Wentworth's Iron Pule

The accession of Charles the First as king of England (1625) aroused in the oppressed Irish the hope of gentler treatment from their masters. It was supposed that Charles regarded the Catholics with more favor than his father had done and would therefore establish a greater toleration of worship throughout his realm. But before very long both the English and the Irish learned, to their grief, that no faith could be reposed in Charles's wisdom or sincerity Like his father before him, and his two sons after him, Charles made fair promises, only to break them when it was not convenient to keep them.

James had left the royal treasury in an almost bankrupt condition, and Charles's first and sorest need was money. In order to replenish his purse, he was ready to adopt any means, gentle or severe; and he looked to Ireland to contribute large supplies to his treasury. His first step was to make solemn promises to give the Irish landlords good titles to their properties, and to relax the severe laws by which the Irish were oppressed.

Many of the Irish lords and gentlemen hastened to seize the opportunity which the king's necessities seemed to leave open to them. They sent a deputation to him, who agreed to furnish him with £120,000, if he would grant them certain concessions. The principal concessions, which were called "graces," were, that good titles should be given to the land-owners in Connaught, the only one of the four provinces which had not as yet been planted; that the occupation of a domain for sixty years should give its owner a perfect title, which could not be disturbed; that Catholics who took simply an oath of civil allegiance, and not the oath of supremacy, should be allowed to practice as lawyers in the courts; that taxes should not be levied with the aid of soldiers; that felons should not be allowed to testify so as to endanger the liberty of Irish subjects; and that an Irish Parliament should be held to confirm these demands. Charles readily assented to these graces, and the Irish lords implicitly relied on his royal word. They were speedily to find out that it was valueless.

They promptly paid one-third of the sum which they had promised to the king: the other two-thirds were to be paid in the ensuing two years. The lord-deputy of Ireland at this time was lord Falkland, a man of lenient and generous nature, who afterwards played a leading part in the English Civil war. But Falkland was compelled by the king to play a trick upon the Irish. In accordance with the graces, he called together an Irish Parliament to confirm the concessions promised by Charles. But now came the first of Charles's many acts of perfidy towards Ireland. In the summoning of Parliament, certain legal requirements were purposely neglected; so that when the Houses met, they were declared to be an illegal Parliament, whose acts were null and void. They therefore dissolved and no attempt was made by Falkland to call together a new and legal body. Soon after this, Falkland was recalled to England because he was too tolerant towards the Catholics.

A new and much sterner master was soon afterwards imposed upon Ireland. This was Sir Thomas Wentworth, afterwards more famous as the Earl of Strafford. Wentworth was a most fit instrument to carry out the wishes of a tyrant. Bold, eloquent, iron-willed, haughty, unscrupulous, despotic in character, defiant of obstacle, he went to Ireland to achieve certain ends and stopped at no cruelty or deception in order to accomplish them. He had belonged to the party which in England opposed the king, but the king won him over by a title and high office. Wentworth declared that his method was to be "thorough," in ruling both the church and the civil affairs. He took up his residence in Dublin castle, where he displayed much state, being attended by a large bodyguard, and bearing himself with arrogant pride. He first demanded of the Irish privy council a large grant of money for the king, promising that, if it were given, he would summon an Irish Parliament.

To the letter of this promise Wentworth adhered. The Irish Houses were summoned, but the lord deputy took good care that the election of members should result as he wished. He resolved that the House of Commons should be nearly balanced between the Protestants and Catholics, so that he might play off one against the other; while a small body of his special adherents could turn any vote one way or the other, as he desired. When Parliament met, Wentworth, after dictating who should preside as its speaker, announced that there must be two sessions held. The first session was to be "for the crown," and the other "for the country." In the first session, the subject of granting money to the king would be considered; in the second, the graces, which had been so long delayed, would be taken up. Parliament was really in Wentworth's power, and was forced to consent to this arrangement. In the first session, accordingly, subsidies to the amount of £270,000 were voted to the king.

Some months after, the second session was held. But now Wentworth showed the utter bad faith of both his royal master and himself. He coolly told Parliament that the graces must not be passed, and, by adroitly setting the Protestants and Catholics by the ears, procured a vote by which the graces were abandoned.

Wentworth had now wrung from Parliament a large sum of money, which Charles most of all wanted. He proceeded to carry out his scheme to be "thorough," with the same prompt and imperious vigor. The Protestant church in Ireland had fallen into a state of distress and poverty. Many of its lands and other resources had been taken away under one or another pretext. Its edifices had in many places been abandoned, and had fallen into decay. Good men could not be persuaded to serve as clergymen. The pay of the clergy had fallen to a very low figure. Wentworth was determined that all this should be changed, and that the church in Ireland should be built up anew. He caused the dilapidated churches to be repaired. He compelled those who had taken church-lands to restore them. He made grants to the clergy from the lands held by the crown. In one instance, he extorted from the Earl of Cork a domain worth £2,030 a year, which the earl had audaciously taken away from the college of Youghal and the diocese of Waterford. The lord-deputy's hand fell as sternly upon the recent English comers to Ireland, as upon the older settlers and the natives.

The next task which Wentworth undertook was to get his grasp upon the estates of Connaught. The landlords of that province had thus far escaped by paying liberal sums of money into the royal treasury. They now suffered the same gross injustice which had been inflicted on the landlords of Ulster, Leinster, and Munster. The titles to the lands of Connaught were called in question. Wentworth caused suits to be brought against them on behalf of the king. Cunning lawyers were employed to find flaws in these titles. Juries were packed and threatened, that they might slavishly decide the cases brought before them in the king's favor. In some places, however, the juries proved obstinate. When this happened, the jurymen were heavily fined, and, in some instances, thrown into prison. Thus the estates of the Earl of Clanricarde and of other large proprietors were declared to be forfeited. In the end the land-owners found Wentworth's methods too stern and unrelenting, and gave way in despair.

But Wentworth did not have time to carry out the scheme of planting Connaught with English colonies, as the other provinces had been planted. The greater part of the lands, therefore, were allowed to remain in the hands of the former owners. But these owners had to pay heavily for the privilege of keeping what was justly their own. Some of them were forced to surrender a part of their property to the church, in order to keep the rest. Others paid very large fines that they might remain undisturbed. Many even of the English Protestants who had recently settled in Ireland felt the stress of Wentworth's tyranny. Lord Wilmot, one of the new nobles, was deprived of a part of his estates. Lord Loftus, one of the lords justices, and the son of a Protestant bishop, was expelled from his office for opposing the haughty lord-deputy's will; and Sir Piers Crosby, an equally loyal Protestant, was for a similar reason driven from the privy council.

But Charles was now in great trouble at home in England. His arbitrary conduct was being opposed by a powerful and constantly growing party. His attempt to raise ship-money without consent of his Parliament was being vigorously resisted. All things foreshadowed the coming of a great civil conflict. The Scots had risen in open revolt. Charles saw that no time was to be lost in defending his crown. He summoned Wentworth to London, received his report, created him Earl of Strafford, and sent him back to Ireland with the higher powers of lord-lieutenant. Wentworth at once proceeded to collect the Irish army, which he had raised to the number of nine thousand, and had caused to be well drilled and well provided, for the purpose of invading Scotland. He summoned an Irish Parliament, which, obedient to his will, voted a large sum for the king's use. But while Wentworth was making these preparations, Charles made peace with the Scots; and his energetic measures became of no avail.

Wentworth returned to England, to be soon after impeached by the famous "Long Parliament," convicted, and beheaded for high treason. He left behind him in Ireland a hated memory. In some respects, he had been an able ruler. He maintained order in the island, and caused the laws to be impartially enforced. He did all he could to foster the linen trade, which, indeed, he established in Ireland, by importing weavers from Flanders, encouraging the growth of flax, and causing mills to be erected. But, on the other hand, he stamped out the woolen trade, which he found to be a growing industry which might in time rival that of England. He went to Ireland, as he declared, to make the king "the most absolute potentate in Christendom," and had sought to carry out his purpose with grim vigor and perseverance. The Irish therefore, as well as the resident English, were rejoiced at his fall, and were glad to hear that he had died on the scaffold; for no one had ever done more than he to fasten the odious rule of England upon Ireland.