Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 2 (of 3), 1642-1660

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[257] Irish Commissioners to Council of State, January 8, 1651-2, Portland Papers, i. 622, and Ludlow, i. 497. In the former the river ‘which goes to Youghal’ is called the More, i.e. the Avonmore or Blackwater, not the Nore, as printed in the latter. Statements by Adventurers’ Committee in Portland Papers, i. 639, April 5, 1652, and ib. 649, May 14; Irish officers to Parliament, May 5, signed by Ludlow and eighteen others. See Prendergast, pp. 83 sqq. Dr. Jones had a vested interest in the 1641 depositions, Parliament having given him the sole right to print and reprint his abstract up to March 21, 1641-2, Somers Tracts, v. 573. He had a fresh commission to take evidence after that date, and doubtless the document which caused such horror at Kilkenny in 1652 contained much additional matter.

[258] Act for the settling of Ireland, August 12, 1652, in Scobell, ii. 197, reprinted in Contemp. Hist. iii. 341, and (with date misprinted and omission of names in clause 3) in Gardiner’s Constitutional Documents, 2nd. ed. p. 394.

[259] Life of Colonel Hutchinson; Ludlow, i. 318; Cromwell’s commission to Fleetwood as commander-in-chief, July 10, 1652, in Thurloe, i. 212; instructions to Commissioners, August 24, in Parliamentary History, xx. 92; Representation of officers in Ireland against Mr. Weaver, February 18, 1652-3, in Portland Papers, i. 671.

[260] Declaration of April 22, 1653, in Parliamentary History, xx.; Commissioners in Ireland to Lenthall, December 3, 1652, January 15, 1652-3, and to the new Speaker, July 20, and their proclamation of April 29, all printed in appx. to Ludlow, vol. i.

[261] Parliamentary History, xx. 152-183; Cromwell’s opening speech on July 4, 1653, is the first in Carlyle; Ludlow, i. 358.

[262] Order of Council of State, June 1, Commission and Instructions ‘from the keepers of the liberty of England by authority of Parliament,’ June 22, in Scobell, 1653, chap. 12.

[263] Further instructions of July 2, 1653, in Scobell, chap. 12. The letter of the Commissioners dated July 22, was written before the receipt of this, Ludlow, i. 539. Lawrence’s Answer to Gookin, p. 6. Order in Council, March 19, 1654-5, Irish R.O., A/26.

[264] Declaration dated Dublin, October 14, 1653, signed by Fleetwood, Ludlow, Corbet, and Jones, reprinted in English Historical Review, xiv. 710, from what is believed to be a unique copy at Kilkenny.

[265] Petition presented March 1655, ib. The allusion is to chap. 6 of Campion’s History of Ireland, first printed in 1587, and republished by Sir James Ware in 1633, with a dedication to Strafford.

[266] Henry Cromwell to Thurloe, March 8, 1653-4, in Thurloe, ii. 149; Jenkin Lloyd to Thurloe, March 13, ib. 162; Fleetwood to Thurloe, April 8, ib. 224; appendix to Fourteenth Report of Deputy-keeper of Public Records, Ireland, p. 28; Ludlow, i. 377, 542.

[267] The names and constituencies of the Irish members of Parliament are in Parl. Hist., xx. 307; Ludlow, i. 388. Instructions of August 17, 1654, in Thurloe, ii. 508.

[268] The Great Case of Transplantation &c., London, printed for J. C. 1655, to which Thomasson gives the date January 3. A potato-field is still called a ‘garden’ in Ireland. The ‘handy-man’ who builds with bad tools out of bad materials, is even now not extinct. The declaration of November 30, 1654, is not extant, but is recited in a later one, see Eng. Hist. Review, xiv. 722.

[269] Fleetwood to Thurloe, February 7, 1654-5, Thurloe, iii. 139. The Interest of England in the Irish Transplantation stated, &c., by a faithful servant of the Commonwealth, Richard Lawrence, London, 1655, dated March 9. The Author and Case of Transplanting, &c., vindicated against the Unjust Aspersions of Colonel Richard Lawrence, by Vincent Gookin, Esquire, London, 1655, published May 12. Petty had a hand in Gookin’s first pamphlet, see his Life, by Lord Fitzmaurice. Lawrence was a brother of the English President of Council; he came to Ireland with Cromwell and was governor of Waterford.

[270] Letters of November 25, 1653, in Thurloe, i. 587; of January 25 1653-4. ib. ii. 27; of April 27, 1655, ib. iii. 384; Fleetwood and forty-four other officers to the Protector, ib. iii. 466; Nieuport to the States General, ib. iii. 477; Morland’s Hist. of the Evangelical Churches, book iii. chap. 3, art. 1.; Hist. of Down Survey, p. 66; Henry Cromwell to Thurloe, January 30, 1655-6, Thurloe, iv. 484.

[271] H. Cromwell to Thurloe, March 12, 1655-6, Thurloe, iv. 606.

[272] Petty’s Reflections on some persons and things in Ireland, ed. 1790, pp. 54, 106; Hist. of the Down Survey, chaps. 1 and 2. The name ‘Down’, comes simply from the particulars being laid down in map form and not merely described.

[273] Dr. Petty’s proposals at p. 9 of Hist. of Down Survey; Articles with Worsley ratified by the Lord Deputy and Council, December 25, 1654, ib. 29; H. Cromwell to Thurloe, October 9, 1655, in Thurloe, iv. 73; Prendergast, Cromwellian Settlement, p. 206. In consequence of the delays interposed by Worsley and others, the thirteen months were made to run from February 1 1654-5.

[274] Brief account of the Survey in Hist. of Down Survey, xiii.; Petty’s Political Anatomy of Ireland, chap. iv.; Fitzmaurice’s Life of Petty, chap. ii.; Prendergast, 2nd. edition, 221, where there are many details as to the sale of debentures to officers, and a facsimile of one by way of frontispiece. On August 29, 1655, Henry Cromwell wrote to Thurloe: ‘I believe we reduce near 5000 men, and as good soldiers as are in the three nations. I am afraid few of them will betake themselves to planting; if you could find out some employment for them abroad, it would be of good service to the public,’ Thurloe, iii. 744. State Papers, Domestic, December 28, 1654. As late as November 6, 1657, Broghill wrote to Montagu ‘if all things move at the rate our settlement of Ireland has done, I shall think the body politic has got the gout,’ Thurloe, vi. 600.

[275] Hist. of Down Survey, 53, 198; Clarendon’s Life, Con. 116; Fitzmaurice’s Life of Petty, chap. 2. A list printed by Prendergast, p. 403, gives the names of 1,360 adventurers.

[276] Prendergast, p. 305; Hardiman’s Hist. of Galway, p. 137; Lady Fanshawe’s Memoirs. On January 30, 1655-6, Henry Cromwell told Thurloe that there were not six families in Galway, and that the houses decayed daily; he thought it would pay to encourage London merchants to make a settlement, even if they had the houses rent-free, Thurloe, iv. 198, 483; Rev. R. Easthorp to H. Cromwell, July 17, 1657, Lansdowne MSS., 822.

[277] Scobell, p. 47. Thirty priests were ordered to be shipped to the Continent from Galway on June 15, 1665, Irish R.O., A/60. One secular priest, one Jesuit, and several friars remained in Dublin during the whole Cromwellian period, Spicilegium Ossoriense, ii. 208. Many details as to Irish towns are given by Prendergast, chap. vi. 272-307. Letter to Cromwell from New England, October 31, 1650, Milton State Papers, p. 44.

[278] Patrick Adair’s True Narrative, ed. Killen, 197, 201. The proclamation for the transplantation dated May 23, 1653, is printed in Reid’s Presbyterian Church, chap 16, and the 260 names in the appendix. See Gardiner’s Commonwealth, iii. 305.

[CHAPTER XXXVIII]
HENRY CROMWELL, 1655-1659

Appearance of Henry Cromwell.

Though the Protector had not adopted his son’s advice by at once recalling Fleetwood, it soon became evident that he wished for a stronger man. Before the end of 1654 the Lord Deputy gently complained that he was kept in the dark about matters of policy, and doubted whether this was for his Highness’s service. A few days later Henry Cromwell was appointed to the Council in Ireland, having already for some months held a commission as Major-General of the forces there; but he did not come over until July 1655. Fleetwood returned to England some weeks later, but retained the office of Deputy, and continued to give advice, while Henry became virtual head of the Irish Government. Fleetwood had come very much under the influence of the Anabaptist officers, and his supersession marks the decline of their reputation with the now all-powerful Protector.[279]

Fleetwood leaves Ireland, Sept. 1655.

Action of Ludlow.

Cromwell and Ludlow.

When Fleetwood left Ireland, Henry Cromwell became President of the Council. The other members were William Steele, Recorder of London, who did not come over till the next year, Richard Pepys, who became Chief Justice, Corbet, Goodwin, and Tomlinson. Hammond had died in 1654, and, five being a quorum, it was necessary that all should be present. To avoid this William Bury, of Grantham, was added in August 1656. The Anabaptist party were very sorry to lose Fleetwood, and rejoiced in a rumour of his probable return, but many superior officers, including Sir Theophilus Jones, Sir Hardress Waller, and Commissary-General Reynolds, circulated a petition to the Protector, suggesting that his son should be Lord Lieutenant. Ludlow had given all the trouble he could, refusing to surrender his commission to any but the Parliament who gave it, and circulating pamphlets against the Protectorate, much to the disgust of Fleetwood. He, however, allowed his commission to be taken from him in an informal way, giving his parole to do nothing against the Government until he came into the Protector’s presence. He then proposed to go to England on urgent private affairs, and gave a second engagement to remain quiet until he had surrendered to the Protector or the Lord Deputy. On this undertaking Fleetwood gave him leave to go, and it was one of his last acts in Ireland. When the Deputy was gone Henry Cromwell opposed Ludlow’s departure, while declining to restrain him forcibly; but he took steps to have him intercepted at Beaumaris until the Protector’s wishes were known, and he was under arrest there for six weeks. Cromwell saw him after his arrival in London, and there was much not altogether unfriendly argument, but Ludlow stoutly refused to acknowledge the Government or to give any security. As a matter of fact he remained quiet while the protectorate lasted, and he was not molested.[280]

Irish girls for Jamaica.

They are not sent.

The infant settlement in Jamaica suffered much from a scarcity of women, and the English Government suggested that Irish girls might be sent out. ‘Concerning the young women,’ wrote Henry Cromwell in reply, ‘though we must use force in taking them up, yet it being so much for their own good, and likely to be of so great advantage to the public, it is not in the least doubted that you may have such numbers of them as you think fit.’ The Committee of Council in England voted that a thousand girls and as many boys should be sent, but there is no evidence that anything was actually done, and the probabilities are the other way. The difficulties in Jamaica were great, and perhaps Cromwell thought that the time for importing settlers had not yet come.[281]

Deportation to the West Indies.

Deportation not confined to the Irish.

Condition of the Irish at Barbadoes.

Considerable numbers were, however, sent from Ireland to the West Indies. They were not slaves, but were forced to work for wages, and could not leave the islands, to which they were sent in the character of masterless men, vagrants, rogues, and vagabonds. This system began in 1653, and continued until the Restoration or later. It was not confined to Ireland, many seditious persons in England having been treated in the same way. James II. continued the practice after Sedgemoor. For white men the climate alone was a terrible punishment. A large number of prisoners were thus treated after Penruddock’s rising. After Dunbar and Worcester English and Scotch captives were sent to New England, and others were ordered to Bermuda. At the beginning of 1655 the governor of Waterford was ordered to ship Morrice Cleere ‘by the first vessel bound for the Barbadoes, there to work for his living.’ About the same time it was ordered that ‘when a peaceable person was murdered’ by any Tory or ‘other Irish in rebellion,’ three or four of the chief Irish neighbours were to be shipped to Barbadoes, ‘and other American plantations,’ unless they could show that they had done their best to apprehend the guilty parties. An Irish priest who visited the West Indies in 1669 enlarges on the state of the Irish sent by Cromwell ‘and other fierce enemies of the Catholic Church and faith.’ They had been forced to work in the fields and ‘treated cruelly and miserably in temporal, and much more in spiritual things,’ being entirely precluded from Catholic worship, and from the ministration of their priests. There were 8000 in Barbadoes, and about 4000 in other settlements. In the French island of Guadeloupe there were 800, who were even worse off than in the English possessions, for they lived in the worst parts of it, and ‘though the island was Catholic they had little advantage by that, on account of the distance, difficult access, and scarcity of priests.’[282]

Henry Cromwell and Dublin University.

The Anabaptists.

Henry Cromwell’s moderation.

Oliver Cromwell became Chancellor of Oxford, and it was natural that the University of Dublin should confer a like honour upon his son, Ormonde being outlawed by the Act of 1652. Almost immediately after his landing Henry was received in state and entertained at dinner by the vice-chancellor, provost, and others, ‘who, with many doctors, were all robed in scarlet.’ The vice-chancellor was Dr. Henry Jones, who kept his bishopric of Clogher in the background, his services as scoutmaster-general of the Parliamentary army having secured him in his place. The provost was Dr. Samuel Winter, who ranked as an Independent, but was inclined to maintain friendly relations with Episcopalians and Presbyterians. Very probably his influence was great in determining Henry Cromwell’s tolerant policy towards Protestants of all sorts; but this did not secure general good-will, for the Anabaptists were ‘much offended with him for coming every Lord’s Day to parochial and public congregations and with his chaplains for preaching against dipping.’ Winter himself preached and wrote in favour of infant baptism, and for adhering to him ‘a godly man’ was solemnly excommunicated by the Dublin Anabaptists, and had no alternative but to join the Independents. Henry Cromwell’s letters are full of complaints about the Anabaptists, and their opposition in the Government and army was formidable, for they could count twelve governors of cities or towns, twenty-four field officers, many captains, two salaried preachers, and twenty-three officials in civil pay. A clergyman at Galway complained of oppression by Colonel Sadler, the governor of Galway, his offence being that he had baptised children, and prevented ‘dipping’ in his church. He recalled the tyranny of John of Leyden and Knipperdoling, and lamented that so notable a town should be abandoned to a ‘few mechanic barbers and tailors.’ Fleetwood had encouraged the sectaries more from weakness than from actual sympathy. Military adventurers, who had enjoyed despotic power during the war, were disgusted at having to share it with moderate men, and especially at the re-establishment of regular courts of law. Henry Cromwell was all for promoting ‘the ancient Protestant inhabitants,’ who had been dispersed and were now trying to return to their old occupations. Vincent Gookin and his friend Petty were thoroughly in favour of this moderate policy. Of the discontented people not one in a hundred had any property before the war, the rest having gained possession of what they could in payment for service or by buying out Adventurers and soldiers. ‘And the confiscation of land in Ireland,’ adds Gookin prophetically, ‘is so general, the settlers and sellers so many, the buyers and takers so few, except them, that it is certain within a year or two, all these men will have too great interests in forfeited lands to give them up to Charles Stuart, or any from him.’[283]

Reduction of the army, Sept. 1655.

A mutiny quelled.

The reduction of the army in Ireland was a gradual and difficult operation. In 1652 its total strength was about 34,000 men, which were reduced to about 24,000 in the following year. In 1655, about 5000 more were disbanded without any disorder, and Fleetwood estimated that this would reduce the monthly cost to 28,000l., a saving of some 17,000l. As much haste as possible was made to provide the disbanded men with land, but they showed no disposition to settle upon it. Cavalier plots and military discontents induced the Protector to seek reinforcements in Ireland, and both Fleetwood and Henry Cromwell feared lest their garrisons might be unduly weakened, for disturbances in Great Britain always had their echo beyond the channel. In January 1655, 2300 men were sent to Liverpool, but they embarked very unwillingly, saying that they had been engaged to fight Irish rebels, whereas in England they might be employed against their best friends. One company was cashiered by a court-martial, and one man was hanged at the masthead. Later on troops were sent from Ireland to Jamaica.[284]

Oliver Cromwell and his son.

Anabaptists and Quakers in the army.

It may be doubted whether Oliver Cromwell really had any dream of founding a dynasty. We have his own statement that he wished his sons to live privately in the country, and that he was only induced to promote Henry by the earnest persuasion of others. Having placed him in authority in Ireland he supported him steadily, but in a tentative way and without doing anything to estrange others. He was civil to Hewson and others who were inclined to give trouble, and refused to believe that Fleetwood was in any way disloyal. ‘Take care,’ he wrote to his son, ‘of making it a business to be too hard for the men who contest with you. Being over-concerned may train you into a snare. I have to do with these men, and am not without my exercise. I know they are weak because they are so peremptory in judging others.’ The Anabaptists were chiefly in his mind, but Henry had troubles with the Quakers also, and here, too, the Protector might sympathise. The danger always was that the army would become ill-affected. One of the most troublesome officers was Hewson, who took the lead in petitioning the Protector to send back ‘our present precious Lord Deputy,’ whose appointment had been ‘a refreshment to all the godly in this nation.’ Oliver answered civilly, but without granting the request, cautioning his son against believing anything discreditable to Fleetwood. Henry Cromwell also objected to having John Jones sent back to Ireland as likely to be ‘dangerous and prejudicial to the public,’ by nourishing factions, but drew back rather penitently when he found that Jones was to become his uncle by marrying the Protector’s sister. Hewson was not really dangerous: he made terms for himself, was knighted by Oliver, and accepted a seat in his House of Lords. But Axtell, Vernon, Barrow, and Allen laid down their commissions because the Anabaptists ceased to be the ruling sect, Thurloe attributing their action merely to disappointed greed or ambition. The army, nevertheless, remained faithful, and Henry Cromwell did his best to get the soldiers regularly paid.[285]

Oliver’s second Parliament.

Irish members.

Intolerance of this Parliament.

Oath of abjuration.

In the summer of 1656 Henry Cromwell had become so weary of calumny and so disheartened for want of effectual support that he wished to retire; but Thurloe assured him that the tale-bearers were not believed in England, and that he might go on with his work. It was at this time that the Protector resolved to try a second Parliament, and writs for the Irish elections were sent over. The major-generals and the decimation tax were very unpopular in England, but in Ireland the army was so completely master that there was not much difficulty about getting thirty suitable members. Broghill, who as President of the Council in Scotland managed the elections there, was returned in his absence for the county of Cork, Sir Charles Coote for Galway and Mayo, and Vincent Gookin for Cork and Kinsale. Broghill voted for the title of king, but Henry Cromwell was against it, thinking little of the constitutional argument which had such weight with men like Whitelock, and esteeming it ‘a gaudy feather in the hat of authority.’ The Protector refused the crown, and it would have been well for his fame if he had also insisted on altering the eleventh article of the Petition and Advice which secured religious liberty, provided ‘it should not be extended to Popery or Prelacy.’ This having been admitted as a principle of government, the logical consequence was to pass an Act which obliged all suspected persons over sixteen to take an oath abjuring the distinctive doctrines of the Roman communion, on pain of having two-thirds of their property—real and personal—sequestered. Those who afterwards became Protestants might be restored upon taking the oath, but not unless they have given frequent attendance for the previous six months at some authorised place of worship, being subject to renewed sequestration if they relapsed. The same penalties applied to any Protestant who married a Popish Recusant. ‘The oath of abjuration,’ Henry Cromwell wrote, ‘begets much disturbance here; for the Irish, upon apprehension thereof, sell off their cattle to buy horses, to put themselves into a shifting condition either for force or flight.... I wish his Highness were made sensible hereof in time.’ Dr. Jones said the same thing, adding that the oath ‘was the great engine by which the Popish clergy stir up the people, and whereby they move foreign states to their assistance.’ Cromwell allowed this oppressive law to pass, though it was a retrograde measure, and one which he cannot really have approved. The unfortunate people affected by it in Ireland were in no condition to give serious trouble, but it must have led to the multiplication of Tories.[286]

Royalist plots.

Weakness of Spain.

Loss of a transport.

Dishonest contractors.

The Cavaliers abroad were constantly plotting against the English Government and the Protector’s life, but these intrigues had scarcely any direct effect on Ireland. Richard and Peter Talbot were among the most active conspirators, and the landing of Irish troops was always regarded as part of the scheme. The exiles were discussing Sexby’s plans at the beginning of 1656, and the Protector, who was always well informed, thought it possible that some attempt might be made in Ireland. He directed his son, and the order was promptly obeyed, to reduce garrisons as much as possible, and to keep a field army in two or three divisions ready for any alarm. John Davies, who had been elected for Carrickfergus and Belfast, was known to be an underhand Royalist worker, and he was not allowed to go to England. It was in the north that trouble was expected, but nothing happened. Five thousand foot and nearly half as many horse were held in readiness, and Henry Cromwell was after this averse to a reduction of the army, at least until an efficient Protestant militia could be provided. Helpless and decadent Spain was the enemy whose still remaining force was overrated by Cromwell. Nevertheless, he failed in Hispaniola, and dared not attempt Gibraltar, so that his naval strength was mainly useful to hold Jamaica by occupying the Spaniards near home. The end of 1656 was marked by Stayner’s capture of the galleons, but also by a disaster on the Irish coast. A fleet carrying reinforcements for Jamaica was dispersed by a gale, and one ship, the Two Brothers, having sprung a leak, drifted towards a lee shore to the westward of the Old Head of Kinsale. Four men were detached on a raft ‘with a letter in a pitch box,’ and they reached land too much bruised to move further. The letter was taken to the governor of Kinsale, but the ship’s cable parted in the meantime and she was driven upon a rock. There were saved only about forty soldiers out of some 250, and sixteen seamen out of twenty-nine. The Rev. Edward Worth, whose parsonage was at Ringrone, not far off, thanked God that the wreck was in the barony of Courcies, ‘for the greater part inhabited by English and such Irish as were never in rebellion; divers of the English and many more of the Irish attended all that evening on the coast, not to get the plunder, but to preserve the men whom it should please God to bring to shore.’ It was ebb tide, and as each poor wretch was thrown up by the sea, the hardy natives ran down and helped him to escape before the next wave. Worth and his neighbours provided shelter, and the people of Kinsale vied with each other in providing for the castaways; for the natural sentiments of humanity had survived the war, and were extended to the soldiers of the Commonwealth. Another transport, the Sapphire, from Carrickfergus, was driven into Cork harbour in an almost sinking state, and 260 soldiers, forming her cargo, were quartered in the Great Island, where they could be prevented from deserting. Both these ships were the property of contractors, and supposed to be in good trim. When the paint was off they proved to be ‘very unsound and rotten, and I think,’ says Henry Cromwell, ‘that those who were employed to contract for those ships are deeply guilty of the loss of those poor men.’[287]

Henry Cromwell Lord Deputy, Nov. 17, 1657.

Financial difficulties.

After some hesitation and confusion, Henry Cromwell was appointed Deputy in November 1657, with a new council of five, of whom Chancellor Steele was the chief. Sindercome had already put an end to himself, and Sexby was safe in the Tower, where he died mad a few weeks later. Royalist plots with Spanish support had ceased to be formidable, and some reduction of the army in Ireland was possible, if only money could be had to pay off the soldiers, who were eight months in arrear before the end of 1657. The Deputy maintained that nothing like an equilibrium could be established unless 180,000l. were transmitted from England. The regular revenue of Ireland was only about 72,000l., which was absorbed by the ordinary charges of government, and the extraordinary taxation for the army weighed upon the country. Broghill reported that some who had been returned to Parliament could not possibly attend the second session, being impoverished by the expenses of the first, and by heavy taxes. The usual remittances from England were slow in coming, and there was also ‘extreme trouble and confusion about Spanish and bad coins which made the soldiers apt to grow licentious in abusing the country when they levied their contribution.’ They naturally decided questions of exchange in their own favour, ‘partly of necessity, and partly presuming ’twill seem unreasonable to punish severely, and pay negligently.’ Twenty thousand pounds were assessed upon Ireland for war purposes during the three months ending June 24, 1657, and 9000l. a month for the three years then beginning. The monthly contribution from England and Wales was 35,000l., and 6000l. from Scotland, and many thought Ireland disproportionately burdened. Indeed, Henry Cromwell says in one letter that she paid six times, and in another ten times too much. The difficulty about money continued to the end of the Protectorate, for Oliver had not time to summon a third Parliament, and Richard’s was short-lived. Without parliamentary authority it was impossible to make the State self-supporting on either side of St. George’s Channel.[288]

The army supports the Protector.

An Anabaptist on the constitution.

It was almost customary for a viceroy to be on ill terms with a Lord Chancellor, and Henry Cromwell thought that Steele was plotting to make a separate interest among the Independents. Henry was by many years the younger man, and he allowed his senior to lecture him, ‘supposing that if I got nothing else I should get his measure.’ But Thurloe did not believe his suspicions well founded, and Steele, who had only accidentally missed being a regicide, had really no course open to him but to support the Protector. After Oliver dissolved his second Parliament, calling upon God to judge between him and them, most of the officers in England and Scotland agreed to an address of confidence in him. The same course was taken in Ireland, but Major Low, an Anabaptist, refused to express a wish that ‘government should be settled on such a basis as should be most suitable to the constitution of these nations,’ saying that it implied a return to kingship. Sankey and others of the same sect said that if kingship were really the most suitable they would desire it: the Deputy must have seen the writing on the wall. Ormonde’s courageous visit to London, in January, and the abortive gathering at Ostend caused some momentary alarm, but there was no disturbance, and a little later the capture of Dunkirk raised Cromwell to his highest pinnacle of fame. The army remained faithful, and as long as life lasted it was evident to all that his power would last also.[289]

Death of Cromwell, Sept. 3, 1658.

Henry Cromwell, Lord Lieutenant.

Oliver Cromwell died, and Richard succeeded as quietly as if he had been the legitimate king. The news reached Dublin on October 10, and on the same day the new Protector was proclaimed. Having been signed by the Lord Deputy and such Privy Councillors, judges, and chief officers as were on the spot, the proclamation was printed and dispersed over the country next day. There was no opposition, Broghill among others announcing his adhesion. A despatch was sent to Monck promising him the unanimous support of the Irish army in any difficulty. The machinery of government went on as usual, but on October 6 Richard made his brother Lord Lieutenant, and Petty carried the commission over to Ireland. Lord Harry, as he was called, was not anxious for the higher title; but having been appointed he kept the same state as Strafford had done, which caused some amusement. An address from the army in Ireland to the new Protector was agreed to, the officers being quite or very nearly unanimous. But Henry was almost afraid to write, knowing that his letter would be opened, and Fauconberg kept him informed of the plots against his brother. He dared not leave his post, though much in want of a holiday. ‘I am afraid,’ he wrote to Richard as early as October 20, ‘to come to your Highness lest I should be kept there, and so your Highness lose this army, which, for ought I know, is the only stay you have ... the flood is so strong, you can neither stem it nor come to an anchor, but must be content to go adrift and expect the ebb.’[290]

The Lord Lieutenant’s difficulties.

Elections for Richard’s Parliament.

Henry Cromwell was ill and despondent during the months following his father’s death. He knew in his heart that the system could not long outlive the man, and Thurloe, whose judgment was not warped by fanaticism, could give him little comfort. ‘The funeral,’ he wrote, ‘of his late Highness was solemnised this day with very great honour; but alas! it was his funeral.’ When the Lord Lieutenant’s commission came over it was found to contain no clause authorising him to leave Ireland or to appoint a Deputy, and as if he felt Restoration in the air he looked to Charles I. for a precedent, and sent over his letter to Strafford as a model. He had, he wrote, been sentenced by his enemies to an honourable banishment. Thurloe professed that the omission was a mere oversight, but Fauconberg said bluntly that his brother-in-law’s presence in London was desired by no one. ‘They that hate you fear you too, and, therefore, oppose it, they that love you have apprehensions neither Ireland nor Henry Cromwell are secure if separated.’ And Richard was of the same opinion. Moreover, he could hardly be spared until the elections were over, and writs for the new Parliament arrived about the middle of December. It had been decided that thirty members should be sent from Ireland and the same from Scotland by constituencies grouped upon Oliver’s plan. The English members were to be returned by the old counties and boroughs, giving up the late Protector’s attempt at parliamentary reform, but the Upper House was left as he had devised it, and separate writs for it were sent to the Lord Lieutenant, to Lord Chancellor Steele, and to Lord Broghill. Petty was returned for West Loo, Coote for Galway and Mayo, and Vincent Gookin for Bandon and Kinsale. Broghill thought a Parliament necessary, but was not sanguine, and foresaw opposition from the army.[291]

Parliament of 1659.

Opinions of Irish members.

The notice for the elections was so short that many or most of the Irish members could not reach London in time for the opening of Parliament; but this made little difference, for the House of Commons was occupied at first in the discussion of the Protector’s title, the constitution of the ‘other House,’ and the status of the Scotch members. Parliament met on January 27, and it was not till March 23 that it was debated whether the members for Ireland should continue to serve. In the meantime they were allowed to speak and, apparently, to vote. Major Ashton, who represented Meath and Louth, preferred a separate legislature, partly on the ground that Ireland should have no share in governing England. Arthur Annesley, who sat for the city of Dublin, was of the same opinion—mainly, because Ireland would be overtaxed by an assembly where she was always in a minority. At the moment, he said, Ireland very unfairly paid 9000l. a month while Scotland paid only 6000l., and his prayer was ‘that they might have some to hear their grievances in their own nation, seeing they cannot have them heard here.’ Sir Thomas Stanley, member for Tipperary and Waterford, said he spoke not for Ireland, but for the English in Ireland. ‘Language, habit, laws, interest being in every respect the same in kind,’ he was in favour of the Union, for free-born Englishmen beyond the channel had a natural right to representation in the sovereign Parliament. A hundred and fifty-six voted for the retention of the Irish members, and a hundred and six against, Thurloe being one of the tellers for the majority. After this the Parliament had but one short month of life, during which Irish affairs seem to have been but little discussed, except in the matter of Petty and his proceedings.[292]

Petty and Sankey.

Petty’s great enemy was Sir Hierome Sankey, who had had a varied career. At Cambridge, where he was a candidate for Holy Orders, he was more noted for proficiency in athletic games than for study, and soon rose in the army when he took the Parliamentary side at the beginning of the Civil War. He became in turns a Presbyterian, an Independent, and at last an Anabaptist. He migrated to Oxford, where he became Fellow of All Souls, and was one of the proctors when Fairfax and Cromwell were made Doctors of Civil Law in 1649. He sat in the Parliament of 1654 for Tipperary and Waterford, and in that of 1656 for Marlborough. Henry Cromwell knighted him, and in Richard’s Parliament he represented Woodstock. On March 24 he charged Petty with various kinds of corruption, but without giving particulars, and in the accused man’s absence. Maynard, who was himself an Adventurer in Ireland and who touched on his own experience in the Strafford trial, fixed upon this want of particulars, and he was not without support. The most that Sankey could do was to sign six articles, all of the most general character; and these were sent to Petty in Ireland, with orders to attend in his place that day month. The summons did not reach him until April 3, so that he had only seventeen days to make his preparations and travel from Dublin to London. He had some reason to complain of the short time allowed him.[293]

Petty’s defence.

His revenge.

On April 21 Petty attended as directed, and spoke at length in answer to the articles. His speech was dignified and moderate, and made a very good impression on the House. The first charge was that he had received great bribes. To this he answered that as clerk of the Council he had never taken anything but the bare salary, and that as secretary to Henry Cromwell he had been a pecuniary loser, not exacting even the customary fees, ‘merely upon the account of preserving his Excellency’s honour clear, and myself clear from the least appearance of this evil.’ The burden of proof evidently lay upon the accuser. The second charge was that he had been a wholesale purchaser of debentures, contrary to the Act of Satisfaction, forcing people to sell as a condition for having their lands set out to them. To this Petty replied that he had many colleagues and was well watched, so that he could not use coercion if he had wished; that the debentures bought by him were under 7000l. in value, and that he had got them from brokers, who profited by the transaction. The third article charged him with the fraudulent acquisition of much money and land, to which he answered that the only public payment to him was by contract; that the 17,000l. which the survey cost was well and hardly earned; and that the soldiers had paid half of it themselves. As to land, he had no more than a fair consideration for what was owed him. The fourth charge was a general one of foul and unwarrantable practices, on which he was content to challenge the production of a single instance. The fifth and sixth articles accused Petty and his colleagues of malversation generally, and was scarcely worth answering, since they did not fall particularly on him. He abstained from recrimination in debate, but took ample revenge by publishing a report of Sankey’s reply, which begins thus: ‘Mr. Speaker, you have heard here a long, starched, studied speech; I say a starched, studied piece. Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of rhetoric; I say a great deal of rhetoric. But I will prove my charge; I will make it good, Mr. Speaker, from the front to the rear—front, flank, and rear; Mr. Speaker, that I will,’ and so forth. No real evidence of any kind was adduced, or even mentioned, and the business was referred to the Lord Lieutenant and Council of Ireland. Richard’s Parliament was dissolved the next day, and we are justified in believing his brother’s oft-repeated assertion that Dr. Petty was a very honest man.[294]

Dissolution of Parliament, April 22.

The Rump restored.

Henry Cromwell recalled.

Richard Cromwell probably knew quite well that the dissolution of Parliament was virtually an abdication, and he resisted to the utmost. But the officers were determined to depose him, and he had no hold upon soldiers whom he had never led to victory. His brother in Ireland could only wait upon events, rejoicing ‘that our dear father went off in that glory which was due to his actings.’ He sent over Bury, Lawrence, and Dr. Henry Jones to confer with Fleetwood as to what was to be done. The Rump was restored in less than three weeks, but so attenuated was that once formidable assembly that a quorum of forty was with difficulty got together. Ninety-one members in all were admitted to sit, several of whom had been elected in an unconstitutional manner, and the number meeting at any one time never reached sixty. Lenthall, notwithstanding his new-fangled peerage, was induced to take the chair. Immediately after the late dissolution Coote had hurried to Ireland with the news, and Broghill went over about the same time. On June 7 the House resolved that Henry Cromwell, whose opposition they feared, should come over to give an account of the state of Ireland, and that on the same day the government should be handed over to five commissioners. Steele, Jones, and Goodwin were named at once, Corbet and Tomlinson being added two days later. Ludlow’s name was rejected by twenty-six votes against twenty-two, but a month later he was appointed to command the army, and he reached Dublin about the end of July.[295]

The Royalists endeavour to gain Henry.

He prefers private life.

The rumour of his recall reached Henry Cromwell before he had any official notice, and he decided to resign without waiting for it. Great offers had been made to him on the part of the exiled King, and he seems to have wavered for a moment, though finally he thanked God for having been enabled to resist temptation. The Royalists had relied on Fauconberg’s powers of persuasion, and Charles expected Broghill’s help, though he prudently avoided making any direct advance to that astute politician. In his letter of resignation to the Speaker he complained that he had had ‘the unhappiness of late to receive intelligence only from common fame and very private hands, and to be forced rather to guess what to do upon all emergencies than to be intrusted with the clear commands of superiors.’ He had secured the fidelity of the army to the English Government so that that ‘dangerous, numerous, and exasperated people, the Irish natives and Papists,’ might be no cause for anxiety. He warned the Parliament that as they had been turned out of doors in 1653, so they might well be again and by the same people. He was himself a lover of peace and of orderly civil government, but ‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘promote anything which infers the diminution of my late father’s honour and merit.’ The Royalists, having failed to gain him over, were afraid of his heading a separate interest; and Clarendon, who had been concerned in the abortive negotiations, says that ‘by the jolliness of his humour and a general civility towards all, he had rendered himself gracious and popular to all sorts of people.’ He left Ireland soon after his resignation, told his story to the Council of State on July 6, and retired to Cambridgeshire.[296]

Public character of Henry Cromwell.

It is probable that materials do not exist for a full account of Henry Cromwell. His public career ended at the age of thirty-one, and he had no opportunity of showing much originality. The confiscation of Irish land to pay the expenses of conquering the country was decided upon when he was quite a boy, and he had no voice in the subsequent legislation. So far as Protestants were concerned, he leaned towards comprehension, and allowed no sect or party to dominate over the rest. As to the Roman Catholics, there was little scope for any movement in the direction of toleration, but he disliked the oath of abjuration. ‘I wish,’ he said, ‘this extreme course had not been so suddenly taken, coming like a thunder-clap upon them. I wish the oath for the present had provided (though in severest manner) for their renouncing all foreign jurisdiction; and as for other doctrinal matters, that some means had been first used to have informed their judgments with such ordinary smaller penalties as former experience has found effectual. I wish his Highness were made sensible thereof in time.’ He was fain to dispense with the oath, but Thurloe thought this could not be done without an Act of Parliament, though it might be modified in practice by those on the spot; and this was just what Henry Cromwell did. In other political matters he showed good judgment, questioning the real value of Dunkirk, objecting to penal taxation of the Cavaliers, and showing how impossible it was to bind a nation by oaths or any other contrivance. ‘To what,’ he asked, ‘shall men swear? Have you any settlement? Does not your peace depend upon his Highness’s life, and upon his peculiar skill and faculty and personal interest in the army as now modelled and commanded?’ He was always loyal to his father, but he had been in love with Dorothy Osborne, and he had no objection to Royalists as such. It seems that he might have made a party for himself at the cost of much bloodshed, and he deserves nothing but praise for preferring to retire quietly. Oliver had warned him against the temptation to build up a great estate, and though he did not refuse to take grants of land like everyone else, he had at the end of his government scarcely money enough to carry him back to England.[297]