TEMPLE, Sir John (1600-77), of Ballyrath, co. Carlow

Temple was born and brought up in Dublin, where his father, Sir William Temple, was provost of Trinity College. Having graduated (and commenced a fellowship) at the same college, he entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1620, and thereafter may have travelled abroad.28Ball, Judges in Ire. 338-9. By the late 1620s Temple had become a junior member of Charles I’s court: in 1627 he married the daughter of the royal physician, Dr John Hammond, and he was a gentleman pensioner by July 1633, when he was knighted by the king during his visit to Scotland.29Ball, Judges in Ire. 339; Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 201. It was perhaps his court position that brought him into immediate contact with Robert Sidney, 2nd earl of Leicester, although the connection between the two families had been established by Temple’s father, who had comforted the dying Sir Philip Sidney.30Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 101. The Sidneys also shared with the Temples a long-standing involvement in Ireland, as Leicester’s grandfather, Sir Henry Sidney, had been a successful Elizabethan viceroy, and it is clear from his later writings that Sir John was well aware of this.31Temple, The Irish Rebellion (1646), 14 (E.508). Temple was evidently making himself useful to the Sidneys by 10 November 1636, when the countess of Leicester wrote to her husband in Paris that

Sir John Temple, who is inquisitive in all affairs, and much your servant, told me that in the court it was rumoured that either you had commandment to make new demands [of the French] or some new restrictions, which you had not before.

He also passed on gossip that ‘my lord of Holland is very jealous’ of the new turn in foreign policy.32Letters and Memorials of State ed. A. Collins (2 vols. 1746), ii. 444. A further letter from the countess, dated 4 January 1637, reported to her husband that

Sir John Temple came from the court the other day, and he told me of some discourse which he had with Secretary [Sir John] Coke concerning you, and Temple, who is extremely kind to you, would fain have reconciliation between you and the old man.33HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 77.

From these letters it appears that Temple had successfully cultivated the Sidneys by this time, becoming a valued friend and confidant of the countess in the earl’s absence. It is also revealing that Temple’s wife died at the Sidney seat of Penshurst in 1638.34Ball, Judges in Ire. 339.

During the mid-1630s Temple was also on good terms with another friend of the Sidneys – Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), lord deputy of Ireland. On 18 April 1636 he wrote to Wentworth from London apologising for his silence, occasioned by his absence (at Penshurst?) and expressing ‘how deep a sense I have of your favour’. He included important news from court of the machinations of Wentworth’s enemy, Sir Piers Crosby, and promised to keep in touch with the lord deputy’s agent, William Railton.35Strafforde Letters, ii. 4. Temple returned to Ireland in the second half of 1637, to sort out some business relating to his estates there, and he took the opportunity to ingratiate himself further with the lord deputy and his allies. On 24 August he reported to a friend at court that Wentworth was ‘very noble’ to him, and asked for medicine for the Irish master of the rolls, Sir George Radcliffe.36CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 169. In December of the same year he was seeking to be the new tenant for the Mercers’ Company lands in co. Londonderry, stating that he had received encouragement in this from both Wentworth and Radcliffe.37CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 175. Perhaps through Wentworth, Temple also became an associate of James Butler, 12th earl of Ormond. In November 1639 he wrote to the earl with ‘an account of the commands you were pleased to lay upon me at my departure from Dublin’, concerning the borrowing of money to repay the mortgage of lands in co. Carlow that Temple had agreed with the earl earlier in the year.38HMC Ormonde, n.s. i. 44-5; Edwards, Ormond Lordship, 135.

Temple went north with the royal entourage in 1639, and attended the king at Berwick, although as his letters to Leicester in May suggest, his role was more as a lobbyist for the Sidneys than as a personal servant of the king.39HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 163-7. There is no evidence that Temple played any role in the second bishops’ war of 1640, and he was not elected to an English seat in either of the elections in that year. In the new year of 1641 he was again resident in London, and for the next eight months he kept Leicester informed of events in Parliament through weekly letters, which also detailed his efforts as the earl’s agent at court. He was dismayed at the fate of Wentworth, now 1st earl of Strafford and lord lieutenant of Ireland, telling Leicester on 7 January that many now ‘hold him incompatible with the safety of these three kingdoms’, even though Strafford ‘with great confidence believes he shall clear himself of those high imputations that lay upon him’.40HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 360. It was already clear that Strafford would lose the lieutenancy, and Temple passed on the latest court gossip to Leicester, who aspired to the post. In January he reported that the queen and Henry Jermyn* had great influence over appointments, although the scheme of ‘bridge appointments’ masterminded by the 4th earl of Bedford, had opened other possibilities. Temple welcomed the latter development, saying that the ‘new men’ might effect ‘an entire union between the king and his people, and so moderate their demands as well as the height of that power which hath been lately used in the government’.41HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 360, 362, 367-8. Despite this, it was probably Temple’s role as a courtier, rather than any association with opponents of the crown that encouraged the king to announce at the end of January that he would be appointed as the new master of the rolls in Ireland.42HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 370. In the next few weeks Temple complained of ‘the opposition I have encountered in my first entrance into my place’, with rivals for the job having ‘stirred up great animosity against me both here and in Ireland’.43HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 390-1. It seems unlikely that his promotion was part of the ‘bridge-appointments’ plan, and the prime mover was probably Jermyn.44M. Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak of the Irish Rebellion of 1641 (Dublin, 1994), 105.

Temple remained sympathetic to Strafford in the next few weeks, reporting the earl’s ‘gallant answer’ to the Commons on 4 February, and expressing the opinion that the case rested on only one or two articles, ‘and those, they say, are but slenderly proved’.45HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 376. A week later he reported, approvingly, that ‘my lord lieutenant’s friends have now more hope of him than they had, and I wish heartily his lordship doth not find himself deceived in those he trusts’.46HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 380. On 25 February Temple wrote that Strafford had ‘answered very well’ his accusers, and when faced by the 1st earl of Cork as a witness, had ‘returned it with so much dirt into his face as the king, that sat and heard it, said afterwards privately he had rather be my lord of Strafford than my lord of Cork’.47HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 387. To be able to relate such gossip, Temple had to have been moving in the highest of court circles. On 24 March, as Strafford’s trial gained momentum, Temple remained loyal, recounting that ‘his lordship carries himself very gallantly, showing much courage and greatness of mind’.48HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 393. He was, however, beginning to be concerned that an intervention to save the earl – perhaps by the king, refusing to consent to a bill of attainder – would cause ‘a strange division’, as ‘nothing will satisfy the House of Commons but his head’.49HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 398, 402. On 29 April Temple still hoped the king might intervene to solve the impasse; but time had run out.50HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 402.

The uncertainty over Strafford’s replacement continued through February, March and April, not least because Leicester now had a serious rival in the form of the 1st earl of Holland, whose agent at London was another Anglo-Irishman, Sir John Clotworthy*. Temple busied himself meeting courtiers who might back Leicester, including relatives such as the countess of Carlisle, the 4th earl of Northumberland and Henry Jermyn; and as a result he attracted the ire of Holland, who accused Temple of ‘countermining him’.51HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 375, 379, 382-3, 386, 391. In retaliation, on 4 March Clotworthy told Temple (and doubtless many others) that ‘he did not think him [Leicester] puritan enough’.52HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 388. Holland, as the brother of the 2nd earl of Warwick and an influential courtier in his own right, was a dangerous opponent, and by the end of March Temple’s campaign on Leicester’s behalf had stalled.53HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 392. On 1 April Temple was downcast, considering Leicester to be unpopular ‘for being in alliance to Strafford’, and he began to urge the earl to return to England.54HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 395, 401. With the execution of Strafford on 12 May, and the appointment of Holland as general in the north, the way was clear for Leicester, who was made lord lieutenant a week later.55Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak, 106.

During the summer of 1641 Temple was closer to Leicester than ever, but he was not entirely his dependent, as a letter to Secretary Coke of 28 June, suggests: ‘I cannot but be very sensible of the obligations you have been pleased to lay upon me, while you were here in court’, began Temple. ‘It may be by reason of my place there, and the interest I have in my lord of Leicester, who is now lord lieutenant of that kingdom, I may be able to do you some service in your affairs there’.56HMC Cowper, ii. 286. As master of the Irish rolls, Temple could now exercise influence himself, and perhaps be useful to those, like Coke, who had helped him earlier in his career. Despite his new office, Temple remained in London during July and August. Leicester’s return to England caused their correspondence to dry up, but during the earl’s visit to Penshurst they again exchanged letters, discussing the new round of ‘bridge appointments’ and Irish affairs. On 5 August Temple was impatient to depart for Ireland, saying that ‘I have despatched my affairs here, and have nothing to do but to kiss the king’s and queen’s hands’, and six days later he still had not left.57HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 408-9. On 27 August he told Leicester’s solicitor, William Hawkins, of his arrival in Dublin, where he had immediately been sworn in as an Irish councillor. For once, he had found ‘all things to my contentment, and those that were my opposers much out of countenance’, although he naturally added that Leicester’s arrival in the kingdom was ‘much to be desired’.58HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 411.

The early years of the Irish rebellion, 1641-4

The outbreak of the Irish rebellion in October 1641 was greeted with shock in both countries, and Temple, as a prominent member of the Irish government, did his best to inflame public opinion further, writing letters to London which painted the struggle in the most lurid tones. On 1 November, when Parliament first heard of the uprising, the clerk of the Commons read Temple’s letter to the earl of Leicester, which ‘amongst other things… showed the rebels expected succours from Spain’.59LJ iv. 416a-b; D’Ewes (C), 62. A further letter, of 6 November, warned that the landowners of the Pale had joined the rising, and Dublin was likely to fall. If the capital was taken, he claimed, ‘all the English Protestants were like to be sacrificed, and the kingdom not reduced again to obedience without much expense of money and blood’.60LJ iv. 425a; D’Ewes (C), 96-7. In December he told Leicester, who relayed the report to Parliament, of his growing fears for Ireland, and made two incendiary claims: that the ‘mere Irish’ in the ranks of the government forces were not to be trusted, and that the rebels would not be content with overrunning Ireland, for ‘they mean to end in England, where they make us believe your embroilments are already begun’.61LJ iv. 482b; Tanner Lttrs, 134-6. A subsequent letter gave details of the massacres of Protestant settlers, with the ‘enraged and armed’ Catholics ‘furiously destroying all the English, sparing neither sex nor age throughout the kingdom’.62CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 354. Such letters did much to heighten anti-Irish feeling at Westminster; but, to Temple’s disappointment, this did not immediately translate into military action.

In January 1642 Temple highlighted the alarming state of affairs in Dublin, where the garrison was running out of food and the rebel army was advancing upon them.63PJ, i. 139. He sent further pleas in March, saying that he and another councillor, Sir Robert Meredith, had borrowed money ‘to keep them [the army] from starving’; and Parliament responded by ordering the money to be reimbursed via his brother, Dr Thomas Temple.64PJ, ii. 46; CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 299. A private letter of 25 April gave more details. By this stage, he complained of having ‘lost my whole private fortune’, and his only hope was for the king to come to Ireland at the head of an army, although he knew ‘how fatal this kingdom hath been to all the kings of England that have set their foot within this isle’.65CSP Ire. 1633-47, pp. 358-9. By May the successes of the Protestant forces in the Dublin area made Temple’s letters slightly more optimistic in tone, and he told Parliament that the enemy was ‘much broken’.66PJ, ii. 317, 320. The successes of the summer had not been followed up, however, and as war drew closer to England, the troops raised by the Adventurers Act were diverted elsewhere, and Leicester continued to prevaricate. The correspondence between Temple and Leicester for this period does not survive, but by December Temple’s faith in his patron had clearly been shaken. The delay, he said, ‘hath much prejudiced our affairs’, although he was still of the opinion that ‘there wants nothing but your lordship’s presence, which with the strength we have here, if taken in time, would undoubtedly preserve this kingdom from ruin’.67HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 413. Worse was to come. In January 1643 Temple had heard of Leicester’s decision to attend the king at Oxford, rather than cross to Ireland. With courteous firmness, he told Leicester of his disappointment in his actions, but promised that he would continue to serve the earl’s sons in Dublin, Philip Viscount Lisle (Philip Sidney*) and Algernon Sydney*, ‘with the utmost of my life and fortunes’. It seems that, as far as Temple was concerned, the Sidney interest in Ireland had now passed to Lisle, whose ‘company is the greatest happiness I have here’.68HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 416.

Temple’s sense of frustration was made all the greater by political changes in Dublin, where his old associate, the earl of Ormond, was emerging as the most powerful force on the council. Ormond’s overt royalism was in marked contrast to the parliamentarian inclinations of many of the councillors, including Temple. There were signs of tension as early as December 1642, when the Irish council ordered that Sir Philip Percivalle*, as commissary, take control of the mills at Kilmainham, which had been granted to Temple the previous January.69HMC Egmont, i. 184. Temple protested against this decision, petitioning the council for the return of the mills in April; but this was met with a formal order that he should give up his claim, and threatening an investigation into the unreasonable profit he had gained from the enterprise.70HMC Egmont, i. 186-8. At root, this personal attack on Temple was part of a factional conflict within the council between those, like Ormond, who favoured some kind of peace with the Confederate Irish, and Temple and his allies, who were entirely opposed to the idea. As Temple told Hawkins on 23 April, ‘I hold a peace with the rebels here, which is the main design, as ruinous as our war’.71HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 429. In May Temple was suspected of being in communication with Parliament’s ‘committees’, Robert Reynolds* and Robert Goodwin*, even after they had been excluded from attending meetings of the council.72R. Armstrong, Protestant War (Manchester, 2005), 86n. There was substance to this allegation, as Temple lent £400 to the committees in this period.73CJ iii. 554a. Lord Lisle, who remained in Dublin, thought there was now a plot to remove Temple from the council itself.74HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 431. On 16 June Temple told his brother of his disbelief that the army officers supported a ceasefire with the Confederate Irish, and ridiculed the idea that the Irish would willingly supply their enemies during it.75Hist. of the Irish Confederation ed. J.T. Gilbert (7 vols. Dublin 1882-91), ii, p. xlvii.

Temple attended the Irish council regularly until mid-July, but his position was becoming increasingly untenable.76HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 300. On 1 August Temple, Sir William Parsons, Sir Adam Loftus and Sir Robert Meredith – the leaders of the pro-parliamentarian faction within the Irish council – were arrested and imprisoned in Dublin Castle.77HMC Portland, i. 125. The order to arrest Temple and his colleagues apparently originated in Oxford, with the king’s letter of 2 July prompting the Irish council to move against them a month later.78HMC Ormonde, n.s. ii. 306. The timing of this intervention was crucial, for the king’s men in Dublin were nearing their agreement for a cessation of arms with the Catholic Irish (signed 15 Sept.), which would release Ormond’s troops for service in England. The final piece of the jigsaw was put in place in November, when Ormond replaced Leicester as lord lieutenant of Ireland.

Temple and his allies remained in prison for over a year. On 26 October 1643 the Commons declared, somewhat ineffectually, that if any of them should be brought to trial, all those involved would be considered to have been in arms against Parliament, and would be punished accordingly.79CJ iii. 290a. The Sidneys did not seem to have used their influence to help Temple. Instead, it was left to his brother, Dr Thomas Temple, to keep the matter alive in the Commons. On 8 July 1644 Dr Temple petitioned the House for the salary arrears owed to Sir John, and for repayment of the money he had lent to the parliamentary committees the previous year.80CJ iii. 554a. On 1 August 1644 John Crewe I* moved that Temple should be exchanged for Sir Alexander Dutton, but the matter was not pursued by the House.81Harl. 166, f. 101. On 30 September Dr Temple again petitioned the Commons, this time to beg that some deal might be struck for the release of his brother, and this was followed by a resolution to exchange Temple for Sir Thomas Mallet†, prisoner in the Tower.82CJ iii. 646a. A flurry of activity followed. The money lent to the committees was ordered to be repaid (9 Oct.), the exchange agreement was sent to the Lords (16 Oct.), and arrangements were made by the Lords to allow Mallet to go to Oxford to persuade the royalists to release Temple (on a bond for his return to custody on their refusal) in November.83CJ iii. 657a, 666a; LJ vii. 18b, 26b, 29a, 43a, 45b. On 1 December 1644 the king issued an order agreeing the release of Temple in exchange for Mallet.84Bodl. Carte 13, f. 1. Mallet was in Oxford by the beginning of January 1645, and Temple had reached London by early February.85LJ vii. 148a, 169b, 179b. On 29 April the Lords finally agreed to repay part of the money Temple was owed.86LJ vii. 342a-3a.

Lobbying Parliament, 1644-6

After his arrival in London, Temple became closely involved with the ‘gentlemen of Ireland’ already based there, who were lobbying for Parliament to make the suppression of the rebellion a greater priority. On 15 February he attended the Committee of Both Kingdoms with Sir Arthur Loftus (son of Sir Adam), Sir Charles Coote* and Sir Robert King*, and in March a paper by Temple and King was referred to the Irish sub-committee of the same.87CSP Dom. 1641-3, pp. 306, 361. He also kept in touch with his former colleagues on the Irish council, especially Sir William Parsons. He wrote to Parsons on 2 May that he was ‘much pleased with my own retiredness, I am now at leisure, and have time enough to consider of what I acquainted you with before my departure’ – in what may be a reference to his labours on The Irish Rebellion, published a year later. In the same letter Temple told Parsons of his hopes ‘of the end of this unhappy war [in England] by an accommodation’ – through the Uxbridge peace talks – and he made clear that English affairs were, for him, very much secondary to the fate of Ireland, complaining that ‘the late distractions here have much hindered the affairs of Ireland’. He also sent his regards to another former colleague, Sir Adam Loftus.88Bodl. Carte 14, f. 460. Temple’s concern for Ireland brought him into contact with a range of Irish politicians in England. On 28 August he signed a letter sent by Lord Broghill (Roger Boyle*), Sir John Clotworthy, Arthur Hill* and William Jephson*, asking Parliament to send the remainder of the money raised for Ireland in specie rather than as supplies, as that ‘would give better satisfaction to the army’.89Bodl. Nalson XXI, f. 41. Temple drew the line at those associated with Ormond, however, and the feeling of animosity was mutual. Sir Philip Percivalle accused Temple of ‘malice’ in November, and suggested that he had refused to return to Ireland as one of the Ulster commissioners a month before because of personal rivalry with one of the other appointees (possibly Sir Robert King).90HMC Egmont, i. 263-4.

Temple’s position was to change in the autumn of 1645, when he was elected as recruiter MP for Chichester, probably with the support of the Sidneys, perhaps with assistance from the earl of Northumberland as lord lieutenant of Sussex.91Supra, ‘Chichester’; Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 101. He had taken his seat by 1 December, and a week later he was named to the committee to consider the reasons why the London merchants had refused to lend any more money for Ireland.92CJ iv. 362a, 368b. On 10 December he attended the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs, and was repaid £70 he had disbursed from the Irish contributions while in Dublin.93Add. 4771, f. 64. By the end of the year, Temple was siding with those (such as the London Adventurer, William Hawkins) who called for the Irish war to be put into the hands of a single person. Percivalle reported on 22 December that during the debate on the Irish assessment bill, Temple ‘moved that a governor should be first appointed, but it was not seconded’.94HMC Egmont, i. 268. Temple’s eagerness for a change in the conduct of the Irish war was in response to his own concerns over Parliament’s lukewarm attitude, but it also reflected the candidacy of his old friend, Viscount Lisle, as the new chief governor – a position confirmed in January 1646, when Lisle was nominated lord lieutenant. Lisle’s promotion brought Temple into contact with the Independent faction at Westminster for the first time.

Despite his apparent lack of activity in the Commons (he was named to only two committees in the first three months of 1646), there is some evidence that Temple supported the Independent line on Ireland during this period. On 14 February, according to Percivalle, Temple opposed the grant of £15,000 to the Presbyterian, William Jephson*, to raise his regiment, with the comment that Munster had already been granted more than its fair share of money.95HMC Egmont, i. 280. On 26 March he was named to an Independent-dominated committee of both Houses to treat with the Scots commissioners concerning the votes on propositions passed two days before.96CJ iv. 488a, 491a. It is likely that this was part of an attempt to limit Scottish influence, especially in Ireland. Temple’s links with the Independents were even more apparent in April. On 16 April the Commons ordered that Temple and Lisle be added to a committee that was currently investigating whether the Scots commissioners were behind polemical works distributed in London.97CJ iv. 511b. On 24 April Temple was named, alongside Lisle, Reynolds and Goodwin, to the committee on an ordinance to bring in the Irish assessments and dispose of money, and he was given care of the matter.98CJ iv. 521a. On the same day he was teller with Richard Knightley in favour of a motion that £10,000 should be charged on the receipt of the excise for the service of Ireland – a motion that was carried by a narrow margin.99CJ iv. 521a. Early in May the Independents staged a take-over of the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs – hitherto dominated by men like Clotworthy and Jephson – when six new members were added: Lisle, Temple, Nathaniel Fiennes I, Sir Gregory Norton and Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire and Thomas Chaloner.100CJ iv. 532a, 549a; LJ viii. 305a, 320a. This last move came only a few days after the publication of Temple’s polemic, The Irish Rebellion, which had been acquired by the London bookseller, George Thomason, on 27 April.101Temple, Irish Rebellion, title page.

The publication date of The Irish Rebellion may have been nothing more than a coincidence. It was not a work written on the spur of the moment; nor was it a work of factional polemic. Instead, Temple’s stated aim was to provide a record of the sufferings of the Protestant community in Ireland in the very early stages of the uprising, ending in the summer of 1642, using the depositions of the victims themselves.102Irish Rebellion, Sig A. A sequel was promised, but never produced.103Irish Rebellion, 54 (2nd pagination). The result was an unrelenting, and at times grossly exaggerated, account of the causes and immediate effects of the rising of October 1641, which led (he claimed) to ‘above 300,000 British Protestants cruelly murdered in cold blood, destroyed in some other way, or expelled out of their habitations’.104Irish Rebellion, 6. Temple left the political conclusions to others. Only very indirectly could the book be said to justify the actions of Temple and his allies on the Irish council in resisting Ormond and his cronies in 1643 – a period not covered by the book at all – and in no way could it be seen as an ‘unambiguous statement of the ideology of the Lisle circle’.105Bottigheimer, Eng. Money and Irish Land, 101; J. Adamson, ‘Strafford’s Ghost: the British context of Viscount Lisle’s lieutenancy of Ire.’, in Ire. from Independence to Occupation, 1641-1660 ed. J. Ohlmeyer (Cambridge, 1995), 139. In fact The Irish Rebellion provides no plan for reconquest; nor does Ormond receive more than passing (and generally positive) mention.106Irish Rebellion, 3, 5, 12, 14-16, 29 (2nd pagination). The Old English of the Pale are seen as the real villains, but Temple stresses that it is ‘the Old English that adhered to the church of Rome’, not Protestants like Ormond, who were the culprits.107Irish Rebellion, 16 (1st pagination), 31-5 (2nd pagination). Likewise, the importance of the Scottish intervention in Ulster in 1642 is acknowledged, and even though Temple invariably uses the terms ‘British’ and ‘English’ interchangeably, he draws on the testimony of a number of Scottish settlers attacked by the Irish.108Irish Rebellion, 12, 36, 39-41, 50, 96-7, 103-4, 107, 109, 118, 123-5, 133, 136 (1st pagination), 2, 31-5 (2nd pagination). In sum, Temple’s aim was to shock English MPs of all political views into putting all their resources into Ireland now that the English war was drawing to a close, rather than to prescribe any particular course of action.

Temple’s book no doubt caused a stir in London, but it was only with the Confederate defeat of the Ulster Scots at Benburb on 5 June 1646 that Parliament was spurred into action. Benburb also played into the hands of Lisle and the Independents, as it allowed them to push for a solution to the Irish problem that came from England alone. Temple played a key part in promoting a new military intervention. News of the defeat reached Westminster on 15 June, and the same day the Commons resolved to allow Lisle to grant commissions to the officers to command the forces already raised for Ireland – a vote carried to the Lords by Temple.109CJ iv. 577b. In the next few weeks, Temple was named to committees to draft an ordinance for regulating committees (20 June), to draft an ordinance for governing Oxford University (1 July) and to investigate the anti-Independent ‘City remonstrance’ (11 July), but he soon returned to Irish affairs.110CJ iv. 583a, 595b, 616a. On 18 July the Star Chamber committee ordered Temple and Clotworthy (whose Presbyterian affiliations were easily trumped by his concern for Ireland) to treat with the excise commissioners for the speedy payment of loans already arranged for Ireland.111CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 697. On 30 July Temple, Lisle and Clotworthy presented a relation to the Commons on the ‘lamentable condition’ of Ireland, and this was followed by a debate on whether to send part of the New Model army over to support the Protestant forces.112Add. 31116, p. 557. On the same day, James Harington noted that Lisle had complained of lack of support for the new venture, and ‘suspect[ed] his person disliked by some’, and that he was backed by Temple who once again emphasised the risks posed by the recent Irish victories, and the ‘great danger of [the] loss of all Ireland’.113Harington’s Diary, 30.

In the ensuing votes the attempt to send the New Model to Ireland was narrowly defeated, and Lisle’s authority was confirmed; but this did not lead to immediate action, and during the late summer and autumn Temple was involved in yet more attempts to prepare the ground for a decisive intervention. On 11 August he was named to committees to borrow money and to consider the sale of royalists’ estates to fund a new expedition to Ireland.114CJ iv. 641b. On 5 September he was named to the committee to raise £200,000 to pay off the Scottish army in England, and on 23 September he reported from the Star Chamber Committee the need to continue Parliament’s Ulster commissioners, ‘and that they shall have power to act alone in case the Scots commissioners shall not join with them’.115CJ iv. 663a, 676b. The Lisle expedition and the peace settlement in England seemed to be delayed indefinitely, and this led to much soul-searching at Westminster. On 30 September Temple was named to the committee to bring in a confession of the sins of both kingdoms, ‘and of the sins of this kingdom in relation to Ireland’ to be read on the next fast day.116CJ iv. 678b.

As news filtered into Westminster of Ormond’s attempts to agree a peace treaty with the Confederate Irish, the lord lieutenant came under renewed polemical attack, with Adam Meredith’s unfinished pamphlet, Ormonds Curtain Drawn, published on 5 October, being nothing less than a character assassination of the king’s lord lieutenant. The implication was that Temple and the other ejected Irish council were, by contrast, to be seen as the only honest and faithful men in the Dublin government in the early years of the rebellion. It was alleged that Temple was Meredith’s source for much of his material, but it is doubtful whether he was co-author or editor, as the tone and style are very different from The Irish Rebellion, and, unlike the earlier work, Temple is named in the text.117[A. Meredith], Ormonds Curtain Drawn (1646), pp. 10, 13, 15-17 (E.513.14); HMC Egmont, i. 426; Irish Rebellion, 52 (1st pagination), 5 (2nd pagination). Whatever the origins of Ormonds Curtain Drawn, its hard-line sentiments were soon to prove embarrassing for the Independents. The failure of Ormond’s peace talks with the Confederates left him in a desperate position, and even as Meredith’s pamphlet came out, he had resolved to approach Parliament for support. This caused the Independents to make a quick reversal in policy, in the hope of securing Dublin at no cost, and despite his loathing for Ormond, Temple was fully involved in this. On 12 October, when Ormond’s commissioners arrived in London, Temple and Lisle were ordered to join the revived Committee of Both Kingdoms (meeting at Derby House) to discuss the development, and he was also one of the committee assigned to meet commissioners on the same day.118CJ iv. 690b; Bodl. Carte 19, f. 158. On 14 October Temple was co-opted to the Derby House Committee of Irish Affairs (becoming a full member on 7 April 1647), with first the task of discussing the negotiations in private, and on 17 October he signed the instructions to Clotworthy, King, and other commissioners sent to Ireland to strike a deal with Ormond.119CJ iv. 693b; CJ v. 135b; Bodl. Carte 19, f. 210. Raising money was a particular concern at this time. On 17 October Temple was ordered to draft an ordinance to raise £40,000 for provisions for Ireland, and two days later he signed an order of the Star Chamber committee to ensure the excise commissioners paid the remainder of what had been agreed for Irish service.120CJ iv. 697a-b; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 700. On 21 October Temple was one of the MPs instructed by the Commons to press the Committee for Compounding to advance £5,000 for the immediate use of the commissioners to treat with Ormond.121CJ iv. 702b; CCC, 47.

The failure of the Ormond talks in November saw yet another volte-face, and in the dying days of 1646 Temple was busy in the Derby House Committee, working on preparations for a new military force to be sent to Ireland, and considering how to fund it.122CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 726-7; SP21/26, passim. On 10 December Temple joined his fellow Irish Protestants, Parsons, Annesley, Sir Adam Loftus and Sir Hardress Waller*, in drawing up a report for Parliament, advocating a new strategy to counter the growing strength of the Confederates. Their recommendation was that Munster ‘be first taken into care’, with Lisle leading a strong force to the southern province.123Bodl. Nalson XXI, ff. 104-6. This attempt to force Parliament’s hand was successful, and the report was to become the blueprint for the expedition mounted the following spring. In the meantime, Temple was involved in preparations for the new campaign in the Derby House Committee, and on 1 January the committee included him with his old allies Parsons, Loftus and Meredith, as an additional member of the Irish council – an appointment ratified by Parliament on 4 January.124CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 727-9; CJ v. 40a-41b. The growing importance of the ‘Irish Independents’ was not lost on their enemies. As Percivalle’s correspondents reported in January and early February, Parsons and Loftus and Temple now acted as a team, with Temple having ‘such power with the lord lieutenant’ that he was now an even greater threat.125HMC Egmont, i. 352, 359. When news came of the departure of the Lisle expedition to Munster on 20 February, Edmund Smith told Percivalle: ‘I pray God guide him better than Sir John Temple, for the good of that people’.126HMC Egmont, i. 364.

Ireland and Westminster, 1647-8

The Lisle expedition was hampered from the start by the poor relationship between the incomers and the existing officers in Munster, headed by the lord president of the province, Lord Inchiquin. On 15 March Temple complained to Robert Reynolds of the way Inchiquin and his subordinates had been managing the war: ‘all the profits raised here [are] converted to private uses, the abuses in the musters, the disorders in the army, the ill-affections of the officers’.127HMC Egmont, i. 375. When news reached Munster in April that Lisle’s commission was not to be renewed, there were chaotic scenes, as Inchiquin demanded control of the forces, as lord president. Rather than accept this, Lisle and his supporters, including Temple, Lord Broghill and Sir Adam Loftus, left the province. Immediately on landing at Bristol on 23 April, Temple and Loftus sent a strongly-worded report of the ‘great disputes about the command of the army’ in Munster, which defended the actions of Lisle and his entourage, and also aimed ‘to make known the Lord Inchiquin’s carriage herein to the Parliament’.128Bodl. Nalson VI, f. 80. Inchiquin, they claimed, was ‘wedded to his own, as that no consideration of any hazard that might happen to the public could draw him to any manner of accommodation’.129HMC Portland, i. 419-20. On the arrival of Temple and his allies in London in early May, they again traduced Inchiquin and his supporters, with Lisle’s report on the state of Ireland, delivered to the Commons on 7 May, being seconded by Temple, who levelled a charge against Inchiquin ‘for disservice to the state, and desire[d] he might be called to answer it’.130CJ v. 166a; Harington’s Diary, 51.

The attack on Inchiquin was taken up by others, notably Broghill and Sir Arthur Loftus, and Temple concentrated instead on Inchiquin’s ally, the newly-minted MP for Newport in Cornwall, Sir Philip Percivalle. According to Percivalle, Temple had done his best to prevent his election in the first place, and in May he protested that both Loftus and Temple were being ‘very malicious’ towards him, claiming that he had been a supporter of the cessation of arms in 1643.131HMC Egmont, i. 376, 398. On 2 June formal charges against Percivalle were ‘pressed in the House by reason of the testimony given in the House against him by the Lord Lisle, Colonel [Algernon] Sydney and Sir John Temple that he might be suspended’ until the matter was investigated, but the Commons rejected this motion.132Add. 31116, pp. 621-2; CJ v. 195a. Clotworthy, now firmly in the Presbyterian camp, led a counterattack on Percivalle’s behalf, with the claim that Temple had had dealings with the king (perhaps while a prisoner in Dublin) but these were not pursued by the Commons.133Harington’s Diary, 54. Percivalle defended himself against allegations of embezzlement in the Commons on 14 July, saying that ‘a Member of this House’ (meaning Temple) was behind the charges, which had then been repeated by Adam Meredith in Ormonds Curtain Drawn the previous autumn.134HMC Egmont, i. 426. He also claimed that Temple and Lisle had worked through other MPs, including Thomas Hoyle, insinuating that ‘I was a dangerous person, privy to all the designs of the Cessation of Ireland’, that he had attended the king at Oxford, and even that he was ‘a special confidant of the Lord Ormond’.135HMC Egmont, i. 428, 430-1. This was an overtly political attack, which came to its head during the army’s attempt to have the Eleven Members (including Clotworthy) impeached, and should be seen as an Irish sideshow to the main drive by the Independents to discredit their enemies.

During the ‘forcing of the Houses’ by the Presbyterians in late July, Temple withdrew from Westminster. He attended his last meeting of the Derby House Committee on 22 July, and on the same day, the Commons ordered Temple to attend Sir Thomas Fairfax* and the parliamentary commissioners with the army, to deliver letters concerning the ‘speedy relief’ of Ireland.136SP21/26, p. 99; CJ v. 254b. On 26-27 July it was said that Temple and Broghill were with the army, ‘on invitation from Sir Hardress Waller*’, and on 4 August Temple was listed as among the MPs engaged with the army as it marched on London.137HMC Egmont, i. 436, 440. In the meantime, Temple and Waller had met Fairfax, extracting from him a promise that fresh troops would be sent to Dublin, recently yielded by Ormond, and now under threat of a Confederate siege.138Tanner Lttrs, 254, 257. This undertaking was communicated to Parliament on 30 July.139CJ v. 259b; LJ ix. 359a-b. Temple’s influence filled the Irish peer, Viscount Valentia (Sir Francis Annesley†), with a sense of dread. He told Percivalle on 4 August that ‘so long as Sir John Temple and his motions may be credited and they who support him … I look for no good for Ireland’. ‘If I am not deceived’, he continued, ‘Sir John Temple would be another Radcliffe, but he wants his capacity’. It was perhaps Temple that Valentia had in mind when he commented sourly that ‘the very same instruments who did cooperate with the earl of Strafford and were promoted by him for bribery are still specially trusted and employed’.140HMC Egmont, i. 441-2.

If Temple had entertained any ambitions to be lord deputy, they were not fulfilled. Instead, he resumed his career as a London-based lobbyist. Temple had returned to meetings of the Derby House Committee on 11 August.141SP21/26, p. 99. He had resumed his place in the Commons by 10 August, when he carried an order for the payment of £25,000 to be sent to Ireland, and on 20 August he took further ordinances, for £20,000 for Colonel Michael Jones, the governor of Dublin, and a day of thanksgiving for his recent defeat of the Confederates at Dungan’s Hill.142CJ v. 270b, 279b, 280a; LJ ix. 381a, 388b. Jones’s victory had secured Dublin for the present, and Parliament busied itself with domestic affairs. Temple continued to press for Ireland to be given greater priority. On 1 September he was named to the committee to consider ways to advance the Irish war effort; on 20 September he was one of those MPs ordered to arrange the payment of Irish refugees by the treasurers for the collections for Ireland; and on 13 October he joined Arthur Annesley*, Jephson and others in a renewed effort to release funds for the distressed Irish in England.143CJ v. 287a, 309b; LJ ix. 482a. Alongside the frustrations of Irish affairs, Temple was drawn into other business, especially concerning religion, and the on-going negotiations with the king. He was appointed to committees on grievances concerning tithes (15 Sept.) and to consider the religious terms in the forthcoming treaty (30 Sept.), and the latter led, on 6 October, to his inclusion in a committee to prepare a proposal for the settlement of Presbyterian church government with some exemptions for tender consciences.144CJ v. 302a, 321b, 327b. His involvement in English affairs continued during 1648, when he was named to the committee of grievances (4 Jan.), the committee on an ordinance for indemnity for tenants of delinquents (29 Jan.), a committee for receiving soldiers’ accounts (1 June) and the committee on an ordinance for selling the lands of deans and chapters (16 June).145CJ v. 417a, 447b, 581b, 602a.

Ireland dominated Temple’s career in 1648. On 12 January he was messenger to the Lords asking that they agree to an order of the Commons to pay the remainder of the Adventurers’ money to the Irish vice-treasurer.146LJ ix. 657a. On 30 March the Commons ordered Temple, with Sir William Parsons, to go to Ireland as parliamentary commissioners to assure the Protestant forces that they had not been forgotten, but this was not followed through.147CJ v. 522a; LJ x. 166b. On 3 April Temple joined Annesley in drafting a letter of thanks to Michael Jones in Dublin, and on 20 April Temple was named to the committee on an ordinance for the relief of Ireland.148CJ v. 523b, 538b. These gradual moves towards improving Parliament’s response to the Irish situation were thrown into disarray in May, when news arrived of Inchiquin’s defection to the king. Inchiquin had been gradually starved of support from Parliament since the previous summer, and his decision to join the royalists was widely seen as a result of an ‘Independent faction’ that included Lisle, Temple, Broghill and the two Loftuses.149C. Walker, The History of Independency (1648), 58 (E.445.1). On 3 May it was agreed by the Star Chamber Committee, including Temple, that the officers driven out of Munster by Inchiquin should have their arrears paid; and on 12 May Temple was ordered by the Commons to report what these men had to say.150CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 15; CJ v. 558b. Their accounts were considered on 8 June, and a week later the exchange of Sir William Fenton for Inchiquin’s sons was also discussed, with Temple being present on both occasions.151CSP Ire. 1647-60, pp. 17, 19. The order of the Commons of 9 June, that Temple should draft a letter to Michael Jones, disapproving of any cessation with the Confederates, was no doubt in connection with the Inchiquin revelations.152CJ v. 590b.

Despite Clement Walker’s* claim that Temple was still a staunch Independent in the spring of 1648, there were signs in the same period that he was prepared to consider a new peace initiative with the king, as the only chance that Parliament would at last turn its attention to Ireland. On 28 April he was teller with Annesley against widening the scope of the propositions to be sent to the king from the conservative terms offered to him at Hampton Court, and they were opposed by two leading Independents, Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire and Sir Michael Livesay.153CJ v. 547a. This did not mean that Temple was inclining towards the Presbyterian interest, however, as on 30 May he and Annseley were tellers in favour of adding the future regicide, Sir John Danvers, to the Derby House Committee – a move opposed by two key Presbyterians, Clement Walker and Sir Robert Pye.154CJ v. 579a. In mid-August Temple was again supporting a new treaty with the king. On 17 August, the day that the ‘vote of no addresses’ was revoked, he was teller against altering a provision allowing the king to choose advisers to attend him. The motion was passed, however, and the king was only allowed to choose those not excepted from pardon or in arms against Parliament.155CJ v. 673b, 674a. Temple’s moderate stance may have been encouraged by other Irish Protestants, such as Annesley, and it is perhaps telling that on 29 August, when Temple returned to the Derby House Committee, after nearly a month’s absence, he did so in the company not only of Annesley but also of the newly rehabilitated Sir John Clotworthy, in what looks like a demonstration of solidarity.156SP21/26, p. 169. On 5 September Temple was teller with Clotworthy in favour of imposing a fixed penalty on defaulters at the forthcoming call of the House – in opposition to Sir John Danvers and Sir Anthony Irby, who may have feared that a full House would give a clear majority to those who favoured a lenient settlement with the king.157CJ vi. 6b. In October Temple was well established in the Irish Protestant group that sought both a more vigorous Irish policy and a settlement in England. On 17 October it was resolved that Temple and Parsons would be commissioners of the great seal in Ireland, and thus have an influence over the appointment of officers of state; and on 27 October Temple, Clotworthy, Annesley and the Presbyterian, John Swynfen, were instructed to acquaint the king with reports of Ormond’s renewed activity in Ireland, and to urge him to issue a public condemnation of his lord lieutenant.158CJ vi. 54b, 63b. Temple’s activity over the next few weeks is shadowy; and his last recorded attendance at the Committee for Irish Affairs was on 22 November.159CSP Ire. 1647-60, p. 37. On 6 December he was secluded at Pride’s Purge, and the next day he joined other MPs in writing to protest at their restraint, ‘from coming to the House to do their duty there, by some of the soldiers of the army’.160CJ vi. 94b. He was turned away again by soldiers on 12 December.161Mercurius Pragmaticus no. 38 (12-19 Dec. 1648), sig. Dd2 (i) (E.476.35).

Negotiating the interregnum, 1649-60

Temple was in London for most of the commonwealth period, but his activities are obscure. On 3 January 1649 he wrote to Leicester with news of the moves to put the king on trial, and may have been the source of a story, recorded in the earl’s diary, that the king still hoped that Ormond and the Irish royalists would come to his aid.162HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 578. In August he again wrote to the earl with a gleeful account of the humiliating defeat of Ormond by Michael Jones at Rathmines.163HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 591. In July 1652 Harington noted in his diary that he had visited his friend, Archbishop James Ussher, with Temple – suggesting that Temple was in touch with the Irish expatriate community.164Harington’s Diary, 77. The earliest sign of Temple’s willingness to work with the commonwealth came on 15 September 1653, when he was appointed as j.p. for Co. Dublin.165TCD, MS 844, f. 139v. In the following November he was made a member of the committee on delinquents’ estates.166Oxford DNB. In July 1654 Temple was elected as MP for the combined Irish constituency of cos. Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon, alongside Sir Robert King*.167TSP, ii. 446; Clarke Pprs. v. 201-2. Before he left for Westminster, on 11 August 1654, the parliamentary commissioners in Dublin ordered that Temple be paid £140 for his ‘employment upon the public service’ and his ‘attendance to the committee of the court of wards’.168NLI, MS 758, f. 53. On 27 September one of the commissioners, his kinsman, Robert Hammond*, expressed his hope that ‘my Lord Broghill and Sir Temple may be of good use’ in Parliament.169TSP, ii. 633. Temple’s role in this Parliament is unclear, although he was named to the committee on the armed forces (26 Sept.) and the committees of Scottish and Irish affairs (29 Sept.) and added to the committee of privileges when it discussed the returns from Ireland (5 Oct.).170CJ vii. 370a, 371b, 373b.

On 23 May 1655 Oliver Cromwell* wrote to Charles Fleetwood* and the Irish council, instructing them to allow Temple to enjoy his former office as master of the rolls, with a salary of £150 per annum, and ‘to take special notice of him and of the good service which he hath formerly done in that country’.171Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 722-3. Temple probably crossed to Ireland with the new commander of the Irish army, Henry Cromwell*, in June, and with the recall of Fleetwood to London, he was firmly back in favour.172Henry Cromwell Corresp. 55; Abbott, Writings and Speeches, iii. 749. In the autumn of that year Temple was working with the government in his legal capacity and in passing on intelligence of a plot against the lord protector.173TSP, iv. 40, 198. On 26 December 1655 Temple was awarded £200 for his past services, as recommended by the protector in his letter of 23 May.174NLI, MS 758, f. 58. In February 1656 Temple was one of the Irish Protestants discussed as a possible Irish councillor.175Henry Cromwell Corresp. 108. This plan did not come to fruition, but Temple was useful in other ways. In April 1656 he was included in a committee of eleven, led by Samuel Winter and other religious Independents, charged with drawing up rules for the approbation or removal of ministers.176Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, 147n. From the spring of 1656 Temple was sufficiently secure in his position to begin to squeeze the maximum profit from his legal offices, leading to a stream of complaints from chancery officials that he was obstructing the enjoyment of their own posts, and financial propositions from others keen to buy lucrative positions in chancery.177Henry Cromwell Corresp. 122, 135, 181, 265. On 6 January 1657 the council committee considering Temple’s petition for arrears owed to him advised that £300 be paid to him from the Irish treasury.178CSP Ire. 1656-7, p. 236. Despite his divisive role in the 1640s, Temple remained an important member of the Irish Protestant community. In the spring of 1658 he played a key role in arranging the marriage between the young earl of Kildare and the daughter of the earl of Clare, becoming a trustee of the jointure lands (with his old friend, Arthur Annesley) and interim trustee of the lands in cos. Kildare and Limerick (with John Bysse*) while a new indenture was drawn up.179PRONI, D.3078/1/3/4-5. Others with a keen interest in this marriage were his ally from the 1640s, Lord Broghill (who was Kildare’s uncle), and the bride’s uncle, Denzil Holles*. Temple’s involvement with a range of former Independents and Presbyterians on both sides of the Irish Sea suggests that the factionalism of the previous decade had started to fade.

Temple’s activities in the last years of the protectorate are less well documented. He signed the Dublin proclamation of Richard Cromwell* as protector in September 1658.180TSP, vii. 384. In May 1659 he heard cases for the incapacitated lord chancellor, William Donnellan.181Chatsworth, CM/29, unfol.: 14 May 1659. After the fall of the protectorate in the same month and the resignation of Henry Cromwell in June, Temple was again inactive. In February 1660 he returned to the Commons when the secluded Members were readmitted, and, probably with George Monck’s* patronage, he was appointed to the council of state in the same month.182Clarke, Prelude to Restoration, 155-6; A. and O. There are other signs that he was a close associate of Monck at this time. On 24 February he was named to the committee stage of the bill to make Monck captain-general and commander-in-chief, and the next day he was one of the MPs chosen to take the resultant commission to the new commander.183CJ vii. 850b, 852b. Over the next few days Temple was involved in military affairs. On 27 February Temple was ordered to report on the state of the navy, and on 29 February he was named to the committee on a bill to settle the London militia.184CJ vii. 854b, 856a. On 3 March 1660 the council of state ordered that Temple and others confer with the commanders of the army and navy concerning the financing of the armed forces.185HMC Leyborne-Popham, 169. Temple was elected for the Cornish seat of Tregony in May 1660, perhaps with the support of Monck’s brother-in-law, Thomas Clarges*, and was a fairly active MP, ironically winning the approval of his old enemy, the marquess (and soon to be duke) of Ormond, for his conduct. He was also in close contact with the Sidney family, with whom he corresponded after the restoration.186HMC de L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 506-27. Temple’s focus remained on Ireland, however. He continued as master of the rolls after the Restoration, and was reappointed as a privy councillor in 1661. Temple sat for co. Carlow in the Irish Parliament of 1661-6, and thereafter was appointed to a number of commissions and made vice-treasurer of Ireland in 1673. He died on 12 November 1677, and was buried at his alma mater, Trinity College, Dublin, beside his father. He was survived by two daughters and two sons, William (1628-99), the diplomat, who succeeded his father as master of the rolls, and John (1632-1705), solicitor-general and later attorney-general of Ireland.187HP Commons 1660-90, iii. 535-6; Oxford DNB; Ball, Judges in Ire. 340.

Conclusion

Unlike most Irish Protestants of the period, Sir John Temple was truly at home in both countries. Although born and brought up in Ireland, his early political career was at the royal court, and it was his connections there that made him a useful client of the earl of Leicester and the earl of Strafford. While he deplored Strafford’s trial and execution, he was able to turn it to his own advantage. The outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641 made Temple’s strong contacts with both countries all the more important, as he tried to ensure Parliament put its financial and military power behind suppressing the Catholic insurgency. He did this in three ways: by writings letters (in 1641-2) and a book (1646) to emphasise the terrible calamity that had befallen the Protestants in Ireland; by calling for peace in England (1644 and 1648) to allow efforts to be concentrated on Ireland; and by using his political skills, both as an ally of the Independent party (through Leicester’s son, Viscount Lisle) and as a prominent member of the Irish Protestant community in London. Temple’s relationship with this last group was complex, as he was willing to work not only with ‘Irish Independents’ such as Broghill, Parsons and the Loftuses, but also with pro-Presbyterians, including Clotworthy and Annesley, especially when concerted action was needed to force Parliament to make Ireland a priority. It was only after Temple’s exclusion from politics at Pride’s Purge that Parliament finally mounted the massive invasion that ensured victory for the Protestant cause in Ireland. During the 1650s Temple collaborated with the Cromwellian regime, but did not have the influence of a man like Broghill. Although he worked with Monck during the months before the restoration, he did not share the success of other Anglo-Irishmen, such as Annesley, in garnering titles, high office or political influence thereafter. It was left to his descendant, Henry John Temple†, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, to achieve all three.