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 way, but they had little interest for him—‘this matter of place I have ever judged a womanly thing.’ If it had turned out that he could not determine between the rival claims of peers and prelates, they would, he thought be ‘fit to keep the House itself busied about,’ and prevent them from talking politics. It was arranged that six or seven lords on whom the Lord Deputy could rely should hold four or five proxies each, so that he was in no danger of being outvoted, for the bishops were safe enough. It was not until 1661 that the number of proxies which could be held by any one peer was reduced to two. The committee for privileges in Wentworth’s House of Lords proposed that every peer having Irish honours but no Irish estate should be obliged to purchase land in proportion to his rank, but this was never carried into effect. When the day of meeting came, Wentworth accompanied the Peers to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in great state. His Parliament opened, Wentworth wrote, ‘with the greatest civility and splendour Ireland ever saw, where appeared a very gallant nobility far above that I expected … my Lord Primate made a very excellent and learned sermon.’ The afternoon was spent in formalities and the taking of oaths. One incident at the beginning of the business session is worth recording on account of the great celebrity of the person principally concerned. Orders had been given to admit no one armed into either House, and when the young Earl of Ormonde, who had carried the sword of state at the opening ceremony, presented himself, Black Rod peremptorily demanded his weapon. ‘In your guts,’ was the contemptuous answer. Ormonde sat armed during the day, and when summoned before the Council, produced his writ of summons which ordered him to attend ‘girt with a sword.’ Wentworth had met his match for the first time, and he held a private consultation with his two chief advisers as to what was to be done with this formidable young man. Wandesford was for crushing him, but Radcliffe advised conciliation, and Ormonde became a Privy Councillor at the early age of twenty-four.[193]
The case of Lord Slane.
Among the sixty-six lords present at the beginning of this session was William Lord Slane, who was allowed to sit and vote pending the possible reappearance of his elder brother Thomas, who had been tried by a jury in England for murder committed in Ireland, had become a friar, and had not been heard of for fourteen years. This precedent was afterwards relied on in Lord Maguire’s case as establishing the principle that an Irish peer was a commoner in England.[194]
Wentworth’s speech.
Private consultations forbidden.
The Recusants threatened.
Election of Speaker.
On the second day Wentworth made a speech to both Houses, in what he calls his mildest manner; but it was not very mild. He told them that there was a debt of 100,000l. and an annual deficit of 20,000l. What they had to do was simply to clear off the debt and to provide a permanent equilibrium between receipts and expenditure, so that the necessary maintenance of the army might no longer trouble his Majesty’s princely thoughts. That would be the King’s session. Later on they would have a session of their own, where the King would grant all the favours he thought proper, and where they were to accept his gifts with confidence and gratitude, and without asking for more. ‘Take heed,’ he said, ‘of private meetings and consults in your chambers, by design and privity aforehand to contrive, how to discourse and carry the public affairs when you come into the Houses. For besides that they are themselves unlawful, and punishable in a grievous measure, I never knew them in all my experience to do any good to the public or to any particular man; I have often known them do much harm.’ With a Deputy who knew his own mind, a session strictly limited by the King’s orders to three weeks, and no opportunity for private consultation, the House of Commons was almost powerless. Wentworth’s instinct and the experience of 1613 told him that the chief danger would come from the Roman Catholics, whom he had taken care should form nearly one half of the Lower House. He told them that if adequate supplies were withheld there would be no way of paying the army but ‘by levying the twelvepence a Sunday upon the Recusants.’ The King wished to make no distinction between English and Irish, but if it came to a fight the predominant partner would take care not to be beaten. The first trial of strength was about the choice of a Speaker. The official candidate was Sergeant Catelin, recorder of Dublin and member for the city, against whom there were many mutterings; but the House was told that the King had a veto upon every election, and that it would be steadily exercised until the right man was chosen. Wentworth’s nominee became Speaker without a contest, and expressed himself to his patron’s satisfaction. He was knighted at the end of the Parliament, and received 1,600l. for his services. A copy of what purported to be the Viceroy’s speech was shown by Cottington before its delivery; but this was probably a hoax, for Wentworth declared that it had not been written down beforehand. Cottington had Wentworth’s own account of his harangue to the Irish Council, and the speech to Parliament was little more than a repetition of it.[195]
Attempt to purge the Commons.
Supply is demanded at once,
and six subsidies are voted.
The session is talked out.
The two Houses at variance.
The