The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ The order of business and the introduction of Bills being controlled by the English Government, an enterprising viceroy might be trusted to manage the rest. Wentworth’s plan was to have two sessions, one for supply, the other for redress of grievances. He believed that the landowners would willingly agree to a money vote in order to relieve themselves from the ever-present dread of having the existing contributions established like quit-rents on their estates. And all in Ireland realised that they could expect no redress of grievances without having first provided for the support of the Government and army. Charles accepted the proposed arrangement, but advised that it should be kept secret until the time came. The next matter of importance was the composition of the House of Commons. Wentworth resolved that the Protestant and Roman Catholic parties should be nearly balanced. The Protestant party might be slightly the larger, but its subservience was to be secured by procuring the election of many placemen. Wentworth hoped to get three subsidies of 30,000l. each payable in three years. This would yield 30,000l. over and above current expenses, and with that much ready money he hoped to compound for the whole debt, public creditors having been reduced to a proper state of humility. A little more money might be hoped for after the second session, and with this it might be possible to buy up some of the pensions and rent-charges with which the Irish Exchequer was burdened.[189]

      Wentworth’s speech to his Council, April, 1634.

      Everything belongs to Cæsar.

      Opinions in England.

      Charles on the parliamentary hydra.

Having been allowed to hold a Parliament and to do it in his own way, Wentworth at once set to work to make it a success. He summoned his Council, who thought supply should be accompanied by some assurance from the King that grievances would be remedied. They also wished to limit the levies to the actual expenses, having a well-founded fear that surplus money would be squandered in England, and not applied to the liquidation of the Irish debt. Wentworth at once told them that the King called a Parliament because he preferred standing on the ancient ways, that he had absolute right and power to collect all the revenue he required without the consent of anybody, and that their business as councillors was to trust their sovereign without asking questions. ‘I told them plainly,’ he said, ‘I feared they began at the wrong end, thus consulting what might please the people in a Parliament, when it would better become a Privy Councillor to consider what might please the King, and induce him to call one.’ He would not take less than three subsidies of 30,000l. each, but would get as much more as possible without conditions, and they were not to propose any. The State could not be too well provided. ‘What,’ he asked prophetically, ‘if the natives should rebel? There was no great wisdom to be over-confident in them, being of a contrary religion and so great in number.’ And he concluded by asking them to take warning by the troubles which the Commons’ distrust of their King had brought upon the late Parliaments in England. When this was read at the English Council Cottington could not refrain from the obvious comment ‘et quorum pars magna fui.’ Wentworth owed his own political position to his exertions in favour of the Petition of Right, and now he said that everything the subject had was, and ought to be, at the disposition of the Crown. That Laud should have joked with his friend on this subject and that the latter should have taken it as a joke, is not the least extraordinary thing in Wentworth’s career. ‘As for that hydra,’ said Charles of the House of Commons, ‘take good heed; for you know that here I have found it as well cunning as malicious. Your grounds are well laid and I have great trust in your care and judgment; yet my opinion is, that it will not be the worse for my service, though their obstinacy make you break them’.[190]

      Wentworth and the Irish nobility,

      whom he treats with contempt.

Wentworth’s speech to his Council, which less earnest people in England thought a superfluous display of strength, reduced that body to complete subjection. He would allow no discussions anywhere about the King’s policy, and he treated the Roman Catholic nobility in the same way as the Protestant Council. The Lord Chancellor ventured to suggest that the Lords of the Pale should be consulted according to precedent, but he was ‘silenced by a direct and round answer.’ Three or four days later Lord Fingall came to the Castle and asked for information on the part of his friends and neighbours, ‘who had been accustomed to be consulted before those meetings.’ Wentworth, who seems to have disliked the man as well as his communication, told him that his Majesty would ‘reject with scorn and disdain’ any advice their lordships could give. Their business was only to hear the King’s will in open Parliament, to make such remarks there as might be fitting for obedient subjects, and to be content with such answers as his Majesty thought fit to give. ‘A little out of countenance’ from the storm of viceregal eloquence, Lord Fingall unluckily remarked that he only wished to draw attention to precedents, and that Falkland had consulted the lords. Wentworth said that was no rule for him, and advised his visitor ‘not to busy his thoughts with matters of that nature, but to leave all to the royal wisdom.’[191]

      How a Government majority was secured

      Clerical influence.

As long as there was a Parliament in Ireland the Government generally found means to secure a majority. Wentworth had to depend chiefly on the boroughs, for many counties were not amenable to pressure. Lord Cork has recorded that when he was in his coach one day with Lord Esmond and Lord Digby a pursuivant brought him six letters from the Lord Deputy directing the return of certain members for places he controlled. Sir George Wentworth, the viceroy’s brother, was to sit for Bandon, his secretaries Mainwaring and Little for Lismore, a second Mainwaring for Dingle, and other less prominent Englishmen for Askeaton and Tallow. Wentworth and William and Philip Mainwaring were elected accordingly, while Little procured a seat at Cashel. Every important man whom the Lord Deputy could influence found his way into the House of Commons. Sir William Parsons sat for the county and Sir George Radcliffe for the city of Armagh, Charles Price for Belfast, and Sir Adam Loftus for Newborough in Wexford. Sir Beverley Newcomen, a distinguished naval officer, represented Tralee, and Wandesford the borough of Kildare. Sir Charles Coote, Sir William Cole, Sir Robert King, and many others who were well known a few years later, also had seats. It was on the Protestants that the Crown depended in the long run, but they had not a large majority. ‘The priests and Jesuits,’ Wentworth wrote, ‘are very busy in the election of knights and burgesses, call the people to their masses, and there charge them on pain of excommunication to give their voices to no Protestant.’ A sheriff in Dublin who seemed inclined to yield to these influences was fined 700l. and declared incapable of serving, and his successor promptly returned Sergeant Catelin and a Protestant alderman.[192]

      Parliamentary precedents.

      The primacy secured to Armagh.

      Political value of etiquette.

      The opening ceremonies.

      Wentworth and Ormonde.

In matters of form and ceremony Wentworth was willing to be guided by precedents. He found all the officials very ignorant about parliamentary order, as Falkland’s blunder had already shown, and he sent to England for full instructions. Questions of precedence being left by special commission entirely in his hands, the primacy of Armagh over Dublin was settled by an order in Council, and in the established Church this point was never again disputed, a decision which was undoubtedly right; but Archbishop Talbot afterwards attributed it to the slavish fears of Wentworth’s Council, to his leaning in favour of Ussher, and to the prevalent ignorance of Latin in high places. He admitted that Bishop Leslie of Raphoe was learned, but then was he not a suffragan of Armagh? Wentworth decided such questions when they came in his СКАЧАТЬ