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reasons that could be, and those very well weighed; and therefore, I do heartily pray both you and your brethren, to lay aside all jealousies, and to advance his majesty's service by all the good means you can, for that he would be very sorry to find the carriage of any bishop especially should cast a damp upon his majesty's service."

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CHAP. IV.

Lord Wentworth continues the contribution.

THE established clergy of Ireland, who made religion a pretence for pressing the execution of the before-mentioned statute, "were themselves generally ignorant and unlearned, and loose and irregular in their lives and conversations."* "As scandalous livings," says Mr. Carte in the same place, “naturally make scandalous ministers, the clergy of the established church were negligent of their cures, and very careless of observing uniformity and decency in divine worship." Of this particular obstacle to the reformation lord Wentworth was fully sensible, and mentioned it in several of his letters to the ministry in England. "An unlearned clergy," says he in one of them," who have not so much as the outward form of churchmen to cover themselves withal, nor their persons any way reverenced or protected; the churches unbuilt; the parsonage and vicarage houses utterly ruined; the people untaught through the non-residence of the clergy, occasioned by unlimited shameful numbers of spiritual promotions, with cure of souls, which they hold by commendams; the rites and ceremonies of the church run over, without decency of habit, order, or gravity in the course of their service; the bishops alienating their very principal houses and demesnes to their children, to strangers and farming out their jurisdictions to mean and unworthy persons;" so that with respect to their project of propagating religion by enforcing this statute, his lordship justly observed,+ 1 Carte's Orm. vol. i. fol. 68. 2 Id. ib. 3 State Lett. vol. i. f. 187. 4 Id. fol. 172.

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Ignorance, negligence, and corruption of manners in the established clergy were the consequences of their poverty."-Leland's Hist. Ireland, zbi supra, p. 26,

"that such brainsick zeal would work a goodly reformation surely, to force conformity to a religion, when there was hardly to be found a church to receive, or an able minister to teach the people.” Laud* in answer to this account of the Irish clergy, tells him, "the anatomy, which you make of the Irish ecclesiastical disease, makes it apparent, that it is spread so universally over the body, that a very wise physician can scarce tell where to begin the cure."5

The method lord Wentworth proposed for improving this part of the revenue, in preference to the tax on the consciences of the natives, was first, to continue the contribution for another year; and secondly, to summon a parliament, in order to settle a constant and regular supply for the army. But, in order to make trial of the temper of the catholics, (who had first proposed, and actually paid more than two-thirds of the former contribution,) with regard to the continuance of it for a longer term," he sent a private messenger of his own to Ireland, who was himself a catholic, with instructions to invite them to make an offer to his majesty of half a subsidy, to be paid the next year; upon the condition, that all further prosecution upon the statute of the 2d of Elizabeth might be respited till his coming over. "The instrument I employed," says he, "knows no other, but that the resolution of the state here is set upon that course, and that I do this privately, in favor and well-wishing to divert the present storm, which else would fall heavy upon them all, being framed and executed by the earl of Cork; which makes the man labor in good earnest, taking it to be a cause pro aris, et focis."

5 Straff. ib. fol. 212. * « 1633, Ireland.

6 Carte's Orm. vol. i. fol. 74.

"Here are divers of the clergy (protestant) whose wives and children are recusants, and there I observe the church goes most lamentably to wreck, and hath suffered extremely under the wicked alienations of this sort of pastors, wherein I could already give many instances."-Straff. State Lett. vol. i. fol. 188.

In 1633," the church of Ireland had no canons set by public authority at all."-Id. ib.

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Keep the bishops from their sacrilegious alienations.”—- Id. ib. fol. 213. Archbishop Laud, in this year 1634, takes notice, that the church in Ireland was then so poor (by the above alienations) "that six benefices were not able to find the minister cloaths; and that, in six parishes, there were scarce six to come to church."-Ib. fol. 254.

The answer which this artful message produced, was7“ that the catholics of Ireland were all very willing to continue the contribution to his majesty, as it then was, until his lordship's coming over; and, in order to testify their forwardness to comply, they sent his lordship a letter to that effect, from the earl of Antrim and others."

CHAP. V.

Lord deputy Wentworth arrives in Ireland.

"His

IN July 1633, lord Wentworth landed in Dublin.. lordship began his administration in a manner." says Mr. Carte," that was ungracious, and could be hardly expected from a man of his wisdom, and experience, who knew the consequence of the first steps that a governor takes, and the impressions which they leave in the minds of the people. For, four days after his arrival, he summoned the council by a pursuivant, according to the usual manner in that point; but summoned only a particular number, as if he intended to consult with a committee, rather than the whole body of it. This disobliged all that were omitted in the summons; and even the few he had called together were offended by a neglect, which they thought unbecoming his lordship to offer, or themselves to bear; they assembled at two o'clock according to their summons, but the lord deputy, whether out of an affectation of state, or not attending to the hour through a more agreeable cause (for he had a day or two before declared his marriage to Mrs. Elizabeth Rhodes, a young lady of extraordinary merit, whom after a long absence he had met at Dublin), made them wait two hours and more, before he came to them; and then the business, under pretence of which they were summoned, was not handled as they expected." It was, perhaps, for this, among other reasons, that at their next meeting in council, his lordship's proposal for continuing the contribution for another year was far from being agreeably received; so far indeed, that he said," he was put to his last sefuge on that occasion, which was to tell them plainly, that 2. Id. ib. fol. 98.

7 Id. ib.

1 Id. ib. fol. 57.

there was no necessity, which induced him to take them to council in that business; for that rather than fail in so necessary a duty* to his master, he would undertake, upon the peril of his head, to make the king's army able to subsist and provide for themselves amongst them, without their help."+3 The army, at this time, took up victuals in its marches, and paid nothing, as if it had been an enemy's country, and therefore was held in abomination by the inhabitants. Having by this commination, somewhat softened their opposition, he further advised," that the proposition of the next year's contribution might come from the protestants, as it had done that year, from the papists; and so those, no more in shew, than substance, to go before these, in their chearfulness and readi ness to serve his majesty."

His lordship's second proposal, of calling a parliament, to settle a constant and regular supply for the maintenance of the army, was so very differently received, that upon the bare mention of it, they readily came into his first proposal: "they were so horribly afraid," says he," that the contributionmoney would be set, as an annual charge upon their inheritances, as they would redeem it at any rate; so as, upon the

3 Carte's Orm. vol. i. fol. 98.

4 Id. ib.

5 Id. ib.

There was not among all the English commons a more violent opposer of the extension of the king's prerogative, or a more strenuous assertor of the people's liberties, than he was, while he remained plain sir Thomas Wentworth. But being brought over to the court in 1629, he was sworn a privy counsellor, and made a baron, and soon after a viscount. "The duke of Buckingham himself," says Mr. Howel," flew not so high in so short a revolution of time. He was made viscount with a great deal of high ceremony, upon a Sunday in the afternoon, at Whitehall. Lord Powis, who affected him not much, being told that the heralds had fetched his pedigree from the blood royal, viz. from John of Gaunt, swore' that if ever he came to be king of England, he would turn rebel.”— Letters, p. 211.

Much the same, he tells archbishop Laud, with respect to the lawyers. "I know no reason," says he, "but you may as well rule the common lawyers in England, as I, poor beagle do here; and yet that I do, and will do, in all that concerns my master's service, upon the peril of my head."-State Lett. vol. i. fol. 173. Speaking of Prynne. Wentworth confesses, that before 1636, "the duties had from the Irish were rather, indeed, violent takings, ravishments of the poor, than the modest, quiet levies of a pious, and christian king."-Id. ib. fol. 19.

name of a parliament, it was something strange to see, how instantly they gave consent to this proposition, with all the chearfulness possible, and agreed to have a letter drawn up, making an offer of the next year's contribution, under their hands." "The next labor (adds his lordship) must be to get through the whole kingdom, the hands of the popish party to the like offer, which I assure myself to have within a few weeks."

CHAP. VI.

Lord Wentworth's manner of modelling the Irish parliament.

LORD Wentworth was not, in the least degree scrupulous as to the legal qualifications of such persons as he intended should constitute this new house of commons; nor indeed did he willingly suffer any to be returned members, whom he did not believe to be some way or other subservient to his preda tory designs.* «I shall labor," says he, "to make as ma ny captains, and officers burgesses, in this parliament, as I possibly can; who having immediate dependence on the crown, may almost sway the business between the two parties,† which

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• " I have this day,” says he, in a letter to secretary Coke, "sent out the writs of summons, and with them above an hundred letters in recommendation of such as, upon advice taken with this council, were held persons ablest and best set for his majesty's service, having both in that and all the rest used the utmost of my power and diligence to get the house to be composed of quiet and governable men.-Straff. St. Lett. vol. i. fol. 259.

† The protestants and recusants, Wentworth's object was a constant and regular supply for the payment of the army. The recusants were not averse to the raising it by a general tax; but the protestants would have levied it entirely and solely on the recusants, by putting the statute of the 2d of Elizabeth in strict execution. His lordship's method of managing both parties on that occasion is set forth by himself in the following proposal, viz. That the lower house should be so composed, that neither the recusants, nor yet the protestants should appear considerably one more than the other: holding them as much as might be (says he) in an equal balance, as being thus easier to govern. And then, in private discourse, to shew the recusants, that the late contribution ending in December, if his majesty's army was not supplied some other way, the twelve pence per

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