Punishment of sheriffs and jurors.
Galway submits and the King approves of all.
Sligo, on the 20th, and Mayo on the 31st, followed the example of Roscommon, but at Portumna in Galway the Commissioners met with a very different reception. The county, and especially the eastern part of it, was much under the influence of the Earl of Clanricarde; it contained hardly any Protestant freeholders, and the influence of the Roman Catholic clergy was very great. Clanricarde was in England with his son, but his nephew Lord Clanmorris attended to lead the opposition. Another nephew was on the jury, and so was John Donnellan, the Earl’s agent or steward. The jury with two exceptions found against the King’s title, and it was observed that those who voted after Donnellan did so with much greater decision than those who voted before him. Richard Burke, Clanricarde’s nephew, was fined 500l. for endeavouring to influence a brother juror by pulling his sleeve while he was speaking with the Commissioners. Wentworth was very angry, and resolved to carry out his plan notwithstanding, but with the difference that half the land in Galway was to be confiscated, instead of a quarter as in the other three counties. The disobedient shire should be ‘fully lined and planted with English,’ and bridles in the meantime with sufficient garrisons. ‘And for those counsellors at law,’ the Commissioners reported, ‘who so laboured against the King’s title, we conceive it is fit that such of them as we shall find reason to proceed withal, be put to take the oath of supremacy, which if they refuse, that then they be silenced, and not admitted to practise as now they do; it being unfit that they should take benefit by his Majesty’s graces, that take the boldness after such a manner to oppose his service.’ Wentworth had taken much credit to himself at Boyle for allowing counsel to appear before the Commissioners, and this was how he understood freedom of speech. The sheriff was fined 1,000l. and bound over to appear in the Castle-chamber on a charge of packing the jury, who were also bound over to be dealt with there. A proclamation was issued to give the county generally an opportunity of disavowing the jury, and this was so far successful that a verdict was obtained for the King at Galway in April 1637. Charles thoroughly approved of the fines, the imprisonments and the proclamations, and in particular held it ‘just and reasonable’ that the Galway landowners should lose half their property instead of a mere one-fourth.[218]
Death of Richard Earl of Clanricarde,
for which Wentworth is blamed.
Ulick, Earl of Clanricarde, Governor of Galway.
The Earl of Clanricarde had distinguished himself by his courage and fidelity at Kinsale, and had enjoyed the especial favour of Queen Elizabeth. He had afterwards married Walsingham’s daughter, the widow of Sidney and Essex. His services thus entitled him to consideration, and his connections secured him friends at Court. In 1616 James I., after a full inquiry by two secretaries of state, had made him governor of the county and town of Galway in such a manner as to make him independent of the president of Connaught. This patent expired with James, but it was amply renewed by his successor for the life of the Earl and his eldest son. These facts were perfectly well known to Wentworth, but he advised the King to break his word and revoke the patent on the purely technical ground that a judicial office could not be granted in reversion. Clanricarde died within the year, and it was reported by Wentworth’s enemies that hard usage had broken his heart. ‘They might as well,’ said the Lord Deputy, ‘have imputed unto me for a crime his being threescore and ten years old.’ There was more reason for imputing to him the death in prison of Martin Darcy, the unfortunate sheriff of Galway. ‘My arrows,’ he said on this point, ‘are cruel that wound so mortally; but I should be more sorry by much the King should lose his fine.’ The King did not revoke the patent for the government of Galway, and the young Earl of Clanricarde, who was to play so important a part in the civil war, seems from the first to have enjoyed much influence at Court. The Galway jurors were tried in the Castle-chamber in May 1636, and sentenced to pay £4,000 each as a fine, to be imprisoned until payment, and to acknowledge their fault at the assizes upon their knees and in open court. The fine was afterwards reduced at Clanricarde’s request, and the difficulties with Scotland began before any real progress could be made with the new settlement.[219]
Nature of Wentworth’s policy.
There was a substantial breach of faith.
Wentworth maintained the King’s title to Connaught on purely legal grounds, not seeming to realise that mere legality was an inadequate foundation for what was virtually wholesale forfeiture. Some modern writers who admire or excuse his policy have stated that he set up a title which would satisfy lawyers; but no one had a greater contempt for the letter of the law when it stood in his way, and it is the substantial justice of his action that is really in question. The Elizabethan lawyers knew perfectly well that the feudal ownership of Connaught was vested in Edward IV. and his successors, but they did not, therefore, consider that the land was at the Queen’s mercy. The chiefs and landowners of the province had been acknowledged over and over again, and had always yielded something to the Crown by way of cess. Sidney and Perrott reduced this uncertain impost to a small but fixed rent, and by so doing confirmed the tenure of those who paid it. It is very true that the exact terms of the contract had seldom been fulfilled by the Irish, and that most of them had been engaged in rebellious actions after the composition. That might have been a reason for forfeiting their land at the time, and demands for arrears of rent might have been made much later; but this is a very different thing from confiscation after a generation of peace. Nor was this all: on July 21, 1615, James I. had written to Chichester directing that the Connaught landowners should have patents granted them, in consideration of the composition made by Queen Elizabeth, and reserving the same rent in future. To this Wentworth answered that the recitals in the letter as to the fulfilment of the composition covenants were grounded on false information; that ‘the inhabitants were intruders and had no such estates as could either be surrendered or confirmed.’ The patents actually issued were therefore void, as having been obtained under false pretences, and for some technical flaws also. The monstrous result is that the whole population of Connaught were squatters, and had no rights whatever. It is no wonder that the Irish Parliament had clamoured for a sixty years’ possessory title against the Crown.[220]