The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ the Lord Deputy’s baggage.

Wentworth intended to be in Ireland by Christmas 1632, but he did not go till more than six months later. One good reason for the delay was that the narrow seas were infested by pirates, though this did not prevent him from sending over his lately married third wife in January 1633. George Radcliffe escorted her and she lay hidden in the Castle for several months, which was considered most mysterious, and her identity was not disclosed until after her husband’s arrival. The Irish Government feared further attacks by the Algerines upon Baltimore or some other defenceless place; but it was not only Algerines who threatened the coasts and plundered the shipping, and the Lords Justices declared that the Irish revenue could hardly bear the expense of two pinnaces called the 5th and 9th Whelps, which were assigned to them as a protecting force. One or more rovers frequented the Welsh coast, preying on the trade from Ireland, and carrying off men from the Isle of Man where there was no means of resistance. Another cruised about Youghal, while the Pickpocket of Dover lay off Dublin. Trade was at a stand, and the Irish customs made unproductive. ‘The fear of being thought to linger unprofitably’ in England induced Wentworth to send over most of his household goods in May 1633, and the plate escaped, but the Pickpocket took £500 worth of his linen. The same pirate drove a Dutch ship on shore close to Dublin, took out the cargo, and burnt her to the water’s edge, the flames being visible from the Castle. ‘The loss and misery,’ said Wentworth, ‘is not so great as the scorn that such a picking villain should dare to do these violences in the face of that state, and to pass away without control.’ A notable pirate named Nutt had the impudence to send Wentworth word that he was ready to convoy him over. A powerful ship under an excellent seaman, Captain Richard Plumleigh, was provided after much delay, but she did not get out of the Medway till June, and it was July before Wentworth heard that the passage to Dublin was safe. He then hastened over, and lost no time in showing that King Stork had succeeded to King Log. Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury a few days later.[180]

      Essex in Ireland.

      Wentworth lands,

      and is welcomed by Lord Cork.

      Visits of ceremony.

A few days before the Lord Deputy’s arrival Essex, accompanied by Lord Cromwell, landed some miles from Dublin, and was met by the Lords Justices and Lord Primate with all persons of quality about town. The streets were so crowded with spectators that the coaches could hardly pass, and an old Irish woman called out ‘Blessed be the time that I live to see a son of thy father there.’ When Wentworth appeared on July 23 the water was very rough, and he was probably not inclined to eat the dinner which Lord Howth had prepared for him. At all events he declined to land near the head, and came ashore close to Dublin, nearly opposite to where the Custom House now stands. He was unexpected, and not a gun was fired, but Lord Justice Cork was quickly on the spot with his coach, and the news spread fast. The Lord Deputy, with Lord Castlehaven, Sir John Borlase, Sir Francis Cook, and others started to walk, but Cork invited them all into his coach, and by the time they reached the Castle there was such a crowd that the drawbridge had to be raised behind them. Afterwards, Cork records in his diary, ‘I having the precedency, the Lord Deputy brought me to my coach.’ Next day was given to receiving visits, which were for the most part scrupulously returned, that of Essex the first, precedency as an Earl being granted him until the viceroy was sworn. Essex soon departed to his estate at Carrickmacross, but was back in London early in the following year, whence he wrote a letter of four lines thanking the Lord Deputy for his ‘noble usage.’ Wentworth replied very civilly in a letter of eight lines, but there appears to have been nothing like intimacy between the two. ‘I visited both the Justices,’ Wentworth wrote, ‘at their own houses, which, albeit not formerly done by other Deputies, yet I conceived it was a duty I owed, being then but a private person, as also to show an example to others what would always become them to the supreme governor.’[181]

      Wentworth receives the sword, July 25, 1633.

      The Lord Chancellor’s speech.

      Wentworth’s speech.

      Wentworth makes obeisance to the King’s picture.

At two o’clock on the third day Wentworth received the sword in the Council-chamber. The ceremony had generally been performed in Christchurch, but some said the Archbishop of Dublin would not let the Primate deliver his prepared sermon, or perhaps the Lord Deputy wished to avoid publicity. After a short discussion with some of the Council ‘in his ear whispering like,’ he decided to go in procession through the rooms of the Castle instead of slipping in quietly by the gallery, as he originally proposed. When the Council were seated the Lord Deputy remained standing, while Wandesford, as Master of the Rolls, read the commission; then Lord Mountnorris, as acting secretary (having it in reversion after Sir Dudley Norton, who may well be ‘jubilayed’) read the King’s letter ordering the Lords Justices to deliver the sword, and explaining the reasons for the new governor’s late arrival. When he had been sworn, Lord Chancellor Loftus spoke of the state in which he and his colleague left the government. No fresh debt, he said, had been contracted during their time of office, everything was quiet, and they were ready to advise their successor as to many desirable reforms. ‘I for my part,’ says Cork in his diary, ‘did most willingly surrender the sword, the rather in regard the kingdom was yielded up in general peace and plenty.’ Wentworth then took the chair, and with the sword in his hand made ‘a very good speech.’ He said he would be no upholder of factions, but would most esteem those who did most for the King’s service. He had heard that there was some discontent about two men having been drafted from each company in order to raise a troop for himself. He did not want one, he said, but the creation of a permanent guard for the viceroy had caused his delay in England. The men should be restored at the first vacancy, and he thought it very unfit that a departing Deputy should retain his company. ‘Herein he touched the Lord of Falkland, who retained his.’ Grandison had done the same, with continuous leave of absence. On the return journey the sword was carried by the Earl of Castlehaven, a knight having been thought good enough to bear it before the Lords Justices, who now brought up the rear. When he came before the cloth of estate, in the presence chamber, Wentworth halted and made ‘two humble courtesies to the King’s and Queen’s picture which hang on each side, and fixing his eyes with much seriousness showed a kind of devotion.’ He knighted his brother George, his cousin Danby, who was the husband of Wandesford’s daughter, and a very young Mr. Remington, ‘not of age, who hopes to save his wardship thereby, his father being very old and sickly.’ On reaching the privy chamber, where Lady Wentworth stood with Lady Tyrconnel and others, he introduced the late Lords Justices to his wife, presenting her to be saluted with a kiss from each of them … who until that instant had no title or place given her here but that of Mistress Rhodes.’[182]

      Wentworth’s opinion of his Council.

      A Parliament proposed to provide money.

      Speech of Wentworth, who finds Parsons ‘dry.’

      First appearance of Ormonde.

‘I find them in this place’—so runs Wentworth’s first published letter from Dublin—‘a company of men the most intent upon their own hands that ever I met with, and so as those speed, they consider other things at a very great distance.’ Three weeks later he found the officials very sharp about their own interests, but ‘with no edge at all for the public,’ and all in league to keep the Deputy as much in the dark as possible. He determined from the first to trust no one but his friend Wandesford, who had just been made Master of the Rolls, and his secretary Radcliffe, who had been in Ireland since January, and who was made a Privy Councillor within a few weeks of his chief’s arrival. To these was afterwards added Sir Philip Mainwaring, who owed his appointment to Wentworth and Laud СКАЧАТЬ