Lord Mountnorris, said Wentworth, ‘was prisoner in the Castle some two days, but upon his physician’s certificate that the badness of his lodging might prejudice his health, I sent him upon good bond restrained only to his own house, where he is like to remain till I receive his Majesty’s further pleasure concerning him.’ Mountnorris makes the first confinement last six days, but the discrepancy is not of much importance. Chief Justice Shirley gave his bond for 2000l., and Mountnorris remained under restraint in his own house from the middle of December 1635 until the second week of April following. In February Lady Mountnorris petitioned for her husband’s release on the ground that his life was in danger, and reminded the Lord Deputy that he and his prisoner were connected by marriage; but Wentworth seems to have taken no notice of the lady’s letter; and Clarendon endorsed his copy as written by her to Wentworth ‘when her husband was under the sentence of death by martial law, and he was so hard-hearted that he gave her no relief.’ Lady Mountnorris went to London to try the King’s mercy, and Wentworth made this a reason for shutting his victim up again in the Castle. After three weeks he was again released by the doctors, in whose hands he remained for some time. In the meanwhile he had been superseded, and the Vice-Treasurership conferred on Loftus. Mountnorris was frequently brought before the Council on charges of malversation, but it does not appear that any actual sentence was given against him, and he refused to sue out his pardon in consequence. He signed a submission to the King, but the Deputy’s pride was not satisfied, and he was again imprisoned during the whole of February 1637. In July Lady Mountnorris obtained the King’s leave for her husband’s return to England, but this was not acted on for some months, and perhaps Charles did not intend it to be taken too literally. Writing from London to Wandesford, Wentworth directed that he should not be allowed to leave Ireland, claiming that the case should be decided in Dublin and by himself. It was not till the autumn of 1637 that Mountnorris got out of Ireland, ‘wondrously humbled as much as Chaucer’s friar’; and in a letter to his friend Conway Wentworth admitted his real motives. ‘I told him I never wished ill to his estate nor person further than to remove him thence where he was as well a trouble as an offence unto me.’ He had, in short, turned out an opponent and given his place to an adherent, and that seemed to him a sufficient explanation.[227]
The story told by Mountnorris himself, 1640.
Mountnorris’s petition was presented to the House of Commons, November 7, 1640, along with the sentence of the Castle Chamber, pronounced December 12, 1635. He says Strafford ‘conceived a causeless distaste against him, and thereupon endeavoured the revenge of some supposed personal neglect’ by ruining him. Being already secretary of the Irish Council, King James gave him a patent of 200l. with other emoluments in reversion after Sir Dudley Norton’s death or retirement. But Strafford falsely accused him of incivility to his brother Sir George, obtained a surrender from Norton, and, ‘contrary to all right and justice, procured the said offices and fees to be conferred upon Sir Philip Mainwaring,’ and maintained him in possession by his despotic authority. King Charles had made him Vice-Treasurer and Receiver-General, and seven years later Treasurer at wars. He refused when Strafford required him to make a ‘dishonourable sale of the said offices,’ at which he was so enraged that he trumped up the prosecution and ‘in a time of public peace and serenity within that realm, December 12, 1635, did call a council of war and did accuse your petitioner of some words supposed to be spoken by your petitioner many months before tending in his lordship’s strained construction to the disturbance of government, and without allowing your petitioner liberty of clearing his innocence in a legal manner or so much as an hour’s time to make his just defence, proceeded to sentence at the same time, and although the said supposed words were no ways criminal sentenced a peer to death.’ He respited the execution for the further advancing of his ‘own ends,’ but used it to dispose of Mountnorris’s foot-company and kept him a prisoner in the Castle from December 12, 1635, until April 16, 1637. During that time all his effects and papers were ‘strictly searched by some of his greatest adversaries by his lordship’s direction.’ Twenty days of close confinement threatening his life obliged him to submit and accept a pardon. After this Strafford took advantage of his imprisonment to issue a commission of his own choice to inquire into his office, and made misrepresentations to the King, who made Sir Adam Loftus, ‘one of his accusers,’ Receiver-General and Treasurer at wars. Information was laid against him in the Castle Chamber during his imprisonment and sickness as to his supposed misdemeanour. He was conscious of no guilt, but finding he would be tried by the same ‘inquisitors,’ all prejudiced, he was reduced ‘to the miserable choice’ either to go on suffering even worse or to make a submission as Strafford wished, ‘whereupon your petitioner was enforced in ignominious manner to make submission, hoping thereby to purchase his liberty and go into England according to his Majesty’s directions,’ but he was kept in prison all the same. No one ever maintained that Star Chamber or Council, had any jurisdiction to try questions of title between man and man, yet he had been deprived on a ‘paper petition’ of a manor in Ireland after eighteen years’ quiet possession, and turned out by Strafford’s own warrant, and he was deprived of his legal remedy in other cases.[228]
The witnesses to the words about revenge were Lord Moore and Sir Robert Loftus, who were present, but were not the original reporters of the expression.
It is particularly stated that the sentence was unanimous, and that there was a breach of the 41st and 13th articles of war—sentence for the first, imprisonment, public disarming, and banishment from the Army, and for ever disabled to bear arms; and for the 13th death.
The articles of war were printed and published on March 13, 1633, and are the same as those used by Falkland, Wilmot, and others.
Case of Lord Chancellor Loftus.
The Chancellor is suspended, and placed under arrest, April, 1638.
Wentworth had probably distrusted Mountnorris from the first. The Lord Chancellor, on the contrary, had frequently earned his praise, and as late as the summer of 1636 a special grant of 3000l. was made to him on his recommendation. A few months afterwards the two men were engaged in an acrimonious correspondence about the appointment of a lawyer to do temporary duty on circuit. The explanation of this charge is to be found in certain legal proceedings which had taken place in the meantime. In the year 1621 the Chancellor’s eldest son, Robert, had married Eleanor, daughter of Sir Francis Rushe, whose sister long afterwards became the wife of Wentworth’s brother, Sir George. It was alleged that the Chancellor had promised to settle Monasterevan and 1500l. a year in land upon the young couple, and that the bride had paid over her dowry of 1750l. on this consideration. It was now sought after all these years to enforce specific performance of the Chancellor’s verbal promise. The proceedings were taken by Eleanor’s half-brother, Sir John Gifford, as her next friend, her husband refusing to be a party, though he had a solicitor to watch the case. It is not clear that ordinary courts of law had no jurisdiction in the case, but it was assumed to be matter of equity, and a King’s letter was obtained remitting it to the Council on the ground that the Lord Chancellor was chief equity judge and that he could not adjudicate in his own cause. Sir William Colley swore in a hesitating and inconsistent way at the trial in 1638 to what the Chancellor had said in 1621, who upon this ground was ordered to settle all the lands to the value of 1200l. a year upon Sir Robert Loftus and his heirs general, to the exclusion of the second son, Edward, who was to have an annual rent-charge of 200l. The King professed himself anxious for the maintenance of the peerage, but the judgment, had it been finally confirmed, would have had the contrary effect, for Sir Robert’s only son died shortly afterwards, and the property would have gone to his sister, whose uncle, as heir male, would have had the title with nothing to support it. This judgment was given on February 1, 1638, but the Chancellor was in no hurry to obey, having already appealed to the King himself, and on April 20 he was suspended by the Lord Deputy and Council, and ordered to give up the Great Seal next day. The seal not being so produced, Loftus was thereupon committed, and remained under restraint for sixteen months. It was afterwards pretended that this extreme severity to an octogenarian public servant was caused by evidence of judicial misconduct in another case, but Wentworth did not say so at the time. Loftus may have been guilty of some irregularities, but nothing like corruption was proved against him, and it is probable that little would have been heard of these grave misdemeanours if his daughter-in-law had not been Wentworth’s friend and if her sister had not lately been married to his brother. In one letter he calls the Chancellor’s wife ‘a fury,’ and in another he speaks of ‘that unclean-mouthed daughter of his, the Lord Moore’s wife.’[229]
Severe treatment of Loftus.