Delegates were sent to London to lay these proposals before the king, and on the agreement to pay one hundred and twenty thousand pounds by instalments in three years, Charles readily granted these articles of grace, amounting to fifty-one. But meanwhile, a rumour of these concessions having got out, the Irish Established Church had made a great opposition, and though the parliament was called, nothing was done, nor did Charles intend to do more than get the money. As Lord Falkland was the last man in the world to be a party to anything so dishonourable, he was recalled, and Wentworth was sent over, in the July of 1632, to do the work.
THE BIRMINGHAM TOWER, DUBLIN CASTLE.
Wentworth's arrival in Ireland was tantamount to a revolution there. He introduced all the regulations of the English Court at the Castle, assumed a guard like the king, which no Deputy before him had done, and carried himself with a haughty demeanour which made the Irish lords stand amazed. The only good which he effected was in putting down the multitude of minor tyrants, but then he combined all their tyranny and oppressions in himself. He was ready to bear any amount of odium, because he trusted to the king's support. His object was to raise a large permanent revenue, and Wentworth soon informed Charles that if this was to be done, there must be an end to making grants to needy English nobles, who absorbed what should flow to the Crown. Charles had promised such grants to the Duke of Lennox, the Earl of Arundel, and others; but on learning Wentworth's views, Secretary Windebank wrote, at the king's command, that Wentworth was at liberty to refuse them these grants, provided that he took "the refusing part" on himself.
As a first measure to raise money, he informed Charles that it would be necessary to call a Parliament. The king, who had found Parliaments too much for him, and was endeavouring to live without them, heard the proposal with consternation, and warned Wentworth against such an attempt; but the Lord Deputy informed him that he had a plan by which he could manage them, and Charles wrote to him, consenting, but still warning. "As for that hydra, take good heed, for you know that here I have found it as well cunning as malicious. It is true that your grounds are well laid, and I assure you that I have a great trust in your care and judgment; yet my opinion is, that it will not be the worse for my service though their obstinacy make you to break them, for I fear they have some ground to demand more than it is fit for me to give."
Wentworth knew that very well, but meant to grant nothing of the kind. He sent out a hundred letters of recommendation in favour of the return of candidates on whom he could rely, and procured a royal order for the absent peers to send blank proxies, which he might fill up as he pleased. These were considerable in number, and consisted chiefly of Englishmen who had obtained their estates or titles from Charles or his father. Thus he secured a majority; and on opening Parliament he informed the members that he meant to hold two Sessions—one for the benefit of the king, the other for redressing the grievances of the people. Had the Irish noticed what had been going forward in England, they would have augured no good from such an arrangement, and might have followed the example of the English Commons, who would always insist on stating their grievances before parting with their money. But the unfortunate Irish listened to the dulcet tones of the Lord-Deputy, who assured them that if they put their trust in him and the king they would have the happiest Parliament that had ever sat in that kingdom. He talked of the misfortunes which had happened to the English Parliament through distrusting the king—he himself having been one of the chief actors in these distrusts—and on his assuring them that he was anxious to hasten to the second Session and the removal of all their grievances they voted him out of the fulness of their confidence six subsidies of larger amount than had ever been granted before.
But when they came to the second Session, awful was the astonishment, and terrible the consternation, of the liberal granters of subsidies. The shameless trickster coolly informed them that of the fifty-one graces promised them by the king, very few were of a kind which he, who knew the circumstances of the country, could grant. In vain they reminded him of his promises, and called on him to fulfil them. He gave them menaces instead of promises, launched at them the most biting sarcasms, and made them appear a set of criminals rather than deceived and insulted legislators. His majority carried everything as he pleased, and after passing a few insignificant graces, he negatived the bulk of them, including all the important ones, and dismissed the Parliament.
He had been equally successful with the Convocation. He obtained from it eight subsidies of three thousand pounds each, but he then refused to grant the conditions promised. It was the settled plan of the king, supported by Laud, to conform both the Scottish and Irish Churches to the English, and Wentworth was the most unscrupulous agent in such a work that they could have. The Irish prelates informed him that their Church was wholly independent of that of England, had its own Articles, of the Calvinistic class, and owed no obedience to the See of Canterbury. He insisted, however, that they must admit the Thirty-nine Articles of England; it was not necessary to parade them before the people, but they must be admitted, and the old Irish Articles might quietly die out. The prelates set about to frame a new code of ecclesiastical discipline; but to his surprise, he learned that they had rejected the English Articles and retained their own. He sent for the Archbishop and the Committee, upbraided the Chairman with suffering such a proceeding, took possession of the minutes, and ordered Archbishop Ussher himself to frame a canon authorising the English Articles. Ussher's production, however, did not satisfy him; he therefore drew up a form himself, and sent it to the Convocation, commanding that no debate should take place, but the Articles should be at once adopted, and informing them that every one's vote should be reported to him. Only one member of the whole Convocation dared to vote against his will; the rest submitted, but with the utmost indignation.
Having thus with a high hand carried his measures—refused the confirmation of the graces, conformed the Irish to the English Church in one Session, and obtained such an amount of money as would not only pay off the debts of the Crown, but would supply for some years the extraordinary demands of the Government, he wrote exultingly to England, declaring that the king was as absolute in Ireland as any king in the world, and might be the same in England if they did their duty there. He boldly demanded an earl's coronet, on account of these services, which, however, Charles deferred for awhile, thinking that he should hold such a man to his work rather by the hope than the possession of high preferment. Wentworth was so delighted with his overruling the Irish Parliament, that he proposed to the king to merely prorogue and not dissolve it, as being the most convenient instrument for effecting his further designs on the country. But Charles would not listen to it, remarking that parliaments were like cats, they ever grew cursed with age, and it was better to put an end to them early, young ones being most tractable. He thanked him for what he had done, and especially for saving him from the odium of breaking his promise about the graces.
How little did this bold bad man see that, whilst he was serving the king's worst purposes, he was preparing his own destruction. In fact, though he had stunned the Irish for a moment by the audacity of his bearing, he had struck deep into their souls a resentment that no man, however powerful or subtle, could withstand. He was, however, only on the threshold of the sweeping changes which he contemplated in that country, for he was resolved to reduce it to a condition of absolute dependence on the Crown. He was not content with forcing the English Articles on the Irish Church, but he refused to the Catholics every relief that Charles had pledged himself to in order to get their money. Instead of abolishing, as promised, the oppressive power of the court of wards, he gave them a more virulent activity. The Catholic heir was still obliged to sue out the livery of his lands, and before he could obtain them, to take the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. To obtain his rightful property, he was thus compelled to abjure his religion. But he entertained a still more gigantic design, which was to seize on the fee simple of the greater part of Ireland, on pretence of defective title.