CLOTWORTHY, Sir John (d. 1665), of Massereene, co. Antrim, and St Andrew’s, Holborn, Mdx.

Sir John Clotworthy was the son of a Devonshire gentleman, Sir Hugh Clotworthy, who had become a major landowner in cos. Down and Antrim during the reign of James I. Clotworthy, who was knighted in 1626, succeeded his father in 1630, and sat for co. Antrim in the Irish Parliament which convened in July 1634.34Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 191; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 63. During the 1630s Clotworthy crossed swords with the lord deputy of Ireland, Sir Thomas Wentworth†, over various matters. He refused to give up his monopoly on licensing the sale of alcohol in Down and Antrim, and Wentworth (perhaps in retaliation) refused to grant him a commission to command the troop of horse, as enjoyed by his father.35Oxford DNB. More importantly, Wentworth’s eagerness to reform the Church of Ireland, and to encourage Laudianism, brought him into direct conflict with Clotworthy, who was the principal protector of Presbyterian ministers in Ulster.36A. Robinson, ‘“Not otherwise to be named, but as a Firebrand from Ireland to inflame this Kingdom”: the Political and Cultural Milieu of Sir John Clotworthy during the Stuart Civil Wars’ (PhD, Univ. of Ulster, 2013), 39-40, 49, 76. It was this that led Clotworthy to consider emigrating to New England. As early as 1635, he was in touch with the Winthrops in Massachusetts. In a letter of March 1635 to John Winthrop junior, Clotworthy complained that

the church here is tenderly provided for, and hath fine new clothes. We want nothing that the wit of man can invent to make the worship of God pompous in outward, but penurious in the inward, part. In a word, all things further a calling.37Winthrop Pprs. iii. 193.

In the autumn of the same year, Winthrop visited Clotworthy in Antrim, and held a meeting attended by numerous of the godly, ‘to confer about their voyage to New England’.38Jnl. of John Winthrop, 1630-49 (Harvard, 1996), 160. As yet, the situation in Ireland was not irretrievable, and the full extent of Wentworth’s reform programme was not known. Indeed, it was only in the later 1630s that Clotworthy became a confirmed enemy of the lord deputy. In 1637 his proposal to take over the Londonderry plantation land, in return for £9,000 rent and £32,000 in customs, was rejected out of hand.39Strafforde Letters, ii. 223-4; J. Ohlmeyer, ‘Strafford and the Londonderry Business’, in The Political World of Sir Thomas Wentworth ed. J. Merritt (Cambridge, 1996), 216-7. Clotworthy also lost his interest in the Drapers’ Company lands in Ulster, which he had leased for 61 years as recently as November 1632.40Moody, Londonderry Plantation, 446.

Clotworthy’s landed interests in eastern Ulster, and his involvement with local Presbyterian ministers, naturally brought him into contact with the Scottish Covenanters, who had risen against Charles I after the imposition of the Prayer Book in 1637. Clotworthy was able to turn the turmoil in Scotland to political advantage in the summer of 1638, when he travelled across the North Channel, en route for London, as agent of the tenants of the Londonderry plantation. Clotworthy was in Edinburgh by 11 June, when he met the leading Covenanter, Sir Archibald Johnston* of Wariston.41Wariston Diary, i. 351. Wentworth had learned of Clotworthy’s diversion by 3 July, when he told Archbishop William Laud that ‘the puppy is so much for the common cause of the brethren that he is gone to Edinburgh to see what becomes of the Kirk’.42SCL, Strafford 7, ff. 113-4. By this time, Clotworthy had arrived in London, where he busied himself sending coded reports back to his friends in Edinburgh, revealing Laud’s importance as an adviser to the king on Scottish affairs, the plans of Wentworth to send Irish troops to cow the Scots, and hinting that key figures in England were sympathetic to Scottish demands.43P. Donald, An Uncounselled King (Cambridge, 1990), 192-4. On 28 July he was upbeat, telling the Scots that ‘the king will rather comply with you than lose the sweet morsels of what is to be had from England’.44NLS, Wodrow Folio MS 66, f. 111; Donald, Uncounselled King, 196. Two days later Laud told Wentworth that the king had ‘laughed at your Ananias’ – their nickname for Clotworthy, presumably referring to the hypocrite of Acts 5 – but acknowledged that the implications of his visit were ‘serious indeed’.45Laud’s Works, vii. 464-5.

Pym’s ally, Strafford’s enemy, 1640-1

Clotworthy’s Irish and Scottish links made him very useful to opponents of the crown in England over the following months. His connection by marriage to John Pym* perhaps provided an entrée.46W.H. Upton, Upton Family Records (1893), 13, 110. Pym and Clotworthy were involved in circulating the petition of the Twelve Peers, calling on Charles I to summon a new Parliament, in September 1640.47Oxford DNB; J. Adamson, The Noble Revolt, 74. In the subsequent elections, Pym’s aristocratic associates were more than willing to find a seat for Clotworthy. One of the Twelve Peers, John Robartes, 2nd Baron Robartes, put him forward as his candidate for Bossiney in Cornwall. The election on 26 October was confused. As Sir Bevill Grenvile* told Sir Ralph Sydenham*, ‘there are two elections made, one by Mr [William] Coryton’s* men and another by all the freemen, who are we hear three to one against him, and they have chosen you and another called Sir J[ohn] C[lotworthy], on my Lord Robartes’ recommendation’.48R. Granville, Hist. of the Granville Family (Exeter, 1895), 234. The Bossiney election was eventually annulled by the Commons, but Clotworthy had already secured an alternative seat, as on 22 October he was returned as MP for Maldon in Essex, probably on the interest of another of the Twelve Peers, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich†).49Vide supra, ‘Maldon’. Clotworthy made his formal choice to sit for the Essex seat, giving up the Cornish one, on 9 November.50CJ ii. 24b. There is little doubt that the earl of Clarendon (Edward Hyde*) was justified in his later comment, that Clotworthy had been elected ‘by the contrivance and recommendation of some powerful persons’.51Clarendon, Hist. i. 224. But the extent to which Clotworthy was content to be a mere client of his noble patrons remained to be seen.

Clotworthy had taken his seat in the Commons by 6 November 1640, when he was teller against referring Irish affairs to a committee of the whole House – a motion that was narrowly passed.52CJ ii. 21b. The next day he gave a comprehensive account of ‘the state of the kingdom’ of Ireland, which quickly became an attack on the administration of Wentworth, now 1st earl of Strafford. The church, he said, was in a parlous state: ‘rake Hell and you cannot find worse, and they are without disparagement to any not paralleled: clergy bad both in life and government; drunkenness; one bishop was indicted of whoredom and sodomy’. The church had lost much of its authority: ‘courts, officials, oppressing … never papist or heretic questioned. Many popish religious houses … popish officers in all the kingdom’. The secular courts were corrupt, as were the administration of the customs farm and monopolies. The new Irish army, raised by Strafford against the Scots, consisted largely of papists, ‘ready to march I know not where’; Clotworthy warned that ‘old Protestant army have not their pay, while the popish army are paid’.53Procs. LP i. 36-7; D’Ewes (N), 13.

Having given his general account of the state of Ireland, in the next few days Clotworthy made more specific accusations. On 11 November he was named (alongside Pym, William Strode I*, Oliver St John* and other leading critics of the crown) to a committee to consider the charges to be levelled against Strafford; and in debate on the same day he told the Commons that the recently-appointed lord deputy, Sir George Radcliffe, ‘said that this army raised in Ireland is against England and not against the Scots’.54CJ ii. 26b; Procs. LP i. 97. Clotworthy also reported Sir Robert King’s* account of another conversation, in which Radcliffe had hinted that the defeat of the Scots would lead to the subjection of his opponents in England.55Procs. LP i. 98, 102, 106, 111. The next day Pym followed up these allegations by moving that Radcliffe and King be sent for, and Clotworthy responded by reminding the Commons to tread carefully, as both men were members of the Irish Parliament.56Procs. LP i. 122. On 20 November Clotworthy and Pym moved for books and papers to be sent from Ireland, to allow further charges to be brought, and they argued in favour of an immediate end to the tobacco monopoly.57Procs. LP i. 210, 213, 215, 217. Ten days later, Clotworthy returned to his attack on Radcliffe, moving ‘divers particulars against the deputy … which were new, of his stopping the ports and hindering men from seeking justice’.58Procs. LP i. 373. He was also named to the committee to meet with the Lords to discuss peers being allowed to give evidence against the lord lieutenant.59CJ ii. 39b. On 17 December Clotworthy turned his attention to Strafford himself, calling for witnesses to be summoned to investigate the lord lieutenant’s harsh treatment of the co. Sligo landowner, Sir Frederick Hamilton.60Procs. LP i. 637.

As well as leading the attack on the Irish government, Clotworthy was closely involved in English politics during the opening weeks of the Long Parliament. After his initial statement on Ireland he was named to a committee to prepare a declaration on the state of the England, alongside Pym, St John and John Hampden.61CJ ii. 25a. On 18 November he complained against one William Frieston, for ‘calumniating the lords that petitioned the king for a Parliament’.62Procs. LP i. 167-8. On 1 December Clotworthy and St John moved that Sir Francis Windebanke* be called to sit as an MP before charges were brought against him.63Procs. LP i. 401. On 23 January 1641 Clotworthy was added to the committee on Windebanke, when it was extended to consider religious reforms, including the removal of altars from churches.64CJ ii. 72a. This was followed, on 9 February, by his involvement as teller on a motion concerning the committee to consider the London petition on religion.65CJ ii. 81b. On 13 February he was named to the committee on a bill to abolish superstition and idolatry, and to promote good religion.66CJ ii. 84b.

In the new year of 1641 Clotworthy made a concerted personal attack on Strafford, accusing him of planning to use the new Irish army against the English people. On 4 January Clotworthy and Sir Walter Erle* were appointed managers of a conference with the Lords on the danger posed by the new army.67CJ ii. 62b. On 29 January Clotworthy again made formal allegations that ‘the popish army new-levied in Ireland… all of the Romish religion, were to have landed in some part of those counties where the [5th] earl of Worcester was to levy his forces’, in south Wales.68Procs. LP ii. 310. On 11 February Clotworthy and Erle reported on the new army, and were appointed managers of a conference with the Lords.69CJ ii. 83a. At this meeting, Clotworthy made the point that although it was imperative that the new army should be disbanded, there was the risk that ‘they would raise some tumult or mutiny upon their disbanding, and therefore wished they might be sent beyond the seas’.70Procs. LP ii. 415-7. On 13 February Clotworthy gave further evidence to the Lords concerning Strafford’s threat to bring over the new Irish army across the Irish Sea, claiming that

this army is to force a tyrannical government, for the general has boundless power, for the commission leaves all at his discretion, it is said therein, to stay tumults in England; and yet at first they were provided for the north west of Scotland.71Harl. 6424, f. 19v.

On 23 February he joined Erle, Robert Reynolds*, Sir William Waller* and John Hampden as a manager of a conference with the Lords on the disbanding of the new army, and disarming of recusants generally.72CJ ii. 91b. He was to reprise the role on 8 April, working as manager with Erle, Sir John Culpeper* and Denzil Holles*.73CJ ii. 117a.

Clotworthy was also active in promoting the formal charges against Strafford. On 26 February he ‘spoke long, and showed the falsity of divers of the earl of Strafford’s answers’, and defended the reputation of another of the witnesses for the prosecution, Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork. According to Clotworthy, Strafford’s answer to the charges ‘consists of shameless denials or frivolous shifts’.74Procs. LP ii. 565, 567. On 6 March he was named to the committee to attend a free conference with the Lords on the trial of Strafford.75CJ ii. 98a. On 23 March Clotworthy was himself called as a witness, and recounted how he had been threatened by Radcliffe in 1635-6 – evidence that elicited a dry response from Strafford: ‘they nothing concern me but Sir George Radcliffe, and I was here in England’.76Procs. LP iii. 68, 72. On 1 April Clotworthy was produced by the Lords as a witness on oath, and again gave evidence, this time concerning corruption and unfair exactions in the linen trade, which had hit Antrim very hard: ‘all markets were deserted, and very little came to the market of this commodity’, creating ‘great disorder’ locally, where ‘many people starve’.77LJ ii. 204a; Procs. LP iii. 286, 295, 301. Two days later he gave evidence about the ‘Black Oath’ imposed on Ulster, which had caused many Scots to flee the province.78Procs. LP iii. 337, 351. In April it was reported that Clotworthy was present in Pym’s chamber when the members of the select committee ‘mislaid’ Sir Henry Vane I’s deposition against Strafford.79CSP Dom. 1640-1, p. 559. On 16 April he was named with Pym, Hampden, Reynolds and Strode to the committee to consider further proceedings against Strafford, in conference with the Lords.80CJ ii. 122a. On 28 April Clotworthy moved that St John, as solicitor-general, have power to send for records against Strafford.81Procs. LP iv. 124. Having stoked up the fires against Strafford and his administration, Clotworthy presumably took grim satisfaction from the execution of the lord lieutenant on 12 May.

During the Strafford trial, Clotworthy became embroiled in the contest between leading courtiers to become the new lord lieutenant of Ireland. Sir John Temple* was the principal lobbyist on behalf of the 2nd earl of Leicester (Sir Robert Sidney†), and his letters in February reveal that his rival, Warwick’s brother, the 1st earl of Holland (Henry Rich†), ‘had shrewdly advanced for himself by Clotworthy and the rest, so as they intended to petition the king for him’.82HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 375. As Temple reported in March, Clotworthy was not supporting Holland for factional reasons: rather he was concerned at Leicester’s religious views, and ‘did not think him puritan enough’.83HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 388.

Clotworthy was also heavily involved in Parliament’s response to another by-product of the Strafford trial: the army plot. On 23 April he and Harbottle Grimston* were summoned to attend the Commons immediately, probably in connection with information received about the affair.84CJ ii. 127a. He took the resultant Protestation on 3 May, and on the same day reported early signs of unrest among the army officers, saying that there were plans to raise new troops, ‘for what end he knows not, only he says that Sir John Suckling* is to have a regiment and a troop of horse’.85CJ ii. 133a; Procs. LP iv. 179. On 4 May Clotworthy was named to the small committee (which included Pym, Erle, Hampden and Holles) to examine Suckling and other suspects, and the next day he was named to the secret committee to investigate the plot, and to prepare heads of a conference with the Lords.86CJ ii. 134a, 135a; D’Ewes (C), 16n. Again, the last committee was made up only of leading opponents of the king: Clotworthy, Hampden, Pym, Strode, Holles and Nathaniel Fiennes I*.87CJ ii. 135a. On 7 May the Commons ordered that Clotworthy and Sir Philip Stapilton* go to Portsmouth to ensure its safety, and immediately afterwards the two joined Edward Montagu†, Viscount Mandeville, and journeyed to Portsmouth to examine the governor, Colonel George Goring*, who was accused of involvement in the army plot.88CJ ii. 138a; LJ iv. 238a; HMC Egmont, i. 134. After his return, on 9 June, Clotworthy and Holles were majority tellers in favour (not against, as the clerk of the House mistakenly recorded) of imprisoning Herbert Price* and Sir William Withrington* for taking away the candles to end the debate on the army plot the previous evening.89CJ ii. 171b; Procs. LP v. 66. Goring had told Clotworthy, Stapilton and Mandeville further details of the conspiracy, and these were reported to the Commons on 16 June.90Procs. LP v. 186. As late as 26 July Clotworthy was involved in investigating the ramifications of the plot, and he moved that anyone with further information should be granted immunity from prosecution.91Procs. LP vi. 96.

During the summer of 1641 Clotworthy’s activity in the Commons was less frenetic, but his twin concerns of religion and Ireland were still apparent. He took part in the attack on bishops, being named on 3 June to the committee to answer the Lords’ objections to moves to bar bishops and the clergy from secular office, and the next day acting as messenger to the Lords seeking a conference on the same matter.92CJ ii. 165b, 167b; LJ iv. 264b. On 11 June he denounced bishops as ‘enemies to Parliament, and pernicious in Parliament’.93Procs. LP v. 97. On 21 June he moved that the Irish bishops be included in the bill against episcopacy, but the Commons decided this was outside its powers.94Procs. LP v. 260. On 8 August, when the Commons discussed what business should be passed before adjourning, Clotworthy argued that the Lords should be moved ‘to put the bishops out of their House this day, upon our impeachment against them’.95Procs. LP vi. 299. Clotworthy’s sternness on religious matters was sometimes at odds with the mood of the House. On 19 July, for example, news of the arrest of a priest employed by the Venetian resident ‘drew Sir John Clotworthy and Sir John Hotham to move that a bill might be drawn for the gelding of priests and Jesuits’. Instead of solemnly agreeing to such methods, the suggestion provoked ‘much laughter’ among the MPs.96Procs LP vi. 7.

During this period, Clotworthy continued to play an important role in Scottish and Irish affairs. On 23 June he reported to the Commons the plot to arrest James Graham, 5th earl of Montrose.97Procs. LP vi. 299. On 6 August he argued in favour of transporting disbanded Irish soldiers to Spain, and on 13 August he was manager and reporter of a conference with the Lords on the same, but in a further debate on the subject on 24 August he counselled that recruitment should be tightly controlled, as there was great danger in ‘raising so many men in Ireland at once’.98Procs. LP vi. 230, 540; CJ ii. 254a. On 9 September Clotworthy was messenger to the Lords for a conference on the ordinance for transporting men into foreign service, and subsequently managed the business.99CJ ii. 285b.

Alongside these moves to remove the Irish troops to Europe, Clotworthy was also involved in efforts to pay off and disband the armies in England, and to disarm recusants. He was named to the committee to consider the matter on 10 June and to the committee for removing weapons from Catholics on 17 August, and, after the recess, on 23 October he was manager of a conference to review the disbandment.100CJ ii. 172b, 261a, 294a. In late October Clotworthy settled down to tackle his familiar concerns, presenting a petition from various Irish parishes on 22 October, and being named to a committee to ask the king not to appoint new bishops.101CJ ii. 292b, 298b. Everything was to change on 1 November, however, as news reached London of the outbreak of rebellion in Ireland.

The Irish crisis, 1641-3

Clotworthy was personally concerned with the Irish rebellion from its very outset. The rising in Ulster threatened his estates, and the plot to seize Dublin Castle had been foiled by Owen O’Connolly, ‘a servant of Sir John Clotworthy’, who had heard of it from an acquaintance, and on the basis of whose information the authorities had seized the two ringleaders, Lord Maguire and Hugh MacMahon.102D’Ewes (C), 61; Tanner Lttrs. 131; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 158. On 1 November Clotworthy was sent as messenger to the Lords to desire a conference to consider the news from Ireland, and was appointed one of the managers, along with Pym, Holles and Bulstrode Whitelocke.103CJ ii. 330a-b; LJ iv. 416b. On 2 November it was moved in the Commons that Clotworthy should peruse all letters coming from Ireland, and the next day he was appointed to committees to raise an immediate loan from the City of London and to interview O’Connolly, as well as being included in the new standing committee of both Houses for Irish affairs.104D’Ewes (C), 62, 67; CJ ii. 302a.

Clotworthy’s priority was to send troops – of whatever nationality – over to Ireland as quickly as possible. On 4 November he was named to a committee on a bill for raising soldiers for Ireland.105CJ ii. 305b. On 11 November he argued ‘that officers might be speedily be sent over’; on 7 December he was messenger to the Lords to urge them to pass a bill for pressing men for Ireland; on 8 December he moved to hasten the same bill; and on the same day he was manager of a conference to draw up instructions for commissioner to arrange for Scottish troops to be sent over to Ireland.106D’Ewes (C), 118, 249; CJ ii. 334b, 336a. On 24 December the Commons ordered that Clotworthy and Pym were to attend the master of the ordnance to see if he had sufficient warrant to release arms for Ireland, and if not, to consider ways in which it might legally be done.107CJ ii. 357a. Clotworthy was also intent on raising troops of his own. On 17 December he was included in a committee to attend the new lord lieutenant, the earl of Leicester, to ask him to issue commissions for officers for Ireland, and he may have received his own commission at this time.108CJ ii. 347b. In any case, by the final days of 1641, Clotworthy was raising a regiment of 1,000 foot from his estates in co. Antrim.109HMC Ormonde, o.s. i. 126. On 21 December a warrant was issued by Leicester to pay £1,432 to Clotworthy for the officers and recruits of two regiments in Ulster.110SP28/1B, f. 426.

Another pressing concern was to prevent the Irish rebellion from spreading to England. Catholics were suspect, and any rumour of plotting caused a violent reaction at Westminster. On 19 November Clotworthy and Holles were among those sent to examine ‘dangerous words’ spoken by one Mr Le Russell concerning the Irish rebellion; on 24 November the two men joined Pym and others on a committee to examine Irish suspects; and on 14 December the Commons asked for a conference on letters warning of the activities of Irish priests, some of which had been sent to Clotworthy himself.111CJ ii. 321a, 324b, 342b. On 24 December Clotworthy, with Pym, Holles and others, was appointed to a committee to examine two captured Irish Catholics, Lord Dillon and Colonel Taaffe.112CJ ii. 357a.

The crisis over Ireland had pushed English affairs far down Clotworthy’s agenda, but there are signs that he was still an important member of the faction that opposed the king in the dying days of 1641. On 22 November he was teller on a motion concerning the wording of the declaration on the state of the nation, working with Sir Thomas Barrington* and Arthur Goodwin*.113CJ ii. 322b. On 15 December he was teller with Holles on a motion to bring in candles to continue the debate, and allow the vote, on the printing of the Remonstrance on the state of the kingdom.114CJ ii. 344b. Most revealing, perhaps, on 27 and 28 December, Clotworthy was among those MPs who had to defend themselves from reports that, at a meeting at Kensington (presumably at the earl of Holland’s house) during the recess, the question of holding the queen and her children hostage had been discussed.115LJ iv. 490b; CJ ii. 359a. Clotworthy was not among the Five Members the king tried to arrest on 4 January 1642, but there is no doubt that he was their close associate.

In January 1642 Clotworthy remained at the forefront of Parliament’s efforts to address the Irish problem. On 5 January he brought in proposition from the commissioners of Irish affairs for arms to be transported from Carlisle to the Antrim port of Carrickfergus, to supply his own regiment and that of Edward Conway†, 2nd Viscount Conway; on 14 January arms were sent to the province on his motion; and on 20 January Pym reported on weapons available from the Tower and Clotworthy moved that bandoleers and musket rests must also be supplied.116PJ, i. 16, 68, 117; CJ ii. 369a. On 15 January Clotworthy had been added to the committee to collect money from MPs for the relief of Irish Protestant refugees, and on 20 January he moved the creation of a committee to administer the fund.117PJ, i. 119. Clotworthy was evidently frustrated at the lack of progress, three months after the outbreak of the rebellion, and on 24 January he attempted to break the log-jam by moving for a committee to be set up to treat with merchants for regular supplies to be sent to Ireland, and also went to the Lords to secure their agreement with the long-awaited propositions to send 2,500 Scottish troops across to Ulster.118PJ, i. 147; CJ ii. 391b, 392a; LJ iv. 530a. On 27 January he was allowed to continue his command of the ships on Lough Neagh, and was manager of a conference with the Lords on the Scottish propositions for sending troops.119CJ ii. 399a. MPs appear to have deferred to Clotworthy on Irish affairs during the same month, and his expert knowledge was in demand on 12 January, when he asked to testify whether Sir Maurice Eustace, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, was an ‘honest man’.120PJ, i. 41. He also passed on information that he had received privately, especially concerning ships bound for Ireland with suspect cargoes, or the links the rebels had forged with the privateers of Dunkirk.121CJ ii. 401a, 408b; PJ, i. 93, 209, 274.

The importance of Clotworthy in Irish affairs at Westminster was matched by the urgency of his joining his regiment in Ulster, and this led to some awkward exchanges in the Commons in February and March. On 5 February Sir Simonds D’Ewes* was irritated by Clotworthy’s continued presence at Westminster, telling the House that he was ‘sorry to hear a gentleman below speaking … who I did hope would have been ere this time in Ireland’.122PJ, i. 281. Others thought he was doing a more important job steering through the Adventurers’ bill, designed to fund the re-conquest of Ireland. As Oliver Cromwell* argued on 16 February

Sir John Clotworthy had done great service for settling these propositions at the committee, and so desired that some time might be allowed him to stay still and not yet to go into Ireland for the furtherance of this particular business.

In response, D’Ewes again argued for Clotworthy’s departure, and as a result the Commons refused to allow him leave to stay longer.123PJ, i. 395-6. Despite this, Clotworthy was still in the Commons on 5 March, when the matter was raised again. ‘Some spoke in particular to excuse Sir John Clotworthy and others to excuse them that stayed for want of arms’, recorded D’Ewes, who remained firm that Clotworthy’s place was in Ireland.124PJ, i. 516. The exact date of Clotworthy’s departure is uncertain, but it was probably immediately after the Commons’ order of 9 March, which allowed pay and weapons to be sent across to his regiment.125CJ ii. 473a.

Having left London, Clotworthy first travelled north to Scotland, where he did his best to hasten the troops already promised for Ireland.126CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 307. On his arrival in Ulster, he took personal command of his regiment. In the early months of 1642 Clotworthy’s men had been fairly well supplied, receiving pay for the officers and money to ship arms to Carrickfergus in January and further pay and arms supplies in early March.127SP28/1B, ff. 329, 347, 354; PJ, ii. 17; CJ ii. 473a. On his arrival, Clotworthy also used his own resources to ensure a steady supply of victuals from the Carrickfergus merchant, John Davies*, in what would become a close, and controversial, financial partnership.128SP28/1B, f. 359; Robinson, ‘Clotworthy’, ch. 9. In his absence from Westminster, Clotworthy relied on Pym and other allies for continued support. On 15 June the Commons voted £6,000 to be paid to the Ulster regiments of Clotworthy and Viscount Conway, on Pym’s motion, as reported from the commissioners of Irish affairs.129PJ, iii. 83, 370; CJ ii. 626a. In a major concession, on 4 July the Commons ordered that Clotworthy should be allowed a £1,000 share of the Irish Adventure in lieu of his pay arrears as colonel.130CJ ii. 649a. This was confirmed by order of 18 July, and the order was taken to the Lords by Cromwell the next day.131CJ ii. 680a-b, 681b; LJ v. 218b. On 20 July Pym delivered to the House two letters he had received from Clotworthy concerning the progress of the rebels in Ulster, and the need for victuals and money.132PJ, iii. 239. On 3 September Pym reported to the House from the commissioners of Irish affairs that ammunition should be supplied to Clotworthy and Conway.133CJ ii. 751a.

With Pym and others at Westminster covering his back, Clotworthy could concentrate on fighting the rebels. During the campaigning season he captured Mountjoy, co. Tyrone, and scored a bloody victory over the McDonnells in the Glens of Antrim.134Oxford DNB. He also collaborated with the ‘New Scots’ forces that arrived in Ulster in the summer, under the command of Major-general Robert Monro. In June Clotworthy and Conway joined Monro in writing to the Irish commissioners from Belfast, requesting further supplies, and in August the lords justices at Dublin ordered Clotworthy and the commanders of other settler (or ‘British’) regiments to cooperate with Monro in his campaign against the rebel forces in cos. Westmeath and Longford.135Irish Rebellion ed. Hogan, 41-2, 99.

There were already tensions, however, as Clotworthy and the other British commanders suspected that the New Scots intended not just to defeat the rebels but to establish a permanent presence in Ulster, backed by ministers brought in from Scotland.136D. Stevenson, Scottish Covenanters and Irish Confederates (Belfast, 1981), 118-9. Above all, there was the difficult question of whether the British forces should be under Scottish command – a matter raised in the Commons as early as 13 May.137CJ ii. 570a. Despite the tensions in Ulster, Clotworthy was prepared to use his personal influence to bring the Scottish and English Parliaments into closer cooperation. In November the Ulster forces sent John Pickering to Edinburgh as their agent, and in the winter of 1642-3 he kept in close contact with Clotworthy, telling him of the growing willingness of the Scots to support the parliamentarians.138Armstrong, Protestant War, 89-90. Clotworthy himself visited Edinburgh in January 1643, on his way back to Westminster, and apparently had talks with leading ministers about closer cooperation with England. His arguments seem to have had an impact. As Pickering told him on 9 January, ‘here is a great alteration since your going hence’, with men such as Robert Blair, David Dickson, Samuel Rutherford and Robert Douglas now calling for intervention ‘to rescue the king out of captivity’, adding, ‘they now think themselves really concerned, and make not needless delay’. Significantly, Pickering was also in correspondence with Pym at this time, and Clotworthy’s efforts should be seen as part of a wider scheme that would come to fruition in the Solemn League and Covenant of the following autumn.139HMC Hamilton, ii. 67.

The Irish Cessation of 1643

Clotworthy travelled back to London incognito – ‘disguised and disfigured’, according to one newsbook – in the middle of January 1643.140Certain Informations no. 3 (30 Jan.-6 Feb. 1643), 18 (E.88.17). He had resumed his seat in the Commons by 23 January, when he was added to the newly formed Committee for Irish Affairs, which was to consider the sending of further supplies to Ulster.141CJ ii. 940a. On 27 January he presented letters from Ireland which highlighted the terrible state of the provinces of Ulster and Munster, where ‘1,000 will be starved before Monday’, and the Commons agreed to make Irish affairs a priority.142Add. 18777, f. 136. Interestingly, this was against the advice of Pym, who wanted the matter deferred, suggesting a difference in the priorities of the two men.143Harl. 164, f. 282v. This was a symptom of a more general problem, as English MPs increasingly concentrated on England. One outstanding problem was the inactivity of the lord lieutenant, the earl of Leicester, who had joined the king at Oxford. On 28 January Clotworthy and Goodwin reported a conference with the Lords on Leicester, and Clotworthy was teller in favour of a Lords report on the matter on the same day.144CJ ii. 946b, 947a. After it was revealed to the Commons on 14 February that one Thomas Bourke had been sent to Ireland by the king to open peace talks with the Catholic Irish, Clotworthy grew increasingly impatient with Parliament’s foot-dragging.145CJ ii. 965a. On 18 February he pointed out that ‘we have borrowed out of the purse for Ireland £120,000’ (drawn from the Adventurers’ money) and moved that a bill should be passed ‘for satisfaction of the money for Ireland’.146Add. 18777, f. 159. On 20 February he was named to a committee to consider which MPs had failed to pay their promised subscriptions for Ireland.147CJ ii. 973b. On 27 February a delegation of Irish gentlemen attended the Commons, on Clotworthy’s motion, asking that a loan from the Dutch for Ireland should be passed as a bill, not merely an ordinance.148Harl. 164, f. 307b. The next day he was named to a committee, with Pym, Vane II and others, to consider a report from Dublin that the king had refused to allow Parliament’s agents to attend the Irish council meetings.149CJ ii. 984a. The immediate results of Clotworthy’s efforts were disappointing, although he was voted £300 for the Lough Neagh ships and a further £400 for other services.150CJ ii. 977b; iii. 6b; LJ v. 621b. In March and April he continued to press for Ireland to be made a greater priority. He was named to the committee to prepare a bill raising further money on the Adventure, the so-called ‘doubling ordinance’ (21 Mar.); he took to the Lords the Commons’ vote making Murrough O’Brien, 6th Baron Inchiquin, commander of Munster (30 Mar.); he was teller against re-committing the bill for the speedy collection of money for Ireland (1 Apr.); and he guided through the same bill as messenger to the Lords and manager of the subsequent conference (13, 20, 21 Apr.).151CJ iii. 11a, 24b, 27a, 43a, 53b, 55a; LJ v. 680b, 690b.

Clotworthy’s concern for Ireland probably influenced his support for the Oxford peace treaty in the early months of 1643. He argued for a definite date for the disbandment of the armies (9 Feb.); acted as teller with Holles in favour of concluding a treaty before agreeing disbandment (17 Feb.); and later argued that the Commons should send MPs to Parliament’s lord general, Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex, to ensure that he would listen to their advice concerning an interim truce (21 Feb.).152Add. 18777, ff. 148, 160v; CJ ii. 969b. On 22 February Clotworthy was appointed to the committee of both Houses to wait on Essex to consider a possible truce; on 27 February he advised the Commons to ask the king what terms he proposed; and on 7 March he was again one of those ordered to go to the lord general to consult with him about a cessation of arms.153Add. 18777, f. 166; Harl. 164, f. 315; CJ ii. 975a, 992b. The failure of the peace talks was not welcomed by Clotworthy: on 1 April he and Strode acted as tellers against the motion to abandon the treaty.154CJ iii. 27a. Thereafter, Clotworthy was involved in tying up loose ends. He acted as messenger to the Lords to desire a conference on the king’s latest answer on 14 April, and on 24 April he joined Pym, Holles, Strode and others on the committee to prepare a declaration defending Parliament’s role in the failed treaty.155CJ iii. 44b, 58a; LJ v. 719b.

After the collapse of the Oxford treaty, Clotworthy supported the renewed war, and became a supporter of the earl of Essex, who seemed the best hope for speedy victory. On 17 May he was reporter from a conference with the Lords which recommended rewarding Essex with the income from the confiscated lands of Lord Capel (Arthur Capel*).156CJ iii. 89a-b. On 24 May he took the ordinance for Essex’s reward to the Lords.157CJ iii. 100a; LJ vi. 60a. In the late summer, as the royalists advanced from the west and took Bristol, the English war seems to have become of greater importance to Clotworthy. He was named to committees to raise London forces for the army of Sir William Waller* (29 July), and to the council of war that would advise on recruitment (2 Aug.), reporting from the latter on 7 August.158CJ iii. 187b, 191b, 197b. On 18 August he was named to the committee to consider the sending out of the armies, including that of Essex, and the next day he reported from the committee to attend Essex and was named, alongside Pym, William Jephson* and Reynolds, to a new committee to wait on the earl, taking the propositions on the same to the Lords.159CJ iii. 210a, 211a-b, 212b, 213a; LJ vi. 192b. There were, however, distinct limits to how far Clotworthy wanted to become embroiled in English factional politics at this time. On 29 June, when an order was issued for the army officers to attend the council of war to consider the case of Edmund Waller*, Clotworthy ‘excused himself, saying that though he had command in the army in Ireland, yet he had no command in the army here under the earl of Essex’. D’Ewes’s conclusion from this was that ‘I perceive that men were unwilling to have a finger in this business’.160Harl. 165, f. 103.

When it came to religion, Clotworthy was far less reticent. On 18 March he was named to the committee for removing the Capuchin monks from the queen’s palace at Somerset House, and he reported the conference on the same on 30 March; as D’Ewes recorded, Clotworthy had been one of ‘our fiery spirits’, who had helped to deface the queen’s chapel there, and on their return argued that the vestments and other adornments should be burned.161CJ iii. 8a, 24b; Harl. 164, ff. 348v, 349; Robinson, ‘Clotworthy’, 262-9. He still had custody of the keys to the chapel in October, when the Commons ordered him to make sure no unauthorised services took place there.162CJ iii. 260b. Anti-Catholicism can also be detected in Clotworthy’s inclusion in a committee, appointed on 28 March, to investigate a report that the 2nd earl of Northampton (Spencer Compton†), recently killed in battle, had been found to be wearing a crucifix, and on 19 October he was named to a committee of both Houses to consider the popish hierarchy, and its involvement in Ireland.163CJ iii. 23a, 282b. Clotworthy’s other activities during the same year suggest that he remained closely connected with the religious Presbyterians. On 7 June 1643 he was named as one of the MPs to sit with the Westminster Assembly of Divines, a position confirmed by ordinance five days later, and on 10 October he was named to the committee on a petition concerning Antinomians.164CJ iii. 119b, 271b; A. and O.

Clotworthy’s involvement in the Committee for Irish Affairs became more intense during May and June 1643, when he is listed as having attended 12 meetings.165SP16/539/127, pp. 2-61. He was mentioned as being chairman of the Irish committee at Grocers’ Hall by the end of July.166CJ iii. 184b. Clotworthy’s importance is also reflected in his activity in the chamber. On 8 May he reported from the conference the king’s answer to the new Adventure bill, and the failure of this initiative may have prompted the declaration (the drafting of which was assigned to Clotworthy among others on 18 May) that the wars in England and Ireland were closely related, both seeking the overthrow of Protestantism.167CJ iii. 75a, 91a. On 25 May he was teller with Holles in favour of a motion concerning Parliament’s reply to the king’s answer on the new Adventure bill.168CJ iii. 103a. In the same month, Clotworthy prepared a report based on fresh intelligence from Ireland, and on 29 May he was named to the committee for expediting affairs in Ireland.169CJ iii. 98b, 101b, 109b. On 9 June he produced a letter from Ulster which described the province in apocalyptic terms, as ‘by reason of the burning up of the corn and other provisions of the rebels in those parts, there was a great famine grown in some places as that the living did feed upon the dead carcasses of their friends and neighbours’. A shocked Commons immediately voted that the long-delayed ordinance for the Dutch loan be passed, and a declaration showing the causes of the rebellion drawn up.170Harl. 165, f. 98v. Clotworthy was named to the committee to draw up heads of a conference on Ireland, and to consider how to prosecute the rebels, and he was given care of the business on 13 June.171CJ iii. 127b. In the same month it was reported that Clotworthy had intervened with the Committee of Navy and Customs to secure the services of two warships off Dublin, and two more to guard the North Channel.172Bodl. Carte 5, f. 488. On 23 June Clotworthy took the declaration and propositions for Ireland to the Lords.173CJ iii. 141b; LJ vi. 104b.

During the late summer of 1643 reports from Dublin became increasingly alarming, as it became clear that the royalists on the Irish council, led by James Butler, 12th earl of Ormond, were close to agreeing a cessation of arms with the Irish rebels – a move which would release Protestant regiments to serve the king in England. Instead of panicking, Clotworthy tried to put pressure on the Dublin authorities. On 25 July he wrote to Ormond warning him that future supplies from Parliament were in jeopardy: ‘if the unwelcome news of a cessation there had not come amongst us, this sum might have been much increased’; on the other hand, reassurance from Ormond ‘that all treaty with the rebels is dissolved, would quicken our work exceedingly’.174Bodl. Carte 6, f. 116. He also used the threat of the cessation to get more money from Parliament. On 7 August Clotworthy told the Commons that the threat of Irish Catholic troops coming to England would best be countered by further supply for the Protestant forces in Ulster and elsewhere.175Add. 18778, f. 10v. On 18 August he joined another Anglo-Irish MP, William Jephson, in opposing attempts to undermine the Irish treasurers of war – a move that would introduce further delays in getting money to Ireland.176Harl. 165, f. 152. On 14 September, shortly before the cessation was agreed, Clotworthy petitioned the Committee for Irish Affairs to allow him £331 to enable him to ‘resort unto his charge’ in Ulster.177SP16/539/127, p. 53. Clotworthy did not in fact leave London, and he was on hand on 19 September to report the details of the cessation, again giving raising the fears of parliamentarians while providing an obvious solution – to re-double efforts to support the Protestant forces in Ireland. ‘The ground of it’, claimed Clotworthy, ‘is the extreme necessity of the rebels, which is so low that they eat one the other’. He went on to point out that all the gains of the past two years were now under threat, as the cessation ‘will dishearten our army for want of pay. The report of the cessation hath stopped our supply, and it is the ruin of the Protestants of both kingdoms. And this means the remaining Protestants shall be left to the rebels for their bread’. In this emergency he not only called for Parliament to provide full support for the loyal Protestants, but also to write to the Scottish government to urge them to reject the cessation of arms.178Add. 18778, f. 48v. On 29 September Clotworthy was manager and reporter of a conference with the Lords for a formal declaration against the cessation, and to raise more money for those who resisted it in Ireland.179CJ iii. 259a. In early October he was teller in favour of advancing money to his fellow Ulster officer, Arthur Hill*, and was messenger to the Lords with orders concerning the agents negotiating a loan for Ireland from the Dutch.180CJ iii. 261b, 263b; LJ vi. 243a. On 16 October Clotworthy was named to the committee to consider a response to the cessation, and later in the month he acted as messenger to the Lords and reporter on moves to condemn the treaty.181CJ iii. 276b, 284b, 285a, 294b; LJ vi. 266a. In the meantime, he did his best to implicate the king in the rebellion, alleging that Charles had encouraged the Catholics ‘to cut all Protestants’ throats’, and telling MPs of the interception of sinister letters from Oxford, ‘written … with the juice of a lemon’.182Add. 18778, f. 73v, 82. Such scare tactics seem to have worked. On 10 November the Commons ordered that Clotworthy would bring in the declaration against the cessation the next day, and two weeks later he was named to the committee to prepare instructions for English local commanders concerning the landing of Irish troops, and how to encourage them to defect to Parliament.183CJ iii. 307a, 320a.

Closely connected with the Irish cessation of arms was the plan to effect an alliance between Parliament and the Scots. Clotworthy had been involved in further talks with the Scots since his visit to Edinburgh at the beginning of the year. On 31 January 1643, for example, he was named to a committee to consider Scottish propositions concerning Ulster.184CJ ii. 949b. In May he was named to committees to urge the Scots to prosecute anti-parliamentarian peers north of the border – the so-called ‘incendiaries’ between the king and his people.185CJ iii. 78a, 82b. As the talks between Ormond and the Irish came closer to agreement, the Scottish negotiations became focussed on the Solemn League and Covenant – a religious as well as a political alliance with England. Clotworthy was keen to make this broad, as well as binding. On 1 September, when the Covenant was passed in the Commons, Clotworthy wanted to include Ireland in its terms, as a guarantee that Irish affairs would play an important role in future. He argued that ‘seeing we are upon the great work of reforming religion, we would not forget Ireland, but that we would insert instead of those words, “the Church of England”, the words following, viz. “the churches of England and Ireland”’. This was seconded by Pym, but did not receive universal support among MPs, and it was suggested that the proposal should be sent to the Scots for their approval.186Harl. 165, f. 163v. On 9 September Clotworthy, Pym, Sir Gilbert Gerard* and St John were charged with meeting the Scottish commissioners to discuss the terms of the Covenant, and on 11 September Clotworthy was messenger to the Lords with proposals for the Westminster Assembly to consider the treaty, and to ensure its quick passage.187CJ iii. 235a, 236b, 237a; LJ vi. 212b. He reported from the committee to treat with the Scots on 13 September, with the request that letters and declarations might be printed.188CJ iii. 239a. On 16 September he joined Pym and Strode on a committee to consider the negotiations with the Scottish commissioners, and on 25 September, the day on which the Solemn League and Covenant was passed, he went with Francis Rous* to the Westminster Assembly with the Commons’ order that the Covenant, and the supporting material, would be printed.189CJ iii. 244a, 255a. Clotworthy was active from late 1643 on the Committee for Scottish Affairs – which would evolve in 1644 into the Committee for Compounding – although the Commons did not formally add him to this body until 1647.190Supra, ‘Committee for Compounding’.

Despite the religious rhetoric, Clotworthy’s support of the Covenant was undergirded by the hope that it would unite the British and New Scots forces in Ulster against their common enemy.191Robinson, ‘Clotworthy’, 289 It was a forlorn hope. Captain James Clotworthy wrote to his brother on 14 November that they were now following an ‘unstable course’, with the New Scots threatening to withdraw from the province altogether, while Ormond had been commissioning new royalist officers for the British regiments, and ‘all means are tried for the breaking of your regiment that can be devised’.192HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 67. Clotworthy’s own regiment was itself deeply divided, with the major, William Burley, denouncing Captain Clotworthy as a man who had ‘blown the bellows of a general mutiny’ against Ormond.193HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 68. The role of the New Scots remained crucial to Ulster remaining loyal to Parliament, and this put Clotworthy in a difficult position, as he still found their new-found prominence hard to stomach. In the debate on the Scottish article concerning Ulster, held in the Commons on 22 December, he opposed moves by St John and Sir Henry Vane II to accept a Scotsman as commander-in-chief over the province, and with John Goodwyn* and John Reynolds* he ‘did speak as vehemently that we might appoint some English nobleman to be commander-in-chief over the forces’. Clotworthy declared that ‘he was very confident that if a Scotch governor were appointed in chief over the English forces there, they would all disband and be gone’. The current situation had worked in the past, he remembered: ‘when he was in Ireland, being a colonel of the English army there, that the Scotch army and English, though commanded by several generals, did yet march together and perform several services together without any difference or inconvenience’.194Harl. 165, f. 254. Clotworthy joined Reynolds as teller against bringing the British and Scots in Ulster under a single commander, but the motion was passed by 57 votes to 25.195CJ iii. 350a.

Factional politics, 1643-4

The winter of 1643-4 saw the rapid decline in relations between Clotworthy and the parliamentarian faction led by St John and Vane II in the Commons and William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, in the Lords. This was a direct consequence of the decision to grant the Scots the command of all the Ulster forces, and an indirect result of the death of John Pym in December 1643, which had robbed Clotworthy of his most important link with the St John-Vane party. The personal connection between them was acknowledged on 11 December, when Clotworthy was named to the committee for settling Pym’s estates, and arranging a suitable funeral and monument for him.196CJ iii. 336b. On 30 December he was added to the committee for Pym’s business.197CJ iii. 355a. Clotworthy’s vulnerability after Pym’s death may have encouraged the Scots and their supporters to try to get their revenge, and it was not long before a comprehensive attack was launched on him under 21 headings. This document claimed that Clotworthy had plotted against the Scots in Ulster in 1642-3, and had tried to have Leicester’s son, Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*), made commander of all the Ulster forces in September 1643; it also accused him of corruption, and claimed that he had said that ‘if the Scots had the command of the army in Ireland, they would conquer it and keep the kingdom to themselves’.198NLS Wodrow Folio MS 65, f. 200; M. Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Ireland and Scotland, 1638-48’, in The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context ed. J. Morrill (Edinburgh, 1990), 202-3.

Clotworthy was to spend much of 1644 engaged in factional politics. At the beginning of January he came under criticism from Vane II and his allies, who accused him of being complicit in the escape of Colonel Reade, an Irish plotter, ‘because he was able to do some service and make some discovery which could not be made except he had his liberty’. Clotworthy claimed that his remarks referred to MacMahon and Maguire, and merely indicated that with their removal from Newgate ‘some discovery might be made’, but, as Lawrence Whitaker* recorded, ‘the House was not satisfied with his answer’.199Add. 31116, pp. 211-3; Add. 18779, f. 46; Harl. 165, f. 271. It may be significant that Clotworthy was named to the committee on 24 January which considered a letter sent by the royalist John Lovelace, 2nd Baron Lovelace, to Vane II.200CJ iii. 376a. Clotworthy was naturally opposed to the creation of the Committee of Both Kingdoms in February 1644. This was the brainchild of St John, Vane II, Saye and Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, working in close collaboration with the Scots, and in opposing it Clotworthy was in effect taking sides by allying with the rival faction led by Holles and Essex.201Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. ii. 141-2. Clotworthy, with Holles and Reynolds, was behind the call for a ‘second committee’, independent of the Committee of Both Kingdoms, to treat with the king – a proposal that angered the Scottish commissioners.202Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. ii. 154-5. Reprisals were not long in coming. On 10 April Vane II reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the details of funding for the Scottish and British regiments in Ulster, and Clotworthy countered by demanding that more would be sent to the British, ‘because they are more in number, and all in extreme want’, but the Commons ignored his plea and voted to pay them the same as the Scots.203Add. 31116, p. 261. Tensions between Clotworthy and the St John-Vane faction appear to have eased in the next few weeks. On 7 May Clotworthy joined Sir Arthur Hesilrige* as teller against a motion to read a motion from the Lords for the creation of a new committee ‘for better managing the affairs of both kingdoms’.204LJ vi. 542b; CJ iii. 483b.

This spirit of reconciliation may have been influenced by the need to ensure the new campaigning season was a success. Clotworthy had been manager and reporter of a conference on the speedy sending out of the armies on 8 April, and on 18 April he was named to the committee to attend Essex with thanks for his resolution to prevent the king from conducting a scorched earth policy in the countryside east of Oxford.205CJ iii. 452a, 452b, 464b. On 6 June he was named to a committee to consider the payment of recruits raised by Essex, but his concerns were not narrowly factional, as later in the same month he was named to committees to raise money for the 2nd Baron Fairfax (Sir Ferdinando Fairfax*) and to recruit Sir William Waller’s army.206CJ iii. 520b, 541a, 544b. The victory at Marston Moor in July appeared to vindicate the alliance with the Scots, and it encouraged further efforts to support the armed forces generally: on 21 August Clotworthy was named to a committee to consider how to improve the financing of the English army.207CJ iii. 601a. The defeat of Essex at Lostwithiel a few days later demanded a new approach, and in September and October Clotworthy was appointed to committees to negotiate the raising of more forces in London, to raise an entirely new brigade and to consider a petition from Waller’s headquarters at Farnham Castle.208CJ iii. 626a, 654b, 663b. Factionalism may have been subsumed beneath more pressing concerns, but it had not disappeared, and there is evidence that in the later months of 1644 Clotworthy was still associated with the Essex-Holles group at Westminster. He was appointed to 15 important committees between the end of July and the beginning of December: six of them with Holles and Reynolds and five with John Maynard* and Sir Walter Erle, suggesting that these men were still working together.209CJ iii. 574b-714a.

Irish affairs also became the focus of division in the second half of 1644, as Clotworthy and the Adventurers fell out over the supply of the troops in Ulster. In the summer of 1644 Clotworthy was in dispute with the Adventurers’ committee over the sending of arms and provisions to his regiment, and on 5 July the Committee of Both Kingdoms ordered both parties to attend, so their differences might be resolved.210CSP Dom. 1644, pp. 275, 309, 346. On 19 July the Commons ordered that the supplies in question were to be impounded until the dispute was settled.211CJ iii. 564b. Worse was to follow. On 20 August William Pierrepont* reported from the Committee of Both kingdoms a complaint by the Adventurers ‘in which some imputation was cast upon Sir John Clotworthy and Mr Reynolds’. The accused MPs were ‘much offended’ by this, and insisted that the two Adventurers who had made the allegations must be suspended – a motion that was carried in the Commons, but only by four votes.212Add. 31116, p. 310. A week later the Commons reversed its decision, ordering that another Adventurer, Sir David Watkins, receive thanks for his good affection, regardless of Clotworthy’s allegations against him.213CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 666. On 7 September Clotworthy was named to a committee to treat with the Adventurers for arms contracts, but this was not a sign of a thawing of relations.214CJ iii. 620b. On 27 September Clotworthy again came under attack from the Adventurers, who sent a petition to Parliament accusing him of embezzlement, and in December he also faced charges made by a fellow Irish Protestant, Sir Frederick Hamilton – a case that would rumble on for many months to come.215Harl. 166, f. 125b; CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 183, 198, 204; CJ iv. 43a, 159b; Add. 18780, f. 28.

Despite the factional distractions, during 1644 Irish affairs continued to dominate Clotworthy’s career in and out of the Commons’ chamber. He continued to play an important part in the Committee for Irish Affairs, attending meetings assiduously for the first seven months of the year.216Add. 4771, ff. 4v-57; SP16/539/2, no. 2. It was no doubt his influence that encouraged lucrative contracts to be awarded to his old friend, John Davies of Carrickfergus, and supplies to be sent to Ulster.217Add. 4771, ff. 10v, 16, 22v, 24, 26v, 29, 43v, 48. The committee also played a part in defending Clotworthy against allegations of corruption, issuing a letter objecting to calls for him to account for £1,000 paid out under his authority.218SP16/539/2, no. 181. Most of Clotworthy’s activity in Irish affairs in the Commons was less controversial. He was involved in moves against the Irish troops sent from Ireland. On 15 February he was named to the committee to consider the security of the north west of England, threatened by the landing of significant numbers of Ormond’s troops.219CJ iii. 400a. On 25 February, according to D’Ewes, Clotworthy told the House that ‘the way to keep the Irish from coming into Scotland was to uphold and encourage the army of Scots and English in the province of Ulster’, and encouraged the Commons to pass a vote instructing the army not to obey any orders from Ormond.220Harl. 166, f. 13v. On 5 March the Commons ordered Clotworthy and others to provide evidence against Irish Protestant officers captured at Nantwich, ‘concerning their miscarriages in Ireland’.221CJ iii. 416b. In June Clotworthy, with Reynolds, Jephson and Viscount Lisle, were ordered to receive the information brought from Oxford by Captain Parsons and the other Irish Protestant agents who had attended the king, and he and Reynolds were instructed to arrange suitable housing for them.222CJ iii. 514a, 520b, 526a. In July and August he was named to committees to consider the distressed Protestants of Ulster and Munster, and he was ordered to correspond with Jephson concerning the Irish troops at Wareham in Dorset who had chosen to defect to Parliament.223CJ iii. 574b, 580a, 589b, 602b. During the summer Clotworthy was again involved in the raising of money for Ireland in the Netherlands, and liaising with the Dutch ambassador about the same.224CJ iii. 512a, 599a, 601a-b; LJ vi. 683b.

In August 1644 the attempted escape of the Ulster plotters, MacMahon and Maguire caused alarm at Westminster, and Clotworthy was added to the committee on the matter on 26 August.225CJ iii. 607b. On 19 September Clotworthy made a report to the House concerning MacMahon and Maguire, and he and Holles were ordered to examine the business, and who had been the accomplices.226Add. 31116, p. 321; Harl. 166, f. 114v; CJ iii. 633b. After further investigations, including information send from Ireland, Clotworthy presented to the House a narrative of the case that suggested that the French ambassador had been involved, and after changes to make it more ‘compendious’ his report was approved by the Commons on 5 October.227Add. 31116, pp. 325-6, 328; CJ iii. 634a-b, 642b, 643a, 649a; LJ vi. 710a, 719a. He was named to the committee that subsequently attended the judge of the court of king’s bench to give information for the trial of the two delinquents.228CJ iii. 673b. In the meantime, from late August, Clotworthy, with Reynolds, Maynard, Jephson and others were named to a committee for a new ordinance to raise £80,000 for Ireland, and they were ordered to perfect the work on 13 September, with Clotworthy given special care of the matter.229CJ iii. 607b, 627a. He reported amendments to the ordinance on 27 September, and took it to the Lords on 11 October.230CJ iii. 640b, 659a-b; LJ vii. 19a. On 23 October, the third anniversary of the outbreak of the Irish rebellion, the Commons ordered that Clotworthy, Reynolds, Holles and John Corbett* draw up a declaration that no quarter would be given to any Irish rebels captured in England, and a letter was sent to all the parliamentarian commanders to that effect.231CJ iii. 673a.

In the early months of 1645 Clotworthy was one of the staunchest advocates of the new Presbyterian church system, as promoted by the Westminster Assembly. On 4 January he was messenger to the Lords with an order concerning the printing of the Directory of Public Worship.232CJ iv. 10b. January also saw the execution of Archbishop Laud. Clotworthy could barely contain his delight, accompanying the condemned man to the scaffold in a remarkable display of bad taste. As one of Laud’s apologists reported, this ‘firebrand brought forth from Ireland to inflame this kingdom … would needs propound unto him some impertinent questions’, but Laud, ‘turned away from him, applying himself directly to the executioner, as the gentler and discreeter person’.233Laud’s Works, iv. 437-8. Clotworthy’s religious fervour can also be seen in his appointment to the committee on an ordinance for repressing moral failings, including adultery and drunkenness, and on 8 April he was one of the MPs chosen to investigate allegations that a child of John Manners*, 8th earl of Rutland, had been baptised using the outlawed Book of Common Prayer.234CJ iv. 35b, 104a.

When it came to English politics, Clotworthy seems to have played little part in the factionalism that surrounded the attempt by the St John-Vane II interest to oust aristocratic commanders like the earl of Essex and establish a New Model army in the winter and spring of 1644-5. He had been appointed on 14 November 1644 to the committee to consider ‘offices of profit’ held by MPs and others, and on 24 March 1645 he was named to the committee on the Self-Denying Ordinance (alongside Maynard, Reynolds and Thomas Erle*).235CJ iii. 695b. The only hint of partiality can perhaps be seen on 14 March, when Clotworthy and Holles were tellers in favour of re-employing troops that had mutinied.236CJ iv. 78b. By the summer there were sure signs that Clotworthy was inclining towards the Essexian/Presbyterian interest. He was named to the committee to investigate the affair of Lord Savile (Sir Thomas Savile†) on 4 July, and was one of the MPs sent to seize the peer’s papers on 14 July, but in the same month Bulstrode Whitelocke* listed him as one his ‘very hearty friends… in this business’, along with Essexians like Maynard, Sir Philip Stapilton and Sir William Lewis*.237CJ iv. 195b, 207b; Whitelocke, Diary, 171. On 29 September Clotworthy was manager of the conference with the Lords for refusing bail to Lord Savile.238CJ iv. 293a. His increasing collaboration with the Presbyterians can also be seen on 4 October, when he was teller with Holles against putting a motion limiting favourable composition terms for royalists submitting before a certain date.239CJ iv. 297b. This was a trend that was become all the more obvious by the end of the year, but during 1645 Clotworthy’s involvement in English politics was largely limited to attending parliamentary committees to manage the war effort. Immediately after the victory at Naseby in June, Clotworthy was named to a committee to consider how to dispose of royalist prisoners, and he and Richard Knightley* were ordered to arrange for ministers to preach to them.240CJ iv. 177b, 182b. On 23 June he was added to the committee chaired by Zouche Tate*, to peruse the ‘king’s cabinet’ of letters captured in the baggage train.241CJ iv. 183b.

Irish frustrations, 1645-6

The war in Ulster had stagnated during the early months of 1645, and Clotworthy had lost much of his former influence in the Commons. On 17 March MPs were told of the plight of refugees from Drogheda in co. Louth, and this prompted an urgent statement from Clotworthy, who begged them to relieve the town, which he thought ‘very feasible, our forces lying in Ulster within 50 or 60 miles of it’.242Harl. 166, f. 134. The response was decidedly lukewarm. Two days later he tried again, but this time the force of his words was lessened by his on-going feud with the Adventurers. On 19 March, in a ‘great debate’ about providing money for the Scots in Ulster, the Adventurers were reluctant to raise any more, ‘being made much discouraged by reason that they liked not the proceedings of some persons that were employed in that service, and of some of the committee, and particularly of Sir John Clotworthy’.243Add. 31116, p. 398. Through the spring, Clotworthy was named to committees to ensure supplies of money to Ireland, but his only tangible gain came in May, when he was instrumental in securing the post of lord president of Connaught for his ally, Sir Charles Coote*.244CJ iv. 78a, 104b, 113a, 127a, 133b, 134a.

The Irish situation was not helped by the ineffective Committee for Irish Affairs, which sat only infrequently during the first half of 1645, and Clotworthy was mostly absent when it did meet.245Add. 4771, ff. 62v, 63. There were efforts made to revive interest in Ireland in June, when Clotworthy, Reynolds, Jephson and ‘the gentlemen of Ireland’ tried to get backing for new proposals from the Committee of Both Kingdoms.246CSP Dom. 1644-5, pp. 597, 604. This contributed to the creation, on 1 July of the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs, with Clotworthy as a founder member.247A. and O; CJ iv. 191a-b, 192a; LJ vii. 469a. He was given new lodgings in Long Acre on 18 July.248CCAM, 46. In the following months the new committee became Clotworthy’s powerbase, with its business reflecting his critical stance on the conduct of the war by the Anglo-Scottish alliance.249Armstrong, Protestant War, 158-9. On 21 August the committee allowed £5,000 to Jephson for raising his regiment, and on the same day considered a report on Ulster from two other associates of Clotworthy, Sir Robert King* and Arthur Hill*.250CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 410. The regiments of Jephson and Clotworthy received preferential treatment during the autumn, and moves were made to send money to Ulster and Munster and to appoint commissioners to manage the war in the northern province.251CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 412, 413, 415, 416 The appointment of a new Ulster commission – which was directly responsible to the Star Chamber Committee – was an ill-disguised attempt to challenge the Scots. Pressure was also applied in October, when the committee asked Parliament to demand that the Scots give up Belfast to English control, and in November the committee received another proposal, by the London merchant, William Hawkins, for the appointment of a new commander-in-chief to take charge of the war effort in the whole of Ireland.252CSI Ire. 1633-47, pp. 417, 418.

Clotworthy’s influence seems to have made him immune from allegations of his corrupt dealing with John Davies, which were being investigated by the Committee of Accounts.253SP28/253B. New contracts with Davies for raising troops and supplying victuals were reported to the Commons by the committee on 23 July, and on 23 August they backed a new contract with Davies for supplying the Ulster forces.254CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 407, 411. The committee defended Clotworthy, ordering on 13 September that his case should be transferred to it from the Committee of Both Kingdoms.255CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 136. On 16 September he was named to the committee on an ordinance to pay Davies for supplying provisions for the Scots in Ulster, and in October he was negotiating with Davies for money to Jephson to raise more troops.256CJ iv. 276a; HMC Egmont, i. 262-3. Clotworthy was summoned before the accounts committee on 19 November, but refused to attend. He wrote to them that he had spoken to one of their number, William Prynne*, and ‘desired him to move your committee that the copy of what you had done might be sent me’, adding that he had more important business to attend to: ‘there is a business laid on me concerning all the treaties, votes and passages ʼtwixt the Parliament and the kingdom of Scotland, which I must first despatch’.257SP28/255, unfol.

In the winter of 1645-6, Clotworthy remained in control of the ‘Star Chamber’ committee, and his connections with the Presbyterian interest appeared strong. On 13 November the Commons ordered that Clotworthy, Knightley and Holles prepare a letter to the Edinburgh Parliament protesting at the Scottish refusal to give up Belfast.258CJ iv. 340b. On 17 November Clotworthy joined Holles as teller in support of six-month assessment for Munster, a motion only narrowly defeated.259CJ iv. 345b. On 20 November, when the committee sent wide-ranging proposals for the funding of the war to the Commons, they were reported by Stapilton as well as Clotworthy and Jephson.260CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 420. Despite the obvious tension between Clotworthy’s anti-Scots stance and the ‘confederal’ position now adopted by many leading Presbyterians, the cooperation between them continued.261Armstrong, Protestant War, 162. On 5 January 1646, when the motion to put the Irish government into the hands of more than one person was raised, Clotworthy joined Holles as teller in favour, and they were defeated by only 11 votes.262HMC Portland, i. 326. This defeat paved the way for the nomination of the Independent MP Viscount Lisle as Parliament’s lord lieutenant a few days later (with the patent eventually passing in April). Clotworthy was no friend of Lisle, and through the spring he continued to work with the Presbyterians, joining Holles, Stapilton and Maynard on a committee to consider regulating the Independent-dominated Haberdashers’ Hall committee on 7 February, and with a similar line-up for a committee to consider proposals for peace from the Scottish commissioners on 18 March.263CJ iv. 445b, 478b. On 27 April he was teller with Holles on a motion whether to put the question that the king’s letter offering peace terms would be divulged to the Scots – a motion opposed by the Independents, with Sir Arthur Hesilrige and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire* telling against.264CJ iv. 524b. Similarly, on 26 May Clotworthy and Stapilton were tellers in favour of reading a petition and remonstrance from London, with Evelyn and Sir Peter Wentworth* opposing them.265CJ iv. 555b, 556a. There is little doubt, from the company that he was keeping, that Clotworthy was at this stage within the Presbyterian fold.

The manoeuvres at Westminster had no material impact on the worsening situation in Ireland. On 12 January 1646 the Ulster commissioners warned the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs that the forces in the north were in disarray, with even Clotworthy’s regiment – described as one of the ‘best affected’ – being close to breaking apart, as its officers disputed one another’s authority.266Tanner Lttrs. 205. The committee responded by recommending that the Ulster commissioners provide immediate relief to Clotworthy’s men, and in February O’Connolly was sent a new commission as lieutenant-colonel.267CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 429, 437. There were continuing tensions with the New Scots in Ulster, fostered by accusations that they were taking the lion’s share of provisions, and in May there were renewed calls from the Irish committee for Belfast to be yielded to the ‘British’ troops.268CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 440-1, 448. Clotworthy played a key role in the committee’s deliberations at this time, and he was no doubt behind further agreements with John Davies for supplies to be sent north.269CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 460, 467, 474. Clotworthy’s role in Irish affairs in the Commons was less obvious than in previous years, suggesting that he was devoting his energies to the committee. He was ordered to write to Lord Inchiquin in February, and to report on Colonel Sterling’s arrears in March, and on 24 April he was named to the committee to bring in an Irish assessment ordinance, and was teller in favour of releasing money for Ireland from Goldsmiths’ Hall.270CJ iv. 428b, 476b, 521a. On 13 May he was teller with Holles on a motion to pay money owed to Davies from the new ordinance on Ireland, and it was passed by a narrow margin.271CJ iv. 545b. This last move was highly controversial, as during this period Clotworthy was still dogged by the investigations of the Committee of Accounts, which requested that he submit his accounts in March, and demanded a full reply in June.272SP28/253A.

Clotworthy, Lisle and Ormond, 1646-7

The disastrous defeat of the Scottish army under Robert Monro at Benburb in June 1646 transformed Clotworthy’s attitude towards the Irish war. From this time he appears to have become entirely pragmatic: every effort must now be made to defeat the Catholic Irish and defend Ulster, without considering the long-term effects of giving greater power to the Scots or to Lisle and the Independents. Clotworthy reported news of the defeat from the Irish committee to the Commons on 15 June, and persuaded MPs to pass a resolution to raise an extra 5,000 infantry and 1,500 cavalry to the beleaguered provinces of Connaught and Ulster.273CJ iv. 577a. On 1 July he reported from the committee the state of Irish finances, and what was necessary to carry on the war, and on 3 July it was agreed by the Commons that the king should be pressed to order Ormond to surrender Dublin, as part of the Newcastle peace negotiations.274CJ iv. 595a, 599a-b. Clotworthy joined Viscount Lisle, Holles, Reynolds and Pierrepont in drafting the letter to the king.275CJ iv. 599b. Clotworthy’s involvement in the Newcastle Propositions, and especially his role as manager and reporter of a conference on them (on 9 July), suggests that he saw the end of the war in England as vital to ensuring the speedy re-conquest of Ireland. There is no doubt that Ireland was Clotworthy’s priority.276CJ iv. 612b. On 8 July he was ordered to bring in an ordinance for borrowing money for Ireland on security of the excise, and he took the same to the Lords on 22nd.277CJ iv. 608b, 622b, 623b; LJ viii. 438a. In the same period he was busy in the Irish committee, arranging for supplies of Ulster and working with the pro-independent Anglo-Irishman, Sir John Temple*, for raising men from the west country.278Armstrong, Protestant War, 169; CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 464, 467, 504.

The new drive to counter the Confederates in Ireland was not immune from factional politics. On 30 July Clotworthy was messenger to the Lords with an ordinance to allow Parliament’s lord lieutenant to raise new troops, and on the same day he joined Lisle and Temple in presenting to the Commons a report emphasising ‘in what a lamentable condition that poor kingdom was fallen’ – a move that initiated a debate on how Ireland might be relieved, which included the possibility of sending over part of the New Model army to bolster local forces.279CJ iv. 630a; LJ viii. 447a; Add. 31116, p. 557. This move, which was seen by Independents as an attempt ‘to weaken or rather dissolve the army’ was championed by Holles and Stapilton, but was narrowly rejected by the House.280Juxon Jnl. 131. There is no indication that Clotworthy was involved in this attempt, and it is more likely that he avoided such divisive measures, as on 4 August he reported from the Irish committee the promises received from various counties of non-New Model units that could be spared for Ireland.281CJ iv. 633a, 634b. In August and September Clotworthy was less active in the Commons, although he still pursued individual cases, and reported on the state of Connaught (11 Aug.) and the forces of Ulster and Connaught (25 Sept.), and on 30 September was named to a committee to bring in a confession of the sins of the nation concerning Ireland, to be used at the forthcoming fast day.282CJ iv. 641b, 676b, 678b.

On 1 October Clotworthy was added to the ranks of the Ulster commissioners, but events prevented his crossing to Ireland in that capacity, as the breakdown of Ormond’s newly-minted peace treaty with the Confederate Irish led to the sending of royalist agents to Westminster in the hope of saving Dublin from being overrun.283CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 520; CJ iv. 679a; Juxon Jnl. 136. Clotworthy, Lisle, Holles, Temple and other MPs received Ormond’s agents on 12 October, and on 14 October Clotworthy was added to the Committee of Both Kingdoms when it considered the overtures from Dublin.284Bodl. Carte 19, f. 158; CJ iv. 690b, 693b. Clotworthy was chosen as one of the commissioners to go to Dublin to conclude a treaty, with instructions, issued on 17 October, allowing them to offer Ormond substantial personal compensation and guarantees that the interests of the Irish Protestants would be safeguarded, but required the surrender of his symbols of office as lord lieutenant and of the garrisons under his command, including Dublin.285Bodl. Carte 19, f. 210; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 479-81. Sir Philip Percivalle* at Westminster, wrote enthusiastically to Lady Ormond on 22 October that Clotworthy and the other commissioners ‘do wish very well unto your ladyship and yours, and have not only a will but power at this time to express it in good measure, if this opportunity be taken; but if lost the like cannot be again expected’.286Bodl. Carte 19, f. 236. Everything depended on Ormond’s willingness to open negotiations. Clotworthy and his colleagues set sail from Chester on 12 November, landing at Dublin on the 14th. The talks began the next day, but soon ran into trouble, as Ormond refused to agree anything without the king’s approval.287CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 543. On 22 November the commissioners left Dublin and headed for Ulster, sending instructions to Davies and others to divert the forces intended to Dublin, and their supplies, to Belfast.288CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 547. Whether that was part of a plan agreed with Lisle beforehand, or opportunism on Clotworthy’s part, is uncertain. Arriving in Ulster with two regiments of foot on 30 November, the commissioners were refused entry to Belfast by Monro, and had to take up other quarters while the wrangling with the Scots continued.289CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 551; LJ viii. 653b, 656b-663a.

During this period, Clotworthy corresponded with Viscount Lisle, and appears to have been trying to keep Irish affairs above party politics, as the best chance to win the war.290CJ iv. 734a; Armstrong, Protestant War, 172. Yet his contacts with the Presbyterian interest remained strong throughout the second half of 1646. From Jephson’s letters to Percivalle in July, it is clear that Clotworthy was on very good terms with both men, and by the autumn Clotworthy was listed with Holles, Stapilton and James Howard, 3rd earl of Suffolk – all leading Presbyterians – as friends of Lord Inchiquin in Munster.291HMC Egmont, i. 297, 300, 324. On 14 August, when the arrears owed to the Scots in England were debated, Clotworthy supported Holles, calling for a more generous settlement to be allowed, despite vigorous opposition from Cromwell.292Harington’s Diary, 32. There are also signs in the autumn that Clotworthy was becoming increasingly frustrated with the Independent hegemony at Westminster. On 10 October he moved ‘that a balloting box might be brought into the House for voices to be given secretly when any question should be put for giving of money or offices’, but the matter was deferred after a short debate.293Add. 31116, p. 570. Before crossing to Dublin he had renewed contact with another Irish associate of the Presbyterian interest, Arthur Annesley*, and a letter from Lady Clotworthy in November reveals the two families were on very intimate terms at this time.294CCSP, i. 340, 345.

This close connection with the Presbyterians at Westminster even encouraged Clotworthy to soften his line towards the marquess of Ormond. Despite the disappointment of the November embassy, in the next few months, Clotworthy remained in contact with the marquess. Ormond wrote to Clotworthy on 7 December with an enclosed document, receiving the enigmatic answer that he desired ‘to return this enclosure to the party from whom you were directed to convey the former to me’.295Bodl. Carte 19, f. 617. Other communications, such as a request by Ormond for a pass for the royalist commander James Touchet, 3rd earl of Castlehaven, were shared with the other commissioners, and politely refused.296Bodl. Carte 19, ff. 598, 654. In January Ormond was again in touch with the commissioners, asking for passes for ‘two persons of quality and trust’ who would ‘impart some business of much consequence and advantage to the present affairs unto you’.297Bodl. Carte 20, f. 205. This favourable attitude towards Ormond continued into February. Clotworthy had returned to London by 6 February, when he was nominated to the Committee for Compounding.298CJ v. 78a. On 20 February the Commons received a letter from Ormond, announcing his decision to reopen negotiations. Clotworthy took the letter to the Lords and joined the members of the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs in signing a reply to Ormond’s offer; two days later he reported to the Commons from the committee and also wrote to the marquess privately, assuring him that Parliament would fulfil his conditions swiftly, and adding, ‘I pray God all may resolve to the good of the Protestant interest’.299CJ v. 91a-b, 93b; LJ ix. 26b, 29a; Bodl. Carte 20, ff. 336, 343. On 23 February Clotworthy was a messenger to the Lords with the orders allowing Ormond compensation, and arranging for troops to be sent to Dublin.300CJ v. 96a-b; LJ ix. 33a. On 23 and 27 February he signed other letters to Ormond, which told him of moves to satisfy his conditions, and to hasten parliamentarian regiments to reinforce the defence of Dublin.301Bodl. Carte 20, ff. 353, 367. On 16 March Ormond wrote personally to Clotworthy, asking that the arrangements be made with all speed, ‘lest the despair wrought by the agreement’ should provoke a surprise attack by the Confederates, and acknowledging himself ‘exceedingly bound to you in this affair’.302Bodl. Carte 20, f. 449. Clotworthy’s decision to keep in contact with Ormond during the dark days following the failure of the November negotiations had paid its dividend.

Clotworthy continued to play an important part in Irish affairs during the spring of 1647. On 1 March the Derby House Committee instructed Clotworthy and Reynolds to consult with the ‘gentlemen of Ireland’ about what needed to be done; at the end of the month Sir Charles Coote at Sligo asked that the condition of the forces in the west should be recommended to the committee, and to Clotworthy in particular; and Clotworthy used his position in the Star Chamber Committee to ensure supplies reached Ulster.303CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 733; HMC Egmont, i. 379; CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 615, 625-6. On 18 March Clotworthy was messenger to the Lords with a vote to stop paying the Scots in Ulster, as part of the general treaty articles with the Scottish government.304CJ v. 114a, 115a, 117a-b. During the same month, he was increasingly involved, through the committee, in moves to raise troops and appoint commissioners to go to Dublin.305CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 734-6. On 22 March he signed orders for these new commissioners to take control of Dublin.306Bodl. Carte 20, f. 513. On 18 March Clotworthy was one of four commissioners chosen by the committee to attend Sir Thomas Fairfax* about the forces that could be spared to go to Ireland, and he reported back to the committee on 26 March.307CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 737-8. On 27 March Clotworthy reported to the Commons on behalf of the commissioners, warning of moves among the officers to prevent troops being sent to Ireland.308CJ v. 127a. He reminded MPs of the state of Ireland, and pushed for a decision on ‘the forces of horse and foot that are to be sent thither’.309Add. 31116, p. 611. On 30 March he was appointed manager of the subsequent conference with the Lords, and he also took to the upper House a vote for a loan of £200,000 for Ireland.310CJ v. 130a, 130b, 132a, 133a..

An Irish Presbyterian, 1647

Clotworthy’s commitment to securing Dublin had brought the trust of Ormond and the hatred of the New Model army and its Independent allies. It had also drawn him into even closer association with the Presbyterian faction. This can be detected as early as 2 April, when he was named to two strongly Presbyterian committees: those to consider the ordinance for reforming the London militia (which was seen as a possible rival to the New Model), and to raise the £200,000 loan for Ireland.311CJ v. 132b. On 7 April Stapilton was sent to the Lords to ask that Clotworthy, Holles and Jephson might be added to the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs, which until then had been dominated by the Independents. The Lords readily agreed to this measure.312CJ v. 135b; LJ ix. 127b. On the same day, in a meeting of the Derby House Committee dominated by leading Presbyterians, Clotworthy was again chosen as one of those MPs to go to the army, this time to arrange which regiments were to ‘draw out’ for Ireland.313CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 738; SP21/26, pp. 34-5. On 22 April, when Inchiquin wrote to sympathetic MPs about the reform of the army after Lisle’s departure, he addressed Clotworthy as well as Holles and Stapilton.314HMC Egmont, i. 393. On 27 April Clotworthy reported back to the Commons, and revealed the extent of opposition among the ranks, ‘and who they were that did dissuade or discourage any of the soldiers from going’.315Add. 31116, p. 615; CJ v. 154b. On 30 April Clotworthy received a personal reward, when the Commons voted that his accounts should be settled, so that his substantial arrears could be released for payment.316CJ v. 157a.

In May and early June Clotworthy was at the heart of Presbyterian attempts to destroy the New Model army. On 1 May he was added to the committee to examine John Lilburne and other troublemakers among the officer corps.317CJ v. 159b. On 11 May he was named to the committee to settle lands on Fairfax, apparently in an attempt to detach the lord general from his men.318CJ v. 167a. On 27 May the Commons ordered that Clotworthy report on which garrisons were to be retained and which disbanded.319CJ v. 187b. On 11 June he was named to a committee of both Houses to meet the City authorities to prepare the London regiments to resist any attempt on the capital, and on the same day he was messenger to the Lords with a letter to the lord general.320CJ v. 207b, 208a; LJ ix. 256b. In the same period, Clotworthy was able to use his influence to steer important Irish measures through the Commons. On 1 May he was teller in favour of raising the £200,000 for Ireland on the composition funds, and he was named to the committee on this ordinance on 12 May.321CJ v. 159b, 168b. He was also able to settle old scores in Ulster. On 11 May he was named to a committee to draw up reasons for a conference with the Lords why the Scottish army must leave Ulster altogether, and on 14 May he was one of the managers and reporters of the same meeting.322CJ v. 167b, 172b. On 27 May Clotworthy was teller with Holles in favour of granting compensation to the Ulster landowner Robert Kerr, 1st earl of Ancram.323CJ v. 187b. Clotworthy was also involved in plans to reinforce Dublin, which would soon be taken over by Parliament, and on 8 June he was ordered to bring in an ordinance to raise a further £10,000 to pay the troops already mustered to cross the Irish Sea.324CJ v. 203a.

Despite his apparent confidence, Clotworthy’s position was becoming increasingly fragile. On 12 June Percivalle told Inchiquin that Clotworthy had advised caution, ‘and bade me tell you that though they appear little for you, it is not because it needs not, you being very well with your old friends’.325HMC Egmont, i. 416. Clotworthy was right to be wary. In early June he had already been involved in a spat in the Commons when Temple attacked Percivalle for being a friend of Ormond, provoking Clotworthy into a counter-attack on Temple, ‘for allying himself to the king’.326Harington’s Diary, 54. The army, furious at the Presbyterian attempt to neutralise them, issued impeachment charges against the ‘Eleven Members’, delivered to the parliamentary commissioners on 14 June. The charges against Clotworthy included assisting John Davies and his cronies in their plan to ‘have defrauded the state’, and having profited from their dealings; of having had ‘secret intelligence’ with Ormond and George Lord Digby* ‘beyond the time prefixed, and without the consent of the said other commissioners’.327Fairfax Corresp. iv. 375-6. In his spirited defence of the Eleven Members, William Prynne denied that Clotworthy was corrupt, as he had disbursed over £3,000 of his own money to his regiment, and made the (demonstrably false) claim that he was ‘not privy’ to the contracts agreed with John Davies and others. As for holding ‘intelligence’ with Ormond, it was said that Clotworthy had indeed kept in touch with the marquess, but only to secure Dublin (which was true) and that he always kept his fellow Ulster commissioners and the London committees informed (which was not). Finally, and on safer ground, when it came to plotting with Lord Digby, ‘he directly denieth any such thing, as being utterly false and untrue’.328W. Prynne, A Full Vindication and Answer of the XI Accused Members (1647), 20-4 (E.398.17). The reaction of Ormond’s agent in London was to distance the marquess from any suggestion of improper dealings:

I presume your excellency will much wonder to see Sir John Clotworthy’s charge to be holding intelligence with yourself and my Lord Digby, and I cited as your instrument to him, whom to my knowledge I never saw, I am sure I never spoke with. My judgement of it is that (whatsoever intelligence he pretended for it) the first mistake proceeded from him, the greatest prejudice to himself.329Bodl. Carte 21, f. 294.

Despite such denials, there is no doubt that Clotworthy had been at pains to court Ormond – if only to engineer the surrender of Dublin to Parliament.

The impeachment charges made Clotworthy’s position very dangerous, and he did not attend the Commons for the next few weeks, being granted formal leave of absence on 26 June.330CJ v. 225a. On 6 July the army’s impeachment was formally delivered to the Commons.331CJ v. 236a. On 20 July Percivalle reported that Clotworthy ‘had been discharged’ and, three days later, that he and others ‘have absented themselves from the House’, but Clotworthy made one final appearance, on 31 July, when he was teller in favour of passing an ordinance denouncing the seizure of the king by Cornet Joyce, and asking the king to start negotiations with Parliament and the Scots for a lasting peace.332HMC Egmont, i. 432, 435; CJ v. 262b. It was a parting shot. Clotworthy took ship for the Netherlands shortly afterwards, and was forced to put in to Dover by a parliamentarian frigate, before being allowed to continue. He may have been on the continent until the summer of 1648.333Oxford DNB. In the meantime, Parliament slowly began impeachment proceedings against him and the other Eleven Members. On 4 September the Commons passed an order that they must attend the House to face charges by 16 October; on 23 September a further order replaced Clotworthy and Holles as commissioners for compounding; Clotworthy was formally disabled as an MP on 27 January; and on 1 March 1648 new elections were ordered to be held at Maldon.334CJ v. 291b, 314a, 475a, 589b.

Rise and fall, 1648-53

The Independent grip on Westminster had loosened in the spring of 1648, with the outbreak of the second civil war, and there were soon moves to rehabilitate Clotworthy. On 3 June the Commons resolved that the impeachment against the Eleven Members would be discharged, and on 8 June Clotworthy was reinstated as an MP, although he was asked not to sit until the status of his successor at Maldon, Henry Mildmay, could be decided.335CJ v. 584a, 589b. The matter was not resolved until the beginning of August: Clotworthy attended the Derby House Committee regularly from 3 August, and he was present in the Commons by 8 August.336CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 22, 24, 25, 27; SP21/26, pp. 169-171; CJ v. 665a. During the same month, he was mostly concerned with suppressing the royalist uprising, and on 15 August he was named to the committee to consult with the London militia committee for the defence of the City.337CJ v. 671b.

Irish affairs were not neglected, however. Clotworthy was anxious to maintain his links with Ormond, if a coded message of 24 August is to be believed. The writer claimed that Clotworthy was working to ensure that the remainder of Ormond’s compensation was paid, and that he ‘pretends much service to my lord’.338Bodl. Carte 22, f. 179. In September, Clotworthy was active in measures against both royalists and radical parliamentarians. On 5 September he was teller with Temple in favour of imposing fixed penalties on MPs who absented themselves from the call of the House, and on the same day he was teller with Annesley against granting the notorious Leveller, John Lilburne, compensation for his sufferings.339CJ vi. 6b, 7b. The next day the report of the Committee of Accounts on Clotworthy’s arrears was submitted to the Commons, and referred to the Star Chamber Committee to state what he was owed until December 1644, he ‘willingly relinquishing’ what was due to him for more recent years, although a later order allowed him the payment of interest.340CJ vi. 8a, 11a-b. The Star Chamber Committee ordered on 5 October that Clotworthy be paid his arrears for his service in Ireland, amounting to £3,637, and at least part of this was paid to him in December.341CSP Dom. 1625-49, pp. 718-9.

During the autumn, Clotworthy became involved in attempts to make peace with the king, now imprisoned on the Isle of Wight. On 13 September he was added to the committee to prepare a letter to the king; on 23 September he was appointed to a committee to consider a clause in another letter concerning the treaty; and on 27 October he was named to two committees to consider how the Covenant might be made more acceptable to the king, and to press the king to denounce the activities of Ormond, who was once again in talks with the Catholic Irish.342CJ vi. 19b, 29b, 63a-b. On 1 November Clotworthy was teller in favour of accepting the king’s answer on the payment of public debts, and on 9 November he was teller against the motion that delinquents not completely excepted from pardon should be banished.343CJ vi. 69b, 72a. In the next ten days he was teller in favour of excluding from pardon the Welsh turncoat, Rowland Laugharne† (10 Nov.); he was named to a committee to prepare an ordinance for banishing certain MPs and peers (15 Nov.), and sent as messenger to the Lords with the vote that the negotiations with the king should be extended (18 Nov.).344CJ vi. 73a, 77a, 80b. In supporting renewed talks with the king, Clotworthy was again working closely with the Presbyterian interest, which was now led by such figures as Sir William Lewis, Sir Robert Harley*, Sir Walter Erle, Nathaniel Stephens*, Edward Stephens*, William Prynne and his old friend, John Maynard. These men were set on clipping the wings of the New Model, and Clotworthy was involved in their plan. He was added, on a temporary basis (along with Prynne, Lewis, and both Stephens), to the Army Committee on 22 November, when the dispersal of the regiments into winter quarters – and thus diluting the New Model’s effectiveness – was considered, and three days later he was named to the committee (with Harley, Erle and Nathaniel Stephens) for decommissioning garrisons across England.345CJ vi. 83b, 87a.

Pressurising the New Model army was as dangerous in 1648 as it had been in 1647. As one of the Eleven Members, Clotworthy was already suspect, and his involvement with the Presbyterians in the autumn of 1648 made him something of a hate-figure for the army. At Pride’s Purge, on 6 December, Clotworthy was arrested, and he was one of only six secluded members who were detained after the end of December 1648; despite rumours that he was to be beheaded, at the end of January 1649 he was instead imprisoned at Windsor Castle.346Underdown, Pride’s Purge, 147, 162-3, 195; CCSP i. 460; HMC Ormonde, o.s. ii. 87; The Tyrannies of Tyrannies (1648); Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 38 (12-19 Dec. 1648), 39 (E.476.35). He was kept in custody for nearly three years, being moved from Windsor to Wallingford in June 1650, to Arundel in March 1651, to Dover in August 1651, and back to Windsor a month later.347CSP Dom. 1650, p. 216; 1651, pp. 81, 353, 439. The last movements reveal the concerns of the government that Clotworthy might be in contact with the Scottish forces invading northern England on behalf of Charles Stuart, and that October Clotworthy was repeatedly questioned before the council of state, until it was admitted that there was little reason for incarcerating him further.348CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 474-5, 478, 481, 503. On 1 November it was noted that Clotworthy had been released, and was lodging in Covent Garden.349CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 2. In the same period, the Rump Parliament had periodically revived the charges of corruption made against Clotworthy, encouraged by the council of state, which in turn considered petitions by those keen to reopen the case.350CSP Dom. 1649-50, pp. 144, 470-1; 1651-2, pp. 6, 12, 66. On 9 February 1649 the Commons considered evidence against Clotworthy and Davies, and investigated allegations that Clotworthy’s accounts, passed in August 1648, had been fraudulent.351CJ vi. 360a. The matter was considered again on 16 July 1652, but it does not appear to have been pursued further.352CJ vii. 155a.

Protectoral politics, 1653-9

Even before the establishment of the protectorate, Clotworthy was preparing his return to public life. In February 1653 he was resident in St Martin’s Lane, telling his cousin, John Percivalle, that he was doing his best to ensure that Lady Carlisle would be restored to the lands that the late Sir Philip Percivalle had held for her on trust.353HMC Egmont, i. 515. In April 1653 the council of state allowed Clotworthy to transport 500 ‘natural Irish men’ to the American colonies.354PRONI, D.207/15/3. In the months following Cromwell’s accession as protector, Clotworthy’s position improved significantly. From being a mendicant, he became a fixer for his fellow Irish Protestants. In May 1654 John Percivalle recounted his attempts to have a petition received at Whitehall, through the good offices of Clotworthy, Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*) and other men of influence; and when the petition was finally delivered to Henry Cromwell* in July, Clotworthy again played a prominent role.355HMC Egmont, i. 541, 551. Clotworthy also had renewed contacts with the Adventurers. As Sir Paul Davies* commented to Percivalle, ‘I hear Sir John Clotworthy has credit with them, so I pray you advise with him’.356HMC Egmont, i. 552. Percivalle replied in August, explaining the reason for delays: ‘I can tell you nothing more of our petition, as Lord Broghill is out of town, and Sir John Clotworthy taken up with the Adventurers’ affairs, though when I go to him he is very civil, and promises mountains’.357HMC Egmont, i. 555. Others who hoped for Clotworthy’s favour in the autumn of 1654 included Broghill’s brother, Sir Richard Boyle*, 2nd earl of Cork.358Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 10 Oct. 1654. Despite their earlier differences, the Boyles and the Clotworthys had always had a shared concern for the family of Viscount Ranelagh (Arthur Jones*), and this remerged in the mid-1650s. In 1655 Broghill and Clotworthy were parties to a bond providing money for Ranelagh’s daughters on their marriage.359NLI, Bundle D.22017-22022. In May 1657 Cork and Clotworthy met to discuss the marriage of one of Ranelagh’s daughters, and in May 1659 the two were again in conference over family affairs.360Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 4 May 1657, 12 May 1659. Clotworthy’s own family difficulties had been resolved in July 1654, when he was secured a marriage for his daughter with Sir John Skeffington* of Fisherwick in Staffordshire, and it was presumably through Clotworthy’s influence that Skeffington was returned as MP for Down and Antrim in 1659.361PRONI, D.207/16/1.

Despite his volatile relations with the Scots during the later 1640s, in the mid-1650s Clotworthy was able to resume something of his earlier role as broker between the Covenanters and the English. In particular, he appears to have advised Lord Broghill when he was appointed president of the Scottish council in March 1655. According to Robert Baillie, the majority Resolutioner party in the Kirk already had ‘a good impression’ of Broghill on his arrival at Edinburgh in the following September, thanks to Lady Clotworthy; and Sir John wrote to the Edinburgh ministers in the same month with a written introduction to the new president, ‘which will give my lord the knowledge of your being the persons we have formerly discoursed of’, and promising that ‘you will find him a man of clear understanding and well able to make a judgement of what is offered’.362Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 295; NLS, Wodrow Folio MS 26, f. 11. Broghill’s cordial relations with the Resolutioners were, at least in part, thanks to the efforts of the Clotworthys to ensure there were no initial misunderstandings. The couple also interceded on the behalf of the imprisoned John Lindsay, 17th earl of Crawford, writing to Captain Lytcott and Secretary John Thurloe* to allow him freedom to attend church and having ‘liberty to hear the Word’.363Bodl. Rawl. A.32, pp. 305, 327; TSP iii. 395.

In addition, Clotworthy used his Scottish contacts to strengthen the Presbyterian Church in Ulster. As early as March 1655 he represented the local ministers at the Irish council, where he lobbied for the payment of stipends, and he and his wife soon became involved in bringing over Scottish ministers to serve in Ulster.364Seymour, Puritans in Ire. 42, 49, 98-9. In May 1656, for example, Clotworthy advised the Antrim Presbytery to bring over James Durham from Glasgow.365PRONI, D.1759/1A/1. Durham’s appointment was to be the first step in a plan to establish a college at Antrim, staffed with Scottish Presbyterians. According to Baillie, ‘Sir John has made the President Broghill deal with him [Durham] for that effect, and put the protector also upon it’.366Baillie Lttrs. and Jnls. iii. 312. Such high-level contacts bolstered Clotworthy’s position as the intermediary between the Ulster ministers and the Dublin government, and may have contributed to the softening of relations under the rule of Henry Cromwell during the later 1650s.367Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 124.

Clotworthy’s secular influence was also growing in eastern Ulster. In March 1654 he had drawn over 11,000 acres of Adventure lands in the baronies of Dunluce (formerly lands of the 2nd earl of Antrim) and Massereene, as well as Dees barony, co. Meath.368CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 522-3, 546. These new lands increased Clotworthy’s local dominance, much to the dismay of locals, especially George Rawdon*, who spent much of the later 1650s fighting a rearguard action against his acquisitive neighbour.369CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 625, 641, 661, 666. In May 1656 Clotworthy was granted fishing and other rights over Lough Neagh, instead of the pension, long in abeyance, which he had inherited from his father.370PRONI, D.207/15/4. In making the award, Cromwell was taking into account a report by Broghill and Arthur Hill, and the surviving letter from Cromwell to the lord deputy and council in Ireland made a point of praising Clotworthy and his father for their service ‘against the rebels in these parts’ and awarded the lease as a mark of their good service.371CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 297; TSP v. 19. Again this grant was not universally popular, and embroiled Clotworthy in a dispute with Arthur Chichester, 2nd Viscount Chichester, over the next decade.372PRONI, D.207/15/5-7. Clotworthy was active as a justice of the peace in co. Down by the new year of 1657, and he was one of the commissioners for uniting and dividing parishes in cos. Down and Antrim in August of that year.373CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 623, 645.

Later career and conclusion

The collapse of the protectorate was a set-back for Clotworthy, but he made the best of it, joining the other secluded members in attempting to sit in the restored Long Parliament in May 1659.374Nicholas Pprs. iv. 134. In December he was at Antrim, where he received news of George Monck’s* march towards the Scottish border, and relayed the decision by Sir Charles Coote and others in Dublin to declare for a free Parliament. Clotworthy played his own part in keeping Ulster in order in the next few weeks, working in conjunction with the military commander, Colonel Thomas Cooper II*.375HMC Hastings, ii. 362. In the spring of 1660 Clotworthy was an active member of the Dublin Convention, sitting as representative of co. Antrim. According to one contemporary, ‘Coote, [Sir Theophilus] Jones*, Broghill and Clotworthy are the main men’ in that assembly.376CCSP iv. 617. On 8 March Clotworthy was appointed, alongside Broghill, Coote and William Bury* as a commissioner for managing the affairs of Ireland. In April Clotworthy went to London as the convention’s agent, although there is no evidence that he intended to wait on Charles II in the Low Countries, as has been alleged.377Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 170, 255, 270, 275. In London, he again made common cause with the Presbyterian interest, and it was said that moves to make Sir William Waller commander-in-chief in Ireland were backed by Clotworthy, who ‘leads him by the nose at pleasure’.378Bodl. Clarendon 71, f. 343; Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 288; CCSP iv. 671. His attempts to rally a pro-Presbyterian lobby in the days before the Restoration were not always successful, and he angered the earl of Cork by encouraging him to sign a letter to Ormond which was not what it seemed, causing the earl to descend on Clotworthy’s lodgings in London ‘to inform myself if any such thing was [the case], who after some shuffling excuses, confessed it’.379Chatsworth, Burlington’s Diary, 1659-1666, unfol.: 5 and 7 May 1660.

After the Restoration, while Broghill and Coote were given earldoms by Charles II, Clotworthy had to make do with the lesser title of Viscount Massereene, granted in November 1660. He did not play as prominent a role in the government as many of his erstwhile colleagues, or, for that matter his old enemy, James Butler, now duke of Ormond and soon to resume his duties as lord lieutenant. Rewards, when they came, were of the second rank. In March 1661 Clotworthy was made commissioner for the ‘1649 Officers’ and for adjudicating claims under the act of settlement.380NAI, Lodge’s MSS 1.A.53.55, ff. 130-2. In the same month he was made colonel of foot.381Lodge, Peerage, iii. 63n. He became custos rotulorum for co. Londonderry in December 1663.382Lodge, Peerage, iii. 63n. There is little doubt that the reason for Clotworthy’s limited influence was his continued staunch defence of the religious Presbyterians, which made him a figure of suspicion in both Dublin and London. In September 1660 he told Broghill (now earl of Orrery) of his dismay that Presbyterians had been lumped together with Catholics, Independents and Baptists ‘and other fanatical persons’ in suffering censure under a recent proclamation: ‘I confess, I understand it not … surely the Presbyterians deserve to be ranked with better company, both from what they have done and suffered?’383Petworth House, MS 13223(2), unfol. In the shifting sands of the Restoration, such an attitude left Clotworthy isolated, even in Ulster. In February 1661 Arthur Hill reported to John Bramhall, archbishop of Armagh, that the latest proclamation against Presbyterians had been well received except for the dissenters themselves, but that ‘your old friend at Antrim cannot yet understand it’.384The Rawdon Pprs., ed. E. Berwick (1819), 125. Clotworthy died a disappointed and disillusioned man, for all his material wealth. His will, drawn up on 14 September 1665, gave the bulk of his estate to his daughter and son-in-law, with the latter becoming 2nd Viscount Massereene, under the terms of the patent creating the lordship in 1660.385PRONI, D.207/16/14.

It is easy to characterise Clotworthy as nothing more than a religious fanatic, the originator (or so it was said) of the phrase that Ireland could only be converted with ‘the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other’.386Nalson, Impartial Collns. ii. 536. Yet Clotworthy’s character was extremely complex, and nowhere is this more apparent than in his parliamentary career during the 1640s. His primary focus throughout this decade was Ireland, whether bringing Strafford to book or (after October 1641) suppressing the rebellion of the Catholic Irish, and within Ireland the fate of Ulster was paramount. But the situation in Ireland was heavily dependent on what happened in England. Strafford could only be tried and executed by the English Parliament, and only England had the resources to conquer Ireland – whatever the Scots might have claimed. Clotworthy was therefore drawn into English factionalism, first as an ally of John Pym, and then as an uneasy associate of the Presbyterian interest. The latter relationship was especially difficult later in the decade, as Clotworthy’s relations with the Scots were fraught. His closeness to the Presbyterians at Westminster made him vulnerable to the rival Independent interest, and especially to the ire of the New Model Army. The two periods when Clotworthy could properly be described as a ‘member’ of the Presbyterian faction – in the spring and summer of 1647 and the autumn of 1648 – were followed by banishment and imprisonment. It was ironic that the final conquest of Ireland took place without Clotworthy, and during the 1650s he did his best to claw his way back to influence – in Ulster, at least – by working at first with the Cromwellians and then with the Restoration government. This uneasy mixture of political pragmatism and religious fervour is perhaps the key to understanding this idiosyncratic Ulsterman.