The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ did not, he complained, hear both sides, and their behaviour, always excepting Ussher and Shirley, was partial and spiteful. For himself he was ‘a gentleman born of such descent as the blood of most of your honourable lordships who sit at the Council table runs in my veins,’ and he ought to be believed ‘in spite of the malicious backbitings of scandals by men of no generation or kindred, whose beginning has been either mercenary or sordid, though perchance advanced by fortune above their merit, and not understanding more of honour than the title they have obtained (I will not say how).’ This was directed against Loftus, and there is much more to the same effect.[162]

      Charge against Lord Thurles,

Falkland believed that the plots in Leinster originated with Lord Thurles, Ormonde’s eldest son, whose proceedings were suspected in 1619. This young man, who was the great Duke of Ormonde’s father, was drowned at the end of that year near the Skerries during his passage to England. Nine years later an adherent of his house gave particulars as to Lord Thurles’s intentions not long before his death. Feeling that his family were likely to be ruined, he proposed to raise a force of 1,500 men, and he was in correspondence with Spain. He went from house to house swearing people to follow him, and one of his adherents was Sir John McCoghlan, who was discontented about the King’s County plantation. Suspicion having been aroused, Lord Thurles was summoned to England and was lost on his way over. The whole story is of very doubtful credibility, but there was enough to justify measures upon Falkland’s part.[163]

      Financial difficulties.

      An assembly of Notables. The ‘graces.’

      Toleration a grievous sin.

      From the very beginning of his reign Charles I. was in want of money, and he longed to make Ireland self-supporting. Some popularity was gained by restoring the charter of Waterford early in 1626, but the King’s quarrels both with France and Spain made it necessary to increase the army in Ireland at the expense of the country. It was decided to have 5,000 foot and 500 horse, but in the meantime the small existing force was unpaid and worse than useless. Falkland was directed to convene an assembly of Irish notables, and induce them to provide funds by the promise of certain privileges or ‘graces.’ The peers and bishops accordingly met in the middle of November 1626, and sat in the same room with the Council, who occupied a long table in the middle. Some delegates from the Commons were afterwards added, but neither with them nor without them could the assembly come to any decision. The negotiations went on for nine months, and ended in the appointment of agents for the different provinces who were to go to England and state their case before the King. Westmeath took an active part against the Government. The eighth of the original graces offered by Charles provided that the shilling fine for non-attendance at church on Sundays and holidays should not be exacted except in special cases. A limited toleration would thus be the consideration for a grant towards the payment of the army. Twelve bishops, with Ussher at their head, met and declared that ‘the religion of the Papists is superstitious and heretical,’ and its toleration a grievous sin. ‘To grant them toleration in respect of any money to be given or contribution to be made by them is to set religion to sale and with it the souls of the people.’

      Ussher on the things that are Cæsar’s.

This was not published for some time, but while the negotiations were still in progress George Downham, bishop of Derry, a Cambridge man and a strong Calvinist, preached at Christ Church before the Lord Deputy and Council. Having read the judgment of the twelve prelates, he called upon the congregation to say Amen, and ‘suddenly the whole church almost shaked with the great sound their loud Amens made.’ Ussher himself preached next Sunday to the same effect, saying much of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. He was, however, strongly in favour of a grant being made for the army, and his speech to the assembled notables a few days later urged the duty of contributing to the public defence. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘now at odds with two of the most potent princes in Christendom; to both which in former times the discontented persons in Ireland have had recourse heretofore, proffering the kingdom itself unto them, if they would undertake the conquest of it.’ Desmond had offered the island to France in Henry VIII.’s time, and after that the Spaniards had never ceased to give trouble. Nor were matters much improved by the late plantations; for while other colonising states had ‘removed the ancient inhabitants to other dwellings, we have brought new planters into the land, and have left the old inhabitants to shift for themselves,’ who would undoubtedly give trouble as soon as they had the chance. The burden of the public defence lay on the King, and it was the business of subjects to render Cæsar his due.[164]

      Irish soldiers in England.

      The Act of Supremacy defied.

      Bargain between the King and the Irish agents.

The Irish agents did not leave Dublin until very near the end of 1627, and on reaching London found that toleration was by no means popular. Considerable bodies of Irish troops were billeted in England, sometimes coming into collision with the people and causing universal irritation. The famous third Parliament of Charles I. met on March 17, and one of their first proceedings was to petition the King for a stricter administration of the recusancy laws. A little later the Commons in their remonstrance against Buckingham complained of the miserable condition of Ireland, where Popery was openly professed and practised. Superstitious houses had been repaired or newly erected, and ‘replenished with men and women of several orders’ in Dublin and all large towns. A few months later a committee reported that Ireland was swarming with friars, priests, and Jesuits who devoted themselves to undermining the allegiance of the people. Formerly very few had refused to attend church in Dublin; but that was now given up, and there were thirteen mass houses, more in number than the parish churches. Papists were trusted with the command of soldiers of their own creed, and the Irish generally were being trained to arms, ‘which heretofore hath not been permitted, even in times of greatest security.’ The agents no doubt found that they had a better chance with the King than with anyone else, and they consented to waive the promise not to enforce the shilling fine for non-attendance at church, being perhaps privately satisfied that such enforcement would not take place. The agents were of course all landowners or lawyers nearly related to them, and they procured the much more important undertaking that a sixty years’ title should be good against the Crown. They agreed to pay 120,000l. in three years for the support of the army, but there were complaints that this was too burdensome, and the time for completing the payment was afterwards extended to four years.[165]

      A Parliament is promised,

      but not held.

      Proclamation against regular clergy, April 1, 1629.

      Recall of Falkland, Aug. 1629.

It was provided by the graces that the limitation of the King’s title to land and other important concessions should be secured by law, and the opening of Parliament was fixed for November 1. Roman Catholics who had formerly practised in Ireland or who had spent five years at the English inns of court were to be admitted to practise as barristers on taking a simple oath of allegiance, without any abjuration of the papal authority, and this was a considerable step towards toleration. A Parliament had been promised by the original graces in 1626 and clamoured for by the assembly of notables in 1627, but it soon appeared that it would be impossible to hold it by the beginning of November 1628, and people in Ireland were sceptical as to there being any real intention to hold one at all. Falkland issued writs, however, and it appears that some elections actually took place, when it was discovered in London that the provisions of Poynings’ Act had not been complied with. The measures proposed to be passed should have been first sent from the Irish Government, СКАЧАТЬ