STRAFFORD-NALSON. 139 "YOUR lordship may believe me out of long experience, I have found these people to be a nation as ready to take the bit in their teeth upon all advantages as any people living, although they pay for it, as many times they have done before, with all that they are worth."—Ibid. gerous," says STRAFFORD, writing to Northum--LORD WILMOT. STRAFFORD's Letters, vol. 1, berland, "because it falls upon us unexpected, p. 61. which hath been in a great part occasioned by that unhappy principle of state practised as well by his majesty as by his blessed father, of keeping secret and distinct all the affairs and constitution of that crown from the privity and knowledge of the council of England, insomuch as no man was intrusted, or knew anything, but those of their own nation, which was in effect to continue them two kingdoms still, and to put themselves with confidence upon the faith of his ministers and subjects there, where they might have had the eyes of their English to have watched over them, in timely prevention of all which might grow to the disquiet of the public peace, or prejudice of their own private affairs, or rights of that crown."-STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 2, p. 190. LAUD's opinion that Traquair was treacherous, and why the introduction of the Liturgy had failed so dangerously.—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 264. Ireland. "THE barbarism of the soldiers to the Irish was such, that I have heard a relation of my own, who was a captain in that service, relate, that no manner of compassion or discrimination was shewed either to age or sex, but that the little children were promiscuously sufferers with the guilty; and that if any who had some grains of compassion reprehended the soldiers for this unchristian inhumanity, they would scoffingly reply, why? nits will be lice, and so would dispatch them."-NALSON, vol. 2, p. 7. "THERE is extant in the Paper Office, a petition from Ireland to reverse an order of the Council Board (in Strafford's time), forbidding them to plough with their horses tyed only to one another's tails, and to use the English way of traces, for their more commodious performing the service of their tillage."-Ibid., p. 39. "It was confidently averred to the Irish that Sir John Clotworthy did in the House of Commons declare in a speech, that the conversion of the Papists in Ireland was only to be effected by the Bible in one hand, and the sword in the other. And I have been told by a person of honour and worth, that Mr. Pym gave out that they would not leave a priest in Ireland."-Ibid., p. 536. "STATE of the army when Wentworth was appointed:-2000 foot, 400 horse, 'all divided into companies of fifties; yet as they are, they give countenance unto justice itself, and are the only comfort that the poor English undertakers live by; and at this hour the king's revenues are not timely brought in but by force of soldiers.'" 1631. "CERTAIN intelligence of attempts intended by the Turks (Barbary or Morocco Moors) against the western coast of Munster. From Baltimore, a weak English corporation on the coast there, they had carried off above 100 English inhabitants the preceding summer. And the revenue could not by possibility afford to keep more than two pinnaces for the guard of the coasts."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 68. "I WHOLLY agree with you," says LAUD to Wentworth, "that the wars and their noise stunned the Church; and that since the time of peace it hath scarce thrived any better than it did in the war, must needs be in part charged upon the weakness and negligence of the clergy themselves. For the recovery of the weakness, I am wholly of your lordship's belief that the physicians that must cure it are on this side the sea; and further that the fees allowed in those parts are not large enough to tempt them over. And to force them in such a case, I can never hold it fit; for such a work will never be mastered by unwilling hands.”—Ibid., vol. 1, p. 124. STATE of the Pope's kingdom in Ireland, warmly expressed by Bedell.—Ibid., vol. 1, p. 147. Here too is foresight of the massacre. "NOR can I answer what became of the primate and the rest of the bishops while the poor inferior clergy were thus oppressed, more than this, that I ever thought it was not in their power to help it. But if any of them be as bad for oppression of the Church as any layman, that I am sure is unanswerable; and if it appears so to you, great pity it is but some one or other of the chief | wealth; where in the other case, this rather offenders should be made a public example, and fetches from, than communicates any thing with turned out of his bishopric. And I believe such England. An opinion I should better excuse in a course once held, would do more good in Ire- them, if those were less English that practise it; land than any thing that hath been there this and yet this have they drunk so far down as it forty years."-LAUD to Strafford. Ibid., vol. 1, will be impossible to gain it from them: unless p. 156. it be not only against their wills, but before they be aware of what is intended."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. "IRELAND in my memory was so replenished with fair hobbies, that they furnished England and other countries, and were everywhere much esteemed. Now we hear so little of them, that it seemeth the honour of breeding for service hath no more esteem."-SECRETARY COKE. STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1, p. 158. 2d Jan. 1633. STRAFFORD sends an ingot of silver of 300 ozs., being the first that ever was got in Ireland. 223. SIR HENRY SIDNEY down to Strafford's time was called by the people the good deputy, “and the common people, who knew not his name, Would account from the time of the good deputy, making an æra of his being there.""-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 224. CHARLES thought that when men proposed to be undertakers in plantations (in Ireland) he might “pleasure servants in that way with doing himself rather good than hurt," he says.-Ibid., 1633. MISERABLE state of the clergy and of vol. 1, p. 252. the church. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 187-8. "HERE are divers of the clergy whose wives and children are recusants, and there I observe the church goes most lamentably to wreck, and hath suffered extremely under the wicked alienation of this sort of pastors."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 188.. "THEY are accustomed here to have all their christenings and marriages in their private houses; and which is odd, they never marry till after supper, and so to bed. This breeds a great mischief in the commonwealth, which is seen in this, that because these rites of the church are not solemnized in the public and open assemblies, there is nothing so common as for a man to deny his wife and children, abandon the former, and betake himself to a new task. I conceive it were fit these particulars should be reduced to the custom of England, which is not only much better for the public, but the more civil and comely." -STRAFFORD to Laud. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 188. 1634. THE Council of Ireland "grant it undeniable in all reason and justice, after so long a peace and our estates so much improved under the happy government of your Majesty and your royal father, that this kingdom should defray itself without any further charge to your crown of England."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 264. THEY speak of "great annual disbursements continually issued for the good and quiet settle. ment of this kingdom alone.”—Ibid. A WISE refusal to one of Mr. Attorney's (Noy) proposals that laws might be passed without certifying them first to the English Government.— Ibid., vol. 1, p. 269. "THIS the Irish have transcendently," says STRAFFORD, "to be the people of all others lothest to be denied any thing they desire, be it with or against reason."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 281. 1634. "Acrs past for restraining the barbarous customs of ploughing by the tail, of pulling the wool off living sheep, of burning corn in straw, and barking of standing trees, of cutting of young trees by stealth, of foreing cows to give milk, and of building houses without chimneys." -Ibid., vol. 1, p. 291. 1634. "JUST at this present," says STRAFFORD to Laud, "I am informed that my Lord Clanricard hath engrossed as many parsonages and vicarages as he hath mortgaged for £4000 and £80 rent: but in faith have at him, now this STRAFFORD. parliament is well past, and all the rest of the ravens: if I spare a man among them, let no man ever spare me. Howbeit I foresee this is so universal a disease, that I shall incur a number of men's displeasures of the best rank amongst them. But were I not better lose these for God Almighty's cause, than lose Him for theirs?"Ibid., vol. 1, p. 299. DUBLIN College. "Above all things I would recommend that we might have half-a-dozen good scholars to be sent us over to be made fellows, there will be room for so many once in a year; and this encouragement I will give them, cæteris paribus I will prefer them before any but my own chaplains, which I assure you are not many. But to make my offer no better than it is, the most spiritual livings in my gift are not above £100 a year, or thereabouts. But I purpose to hook into the crown again as many advowsons as I can, so abominably do I find them abused where they fall into other hands."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 299. "THERE is a want of good houses in this kingdom, which may be an occasion they take not that delight in their abodes in the country as otherwise I am persuaded they would, found they at home decency and handsomeness to entertain them. I confess this must be remedied by time and degrees; yet if there were some strict course used to bring them in this town to a good order in building, the example might stir up an emulation through the whole kingdom to intend and accommodate their own dwellings much more than now they do. Certainly the proclamation you have in England might be of good use here." 1634.-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 306. EVEN in 1634 the Commons of Ireland speak of a population such as it now is, “duly weighing the want of industry in the inhabitants, increased by the want of manufactures and trades in this kingdom, wherein the common sort of people, vagabonds and beggars, sound of limb and strong of body, that swarm among us, might be profitably employed."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 311. 1634. STRAFFORD says, "I should advise the planter should pay a rent for ever of a full half of what the land is worth at an improved value; as if the land will give two shillings an acre I should reserve twelve pence an acre rent, which considering the covenants of building, of maintaining horse and foot on the land for your majesty's service, and such like, I take to be sufficient. Nor would I advise there might be any greater proportions allotted to any one man than 1000 acres. For I find where more have been granted the covenants of plantation are never performed, nor doth it bring in half so many planters to undergo the public service of the 141 crown, to secure the kingdom against the natives, or to plant civility, industry and religion amongst them, which are indeed the chief and excellent goods the plantation hath wrought in the kingdom."-STRAFFORD's Letters, vol. 1, p. 341. "CERTAINLY the Irish here are the least sensible of the dignity and state which ought not only inwardly to attend the services of great kings, but also to appear to the people in the outward motions of it, that ever I knew. And the reason is very plain; they would have nothing shew more great or magnificent than themselves, that so they might, secundum usum Sarum, lord it the more bravely and uncontrolably at home, take from the poor churl what, and as they pleased."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 348. "Ir may seem strange that this people should be so obstinately set against their own good, and yet the reason is plain; for the Friars and Jesuits fearing that these laws would conform them here to the manners of England, and in time be a means to lead them on to a conformity in religion and faith also, they catholickly oppose and fence up every path leading to so good a purpose. And indeed I see plainly, that so long as this kingdom continues popish, they are not a people for the crown of England to be confident of. Whereas if they were not still distempered by the infusion of these Friars and Jesuits, I am of belief, they would be as good and loyal to their King, as any other subjects."-Ibid., vol. 1, p. 351. STRAFFORD says of Dublin, "this town is the most dangerous for corrupting the disposition of youth that ever I came in."—Ibid., vol. 1, p. 362. THE rebellions, and disorders and looseness of the war, had almost as much ruined them in civility and the paths of virtue, as in their estates and fortunes.—Ibid., vol. 1, p. 366. STRAFFORD advises the re-establishment of the mint, which had been discontinued during the troubles in Elizabeth's time. "Very little of the foreign coin brought into this kingdom ever comes to the Tower of London to be minted, but is transported back into France, much into the Low Countries, and much back into Spain itself. And considering that it is most evident, the exportation of this kingdom exceeds the importation at least £200,000 a year, it doth necessarily follow that great quantities of coin is brought in to balance the trade yearly, which if the Mint was once settled amongst them, would in a great part be coined here, and be so considerable a profit to the crown, beside an excellent means to increase the trade of this kingdom which is now all lost, and hindered exceedingly for want of it."—Ibid., vol. 1, p. 366. The friars and seminaries must have been the means of drawing from Ireland the money which would otherwise have been plentiful here. 1635. "THE proportion we were guided by was to rate every £1000 a year at £40 payment to the King for each subsidy, which in itself is no great matter, nor would indeed seem so, but when they compare it with the rates of England: wherein this is to be said more than in their case, that it is now above twenty years since they here gave a subsidy, where the other have been in yearly payments all that while. That in these late contributions the nobility in a manner, wholly laid the burthen upon the poor tenants, most unequally freeing themselves, and therefore it is reason they should pay the more now. As for example my Lord of Cork, as sure us you live, paid towards the £20,000 yearly contribution, not a penny more than 6s. 8d. Irish, a quarter. "STRAFFORD'S Letters, vol. 1, p. 407. LAUD writes to Strafford, 1635. "I have lately understood of some practising on the Queen's side about portions of tithes, to keep them still alienated from the Church; I am bold to give your Lordship notice of this which I hear, that if there be any such thing you would be pleased to make stay of it, till his Majesty's pleasure be farther known, whose royal intendments I make no doubt are alike gracious touch ing the portions of tithes as the impropriations themselves."-Ibid., p. 431. I HEAR they have sent over agents, forsooth, into England, to what intent I know not; but I trust they will be welcomed as they deserve; it having been anciently the chief art of this nation, by the intervention of these agencies to destroy the services of the crown, and strike thorough the honour and credit of this state and the ministers thereof. But I trust they will find this receipt to fail them now, and the temper of their constitution better understood than that such physic as this shall be longer thought to be proper to recover them forth of that superstition and barbarism which hath hitherto been the reproach almost of the English." -Ibid., vol. 1, p. 473. STRAFFORD calls the army 66 an excellent minister and assistant in the execution of all the King's writs, the great peace-maker between the British and the natives, betwixt the Protestant and the Papist; and the chief securer, under God and his Majesty, of the future and past plantations."-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 18. 1 A quarter was 120 acres, but whether time or measure be meant in this passage, I am not sure. 1637. He writes:-"Yet methinks something begins to appear amongst us, as if this nation might in time become a strength, a safety, and without charge, to that crown; a purpose the English have long had, but hitherto never effected. Their trade, their rents, their civility, increase daily; and together with them, the King's revenue doth in some measure grow upon us, so as we shall be presently able to defray ourselves, which at my coming fell short near thirty thousand pounds a year.”—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 80. It was Strafford's advice that the King should not permit gunpowder to be made in Ireland.— Ibid., vol. 2, p. 87. STRAFFORD recovered or purchased the customs, which had been usurped or alienated. Upon asking authority to purchase back the grant of those of Carrickfergus, he says:-"And then are all the customs thorough the kingdom entirely the King's, as in all reason of state they ought to be, and so preserved; for when they are in several hands, each labouring to improve the profit of his own port, and by favouring merchants, to draw them thither, hinders the King far more in other places, and consequently in a great part impairs the revenue itself."—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 91. "As for the Archbishop of Cashell, I know him to be as dangerous and ill-affected a person as is in the kingdom, and know also he is a pensioner of Spain. You would little imagine, perhaps, that the titular bishoprick should be worth above two thousand pounds sterling a year, yet it is no less.”—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 111. "For the Cathedral of Down, if it shall be thought fit (as stands with reason in my opinion), there should be an act of state enjoining that whole diocese to contribute their several proportions of the charge it shall be estimated at, and to be raised upon the abler sort, not upon the poor people. I assent it with all my heart,neither for that alone, but for all the Cathedrals throughout the whole kingdom. For, methinks, it is somewhat strange that all the public works should be barely put upon the crown, the subject the whilst be at no charge, who hath all the benefit by it.”—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 120. 1637. "IF we be foreborne awhile at the first, till we have invited over and settled the English in these plantations now on foot, this kingdom will grow not only to itself, but to the increase of his Majesty's revenues exceedingly above what is expected from it. But it seems there are some envious against so great a good. and have sent us over a new book of rates, and STRAFFORD-LORD NORTH. 143 thereby laid such a burden upon trade as will af- ¡ his Majesty's order. Here they would esteem fright all people to touch upon our coasts. All them in any kind, for it is the nation that hath this, forsooth, under a pretence of raising the their good opinion, and not the colonels who King's revenue. I know not the workman; but have done no service at all."-Ibid., vol. 2, be it who it will, I am sure he undertook either p. 243. more than he understood, or more than he meant any good unto."-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 121. "As the woods decay, so do the hawks and martins of this kingdom. But in some woods I have, my purpose is by all means I can to set up a breed of martins: a good one of these is as much worth as a good wether, yet neither cats so much, or costs so much attendance: but then the pheasants must look well to themselves; for they tell me these vermin will hunt and kill them notably."-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 249. A SILVER Seal of one of the kings of Connaught found, and one of their bits of gold weighing ten "REMEDY sufficient would be found here to help the church to her own, if we might be let alone but being carried hence to delegates in England, we have no more to say, further, than that by this means two poor vicars have been undone, through the charge of prosecution, and now as near an end of their cause as when they begun. Indeed, my lord, if there be way given to such appeals as these in an ordinary way of proceeding, this clergy shall sue for no tithes but the recovery of them shall cost infallibly more than they are worth, how good soever the ounces.-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 267. success can be; and so the chancery and your civilians there, under colour of enlarging their jurisdiction over Ireland, bring the greatest op1678. "THE affairs of this kingdom go on pression upon this poor clergy that ever was. very prosperously, God be praised and having And yet I will not say, but in some emergent oc- honourably and justly bettered the revenue here casion it may be fit such appeals be procured; since my coming to the government £50,000 a but in truth, it is too strong a medium to be ap-year, we are now able to bear our own charge plied as an ordinary and safe cure for all diseases."-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 138. 1638. "THE old bishop of Kilfanova is dead, and his bishoprick one of those which when it falls, goes a begging for a new husband, being not worth more than fourscore pounds to the last man but in the handling of an understanding prelate might, perchance, grow to be worth two hundred pounds; but then it will cost money in suits."—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 172. STRAFFORD. "IT is very truth there is something further touching confession in these canons, than are in those of England, and in my poor judgement much to the better. For howbeit auricular confession to the parish priest is not allowed as a necessary duty to be imposed upon the conscience, yet did I never hear any but commend the free and voluntary practice of it, to such a worthy and holy person as should be thought fit to communicate with it in so serious and important a business."-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 195. SIR ARTHUR HOPTON, from Spain, 1618. "THE two colonels that are here, Tyrone and Tyrconnel, would make them believe, that all the Irish that serve them, come for love of them, and without his Majesty's leave, which I conceive to be so prejudicial to his Majesty's service, both in regard of the honour of his sovereignty, and depriving him of the gratitude that is due unto him from this King, as I could wish there were a watchful eye had, that no soldiers be suffered to pass out of that kingdom but by with advantage, which this crown never did before. The trade increaseth daily, and the land improves mightily. I dare say all men's rents a third part better than when I set first footing on Irish ground, and very clearly will still grow, if peace continue."—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 270. No rebellion if Strafford had lived.-LAUD'S Troubles. THE Papists in Ireland generally estimated at twenty to one, in many places more.-Clarendon Papers, vol. 2, p. 66. 1627. SCHEMES for reducing Ireland under the Spanish dominion. The Spanish embassy required of the Pope that the Irish bishoprics should be provided only in persons well affected and able to serve the Spanish service; and consequently such as were found affected to the King and state of England should be excluded from all preferments.-Ibid., vol. 2, p. 67. JESUITS' negociations with Cromwell.—Ibid., vol. 2, p. 509. LORD NORTH (Parliamentary History, vol. 20, p. 1272-3) said that "before the Restoration the Irish enjoyed every commercial advantage and benefit in common with England." Certes this was not Strafford's policy. He supposes them to have been introduced out of dislike to Ormond. But see the speech. |