GOOKIN, Vincent (c.1616-59), of Garrane and Ballincorn, Barrymore Barony, co. Cork.

A native of Kent, Vincent Gookin’s father, Sir Vincent Gookin, had settled in Ireland at the beginning of the seventeenth century. His investments in the plantation of Munster brought him considerable wealth both in land and commercial ventures, including an estate at Castle Mahon and fishing rights at CourtMacSherry, in the area west of Kinsale and south of Bandon in co. Cork.21CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 335. In 1627 he was recommended to Lord Deputy Falkland (Henry Carey†) as one of the ‘rich Englishmen of the province’ who might lend money to support the army.22CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 211. Sir Vincent’s prosperity was real enough: in 1627 he bought an estate at Highfield in Upton Cheyney in Gloucestershire; in 1634 he claimed to pay £1,000 per annum in wages to his labourers employed in fishing, tillage and pasture; and in the same year he was described by Lord Deputy Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†) as ‘a very rich man’.23Hudleston, ‘Sir Vincent Gookin’, 114; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 186; Strafforde Letters, i. 349.

On Wentworth’s arrival in Ireland in 1633, Sir Vincent joined the general rush to secure the new lord deputy’s favour. Aware of the political tensions in Dublin, and the jealousies between the New English settlers, in 1634 Sir Vincent wrote a critique of Irish government and society, which he addressed to Wentworth and published privately. He accused the Catholic Old English of disloyalty, the Gaelic Irish of rebelliousness, and attacked the corruption of New English magistrates, including (by implication) Sir William Parsons as the master of the court of wards and (explicitly) his local rival, the 1st earl of Cork: ‘for we find already by his large patents and great privileges that the course of justice is very much prejudiced’.24CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 181-6. Although this diatribe broadly agreed with Wentworth’s own misgivings about Ireland, it was published at a difficult time for the lord deputy, just as he was trying to balance the various parties in order to steer radical legislation through the Irish Parliament of 1634-5. As Wentworth told Secretary Coke on 16 December 1634, Sir Vincent’s ‘bitter invective against the whole nation’ caused uproar in Parliament on the day before the lord deputy had to deliver his own bomb-shell - his rejection of the ‘Graces’, which had promised to give major concessions to the Catholic aristocracy.25Strafforde Letters, i. 349. Wentworth’s reaction was necessarily harsh: in order ‘to still them [the Parliament] from further prying into the powers and usage of Parliaments’, he summoned Sir Vincent to be arraigned before the court of Castle Chamber.26Strafforde Letters, i. 349. Fearing the worst, Sir Vincent fled to England, but the case does not seem to have been pursued after the immediate danger of parliamentary revolt had passed.27Strafforde Letters, i. 393. The career of Sir Vincent Gookin provides interesting parallels to that of his son.

Vincent Gookin succeeded his father in 1638, but inherited only the lands in Gloucestershire and Somerset.28Hudleston, ‘Sir Vincent Gookin’, 115-6. The main Irish estate went to his younger brother, Robert.29‘Robert Gookin’, Oxford DNB. Vincent Gookin’s educational background is obscure, but he was presumably brought up in Ireland, before moving to England with his father in 1634, and he seems to have been more involved in the affairs of Gloucestershire than Munster during the 1640s. He sided with Parliament against the king, and was probably the ‘Captain Gookin … taken at the Devizes’ in Wiltshire, and released under the terms of the surrender of Bristol in July 1643.30Mems. of Prince Rupert, ii. 260; Copie of Articles agreed upon at… Bristol (1643), 4 (E.63.15). A month later he was appointed parliamentary commissioner for levying money in Gloucestershire.31A. and O. In 1646 Gookin apparently sold his Gloucestershire estate, although he did not return to Ireland at that time, as he was appointed as justice of the peace for the county in July the same year, and from 1648 he sat on the Somerset bench.32Hudleston, ‘Sir Vincent Gookin’, 115; C231/6, pp. 51, 130. Robert, rather than Vincent, was the agent sent to Munster to encourage the Old Protestant forces in the province to abandon the royalist Lord Inchiquin and rejoin Parliament in October 1649, and a month later he brokered the surrender of Bandon on behalf of Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*).33NLI, MS 839, pp. 4-5; ‘Robert Gookin’, Oxford DNB. Vincent probably returned to Munster on his brother’s coat tails. He had joined the local administration as early as October 1650, when he was serving as a revenue commissioner in co. Cork, and he was signing official letters from Kinsale and Cork City as early as February 1651.34SP28/71, f. 131; SP63/282, ff. 55r-v, 110. Gookin was active as a revenue commissioner in co. Cork at least until April 1653, when he was rewarded with a lease of lands in the ‘Great Island’ and Barrymore Barony in the east of the county.35Eg. 1762, ff. 202, 207v.

Gookin’s nomination as one of six Irish MPs to sit in the Nominated Assembly in 1653 was presumably in connection with his recent service in Ireland. He was named to the parliamentary committee for Irish affairs in July 1653, and was made commissioner for the admiralty and navy in December.36CJ vii. 286b, 362a. Gookin, now said to be held in ‘high esteem’ by the new protectoral regime in England as well as Ireland, became an intermediary for various Irish officers hopeful of land-grants in payment of arrears.37HMC Egmont, i. 534; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 15; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 531. Munster landowners, such as John Percivalle and Sir Paul Davies*, were hopeful that Gookin’s influence, along with that of Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle)* and other more prominent Old Protestants, would secure their claims for land.38HMC Egmont, i. 541. In June and July 1654, an ordinance of oblivion for Munster was forced through the protectoral council largely through the efforts of Gookin, who reputedly drafted the initial proposal, and ‘who hath exceedingly laboured in that business’.39HMC Egmont, i. 544-5. His influence in England brought him personal benefits during 1654: in April he was allowed lodgings in Somerset House; in June he was granted the fee farm of lands already in his possession in the barony of Barrymore in co. Cork; and in September he was awarded a salary of £150 per annum as an admiralty commissioner.40CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 70, 354, 455; CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 803. In the same period he may have been instrumental in securing the confirmation of possession of the family lands at CourtMacSherry and Castle Mahon for his brother.41Oxford DNB.

By the time of the elections for the first protectoral Parliament in August 1654, Gookin had become a political client of the Boyle family. His election for Bandon and Kinsale was facilitated by the 2nd earl of Cork (Sir Richard Boyle*), who had advised the burgesses of Bandon to choose him as their Member, and Gookin visited the earl at Youghal before leaving for England.42Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 25 July 1654, 14 Aug. 1654. Apart from Gookin, the co. Cork Members were Lord Broghill and another Old Protestant landowner, William Jephson*, and during this Parliament, Gookin seems to have supported the Boyle agenda. In November 1654 he joined Broghill on a committee to rehabilitate former royalists in Ireland, and to allow them, if outwardly loyal to the protectorate, to vote in parliamentary elections.43CJ vii. 390b. He may also have been involved in the attempt to promote an Irish union bill, which was unsuccessfully introduced at the end of the session. Possibly in connection with the latter cause, in the last days of the Parliament Gookin became involved in the debate on the fate of the native Irish, who faced wholesale transplantation to the poorer lands of Connaught.44P. Coughlan, ‘Counter-currents in Colonial Discourse’, in Political Thought in Seventeenth Century Ireland: Kingdom or Colony? ed. J.H. Ohlmeyer (Cambridge, 2000), 66-77. On 3 January 1655 he published the ostensibly anonymous pamphlet The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed, in which he questioned the government’s policy.45[V. Gookin], The Great Case of Transplantation in Ireland Discussed (1655) (E.234.6). He objected that transplantation was contrary to ‘religion’, ‘profit’ and ‘safety’, as it would remove the Catholics from civilising English Protestant influences, denude the land of labourers and skilled craftsmen, and concentrate the Irish under their old leaders in one place. Although Gookin’s attitude was more reasonable and humane than the official line, he was in fact no more sympathetic to Irish Catholics than his father had been. In his plan, the ‘blind papists, bloody rebels’ would still be hunted down, while the language, culture and religion of the Irish would be ‘swallowed up by the English, and incorporated into them; so that a few centuries will know no difference present, fear none to come, and scarce believe what were passed’.46Great Case of Transplantation, 21-2, 31.

Underlying the discussion of transplantation in Gookin’s pamphlet was a sub-text which had little to do with the fate of the Irish, and everything to do with the mounting political struggle in Ireland between the Old Protestants and Lord Deputy Charles Fleetwood*, his allies in the Dublin administration and their supporters in the army of occupation and the sectarian conventicles. Thus Gookin criticised weakness caused by the ‘many divisions among those who are Protestants’, and wanted to promote ‘godly learned Ministers’ to counter the sectarian preachers (or ‘gifted men’), who went about ‘railing at ministers, ordinances, and all the reformed church's observations’.47Great Case of Transplantation, 3, 5. When he attacked the financial pressures put on the Irish, which forced some into banditry, Gookin blamed ‘the commonwealth’s necessity for money to maintain the army of Ireland’.48Great Case of Transplantation, 23. He also argued that too much credit in Irish affairs had been given to English interlopers, asserting that ‘those that were in England must see and hear with their eyes that were in Ireland’.49Great Case of Transplantation, 28. For Gookin, the radical-dominated army was the root cause of the Irish problem, and the advancement of the Old Protestant party was the solution.

Unsurprisingly, Gookin’s pamphlet brought a swift response. In February and March 1655 the English newspapers published letters from Ireland denouncing Gookin as ‘the Teaguish person’, who had abused Ireland’s ‘rulers’.50Mercurius Politicus no. 245 (15-22 Feb. 1655), 5136 (E.828.7); no. 251 (29 Mar.-5 Apr. 1655), 5234 (E.831.7). It was left to Colonel Richard Lawrence, brother of the president of the protectoral council, Henry Lawrence I*, to publish a full reply on 9 March 1655.51R. Lawrence, The Interest of England in the Irish Transplantation Stated (1655, E.829.17). Lawrence’s answer to that ‘scandalous, seditious pamphlet’ betrayed its intentions from the start, by concentrating on Gookin’s criticism of the Irish government, rather than the issue of transplantation. Lawrence denied that the opinions of ‘strangers’ were invalid, and accused Gookin of disloyalty: his aim was ‘not so much to heal the Irish wounds, as to wound and weaken the English government and interest there’.52Lawrence, Interest of England, 4-5, 10. Gookin’s indignant riposte, The Author and Case of Transplanting the Irish into Connaught Vindicated, was published in May 1655. In it, he acknowledged his authorship of the first tract, and, with a dedicatory epistle to Lord Deputy Fleetwood, tried to blunt the charge of disloyalty made by Lawrence.53V. Gookin, The Author and Case of Transplanting the Irish into Connaught Vindicated, (1655, E.838.7). Standing on his honour as a Member of Parliament, Gookin disingenuously complained that ‘the greater have their slanders been, who taking the advantage of my being in England, have made it their business to stir up animosities in the army of Ireland against me, as if [by] my being here, I had negotiated divers things prejudicial to their interest’.54Gookin, Author and Case, 9. Gookin added that his quarrel was not with the army but with ‘some particular officers for dealing unjustly with the country’, who had ‘laboured to taint my reputation with private whispers’.55Gookin, Author and Case, 10. Gookin likewise amended his attack on the sectarian preachers: ‘here indeed is a crime taxed, but it is only in those persons that are ignorant heretical, none in authority’, and absolved the Independent ministers from blame: ‘I spoke not against godly, sober, approved Christians sent forth by congregations, but rash fanatic persons, who run off their own heads’.56Gookin, Author and Case, 10. Despite a few conciliatory touches, Gookin did not abandon his main argument: that control of Irish affairs should be left to the Old Protestants, not to newcomers connected with the army and the sectaries.

Gookin’s attacks on government policy in Ireland did not distance him from the Cromwellian government in England. Oliver Cromwell encouraged him, in June 1655 writing to Fleetwood ordering that Gookin be put into possession of lands that had been previously assigned to him.57Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 755n, 778. Gookin had by this time been appointed to the committee for the approbation of ministers in co. Cork, and he was active as a commissioner for the admiralty during the summer.58Seymour, Puritans in Ire. 90; Add. 18986, f. 204. A change of personnel in the Irish government also worked in his favour: Fleetwood was recalled to London in September 1655 and control of Irish policy passed to the more moderate Henry Cromwell*. In July 1656 Gookin was made a commissioner for the equal distribution of forfeited lands to those holding military debentures, apparently on the recommendation of the army officers in Ireland.59The Down Survey by Sir William Petty, 1655-6 ed. T.A. Larcom (Dublin, 1851), 86, 185; Ire. under the Commonwealth, 609. The pamphlet controversy seems to have increased Gookin’s standing in the eyes of the Old Protestants, and with the Boyle family in particular. In 1655-6, Gookin and the Boyles cooperated on a number of issues, and it was with the support of the earl of Cork that Gookin secured re-election for Bandon and Kinsale in August 1656.60CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 573; CSP Dom. 1655, p. 177; TSP v. 327.

In the second protectorate Parliament, Gookin immediately resumed his role as a lobbyist for Irish affairs. On 23 September 1656 he was named to the committee for Irish affairs, a body which also included Broghill and Jephson in its membership.61CJ vii. 427a. Gookin used his position to press for the Old Protestant cause, delivering the ‘ancient Protestants’ petition’ to Oliver Cromwell in October, and acting as messenger between the protector and Henry Cromwell.62Henry Cromwell Corresp. 182-5. Like his father, Gookin was free with unsolicited advice to the powerful. In November he wrote a personal letter to the protector, in which he argued that a permanent settlement in Ireland was only prevented by ‘what lies in the minds of a few busy choleric people’, who were influential because ‘the success of the army against the Irish did accidentally put into many of the conquerors’ hands such an extravagancy of power... [that they] grew thereby so high minded and unruly’, and challenged the authority of Cromwell himself.63TSP v. 646. In contrast, the Old Protestants were ‘unanimous in their obedience to your government and affection to your person’.64TSP v. 647. Gookin urged the protector to trust Henry Cromwell, and not to heed his opponents, for ‘he is sent thither and thus endowed by that God that hath wrought such wonders by you, surely you would judge the taking his work out of his hands or discouraging him in it to be a sin against the shining light of God’s good providence’.65TSP v. 648.

A few months later, Gookin was apparently acting as Henry Cromwell’s agent. In coded letters to an unknown recipient (possibly Broghill?) written in January and February 1657, Gookin outlined his progress in lobbying various Presbyterian divines in London, in the hope of recruiting ministers for service in Ireland, for: ‘two or more able ministerial men would be very acceptable to the sober and good people at Dublin and would be much made of by [Lord Harry]’. His contacts included Thomas Case, Edmund Calamy, and Edward Reynolds, and, through Nathaniel Bacon*, Matthew Newcomen. Gookin admitted that the power of the sectaries in Ireland had prompted this activity, ‘being, as I conceive, a business of vast advantage to the settlement so much desired by good men, and the only means to cure a disease which may otherwise grow sadly dangerous’.66TSP vi. 20.

In Parliament, Gookin worked closely with the Old Protestant interest led by Lord Broghill. He was named to the committee on a bill for the settlement of lands in Ireland on 31 December, and later was named to other committees concerning ‘donatives’ to leading Protestants (including Sir Hardress Waller*) and the sale of lands by Viscount Moore of Drogheda.67CJ vii. 477b, 523b, 545a. In January 1657 he joined the attack on the militia bill which would perpetuate the rule of the major-generals, saying that he feared that ‘thereby his highness’s government will be more founded in force and more removed from that natural foundation, which the people in Parliament are desirous to give him’.68TSP v. 20. The defeat of the militia bill paved the way for the introduction of a civilian constitution, the Remonstrance, with its offer of the crown to Cromwell. The change was championed in the House by Lord Broghill, Jephson and other Irish MPs, and Gookin joined them with enthusiasm. On 3 March 1657, Gookin reported on progress to Henry Cromwell: ‘The debate on the Remonstrance in the House is like to be long, but I hope will receive a good end, most of the good people of the nation and all the rest being for it’.69Henry Cromwell Corresp. 212. On 25 March he joined Broghill, Jephson and other Irish MPs in voting in favour of including the offer of the crown in the revised version of the Remonstrance, the Humble Petition and Advice.70Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 23 (E.935.5).

Gookin’s importance to the kingship party can be seen in the storm of protests which greeted suggestions that he should return to Dublin to fulfil his role as commissioner. Broghill, and two protectoral councillors, Philip Jones* and Sir Charles Wolseley*, ‘were much against it’, and eventually persuaded the protector to allow Gookin to stay in England for the time being.71Ire. under the Commonwealth, 648-9; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 211, 222. Cromwell’s reluctance to accept the crown worried Gookin. As he told Henry Cromwell on 14 April: ‘I cannot believe his highness should grant so much if he intended to refuse the title. The Lord be his guide and God in all his difficulties’.72Henry Cromwell Corresp. 257. Significantly, Gookin’s involvement in Parliament’s affairs petered out after Cromwell’s final refusal of the crown on 8 May 1657.73CJ vii. 545a.

There were other factors which increased Gookin’s sense of disappointment with the Cromwellian regime at this time. The final settlement of Gookin’s lands, originally ordered in September 1654, had not been completed, and on 14 April 1657 he told Henry Cromwell that his hopes to secure a reduction of rent had been blocked by the Irish council, and his petition rejected out of hand.74Henry Cromwell Corresp. 256-7. Gookin declined Henry’s offer to re-submit this petition, since to do so was against the Irish council’s rules; but in the summer of 1657 the matter was transferred to England, and the protector and his council ordered the Irish committee to consider it afresh.75CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 33, 54. Despite his declining influence, Gookin was still valued as a lobbyist for Irish interests. Randall Clayton, eager for a grant from Cromwell, instructed his brother-in-law, John Percivalle, to ‘advise with Mr [Brian?] Stapilton and Vincent Gookin, and if you shall find it necessary, engage my Lord Broghill in it’.76HMC Egmont, i. 584. Gookin returned to Ireland in September 1657, and remained there despite requests from the protectoral council in November that he return to advise them on the sale of lands.77CSP Dom. 1657-8, pp. 171, 429, 433; 14th Rep. of Dep. Keeper of Public Recs. of Ire. (Dublin, 1882), appx. ii. 44. After the appointment of Henry Cromwell as lord deputy, finalised in the same month, Gookin’s position improved. He was active in the distribution of Irish lands on debentures, and with the surveyor Dr William Petty* and others was instructed to examine irregularities in January 1658.78Ire. under the Commonwealth, 675. In the same year he was appointed surveyor-general of Ireland, a post which his father had held earlier in the century. This promotion probably further strengthened his association with Petty, who had overseen the initial stages of the Irish land survey.79Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin and the Cork elections’, 357. It was probably at this time that Gookin took advantage of his position to acquire the farm of the state’s ‘interest of houses in the whole corporation of Youghal’.80Chatsworth, CM/30, no. 65.

Gookin’s position was threatened in September 1658 by the death of Oliver Cromwell. Although Richard Cromwell* was accepted as the new protector - and Gookin appended his signature to the Irish proclamation to this effect in the same month - growing tensions between the civilians and the army destabilized Henry Cromwell’s position in Ireland, and opened fissures in the previously united front of the Old Protestants.81TSP vii. 383. This became obvious in the co. Cork elections in January 1659. The death of William Jephson and the ineligibility of Lord Broghill (who had been appointed to the ‘Other House’) had broken up the local team elected in 1654 and 1656. Perhaps in response to this, Gookin took the extraordinary step of trying to extend his own influence in co. Cork at the expense of the Boyles, putting himself and William Petty forward against the Boyle candidates in the two Cork borough constituencies.82Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin and the Cork elections’, 355-9. Broghill, refusing to be overawed by Gookin’s claim to have Henry Cromwell’s support, dismissed this interference with disdain: ‘he played the knave egregiously at Bandon and Kinsale to get Dr Petty chosen, assuring both those places twas my desire unto them’.83Chatsworth, CM/30, no.72. Gookin initially stood against the Boyle candidate, William Penn, for Cork and Youghal, while Petty stood for Bandon and Kinsale. When Petty was elected for West Looe in Cornwall, Gookin was chosen for the latter seat, and a Boyle client, Francis Foulke*, was returned for Cork and Youghal.

The reasons for Gookin’s challenge to the Boyle hegemony in co. Cork are hard to fathom. He may have been trying to demonstrate his own local importance to Henry Cromwell, and to undermine the influence of Broghill at the same time. Another possible factor was the long-standing tension between the Gookins and the Boyles that Vincent had inherited from his father. There were signs that Gookin had always rather resented having the status of a Boyle client. In July 1651 the 2nd earl of Cork received reports that Gookin was stealing large quantities of timber from his dilapidated estates, and in August 1652 Cork feared that he also coveted the Boyle interest in Clonakilty, near CourtMacSherry.84Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 5 July 1651, 28 Aug. 1652. Gookin may have bridled at being expected to perform menial tasks for Cork, such as acting as a courier for bills of exchange or an intermediary with the government in Dublin in the mid-1650s, and his contact with the earl seems to have tailed off towards the end of the decade.85Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 28 June 1653, 29 Mar. 1654, 9 Apr. 1654, 14 Aug. 1654, 7 Sept. 1654, 6 Nov. 1654, 24 Jan. 1656, 25 Oct. 1657. In a further worrying sign, in the autumn of 1658 Gookin had also played a part in preventing Cork’s nephew, the earl of Barrymore, from securing a patent for lands in the barony of Barrymore.86Bodl. Rawl. A.61, f. 385.

Trying to usurp the electoral patronage of the Boyles was risky strategy even if it had succeeded, and in January 1659 all Gookin had to show for his trouble was his old seat at Bandon and Kinsale. A jubilant Broghill portrayed the contest in Cork and Youghal, in particular, as a personal humiliation for Gookin

I think Gookin came off much lamer, for I could not be more convinced he was a knave than I made him appear such to his face before above 300 witnesses, the chief of all this county… [he] had not one vote for him, which after such a schooling as I gave him, made many cry shame upon him.87Chatsworth, CM/30, no. 72.

It is perhaps telling that Gookin does not seem to have attended the parliamentary session that followed. Instead he busied himself with the internal affairs of Kinsale. He examined the town chamberlain’s receipts in April 1659; and in the same month, in his role as commissioner for revenue of Ireland, he steered through a grant to Kinsale of the leases of all the houses sequestered by the protector in the town.88Council Bk. of Kinsale ed. Caulfield, 45. In the meantime Gookin’s standing with the Dublin government had begun to wither away, and there were soon rumours that he would be stripped of his office as surveyor-general.89Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin and the Cork Elections’, 358n.

Like his father in 1634, Gookin responded to political embarrassment by walking away. In the late summer of 1659 he had left for London, where he angled to succeed Daniel Searle as governor of Barbados, ‘and to that purpose hath had discourse with many of the council of state’, as well as with the old West Indies hands, Thomas Povey* and Martin Noell*.90Eg. 2395, f. 177. In October, ‘the merchants trading to Babados’ were in favour of Gookin, and ‘did think fit to give him an invitation to the Cardinal’s Cap’ to entertain him and hear his proposals.91Eg. 2395, f. 179v. On 20 October, however, Povey was told that ‘this night Mr Gookin died of a fever, which in a few days killed him, and of which I knew nothing until the last night late’.92Eg. 2395, f. 180. Gookin died intestate, and his widow, Mary, was granted the administration of his personal goods on 17 January 1660.93NAI, Thrift Will Abstract 2829. She remarried in 1662, taking as her new husband the Cromwellian soldier, Thomas Sadleir*. Gookin probably had no children. His political interest in Kinsale was assumed by his younger brother, Thomas, while the family estate in co. Cork remained in Robert’s hands only until March 1661, when it was purchased by Broghill, recently elevated as 1st earl of Orrery.94‘Robert Gookin’, Oxford DNB; Council Bk. of Kinsale, 49; HMC Egmont, i. 603-5; Bodl. Carte 42, f. 49.