ST JOHN, Oliver Nicholas (c.1559-1630)

A younger son and member of a long established Wiltshire family, St John (whose funeral monument indicates that he was christened Oliver Nicholas) pursued a military career under Elizabeth. Helped by his kinsman Charles Blount^*, 8th Lord Mountjoy, the late Elizabethan lord deputy of Ireland, he prospered. In 1604 he was returned to the Commons for Portsmouth thanks to Mountjoy, the town’s governor and now earl of Devonshire. The following year Devonshire appointed him to the Irish Privy Council and the mastership of the Irish Ordnance Office. However, in November 1606 St John was discharged from the Commons after the latter’s privileges committee ruled that the mastership was incompatible with continued membership of the lower House.

Irish politics, 1606-16

The death of Devonshire in April 1606 made little appreciable difference to St John, who soon became one of the most trusted lieutenants of the new lord deputy, Sir Arthur Chichester. On suspecting in 1607 that the Catholic earl of Tyrone [I] was dabbling in treason, Chichester contemplated enlisting the assistance of four gentlemen ‘wise in observation, quick in execution’, among them St John.46 J. McCavitt, Sir Arthur Chichester, 85. The following year, in the aftermath of O’Doherty’s failed rebellion, Chichester sent St John to London for six months to help make arrangements for the plantation of Ulster.47 R. Bagwell, Ire. under the Stuarts, i. 71; CPR Ire. Jas. I, 123. In 1610 Chichester turned to St John after becoming dissatisfied with the lord president of Connaught, Richard Bourke^*, 4th earl of Clanricarde (later 1st earl of St Albans), who was often absent in England. By the middle of the following month he had persuaded Clanricarde to appoint St John as his vice president,48 McCavitt, 107. which office was then vacant. St John, though he remained master of the Irish Ordnance Office, enthusiastically took up his new duties. However, he soon grew critical of Chichester for allowing government officials to profit heavily from the discovery of ‘concealed lands’ – lands to which the crown had ancient title that had been forgotten - and in May 1611 he sent a detailed report on the extent of the practice in Connaught to the king’s chief minister, Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury.49 CSP Ire. 1611-14, p. 46; V. Rutledge, ‘Court-Castle Faction and the Irish Viceroyalty: the Appointment of Oliver St John as Ld. Dep. of Ire. in 1616’, Irish Historical Studs. xxvi. 245; Dict. of Irish Biog. viii. 724.

As vice president of Connaught, St John was probably based at Roscommon Castle, the seat of the province’s government under Elizabeth. This might explain why, in October 1612, Chichester incorporated the small town of Roscommon and appointed St John as one of its burgesses. It would also explain why, the following year, St John was returned to the Irish Parliament as senior knight for county Roscommon.

St John played an unexpectedly crucial role when the Irish Parliament opened on 18 May 1613. To ensure a Protestant majority in the House of Commons, the king, James I, had created 39 new constituencies. However, the legitimacy of both the new representatives and various non-resident Members was immediately challenged by the Waterford MP Sir James Gough. When a majority in the lower House proceeded to acclaim as their Speaker the Irish attorney general, Sir John Davies^‡, Gough announced that the election of a Speaker should be deferred until the membership question had been settled. St John, who had sat in both the 1593 Parliament as well as the first Jacobean assembly, replied that ‘ by his experience he knew the course to be, that first a Speaker should be chosen, and afterwards the House should nominate a select number of committees to examine all questions arising upon returns of sheriffs’. Although he conceded that it was reasonable to insist that the status of the Members for the newly enfranchised boroughs be examined, he argued that Gough should have made his demand ‘in due time’. This speech naturally displeased Gough and his fellow Catholics, whose best hope of electing their own nominee as Speaker - Sir John Everard – depended upon expelling those whose returns they regarded as illegitimate. However, they were forced to agree to a division. During the course of this vote, Davies’ supporters left the chamber to be numbered, leaving the Catholic Members behind. The situation thereby created was too good to miss, and not surprisingly the Gough and his fellow Catholic Members proceeded to place Everard in the chair. When Everard refused to vacate, even after Davies sat in his lap, St John, aided by others, plucked him ‘gently’ from his seat, to the dismay of the Catholics, who walked out in protest.50 CSP Ire. 1611-14, pp. 401-4; Bagwell, i. 112-13.

In the aftermath of this episode, Chichester, now Lord Chichester of Belfast [I]), not surprisingly upheld the election of Davies, whereupon the Catholic Members dispatched a delegation to London to represent their grievances. Chichester responded in kind, sending St John and two other senior members of the Irish administration to explain to the king that the Catholic Members, many of them former rebel leaders, had been ‘elected upon a general combination and practice of Jesuits and priests’.51 HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, ii. 124; Bagwell, i. 116; Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica (1772) ed. J. Lodge, i. 208-9. St John and his colleagues arrived at court on 7 June, but the former, aware perhaps that James had recently contemplated replacing Chichester, also tried to persuade the king to entrust the Irish government to him.52 HMC Downshire, iv. 129; HMC Hastings, iv. 10; CCSP, i. 6. See also the discussion in McCavitt, 210-11, which overlooks the role played by St John.

St John’s attempt to topple Chichester was symptomatic of a sharp decline in relations between the two men. Chichester resented St John’s criticism of his administration of Irish land, and characterized St John as an enemy to the policy of planting Protestant settlers.53 CSP Carew, 1603-24, p. 331. This charge was entirely groundless, as St John took his duties as a planter seriously. At Ballymore in county Armagh, where the king had granted him 1,500 acres, he quickly built a castle, a brick church and a timber thatched house. (He later claimed that in the church ‘divine service and preaching’ were ‘continually exercised by a learned man, frequented by a good congregation’).54 CPR Ire. Jas. I, 190; CP and CR Ire. 1625-33, pp. 554-5; CSP Ire. 1611-14, p. 130; HMC Hastings, iv. 176. However, it suited Chichester’s purposes to confuse St John’s opposition to the traffic in land by Irish government officials with opposition to the policy of plantation.

St John remained in England for more than a year, during which time he provided the king and English Privy Council with advice on the Irish Parliament, which now stood prorogued. He remained eager for further advancement and in August 1614 he asked his new patron, Secretary of State Sir Ralph Winwood^‡, to help him obtain the lord presidency of Connaught, Clanricarde having made it clear that he intended to relinquish the post.55 CSP Ire. 1611-14, p. 498. Perhaps in anticipation of this appointment he resigned from the mastership of the Ordnance in December, although he himself explained this surrender as the result of heavy financial losses.56 Ibid. 532; 1615-25, p. 17; Dict. Irish Biog. viii. 725. In the event Winwood proved unable to oblige St John, for in 1615 Clanricarde sold his office to Sir Charles Wilmot^‡.

St John returned to Ireland in early September 1614, just as the Irish administration was attempting to levy a benevolence. He foresaw little chance of success, as Ireland’s Catholics, being in the majority, were unwilling to contribute unless granted concessions, which, he observed, were likely to be obtained only in Parliament. His reasoning proved sound. When Parliament reconvened in mid October, Catholic Members offered a subsidy in return for the redress of their grievances. Reluctantly, the king was forced to abandon the desired benevolence and send over the required subsidy bill. This measure arrived too late to be enacted, the assembly being prorogued on 29 Nov., but St John was not convinced that it would have passed even had it reached Dublin sooner, because the Catholics had demanded the suspension of the penal laws, and because the administration had repeatedly failed to muster a majority in the Commons. Catholic Members were so assiduous in their attendance, he complained, that they frequently outnumbered their Protestant rivals. Under these circumstances, he advised that it would be better to dissolve Parliament and defer the business of supply to a later time.57 CSP Ire. 1611-14, pp. 510, 527, 530-1; McCavitt, 197, 199.

In the event, St John’s pessimism proved to be ill founded, as the following spring the Irish Parliament voted the desired subsidy without difficulty. This was primarily because of the recent discovery of a plot to overthrow the Ulster plantation and rescue the son of Tyrone. Whether this conspiracy was genuine or concocted by the Irish administration is open to question, but St John at least seems not to have doubted its existence.58 McCavitt, 201-2. St John subsequently returned to England, where in mid October he was instructed to convey the disgraced former royal favourite, Robert Carr^*, earl of Somerset, into the hands of the dean of Westminster. He evidently envisaged remaining in the capital on a permanent basis, for later that month Winwood tried unsuccessfully to secure for him appointment as lieutenant of the Tower of London.59 CSP Ire. 1615-25, p. 94.

For St John, Winwood’s failure to secure for him command of the Tower proved to be a blessing in disguise, as the promotion he had long coveted soon beckoned. For some time Winwood and several other members of the English Privy Council had been trying to discredit Lord Deputy Chichester by complaining about the excessive cost of Ireland to the Exchequer. The reason was primarily rooted in faction: Chichester was a client of the Howard family the dominant interest at court, whereas Winwood was a leading member of the anti-Howard faction. The fall of Somerset, son-in-law of Thomas Howard^*, 1st earl of Suffolk, left Chichester dangerously exposed, as did a bout of chronic ill health, and in November 1615 he was dismissed from office.60 McCavitt, 208-12. Having previously tried to topple the lord deputy, St John was only too eager to step into his shoes. Doubtless with the approval of Winwood, he turned for assistance to his kinsman by marriage, the new royal favourite, Sir George Villiers^* (later 1st duke of Buckingham). Early in April 1616 Villiers persuaded the king to announce him as Chichester’s successor, to the chagrin of several other members of the Privy Council, who were not consulted.61 Chamberlain Letters, i. 620; HMC Downshire, v. 465; CSP Dom. 1611-18, pp. 360, 361; McCavitt, 220.

Lord deputy, 1616-22

The new lord deputy was formally appointed on 2 July. He left for Ireland on 6 Aug., received the white staff from his predecessor on the 26th, and was invested with the sword of office on the 30th.62 CSP Ire. 1615-25, pp. 128, 134; Carew Letters ed. J. Maclean (Cam. Soc. lxxvi), 40; Liber Munerum Publicorum Hiberniae, i. (pt. 2), 6. His first priority, according to his instructions, was ‘to look into matters of religion, and to establish so good a reglement in the Church, that almighty God may be better served, by the planting of true religion, than now he is’. Accordingly, he was to investigate the state of Church livings and see how they can be improved so that Ireland might be furnished with able ministers. However, he was also required to reduce expenditure, increase revenue and continue the plantations of Ulster and county Wexford.63 Add. 4756, ff. 134-6.

St John was not a popular choice as lord deputy among Ireland’s ruling elite. Although few doubted his competence, his relatively lowly background – a second son of a cadet branch of his family – was interpreted as an insult.64 Chamberlain Letters, i. 620. Moreover, his previous criticism of the trafficking of land by Dublin officials made him an object of suspicion.65 Rutledge, 247. To make matters worse, his predecessor did not return to England on his dismissal, having been appointed lord treasurer of Ireland. Resentful of his loss of power, Chichester soon started complaining to Lord Carew (George Carew^*, later earl of Totness), his friend in England, that St John was ignoring his advice.66 CSP Carew,1603-24, pp. 326 (miscalendared), 331.

Despite these difficulties, St John immediately set to work. He began with the principal citizens of Dublin, imprisoning and disfranchising those who refused to take the oath of allegiance and clamping down hard on recusancy, imposing fines on an unprecedented scale. However, it soon became clear that he had bitten off more than he could chew, as the prisons soon became overcrowded, while many magistrates refused to cooperate.67 CSP Ire. 1615-25, p. 134; Carew Letters, 67; CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 427; Dict. Irish Biog. viii. 725. Before long, his zealousness began to cause anxiety back in England. The lord keeper, Sir Francis Bacon^* (later Viscount St Alban), who had warmly approved of St John’s appointment, obliquely criticized the lord deputy in 1617, when he warned the new lord chief justice of Ireland, Sir William Jones^‡, to employ ‘due temperance and equality in matters of religion, lest Ireland civil become more dangerous to us than Ireland savage’. Only as an afterthought did he observe that St John ‘is a man ordained of God to do great good to that kingdom’.68 Letters and Life of Francis Bacon ed. J. Spedding, v. 375; vi. 206-7. However, St John did not share Bacon’s timid outlook, and adopted a characteristically forceful approach to the continued plantation of county Wexford, imprisoning any who objected.69 Dict. Irish Biog. viii. 725.

Aside from seeking to advance the Protestant religion, St John also hoped to improve the economic and financial lot of the Irish as a whole. As early as 1614 he had urged the English government to permit Irish cattle and corn to be exported to England, on the grounds that increased prosperity would result in greater loyalty (‘civility’).70 CSP Ire. 1611-14, p. 502. Now, in 1617, he suggested curbing the rates charged by moneylenders, who commonly demanded 30 or 40 per cent, on the grounds that ‘usury is grown to that height of mischief in this kingdom as it hath almost ruined the states of very many poor men’. His proposals were warmly approved by England’s chief law officers, who offered only minor amendments.71 Add. 4756, f. 150r-v.

During his first two years in office, St John encountered few real problems, despite the zeal with which he enforced the recusancy laws. However, in November 1618 he earned widespread criticism on both sides of the Irish Sea for secretly interrogating his fellow Irish privy councillor, Sir James Hamilton. This criticism was far from justified. St John had been acting on the express instructions of the king, and he himself was appalled at the clandestine nature of Hamilton’s examination, the cause of which remains obscure. Indeed, he protested to Buckingham that in future he hoped that James ‘will be graciously pleased to draw to mine assistance his principal servants and counsellors of this kingdom, and that his warrants and commissions may be open, and the proceedings in them fair and legal’. As matters stood, he had ‘suffered much in the opinion of noble and worthy personages as well in England as here’. Were he required to act in such an underhand fashion again, he warned, he would be ‘cast … into a general hatred, and be made unable to do his Majesty that service in the kingdom which he may expect from an officer employed in so weighty a charge’.72 Fortescue Pprs. ed. S.R. Gardiner (Cam. Soc. n.s. i), 66-7. For a discussion of the possible nature of Hamilton’s offence, see V. Treadwell, Buckingham and Ire. 70, 165-6.

In the short term, St John had nothing to fear. Despite the rumour mill, James had no intention of dismissing a lord deputy for carrying out his own orders.73 For the rumours, see HMC Ancaster, 393; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 193; G. Goodman, Court of Jas. I, ii. 170. Nevertheless, his standing in Ireland had been seriously weakened by the Hamilton incident. In August 1620 he complained to Buckingham that at a recent meeting of the Irish Privy Council he had been interrupted and berated by one of the Council’s most junior members. He demanded that the young man concerned be publicly admonished by the king, for ‘I have found of late a strong combination against me, even among the members of the Council such as seek all occasions, by themselves and their writings, to blemish me in the good opinion of his Majesty, your lordship and the great personages of that state [England]’.74 Fortescue Pprs. 133-4. James sympathized with this complaint, and responded by bolstering the authority of his lord deputy, creating him an Irish viscount in early January 1621. St John chose to be known as Viscount Grandison on the grounds that he was descended from the barons of Grandison, whose (English) title had existed between 1289 and 1375. Over the next few years he tried to reinforce the impression that he was old nobility by having pedigrees drawn up which showed that he was related to almost every major aristocratic family in England.75 Soc. Antiq. ms 405, passim.

Grandison may have hoped that this royal stamp of approval would serve to secure his position. If so he was soon disappointed, for by 1621 there was widespread discontent in Ireland. The fees charged in the courts of justice, for instance, were generally regarded as ‘excessive’, despite official attempts to curb them; and the lottery, established to help fund the Virginia Company, was ‘by general voice … held to be a mere imposture’, having ‘sucked up a great deal of money in this kingdom’. In addition, Ireland’s Catholics resented being prohibited from serving as sheriffs, magistrates or lawyers, and complained that the fines imposed on those who declined to attend the services of the established Church fell hardest on the poor.76 Irish Commission of 1622 ed. V. Treadwell, 5-11. By contrast, many Protestants were alarmed that more had not been done to extinguish popery, and there was resentment that Grandison had deprived some settlers of their arms.77 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Jas. I, ii. 304.

This simmering discontent was increased in March 1621 after the Irish learned that the king had told the English House of Lords that he was willing to suppress certain monopolies that had made him ‘odious to my people’.78 ‘Hastings 1621’, pp. 26-9. Leading Catholics were impressed ‘how sensible his Highness is of anything opposite to the good of his subjects in England’ and how willing James was ‘to amend the same’. A petition listing 32 grievances was subsequently addressed to Grandison in the hope that the royal desire for reform ‘will extend and reach unto us’.79 Irish Commission of 1622, pp. 5-11. However, before he could react to this thinly disguised criticism of his rule, Grandison found himself under attack from another quarter. On 26 Apr. Sir John Jephson^‡, a puritan Member of Parliament with business interests in Ireland, complained to the English House of Commons that the lord deputy and other Protestant settlers had set Ireland’s Catholics such a bad example that it was unlikely that the latter would ever ‘be drawn to the right religion’. He also warned that, despite the policy of plantation, the country remained dangerously unstable, and claimed that monopolies and corruption were as rife in Ireland as they were in England.80 HP Commons 1604-29, iv. 891; CD 1621, iv. 259.

Although the avowed object of these criticisms was Grandison, Jephson’s real target was the latter’s patron, Buckingham. Jephson resented the fact that he was forced to pay fees to one of Buckingham’s clients in order to export Irish timber. His criticisms formed only one part of a wider assault on the friends and clients of Buckingham in the 1621 Parliament. Nevertheless, taken alongside the recent Catholic petition, and the fact that England was contemplating war with Spain (which country had previously exploited Irish discontent), the effect of Jephson’s complaints was to weaken Grandison’s already precarious position. Publicly at least the government defended the lord deputy: on 30 Apr. the master of the Wards, Sir Lionel Cranfield^* (later 1st earl of Middlesex), informed the Commons that Buckingham was already well aware of widespread corruption in Ireland, and that ‘Ireland [was] never in so great prosperity as now’.81 CJ, i. 597b. Privately, however, it was a different story: on 1 May Cranfield ordered an investigation by leading officials in the Irish administration then in London.82 Treadwell, 165; APC, 1621-3, p. 25. By early June it was clear to one observer at least that Grandison’s days were numbered.83 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 380. The subsequent report carefully avoided direct censure of Grandison, but it was suggested that, with respect to his colleagues on the Irish Privy Council, the lord deputy had been too secretive in his dealings with Whitehall.84 Treadwell, 166. Consequently, at the end of July the king agreed to establish a commission of inquiry.85 Goodman, ii. 204.

James went to some pains to reassure Grandison that his reputation remained unblemished. Indeed, he declared that it was a glory to have such a servant. However, by mid October 1621 he had resolved to replace him with Henry Carey^‡, 1st Viscount Falkland [S].86 Irish Commission of 1622, p. 25; HMC 4th Rep. I, 285. He nevertheless declined to humiliate the lord deputy. When, in January 1622, the English Privy Council suggested that Grandison be recalled immediately and an interim administration appointed until Falkland arrived, James angrily refused. He would not disgrace a minister before hearing him in his own defence, he said, nor give the impression that the purpose of the new commission of inquiry was to investigate the lord deputy.87 APC, 1621-3, pp. 120, 127; CSP Ire. 1615-25, pp. 342-3. Grandison himself was no less anxious than James to avoid the latter perception. In February 1622 he demanded the right to veto the commission’s members on the grounds that some of those already appointed were ill affected towards him. He also proposed that anyone who complained against him falsely should be prosecuted for scandalum magnatum.88 Irish Commission of 1622, p. 59. However, there is no evidence that his wishes were granted.

Despite declaring it to be ‘a great and wise work’, Grandison clearly resented the new commission of inquiry, of which he himself was, technically at least, a member. When, on 17 Apr. 1622, his fellow commissioners ordered that the country at large be notified of the purpose of their inquiry, he refused to allow their letter to be distributed, presumably on the grounds that the right to issue proclamations lay exclusively with the lord deputy.89 Treadwell, 199. However, his obstructionism proved to be of short duration, for on 25 Apr. Grandison received the king’s letter revoking his appointment. Nine days later he surrendered his sword of office and returned to England.90 HMC 4th Rep. I, 302; Irish Commission of 1622, p. 204. He later likened his departure to the Israelites leaving Egypt for the Promised Land.91 SP97/9, f. 68.

English politics, 1622-6

Although his period as lord deputy had not been a resounding success, Grandison was treated well by the king, who promised to employ him in other important business.92 Irish Commission of 1622, pp. 210-11. On 28 June he was granted a seat on the English Privy Council, an accolade that the previous lord deputy, Lord Chichester, had yet to achieve. It was widely supposed that this was a prelude to his appointment as comptroller of the household, which office was held by his replacement as lord deputy, Viscount Falkland. However, in August 1622 Falkland sold the comptrollership to Sir John Suckling^‡.93 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 437, 443, 446; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 396; HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 483. Following this setback, Grandison turned his attention to the lucrative position of master of the Court of Wards. Relations between Buckingham and the current master, Lionel Cranfield, now earl of Middlesex, had begun to deteriorate, and by the end of the year it looked as though Middlesex would be forced to relinquish the place. However, early in January 1623 Middlesex and the favourite were reconciled, at least temporarily, thereby dashing Grandison’s hopes yet again.94 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 471; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 81.

Despite his failure to achieve ministerial office, Grandison remained far from idle. His fellow councillors frequently sought his advice on Irish matters, and in March 1623 he was required to help negotiate with the Spanish and Flemish ambassadors over the Rhenish Palatinate.95 CSP Dom. 1619-23, pp. 507, 519. This territory had, until recently, been ruled by James’s son-in-law, the Elector Palatine Frederick V, but was now in Catholic hands, save for the city of Frankenthal, which was held by English volunteers. Many on the Council had long wanted James to take up arms to defend the Palatinate, but it seems unlikely that Grandison shared their view. He had been apprehensive on learning that Frederick had accepted the crown of Bohemia, which act had precipitated the invasion of the Palatinate, and approved, at least initially, of James’s reluctance to commit himself to his son-in-law’s cause. ‘We must not forget’, he wrote to England’s ambassador to The Hague in March 1620, ‘how great expense of blood and treasure this kingdom put the late queen unto for the success she gave to the estates of the United Provinces’.96 Add. 72357, f. 123. Nevertheless, war with Spain for the recovery of the Palatinate was at the top of the political agenda when the English Parliament met in 1624. As an Irish peer, Grandison was ineligible to sit in the House of Lords. However, his previous military experience meant that he was too valuable to ignore, and therefore he was summoned to serve by writ of assistance. On 1 Mar. he and his fellow Irish peer, Lord Chichester, were appointed to attend the Lords’ committee for munitions. The following day, he was nominated to assist a committee that was required to confer with representatives of the Commons.97 LJ, iii. 237b, 242b. The purpose of this conference was to set down reasons that might persuade the king to break off the recent treaty negotiations for a marriage alliance with Spain. (Grandison had played little part in these negotiations himself, though he was one of the signatories to the marriage treaty in July 1623.)98 HMC Hatfield, xxii. 185. His only other appointment of the session was on 7 Apr., when he and Chichester were ordered to assist the committee for the bill to make the kingdom’s arms more serviceable.99 LJ, iii. 293a.

During the course of the session, Grandison wrote twice to his nephew Sir Thomas Roe^‡, England’s ambassador to Constantinople, informing him of developments in Parliament. Although neither letter contains more than a bare summary of events, they do reveal something of their author’s views. The first was written on 4 Mar., after the Parliament had been sitting for less than a fortnight. In it Grandison described the assembly as being ‘of as great [a] consequence’ both for the honour of the king and the preservation of religion ‘as hath been in any Parliament since I was born’. The second letter was composed on 26 Apr., midway through the session. Here Grandison recounted that the treaty negotiations with Spain had been broken off; that Parliament had voted the king three subsidies and three fifteenths; and that military preparations were now in hand. He also mentioned that the lord treasurer, the earl of Middlesex, had been accused of ‘divers heinous complaints’, and that ‘likely he will be quite ruined, which if it be so it will be received with a general and extraordinary applause of all the kingdom’. He himself regarded the prospect of Middlesex’s fall as a ‘happiness’, a term he also used to describe the king’s recent decision, made at the behest of Parliament, to implement the previously suspended penal laws against priests and recusants.100 SP97/10, ff. 22r-v, 61. His animosity towards Middlesex undoubtedly owed much to the fact that, during his time as lord deputy, Ireland had been starved of funds. This ill feeling can only have increased on 12 May, when Middlesex claimed that, in office, Chichester and Grandison had both offered to give him part of the arrears due to the Irish Exchequer in return for payment of the rest. The following day Grandison and Chichester were invited by the Lords to respond to this accusation. Both men denied ever having offered Middlesex a bribe, while Grandison accused Middlesex of having kept Ireland so short of money that its finances were now in deficit.101 LD 1624 and 1626, pp. 85, 87. For Middlesex’s accusation, see LJ, iii. 378b.

Now that James had broken with Spain, war for the recovery of the Palatinate was inevitable. In mid April, while Parliament was sitting, the king established a council of war, to which Grandison, being an experienced soldier, was naturally appointed. However, an argument broke out over whether to accord Grandison precedence over two English peers, Lord Carew and the 1st Lord Brooke (Fulke Greville^*). As it was widely thought that English barons should not play second fiddle to those with ‘foreign’ dignities, Grandison was eventually ranked behind his two colleagues.102 Chamberlain Letters, ii. 558-9. A diligent member of the new council,103 Procs. 1626, ii. 189. Grandison had no illusions about the difficulty of the task at hand. Writing to Roe in August 1624, he remarked that the Spanish army in the Netherlands was ‘the greatest that ever they had’. However, he was well aware that ‘some are over-confident, others over-zealous’.104 SP97/10, f. 96v.

Grandison was among those peers who, on 27 Mar. 1625, signed the proclamation announcing the death of James I and the accession of Charles I (Charles Stuart^*, formerly duke of Cornwall). He was subsequently reappointed to both the English Privy Council and the council of war. At James’s funeral on 1 May, he helped carry the banner of Ireland.105 J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, iv. 1044. When a fresh Parliament met in June, Grandison did not receive a writ of assistance. He was therefore not on hand when, on 1 July, the House of Commons inspected the accounts of the council of war. Instead, he was at Battersea, where he leased a Thames-side manor house from the king. He remained at Battersea when Parliament reconvened at Oxford in August. During this second sitting, one of Grandison’s colleagues on the council of war, Sir Robert Mansell^‡, accused Buckingham in the Commons of ignoring the council’s advice. This charge was rebutted by the solicitor general, Sir Robert Heath^‡, among others, who said that Grandison and Lord Brooke ‘will come down and speak their knowledge to the House, if we please’.106 Procs. 1625, p. 473. In the event, no summons was issued, perhaps because an old infirmity meant that Grandison was temporarily housebound.107 CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 140.

Over the summer of 1625 Grandison was appointed lord treasurer of Ireland in succession to Chichester, who had died in February. The duties involved in this office meant that he was not required to live in Ireland. The following December a fresh Parliament was summoned. The king chose as Speaker of the Commons Sir Heneage Finch^‡, whose London townhouse lay too far from Westminster to be convenient. Finch therefore approached Grandison, who agreed to lease him Wharton House in Canon Row, a property which he himself rented.108 HMC Finch, i. 44. On Grandison’s own lease, see PROB 11/159, f. 1. However, Grandison, who remained unwell, may have come to regret this decision, as the king’s physician, Dr Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, subsequently insisted that he take lodgings in Westminster. Grandison was thereupon obliged to borrow the house in St. Martin’s Lane of his absentee nephew Sir Thomas Roe, to whom he paid ‘contentment’.109 CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 271.

When Parliament met in 1626 it quickly became clear that many members of both Houses were determined to overthrow Buckingham by accusing him of multiple misdemeanours. One, seemingly promising, line of attack was provided by Mansell’s earlier accusation that the duke had ignored the advice of the council of war, for which reason the Commons decided to question Grandison and his colleagues. However, on their appearance before the lower House on 3 Mar., most of the councillors remained tight-lipped, for, being the king’s servants, they were forbidden to divulge the nature of their deliberations. Indeed, much of the talking was left to Grandison, who, despite being ranked below Lord Brooke and Lord Carew, now earl of Totness, emerged as the council’s unofficial spokesman. Grandison explained that, in view of the recent plague epidemic, the council had seldom met since July 1625. He also informed the Commons that the council had expended the subsidies granted in 1624 in accordance with the terms of the subsidy act. Having submitted their accounts to the 1625 Parliament, he and his fellow councillors were ready to answer any queries relating to individual items of expenditure, but if further information was required they would need time to consider their response. At Grandison’s request, the councillors were thereupon given four days.110 Procs. 1626, ii. 186-91.

When Grandison and his colleagues reappeared before the Commons on 7 Mar. they delivered their reply in writing. They repeated that they were willing to answer questions in respect of expenditure, but they now declared that the 1624 subsidy act placed upon them no obligation to reveal the nature of their advice. This was not what Buckingham’s enemies wanted to hear, and therefore the Commons decided that each member of the council of war should be interrogated separately, in the hope that one of them would break ranks. These examinations took place on the 9th, on which occasion Grandison remained both deferential and defiant. He knew, he said, that he and his colleagues were ‘subject to your commands’, and he was ‘extremely sorry’ that the House was not satisfied with their earlier answer. However, neither he nor the rest of the council was as yet persuaded that the 1624 subsidy act obliged them to give any answer other than the one already given. Inadvertently he gave offence by sitting with his hat on, a practice allowed to peers at conferences with members of the lower House but not one that was appropriate for witnesses at the bar.111 Ibid. 239, 241-3.

Like his colleague Totness, Grandison was concerned that the struggle between the council of war and the Commons would jeopardize the granting of subsidies. In an interview with the king held on the 9th, at which Grandison was present, Totness advised Charles to let the council take the blame for refusing to cooperate with the lower House, and suffer imprisonment in the Tower if necessary. However, Charles discounted the suggestion, on the grounds that he was the real object of the Commons’ investigation rather than them. In the event Totness need not have worried, for after Grandison and his fellow councillors again refused to disclose their advice to the Commons two days later the matter was quietly dropped.112 CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 275.

Service in the House of Lords, 1626-9

On 3 May 1626 Grandison was reappointed to the council of war, which body was re-established in order to omit from its ranks those considered hostile to Buckingham, such as Mansell. Eighteen days later he was created a baron in the English peerage, the first English holder of an Irish title ever to be accorded such an honour.113 For the first native Irish peer to be admitted to the English aristocracy since 1449, see RICHARD BOURKE. Undoubtedly this was done in reward for his recent defiance of the Commons, but it was also designed to help ensure that Buckingham maintained his majority in the House of Lords, as two other Buckingham loyalists were given peerages at the same time: Dudley Carleton^*, created Lord Carleton, and Edward Montagu^*, summoned to sit in right of his father’s barony.

Grandison chose to be known as Lord Tregoz of Highworth. This title referred to his family’s Wiltshire seat of Lydiard Tregoze, which was situated near the small market town of Highworth, but it also lent Grandison a spurious air of ancient nobility, something which had certainly influenced his earlier choice of Irish peerage. The barony of Tregoz had originally been created in 1304, only to die out a century later.

Grandison was formally introduced to the upper House on 22 May, escorted in between the 2nd Lord Russell (Francis Russell^*, later 4th earl of Bedford) and Lord Ley (Henry Ley^*, later 2nd earl of Marlborough). Thereafter, until the dissolution, he attended regularly, missing only two sittings, on 24 May and the morning of 14 June. He made no recorded speeches, and was appointed to just one committee, on 10 June, when he and other members of the council of war with seats in the Lords were added to the committee for defence. He clearly found his first experience of serving in the Lords dismal, for on the penultimate day of the session, the Commons having drafted a Remonstrance calling for Buckingham’s removal, he wrote despondently to his nephew Sir Thomas Roe. Buckingham, he said, had ‘made fair and full answers’ to the charges laid against him by the Commons, yet there was no sign that the lower House intended to pass the subsidy bill, despite daily reports of Spanish military preparations. He feared that ‘if humours continue still stiff’ Parliament would be dissolved.114 Procs. 1626, iv. 337. This prediction proved to be entirely accurate, for on the following day the king brought the assembly to an end.

Over the summer the king expelled most of the French attendants about Henrietta Maria, the queen consort, because of their malign influence. Grandison heartily approved of this decision, claiming that it had gained Charles ‘much honour and good affection among his people’. He evidently also agreed with the king’s decision to continue the war with Spain, despite ‘the unkind failing of the Parliament’.115 Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe (1740) ed. S. Richardson, 541. The following year, with the king now badly in need of money to prosecute both war with Spain and France, Grandison bought from the crown the manors of Battersea and Wandsworth for £4,050.116 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p 96; Coventry Docquets, 211. He seems to have set about demolishing the old manor house at Battersea almost immediately, replacing it with a large brick building on an H-shaped plan, for in July 1627 ‘two black marble chimney stones’ were shipped to Grandison from Ireland.117 SP46/91, f. 93v. See also N. Cooke, ‘Excavations at Battersea Flour Mills, 1996-7’, Surr. Arch. Soc. lxxxviii. 100, 123. At around the same time, Buckingham landed with a small army on the Île de Ré. Grandison was optimistic of the chances of success, writing to Roe on 11 Oct. that he expected to hear at any moment that the citadel of St. Martin had fallen to the duke. He was also encouraged by the recent capture by Sir Sackvill Trevor^‡ of a new French warship in the Texel, and by Admiral Pennington’s seizure of 40 fully laden French fishing vessels returning from Newfoundland.118 Negotiations of Sir Thomas Roe, 688. His optimism was barely diminished the following month after hearing that Buckingham had been driven from Ré with heavy losses.119 CSP Dom. 1627-8, p. 439.

When a fresh Parliament assembled in March 1628, Grandison was initially regular in his attendance, missing only the occasional day. However, he ceased to sit altogether after 30 May, which suggests either that he was ill or that he disapproved of the Petition of Right, which was presented to the king on 28 May. Thereafter he assigned his proxy to the 1st Lord Noel (Edward Noel^*, later 2nd Viscount Campden). His first recorded act of the session was to help present to the Lords, on 20 Mar., the newly ennobled Lord Hervey (William Hervey^*), one of his colleagues on the council of war. Five weeks later, Hervey conveyed Grandison’s excuses to the upper House after he failed to appear. During the course of the session Grandison was appointed to just four committees. The first was to consider propositions to increase trade and shipping presented to the Lords by Buckingham. The second was to examine a bill to reform prisoners, while the third sought to restore Carew Ralegh in blood. His final appointment dealt with a measure concerning the making of leases by prelates. Grandison also made a speech – the first and only time he is known to have addressed the House in his capacity as an English peer – on the subject of a recent affray involving soldiers at Banbury, in Oxfordshire. Grandison defended the actions of one of the local magistrates, but declared that, when he had been a soldier, it had never been necessary to involve the civil authorities in disciplining troops, as this matter had been dealt with solely by the officers.120 Lords Procs. 1628, pp. 27, 139, 141, 146, 272, 371, 389.

Following the dissolution, Grandison, like others member of the Privy Council, was asked to lend to the king. In his case the sum demanded was £200, or roughly one fifth of his yearly receipts from his Irish lands, which property he described as ‘the better part’ of his estate.121 APC, 1627-8, p. 487; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 197. His receipts from Irish lands, totalling £990, are calculated from SP46/91, ff. 24v, 91. When Parliament met again in January 1629, Grandison attended fitfully and played no recorded part in its proceedings. This was despite the fact that on 9 Feb. Lord Fauconberg (Thomas Belasyse^*, later 1st Viscount Fauconberg) called for Irish viscounts to be considered junior to English barons on English commissions. Unlike the 4th Lord Cromwell (Thomas Cromwell^*), who was also 1st Viscount Lecale in the Irish peerage, Grandison preferred not to get involved. Indeed, he absented himself on 10 Feb., when the resulting petition to the king was drafted.

Grandison was horrified at the behaviour of several Members of the Commons on 2 Mar. 1629, when the Speaker, Sir John Finch^‡, was held down in his chair. The offenders were subsequently imprisoned, but attempted to secure their release by means of writs of habeas corpus. Writing to Roe, Grandison observed that the offenders, were they to ‘ground their opinions on religion and the true rules of government’, ‘would not become so dangerous instruments to those that hearken after them and to themselves’.122 CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 26.

Final years, 1629-30

Grandison fell sick in early April 1629, which illness, though short-lived,123 Corresp. of James Ussher 1600-56 ed. E. Boran, ii. 452. For the short duration of his illness, see his Privy Council attendance: APC, 1629-31, pp. 378, 384, 392. caused him to begin contemplating his own mortality. In the spring of 1630, with the king’s permission, he returned to Ireland to settle his affairs.124 CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 197; APC, 1629-31, p. 332; CSP Ire. 1625-32, p. 540. There, on 26 June, he drew up his will, in which he confessed that ‘by nature I am the child of wrath’ and thanked God for saving him from the powers of darkness. He returned to England two months later, but by now he was so unwell that he was unable to wait on the king.125 CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 332. On 16 Dec. he added a codicil to his will.126 PROB 11/159, f. 1. He died at Battersea at the end of the month.

As he had requested, Grandison was buried in the chancel of St Mary’s, Battersea (12 Jan. 1631). Lacking a son, his English title died with him. However, his Irish viscountcy passed to his nephew William Villiers^*, in accordance with the terms of a special remainder included in his patent of creation. Grandison bequeathed his Irish lands to another nephew, Sir John St John^‡, 1st bt., owner of the Lydiard Tregoze estate. On the death of Grandison’s widow in February 1631, the manors of Battersea and Wandsworth also passed to Sir John St John, who thereby became owner of Grandison’s fine new manor house and extensive library, the contents of which Grandison himself had catalogued.127 Taylor, 68. A delighted Sir John proceeded to erect at Battersea a monument, complete with bust, of Grandison and his wife, which Grandison had commissioned from the celebrated stonemason, Nicholas Stone. He also installed heraldic windows in the churches at Battersea and Lydiard Tregoze that emphasized a double (though somewhat tenuous) connection between the St John family and the house of Tudor.128 S. Kibbey, ‘The St John Heraldry in the E. Window of St Mary’s Church, Battersea’, The Seaxe: The Jnl of the Mdx Heraldry Soc. lxi. unpag. Grandison, who had himself gone to great lengths to demonstrate his family’s illustrious ancestry, would doubtless have approved.