BOURKE, Richard (c.1570-1635)

Clanricarde was probably descended from Richard ‘the younger’, the illegitimate son of William de Burgh (d.1206), elder brother of the justiciar, Hubert de Burgh^† (c.1170-1243), earl of Kent. It is likely that William went to Ireland, in 1185, with the future King John, as he was subsequently granted the kingdom of Connaught. However, it was William’s son, Richard (d.1243), who actually conquered the territory. Richard’s own son, Walter, was created earl of Ulster [I] in 1264. Walter’s grandson, William, 3rd earl of Ulster, was murdered in 1333, whereupon his widow fled to England with his daughter and heir, Elizabeth, who subsequently married Edward III’s third son, Lionel^†, duke of Clarence. Clarence and his heirs, who became kings of England after the accession of Edward IV, laid claim to the de Burgh inheritance, but they failed to make good their claim as a result of the decline of English power in Ireland. In southern Connaught the descendants of Richard ‘the younger’ established themselves as the dominant force, adopting the title MacWilliam Uachter or Clanricarde, the latter term also coming to denote the territory of their lordship.20 Oxford DNB, viii. 776, 785, 791-2, 794-5; CP, xii. pt. 2, 171-180; New Hist. of Ire. ed. T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin, F.J. Byrne, ix. 170, 172. Although the family adopted the Gaelic language and customs they were ‘Old English’, as the descendants of the medieval settlers came to be known after the Reformation.21 New Hist. of Ire. ed. T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin, F.J. Byrne, iii, 13.

In 1543 Ulick Bourke, or de Burgh (d.1544), the 12th MacWilliam Uachter, agreed to surrender his estates and authority to the crown in return for a re-grant of his lands and the title of earl of Clanricarde [I]. At the same time he was also made Baron Dunkellin [I], which became the courtesy title used by the heirs to the earldom. Ulick probably hoped that the re-grant would establish in English law his title to his lands, doubts about which remained a concern among his successors as English authority became re-established in Ireland during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Indeed, the fear that the crown could claim their lands helps to account for the subsequent loyalty of the earls of Clanricarde.22 CP, iii. 228-9, B. Cunningham, ‘From Warlords to Landlords: Pol. and Soc. change in Galway, 1540-1640’, Galway - Hist. and Soc. ed. G. Moran, 98-99, 100-1.

Early life, c.1570-1605

Richard Bourke, the subject of this biography, was the great grandson of the 1st earl. His date of birth is uncertain but testimony gathered to prove his legitimacy stated that he was born about six years after his parents’ marriage in November 1564. However, his age was given as 12 when he enrolled at Oxford in 1584.23 Crawford, 503, 505; Repertory of the Inrolments on the Patent Rolls of Chancery, in Ire. 106; CPR Ire. Jas. I, 47, 214; Al. Ox. He initially had a Gaelic upbringing, being fostered with the O’Kelly family, native Irish chieftains in Connaught who had recently come under the influence of the Bourkes.24 Cunningham, ‘From Warlords to Landlords’, 100. Richard probably adopted the courtesy title, Lord Dunkellin, when his father inherited the Clanricarde earldom in 1582, as his only elder brother had died in infancy. He was certainly known as Dunkellin by 1584, when he was sent to England as a pledge of his father’s loyalty, at which time he and his companion, the son of a Gaelic chieftain, were described by the lord deputy, Sir John Perrot^‡, as ‘pretty quick boys’. Writing to Secretary of state Sir Francis Walsingham^‡, Perrot advised that ‘with good education’ both boys could ‘be made good members of Christ and this commonwealth’.25 SP63/112/22. Walsingham sent Dunkellin to Christ Church, Oxford, where he was placed in the care of the dean, William James^*, subsequently bishop of Durham.26 APC, 1592-3, pp. 151-2. Although Dunkellin became, to all appearances, thoroughly anglicized, he did not become a Protestant. Indeed, on preparing to fight a duel with Sir Calisthenes Brooke in London in 1599, he sought out the Jesuit, John Gerrard, to make his confession.27 Letters and Memorials of State ed. A. Collins, ii. 141; J. Morris, Life of Father John Gerard (1881), 353-6.

Dunkellin may have spent some time in the household of Walsingham’s son-in-law, Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex, for in 1597 Essex wrote that he had ‘brought up from a boy’ an unnamed son of the 3rd earl of Clanricarde (although Dunkellin had at least three younger brothers who survived to adulthood).28 Hatfield House, CP54/25; Lodge, Irish Peerage, i. 130-1. From 1588, having now left Oxford, Dunkellin divided his time between the English court and Ireland, although the Nine Years’ War obliged him to spend increasing amounts of time in the western kingdom from the late 1590s.29 CSP Ire. 1588-92, p. 27; 1592-6, pp. 98-9; 1598-9, pp. 107, 193; 1599-1600, p. 7, 119; CSP Carew 1589-1600, p. 223; APC, 1598-9, pp. 675-6. Dunkellin was staunchly loyal to the English crown, and at the battle of Kinsale in 1601, having now inherited the earldom of Clanricarde, he distinguished himself both by his bravery – he reputedly killed 20 men – and by his ruthlessness, as he ‘would not suffer any man to take of the Irish prisoner, but bid them kill the rebels’. In the aftermath of the battle, ‘in the midst of the dead bodies’, he was knighted by the lord deputy, Charles Blount^*, 8th Lord Mountjoy (later earl of Devonshire).30 Lismore Pprs. (ser. 2) ed. A.B. Grosart, i. 34; J. McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, 79.

Clanricarde returned in May 1602 to England, where he attended the court, encouraged by Lord Henry Howard^* (subsequently earl of Northampton). He quickly made a favourable impression, for, by October, it was recorded that he was ‘well esteemed’ by the queen, and Chamberlain reported that he ‘aspires to high favour’. However, the French ambassador, while acknowledging Elizabeth’s inclination to him, observed that the queen was put off by his widely remarked resemblance to Essex, her former favourite, who had recently been executed for treason. He added that the earl also had insufficient understanding to capitalize on the queen’s favour.31 Chamberlain Letters, i. 146, 161; CSP Dom. 1601-3, p. 232; Manningham Diary ed. R.P. Sorlien, 96; W.B. Devereux, Lives and Letters of the Devereux, Earls of Essex, ii. 204. Clanricarde’s resemblance to Essex was also noted in Manningham Diary, 231 and Recs. of the Eng. Province of the Soc. of Jesus ed. H. Foley, i. 46. In fact, Clanricarde’s political ambitions appear to have been confined to Ireland, and in particular Connaught, and by late 1602, fearing his mother was close to death, he sought permission to return to the land of his birth. In December the queen obliged, writing an effusive letter of recommendation to the president of Munster, Sir George Carew^* (subsequently earl of Totness). However, for reasons that are unclear, he was still in England when Elizabeth died the following March.32 CSP Carew, 1601-3, pp. 392-3.

After Elizabeth’s death, Clanricarde was invited to join the deliberations of the English Privy Council, despite the opposition of Henry Brooke^†, 11th Lord Cobham (Sir Calisthenes Brooke’s cousin). Consequently, he signed the proclamation for the accession of James I.33 Manningham Diary, 224; Stuart Royal Proclamations I: Jas. I ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, 3. He also carried the banner of Ireland at the queen’s funeral in May. In the meantime, taking advantage of the general confusion arising from the transition to a new dynasty, he married the widow of the late earl of Essex, who was presumably attracted to him because of his resemblance to her dead husband. She subsequently converted to her new husband’s faith.34 J. Nichols, Progs and Public Processions of Queen Eliz. (1823), iii. 624; Chamberlain Letters, i. 193-4; Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Pols. 1621–5 ed. M. Questier (Cam. Soc. ser. 5. xxxiv), 261. This marriage provided Clanricarde with close connections to the English nobility, as he became stepfather to Robert Devereux^*, 3rd earl of Essex, and to the wife of Roger Manners^*, 5th earl of Rutland. In addition, his wife’s first husband had been the poet, Sir Philip Sidney^‡, whose younger brother Robert^* (later 1st earl of Leicester) was soon to be elevated to the peerage as Lord Sydney. These connections were to be strengthened subsequently. Of his own children, his son and heir, Ulick^† (subsequently 2nd earl of St Albans) married in 1622 the daughter of William Compton^*, 1st earl of Northampton, and one of his daughters wed John Paulet^*, Lord St John of Basing, subsequently 5th marquess of Winchester.

By late August 1603 Clanricarde was again thinking of returning to Ireland. He probably left in about mid September, armed with the king’s letter appointing him commander of the forces in Connaught and a member of the Irish Privy Council.35 CSP Ire. 1603-6, pp. 589-90; CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 37. The following year he was appointed lord president of Connaught, making him the senior civil, as well as military, officer in the province. This was a particularly remarkable achievement as the presidency had been established in 1569 as a counterweight to the Old English and Gaelic landowners.36 B. Cunningham, Clanricard and Thomond, 1540-1640, p. 9. Clanricarde wrote courteous letters of thanks to the secretary of state, Robert Cecil^*, Lord Cecil (subsequently 1st earl of Salisbury). However, it was his ‘worthy friend’ Henry Howard, soon to become earl of Northampton, whom he kept informed about both the ‘affairs and proceedings of this place’ and his animus against the lord deputy, Sir George Carey^‡. Clanricarde claimed that he did not wish to add to Cecil’s workload, but it may in reality have been because, in the politics of the early Jacobean court, his allegiance lay with the crypto-Catholic Northampton, who employed Clanricarde’s foster brother, Ferdorogh O’Kelly, as one of his servants, rather than with Cecil.37 SP63/215/123; HMC Hatfield, xvi. 409; HMC 5th Rep. 409; E.P. Shirley, ‘Inventory of the Effects of Henry Howard, K.G., Earl of Northampton, taken at his Death in 1614, together with a Transcript of his Will’, Archaeologia, xlii. 377; ‘Clanricard Letters’, 184.

As early as May 1604, Clanricarde was hoping to return to England as soon as he had settled Connaught.38 CSP Ire. 1603-6, p. 177. Later that year he complained to Cecil, now Viscount Cranborne, that he was ‘too full of Ireland, where there is little good company, much malice and every place ... full of discontent’.39 SP63/217/3A. However, it proved more difficult to leave than he had hoped, and, in February 1605, he declared in frustration that ‘I long to be with my worthy friends’, for he was ‘now weary of this unhappy Ireland that yields no contentment to any, but to such as take pleasure in corrupt action and make a merchandize of justice’. Thinking that Connaught was ‘reasonably well settled’, he applied to Northampton for a licence to travel and to make arrangements for a deputy to be appointed in his absence. The former was forthcoming on 21 Mar., although Clanricarde may not have made the journey until the summer.40 SP63/217/13; CSP Ire. 1603-6, p. 268.

Settling in England, 1606-24

Clanricarde returned to his native land sometime in 1606, but was back in England by the following September. He went to Ireland again in May 1608, staying there until August 1609, and did so once more in June 1611. Thereafter there is little evidence of him in the land of his birth. He was certainly in Ireland in June 1616, and in May 1620 he received a pass to return, which may never have been used, as he was in England a year later, where he remained until he died.41 CSP Ire. 1603-6, p. 547; 1608-10, p. 281; 1611-14, p. 72; HMC Hatfield, xx. 192; APC, 1615-16, p. 594; 1619-21, p. 189; Lismore Pprs. (ser. 2), ii. 29; ‘Clanricard Letters’, 170-2. His increasing reluctance to leave England probably arose from his liking for the ‘noble mansion’, which he built ‘at a very large expense’ between1611 and 1613 outside Tonbridge in Kent, and which he called Somerhill.42 E. Hasted, Kent, v. 233. For the dating of the works see HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, iv. 267; Tipping, 313.

James I may initially have regarded Clanricarde as a useful asset in the pacification of Ireland, as the earl’s Catholicism was undoubtedly reassuring to Irish Catholics. When Clanricarde returned to Ireland in May 1608, the Spanish ambassador in London reported rumours that he was bringing an offer of religious concessions to the Catholics intended to forestall a rebellion in the aftermath of the flight of the Ulster earls the previous year. (In reality Clanricarde only learnt of the rebellion while he was in transit.) In 1611 the exiled Catholic archbishop of Tuam reported hearing that, at a meeting of the Irish Privy Council, Clanricarde had protested against a proposed crackdown on Catholic priests on the grounds that such a policy was contrary to James’s wishes. However, Clanricarde’s usefulness declined as the English consolidated their authority in Ireland.43 M.K. Walsh, ‘Destruction by Peace’: Hugh O’Neill after Kinsale, 216, 278-9; CSP Ire. 1606-8, p. 490.

In 1610 letters patent were issued confirming Clanricarde’s title to his Irish estates.44 CPR Ire. Jas. I, 173-6. Clanricarde was not satisfied with this, however, as he wished the same security of tenure to be afforded to his Irish neighbours in order to prevent any large-scale confiscation of land for distribution among English or Scottish settlers. In 1615, almost certainly at Clanricarde’s behest, the king issued a warrant authorizing the inhabitants of Connaught to receive confirmation of their lands. On returning to Ireland the following year, Clanricarde therefore announced that the plantations would not be extended to Connaught, a promise which reportedly caused the people to ‘flock to him’.45 Cunningham, ‘From Warlords to Landlords’, 118-19; ‘Matthew de Renzy’s Letters on Irish Affairs 1613-60’, p. 125. This concession, extracted from the crown, was a considerable achievement, but it was evidently also the limit of Clanricarde’s political ambitions, and, having apparently secured the property rights of himself and his neighbours, the earl sold the presidency of Connaught later that year to Sir Charles Wilmot^‡.46 CSP Ire. 1669-70, p. 420. Nevertheless, Clanricarde did not lose all interest in his native country. On surrendering the presidency he was appointed lord lieutenant of county Galway, where most of his estates were concentrated and which was exempt from Wilmot’s authority. He also built himself a large new house at Portumna, in the same county, at a cost of £10,000. The construction of this house, which he may never have used, suggests that Clanricarde’s oft repeated assertion that he intended to return to Ireland was sincere.47 B. Cunningham, ‘Richard Burke (c.1572-1635) and the lordship of Clanricard’, Clanricard’s Castle, 42; J. Fenlon, ‘Portumna: a great, many-windowed and gabled House’, idem, 49

Clanricarde’s efforts to fight the extension of the plantations were never entirely successful. Before he left England in 1616, the earl had petitioned the king on behalf of Brian O’Rourke, whose wardship Clanricarde had purchased in 1607. In response, James I ordered that O’Rourke’s title to his lands should not be challenged during his minority, which Clanricarde probably hoped would prevent the plantation of country Leitrim, where O’Rourke was the principal landowner and which was the part of Connaught bordering on the recently planted Ulster. However, by the following November, O’Rourke’s legitimacy had been called into question, and the English Privy Council was discussing planting the county if the king’s title to his lands could be established. By 1619 O’Rourke had been formally declared illegitimate, and Clanricarde had to accept the promise of £1,500 in compensation for his losses, which money appears never to have been paid. Perhaps to save face, Clanricarde subsequently claimed that he had voluntarily surrendered the wardship to facilitate the plantation.48 APC. 1615-16, p. 594; 1616-17, p. 66; CSP Ire. 1606-8, p. 253; 1625-32, p. 147; 1633-47, p. 101; A. Laurence, ‘Cradle to the Grave: English Observations of Irish Social Customs in the Seventeenth Century’, The Seventeenth Century, iii. 70; ‘Clanricard Letters’, 169; V. Treadwell, Buckingham and Ire. 1616-28, pp. 140-1.

Outside the upper reaches of English society, Clanricarde’s Catholic faith made him an object of suspicion. He and his wife were presented for recusancy at the Kent assizes in 1613, and only an order from the king halted the prosecution.49 Cal. Assize Recs. Kent Indictments, Jas. I ed. J.S. Cockburn, 127. Later that year it was reported in Catholic circles that his arms had been confiscated, and that as a result he had died from ‘the disgrace and sorrow’.50 Newsletters from the Archpresbyterate of George Birkhead ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xii), 211, n.1029. James may have been particularly keen for Clanricarde to remain peacefully in Kent in 1613, as the Irish Parliament was due to meet that year. Sir George Carew, now Lord Carew, advised that Catholic peers like Clanricarde should be instructed to absent themselves and give their proxies to Protestants. He suspected that Clanricarde had no wish to attend anyway, but the earl might have been more inclined to do so if religious persecution in England had encouraged him to return to Ireland.51 CSP Carew, 1603-24, pp. 147-8; Cunningham, ‘From Warlords to Landlords’, 100; idem, Clanricard and Thomond, 36.

Clanricarde was again presented for recusancy in 1617, this time at Kent’s quarter sessions, but there is no evidence that this prosecution was any more successful than the last.52 Kent Hist. and Lib. Cent. QM/SI/1617/3. In 1619 there were rumours of a Catholic plot to seize Ireland, and that Clanricarde ‘had been declared a traitor’.53 Add. 72253, f. 23v. Popular hostility against Clanricarde manifested itself again in early 1624, when the proposed Spanish Match created a wave of anti-popish feeling. At Winchelsea the good name of Sir Alexander Temple^‡, one of the candidates for election to the Commons in that year, was blackened by a false report that he was connected to the earl, who was described by the mayor as ‘an arch-papist, …, who had in his house armour enough for a whole army of men’.54 J. Glanville, Reps. of Certain Cases Determined and Adjudged by Commons in Parl. (1775), 16. When the mayor’s words were reported to the lower House on 18 Mar. the Speaker, Sir Thomas Crewe^‡, recalled the earl’s loyal service at Kinsale, whereupon Sir Robert Phelips^‡ replied that the mayor should not be punished, as Clanricarde, ‘had honour enough, to have such a signification of his worth, and merit in this House’.55 Holles 1624, p. 39.

Joining the English peerage, 1624-8

The hostility Clanricarde faced as a Catholic may explain why he began to seek the protection afforded by an English peerage. Writing to his agent in Ireland, Sir Henry Lynch, in October 1623, he stated that he had been ‘advised by divers friends’ to secure ‘a title here for privileges and other many reasons’, adding that ‘an English title is held no small matter, specially for an Irish birth’. He did not covet anything more than a viscountcy as he had no wish to incur ‘the dislike or envy of earls of Scotland or Ireland’ whose titles were more senior than his own and who would still outrank him when they visited England. He foresaw that acquiring a peerage would be ‘difficult’, but he assured Lynch that this problem could be overcome by resort to ‘the common custom’, presumably a euphemism for purchase. His willingness to part with cash suggests that he was eager to buy goodwill in government circles to help safeguard his position. Indeed, this may have constituted the ‘other reasons’ he mentioned for seeking a title.56 ‘Clanricard Letters’, 181.

It was therefore presumably by purchase that Clanricarde was created Viscount Tunbridge on 3 Apr. 1624. As the fourth Jacobean Parliament was still in session, he was issued with a writ of summons two days later.57 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/2, f. 56; C218/1/18. The writ survives in the Parliamentary Archives but is now illegible. It is dated 1 Apr. in HMC 3rd Rep. 29, but it is unlikely to have been issued before the patent of creation. Formally introduced to the upper House on 20 Apr. by his stepson, Essex, and by Essex’s great-uncle, William Knollys^*, Viscount Wallingford (later earl of Banbury), husband to the niece of Clanricarde’s old patron, Northampton,58 LJ, iii. 313a. he was subsequently recorded as attending just eight of the remaining 44 sittings of the Parliament. This infrequent attendance appears to have enabled him to avoid taking the oath of allegiance. He seems to have wanted to bestow his proxy on another peer, as he evidently approached the assistant clerk to provide him with one. No such proxy was ever issued, however, as the right to bestow a proxy was granted by the king, not by the clerk or his assistants.59 PA, HL/PO/JO/5/1/3, f. 81v. Clanricarde left no further trace on the records of this Parliament.

Under pressure from Parliament, James I broke off the negotiations he had been conducting with Spain to secure a wife for his son and began preparing instead for a war to recover the Palatinate, his son-in-law’s German principality, invaded by Spanish and Bavarian troops in 1620. Clanricarde, who had fought the Spanish at Kinsale, had long believed that renewed war with Spain would create dangers in Ireland - in 1608 he had told Salisbury that the Irish were no threat without Spanish assistance - and so may have favoured the Spanish Match.60 SP63/225/265. The latter also held out the prospect of religious toleration and his own advancement: in 1622 he had been proposed as one of two prominent Catholics who would join the Privy Council if the Match were successful, to look after the interest of his co-religionists, although he was not one of the candidates preferred by England’s underground Catholic hierarchy.61 Stuart Dynastic Policy and Religious Pols. 1621-5, p. 155, n. 137. Nevertheless, his priority was probably to demonstrate his continuing loyalty to the English crown, whatever the circumstances, rather than to advocate a pro-Spanish foreign policy.62 Newsletters from the Caroline Ct. ed. M.C. Questier (Cam. Soc. ser. 5 xxvi), 86, n. 235. On 7 Mar. 1624 he wrote to his deputies in county Galway ordering them to strengthen the local defences, ‘since by all apparent likelihood we shall have war with Spain, and then it is much to be doubted there are many discontented persons will show themselves’ in Ireland.63 ‘Clanricard Letters’, 174.

Deteriorating relations with Spain prompted an increase in anti-popery in England, and, on 2 Mar. 1625, Clanricarde was once again indicted for recusancy, this time at the Maidstone assizes.64 Cal. Assize Recs. Kent Indictments, Jas. I, 168. However, he was apparently not made aware of this for several months. Sixteen days later, he signed the proclamation announcing the accession of Charles I.65 SP16/4/63; APC, 1625-6, p. 5. Clanricarde was keen to ingratiate himself with the new monarch, as he had recently heard that a plantation in Connaught was under serious consideration in Dublin, and was alarmed by suggestions that he himself was involved in this scheme, which he described as ‘a most abominable and wicked invention’. Although there were no immediate plans to proceed with this plantation in Galway, Clanricarde was not deceived into thinking that his native county would be permanently exempted, and, indeed, the lord deputy, Henry Carey^‡, 1st Viscount Falkland [S], was hoping that royal pressure would eventually enable the plantation to be extended there. Clanricarde therefore lobbied both Charles and the royal favourite, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham. As a result, Charles agreed that the plantation would be suspended until he was ‘thoroughly informed of the true state of all’.66 ‘Clanricard Letters’, 179-80, 186; Treadwell, 269; Bodl., Carte 30, f. 211. It may have been with the intention of furthering this suit that Clanricarde accompanied the king to Dover at the end of May to greet the newly arrived Henrietta Maria, as he was not among those summoned to do so. He was probably also keen to associate himself with the new queen, a potential new Catholic centre of influence. Falkland was still hoping to proceed with the plantation in the autumn but he subsequently had to abandon the project.67 HMC 3rd Rep. 326; ‘Clanricard Letters’, 185; Bodl., Carte 30, f. 211.

Clanricarde is recorded as having attended only the first day of the 1625 Parliament (18 June), and was listed as having leave of absence at the call of the House five days later. It is unlikely that he ever intended to be present at more than the preliminary sittings, as to do so would have required taking the oath of allegiance, but in point of fact his absence was due to having ‘fallen … extreme sick’. He granted his proxy to Buckingham, the value of whose favour was demonstrated shortly thereafter, when Clanricarde learned about his indictment for recusancy. As Clanricarde was too unwell to write, it was left to his wife Frances to appeal to Buckingham, on 16 July. Unless the proceedings were stopped, she warned, her husband would be formally convicted at the next assizes, which were due to start in four days’ time. She also alleged that the indictment contravened parliamentary privilege, as the last Jacobean Parliament had been due to reassemble in ten or 12 days. (In fact it had been due to meet 13 days later, on 15 March.) Frances was not alone in appealing for assistance, as Clanricarde’s son, Ulick, sought the help of his brother-in-law, Spencer Compton*, Lord Compton (later 2nd earl of Northampton), to whom he sent a copy of his mother’s letter. Compton was a courtier and closely connected with Buckingham: his uncle, Sir Thomas Compton, was the duke’s stepfather and he himself had married Buckingham’s first cousin. This lobbying campaign was successful, for on 17 July Charles granted Clanricarde immunity from prosecution for recusancy.68 Procs. 1625, pp. 48, 591; SP16/4/63-4; CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 62-3.

In late October 1625, amid rumours that the Spanish would shortly attack Ireland, Clanricarde was summoned to attend the king and Privy Council, who intended to send him back to the land of his birth to keep ‘the natives’ in order ‘with his countenance’, and to ‘assist with his counsels and with his action[s] in the deliberations and accidents of the war, and civil government’. By 4 Nov. it was widely reported that he would soon depart, but a paper, possibly drafted by Secretary of State Lord Conway (Edward Conway^*, subsequently 1st Viscount Conway), raised certain ‘cautions’. What post could be given to Clanricarde, it was asked, which would be commensurate with his eminence but not overshadow the lord deputy? Moreover, ‘his religion considered’, how could it be ensured that he would not favour Catholics, who might thereby be ‘too much puffed up: those of the [Protestant] religion discouraged, and opinion raised that religion is neglected for civil uses sake’? These issues evidently proved insuperable, and Clanricarde remained in England.69 CSP Dom. 1625-6, pp. 133, 143-4; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, v. 441; SP63/241/143.

Clanricarde was present at Charles’s coronation on 2 Feb. 1626, but shortly thereafter he received licence to be absent from the forthcoming second Caroline Parliament.70 SP16/20/8. His leave of absence is dated 8 Feb. in the signet office book, but the secretary of state’s docquet is dated 14 Feb.: SO3/8, unfol. (8 Feb. 1626); CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 561. He initially reappointed Buckingham as his proxy, but, after the Lords decided to limit the number of proxies enjoyed by any one peer in future, he transferred his voice to the duke’s father-in-law, Francis Manners^*, 6th earl of Rutland, a Catholic who had succeeded the countess of Clanricarde’s son-in-law in 1612.71 Procs. 1626, iv. 10, 12. Clanricarde left no further trace on the records of the Parliament.

In the summer of 1626 Clanricarde petitioned the king for payment of money owed to him by the crown. He also sought permission to import corn and cattle, which he received in kind for his rents in Ireland, for sale in England in order to pay his household costs.72 CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 147-8. There is no evidence he was successful, but his suit probably made him loath to upset the king by refusing the Forced Loan, which he paid on 20 November.73 E401/1386, rot. 30.

Clanricarde may nevertheless have harboured doubts about this unparliamentary levy, as he had opposed similar proposals in Ireland. Since the outbreak of the war the army in Ireland had been expanded without adequate financing, and, consequently, billeting and extraordinary levies had become increasingly burdensome. Over the summer of 1626 Clanricarde became involved in negotiations between the Privy Council and two prominent members of the Old English community in Ireland, Sir John Bath and Richard Nugent, 1st earl of Westmeath [I], to raise money for the army in return for a settlement of Irish grievances. In September Charles announced he was willing to make a series of concessions, including confirmation of the 1615 Connaught land settlement, but in return he expected the Irish nobility to agree to an unparliamentary levy to pay for the expanded army. Clanricarde, drawn into the negotiations by ‘his Majesty’s directions to show what I thought best for his service and the preservation of the country’, thought the proposed levy for the army had been ‘thrust in by some for the overthrow of all’. He therefore ‘purpose[d] never to meddle therein any more, having fully declared the impossibility of effecting any such thing’. He believed the defence of Ireland could be improved ‘without any charge to the country’, and apparently proposed the establishment of a militia in Ireland as an alternative to the expansion of the army. However, English-style trained bands, commanded by an English-style lieutenancy, were unacceptable to the Dublin regime, as it would place Ireland’s defences in the hands of its nobility, most of whom, like the earl, were Catholics. Yet, as Clanricarde had predicted, the alternative scheme – raising more money to pay the regular army - foundered on Irish opposition to paying additional, unparliamentary, levies.74 A. Clarke, Old English in Ire., 1625-42, pp. 36-7; idem, ‘Army and Pols, in Ire.’, Studia Hibernica, iv. 30, 37-8; CSP Ire. 1625-32, pp. 144-5; ‘Clanricard Letters’, 200.

Clanricarde failed to attend the 1628 session of the third Caroline Parliament. When the upper House was called, on 22 Mar., the Lords were informed that he was staying away because of an outbreak of smallpox at his home. This may have been true, but the earl was doubtless happy to absent himself in order to avoid taking the oath of allegiance. The following month he was granted a dispensation from attending and gave his proxy to his daughter-in-law’s father, William Compton^*, 1st earl of Northampton.75 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 27, 87; SO3/9, unfol. (Apr. 1628). During the session negotiations took place between a committee of the Privy Council on the one hand and a delegation from Ireland on the other over a renewed attempt to raise money from the Irish in return for concessions. The resulting ‘Graces’, agreed at the end of May, included a promise of statutory confirmation of the Connaught landowners’ titles to their properties. As the Irish delegation included his agent, Lynch, Clanricarde may have exercised some influence behind the scenes.76 Clarke, Old English in Ire. 46-7, 53.

In August 1628, on the very day that Buckingham was assassinated (an event he described as ‘most barbarous’), Clanricarde became an English earl, taking the title of St Albans, although he had no known connection with that town. His acceptance of this honour contradicted his previously stated lack of interest in an English title higher than a viscountcy. The offer had come about because he had let slip, while trying to ensure that no-one else acquired the title Viscount Galway (which he thought would diminish his local standing given that he was the county’s lord lieutenant), that he wished to acquire a title of ‘consequence for me’. This was interpreted as a sign that he was interested in obtaining an English earldom, for which a much higher price could be demanded than for an Irish viscountcy. Thereupon he was presented with a warrant for a patent creating him Viscount Galway and advancing him to an English earldom, but ‘with a blank’ space left for him to supply the title. According to the account he later gave to Lynch, Clanricarde accepted this offer after some hesitation. ‘Though these things have been somewhat unseasonable’, he declared, ‘yet it is a great work’, which he hoped ‘will prosper well and set my house in a fairer settled course hereafter’.77 ‘Clanricard Letters’, 171-2, 181, 189-90.

Clanricarde’s reluctance to purchase an English earldom probably reflected that fact that his finances were under considerable strain. The combined cost of building Somerhill and Portumna, in addition to the purchase of the Tunbridge title, had been considerable, and as result he had accumulated substantial debts. By May 1628 he was already contemplating either selling or mortgaging part of his Irish estates to raise £4,000. In the event he managed to borrow the money on the security of his parsonages and vicarages. Although he frequently complained of his debts, his financial difficulties never resulted in a serious crisis in his lifetime.78 Cunningham, Clanricard and Thomond, 54; ‘Clanricard Letters’, 190, 192; Strafforde Letters, i. 299.

Final years, 1629-36

Clanricarde attended ten of the 23 sittings of the 1629 session, 43 per cent of the total, including the first day of the session (20 Jan.), when he was not marked as present but was introduced in his new rank as an earl. He play no further recorded part in the proceedings of Parliament.79 LJ, iv. 6a. The Irish Parliament, which Charles had promised to summon to confirm the Graces, failed to materialize, although the taxes which had been agreed in return for the concessions were collected nonetheless. This evidently angered Clanricarde, and when Viscount Wentworth (Thomas Wentworth^*, later 1st earl of Strafford) went to see him shortly before taking up the post of lord deputy in 1633, he rejected Wentworth’s proposal to continue the levy at a reduced rate. This rebuff incensed Wentworth, who declined to acknowledge Clanricarde’s English ancestry, but classed him instead with the native Irish.80 Clarke, Old English in Ire. 97; Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP9, pp. 75-6; 11(B), p. 217. In Ireland Wentworth attacked the earl for having ‘engrossed’ ecclesiastical revenues and for neglecting his infantry company, which he said consisted entirely of Catholics. Clanricarde responded by restoring land to the Church and obtaining an order from Charles reinstating his pay as captain, which Wentworth had suspended.81 Strafforde Letters, i. 299, 308-9; HMC Var. ii. 292; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 105.

The Irish Parliament was finally summoned in 1634. Clanricarde was excused from attending, and appointed as his proxy his nephew, Thomas Bourke, 2nd Viscount Bourke, of Clanmories [I]. Several prominent Members of the Commons were closely connected to Clanricarde, including Lynch, but they and other Old English Members were disappointed by the assembly, as Wentworth only agreed to statutory confirmation of ten of the 51 Graces, specifically rejecting those which would have given Connaught’s landowners security of tenure in order to leave the path clear for the plantation of that province. It is likely that Lynch and other members of the Clanricarde affinity responded by joining the opposition to the lord deputy’s legislative programme, and this in turn may have made Wentworth determined to destroy Clanricarde’s powerbase. This might explain why Wentworth’s proposal for planting Connaught, unlike that of the 1620s, included county Galway. However, the previous exclusion of Galway had only ever been a temporary tactical ruse, and one which Wentworth may well have concluded was pointless since it had failed to assuage Clanricarde.82 CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 55; LJ[I], i. 19; Clarke, Old English in Ire. 83-4, 87-9; H. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. (1989), 61-4, 89-90; Strafforde Letters, i. 320-1.

In 1635 the lord deputy formally reopened the question of land tenure in Connaught with the intention of commencing a plantation there. Wentworth undoubtedly recognized that opposition from Clanricarde at court in England was the most dangerous threat to the project and was therefore determined to paint the earl as an over-mighty subject who needed to be deprived of his estates in order to break his power. Writing to the king on 24 Aug. from the earl’s house at Portumna, he wrote that the plantation ‘will, in the person of my lord of Clanricarde, make an end of all Irish dependencies, being now the only one considerable left amongst them: which undoubtedly hath been in the ages before us a strong and forcible means of many great disservices to the crown of England’. However, in order for the plantation to proceed a jury had to find that the land concerned lawfully belonged to the king. In most of the counties of Connaught the juries complied with Wentworth’s wishes, but the Galway jury refused to find for the crown. The lord deputy attributed this to a conspiracy by Clanricarde, or at least by his family and servants, and saw in it further evidence of the earl’s excessive power.83 Strafforde Letters, i. 450-2; Kearney, 88, 90-91.

In England Clanricarde’s son, Ulick, fought a vigorous rearguard action. He went to court to protest against Wentworth’s actions and spread rumours about the lord deputy’s arrogant behaviour at Portumna. There, it was alleged, Wentworth’s conduct had included the ‘scornful casting himself in his riding boots upon very rich beds, the slaughter of the deer, … his horses turned in the best meadows’ and ‘havoc made of everything’.84 Strafforde Letters, i. 476; ‘A Discourse Between Two Councillors of State’ ed. A. Clarke Analecta Hibernica, xvi. 170. On 29 Oct. 1635 Ulick wrote to the chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Cottington (Francis Cottington^†), claiming that Clanricarde was ‘very much grieved’ at his treatment and by the fact that his son’s efforts ‘hath wrought no better success … which lighting upon a body much weakened with sickness I cannot but expect a sad event’. He drew attention to Clanricarde’s military record, ostentatiously declaring that he would not ‘make particular mention of my father’s services and fast fidelity in times of greatest danger, the good and preservation [of royal authority] having from his infancy been the chief end and aim of all his actions’.85 SP16/300/57.

Clanricarde died at his home in Somerhill on 12 Nov. 1635. The following day Ulick, still signing himself with his courtesy title, complained to Secretary of State Sir Francis Windebank^‡ that the ‘business of Galway … doth so much reflect upon the honour of my deceased father’.86 SP16/301/80. In fact, though Ulick would never admit it, Wentworth had a good case in law. Wentworth argued that Clanricarde’s 1610 letters patent and the 1615 land settlement were invalid because they had been predicated on an Elizabethan agreement that gave the landowners of Connaught security of tenure in return for a regular system of land taxation. As Wentworth observed, this agreement had never been kept. He therefore claimed that the earl’s land rightfully belonged to the king as heir to William de Burgh, 3rd earl of Ulster. Despite the validity of Wentworth’s case, it was widely reported in England that the lord deputy’s actions had hastened Clanricarde’s death. Clanricarde became an exemplar of loyalty betrayed, which horrified many, including Henry Danvers*, earl of Danby, and George Manners^†, 7th earl of Rutland, and helped seal Wentworth’s reputation for tyranny.87 Strafforde Letters, i. 454-8, 492; Cunningham, Clanricard and Thomond, 57, 60; Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP15/261, 279; HMC Rutland, i. 509.

Clanricarde was buried at Tonbridge on 24 November.88 Kent. Hist. and Lib. Cent., Tonbridge par. reg. His will, made a week before his death, instructed his executors, headed by his son Ulick, to make personal bequests in accordance with an attached schedule. However, this was omitted when the will was proved on 15 Dec., perhaps to protect the identity of any Catholic priests.89 PROB 11/169, ff. 291v-2. Clanricarde was heavily in debt at the time of his death. In October 1636, his heir estimated the combined total of his own and Clanricarde’s liabilities at over £25,000. Nevertheless, the Clanricarde lands, which Ulick succeeded in getting exempted from the plantation in 1639, still constituted the second largest noble estate in Ireland, totalling over 150,000 acres.90 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP16/70; Kearney, 102; J. Ohlmeyer, Making Ire. English, 88.