Co. Cork

The county of Cork, in the south west of Ireland, was one of the most fertile and populous in the province of Munster. Three major rivers (the Lee, Bandon and Blackwater) watered the county, and where they met the Atlantic they formed three harbours, where Cork City and the towns of Kinsale and Youghal were situated. These ports enjoyed commercial prosperity in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, exporting fish, timber, cloth, beef, iron and other local commodities. County Cork was also the main area of Protestant plantation in the wake of the Desmond rebellion under Elizabeth I, when men such as Sir Walter Raleigh† were granted vast acreages in the north and south of the county. The rebellion of the remaining Munster Catholics during the Nine Years’ War destroyed the first plantation between 1598 and 1601, and the plantation as it stood in 1641 was essentially a Jacobean creation.1 M. MacCarthy-Morrogh, The Munster Plantation (Oxford, 1986), 13-14, 223-6. Under James I a small number of Protestant (‘New English’) landowners were able to carve out large estates from the original plantation and from buying up lands from impoverished Catholic families. An inquisition of 1611 identified Sir Richard Boyle, Sir Warham St Leger, Sir Bernard Grenville, Sir John Jephson†, and Valentine Browne as among the largest landowners in the county.2 CSP Ire. 1611-14, pp. 219-21. By the late 1620s they had been joined by a number of lesser landowners identified as ‘rich Englishmen’, a list which included Sir Robert Tynte, Sir Randal Clayton and Sir Vincent Gookin (father of the Cromwellian MP).3 CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 211. Other Protestants of landed wealth in the 1620s included Sir William Fenton, Sir Richard Aldworth and Sir Philip Percivalle*, all of whom held estates in the north of the county.4 CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 252. The growing influence of these families can be seen in the elections for the Irish Parliaments of 1634 and 1640, when Donnough McCarthy was forced to share the honours with the incomer, Sir William St Leger.5 McGrath, Biographical Dict.; H. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. (Cambridge, 1989), 239.

Yet before 1641 the Protestant settlers in County Cork, as elsewhere, were far from united. Various feuds had grown up during the previous decades, fuelled by the rapacious activities of ambitious men such as the 1st earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle), and exacerbated further by the harsh measures introduced by Lord Deputy Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) after 1633. The ramifications could be far-reaching. By the end of the decade, for example, there was much bad blood between the earl of Cork and the Lord President, Sir William St Leger. This feud was passed down to Cork’s son, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), and St Leger’s son-in-law, Lord Inchiquin; and throughout the 1640s divisions between the two factions seriously hampered attempts by the Munster Protestants to unite against the Catholic rebels. In 1646 and 1647 the rift became a chasm, as each side turned for support to English parliamentary factions. The defection of Inchiquin to the royalist camp in 1648 caused further fragmentation among the Old Protestants. Morale was already at a low ebb when Oliver Cromwell* arrived in Ireland in 1649, with Broghill in tow. Broghill was instrumental in delivering the County Cork towns into Parliament’s hands without bloodshed, and thereafter he enjoyed good relations with the new lord lieutenant. The combination of national political influence and local landed power allowed the Boyles to dominate county affairs, and this promoted a new unity among the Old Protestants. Former rivals of the Boyles, such as Vincent Gookin* and William Jephson*, who had also sided the Cromwellian regime in the early 1650s, were elected for Cork boroughs in 1654 and 1656 on the Boyle interest. The Boyle interest was very much in evidence in the local assessment commissions in the mid-1650s, and by 1658 the commission of the peace was mostly dominated by Old Protestants, many of whom were Boyle clients.6 An Assessment for Ire. (Dublin, 1654, 1655); Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 13 Apr. 1658; NLI, MS 6254, 6255, 6256, unfol. The power of the Boyles was increased by Henry Cromwell*, who was eager to encourage Old Protestant support for his father’s regime, and also helped to reintroduce a moderate Presbyterian clergy to combat the radical sectaries within the local garrisons.7 TSP iv. 508; Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 129, 140.

Following Charles Fleetwood’s* proposals of June 1654, County Cork was allowed to return one knight of the shire to the first protectorate Parliament.8 CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 800. Over the next few weeks the Boyle interest swung into action, with the 2nd earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle*) meeting his uncle, Sir William Fenton, at Fermoy in the north of the county on 12 July, ‘about the election’.9 Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 12 July 1654. It may be significant that although the election indenture, dated 9 August, includes at least 25 signatures, few of them were substantial landowners: the only men in this category were William Hull of Leamcon (who was related to the Boyles) and Tristram Whitcombe of Kinsale; while Charles Gookin was the younger brother of Vincent Gookin*.10 C219/44, unfol.; PROB11/176/450; MacCarthy Morrogh, Munster Plantation, 155-7, 163-4, 258. At least six other signatories were Boyle tenants (Henry Smithwick, Richard Scudamore, Thomas Walsh, George Prater, Francis Smyth and Anthony Woodley).11 C219/44, unfol.; NLI, MSS 6255-8; Chatsworth, CM/28, no. 22; CM/29, unfol.: 7 Jan. 1652. Although it seems that many landowners were reluctant to sign the indenture, the show of force from the Boyle interest was sufficient to ensure that Lord Broghill was returned as MP. In 1656 Broghill was re-elected, despite his almost continual absence in England and Scotland throughout this period. He was also returned for Edinburgh, and chose to sit for that seat; as no by-election took place, County Cork was therefore unrepresented in this Parliament.12 CJ vii. 431b; TSP v. 327. Broghill’s elevation to the ‘Other House’ made him ineligible to sit for the county in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, but this caused no real disruption, as the Boyle interest quickly found a replacement in Broghill’s cousin, Sir Maurice Fenton*.13 TSP vii. 597. Fenton also enjoyed close family connections with the Cromwell clan, and, with Henry Cromwell’s approval, he was elected unopposed on the Boyle interest in January 1659.14 Henry Cromwell Corresp. 443; T.C. Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin and the Cork elections of 1659’, EHR lxxxviii, 355. After the collapse of the protectorate, County Cork remained under Boyle control. In the elections to the General Convention of early 1660, the county returned two Boyle clients – Francis Foulke* and Richard Kyrle; and in the elections for the Irish Parliament of 1661, two Boyle cousins – Richard Boyle and Sir Henry Tynte – were chosen.15 Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 217-20; CJI i. 589.