The Irish Parliament, which stood side by side with this Convocation, was the same which made the general administration of Wentworth famous. It was composed partly of Catholics and partly of Protestants; for his main object was to unite both creeds in one community: but in disputed questions the Protestants had the preponderance, and among the Protestants the Anglicans. In the Upper House the bishops as a rule had the decision in their own hands. Parliament was induced to grant supplies by which a well-ordered government of the country was for the first time rendered possible.
What a vital union is here displayed between the elements of spiritual and temporal obedience! Wentworth adds to the information above mentioned the remark, that in Ireland the King was as absolute as any other sovereign A.D. 1636. in his own country, provided only that he had as his representative a man of insight and loyalty, whose hands were not tied. The Lord Deputy can be as little accused as the King or the Archbishop of wishing to pave the way for Catholicism: Wentworth was known as a very staunch Protestant. Their thoughts were only directed to the development of Anglicanism expressed in its most rigid form, and administered without indulgence. What James I had already intended and attempted to carry out, but with vacillation and with fresh concessions to the other side, Charles I and his statesmen undertook in earnest. They wished to make episcopacy one of the chief foundations of the monarchy.
Did they entertain the thought of sweeping away the English Parliament altogether, or at least of not calling it together again? This is not likely. King Charles affirmed on more than one occasion that it lay with him to summon or not to summon Parliament, and a resolution had been formed to issue no fresh summons as long as the royal authority was not firmly established on its own foundation. The Archbishop once said at a later time, that Parliament was intended to maintain the power and greatness of the crown, but that nothing in the world was more lamentable than the corruption of what was good: that Parliament had once ventured to depose a king, but that it never ought to be allowed to proceed to this length again: that for his part he had never thought of setting aside Parliamentary government; though he had perhaps thought it right, in cases of urgent necessity, to collect taxes which had not been granted by Parliament.
We become still more accurately acquainted with the direction in which affairs were moving, through a letter from Wentworth to the King. After the miscarriage of Arundel’s mission, much was said of the expediency of again forming a connexion between England and France and the States-General, of imposing certain conditions on the Spaniards, and then exacting their performance even by force of arms. Wentworth declared himself most decidedly opposed to the scheme, and that not only because he preferred the alliance of Spain to that of France on general grounds, but most of all, A.D. 1636. as he states at full length, because the power of the King was not sufficiently confirmed in Ireland, much less in England, to allow him to interfere decisively in European affairs. Whatever weight might attach to the declaration of the courts of justice that the King was entitled to levy ship-money, yet he considered this decision far from sufficient. If a war were to break out, he thought that the tax would be refused, and that the government would have less power to exact it: what would happen then if any disaster occurred? It would certainly be necessary in that case to summon Parliament, and to claim its assistance—a course which under the present circumstances no one could wish to adopt. So long as it had not been decided that the King had the same right to raise an army which he now enjoyed with regard to the navy, Wentworth thought that his authority had only one foot, and that he must be put in a position to raise forces for service on land, which he could lead into foreign countries according to his own judgment, like the old kings of England; that this state of things must be brought about first in England, and then step by step in Scotland; and that till then the goal could not be reached, and no great undertaking could be hazarded[71].
On principle Wentworth was as little opposed to a Parliament in England as in Ireland; but he wished to have only such a Parliament as would be subservient. He thought of making the government and the royal power independent of grants of Parliament in great affairs, such as peace and war and foreign enterprises generally. The King was no longer, as in the late sessions, to be compelled to make concessions in order to maintain his proper position in European affairs. His immediate intention was to uphold the decision of the Judges with regard to the payment of ship-money, and to obtain a similar authorisation in regard to the support of the army.
It is apparent however what would have been the significance of such a decision. The political importance of Parliament had arisen from the power of granting the A.D. 1635. money required for the purposes of war: if the latter were taken away, how could the former endure? The King had not only an acknowledged right of judging whether the kingdom was in danger, but it was laid down as his duty to forestal such a contingency. If he were now authorised to call out the military and naval forces of the kingdom in case he thought fit, how could he be refused the needful resources for keeping them up when called out? Parliament would have played a very inferior part; and, in England as on the Continent, the monarchy would have taken the form of a military administration.
Public Affairs.
Among the King’s advisers there was no lack of men of ability to connect the ascendancy of the monarchy with the great interests of the country and with their furtherance.
Wentworth bequeathed to the Irish no contemptible monument of his autocratic sway. He founded their linen manufacture, in the first instance at his own expense, with the definite expectation that it would form an inexhaustible source of wealth for the country[72], just as wool and woollen manufactures were for England.
The English had their factories at Alexandria, Aleppo, and Constantinople, as well as in Persia and India: for their cloth was in request all over the East. Among the motives in Charles I’s mind for entering on friendly relations with the Pope, one was the intention of opening the harbour of Civita Vecchia to his subjects.