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Accession of Charles I., March, 1625.

The death of James I. made little immediate difference to Ireland. King Charles was proclaimed in Dublin, and a new commission was issued to Falkland as Lord Deputy. An attack from Spain was thought likely, and the Irish Government were in no condition to resist it, for the pay of the troops was in arrear—nine months in the case of old soldiers and seven in the case of recent levies. Being hungry they sometimes mutinied, and were more dangerous to the country than to foreign invaders. The fortifications of the seaports were decayed, and ships of war were unable to sail for want of provisions. Pirates continued to infest the coast, and this evil was aggravated by constant friction between the Irish Government and the Admiralty of England. Falkland continued viceroy for more than six years after the accession of Charles I., constantly complaining that he was neglected and that his official powers and privileges were unfairly curtailed. With Lord Chancellor Loftus he continued to be on the worst of terms, and the King was at last driven to place the Great Seal in commission. Loftus was sent for to England.[158]

Quarrel between Falkland and Loftus.

The suspended Chancellor was accused of seeking popularity for himself and intriguing against the King, especially with regard to the expenses of recruiting and maintaining soldiers. There were charges, all denied, of hearing cases in private and making money by extortion; and Loftus openly claimed the right to eke out his salary of 360l. by exacting certain fees. After a long inquiry by King and Council, Loftus, who could keep his temper, was completely exonerated, and was granted the unusual privilege of quitting Ireland whenever he pleased without forfeiting his place. Prosecutions in the Castle Chambers were ordered against those who had accused him falsely. Loftus was at war with Lord Cork as well as with the Deputy, and Cork sustained the charges against him before the King and Council.[159]

The case of the O’Byrnes.

The English Government tired of plantations.

Like his two predecessors, Falkland believed that plantations were the best things for Ireland, and he had not been many months in the country before he proposed to settle the lower part of Wicklow and some strips of the adjoining counties. In the days of Feagh MacHugh O’Byrne the district had been constantly disturbed, and his son Phelim trod for a time in his footsteps; but he made his peace with Queen Elizabeth and held a considerable part of the tribal territory, though by a rather uncertain tenure. The Queen perhaps intended to secure him by patent, but this was not done during her lifetime, and James issued letters to the same effect, which Grandison managed to avoid acting on. The reason given for delay was that much of the land in question had been granted to individuals by patent, and that the whole territory belonged in fact to the King. Middlesex, for some reason not now evident, opposed Falkland’s scheme of a plantation, and the London Commissioners for Irish causes did the same. Plantations, said the latter, were very good things in themselves; but they were the cause of much exasperation in those concerned, and in several cases but little progress had been made, so that it was unreasonable to break fresh ground. Falkland would do well if he could break off the dependence of the people on their chiefs, and induce them to hold their lands by some civilised tenure and at reasonable rents. From this we may perhaps infer that some of the O’Byrne clansmen were not at all anxious to submit to Phelim’s yoke. Falkland, however, endeavoured to get Buckingham’s support for a plantation. If the matter were taken out of his hand he would apply for 6,000 acres, but if the arrangements were left to him he would ask for nothing.[160]

Falkland wishes to colonise Wicklow,

but the plan is disliked in London.

Arrest of Phelim O’Byrne.

A royal commission on the Wicklow case,

whose report is unfavourable to Falkland.

Falkland soon returned to the charge. He found, or thought he found, a widespread conspiracy in that part of Leinster which contained O’Byrne’s country, and he reiterated his opinion that a plantation commanded by a strong fort was the only way to break up the dependency of the clansmen on their chief. Two of Phelim’s sons were arrested and shut up in the Castle. All official delays, said Falkland, were attributed to fear; but there would be no cause for it if money were provided to pay the soldiers. The London Commissioners were, however, still bent upon making Phelim a great man with a court leet, court baron, fairs and markets, provided he would make his sons freeholders with 200 acres of good land apiece. Nothing decisive was done, but after three years’ watching Falkland announced that he had really got the threads of the conspiracy. Phelim O’Byrne and five of his sons were arrested, Butlers, Kavanaghs and O’Tooles being also implicated as well as some in Munster. By this time Buckingham was dead, and this may have turned the scale against Falkland. Bills of indictment were found against Phelim and his sons, and at that stage proceedings were stopped by peremptory orders from England. The King declared his intention of appointing a special commission to inquire into the whole matter, and the Archbishops of Armagh and Dublin, the Lord Chancellor, Chief Justice Shirley, Lord Wilmot, Sir Francis Annesley and Sir Arthur Savage were named for the purpose. Falkland bitterly complained that Loftus, Annesley and Savage were his personal enemies; with Ussher and Shirley he declared himself thoroughly satisfied. Wilmot and Annesley do not seem to have acted, but the others took their share of the work. The Commissioners proposed to examine some Irish-speaking prisoners, but Falkland refused to allow this unless he might name the interpreter. It was stated by some witnesses that he had previously used the services of Sir Henry Bellings and William Graham, both of whom were interested in the O’Byrne lands. Under these circumstances the inquiry was not satisfactory, but the Commissioners examined thirty-six witnesses and sent over the whole mass of evidence without any comments of their own. There was no cross-examination, and the facts were not properly sifted; but the whole story can scarcely be false. Some witnesses declared that their evidence before the grand jury was extorted by threats and others that they had been tortured. They were not witnesses of the best sort, for one said that he would do service against his father to save his own life, and another that after being chained in a dungeon for five weeks without fire or candle, he was ready to swear anything, ‘and he thinketh there is no man but would do so.’ A witness of a higher class was William Eustace of Castlemartin in Kildare, who testified that the foreman of the grand jury had been Sir James Fitzgerald, whose father Sir Piers, with his wife and daughter, had been burned to death in cold blood by a party which included Phelim MacFeagh. He swore that the majority of the grand jurors had not the legal freehold qualification, and that the sheriff appointed through Lord Esmond’s influence was likewise unqualified. Esmond had an interest in the lands, and so had Sir Henry Bellings, who was also a grand juror. As a result of the inquiry, the O’Byrnes were released, and no doubt this contributed to Falkland’s recall, though Ussher was most anxious to shield him. Phelim McFeagh and his sons retained some of the territory in question, but it would seem that Esmond, Graham, and others got shares, as well as Sir William Parsons and Lord Chancellor Loftus.[161]

Remarks on the O’Byrne case.

Falkland’s defence.

Carte’s account of the O’Byrne affair has been generally accepted, but it is not impartial. He suppresses facts unfavourable to Phelim MacFeagh, and he exaggerates the part taken by Sir William Parsons, whose later proceedings after Strafford’s death were distasteful to him. Moreover, he gives his reader to understand that the O’Byrnes were deprived of all their property, which was certainly not the case. Phelim died early in 1631 and his sons retained the land which they held by patent; what was considered to be in the King’s hands being granted to the Earl of Carlisle. The Irish Council were on the whole favourable to Falkland, whom they knew to have no personal interest in the matter. Phelim they declared to be a notorious rebel, whose intrigues had engaged the attention of three deputies; and he had compassed the death of a magistrate named Pont. Falkland had only taken part in the trial because the witnesses were so overawed by their priests that they refused to give evidence before any inferior minister. Lord Cork, who seems to have had no interest in the Wicklow lands, had the worst opinion of Phelim. Falkland himself was very indignant at having his conduct questioned by Commissioners who were subordinate to him as long as he was Deputy. They 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, and an answer returned under the Great Seal of England authorising or amending them. The objection proved fatal, and no Parliament was held, while the Irish nobility and gentry complained that even the purely administrative part of the Graces had not been acted upon. The Government required that the 120,000l. already granted should be paid into the Exchequer, but there would then be no security for the troops being paid, and the Irish gentry, with good reason, feared that they might pay their money without escaping the extortion and disorder of the soldiers. In the meantime the English Government suggested that more activity might be shown against the religious orders in Ireland, and Falkland gladly issued a proclamation forbidding the exercise of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction derived from Rome, and ordering all monasteries and colleges to dissolve themselves. It was not intended to interfere with the secular clergy nor with the laity. According to Falkland the immediate effect of this proclamation was very great. The Jesuits and Franciscans blamed each other, and there was no resistance in Dublin. But at Drogheda, the residence of Ussher, who was a party to the proclamation, it was treated with contempt, ‘a drunken soldier being first set up to read it, and then a drunken serjeant of the town, both being made, by too much drink, incapable of that task, and perhaps purposely put to it, made the same seem like a May game,’ and mass was celebrated as regularly, if not quite so openly, as before. It was at this moment that Falkland’s recall was decided on, though he did not actually surrender the government for six months, the King declaring his unabated confidence and his wish to employ him about his person. No money was, however, allowed him for travelling expenses, and he had to sell plate and furniture, while a troop of horse and company of foot, which he held by patent for life with reversion to his second son, were cashiered. Gondomar, he observed, ‘did term patents the common faith.’ Yet he claimed to have governed more cheaply than any of his predecessors, no money having been remitted from England during his whole term of office, and he had increased the revenue by 14,000l. He had acquired no land for himself, and we may probably dismiss as mere scandal the statement that he had a share in the nefarious profits of certain pirates. He cannot, however, be considered a successful viceroy, and the querulous tone of his letters has prejudiced historians against him.[166]

Falkland falsely accused, 1631.

Falkland was an unpopular man, and many objections were made to him. He was accused of conspiring with Sir Dominic Sarsfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to procure the condemnation of one Bushell, a man of eighty, for the murder of his wife with intent to divide his property between them. Falkland brought this case before the Star Chamber, Lord Mountnorris being one of the defendants. He had said that the Lord Deputy ‘would not suffer the King’s servants to enjoy their places.’ Falkland succeeded completely after a trial which lasted several days. Wentworth, who gave judgment in his favour, exonerated Mountnorris, who was only proved to have said that the Deputy’s government was tyrannical and that he prevented the King’s servants from enjoying their places. ‘My Lord Mountnorris,’ said Wentworth, ‘I acquit: every word must not rise up in judgment against a man.’[167]

Youthful escapade of Lucius Cary.

One of Falkland’s later acts was to give a company to his eldest son Lucius, who was under twenty, and the Lords Justices who succeeded him transferred the command to Sir F. Willoughby, who was an excellent soldier. Young Cary admitted this, but added ‘I know no reason why therefore you should have my company any more than why therefore you should have my breeches,’ and so challenged him to fight. Willoughby said he had specified that he had rather not have this particular company or that of Sir Charles Coote. The duel did not take place, but Cary spent ten days in the Fleet, whence he was released on his father petitioning the King.[168]

Cork and Loftus Lords Justices, 1629–1633.

Lord Danby, who as Sir Henry Danvers had been President of Munster, was named for the viceroyalty, but at his age he was unwilling to undertake such an arduous task. Lord Chancellor Loftus and Lord Cork were then appointed Lords Justices, the army being placed in Wilmot’s hands. The Lords Justices were on very bad terms, but Secretary Lake urged them to make friends, and a solemn reconciliation took place in Lord Wilmot’s presence, ‘which I beseech God,’ Cork wrote, ‘his lordship observe as religiously as I resolve to do, if new provocations enforce me not to alter my resolutions.’ Wilmot was sanguine enough to think that they would not quarrel again. Their instructions were to suppress all Popish religious houses and all foreign jurisdictions, and to persuade the army and people to attend divine service. Trinity College, Dublin, was to receive every encouragement and care was to be taken in the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage and to rescue benefices from lay hands. The King’s intention to call a Parliament was reiterated and a large discretion was left to the Lords Justices, but judicial appointments, nominations to the Privy Council, and commissions in the army were reserved to the Crown.[169]

Raid on religious houses in Dublin,

and Cork.

So little effect had Falkland’s last proclamation against the regular orders, that Wilmot reported the establishment of seventeen additional houses within four months after its publication. ‘The Archbishop of Dublin,’ Lord Cork notes in his diary, ‘and the mayor of Dublin, by the direction of us the Lords Justices, ransacked the house of friars in Cook Street.’ Thomas Fleming, a Franciscan, was titular archbishop of Dublin, and his order had been much strengthened by his appointment. On St. Stephen’s Day, the day after Christmas, 1629, Archbishop Bulkeley, accompanied by the mayor and a file of musketeers, visited the Franciscan church during high mass, cleared the building, and arrested some of the friars, who were promptly rescued by a mob 3,000 strong. Showers of stones were thrown, and Bulkeley was glad to take refuge in a house. The Lords Justices appeared with their guard, but there were not soldiers enough available to act with effect, and Wilmot reported that there was not one pound of powder in the Castle. The friary was razed to the ground in the presence of the Recusant aldermen. A month later the English Privy Council approved strongly of what had been done, and ordered the demolition of the convents, which should be turned into ‘houses of correction, and to set the people on work or to other public uses, for the advancement of justice, good arts, or trades.’ The regulars had increased in every considerable town, and at Cork Sir William St. Leger by the Lords Justices’ order seized four houses; but all the inmates had warning, and escaped. There was room for forty Franciscans and twenty Dominicans, the Jesuits and Augustinians also being suitably accommodated. The Jesuit church and college in Back Lane, Dublin, were, however, annexed to Trinity College, and the former was for some time used as a lecture-room.[170]

Weakness of the Government, 1630.

The attitude of the Lords Justices to each other was little better than an armed neutrality, and not much could be expected from a Government so constituted. At the beginning of 1631 even Wilmot thought there would be an open rupture, and the Lords Justices had differences as long as they were in office; but they agreed so far as to reduce the army, and something like a proper relation between income and expenditure was thus arrived at. In May 1630 about 200 notables met the Council, and with the exception of Lord Gormanston they all demanded a Parliament, which was fixed for November, but which never met. Cork said he had known Ireland for forty-three years and had never known it so quiet, but he thought it impossible for any public man really to understand the country because the priests kept governors and governed permanently estranged. Spanish attempts on Ireland had always failed, and he did not fear them, but there was a constant source of danger in a population of hardy young men with nothing to do. The English settlers were indeed numerous, but comfortable farmers with wives and children would not easily be induced to come out and fight; and the Irish understood this perfectly. Even in Dublin and Meath large armed bands had broken into houses by night and taken what they wanted. The Government were just strong enough to hang or disperse such banditti, but the last of the voluntary subsidy would be paid at the end of 1632, and at the beginning of that year Wentworth had been appointed Deputy.[171]

St. Patrick’s Purgatory demolished.

The Queen desires its restoration.

Wentworth’s opinion.

The Ulster settlement had not put an end to St. Patrick’s Purgatory on Lough Derg, in Donegal, in the territory of Termon-Magrath, which the wicked old Archbishop of Cashel had held by patent and transmitted to his son. The Lords Justices found no difficulty in agreeing on this subject, and they bound James Magrath in a penalty of £1,000 ‘to pull down and utterly demolish that monster of fame called St. Patrick’s Purgatory, with St. Patrick’s bed, and all the vaults, cells, and all other houses and buildings, and to have all the other superstitious stones and materials cast into the lough, and that he should suffer the superstitious chapel in the island to be pulled down to the ground, and no boat to be there, nor pilgrimage used or frequented during James Magrath’s life willingly or wittingly.’ The work seems to have been thoroughly done, to the great grief of some people; and Henrietta Maria, with her own hand and in her own tongue, begged Wentworth to restore a place to which the people of the country had always been so devoted. It was, she said, the greatest favour that he could do her, and the liberty granted should be used very modestly. This letter was sent by Lord Antrim, who had probably suggested it, and he was commissioned to press the matter on the viceroy. Without granting the Queen’s request, Wentworth was able to say truly that the thing was done before his time, but that it would be hard to undo it; and he advised her to wait till a more suitable opportunity. In the meantime he was most anxious to serve her Majesty without the intervention of Antrim or any one else. The Purgatory was ‘in the midst of the great Scottish plantations,’ and the Scots were only too anxious for an excuse to find fault with the King’s Government. Pilgrimages to Lough Derg were resumed in course of time, and it was estimated that as many as 13,000 devotees went there annually in the early part of the nineteenth century.[172]