly be induced to change their habits. He had himself lost 3000l. by his share in the business.

Soldiers quartered on private persons

Strafford’s arbitrary acts supported by precedents

The Black Oath

Opinion of the judges

Fear made the Commons cruel

The fifteenth article charged that Strafford did traitorously ‘by force of arms and in a warlike manner’ strive to subdue Ireland to his arbitrary will by quartering soldiers upon private persons without warrant of law. Hallam thought this came nearer treason than anything of which he was accused, but that the cases proved were too few to constitute levying war. There was much hearsay evidence, but enough was proved to make out a strong case. Edmond Byrne testified that soldiers were quartered on him by the Lord Deputy’s order for not paying ‘a pretended debt of a matter of ten pounds’ to a Mr. Archibald, and that they had done him damage to the value of 500l. The sixteenth article was directed against Strafford’s system of denying appeals to England except through himself, and of preventing anyone from leaving Ireland without his leave. In this, as in many other things, he had found the practice in existence, and had carried it further than his predecessors, so that it was thought worthy of special complaint in the Remonstrance of the Irish Parliament. The nineteenth article was concerned with the imposition of the Black Oath on the Ulster Scots, and the fact was undeniable; but Strafford pleaded danger from the Covenant which bound 100,000 people in the North to their near neighbours and fellow-countrymen across the channel. The seventh, eleventh, fourteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth articles were postponed, and in the end were not proceeded with at all, and it was a Bill of Attainder and not a verdict of the Lords on the Impeachment that brought Strafford to the scaffold. It may be granted that none of the charges taken separately amounted to treason, but the Lord Chief Justice ‘delivered the opinion of all the judges present upon all that which their Lordships have voted to be proved that the Earl of Strafford doth deserve to undergo the pains and forfeitures of High Treason by law.’ It is evident that the majority of the Commons were determined to have the Lord Lieutenant’s head, for they did not feel safe as long as he lived. St. John brutally said that the laws of chase were not for him, and that he should be hunted down without mercy as a beast of prey. ‘Stone dead hath no fellow,’ was Essex’s answer when Hyde suggested a milder penalty. Nor can it be said that the fears of the Puritan party were unfounded. The King, after hearing every word of the evidence, admitted that Strafford was unfit to hold even a chief constable’s place; but Charles was not to be trusted, and his word gave no guarantee that the hated statesman would not again be a minister and at the head of an army.[265 - Lords’ Journals, May 6, 1641: ‘In equity Lord Strafford deserves to die’ as a subverter of fundamental laws – ‘Ingeniosissime nequam et in malo publico facundus,’ Falkland’s minute book in Lady Theresa Lewis’s Friends of Clarendon, i. 207.]

The Irish army fatal to Strafford

Charles consents to Strafford’s death, and perpetuates the Parliament

Execution of Strafford and disbandment of his army, May 1641

Of all the causes for fear the greatest was the existence of the Irish army, which Charles repeatedly refused to disband. Strafford was accused on the authority of Vane’s famous notes of saying that it might be used to ‘reduce this kingdom,’ and these words, if truly reported, were uttered in England. Yet Scotland was probably intended, and the choice of Carrickfergus as a rendezvous pointed in that direction. But it is not likely that the plan would have been too scrupulously observed, and Willoughby’s mission to Carlisle showed that there was no pedantic objection to employ troops from Ireland upon English ground. ‘Strafford’s pride,’ says Clarendon, ‘was by the hand of heaven strangely punished by bringing his destruction upon him by two things that he most despised, the people and Sir Harry Vane.’ There is no mystery about the proceedings of the Commons, and not much about that of the Lords, but there was nothing to prevent the royal consent to the Bill of Attainder being withheld. Some episcopal casuists, of whom Ussher was not one, gave advice for hearkening to which Charles never forgave himself. The fact that he had fears for his family, and especially for his wife, is really no defence at all. He surrendered the right to pardon, which is the most precious privilege of monarchy, and the same day that he passed the fatal Bill, too agitated perhaps to know what he was doing, he consented to another providing that Parliament should not be dissolved without its own consent. He himself killed prerogative, and after he had done so defied the assembly he had perpetuated by attempting to seize the five members. If the royal power was after that to be restored in his person it could only be by success in war. On the day after Strafford’s execution Charles wrote to Ormonde that he had decided to disband the Irish army.[266 - Lords’ Journals, May 10, 1641. ‘The Primate of Ireland, who is no complimenter, reported afterwards to the King that he had then first learned to make supplications aright to Godward, and withal told his Majesty that he had seen many die, but never such a white soul (this was his own expression) return to his maker. At which words the King was pleased to turn himself about and offer a tear to his memory – tantorum mercede bonorum’ —Brief and Perfect Relation, p. 97.]

Character of Strafford

Strafford was a very great man; but he failed completely, and it is not difficult to see why. His scheme of prerogative government depended upon the personality of Charles I., and the minister’s qualities were not such as could make people forget the monarch’s defects. In his determination to establish the Laudian system of what Petty afterwards called ‘Legal Protestantism,’ he made enemies of Roman Catholics and Puritans alike. Strafford had read law, had a fair knowledge of the classics and of English and French literature, and understood Scotch and Continental affairs. He wrote and spoke brilliantly, trusting much to his memory, which served him very well. For some years he wielded greater power than any servant of James or his son, Buckingham only excepted. He warned the King against war with the House of Austria for the Palatinate, because it would necessarily weaken him at home, and in private he gave the strong reason that Charles would be driven by war to raise money illegally without restraint. Strafford was very English in his views, and cared little for foreign opinion; but he would never have insulted the Prime Minister of Spain, nor made love to the Queen of France. He was an immeasurably abler man than Buckingham, but resembled him, to use Clarendon’s words, in that ‘he never made a noble and a worthy friendship with a man so near his equal that he would frankly advise him, for his honour and true interest, against the current, or rather the torrent of his impetuous passions.’ Apart from his great office Laud was not his equal, and it may be doubted if Conway, with whom he was on intimate terms, ever gave him any advice at all. Wandesford and Radcliffe were clever men, but mere echoes of their master, and Ormonde was too young to have much weight. Even Laud cautioned Strafford against making powerful enemies by his high-handed methods. His doctrine was that no subject could have any power against the King, or against his substitute in Ireland and Yorkshire. He spoke with scorn of Sir Edward Coke and his year-books, drew all important business into the Castle-chamber, and openly declared that while he had power Orders in Council should bind as fast as Acts of Parliament. Clarendon, who was essentially a common lawyer, has recorded his judgment against this policy in both islands. What recalcitrant juries or sheriffs had to suffer may be gathered from the Galway case. Strafford took credit for a rise in the price of land while he governed Ireland, but the same thing happened under Cromwell; for order gives security, and Plutus is a very timorous person. His work soon crumbled away, as the work of despots generally does, for who can secure a fitting successor? Marcus Aurelius was followed by Commodus. Strafford professed to rule for the benefit of the whole community, and probably the poor did really benefit by his firm hand; but he was hated by the official class and by most men who had anything to lose. His letters to his third wife are affectionate enough, but he did not consider her his equal in any way, and the want of intelligent female friendship was supplied by Lady Carlisle in England and by Lady Loftus in Ireland. The first famous lady is described by her friend, Sir Toby Matthew, as having no passion at all, and the latter must have been constantly under the eyes of Radcliffe, who declares his belief that there was nothing wrong; but Strafford was so much hated that every hostile report was long accepted as fact. Perhaps his unpopularity is sufficiently accounted for by Sir Philip Warwick, who knew him and who was one of the fifty-nine members of the House of Commons who voted against the Bill of Attainder. All his powers and acquirements, says that staunch royalist, were ‘lodged in a sour and haughty temper; so as it may probably be believed, he expected to have more observance paid to him than he was willing to pay to others, though they were of his own quality; and then he was not like to conciliate the good will of men of the lesser station.’ But he had a few friends who loved him, and his relations to his own family leave nothing to be desired.[267 - Sir P. Warwick’s Memoirs, p. 110. Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion, ii. 101; iii. 204. ‘A wise and promising face … yet a dark and promiscuous countenance, clouded, unlovely, and presaging an envious and cruel disposition,’ The Earl of Strafford Characterised, 1641, Somers Tracts, iv. 231; and the often printed lines ‘Here lies wise and valiant dust,’ etc., ib. 297. Strafford is at his best in the beautiful letter to Lady Clare, August 10, 1639, and in that to his son from the Tower, April 23, 1641, Strafford Letters, ii. 381, 416; and see his character by Radcliffe, ib. p. 433.]

CHAPTER XIX