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James decides to hold
Parliament in Dublin - Instructs Carew accordingly - Changes in the
Country since Perrot's Parliament - Efforts made to outvote the Roman
Catholics - Creation of New Boroughs - The New Boroughs in Ulster - The
Catholics apprehensive of Results - They address the King - Their
Address ignored - Parliament opens in Dublin Castle - Selection of a
Speaker - Ludicrous Scenes - The Recusants remonstrate and withdraw.
Although no monarch ever
sat on the throne of England who held stronger views than did James, with regard to the divine right of Kings to govern right or wrong as they
thought fit, he was nevertheless somewhat meticulous in his
methods of obtaining legal sanction for the deeds which he
held whether those deeds were sanctioned by law or not he
had a perfect right to do. In this he resembled Henry VIII, who was not contented until both Houses of Parliament besought him, almost on their knees, to marry Jane Seymour as speedily as possible after the sentence of execution had been
carried out on Anne Bolyn which marriage, nevertheless, he
had himself determined should be solemnized before Anne
was twenty-four hours in her grave.
In like manner James, who
decided that the natives of
Ulster had no interest in or title to the land of their fathers,
and had by his decision freed the Crown from all claims, legal
or equitable, became all the more desirous to obtain legal
sanction for the Ulster plantation and, deeming the holding
of a Parliament in Ireland the best means of realizing his
wishes, he determined to hold a Parliament in Dublin as
speedily as possible, and instructed Lord Carew accordingly.
As over a quarter of a
century had elapsed since the last
Parliament had been held in Dublin, there were many delays
before His Majesty's wishes could be realized. The last
Parliament had been that summoned by Perrot in 1586, and
of those who had attended on that occasion only four temporal
peers and the same number of bishops survived even a complete list of the members of Perrot's Parliament could not be
found, and the officials who acted when Perrot was Deputy
being either dead or otherwise out of reach, even the law and
practice of Parliament were forgotten.
In the long interval
which had elapsed, immense changes
had taken place in the country, not only in regard to its social
and political condition, but even in the form and character of
its representation. Formerly the members of the House of
Commons represented little more than the old English Pale
whereas, since the date just mentioned, no less than seventeen
additional counties had been formed, as well as a number of
new boroughs, which the Lord Deputy was daily increasing
by virtue of a royal commission. In order to carry out the
royal policy in Ireland it was necessary to secure a Protestant majority, and this could hardly be done without creating
new constituencies.
Of the seventeen new
constituencies formed since 1586,
many were expected to send Catholic representatives, and
it was by the creation of new boroughs that Chichester pro-
posed to overwhelm the Catholic vote of the country. Thirty-
nine new boroughs accordingly were created, of which no
fewer than nineteen were in Ulster many of them mere
hamlets or scattered houses, inhabited only by some half-dozen of the new Ulster settlers, several of them not even
being incorporated until after the writs had been issued. Of
course the power of the King to make boroughs could not be
disputed, but no previous communication of the design to
summon Parliament, or of the laws it was proposed to enact,
had been made pursuant to Poynings' Act, and the Catholics
naturally apprehended a design to impose fresh burthens
upon them.
The new boroughs in
Ulster were Agher, Armagh, Bally-
shannon, Bangor, Belfast, Belturbet, Charlemont, Clogher,
Coleraine, Derry, Donegal, Dungannon, Enniskillen, Lifford,
Limavady, Monaghan, Newtownards, Newry, and Strabane.
The majority of these have since justified their selection, but
in the other provinces some of the newly created boroughs
were too poor even to pay the wages which it was then usual
to give their representatives. The University of Dublin now
returned two representatives for the first time.
The announcement of the
King's intention to call a
Parliament in Ireland became a subject of the greatest alarm
to the Roman Catholics. On the advice of Carew a rumour
was spread that every member of the House of Commons
would be required to take the oath of supremacy or be disqualified which rumour would, it was hoped, be a means
to increase the number of Protestant burgesses and knights,
and deter the most spirited Recusants from being of the
House.
Although James issued his
instructions to Carew with
regard to his desire to hold a Parliament in Ireland as early
as June, 1611, it was not found possible to carry out the King's
wishes until May, 1613. In the meantime, the rumours to
which reference has been made thoroughly aroused the
Catholics throughout the country and in October, 1612,
Sir Patrick Barnwell, notwithstanding his bitter experience
in the Tower in 1605, wrote protesting against the formation
of new boroughs and in November, six of the principal lords
of the Pale, Lords Gormanston, Slane, Killeen, Trimbles-
ton, Dunsany, and Louth, addressed a letter to the King
in which they complained of not having been previously
consulted as to the measures to be laid before Parliament,
and claimed to be the Irish Council within the meaning of
Poynings' Act.
The Catholic lords then
proceeded to express a fearful
suspicion that the project of erecting so many Corporations
in places that can scantly pass the rank of the poorest villages
in the poorest country in Christendom, do tend to naught
else at this time, but that by the voices of a few selected
for the purpose, under the name of burgesses, extreme penal
laws should be imposed upon your subjects here, contrary
to the natures, customs, and dispositions of them all in
effect.
They also protested
vigorously against the recent enforcement of the penal laws then in existence: Your Majesty's
subjects here in general do likewise very much distaste and
exclaim against the deposing of so many magistrates in the
cities and boroughs of this kingdom, for not swearing the
oath of supremacy in spiritual and ecclesiastical causes, they
protesting a firm profession of loyalty, and an acknowledgment of all kingly jurisdiction and authority in your High-
ness which course, for that it was so sparingly and mildly
carried on in the time of your late sister of famous memory,
Queen Elizabeth, but now in your Highnesses happy reign
first extended unto the remote parts of this country, doth
so much the more affright and disquiet the minds of your
well-affected subjects here, especially they conceiving that
by this means those that are most sufficient and fit to exercise and execute those offices and places, are secluded and
removed, and they driven to make choice of others, con- formable
in that point, but otherwise very unfit and uncapable to undertake the charges, being generally of the
meaner sort.
The writers of this
important letter proceeded, with not
a little courage, to point out to the King that there were
already numbers of Irish rebels on the Continent, and it
was therefore undesirable to add to the number of those
who displayed in all countries, kingdoms, and estates,
and inculcated into the ears of foreign kings and princes
the foulness (as they will term it) of such practices. It
was by withdrawing such laws as may tend to the forcing
of your subjects' conscience that His Majesty might settle
their minds and ensure their loyalty.' And so upon the
knees of our loyal hearts, we do humbly pray that your
Highness will be graciously pleased not to give way to
courses, in the general opinion of your subjects here, so
hard and exorbitant, as to erect towns and corporations
of places consisting of some few poor and beggarly cottages,
but that your Highness will give directions that there be
no more erected, till time, or traffic and commerce, do
make places in the remote and unsettled countries here fit
to be incorporated, and that your Majesty will benignly
content yourself with the service of understanding men to
come as knights of the shires out of the chief countries to
the Parliament.
The six loyal Roman
Catholic lords concluded their
letter by saying: And to the end to remove from your subjects'
hearts those fears and discontents, that your Highness farther will be graciously pleased to give orders that
the proceedings of this Parliament may be with the same
moderation and indifferency as your most royal predecessors
have used in like cases heretofore wherein, moreover, if
your Highness shall be pleased out of your gracious
clemency to withdraw such laws as may tend to the forcing
of your subjects' consciences here in matters concerning
religion, you shall settle their minds in a most firm and
faithful subjection.
This letter produced no
immediate result it is said to
have angered the King, who resented any opposition to his
authority, and he became more resolute in the carrying out
of his design. In order to stamp with his approval the
measures which the Lord Deputy was taking to secure a
Protestant majority, Chichester was created a peer under
the title of Baron Chichester of Belfast, an honour which,
the King observed, had only been deferred in order that
the meeting of Parliament might give it additional lustre.
Of the 232 members
returned, 125 were Protestants,
101 belonged to the Recusant or Catholic party, and 6 were
absent. The Upper House consisted of 16 temporal barons,
25 Protestant prelates, 5 viscounts, and 4 earls, of whom a
considerable majority belonged to the Court party. Seeing that Parliament was about to assemble, and that no
action had been taken in connection with the letter of protest
addressed to the King, a petition, dated 18th May, 1613, was
presented to the Lord Deputy by a number of recusant lords,
embodying the complaints already put forward, and further
calling the Deputy's attention to the undue bias shown by
returning officers and sheriffs. An unhappy reference was
made when, in commenting on the presence of troops at
the ceremony as a slur on their loyalty, the Roman Catholic
lords protested against the House assembling in Dublin
Castle on account of its juxtaposition to the gunpowder
magazine. At this Chichester flared up, and reminded the
grumblers of what religion they were of, that placed the powder in
England and gave allowance to that damnable plot (the Gunpowder Plot), and thought the act
meritorious, if it had taken effect, and would have canonized
the actors.
On the very date of this
petition Parliament met in
Dublin Castle. All was bustle and stir in the capital of
Ireland for this memorable meeting. The Government,
remembering recent disturbances in the city when "the
ruder part of the citizens" had driven the mayor from the
tholsel and had forbidden him to repair for succour to the
Lord Deputy, provided 100 foot soldiers for the protection
of all parties. The recusants had repaired to the meeting
accompanied by armed retinues, but all was peace without
the historic building whilst all was war within.
The first trial of
strength between the parties was in
the election of a Speaker. Sir John Everard, member for
Tipperary, who in 1607 had resigned his position as Justice
of the King's Bench rather than take the oath of supremacy,
was proposed by the recusants and Sir John Davies, the
Attorney-General, who had been returned for Fermanagh,
by the Court party. The recusants deemed the numerical
majority of their opponents to be factious and illegal, as it
really was and in the absence of the Court party in another
room, for the purpose of being counted, according to the
forms then in use, they placed their own candidate in the
Speaker's chair, in which he was held down by Sir Daniel
O'Brien of Clare and Sir William Burke of Galway.
On the return of the
Court party, Sir Thomas Ridgeway,
the Vice-Treasurer, who sat for Tyrone, and Sir Richard
Wingfield, afterwards Viscount Powerscourt, offered to tell
for both parties and after much confusion, caused by the
Opposition making by their movements the counting diffi-
cult, it was found, of a possible 232, that 127 were for
Davies, and Everard was therefore called upon by Sir Oliver
St. John, Master of the Ordnance, to leave the chair. This he
was unable to do. Whereupon the tellers made Davies sit
on his knees and, seeing that this ludicrous proceeding had
no effect upon the sedentary would-be Speaker, they pulled
Everard out of the chair, tearing, it is said, his clothes by
their violence. On the other hand, an eyewitness declared
that not so much as his hat was removed on their Speaker's
head.
Their Speaker, hat and
all, having been ejected from his
chair, the recusants left the House, William Talbot, member
for Kildare, who had been removed from the Recordship of
Dublin for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, shouting
to be heard above the din as he left the chamber: "Those
within are no House and Sir John Everard is our Speaker, and
therefore we will not join with you, but we will complain to my Lord Deputy and the King, and the King shall
hear of this". On
reaching the outer door the Opposition
found that, during the division, it had been locked, and Sir
William Burke, with Sir Christopher Nugent, member for
Westmeath, re-entered and demanded egress. Sir John
Davies, who was in the Speaker's chair, courteously invited
them to be seated, but they declined, and, the doors being
opened, the entire party departed, stating that they would
never again return. |
