WENTWORTH, Thomas (1593-1641)

Head of an ancient Yorkshire family, Wentworth was one of the outstanding political figures of his age. Widely admired for his eloquence, clarity and quick-wittedness,46 Negotium Posterorum ed. A.B. Grosart, i. 104; P. Warwick, Mems. of the Reign of Chas. I, 119. he was ennobled in 1628 and thereafter rose rapidly, becoming lord president of the council of the North and lord deputy of Ireland. From December 1628 until his execution in May 1641, he proved tireless in pursuit of the king’s interests, taking little or no rest; the 4th earl of Dorset (Edward Sackville^*) termed him ‘an Atlas’, while the royalist writer and churchman Peter Heylyn described him as ‘the ablest minister of state our histories have afforded to us’.47 Strafforde Letters, i. 54, 387; P. Heylyn, A Short View of the Life and Reign of King Charles (1658), 54. Eager to win royal favour and power by dint of hard work, Wentworth was the antithesis of the idle courtier, a point he was at pains to emphasize, as, uniquely among his contemporary peers, he had himself painted by Van Dyck with his secretary at his side and a letter of business in his hand. As viceroy of Ireland, Wentworth enjoyed far greater success than his immediate predecessors. The kingdom ceased to be a drain on the English Exchequer and became financially self sufficient, a situation that had not existed since the fifteenth century.48 H.F. Kearney, Strafford in Ire. 1633-41, p. 217.

Despite his many qualities and accomplishments, Wentworth was not an easy man to like. He described himself as ‘gentle of heart’, but in fact he was given to violent outbursts of temper. One reason for this lay in his poor health; from at least 1625 he was afflicted with kidney stones, and he also suffered from gout and migraines, the latter probably occasioned by over-work.49 Wentworth Pprs. 324; Strafforde Letters, i. 400, 420; CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 533. In May 1640 his friend Christopher Wandesford^‡ told James Butler, 12th earl of Ormond [I], that Wentworth’s ‘great distempers of his body’ produced ‘strong and violent operations of his mind’ after the lord deputy threatened to hang some London aldermen for refusing to lend to the king.50 C. Russell, Fall of the Brit. Monarchies, 1637-42, p. 141. However, acute pain may not explain why Wentworth appeared sour and haughty to many of his contemporaries, such as Sir Philip Warwick^‡, who remarked that the lord deputy ‘expected to have more observance paid to him than he was willing to pay to others, though they were of his own quality’.51 CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 168; Warwick, 119-20. The main reason for this imperious behaviour, perhaps, was that Wentworth considered himself a selfless servant of the crown but saw others as greedy and self-interested.52 For his profession to hold the loftiest of motives, see Strafforde Letters, i. 420.

Wentworth has often been characterized as authoritarian to the point of tyranny. He certainly thought that the king’s power should not be fettered by the law, and at the time of his impeachment in 1641, the London mob reviled him as ‘Black Tom, tyrant of our land’.53 Wedgwood, 402; Holles Letters, 474, 477; PRO3024/33/9. However, Wentworth was consultative by nature rather than magisterial; he took no important decisions without first debating them thoroughly with his closest friends.54 Strafforde Letters, ii. 433. cf. R. Cust, ‘Wentworth’s ‘Change of Sides’ in the 1620s’, Political World of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford 1621-41 ed. J.F. Merritt, 80. Wentworth has also been accused, by Aidan Clarke, of lacking the ability ‘either to understand or to acknowledge the legitimacy of another point of view’.55 A. Clarke, ‘Govt. of Thomas Wentworth, 1632-40’, New Hist. of Ire. III: Early Modern Ire. 1634-1691 ed. T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F.J. Byrne, 243. In fact, Wentworth understood the motives of those who opposed him only too well, and was perfectly capable of seeing the merit in another’s argument. An episode from the opening of the Irish Parliament in July 1634 demonstrates the point clearly. The young earl of Ormond had threatened to bury his sword in the guts of Black Rod after the latter demanded that he surrender his weapon in accordance with a proclamation issued ahead of the meeting. However, on consulting Wandesford and his cousin Sir George Radcliffe^‡, Wentworth decided to let the matter pass. Perhaps this was partly because Ormond was head of one of the greatest families in Ireland, but Ormond also produced his writ of summons, which demonstrated that he was required to appear ‘cinctus cum gladio’.56 Hist. of the Principal Trans. of the Irish Parl. 1634-66, i. 219; Wedgwood, 158-9. Wentworth’s exercise of restraint in this case proved to be far sighted, as Ormond went on to become one of the lord deputy’s most loyal adherents.

Rise to power, 1628

Wentworth emerged during the first half of the 1620s as one of the leading Members of the Commons. His desire for preferment was apparent as early as 1621, but after 1623, with the abandonment of the Spanish Match and the outbreak of war with Spain, his pro-Spanish leanings proved to be a serious obstacle to his advancement. In 1625 he allied himself with the enemies of the king’s chief minister, George Villiers^*, 1st duke of Buckingham, and as a result he was prevented from sitting in the 1626 Parliament by the king, who pricked him to serve as sheriff of Yorkshire. However, he was not without friends at court, and in the spring of 1626, his fellow hispanophile, the chancellor of the Exchequer Richard Weston^*, Lord Weston (and later 1st earl of Portland), tried to reconcile him with the duke, who was then facing impeachment. In the short term, this intervention failed to bear fruit, for with the collapse of the impeachment proceedings Buckingham no longer had any use for Wentworth, whose support he had hoped to enlist. However, in the spring of 1628, as Buckingham began to consider peace with Spain in order to concentrate on war with France,57 CSP Ven. 1628-9, pp. 123, 184-5. Weston tried again.

On the face of it, this renewed attempt to detach Wentworth from his allies in the Commons was surprising. Wentworth had refused to contribute to the Forced Loan of 1626-7, and had resumed his position as one of the leading spokesmen in the Commons where, for a third time, he was serving as senior knight for Yorkshire. However, during the debates on the Petition of Right, Wentworth supported the Lords’ proposal, formulated in response to the wishes of the king, to add a clause to the Petition protecting the royal prerogative. This caused dismay among many of his fellow Members, including his chief rival Sir John Eliot^‡, for whom such a saving clause was anathema. In the event it was Eliot and his supporters who prevailed rather than Wentworth, whose rivalry with Eliot now turned to enmity. Aware that Buckingham was anxious to reach an accommodation with many of his enemies, Weston quickly exploited this division among the leaders of the Commons. Following the prorogation on 26 June, and as his own stock rose (he became lord treasurer on 15 July), he engineered an accord between Wentworth and the duke. On 22 July, Wentworth was created Baron Wentworth of Wentworth Woodhouse, and baron of Newmarch and Oversley.

The creation of Wentworth as Baron Wentworth was potentially confusing, since the elder son of the earl of Cleveland (Thomas Wentworth^*) was also known as Lord Wentworth. This may explain why the king took the unusual step of granting Wentworth not one barony but two; he may have hoped that Wentworth would eventually style himself Lord Newmarch. Another reason for Charles’s departure from customary practice may lie in the fact that the previous day Wentworth’s greatest rival in Yorkshire, Sir John Savile^*, was made Baron Savile of Pontefract.58 47th DKR, 115. Since Savile’s creation pre-dated Wentworth’s, the former necessarily enjoyed precedence over the latter. By granting Wentworth two baronial titles rather than one, the king may have hoped to avoid injuring the pride of Buckingham’s newest ally.

The assassination of Buckingham in August 1628 did little to stem the absorption of Wentworth into the Caroline regime. On the contrary, as Sir Edward Osborne^‡ remarked, Wentworth’s chance of advancement was ‘fairer now than ever’.59 Wentworth Pprs. 303. However, at the time of the duke’s murder Wentworth was in Yorkshire, and so unable to press his case in person. He therefore wrote a letter, now lost, to his friend and mentor Lord Weston, expressing his affection to the king’s service. Weston, though, was not yet ready to help Wentworth to a plum position in government. Instead, he first expected Wentworth to help repair the king’s damaged relations with his parliaments. He was confident, he said, that the duke’s death had removed the major impediment to harmony between the king and his parliaments, and thought that ‘our affairs may settled in the ancient way’. Before Parliament reassembled for its second session, he hoped to see Wentworth again, ‘for I rely upon no man’s counsel or love to me more than yours’.60 Strafforde Letters, i. 47.

Wentworth returned to the capital in mid October in anticipation of the new parliamentary meeting,61 Life and Orig. Corresp of Sir George Radcliffe ed. T.D. Whitaker, 162-3. which was due to commence on the 20th. However, at the last moment the assembly was prorogued for three months to allow the results of the recent naval expedition to La Rochelle and various diplomatic overtures to become clear. Instead of returning immediately to Yorkshire, Wentworth complained to the Privy Council about Lord Savile, whom he accused of taking bribes from Catholics anxious to avoid compounding for their recusancy. He also joined Sir Ralph Hansby in protesting about the violent behaviour of the workmen employed by Savile’s client Cornelius Vermuyden in draining Hatfield Chase. Savile, the comptroller of the king’s household, responded by enlisting the support of the lord steward, William Herbert^*, 3rd earl of Pembroke, and his brother the lord chamberlain, Philip Herbert*, earl of Montgomery (later 4th earl of Pembroke). As a result, both complaints were dismissed, and Wentworth himself was openly rebuked by the king, Charles I, who publicly praised Vermuyden for his service. Wentworth must have found this galling, and following this setback he was urged by his father-in-law, John Holles^*, 1st earl of Clare, to expose Savile’s corruption to the forthcoming Parliament, for ‘if you truss him not within a Parliament, that board, yourself and all honest men will be troubled with him’ again.62 Wentworth Pprs. 308; CSP Dom. 1628-9, pp. 262, 392.

Although Wentworth had seemingly lost his battle with Savile, it soon became clear that in reality he had won the war. Charles evidently realized that Savile was indeed corrupt, but was unwilling to punish a servant who had recently done so much to put money into his coffers. By early December he had resolved to appoint Wentworth as lord president of the council in the North, in succession to the elderly and ineffectual Emanuel Scrope^*, earl of Sunderland, rather than Savile, who had recently been acting as lord president in all but name.63 Life and Orig. Corresp of Sir George Radcliffe, 172. At the same time, he also decided to bestow upon Wentworth a viscountcy. This honour, which was conferred at Whitehall on 14 Dec. amid a great deal of ceremony (the patent having been dated the previous day), gave Wentworth precedence over Savile. However, it was not given freely, but was apparently purchased at a cost of £20,000.6447th DKR, 117; C231/4, f. 260v; Wentworth Pprs. 309; J. Howell, Epistolae Ho-Elianae ed. J. Jacobs, 282; Add. 72299, f. 124. Wentworth may also have been obliged to pay Sunderland £3,000 in return for surrendering his office.65 Harl. 1877, f. 77.

News of Wentworth’s appointment as lord president of the North sent a chill through the northern Catholic community, whose members were reported to ‘hang down their heads like bulrushes’. It was feared, with good reason, that Wentworth, unlike his predecessor, would insist on strict enforcement of the penal laws.66 Strafforde Letters, i. 49-50. Wentworth himself was naturally delighted at his promotion, and lost no time in returning to Yorkshire. On 30 Dec., at York, he delivered his opening address as lord president. He began by expressing amazement at the astonishing transformation in his own fortunes. In the space of less than a year, he observed, he had gone from being ‘a wandering bird cast out of the nest, a prisoner’ to ‘the most obliged man in the world’, having been raised up by the king to a position of pre-eminence ‘amongst the companions of my youth’. He then discussed recent parliaments, in which the king and the Commons had found themselves increasingly at loggerheads. He declared that in these assemblies some ‘distempered minds’ had tried to divide the king from his people, in the belief that the interests of both were diametrically opposed. This development he described as both unwelcome and new, the ‘monstrous birth of a licentious conception.’ If allowed to continue unchecked it would inevitably mean that ‘we should become all head or all members’. The Commons, he continued, had taken the wrong path, for it was the duty of the king’s subjects ‘to watch over the prerogatives of a crown’, not to bring them into question. Besides, whosoever ‘ravels forth into questions the right of a king and people shall never be able to wrap them up again into the comeliness and order he found them’. He was particularly critical of the fact that, during the 1628 session of Parliament, the Commons had questioned the legality of the militia, whose statutory basis had been undermined by the repeal under James I of a crucial piece of legislation enacted in the reign of Philip and Mary. Even if the law were as defective as the leading lawyer-Member Sir Edward Coke^‡ had alleged, Wentworth saw no reason why the State should not continue to require that the militia be maintained. However, he was convinced that the lawyers in the lower House had been wrong to claim that the militia lacked legal authority. He himself had seen the statute of 5 Henry IV, never repealed, which gave the king the right to appoint commissioners of array. These commissioners had authority not only to inspect arms and men and raise money for the same, but also to imprison refusers. During the course of his speech, Wentworth also took a side-swipe at those in the Commons who had sought to bring matters of doctrine within their purview by complaining about the teachings of the Arminian cleric Richard Montagu^* (later bishop of Chichester). Unity between Church and State was far more important than mere doctrine, he declared, for where clergy and laymen worked together they ‘may as twins administer help to each other’.67 Bodl., Tanner 72, ff. 300-2v. This speech is quoted in extenso in Wedgwood, 73-4, 79. On the 1628 debates on the legality of the militia, see C. Russell, PEP, 76, 365-6; CD 1628, ii. 87-8, 90; iii. 375.

It would be instructive to know what Wentworth’s listeners made of this extraordinary speech. Few present can have been unaware that Wentworth himself had been one of those ‘distempered minds’ of which he now complained. In the 1625 Parliament, he had opposed giving more than one subsidy, and had drafted a speech in which he said that the Commons ‘cannot be entirely faithful to the king’ unless they had ‘due regard’ of the subjects, nor could they be ‘truly liberal to his Majesty if we appear wanton dispensers of their purses’. In the event he may not have uttered these precise words, but the speech he gave certainly opposed a further grant. Two years later, Wentworth was imprisoned for not contributing to the Forced Loan, despite having said that ‘he would never contend with the prerogative outside Parliament’.68 Cust, ‘Wentworth’s ‘change of sides’ in the 1620s’, p. 75.

Wentworth’s opening speech as lord president of the North represented a betrayal of the values he had previously held dear. He was certainly regarded as a turncoat in some quarters. In Yorkshire as early as July 1628 it was commonly said that Wentworth had assumed the mantle of his rival Lord Savile, and that both men were now ‘for the king’.69 Wentworth Pprs. 301. This view was certainly held by the earl of Clare, Wentworth’s former father-in-law (and a man bitter over the circumstances surrounding the death of his daughter, Wentworth’s second wife). In 1631 Clare opined that he did not expect Wentworth to ‘mend’ as ‘he is too great a courtier to repent’.70 Holles Letters, 439. Nine years later, on the floor of the House of Commons, John Pym^‡ accused Wentworth of apostasy, of having once been ‘an earnest vindicator of the laws, and a most zealous assertor and champion for the liberties of the people’, and of now being ‘the greatest enemy to the liberties of his country, and the greatest promoter of tyranny, that any age had produced’.71 P. Zagorin, ‘Did Strafford Change Sides?’, EHR, ci. 152.

Wentworth himself was well aware of the perception that he had changed sides, as was his close friend and cousin, Sir George Radcliffe. Unlike some later commentators, Radcliffe did not deny that Wentworth had altered his position; instead, he offered an explanation. He averred that Wentworth had ‘always thought that regal power and popular privileges might well stand together’, but that ‘experience taught him that it was far safer that the king should increase in power than that the people should gain advantages on the king’. He also claimed that Wentworth came to realize that only ‘individual subjects’ would suffer if the king increased his power, whereas if the subjects increased their power ‘the ruin of the whole’ would necessarily follow.72 Strafforde Letters, ii. 434.

Radcliffe’s implied admission that Wentworth consciously changed sides agrees well with what is known regarding the latter’s disenchantment with Sir John Eliot and his allies in the 1628 session of Parliament. It certainly disposes of the argument, advanced by Conrad Russell, that Wentworth could not have changed sides because there were ‘no sides to change’.73 C. Russell, ‘Parliamentary Hist. in Perspective, 1604-29’, History, lxi. 20. However, Radcliffe’s analysis of Wentworth’s motives is not entirely satisfactory, as it failed to acknowledge that Wentworth’s change of heart was also self-serving. Wentworth, after all, had long wished for advancement, and his decision to give primacy to the royal prerogative rather than the liberties of the subject was a necessary precondition for his promotion. This is not to condemn Wentworth, since many in the early seventeenth century also made the same choice,74 Cust, ‘Wentworth’s ‘change of sides’ in the 1620s’, p. 78. among them his old enemy Lord Savile and the talented lawyer Sir Henry Yelverton^‡, whose advocacy in the 1614 Parliament of the king’s right to impose enabled him to become one of the crown’s senior law officers. The self-interested nature of Wentworth’s conversion is clearly discernible in the latter’s defence of the legality of the militia, as the king had made Wentworth not only lord president of the North but also lord lieutenant of Yorkshire.

The 1629 session and appointment as viceroy of Ireland, 1632

As Wentworth was still a Member of the Commons at the time of his elevation to the peerage, a by-election was needed to replace him as senior knight for Yorkshire. Wentworth himself seems to have supported the candidacy of his neighbour Sir Francis Wortley^‡, who, like him, detested Lord Savile and his immediate family. However, in February 1629 the seat was won by Lord Savile’s distant kinsman, Sir Henry Savile^‡, who was on good terms with Wentworth.75 Wentworth Pprs. 312, 314; HP Commons 1604-29, ii. 473. By that time, Wentworth, armed with the proxy of his first cousin the 3rd Lord Darcy (John Darcy^*),76 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP12, f. 41. had already taken up his place in the Lords. On the opening day of the new meeting (20 Jan.), Wentworth was formally introduced to the upper House,77 LJ, iv. 6a. although his attendance went unrecorded in the clerk’s presence list. The Journal indicates that Wentworth subsequently attended all but four of the remaining sittings of the Lords.

Wentworth made almost no recorded contribution to the session, which ended abruptly on 10 March. He made no speeches and was appointed to only one committee, for the survey of munitions.78 Ibid. 37b. His sole contribution to the affairs of the Parliament may have been to see that a petition complaining about Lord Savile’s lenient treatment of recusants was presented to the Commons.79 CJ, i. 930b. This lack of activity by Wentworth is not entirely surprising, as the Lords were left with little to do while they waited for the Commons to decide whether to vote the king tunnage and poundage. At first, Wentworth was hopeful of success. On 8 Feb. he wrote to his cousin and friend Sir Edward Stanhope that although the Parliament ‘proceeds very slowly’ he expected its outcome ‘will be good’. However, even this limited optimism quickly evaporated. On 19 Feb. he declared that he wished the Commons ‘would speedily fall to some resolution lest they be cut off before they come to what they aim at’.80 Wentworth Pprs. 314-15. In the event, the king lost patience with the Commons, and less than three weeks later he dissolved the assembly.

Following the dissolution Wentworth returned to Yorkshire, where, in June, his authority was strengthened by his appointment as receiver general of the fines and forfeitures imposed on northern recusants. Wentworth took this new responsibility seriously, and in July instructed the bishop of Chester, John Bridgeman^*, to provide him with detailed information on the estates of Lancashire’s recusants, as this would be ‘a great and principal light to guide us in our compositions at York’.81 Staffs. RO, D1287/18/2, P399/45. Although this task proved difficult, Wentworth, as predicted, proceeded vigorously against the northern Catholics, eventually demanding that they surrender a full third of their estates to the crown.82Strafforde Letters, i. 52. Not surprisingly, many recusants, unused to such a draconian policy, soon began to complain that Wentworth had overvalued their goods. Wentworth naturally made no apology for the severity of his treatment, which, over the course of the next four years, resulted in an increase in northern recusancy revenues from £2,000 p.a. to £9,500 p.a. On the contrary, he told Bridgeman that he was acting on the express orders of the king, who, he said, hoped to use the threat of punitive fines to force many recusants to attend church.83 Staffs. RO, D1287/18/2, P399/48; Strafforde Letters, i. 90. This zealousness in raising money for the crown soon attracted attention in London, where the City’s merchant community, critical of Lord Weston for not restoring free trade, began to speculate that Wentworth would be the next lord treasurer.84 T. Birch, Ct. and Times of Chas. I, ii. 20. Outwardly at least, Weston disregarded these rumours and continued to cultivate Wentworth. However, he could not resist the urge to tell Wentworth that it was rumoured that he was behaving too harshly against the northern Catholics. ‘This is not believed’, he added, perhaps disingenuously, ‘especially by me, who know[s] your wisdom and moderation’.85 Strafforde Letters, i. 52.

In mid October 1629 Wentworth was ordered to return to London ‘for many reasons, public and private’. One of these unspecified reasons may have been connected to the fact that Wentworth had learned that an apparently dangerous manuscript treatise was in circulation. In this document the king was urged to ‘bridle the impertinency of Parliament’ by imposing military rule and raising arbitrary taxes. Believing that this treatise was new, and perhaps also that it caricatured his own views, he reported the matter to the Privy Council which, in early November, ordered the arrest of three prominent noblemen who had read the tract and shared it with others: Francis Russell^*, 4th earl of Bedford, Robert Carr^*, earl of Somerset, and John Holles, 1st earl of Clare.86 Autobiog. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell, ii. 40; Harl. 383, f. 90; S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. vii. 138. It soon became clear that the treatise was far from new and had actually been composed in the reign of James I by Sir Robert Dudley, the illegitimate son of Robert Dudley^†, earl of Leicester. Nevertheless, the king ordered the three peers to be arraigned in Star Chamber on charges of sedition. Wentworth was appalled, as one of the noblemen concerned, Clare, was his father-in-law. (Wedgwood’s claim that Wentworth must have known from the outset that Clare had read the treatise requires evidence that she does not produce). However, his appeal for assistance to his patron, Lord Weston, fell on deaf ears.87 P. Zagorin, ‘Sir Edward Stanhope’s Advice to Thomas Wentworth, Visct. Wentworth Concerning the Deputyship of Ire.’, HJ, vii. 305; Wedgwood, 82. Not until May 1630 did Charles drop the case.88 Autobiog. of Sir John Bramston ed. P. Braybrooke (Cam. Soc. xxxii), 61.

Wentworth was rewarded for his role in this affair by being admitted to the Privy Council, for which purpose, it was believed, he had travelled to London.89 Birch, ii. 36. There is probably some truth in this view, but the timing suggests that Wentworth was summoned to the capital for another reason. Earlier that year Ireland’s lord deputy, Henry Carey^‡, 1st Viscount Falkland [S], had been informed that he was to be removed from office,90 New Hist. of Ire., III: Early Modern Ire. 1634-91 ed. T.W. Moody, F.X. Martin and F.J. Byrne, 241. but he did not receive a formal letter of dismissal until 5 Oct., just eight days before Wentworth was summoned to London.91 Lismore Pprs. (ser. 1), iii. 2, 5. For the time being the king entrusted the government of Ireland to two Irish peers, but his longer term plan, to appoint Henry Danvers^*, earl of Danby, as Falkland’s successor had recently been thrown into doubt by the latter’s cavalier disregard of royal orders.92 CSP Ven. 1629-32, p. 95. See also HENRY DANVERS. Under these circumstances, Charles may have wanted to establish whether Wentworth would be willing to govern Ireland in the event that Danby ruled himself out of contention. However, if Charles did make Wentworth a tentative offer of the lord deputyship of Ireland in November 1629, there is now no record of the fact.

Wentworth remained in London until August 1630, when he returned to York. He hoped to find the number of recusants in the north greatly diminished, for as he told Bishop Bridgeman, such a reduction would be ‘not only ... the greatest safety of this State, but the greatest honour’ for the Church.93 Staffs. RO, D1287/18/2, P399/54. Wentworth’s concern to elevate the standing of the Church echoed a theme that had featured in his opening address as lord president of the North less than a year earlier. It also mirrored the opinion not only of the king but also that of the bishop of London, William Laud^* (later archbishop of Canterbury), whom Wentworth visited on his next trip to London, in January 1631.94 Works of Abp. Laud ed. J. Bliss, vii. 213. The two men soon discovered that they saw eye to eye on a wide range of issues, and before long they had become close friends.

Wentworth did not return to Yorkshire again until August or early September 1631. Within a few weeks of arriving in York, however, he was ordered back to London by Weston, as ‘we want you now for your counsel and help in many things’.95 Strafforde Letters, i. 58. Wentworth, though, was reluctant to comply with this instruction immediately as York was infected with plague, and many of its inhabitants only remained in the city because the lord president declined to leave.96 J.J. Cartwright, Chapters in the Hist. of Yorks. 248, 250. He was delayed still further by the sudden death, in early October, of his beloved second wife. Against his own advice she had travelled to York to join him while heavily pregnant, and had then fallen fatally ill after wrenching her foot while brushing away a fly.97 Mems. of the Holles Fam. ed. A.C. Wood (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. lv), 109; Fairfax Corresp. i. 237; Holles Letters, 444.

In the midst of his grief, Wentworth learned the reason for his summons. Danby was no longer being considered for appointment as lord deputy of Ireland, and, as a result, Weston and his fellow hispanophile Lord Cottington (Francis Cottington^†), had persuaded the king to offer him the post instead. Wentworth was delighted at this turn of events, as the place of lord deputy was far superior to that of lord president of the North and offered greater opportunities for personal enrichment. It would also enable him to continue to impress the king, by improving Irish revenues. However, he was also determined to exact a heavy price for agreeing to serve. He expected to be elevated to an earldom before leaving for Ireland and to be granted a lease of the lucrative alum farm for life. In addition, he intended to demand the right to decide who should act as ward for his sole surviving son, Thomas, in the event of his own premature death, and the right to return to England every year to defend himself from the criticisms of his detractors. However, he was not foolish enough to make these demands, or even to accept the offer of appointment, without first consulting one of his closest friends, Sir Edward Stanhope, who advised him to decline the offer of Ireland, ‘where all things are wanting but poverty, discontent and disloyalty’. Stanhope argued that it was not friendship that had led Weston and Cottington to put Wentworth’s name forward but fear. Both men had now come to regard Wentworth as a potential rival, and wished to move him out of harm’s way, particularly Cottington, who hoped to succeed Weston as lord treasurer. The true nature of Weston’s friendship, observed Stanhope, had been exposed only recently, when Wentworth had appealed to him to prevent the Star Chamber prosecution of Clare. Stanhope reserved his most pungent remarks, however, for Wentworth’s list of conditions. ‘Good God’, he expostulated, ‘where is your judgement, where your reason, where your accustomed moderation? Did every subject (so much obliged to his king) dream ... of such capitulations, so anticipate his bounty for service to be done?’ Were Wentworth to demand an earldom ahead of his appointment it would be seen as ‘unmannerly ambition’. Were he also to insist on the alum farm it would be regarded as covetousness.98 Zagorin, ‘Sir Edward Stanhope’s Advice’, 302-5, 310, 312-13, 315.

Stanhope’s paper produced mixed results. On the one hand, Wentworth refused to believe ill of Weston and Cottington, even though others had come to the same conclusion as Stanhope, and did not see why the governorship of Ireland could be considered as removing him from competition: ‘the worst ... that can be is ... to set me a little further off from treading upon anything [they] themselves desire’. Consequently, he decided to accept the king’s offer. On the other hand, despite admitting that he was ‘at the height of my ambitions’, he seems to have moderated his demands as Stanhope advised.99 HMC Denbigh, v. 8; Strafforde Letters, i. 60. At any rate, according to Clare, he was offered only the right to retain the lord presidency of the North (the duties of the place to be discharged by a deputy), the wardship of his son, ‘and other advantages in England and Ireland of honour and profit’.100 Holles Letters, 435. Even this may have been exaggeration, as Wentworth was not, in fact, granted his son’s wardship until May 1635.101 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP3, p. 196.

Wentworth returned to London in November 1631 and was formally appointed lord deputy on 6 Jan. 1632.102 Fairfax Corresp. i. 244; Coventry Docquets, 36. However, he did not leave for Ireland until July 1633. This was partly because he still had official business as president of the council in the North to settle, which led him to return to York in June 1632, but there were also matters of a personal nature that required his attention. Shortly after the death of his second wife in October 1631 he had begun to court Elizabeth Rodes, the daughter of a minor Yorkshire gentleman. In October 1632 the two were married in a private ceremony. However, for the time being Wentworth kept the news of his marriage secret, perhaps to spare Elizabeth the unwelcome attention of her neighbours.103 Strafforde Letters, ii. 430.

Preparations for a Parliament, 1633-4

Wentworth set out for Ireland on 7 July 1633 in ‘great state’ accompanied, during the first part of his journey, by 60 coaches containing ‘most of the lords and gallants then in London’.104 Add. 35331, f. 52; Knyvett Letters ed. B. Schofield (Norf. Rec. Soc. xx), 81; C115/105/8156. He arrived in Dublin 16 days later, where he was reunited with his new wife, whom he had sent ahead, and on the 25th he was formally presented with the lord deputy’s ceremonial sword of office.105 Lismore Pprs. (ser. 1), iii. 202-3; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 15. When members of the Irish nobility offered him presents they were rebuffed, as he was anxious to avoid giving the impression that his favour could be bought. His refusal, which was widely criticized in England, caused grave offence, and was attributed to his haughty demeanour.106 Newsletters from the Caroline Court 1631-8 ed. M. Questier (Cam. Soc. 5th ser. xxvi), 206; Strafforde Letters, i. 161.

Shortly after arriving in Dublin, Wentworth came to the conclusion that his colleagues in the Irish administration were ‘the most intent upon their own ends that ever I met with’; that the crown had hitherto been ‘very ill served’;107 Strafforde Letters, i. 96. and that leading officials deliberately sought to keep him in ignorance as far as possible, so that ‘he may be subordinate to them in knowledge’. Not surprisingly, he resolved ‘to open my eyes as wide as I can’ in order to discover their secrets.108 ‘Four Letters of Lord Wentworth, afterwards Earl of Strafford’ ed. S.R. Gardiner, Cam. Misc. VIII, 5-6. In the short term, however, Wentworth’s most pressing problem was not the secretive and self-serving nature of his fellow officeholders but Ireland’s small standing army. In 1628 representatives from Ireland had agreed to raise £40,000 for three years to pay for this force, but this money was now exhausted. At his first meeting with the Irish Privy Council, therefore, Wentworth canvassed the advice of his fellow councillors, who recommended continuing existing arrangements for one year longer in return for the promise of a Parliament. Wentworth himself favoured this proposal, not least because the Dublin administration owed £80,000 (Irish) and it was impossible to see how this debt could be paid off ‘but by the subject in Parliament’. Consequently, in return for continued funding of the Irish army, Wentworth agreed to forward his colleagues’ request to the king, who was asked for his answer by Christmas.109 Strafforde Letters, i. 98-9.

Wentworth’s decision to seek an Irish Parliament coincided with renewed demands for a Parliament in England. Perhaps because it was rumoured that Laud and Weston, now archbishop of Canterbury and 1st earl of Portland respectively, were not averse to the idea,110 CSP Dom. 1633-4, pp. 148, 417. Wentworth believed that an English Parliament was a distinct possibility. In September 1633 he took the advice of Sir George Radcliffe not to proceed in a matter concerning recusants in northern England for fear that it would be misconstrued in Parliament. Two months later, he told Laud that he expected to be criticized by a future Westminster Parliament, having heard that the bishop of Durham, Thomas Morton^*, had recently claimed that recusancy in northern England had increased. Wentworth was astonished at Morton’s view, as he was confident that ‘I have done more towards a reformation ... than any that went before me’.111 HMC Var. viii. 41; Strafforde Letters, i. 174. However, he need not have worried, as the king had no intention of summoning another English Parliament.

One person who did not doubt Wentworth’s credentials as a reformer was Laud. Wentworth shared his horror at the decayed state of the Church in Ireland, and also his desire to bring the Irish Church into conformity with that of England. Shortly after arriving in Dublin, he issued orders to repair the country’s churches, many of which were derelict, including the ruined church in Dublin Castle, which had been converted into a stable. He also sought to recover former church lands, which had either been sold off by unscrupulous bishops or obtained underhand by powerful lay magnates, such as Richard Boyle, 1st earl of Cork [I], whose large-scale acquisition of ecclesiastical property he likened to a three course meal ‘with a dessert besides’.112 Strafforde Letters, i. 80-1, 131, 171-3; Wedgwood, 181. In 1635 he prosecuted Cork in the court of Castle Chamber (the Irish equivalent of Star Chamber) for illegal possession of the college of Youghal. Although the earl stubbornly refused to surrender his ill-gotten gains, he eventually agreed to pay a fine of £15,000 in return for a new grant. (Wentworth also forced Cork to dismantle his family tomb, which had been erected in the place of the high altar in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin).113 Wedgwood, 182-4, 186-7; Kearney, 186-7. In attempting to restore the fabric and possessions of the Church, Wentworth was assisted by the archbishop of Armagh, James Ussher, and his own former chaplain, the bishop of Derry John Bramhall, both of whom wrote glowingly of him to Laud.114 CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 179; Whole Works of Jas. Ussher [ed. C.R. Elrington], xv. 571; Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 57; Warwick, 124. The latter was delighted to receive these reports and in January 1634 complimented Wentworth on being ‘an excellent physician’ for the Irish Church. For his part, Wentworth expressed admiration for Laud’s attempts to reform the Church in England.115 Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 52.

By the end of 1633 Wentworth had received no reply from the king regarding the holding of an Irish Parliament. In January 1634, therefore, he sent Charles a detailed paper setting out not only his reasons for requesting a meeting but also his strategy for managing the proposed assembly. After explaining the financial necessity for a Parliament, he argued that the Irish would willingly grant subsidies because the ‘New English’ (Protestant settlers from England and Scotland) were anxious to prevent the current funding arrangements for the Irish army from becoming permanent, while the ‘Old English’ (Catholics landowners of English descent) wished to avoid the strict enforcement of recusancy fines. He then proposed that the Parliament should consist of two sessions. The first, he recommended, should meet over the summer to vote supply, while the second should sit over the winter to consider 51 demands formulated in 1628 by the Old English. Known collectively as the Graces, the most important of these articles demanded that the crown guarantee that any landowner who could prove that he had possessed his lands for the last 60 years would be granted legal title. In the past, the lands of Catholic landowners who could not prove legal tenure had been seized and granted away to English and Scottish settlers. Wentworth hoped that the Parliament would vote three subsidies, worth £90,000 sterling, more than enough to meet not only the cost of the Irish army but also to eliminate the entire debt of the Dublin administration. However, in order to ensure that the assembly proved manageable, Wentworth promised to prevent either the Protestants or the Catholics from achieving a crushing majority in the House of Commons. He also proposed to cause as many officers in the Irish army to be elected as possible, as the latter, being dependent on the crown for their careers, might ‘sway the business betwixt the two parties which way they please’.116 Strafforde Letters, i. 183-7.

Wentworth naturally hoped for a speedy response to his paper, not least because the temporary measures taken to fund the Irish army would soon expire, but two months later he complained to his friend, Thomas Howard, 21st (or 14th) earl of Arundel, that so far he had heard nothing.117 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP8, p. 94. However, the king’s silence was entirely understandable. Charles’s experience of the English Parliament had been so unpleasant that he was now averse to meetings of his subjects. Moreover, the last time that the Irish Parliament had met (1613-15), it had not been entirely successful. Although the assembly had eventually voted subsidies, it had been marred at the outset by an unseemly dispute between Protestants and Catholics over the speakership of the Commons. However, perhaps with the aid of Wentworth’s allies at court, Charles eventually overcame his qualms, for in mid April he gave Wentworth permission to proceed. Nevertheless, he subsequently warned the lord deputy to take heed, as Parliament was a ‘hydra’, and in England he had ‘found it as well cunning as malicious’.118 Strafforde Letters, i. 183-7, 232, 233; Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 67.

In order to assist Wentworth in the task of managing the Irish Parliament, Charles laid down certain conditions, or rules of engagement. Wentworth was not to allow his authority to be undermined by deputations like those sent to England by the Irish Parliament in 1613. Nor was he to permit the grant of subsidies to be tied to the redress of grievances, an error that had characterized several recent English assemblies. In the event that such action was threatened, or if the Commons refused to accept Charles’s promise of a second session (as the English lower House had doubted James I’s promise in June 1621), he was to dissolve the Parliament forthwith and continue raising money for the Irish army under the existing arrangements. Moreover, Wentworth was to permit no private meetings of Members during time of Parliament, as Charles clearly believed that such gatherings had enabled the crown’s opponents to sabotage previous meetings of the English assembly. He was also prohibited from raising a party of his own from among the officers of the Irish army as it was essential that the latter remained at their posts. Wentworth was ordered instead to recruit men to his cause on a more selective basis.119 Strafforde Letters, i. 183-7. Finally, Wentworth was to permit the Parliament to continue sitting for no longer than nine months, and was to obtain a bill of subsidies within three weeks of its opening.120 Coventry Docquets, 40.

Wentworth was relieved to have finally obtained the king’s permission to summon the Irish Parliament, but at the same time he was acutely aware of the king’s desire to avoid another humiliation at the hands of his subjects. He therefore assured Charles that he would rather dissolve a hundred parliaments than allow the king’s honour or prerogative to suffer.121 A. Milton, ‘Wentworth and Political Thought’, Political World of Thomas Wentworth, 143. He also promised to be ‘very watchful and attentive’ to prevent private meetings, as he shared Charles’s fears that such gatherings would allow ‘malignant spirits’ to cast among them ‘stones of offence’. Accordingly, when Parliament finally met, he publicly prohibited such meetings, declaring that ‘I never knew them in all my experience to do any good to the public or to any particular man’.122 Strafforde Letters, i. 246, 289. This stricture caused great merriment back in England, where Cottington, who like Wentworth was a former Member of the English House of Commons, informed Laud that the lord deputy was well qualified to speak on this subject because his experience was ‘great in such private meetings’. It was a charge that Wentworth himself hotly denied.123 Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 85; Strafforde Letters, i. 300.

Now that Charles had agreed to summon a Parliament, Wentworth turned to the Irish Privy Council, whose advice he was expected to invite. To his dismay, his fellow councillors suggested that various measures, such as a bill to prohibit monopolies, be laid before Parliament to please the people. They were immediately criticized for putting the wishes of the subject before the needs of the king. Wentworth adopted the same uncompromising view after the lord chancellor, Viscount Loftus [I], moved at a subsequent meeting to seek the advice of the lords of the Pale about the measures to be laid before Parliament, as was customary. Wentworth retorted that this would exceed the king’s instructions, as the Irish Privy Council alone had authority to determine the parliamentary agenda. (Four days later, Wentworth accused a representative of the lords of the Pale, bent on the same errand as Loftus, of presumption). Clearly, Wentworth expected to control the parliamentary agenda from the outset. It is also apparent that he realized that previous English parliaments had failed because the crown had lost the ability to manage and direct the Commons’ business. This explains why he proceeded to lecture his Council colleagues on the necessity of learning from recent English history. They should not, he said, ‘strike their foot upon the same stone of distrust’ which had so often broken the Westminster Parliament.124 Strafforde Letters, i. 237, 239, 246. For a detailed discussion of the crown’s failure to control the agenda of the English House of Commons between 1604 and 1629, see HP Commons 1604-29, i. 370-439. However, Wentworth was wary of assuming more control over the business of the Parliament than was consistent with English interests. When, in June, the English attorney general, William Noye^‡, offered to send over a bill enabling the Irish Parliament to make law without reference to the king and English Privy Council, as required by Poynings’ Law (1494), he was rebuffed by Wentworth on the grounds that this would ‘weaken one of the great stays the king hath on this people’.125 Strafforde Letters, i. 269.

It was not only in a negative sense that Wentworth realized that the English Parliament had much to teach the Irish. There had been no Parliament in Ireland for 19 years, and therefore Irish familiarity with parliamentary procedure was now but a distant memory. Since the Irish Parliament was (superficially at least) a mirror image of the English assembly, Wentworth urged that copies of the orders of both Houses of the Westminster Parliament be sent to him before the meeting.126 Ibid. 241. The task of organizing the copying of the relevant records fell to Wentworth’s friend, the earl of Arundel, who seems to have been largely responsible for the formulation of the Standing Orders of the English House of Lords in 1621. In May Arundel sent over not only a copy of the Lords’ standing orders but also a short treatise on procedure prepared by Henry Elsyng, the clerk of the parliaments.127 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP14/76. For the details, see THOMAS HOWARD, EARL OF ARUNDEL. Wentworth was extremely grateful for these ‘good rules and orders’, for, as he observed, it was his duty to reduce the Irish, both ‘in manners and matter’, to conformity with England.128 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP8, p. 131.

During the course of May and June, Wentworth devoted considerable time and energy to ensuring that as many of his friends and allies as possible were elected to the House of Commons, issuing 100 letters of nomination, an impressive total given that the Irish lower House had just 256 seats.129 Kearney, 46, 223. He evidently used all the patronage at his disposal, including his position as vice admiral of Munster, to which office he had been appointed by the admiralty commissioners in January 1634. Certainly the Munster borough of Clonakilty returned both his servant Sir Philip Mainwaring^‡, whom he had appointed secretary of state, and the local admiralty court judge, Sir Robert Travers. Wentworth even exerted influence on the earl of Cork, with whom he was at loggerheads, to return six of his candidates.130 Lismore Pprs. (ser. 1), iv. 30. Naturally, not all of Wentworth’s nominees were successful. Cork found seats for only three of Wentworth’s six nominees, and many Catholic voters, threatened with excommunication by priests and Jesuits, refused to accept Protestant candidates.131 On Catholic hostility to Protestant candidates, see Strafforde Letters, i. 267, 270. At Dundalk, for example, Wentworth’s nominees, Sir Faithful Fortescue and Arthur Tyringham^‡, were both rejected in favour of a pair of recusants.132 W. Brereton, Travels in Holland, the Utd. Provinces, England, Scotland and Ire. ed. E. Hawkins (Chetham Soc. i), 133. However, as in England, rejection in one constituency did not preclude nomination in another, and both Tyringham and Fortescue were returned elsewhere. In at least one case, Wentworth succeeded in overturning an election result to ensure that his candidates, one of whom he had selected to serve as Speaker, were returned. This was at Dublin, where two Catholics were elected as the city’s burgesses by a majority of three to one. Wentworth not only unseated both men on the grounds that they were ineligible but also fined and imprisoned the returning officer.133 CSP Ven. 1632-6, pp. 254-6; C115/106/8427. Just how many of his friends and clients Wentworth had elected remains unclear, but it is unlikely to have been fewer than 20, and was probably considerably greater. Aside from those already mentioned, they included Sir George Radcliffe and Christopher Wandesford; his brother Sir George Wentworth; his secretary Thomas Little; his physician Maurice Williams; the attorney general, Sir William Rives; the naval officer Charles Price;134 Other Wentworth candidates, some certain, others likely, include Sir Edward Bagshawe; Richard Barry; Nathaniel Catelin; James Cusack; James Donnellan; Roger Mainwaring; Gerard Slingsby; and Sir James Ware. See Kearney, 229, 230, 233, 237, 238, 240, 241, 243, 251, 253, 254, 256, 258. and the former naval captain Sir Beverley Newcomen, who, hoping to be appointed admiral of the Irish Sea, was eager to curry favour.135 On his election for Tralee, see Kearney, 245. For the evidence that Wentworth wrote on his behalf, see SP63/254/128. For Newcomen’s reversion, and his desire for appointment, see CPR Ire. Jas. I, p. 40; SP16/223/37; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 57.

The Irish Parliament of 1634-5

The Irish Parliament finally opened on 14 July. Wentworth initially planned to address both Houses that same day, but it took so long to place the lords in their correct seats that he decided to defer until the following morning, when he set out the king’s financial situation, announced that Charles intended to permit two sessions, and warned his listeners to eschew private meetings and avoid dividing themselves along religious lines, ‘for this meeting is merely civil, religion not at all concerned one way or another’. Above all, he urged them ‘to divide not between the interests of the king and his people, as if there were one being of the king and another being of his people’, since these apparently different interests were, in fact, one and the same.136 Strafforde Letters, i. 276, 286-90. None of his listeners can have been in any doubt that, in uttering this warning, Wentworth was drawing on his experience of the English Parliament.

Given the confessional nature of the canvassing that had characterized much of the electioneering before the Parliament met, Wentworth’s desire to avoid division along religious lines was perhaps little more than the expression of hope over expectation. True to form, on 17 July the Catholic Members demanded the ejection from the House of all non-resident Members, most of whom were Protestants. However, this motion, which followed in the footsteps of the last Irish assembly and threatened to wreck the Parliament almost before it had begun, was defeated by eight votes, thereby demonstrating to Wentworth that the Protestant Members enjoyed a majority, albeit a narrow one. Armed with this invaluable piece of information, Wentworth summoned his fellow members of the Irish Privy Council, all of whom had seats in the Parliament, and instructed them to advocate forthwith a grant of six subsidies – twice as many as he had promised the king. Consequently, the following morning, just such a motion was made. Since both sides, Protestant and Catholic, had been assured by the lord deputy that if they voted supply their grievances would be redressed in a second session, and since neither wished to be robbed by their opponents of the king’s thanks, it was carried without difficulty after less than an hour’s debate, and before the subsidy bill received even a first reading.137 CJ Ire. i. 106; Lismore Pprs. (ser. 1), iv. 37 (but note the error over the number of subsidies); Milton, 149; Strafforde Letters, i. 274, 277-8. This was despite the fact that Wentworth increased the value of each subsidy by more than two thirds, from £30,000 sterling to £54,000 sterling.138 Strafforde Letters, i. 411; ii. 19.

Although he had now achieved his principal objective, Wentworth could not order an immediate prorogation, as time was still needed to pass the subsidy bill into law. He and his allies therefore ensured that, over the next two weeks, the Parliament was ‘spun out with discourses’. They also saw to it that the assembly was kept from concluding any other important business, aside from enacting a short law confirming all compositions previously made by landowners in respect of their defective titles. Although in early August the Commons presented Wentworth with a remonstrance on the subject of the Graces, the lord deputy was not unduly concerned, since the lower House had acted in isolation, being in dispute with the Lords. (Its Members refused to stand bareheaded at conferences with the Lords, with the result that neither House would meet the other). Wentworth privately admitted that he might easily have reconciled the two Houses had he wished, but confessed that his purposes were better served by continued disagreement than by unanimity.139 D.B. Fenlon, ‘Wentworth and the Parl. of 1634: an Essay in Chronology’, Jnl. of the Royal Soc. of Antiqs of Ire. xciv. 160 160; Strafforde Letters, i. 278-9. The Parliament was eventually prorogued on 2 August.

In the wake of the supply vote on 18 July, Wentworth naturally had grounds to feel satisfied. Not since 1606, when Robert Cecil^*, 1st earl of Salisbury, persuaded the English House of Commons to vote the king six subsidies without first conceding important concessions, had the crown enjoyed such success. (The five subsidies granted in 1628 had been made conditional on acceptance of the Petition of Right.) Moreover, the speed with which he had persuaded the Parliament to vote money was almost unparalleled. In recent years, only the Scottish Parliament of 1633 had voted subsidies within four days of assembling.140 Historical Works of Sir Jas. Balfour ed. J. Haig, ii. 197, 200. However, it was not only the size of the grant and the speed with which it had been voted that was impressive: Wentworth also raised the value of Irish subsidies, so that each one was almost as valuable as their English equivalents. This was in stark contrast to the recent pattern in England, where subsidy values were in long-term decline.

Given the scale of Wentworth’s success, it is not surprising that the veteran parliamentarian Sir Thomas Roe^‡ observed that the lord deputy had put the English Parliament to shame.141 CSP Dom. 1634-5, p. xxxvii. It was a view Wentworth himself shared. Writing to the king the day after the supply vote, he declared that the Irish example would eventually incline the English Parliament ‘to expiate its former follies’. However, this did not mean that Wentworth now advocated that Charles summon another English Parliament. Indeed, he declared that he was ‘none of those that should dare to advise any hasty calling of them on that side’. On the contrary, the best way to ensure a pliant future Parliament in England, he advised, was to give the English time, by further ‘discontinuance’, to ‘forget those froward, importunate freedoms’ they had assumed to themselves, through meeting too frequently and sitting for too long’.142 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP3, p. 102; Milton, 145-6.

In the immediate aftermath of his triumph, Wentworth privately asked the king to bestow upon him an earldom. Charles was not surprised that Wentworth desired such an honour, for ‘noble minds are always accompanied with lawful ambitions’. However, he was offended at the lord deputy’s presumption, and replied that, though he had already begun to think of putting some suitable marks of favour on him, ‘for the present I grant it not’.143 Strafforde Letters, i. 301-2, 332. Wentworth was given little chance to dwell on this rebuff, however, as he was already immersed in preparations for the second session of Parliament, which was due to commence on 4 November. The chief purpose of this session was to consider the Graces, and, more particularly, to provide a formal answer to the Commons’ petition on this subject. However, the lord deputy and the Privy Council also drafted an extensive legislative agenda on a wide range of matters, including land tenure, farming, usury, bigamy, murder and blasphemy, all of which were, in theory at least, intended for the benefit of the subject.144 Wedgwood, 160-2. Wentworth realized that at least one measure had a secret benefit to the crown: Strafforde Letters, i. 305.

For Wentworth, the second session proved far more troublesome and difficult to manage than the first. The main reason for this was that he declined to grant the Old English the two most valuable articles in the Graces, those giving legal title to lands held continuously for more than 60 years. His reasoning was simple: he was unwilling to undermine the profitability of the commission for defective titles, which he had established in June 1632, and he was not prepared to jeopardize the plantation of Connaught, which he was planning to undertake soon. (He considered Connaught to be the weakest part of the kingdom as it was largely populated with Catholics.)145 Strafforde Letters, i. 320; CJ Ire. i. 36-7; Fenlon, 160. Not surprisingly, Parliament’s Catholic Members reacted with fury. Taking advantage of the fact that many Protestant Members had failed to resume their seats, they threw out a bill to punish accessories to murder on 28 Nov., the day after Wentworth rejected their demands. Moreover, during the remainder of the session they proceeded to defeat, or at least to obstruct, all the other bills offered by the king. Wentworth was appalled, for as he confessed to England’s principal secretary of state, Sir John Coke^‡, he was unwilling to lose so many good laws needed for civilising the Irish. He was further taken aback by the fact that Catholic opposition in the Commons was led by a member of the Irish Privy Council, Sir Piers Crosby.146 Fenlon, 165, 168-9; Strafforde Letters, i. 350.

Effective Catholic opposition to the government’s legislative programme was not the only serious problem encountered by Wentworth during the second session. Another major difficulty was precipitated by a libel written by Sir Vincent Gookin. This document so enraged the House of Commons that it decided to draw up articles of impeachment against Gookin, ‘according to the manner of England’. In so doing the Commons were encouraged by one of the leading members of the Irish Privy Council, Francis Annesley^‡, 1st Lord Mountnorris, who was familiar with the recently revived power of impeachment from his membership of the English parliaments of 1625 and 1628-9. Wentworth, however, was horrified, for although the Irish Parliament was modelled on the English Parliament, he was aware that the king regarded the revival of impeachment in England as a retrograde step, and would be displeased if the Irish adopted similar powers. Wentworth must also have feared that if the Irish Parliament assumed the power of judicature, it might one day use it to impeach either him or a future lord deputy. Under these circumstances, Wentworth acted swiftly, telling both Houses that ‘they might not assume a judicature of anything which had not been first transmitted as good and expedient by the deputy and Council, for so Poynings’ Law prescribed’. However, in order to dampen down the Commons’ anger, he also issued a warrant for Gookin’s arrest.147 Strafforde Letters, i. 349.

Another serious problem to confront Wentworth during the second session arose from Convocation which, like its English equivalents, met at the same time as Parliament. The lower House, taking advantage of the fact that Wentworth was distracted by the collapse of his legislative agenda, drafted a series of articles modelled on the English Canons of 1604 without first consulting the bishops. On learning of this, Wentworth was incensed, and called before him the prolocutor, or Speaker, of the lower House, whom he roundly chastised. The following morning he summoned the committee responsible, denounced their presumption in drawing up articles of faith without first consulting either the state or the bench of bishops, and likened their doings to Brownism.148 Ibid. 342-3.

Following the prorogation on 14 Dec., Wentworth put a brave face on the setback he had suffered to the administration’s legislative programme, at least in public. On 24 Dec. he wrote to Sir Edward Stanhope claiming that the Parliament had arrived at a ‘happy conclusion’ and that it had done ‘much more service for the king and his crown than was done the former session’.149 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP21/130. This letter, or at least its contents, seems to have enjoyed a wide circulation, with the result that Wentworth continued to be held in awe back in England.150 C115/109/8853; Strafforde Letters, i. 363. However, in writing to the king, to Secretary Coke and to Archbishop Laud, Wentworth was far more candid. He made no attempt to disguise the scale or success of the Catholic opposition - the charge of one modern historian that he misrepresented proceedings to the king to the point of duplicity is without foundation151 Milton, 149. – for it was plain that he now needed a third session in order to rescue the crown’s legislative programme. However, he pointed out that he had moved swiftly to contain the damage. Not only had he stripped Sir Piers Crosby of his seat on the Council, he had also caused many of the absentee Protestant Members to resume sitting and had succeeded in dividing the Catholic opposition. As a result, by the time of the prorogation, he had orchestrated something of a recovery.152 Strafforde Letters, i. 341, 342, 350; Fenlon, 161-2; Kearney, 59.

Although Wentworth had met with greater difficulties than he had expected, the king remained pleased with his performance. ‘The accounts you give me are so good’, he remarked, ‘that if I should answer them particularly my letters would rather seem panegyrics than dispatches’.153 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP3, p. 182. This reaction was hardly surprising. Not only had Wentworth prevented the Irish Parliament from assuming to itself the power of impeachment, and Convocation from issuing a set of unauthorized Canons, he had also rejected the two Graces most damaging to the crown’s interests. Moreover, Charles was grateful to Wentworth for accepting the blame for rejecting these articles. Wentworth could have transmitted all 51 Graces to the king for his approval but, on his own initiative, he had informed Parliament that he had chosen not to do so, thereby allowing Charles to distance himself from his decision if necessary.154 Strafforde Letters, i. 131, 345. For a valuable discussion on whether Wentworth informed the Commons in advance of his decision not to transmit the offending articles to the king, see Fenlon, 165.

When Parliament reassembled in January 1635, Wentworth overcame any remaining opposition and completed the task of enacting the administration’s legislation.155 CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 100. He also ensured that responsibility for paying the subsidies voted in 1634 would be borne by rich and poor alike, for in the past the nobility had laid the burden wholly on their poor tenants.156 Strafforde Letters, ii. 407. This latter measure was deeply unpopular among wealthy landowners, and goes some way towards explaining much of the hatred Wentworth incurred among Ireland’s landed elite.

Following the dissolution of April 1635, Wentworth did not repeat his earlier mistake of seeking a reward from the king, who, to his delight, bestowed upon him the wardship of his eldest son.157 CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 104. Nevertheless, he was fully aware of the scale of his achievement. Writing to his friend George Butler in May 1635, he described the 1634-5 assembly as ‘the only ripe Parliament that hath been gathered in my time’.158 Strafforde Letters, ii. 420. This observation was not entirely accurate, as it took no account of the 1624 Westminster Parliament, which had been the most harmonious and productive of all the assemblies of the 1620s. However, the hispanophile Wentworth presumably did not consider this particular assembly as having been ‘ripe’, since its principal achievement had been to initiate a breach with Spain of which he had strongly disapproved.

The death of Portland, the plantation of Connaught and conflict with Clanricarde, 1635

The final session of the 1634-5 Parliament coincided with the final illness and death of Lord Treasurer Portland. Although Portland had been responsible for bringing Wentworth in from the cold in 1628, the lord deputy shed no tears for the death of his former friend, whom he had grown to despise. Indeed, he and Archbishop Laud had characterized Portland as ‘Lady Mora’, because of the lord treasurer’s propensity for delay.159 Ibid. i. 330; B. Quintrell, ‘The Church Triumphant?’, Political World of Thomas Wentworth, 82. For his part Portland, though he had outwardly continued to show friendship towards Wentworth, had damaged the interests of his former protégé, whom he feared wished to supplant him. In 1634 he forced Wentworth to pay the Exchequer £6,000, presumably in connection with the revenues arising from recusancy fines in the north of England, even though the lord deputy protested that only £200 was actually due. Wentworth bitterly resented this payment, which did ‘infinitely distract and disorder my private affairs’, and remarked that it was ‘as little expected as merited at his lordship’s hands’.160 Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 129; Strafforde Letters, i. 515.

Portland’s fear that Wentworth wanted the lord treasurer’s white staff for himself was entirely understandable. From the outset, Wentworth had made it clear that he regarded Ireland as merely a stepping stone towards further advancement. His prime purpose in improving Ireland’s finances, governance and Church was, as Anthony Milton has observed, to advertise his abilities back home. Besides, Wentworth initially disliked Ireland, with its poor soil, heavy rain and damp air.161 HMC Var. vii. 403; Milton, 145; Strafforde Letters, i. 120. Not surprisingly, therefore, following the successful first session of the 1634-5 Parliament, the lord deputy’s friends at court (presumably led by Laud) began to lobby the king to appoint Wentworth as lord treasurer.162 C115/107/8555. However, Wentworth himself declined to put his name forward, even after Portland died in March 1635, despite being urged to do so by Laud. On the contrary, after declaring that he had ‘an inward and obstinate aversion’ to the treasurership, he consistently expressed his support for Cottington.163 Strafforde Letters, i. 420, 441; Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 161-2; Quintrell, 89.

How far Wentworth’s frequently repeated protestations that he did not wish to become lord treasurer should be taken at face value is a question to which there is no easy answer. It is certainly possible that he was being less than honest. It was not unusual for those who wished for advancement to deny the fact publicly, and his encouragement of Cottington was certainly insincere.164 Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 171-2; Quintrell, 81-2. Besides, Wentworth had already learned from bitter experience that it was counter-productive to ask the king directly for favour, and the reason he gave for not wanting to become lord treasurer – the inevitability of financial ruin and death in office – does not bear close scrutiny.165 Strafforde Letters, i. 391, 420. However, it is also possible that Wentworth’s professed desire to avoid the lord treasurer’s staff was genuine. There were distinct advantages in remaining as lord deputy, for as head of the Irish administration he exercised vice regal powers that he would never enjoy as lord treasurer. He also profited handsomely from his current position. By 1637 it was rumoured that his income from Irish sources amounted to £22,000 sterling, a sum far greater than he could have expected to gain legitimately as lord treasurer. These sources included a quarter-share in the farm of the Irish customs, which was reportedly worth at least £6,000 sterling a year.166 Procs. LP, iii. 20-1, 248n, 254, 266; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, vi. 90; Wedgwood, 196. With so much wealth at his disposal, Wentworth soon acquired an extensive estate in Ireland, worth annually more than £5,000 sterling.167 Wedgwood, 223; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 48.

Perhaps the more important question is not why Wentworth failed to pursue the treasurer’s staff but why the king decided not to offer it to him. The answer is perhaps to be found in a letter by Charles written in January 1636. In this missive the king gave Wentworth permission to return to England briefly. However, he added that ‘the less you are out of that country, until the business be perfected that you have begun ... the better’.168 Strafforde Letters, i. 512. In other words, Charles regarded Wentworth’s continued presence as Ireland as indispensable, and, until the lord deputy had completed his task of reform, he would be unable to offer him further preferment.

In the aftermath of the Irish Parliament Wentworth, far from devoting himself publicly to the pursuit of the lord treasurer’s staff, began preparing the ground for the plantation of Connaught, which he calculated would prove more financially valuable to the crown than all the existing plantations in Ireland combined.169 Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP3, p. 207. He had already taken the first steps by moving against Viscount Wilmot [I] (Charles Wilmot^‡), the province’s absentee lord president and a longstanding opponent of its plantation. In September 1634 he notified the king that Wilmot had alienated crown land worth £500 a year and kept the proceeds for himself. Wilmot was incensed, and responded by complaining to the king about Wentworth’s own conduct. However, this merely had the effect of increasing the pressure on him, as Wilmot was then accused by Wentworth of fraud in respect of his army salary.170 Wedgwood, 133; HP Commons 1604-29, vi. 797-8; Strafforde Letters, i. 399, 421.

Aside from improving the crown’s income and extending the Protestant settlement of Ireland, Wentworth hoped that the plantation of Connaught would destroy the powerbase of the Catholic 4th earl of Clanricarde [I] (Richard Bourke^*, 1st earl of St. Albans).171 Strafforde Letters, i. 450. It seems likely that Wentworth blamed Clanricarde and his supporters for much of the opposition he had encountered to his legislative programme during the second session of Parliament, in November 1634. Although Clanricarde had not attended the Parliament in person, his interests there had been protected by his nephew, Thomas Bourke, 2nd Viscount Bourke [I]. Moreover, several Members of the House of Commons had owed their seats to him.

Over the late spring and summer of 1635 Wentworth visited all four counties of Connaught in turn, and held inquisitions in each to determine the king’s title to lands claimed by the province’s Catholic inhabitants. In three – counties Roscommon, Mayo and Sligo – he encountered little resistance, and, because the local landowners were not granted time to investigate records in the Tower of London, local juries unanimously found for the king. However, in county Galway the jury, which included ten of Clanricarde’s kinsmen, among them Viscount Bourke, rejected the king’s title. A furious Wentworth demanded that each juror explain his decision in person. When one of them proved slow to respond, he was nudged by Bourke, which action Wentworth interpreted as attempted perjury. Wentworth thereupon had the entire jury arrested, and subsequently arraigned them before Castle Chamber, where they were each fined £3,000. He also imprisoned and fined the sheriff for empanelling a corrupt jury. Clanricarde was not present at the Galway inquest, which was held at his seat of Portumna. Nevertheless Wentworth revenged himself on the earl, whose obstructionism subsequently forced him to initiate legal proceedings to prove the king’s title. According to a pamphlet published in 1642, he pulled down the fences of his deer park, slaughtered the deer, browbeat the earl’s kinsmen and dependents and lay upon Clanricarde’s best beds in his riding boots. News of this vindictive behaviour reportedly helped precipitate Clanricarde’s death in November 1635.172 ‘A Discourse Bet. Two Cllrs.’ ed. A. Clarke, Analecta Hibernica, xxvi. 168-70; Wedgwood, 172; Strafforde Letters, i. 441-3, 451-2, 465, 492; ii. 14; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 122.

Wentworth’s brutal treatment of Clanricarde’s kinsmen and property revealed a vengeful and pitiless side of the lord deputy’s character that alarmed many in England, as well as in Ireland. They included his great friend, Archbishop Laud, who, on the day after Clanricarde’s death, warned Wentworth that many courtiers regarded the lord deputy’s proceedings, not only against Clanricarde but also against the earl of Cork and Viscount Wilmot, as being ‘over full of personal prosecutions against men of quality’. Laud suggested that Wentworth ‘find a way’ to do great service for the king while at the same time avoiding ‘these storms.’173 Strafforde Letters, i. 479. S.R. Gardiner thought that this was an excellent piece of advice.174 S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. viii. 184. However, reforming Ireland’s corrupt and inefficient administration and self-serving magnates necessarily involved the lord deputy in personal conflict. Wentworth’s mistake – if mistake it really was - was not that he challenged vested interests but that he took on so many simultaneously. A wiser man might perhaps have bided his time and, where possible, picked off his enemies slowly, one by one.

Conflict within the Irish administration, 1635-6

In the spring of 1635, just as the Irish Parliament drew to a close, Wentworth was afflicted with both gout and an attack of kidney stones simultaneously. As a result, he was ill continuously from at least the last week in March until the latter end of May.175 Strafforde Letters, i. 391, 413, 420; Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 124, 138; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 104; Sheffield Archives, WWM/StrP3, p. 206. During this time Wentworth fell out with Ireland’s lazy and incompetent vice treasurer and treasurer-at-war, Lord Mountnorris, despite having already fixed his sights on Clanricarde, Cork and Wilmot.

Wentworth despised Mountnorris. This was partly because the vice treasurer baited others for sport and delighted in parting naïve young gentlemen from their money at the gambling table. However, it was also because Mountnorris deducted 6d. from every pound that passed through his hands without formal warrant. As early as December 1633 Wentworth forbade this practice, even though it was customary, and in April 1635 he referred the matter to the king.176 HMC Var. viii. 42; Strafforde Letters, i. 402-3. The claim that Wentworth objected to Mountnorris’ share in the farm of the Irish customs appears to be without foundation: HP Commons 1604-29, iii. 46. Mountnorris was forced to comply but, incensed at having been deprived of the profits of his office, vented his spleen at the table of Ireland’s lord chancellor. Hearing that his cousin had run a stool against the foot of the lord deputy, who was then laid up with gout, Mountnorris speculated that the accident had in fact been deliberate, Wentworth having recently rebuked his cousin’s kinsman. He then added, for good measure, that his cousin had another relative, a lieutenant in the army, who, given the chance, would have taken another form of revenge.177 Procs. LP, iii. 183.

Mountnorris’ remarks were unwise, to say the least. At best the treasurer seemed to be condoning violence against the lord deputy; at worst he was inciting others to commit an act of treason. On learning of them, Wentworth appealed to the king who, in June, instructed the him to convene a council of war (on the grounds that Mountnorris was a captain in the Irish army and Wentworth was his commanding officer).178 Ibid. 184. As Wentworth was then in the middle of touring Connaught, he did not comply with this instruction until December. When the council finally met, Wentworth formally laid charges against Mountnorris, but otherwise took no part in the ensuing deliberations. As Mountnorris offered no plausible defence, but protested pathetically that the king had been misinformed, he was unanimously found guilty of inciting another man to commit an act of revenge against the lord deputy and of having contravened two of the articles governing good order in the army, whereupon he was sentenced to be cashiered, imprisoned and executed.179 Strafforde Letters, i. 498, 500-1. Wentworth had no intention of recommending that the death sentence to be carried out, though, and even permitted Mountnorris to live at home on bail. However, he subsequently prosecuted the disgraced minister on charges of corruption, and dismissed him from his offices in February 1636.180 Ibid. 505; Procs. LP, iii. 15, 209-10; Birch, ii. 246-7; Lismore Pprs. (ser. 1), iv. 155.

Mountnorris’s sentence elicited mixed reactions back in England. It was well known that Mountnorris had been a thorn in the flesh of Wentworth’s predecessor as lord deputy, Viscount Falkland, and sympathy for his plight was initially limited.181 Strafforde Letters, i. 504; Works of Abp. Laud, vii. 248. However, before long there were complaints that Mountnorris had been dealt with too severely. After all, Wentworth’s life had never been in danger; if it had, Mountnorris’s outburst would have occurred in private, and in the company of swordsmen, rather than at the lord chancellor’s table. Wentworth, it was said, had revealed himself to be too thin skinned, unlike the late duke of Buckingham, who, while on campaign in 1627, had shrugged off reports of the muttered insults of his officers, even though these were as sharp as any of the criticisms directed at the duke in the House of Commons in 1626.182 Strafforde Letters, i. 508, 510, 511. There was certainly some justice in these criticisms. Nevertheless, the king continued to express confidence in the lord deputy.183 Ibid. 512; ii. 6. Like Wentworth, Charles was determined to uphold the dignity of the crown, and regarded any offence directed at the lord deputy as an affront to himself.

Wentworth returned to England in June 1636 to attend to his private affairs, and to report on his proceedings over the last three years. In July, and at the king’s behest, he gave the English Privy Council a full account of his administration lasting four hours. As a result of his management, he claimed, the Church in Ireland was now ‘altogether conformable to this of England in doctrine and government’. Moreover, because of the legislation enacted in 1635, Ireland ‘was totally become English’ in its laws. He also boasted that he had paid off almost £1,000,000 (Irish) of crown debt, and that Ireland’s trade had greatly increased. He explained the circumstances behind his conflicts with Mountnorris, Clanricarde and others, and rejected the claim of his enemies, that he had behaved more like ‘a Basha of Buda than the minister of a pious and Christian king’. However, he was interrupted by Charles, who declared that he had not been severe and that he wished him to continue governing in the same vein.184 Strafforde Letters, ii. 7-9, 13-21; HMC 4th Rep. 291.

Despite the public nature of the king’s reassurance, Wentworth remained concerned at a growing campaign to undermine his position at court. It was already widely believed that he had hounded Clanricarde to his grave and that he had treated Mountnorris cruelly, but it was now rumoured that he had also beaten to death a prisoner named Robert Esmond. This was false, for although Wentworth had indeed struck him with his cane, Esmond had actually died of natural causes. However, the report was encouraged by Sir Piers Crosby, whom Wentworth had previously dismissed from the Irish Privy Council for leading the Catholic opposition to his legislative programme in Parliament. Crosby hoped to topple the lord deputy, and bribed Esmond’s widow to spread his slander. He also enlisted the aid of the leading dandy at court, Henry Rich^*, earl of Holland.185 Birch, ii. 246-7; Strafforde Letters, ii. 5, 22; Wedgwood, 246-7. Although Wentworth had no reason to doubt the king’s continued support, it was commonly believed that Charles was privately displeased with him and intended to send him back to Ireland without any marks of favour. Consequently that August Wentworth, professing a desire to bolster his position, and doubtless aware that the authority of a previous lord deputy, Oliver St. John^* (Viscount Grandison [I] and Lord Tregoz), had been strengthened by the grant of a peerage in 1621, asked Laud to suggest to the king that he be granted an earldom. However, Charles, who had already turned down Wentworth’s previous request for advancement in this kind, replied that if it should become known that he had bestowed an earldom upon Wentworth in order to firm up his authority it would ‘rather hearten than discourage your enemies’. He therefore not only declined his request, but also gently chided Wentworth for his importunity. A mortified Wentworth replied, not entirely convincingly, that his approach had been motivated solely for the benefit of the king’s affairs.186 Strafforde Letters, ii. 27-8, 32, 33.

Fear of a fresh Parliament, 1637

Wentworth returned to Ireland in November 1636.187 Procs. LP, iii. p. xxix. Thereafter, a subtle change came over his relationship with the king. Previously, in his correspondence with Charles, the lord deputy had confined himself to Irish affairs, but during his brief stay in England he may have become used to advising the king more generally. This would explain why, on returning to Dublin, Wentworth offered Charles advice on purely English matters. In December 1636 he recommended that, in respect of the commission for compounding with recusants south of the Trent, Charles should emulate his own policy of providing cash incentives to those charged with compounding with landowners whose title deeds were defective. By harnessing private greed to the needs of the crown, he argued, the king would greatly increase his income. He further suggested that if the king gave orders for the

constant, right and quick applying of rewards and punishments, it were a thing easy for your servants, in a very few years ... so to settle all your affairs and dominions, as should render you, not only at home but abroad also, the most powerful and considerable king in Christendom.

Far from taking exception to this uninvited advice, Charles wrote back signifying his approval.188 Strafforde Letters, ii. 41, 53.

Charles’s favourable response may have encouraged Wentworth to speak out the following year, after the earl of Arundel returned from a diplomatic mission to the Holy Roman emperor, Ferdinand II. The king had been led to believe that Ferdinand was willing to order the restoration of the Palatinate, the territory lost by the king’s sister and her husband to Habsburg forces in the early 1620s. However, Arundel informed him that Ferdinand had no intention of restoring the Palatinate, and had tried to lead him up the garden path. Charles was furious, and indicated that he intended to wage war against both the emperor and Spain. He felt confident that it was safe for him to do so, as Ireland, traditionally the source of so many Spanish-inspired rebellions against the crown, was now in good order, thanks to the lord deputy.189 Ibid. 53.

Wentworth was aghast. In a letter to the 4th earl of Northumberland (Algernon Percy^*), he observed that England had already tried to recover the Palatinate by force some years earlier, with dismal results, because those in Parliament most vocal in support of the Elector Palatine had been unwilling to vote the king the necessary funds. War with Spain would necessarily compel Charles to summon another English Parliament in which he would be forced to go cap in hand once more to a House of Commons dominated by disloyal puritans. The prospect appalled him: ‘Lord deliver me from seeking alms from the hands of a puritan’. Puritans, he remarked, were ‘more apt to begin business than obstinately to pursue and perfect them [sic]; and the part they delight the most in is to discourse rather than to suffer’.190 Ibid. 53, 54. There was, perhaps, some truth in these strictures, but Wentworth might have mentioned that in the opening parliaments of Charles’s reign it had not only been puritan Members who had starved the king of funds. He himself had opposed granting additional supply in August 1625.

It was not only the prospect that the king would be reduced to the status of a mendicant that inclined Wentworth to oppose the calling of another English Parliament. He also feared for himself. In April 1637 he pointed out to Laud that conflict with Spain would put the king’s chief ministers, even those who had favoured peace, in danger of being sacrificed. He realized that he and Laud were now so unpopular that Parliament would probably insist on their impeachment in return for war funds. For this reason he begged Laud to ‘use your best means to divert us from this war’.191 Ibid. 66.

It was thus a mixture of concern for the king and a desire for self preservation which led Wentworth, in the spring of 1637, to lobby the king against war with Spain. Strictly speaking his views were not entirely uninvited: in February the king had written to warn him that war was on the cards, that it would be prosecuted entirely at sea (funded by Ship Money) and that it would not require another English Parliament. For the first time, Wentworth found himself at variance with the king on a major policy issue. He clearly did not believe Charles’s assurance that war could be waged without recourse to Parliament, since he questioned whether Charles could raise a second levy of Ship Money if the fleet came to grief. He also failed to see how the fleet could be used to persuade the Habsburgs to restore the Palatinate. Although he praised the judges’ recent pronouncement that Ship Money was legal as ‘the greatest service that profession hath done the crown in my time’, he opined that, unless the king was able to establish an equivalent power to raise an army, he would ‘stand but upon one leg at home’, and be ‘considerable but by halves to foreign princes abroad’. It was true that England was intending to enter into a military alliance with France, but the French had little reason to surrender the Rhenish Palatinate, which they now controlled. As Wentworth explained in a separate letter to Northumberland, it was not in French interests to restore the Calvinist Elector Palatine because the latter’s predecessors had so often supported the Huguenots. Rather than wage war over the Palatinate, Wentworth advised the king to buy off the duke of Bavaria, to whom the Palatinate had been granted by the emperor. Finally, speaking with his lord deputy’s hat on, he argued that conflict with Spain would inevitably damage Ireland’s trade and therefore the kingdom’s customs receipts. It would also necessitate suspending the policy of plantation, for fear of fuelling Catholic support for Spain, and strengthening the Irish army.192 Ibid. 61-4, 77. Wentworth was well aware, of course, that these arguments ran directly counter to the advice Charles was then receiving from the majority of his Council, most of whom, with the notable exception of Laud, enthusiastically demanded war. However, it was precisely because he was virtually alone in his opinions that Wentworth proved most useful to Charles, who ultimately shrank from war with Spain.

Wentworth’s aversion to an English Parliament meant that the lord deputy was an enthusiastic supporter of Ship Money. This levy, imposed on all English counties from 1635 without reference to Parliament, proved so successful that Wentworth wondered whether a similar scheme might not be devised to provide the king with an English army. Consequently, when in 1638 the legality of Ship Money was challenged in the Exchequer by the Buckinghamshire gentleman John Hampden^‡, Wentworth told Laud that he wished that Hampden and his fellow puritans could be ‘well whipped into their right senses’. Like the king, Wentworth and Laud subscribed to the view that a puritan conspiracy to undermine the royal prerogative existed. During the 1620s, this conspiracy had manifested itself in Parliament. They referred to the supposed conspirators as the ‘faction’, and Wentworth at least regarded Hampden as its ‘vertical point’.193 Ibid. 158, 170.

Ascendancy and downfall, 1638-41

Although Wentworth had made numerous enemies in Ireland during his time as lord deputy, there is no reason to suppose that, but for events across the Irish Sea, he could not have continued to govern the kingdom successfully and in peace for many years to come. He certainly gave no indication that he wished to leave. On the contrary, he no longer thought of his posting to Dublin as a form of exile, or as an apprenticeship for higher office in England. He had grown attached to Ireland, particularly to the manor of Cosha, in county Wicklow, which he praised as ‘the park of parks’ and where he built himself a hunting lodge. He had also begun building (but never completed) a palatial residence at Naas, in County Kildare, which he renamed Jigginstown, mainly for his own use but also with the intention of one day hosting the king.194 Ibid. 209; Wedgwood, 225. For his earlier view, see HMC Var. vii. 403. Although rebellion was to break out in Ireland in October 1641, five months after his death, this was not the result of his iron rule but of his removal. Once Wentworth was safely out of the way, the Westminster Parliament set about repressing Ireland’s Catholics far more harshly than the former lord deputy had ever done, with disastrous results.195 R. Cust, Chas. I, 306-7.

It was the emergence of unrest in Scotland over the imposition of the English Prayer Book in 1637-8 which signalled for Wentworth the beginning of the end. This was not immediately apparent. When it became clear that he would have to enforce his will by military means, Charles looked to Wentworth to supply him with troops from Ireland’s standing army of 2,600 men. However, Wentworth, despite perceiving the Scottish threat as serious – he maintained that the Covenanters were not fighting for a religious creed but for separation from England - was initially unwilling to weaken the forces at his disposal, as they were already too small to defend English interests in Ireland. Moreover, he feared that to comply with Charles’s wish would only serve to spread rebellion to Ulster, where there were 40,000 Scottish settlers able to bear arms and a populace discontented with the Laudian policies of Wentworth’s ally, Bishop Bramhall.196 Strafforde Letters, ii. 187-9, 191, 195; CSP Ire. 1633-47, p. 422; Kearney, 187.

Following the inconclusive First Bishops’ War of 1639, however, Wentworth came to the conclusion that Irish intervention was essential. In September, in answer to a royal summons, he returned to England, where he began to draw up plans to raise an army of 8,000 Irish troops, to be used in conjunction with a much larger English force, against the Scots.197 Kearney, 188; Cust, Chas. I, 260. His enthusiasm for renewing the war against the Scots meant that the king now regarded Wentworth as his first minister. In January 1640 he granted the lord deputy the earldom he had so long craved. He also promoted him to lord lieutenant of Ireland and general of the English army.

One of the first acts of the newly created earl of Strafford was to encourage the king to summon parliaments in both England and Ireland. Although he shared Charles’s aversion to England’s representative assembly, Strafford believed that the English Parliament would vote funds for the war on the grounds that English hatred of the Scots exceeded their hatred of the king’s arbitrary government or Laudian innovations in the Church. However, although the Irish Parliament voted generous subsidies and agreed to raise a 9,000 strong army,198 Wedgwood, 273, 277. at Westminster sympathy for the Scots was so widespread that the English Parliament had to be dissolved. Unperturbed, Strafford reminded the king that he had an army in Ireland ‘to reduce this kingdom’ and confidently predicted that the Scots would be defeated in less than five months.199 J. Adamson, Noble Revolt, 18.

In order to make up the shortfall created by the English Parliament’s failure to vote subsidies, Strafford, together with Laud, secretly attempted to secure funding from Catholic Spain. However, their plans soon became public knowledge, and were eventually thwarted by the outbreak of revolt in Catalonia.200 Ibid. 40. In the ensuing summer campaign the English were defeated by the Scots. At the Great Council of Peers, which met over the autumn, Strafford was accused of having been the author of the disastrous war, a view shared by the Scots, and of offering empty promises of an Irish army to defeat the Covenanters.201 Wedgwood, 301. However, Strafford was unrepentant, and soon learned that the leaders of the opposition to the war were in treasonable communication with the Scots. When a fresh Parliament met in November 1640, he planned to initiate treason prosecutions and to demand the resumption of the war. Unfortunately for him, his intended victims learned of his plans, and soon after he took his seat in the Lords he was arrested and charged with treason himself.202 Adamson, 94, 99, 100.

Strafford was accused of numerous crimes. More than half of the 28 articles concerned his conduct as lord deputy, and included his supposed ill treatment of Cork and Mountnorris.203 Kearney, 200. However, these charges, and those relating to his conduct as lord president of the North, were little more than a smokescreen. His true offence, in the eyes of his enemies, was that he was a principal supporter of arbitrary government and, as the Spanish treaty negotiations seemed to show, an enemy of the Protestant cause. John Pym portrayed him as part of a wider design ‘by the papist to ... overthrow this kingdom’, and it was alleged that he planned to use the Irish army not only against the Scots but also against the king’s opponents in England.204 Adamson, 106, 197. He was held to be a principal promoter of war with the Scots, for which the Covenanters demanded that he be executed, and a danger to all those who were in treasonable communication with the Scots. However, the ensuing impeachment proceedings were a fiasco. Strafford had little difficulty in rebutting the charges against him and, unlike some of the prosecution witnesses, impressed many of those present by his performance. Not surprisingly, therefore, in April 1641 the trial collapsed. For Strafford’s enemies, this setback was nothing short of a disaster. Were Strafford to resume his former authority, his revenge would doubtless be terrible.205 Ibid. 228-38, 266. They therefore rushed through Parliament a bill of attainder declaring him guilty of treason. The king, backed into a corner and with the London mob threatening violence against the queen and his children, was left with little option but to sign.206 Cust, Chas. I, 287.

Strafford was beheaded on Tower Hill on the morning of 12 May 1641. In his address from the scaffold, he denied being an enemy of parliaments and claimed never to have professed anything other than the faith of the established Church.207 Wedgwood, 387, 395. He was subsequently buried at Wentworth Woodhouse. His attainder necessarily extinguished his titles, but in December 1641 the king created his eldest son William (Wentworth^†) earl of Strafford.