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Sir Oliver St. John
appointed Lord Deputy - Chichester accepts Lord Treasurership - St.
John's Measures against the Recusants - The Prisons full of the Better
Sort of Citizen - St. John's Zeal - He is recalled and created Viscount
Grandison - Self-aggrandizement of the Recusants - Henry Gary, Viscount
Falkland appointed Lord Deputy - Ussher's Remarkable Sermon - Fateful
Measures in connection with the Army - Progress of the Plantation in
Ulster - Death of James I.
In August, 1616, Sir
Oliver St. John, who had been ten
years Master of the Ordnance in Ireland, was appointed
Lord Deputy. Before his appointment he had a seat in the
Irish Parliament as member for Roscommon, and in the
session of 1615 unsuccessfully endeavoured to have Guy
Fawkes's day made a religious festival. He was known to
be bitterly opposed to Roman Catholicism, and his appointment was looked
upon by the recusants as a measure of
hostility towards their party, and became the signal for fresh
clamours and discontents. He was sworn in on 3oth August,
after a learned sermon delivered in St. Patrick's Cathedral
by the celebrated James Ussher, then Protestant Bishop of
Meath, soon after made Archbishop of Armagh. The sermon
finished, the Lord Treasurer's white staff was handed to the
new Lord Treasurer, Baron Chichester of Belfast, "who with
all humility upon his knees received the same".
St. John's first
proceedings seemed to justify the apprehensions of the recusants. He
began with a vigorous execution of the penal statutes. The seditious
practices of the
popish regulars, priests generally educated abroad, and
actuated by a determined hostility towards the English
Government, had given frequent uneasiness to it, and they
had been an oppressive weight upon the poorer classes of
the Irish Catholics. Early in the new administration a
proclamation appeared, banishing this class of the clergy
from Ireland. This was declared to be, especially upon the
Continent, an intolerable act of persecution. At this state
of things Carew appears to have rejoiced. "God", said
he, "I hope will prosper these good beginnings, which tend
only to His praise and glory, and to the assurance of obedience
unto His Majesty." One result of these good beginnings
was that half Ireland was incarcerated.
Worse than this was the
case when the magistrates of
cities and officers of justice were called upon to take the oath
of supremacy, and when, on their refusal, the penalties
ordained by the law in such cases were strictly enforced, and
it was reported that "over eighty" of the best sort of
"citizens" in Dublin and elsewhere were in prison. There
was much trouble in the south of Ireland, which affected the
north in some measure, inasmuch as all eyes were on the
King, watching the extension of his methods of plantation.
What was true of the south was equally true with regard to
Ulster. The plantation scheme, in being carried into effect,
had driven "from their well-established and ancient possession
harmless poor natives, encumbered with many children and
with no powerful friends". "They have", said a contemporary, "no wealth
but flocks and herds, they know no trade
but agriculture or pasture, they are unlearned men without
human help or protection. Yet," said this warning voice,
"though unarmed, they are so active in mind and body that
it is dangerous to drive them from their ancestral seats, to
forbid them fire and water; thus driving the desperate to
revenge, and even the more moderate to thinking of taking
arms. They have been deprived of weapons, but are in
a temper to fight with nails and heels and to tear their
oppressors with their teeth.
"Necessity gives the
greatest strength and courage, nor
is there any sharper spear than that of despair. Since
these . . . men, and others like them, see themselves excluded from all
hopes of restitution or compensation, and
are so constituted that they would rather starve upon husks
at home than fare sumptuously elsewhere, they will fight for
their altars and hearths, and rather seek a bloody death near
the sepulchres of their fathers than be buried in unknown
earth or inhospitable sand."
In consequence of this
system of depriving men of home
and hearth, outlaws were on the increase. In the autumn
of 1619 the Viceroy reported that 300 outlaws had been
killed, most of them doubtless in the hills between Tyrone
and Londonderry. St. John also reported that the country
was full of "the younger sons of gentlemen, who have no
means of living and will not work".
St. John, who had
provoked many enemies by the zeal
which he displayed in enquiring into irregularities, had now
an outcry raised against him from a quarter from which it
might be least expected. Some leading members of the
State having usurped lands belonging to the Church, the
Lord Deputy compelled their restoration, whereupon the
guilty parties immediately joined the recusants in attacking
St. John. This combined outcry at length induced the King
to appoint a commission to inspect the state of Ireland and
the irregularities of its administration; and at the urgent
intercession of his enemies, who represented that the commission could
have no effect while the person into whose
conduct enquiry was to be made remained at the head of the
Government, St. John was deprived of his office in 1622, and
rewarded by the King who agreed with Bacon, that he was
"a man ordained by God to do great good " to Ireland with
the Irish title of Viscount Grandison, and the office of Lord-Treasurer
of that kingdom, and that of a privy councillor
in both.
Grandison left Ireland on
4th May, and the Commissioners
arrived about the same time. His zeal for the army was such
that he frequently called attention to the fact that, though the
pay of the soldiers was two years and a half in arrear, the
men behaved in an exemplary manner, notwithstanding their
sufferings, their "tottered carcasses, lean cheeks, and broken
hearts". "I know", he said, "that I shall be followed with
a thousand curses and leave behind me an opinion that my
unworthiness or want of credit has been the cause of leaving
the army in worse state than ever any of my predecessors
before have done."
The commission appears to
have been, in its result, little
better than a nominal one; but the recusants exulted in the
recall of Grandison as a signal triumph over the Protestant
party, and they began to act with greater independence
than ever.
In the towns where their
power was greatest they seized
upon the churches and celebrated mass in them, and they
even began to restore the abbeys. They were, however,
obliged to submit to a signal mortification when, on
Henry Gary, lately created Viscount Falkland in Scotland,
being sent over as Grandison's successor, Ussher preached
before the new Lord Deputy a sermon which was virtually
a violent diatribe against them. Taking as his text the
words of St. Paul: "He beareth not the sword in vain",
the Bishop of Meath urged that it was necessary to place
some restraint on the Catholics, to deter them from these
public outbreaks of insolence and outrage.
This raised further
protestations from the recusants, who
declared Ussher to be a bloody minister, urging upon the
civil chief magistrate the need to persecute and massacre,
for the sake of religion, His Majesty's loyal subjects. Ussher's
language was condemned by Hampton, the aged Protestant
Primate of Armagh, in language "the mildness of which",
says the Rev. Dr. D'Alton, the historian, "was not unworthy
of an Apostle"; whereupon Ussher, recognizing the truth of
the Primate's reminder to him that his proper weapons were
not carnal but spiritual, took the opportunity of a sermon he
was called upon to address to an assembly of non-conforming
magistrates in Dublin Castle to explain away what he had
said about the sword, and stated that he deprecated violence,
and "wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the
badge of the whore of Babylon than of the Church of God".
"We do good by speaking
it," said Walter Savage
Landor, and the converse is equally true. Ussher did evil
by giving voice to it. The result of his words is seen in the
report that at Cavan and Granard, when the Catholics had
assembled for worship, Captain Arthur Forbes stated that,
unless he knew for certain that the King wished for toleration, he would
"make the antiphonie of their mass be sung
with sound of musket". At the same time it must be remembered that some
priests actually prayed in public for "Philip
of Spain our King".
While the general feeling
of discontent was thus increasing, James, with singular improvidence,
had reduced the
army in Ireland to a merely nominal force, and even this
was scattered over the country in such small companies as
to be useless in case of emergency. Instead of being regularly trained
and mustered, the bulk of the army were left
to the will of officers who were in many cases not in a
position to be responsible for the welfare of their men.
Officers who were Irish landlords employed their men in
the cultivation of the land or as menial servants in their
houses; while the others, who were, as we have seen, left
in long arrears of pay, were obliged to connive at the lack
of discipline, and the outrages committed by soldiers who
also were left unpaid by the State. The prodigality and
consequent pecuniary necessities of James forced him thus
to neglect the defences of the Government in Ireland, and
the seeming humiliation of the old rebellious septs seemed
on the surface to justify his negligence.
Another equally imprudent
measure led to future evils of a serious character, and proved at the
time the necessity for placing a more efficient force at the disposal of
the Government, for it had been pointed out that not more than 750
effective men would be available in case of insurrection. The error was
that James, in his eagerness to clear the country, and Ulster
especially, of idle swordsmen and land- less men, gave permission to
such of them as were willing to leave Ireland to enlist in foreign
service. By so doing he practically raised an army against himself, for
the officers whose services were requisitioned to raise companies of men
and conduct them to the Continent were chiefly sons or retainers of old rebel chiefs, and, having followed them into
exile, had been educated abroad in exaggerated ideas of the
former power and opulence of their' forefathers, and in inveterate
hatred of all things British.
These officers, to make
up their levies, arrived in Ulster
early in the summer of 1623, and lost no time in filling up their
companies, which was no sooner done than the Government
saw the danger of thus placing arms in the hands of old
enemies, and became alarmed. When their levies were completed the Irish
officers paid no further attention to the orders
or limits prescribed to them, but, in defiance of the authorities,
ranged through the kingdom, to the great detriment
of all and annoyance of lovers of peace and order.
With much insolence they
traversed those counties in
which their old family connections were most powerful, and
allied themselves with the disaffected and discontented, confirming
their old sympathies, and carrying away the young
to be educated abroad. At the approach of winter, still
exhibiting no inclination to embark, they advanced with their
men, in separate companies, towards the Pale, burdening
and harassing the country, and causing the greatest alarm
to the citizens of Dublin.
An effort was made to collect the forces of the Government, by whom it
was arranged, at the eleventh hour, that
the number of horse was to be increased from 230 to 400,
and of foot from 1450 to 3600. Small companies were sent
to secure the outlying counties, and some troops of horse
were quartered in Dublin to keep a watch over the Irish
companies. At length, after causing no little anxiety, the
Irish recruits embarked, and, to the great satisfaction of the
Government, left the country.
The plantation in Ulster
now proved that many of the
inhabitants were tired of disorder. Sir William Jones being
made Chief Justice of Ireland, Lord Keeper Bacon advised
him to "have special care of the three plantations that of
the North which is in part acted, that of Wexford which
is now in distribution, and that of Longford and Leitrim
which is now in survey." And added in words already quoted,
"take it from me that the bane of a plantation is, when the
undertakers or planters make such haste to a little mechanical
present profit, as disturbeth the whole frame and nobleness of
the work for times to come. Therefore hold them to their
covenants, and the strict ordinances of plantation."
A new survey of the
planted area was requested by some
of the undertakers, because many that formerly "agreed to
this . . . plantation now absolutely dislike thereof, and of
their proportions assigned to them in lieu of their other
possessions taken from them, for that, as they affirm, their
proportions assigned are not so many acres as they are
rated to them, and because the acres taken from them are
far more in number than they be surveyed at. ..." At the
end of 1612, James authorized the Lord Deputy to receive
the surrender of the natives and to make " re-grants to such
of them as he should think fit such quantities of land and
at such rent and upon such conditions as he should think fit".
James I died on the 27th
March, 1625. Lauded by some
as the British Solomon, he was also called the wisest fool
in Christendom. Extremes met in his character, which has
been admirably dissected by Sir Walter Scott in The Fortunes
of Nigel. He was certainly not happy in his government
of Ireland, for his rule in that unhappy country consisted
largely of wholesale plunder, oppression, and persecution
of the Irish. Some of the minor crimes of James's government against the
Irish have thus been summed up by
Leland, a by no means prejudiced historian: "Extortions
and oppressions of the soldiers in various excursions from
their quarters, for levying the King's rents, or supporting
the civil power; a rigorous and tyrannical execution of
martial law in time of peace; a dangerous and unconstitutional power
assumed by the Privy Council in deciding
causes determinable by common law; the severe treatment
of witnesses and jurors in the Castle-chamber, whose evidence
or verdicts had been displeasing to the State; the grievous
exaction of the established clergy for the occasional duties
of their functions; and the severity of the ecclesiastical
courts". As to the punishment of jurors, it was laid down
as a principle by Chichester that the proper tribunal to
punish those who would not find for the Crown on "sufficient evidence"
was the Castle,, or Star Chamber; sometimes
they were "pilloried with loss of ears and bored through the
tongue, and sometimes marked on the forehead with a hot
iron".
The ordinary principles
of justice were set at naught;
perjury, fraud, and the most infamous acts of deceit were
resorted to; and, as Leland states: "There are not wanting
proofs of the most iniquitous practices of hardened cruelty,
of vile perjury, and scandalous subornation employed to
despoil the fair and unfortunate proprietor of his inheritance". |
