The History of Ireland: 17th Century. Bagwell Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ were John Livingston and Robert Blair, both of whom went to Scotland and helped materially to defeat Laud. They had attempted to lead about 140 of the faithful to New England, but were beaten back by storms from a point nearer to the banks of Newfoundland than to any place in Europe. ‘That which grieved us most,’ says Livingston, ‘was that we were like to be a mocking to the wicked; but we found the contrary, that the prelates and their followers were much dismayed, and feared at our return.’[207]

      Bramhall was Wentworth’s instrument.

      Case of Bishop Adair.

      Bishop John Maxwell.

      Deprivation of Adair.

Ussher submitted against his inclination to Wentworth and Laud. Some years later, when they were both prisoners, Bramhall, who was in the same position, thought it necessary to apologise to his metropolitan for interfering in the diocese of Down, his defence being that he was employed by the Lord Deputy. ‘Since I was Bishop,’ he added, ‘I never displaced any man in my diocese, but Mr. Noble for professed popery, Mr. Hugh for confessed simony, and Mr. Dunkine, an illiterate curate, for refusing to pray for his Majesty.’ But if he was tolerably mild as a bishop, he was much less so when acting as Wentworth’s representative. Archibald Adair, a Scotchman by birth, was made Dean of Raphoe in 1622, and became Bishop of Killala in 1630. He was a good Episcopalian, but a good Scot also, and he did not like to see Canterbury lording it over his native land. In 1639 John Corbet, minister of Bonhill, was deprived by the General Assembly for refusing the covenant or for adhering to episcopacy, and he fled to Dublin, where he published a bitter pamphlet against his enemies at home. He was presented by Strafford to the vicarage of Strade in Adair’s diocese, but found the bishop by no means friendly. It was, he said, an ill bird that fouled its own nest, and a raven (corbie) which had been driven from the ark could expect no resting place with him. For these and other expressions, which were thought favourable to the Covenanters, Adair was summoned before the High Commission, but deprivation might not have followed on such slight grounds had not the bishopric been wanted for someone else. This was John Maxwell, Bishop of Ross, Spottiswood’s friend and executor, who had been Laud’s most active ally in Scotland. ‘The satisfaction of the Bishop of Ross,’ Wentworth wrote to the King, ‘shall be the only thing I shall attend in the next place, and have found even already the means to effect it by depriving, and that deservedly, the Bishop of Killala and substituting the other in his place. This is one of the best bishoprics in the kingdom, worth at least one thousand pounds a year.’ And he thought this was a good way ‘to quench the venom of that rebellious humour.’ Charles and Laud were of the same opinion, and but little independence was to be expected from the Irish High Commission. Bedell, however, with whom it seems Chappell agreed, was against the deprivation, partly on canonical grounds and partly because it was ‘as times and things now stood inconvenient.’ He prevailed nothing; the Bishop was sentenced to be deprived of his bishopric, deposed or degraded, fined 1,000l., imprisoned during the King’s pleasure, &c. Soon after the meeting of Strafford’s last Parliament a bishop, possibly Bedell, moved that Adair should have his writ of summons. Ormonde spoke against it, and Bramhall declared that the deprived prelate was ‘fit to be thrown into the sea in a sack, not to see sun, nor enjoy the air.’ Lord Ranelagh said there had been a patient hearing at the High Commission, where many of their lordships’ House sat, who found Adair ‘guilty of favouring that wicked Covenant which all the House detests,’ and the writ was unanimously refused. The Court wind changed when Strafford was dead and Laud a prisoner, and Adair was made Bishop of Waterford. Maxwell succeeding him at Killala was stripped, wounded, and left for dead by the rebels during the massacre at Shrule, but escaped ultimately to England. Corbet was not so fortunate, being ‘hewn in pieces by two swineherds in the very arms of his poor wife.’[208]

      The Scots hate Wentworth.

      English, Scotch, and Irish in Ulster.

Clarendon, who hated the Scots and did not love Strafford, says ‘he had an enemy more terrible than all the others and like to be more fatal, the whole Scotch nation, provoked by the declaration he had procured of Ireland and some high carriage and expressions of his against them in that kingdom.’ The Ulster colony had been injured by the Londonderry forfeiture, and he had done what he could to discourage further immigration, but it was not until the summer of 1638 that the attitude of the Scotch settlers began to give him serious uneasiness. Antrim, who was at Court and in communication both with Hamilton and Laud, believed or professed to believe that Lorne, who became Earl of Argyll soon after, intended to attack his estates, and suggested that the King should provide him with plenty of arms ‘to be kept in a store-house in Coleraine, because it would be too far for me and my tenants to send to Knockfergus, if there were any sudden invasion.’ Lorne knew what was going on at Court, and announced in Scotland that Antrim intended to invade him. It appears from his late letters that Strafford thought Lorne not unlikely to come, but he knew well that his Council would advise nothing that might strengthen Tyrone’s grandson. And in case the troubles of Scotland were to extend to Ulster, he thought it very likely that the settlers there would borrow the arms to help their countrymen. ‘They are,’ he added ‘shrewd children, not much won by courtship, especially from a Roman Catholic.’ He had but 2,000 foot and 600 horse, none of which could be spared for Scotland, but it might be possible to raise double that force of English and Irish. The latter disliked the Scots and their religion, but might be a source of danger in other ways. In the meantime he told Northumberland, the best part of the Irish army might be drawn down into Ulster, close upon Scotland, ‘as well to amuse those upon that side as to contain their countrymen among us in due obedience.’[209]

      The Scottish Covenant, 1638.

      Wentworth’s plan to bridle Scotland.

      Case of Robert Adair.

      An inquisitorial policy.

That Strafford was generally hated by the Scotch is, indeed, abundantly proved by the record of his trial, when their commissioners denounced him as ‘the firebrand that still smoked’ after the cold shower-bath of the Ripon treaty. The quarrel was of much older date, originating with Wentworth’s espousal of the Laudian policy and his steady repression of everything that savoured of Presbyterianism, but it was not until after the promulgation of the Scottish Covenant at the beginning of March 1638 that the question became a national one. He kept himself well informed, and read all public documents, but it was not until the end of July that he first gave his opinion to Northumberland, and then in strict confidence. Armed collision with the Scots should be avoided as long as possible unless they crossed the border, which did not yet seem likely. Berwick and Carlisle should be made thoroughly defensible, and as President of the North he could prepare an armed force, particularly in Yorkshire. He thought Leith, which he had formerly visited, might easily be seized in the spring, and maintained with the help of the fleet and a garrison of 8,000 or 10,000 men. ‘I should hope,’ he added, ‘his Majesty might instantly give his law to Edinburgh, and not long after to the whole kingdom, which though it should all succeed, yet at the charge of that kingdom would I uphold my garrison at Leith, till they had received our Common Prayer Book, used in our churches of England without any alteration, the bishops settled peaceably in their jurisdiction; nay perchance till I had conformed that kingdom in all, as well for the temporal as ecclesiastical affairs, wholly to the government and laws of England; and Scotland governed by the King and Council of England in a great part, at least as we are here.’ Later on he drew attention to the importance of securing Dumbarton, but in both cases the Covenanters forestalled him. Then as now a brisk trade existed between Ulster and Scotland, and the colonists naturally demanded terms as favourable as were granted to the mother country, with which they were in thorough sympathy. The first lay Covenanter who felt the weight of Wentworth’s hand seems to have been Robert Adair, Laird of Kilhill in Galloway, who had an estate of 400l. СКАЧАТЬ