Oct. 14. Imprisonment of the Elector Palatine. reached Moulins on the road to Breisach. He was there arrested and detained, on the plea that he carried no passport. He was taken to Vincennes and kept in strict custody. To Charles, the imprisonment of his nephew was scarcely less offensive than Tromp's attack in the Downs, but he was equally powerless to avenge it. With Scotland in all but open insurrection, and with his maritime supremacy set at nought in his own ports, Charles felt the need of a counsellor who could reveal to him the as Charles's secret of success. That counsellor he hoped to find in Wentworth. It happened that the Lord Deputy was at the time in England. He had long been exposed to petty annoyances from Irish officials and English courtiers, and though, whenever he stood at bay, he had no difficulty in Wentworth counsellor. His case against Crosby and Mountnorris. routing his enemies, he was unable to shake them off entirely. One case in which he was concerned had been brought to an issue in the preceding May. In November 1634 a man named Robert Esmond had been summoned before Wentworth in Dublin for having refused to carry on board his vessel some timber belonging to the King. Wentworth was in an ill temper, shook his cane at Esmond, and after having, according to some accounts, actually struck him, committed him to prison. After a short imprisonment the man, who had long been suffering from consumption, was allowed to go at large, but he died a few days after his release. The moment at which this unlucky affair occurred was one in which Wentworth had surrounded himself with bitter enemies. Crosby had just been ejected from the Privy Council, and Mountnorris was at the height of his feud with the Lord Deputy. Crosby and Mountnorris busied themselves with the collection of evidence to prove that Esmond's death had been caused by the severity of the blows administered to him, with the intention of bringing a charge against the Deputy before the King. Wentworth, as usual, anticipated the blow, and accused Crosby and Mountnorris and some of their confederates, before the English Court of Star Chamber, as the propagators of scandalous falsehoods to his discredit. 1639 Star May. WENTWORTH AND THE CHANCELLOR. 71 At last, in May 1639, the case was ready for a hearing. The evidence that Wentworth had not actually touched the man was extremely strong. Mountnorris proceedings. escaped punishment through defect of proof, but Crosby and others were sentenced to various fines.1 Chamber It was not the only case in which Wentworth was at this time involved. In the first years of his government he had Case of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland. found a strong supporter in the Chancellor, Lord Loftus. In 1637 the two men were deadly enemies. According to Wentworth's story, the Lord Chancellor, having covenanted to settle certain estates on his eldest son upon his marriage, had broken away from his word. He was summoned before the Irish Privy Council, and, answering insolently, was placed under restraint. What justification Loftus may have had cannot now be ascertained. He fell back on his political friends at Court, and by their intercession he obtained leave from Charles to cross St. George's Channel, that he might plead his own cause in England. From that moment his fault must have assumed a peculiar heinousness in Wentworth's eyes. The permission given him was a direct challenge to the policy of "Thorough." A highly-placed offender was, it seemed, to be permitted to set at nought the judgment of the Irish Privy Council because Arundel and Holland, and all the courtiers who had a grudge against the Lord Deputy, had placed themselves on his side. Wentworth took the daring step of vindicating the King's authority against the King 1638. himself. He resolved that if Loftus went to England he should not go as Chancellor. Acting upon instructions which had not hitherto been put in force, he summoned him before the Council, and took the Great Seal out of his hands.2 The account in Rushworth (iii. 888) is very incomplete. It may be supplemented by a fuller, but also incomplete, account in the State Papers (Dom. ccccxx. 36), and by a statement by Lord Esmond (S. P. Ireland, Undated). It was given in evidence, that Esmond when in prison distinctly denied that he had been struck by Wentworth. The King to Wentworth, April 9. Wentworth and the Irish Council to the King, April 20. Wentworth to the King, April 22, Strafford Letters, ii. 160, 168. I have said nothing in the text about the alleged intrigue between Strafford and Lady Loftus. Clarendon's assertion is no 1639. For many months Charles hesitated between the pleadings of the courtiers and Laud's advocacy of Wentworth. Wentworth lashed himself into rage at the obstacles raised against him. He declared the Chancellor to have been guilty of the worst oppression in the exercise of his office, and to be unworthy of serving the Crown in any capacity whatever. His opponents naturally set down his indignation to mere passion. At last Charles decided substantially for Wentworth. He allowed, indeed, the Chancellor to come to England to plead his cause; but he forced him first to submit to the decree of the Irish Council against him, pending the result of his appeal. Wentworth was allowed to visit England to conduct his case in person. The English Council declared itself to be convinced by the arguments of the Deputy, and ordered that Loftus should be prosecuted in the Star Chamber. It is possible that the Chancellor deserved his fate, but the decision of a body composed as the Privy Council was, could carry little weight.' evidence, and Sir G. Radcliffe's testimony, coming from a friend so intimate, is conclusive. He was defamed for incontinence, wherein I have reason to believe that he was exceedingly much wronged. I had occasion of some speech with him about the state of his soul several times, but twice especially, when I verily believe he did lay open unto me the very bottom of his heart. Once was when he was in a very great affliction upon the death of his second wife; and then for some days and nights I was very few minutes out of his company. The other time was at Dublin, or a Good Friday, his birthday, when he was preparing himself to receive the Blessed Sacrament on Easter Day following. At both these times I received such satisfaction as left no scruple with me at all, but much assurance of his chastity." Strafford Letters, ii. App. 435. Strafford's own language, too, in speaking of the lady is inconsistent with the charge, whilst the respectful admiration which it reveals would account for the rise of scandalous rumours. "We have sadly buried my Lady Loftus, one of the noblest persons I ever had the happiness to be acquainted with; and as I had received greater obligations from her ladyship than from all Ireland beside, so with her are gone the greatest part of my affections to the country; and all that is left of them shall be thankfully and religiously paid to her excellent memory and lasting goodness." Strafford to Conway, ibid. ii. 381. The King to Wentworth, July 22. Wentworth to Conway, Aug. 13. ibid. ii. 372, 381. Salvetti's News-Letter, 27 Council Register, Oct. 13. Sert. 1639 Sept. 22. becomes Charles's WENTWORTH IN ENGLAND. 73 Wentworth had arrived in London on September 22. From that time he became, what he had never been before, the trusted counsellor of Charles, so far at least as it was Wentworth possible for Charles to trust anyone. During the fourteen months which followed he was the great counsellor. minister, striving with all the force of his iron will to rescue his master from the net in which his feet were inextricably entangled. To some extent the blame of failure must lie with the King himself. Charles was not easy to save. He was too inconsistent in carrying out a settled policy, too readily inclined to listen to personal claims and personal attachments, to be able to cut his way sternly and ruthlessly through opposing ranks; but, after all, the main cause of failure lay in Wentworth himself. His want of sympathy with his generation is fatal to his claim to the highest statesmanship. He could criticise incisively the organised ccclesiastical democracy of the Scottish. Assembly, but he had nothing to substitute for it which could give him any hold on the hearts of the Scottish people. For the Scottish people, indeed, he took but little thought. enough for him if he was able to subdue them, and in order to subdue them it was necessary to rally Englishmen around the throne. In truth, he knew England hardly better than he knew Scotland. He could not comprehend how honest men could look on the Scottish resistance from a point of view different from his own. If Englishmen would but open their eyes to the foulness of that mad rebellion, they would rejoice to be the rod in the King's hand to exercise righteous judgment on his enemies. It was During the first few weeks of Wentworth's sojourn in England, disaster had followed disaster. The lesson which Wentworth saw in the disgrace of the conflict in the Downs, and in the scornful imprisonment of the Elector by Richelieu, was the necessity of showing a firm front to the Northern traitors, whose rebellion had made it impossible to avenge The Scottish such insults. On November 7 two commissioners from the Scottish Parliament, the Earls of Loudoun and Dunfermline, arrived in London, to ask that the Acts of the Scottish Parliament might receive confirmation by the Nov. 7. Commission ers in London. 1 The Com- Scottish King. The question was referred to a committee of eight Privy Councillors which had recently been formed for consultation on the affairs of Scotland. Of that committee-the Junto, or Committee of Eight, as it was frequently called-Wentworth was the ruling spirit. Its other members were Laud, Hamilton, Juxon, Northumberland, Cottington, Windebank, and Vane.2 From such a committee the Scottish demands were not likely to meet with much consideration. By a considerable majority of its members, Charles was urged to send Loudoun to prison, on the ground that he had circulated that account of the King's conversation at Berwick which had been burnt as false by the hangman in England.3 The Scottish With this recommendation Charles did not comply; Commission but he ordered Loudoun and Dunfermline to return at once, on the ground that their commission had not been signed by Traquair. He declined, in short, to treat with the Parliament of Scotland as an independent body. ers sent back. Nov. 14. Parliament The dismissal of the Commissioners had been anticipated by an order to Traquair to prorogue the Parliament-not, as had been before intended, to March, but to June 2. The Scottish This time the prorogation was accepted at Edinprorogued. burgh, though not without a protest. Parliament separated, after appointing a committee to sit in its absence to consider the answer which Loudoun and Dunfermline were at that time expected to bring back from London. Provocation This contemptuous rejection of the Scottish demands at the instance of a committee of which only one member was of Scottish blood, was certain to irritate the Scottish national feeling. "The Scots," wrote an Englishman who made it his business to collect information on passing events, "have lately declared their great jealousies that the kingdom of Scotland is designed to be made a province of England, and to be governed by orders and to the Scottish national feeling. 200. 1 Guthrie, 69. 2 Cardenas to Salamanca, Nov., Brussels MSS. Sec. Esp. cclxxx. |