Sir Thomas was for some time a silent member in the House of Commons, although warmly espousing the Liberal side in politics, and making a vigorous stand against the encroachments of the Court party, a course he pursued after the accession of Charles I. The hatred of Buckingham was not likely to be appeased by such conduct, and through his instrumentality Wentworth had the office of High Sheriff thrust upon him in order to disqualify him from voting, and soon afterwards he was summarily dismissed from the post of Custos Rotulorum. He received the Royal despatch while sitting on the bench of magistrates, and reading it aloud with pardonable indignation, observed, ‘It might easily be believed by what means I could retain my post, but that would cost too dear. Yet I know of no fault in myself, or virtue in my successor, that would justify such a step.’
In the ensuing year he stoutly refused to contribute to a loan levied without the consent of Parliament, and was summoned before the Council, where, while animadverting on the conduct of the ‘Court vermin,’ Wentworth took the opportunity of expressing his devoted loyalty to the person of Charles I., and his desire to serve His Majesty in any manner compatible with his own sense of patriotism. Nevertheless he was sentenced to be imprisoned in the Marshalsea, an act of injustice which did not prejudice him in favour of his persistent enemy the Duke of Buckingham and his party.
On his release Wentworth became a vigorous leader of the opposition, ‘and took the field,’ as it was said, ‘with the Pyms and the Prynnes’ against the King’s Government, supporting with all the eloquence of which he was master, the memorable Petition of Rights to which the King was compelled to give a tardy, but full consent. Then Sir Thomas Wentworth adopted that sudden line of conduct, which has been so differently judged, so differently described, by different historians. He declared his conviction that the nation might now be well content with the concessions made by the Crown, bade adieu ‘to the Pyms, the Prynnes,’ and their policy, walked over to the other side of the House, went through the form of a reconciliation with the Duke of Buckingham, and proffered his services, head, heart, and sword, to the Royal cause. The opposition (above all the ‘Puritan party’) was worked to a pitch of fury, and heaped opprobrium on his name,—‘an apostate, a traitor, a time-server;’ while the Royalists upheld the conduct of a man who chose the moment of impending danger to rally round the unsteady throne and the unpopular Sovereign.
Charles naturally received him with open arms, and the honours which were heaped upon him increased the ire of his enemies. His former ally, Pym, meeting him one day at Greenwich, uttered these ominous words: ‘You are going to leave us, but I will never leave you while you have a head upon your shoulders,’ a promise too cruelly redeemed. The murder of the Duke of Buckingham removed every obstacle to the advancement of Sir Thomas Wentworth; he was raised to the Peerage by the titles of Baron and Viscount Wentworth, and being appointed to the arduous post of Lord Deputy, and Commander-in-chief in Ireland, he sailed for that ‘distracted country’ with a code he had drawn up for his own government in his pocket, from which he never swerved.
Lord Wentworth’s administration of Irish affairs, his transient popularity, his reforms in all matters, civil, military, and religious, his quarrels with the Irish nobles, punctilio in matters of form and etiquette, his hurried voyages to and from England, are all subjects of deep interest, but too lengthy to be discussed here. It would have been well for him if he had taken the advice of his life-long friend and correspondent, Archbishop Laud, and ‘curbed his impetuosity, and avoided prosecutions, and the like.’
The correspondence between these two remarkable men, (whose friendship, in the spirit of their joint motto and watchword, was ‘Thorough’,) although treating, for the most part, of grave and important subjects, was interspersed (more especially on the Prelate’s part) with playful raillery and constant allusions to the sports of the field, in which they both delighted. The Lord Deputy had gained great odium in consequence of a severe sentence passed by him, in a court-martial, upon an Irish Peer, as failing in his duty as an officer, and the cry was so great against him that Wentworth judged it best to go and tell his own tale to the King of England.
On his return to his government a harder task than ever awaited him. Finding that the disaffection of the Scotch to the Crown had produced a baneful influence on the sister country, he set himself to work to counteract that influence, and his prompt and vigorous measures made him (already too well provided with enemies) an object of detestation to the greater part of the Scottish nation. In 1639 he again crossed to England, where he received the long-coveted Earldom of Strafford, was nominated Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, taken into the King’s full confidence, and became for a time virtually Prime Minister. War with Scotland, Parliaments summoned in England and Ireland, and subsidies demanded,—these were some of Strafford’s proposed measures. From his own privy purse he contributed (as an example) £20,000 towards defraying the expenses of the coming campaign.
To make use of a homely proverb, ‘The grass was never allowed to grow under’ Strafford’s feet. He crossed to Ireland, called a Parliament, obtained large subsidies, summoned a council of war, raised a large body of men to serve under his command in Scotland. Then he took a painful farewell of his beloved children,—‘those dear young whelps, God bless them! for the old dog there is less matter,’ and all this in the space of one fortnight.
Borne down as he was by continued ill-health and increasing bodily infirmities, Lord Strafford was so anxious to return to England that he insisted on crossing in a storm which daunted the sailors, and he had nearly died at Chester; yet, in spite of all expostulations, he resolved to proceed to London, and caused himself on his arrival to be carried into the Council-chamber in a litter, to all appearance in an expiring condition.
But too much remained for him to do, and the spirit was victorious over the body. On the dissolution of Parliament, Strafford accepted a military command, (against the Scots,) under the ostensible command of the Earl of Northumberland, who, however, was either too sick, or feigned to be so, to prove efficient, and the real duties fell to Strafford’s share. He came up with the King at York, and found the army in a sad plight—‘hope and spirit fled, and the Royal cause in the dust.’