The King supports Wentworth.
Loftus submits,
but appeals to the Long Parliament.
More than ten years before Loftus had obtained a royal licence to go to England whenever he thought fit, and to put the Great Seal into commission. He did not now rely upon this, but asked for special leave, and Charles granted it at once. The King’s letter probably arrived before the suspension of the Chancellor, who sent over his second son Edward. The latter had been made a party to the suit against his father, and Wentworth considered that this aggravated his contempt, though Edward does not seem to have held any office. When the Chancellor was first summoned before the Council he was not required to kneel ‘considering his age and the eminency of his place,’ but a resolution was passed that neither he nor anyone else should be so excused in future. On the second occasion he said he would rather die than kneel, and on the following day maintained that no such compliance had been required from one of his rank and quality for a hundred years, and that ‘the Great Seal ought not to creep on knees and elbows to any subordinate person in the world.’ He refused to give up the seal or to bring it with him; having received it from the King he would surrender it only to an order under the royal hand. After this he was committed to the Castle until the King’s pleasure should be known. In his petition to Charles for release he stated that he was ‘very aged and the prison very close and pestered with many prisoners.’ But Wentworth and his subservient Council, fortified by a petition of Sir John Gifford, magnified the Chancellor’s refusal to kneel into a great offence, and urged the King not to allow him over to England until he had fully submitted to their decree as to Monasterevan and the rest. The despatch was sent over by Sir George Radcliffe, so that no means was neglected to prejudice Charles against the old Chancellor. The leave was suspended accordingly, and in a later letter the King even blamed the ‘over-much forbearance and patience’ of the Deputy and Council, and ordered that the prisoner should not be allowed to go without acknowledging his fault and suing for pardon. After about eleven months’ confinement the King ordered that the Chancellor should be kept a close prisoner, whereupon Lady Loftus was forced to leave her husband, ‘though the small sustenance whereby he liveth is ministered by her hands.’ His chaplains were also refused access to him. Afterwards just as much relaxation was allowed as to prevent the prisoner actually dying, and he was under restraint in his own house for a short time. A threat of further close confinement in the Castle at last broke his spirit, and he made over his property to trustees who were all Wentworth’s close allies—Wandesford, Sir Adam Loftus, Lord Dillon, and his secretary, Sir Philip Mainwaring. The Chancellor had already made a submission to the Lord Deputy in terms sufficiently humble. Lady Moore made great exertions, and in June 1639 she was seen on her knees before Charles at Berwick ‘very earnestly soliciting for her father’s coming over.’ His appeal to the King was fruitless, for Wentworth was in London before him and at the height of his power. In November 1639 the decree of the Irish Council was confirmed, and Sir Richard Bolton was appointed Chancellor a few days later. Less than twelve months after the decision of the appeal the Long Parliament was sitting, and Wentworth was in the custody of Black Rod. Sir Robert Loftus and his wife both died before the Chancellor, who lived long enough to see all the decrees against him reversed by the English House of Lords, but the litigation arising out of the case extended far into the reign of Charles II. During the civil war the Irish estates were not of much use to anyone.[230]
Judgement of contemporaries on this case.
Clarendon.
Warwick.
Lady Loftus.
Loftus was no doubt a difficult man to work with for he had been on bad terms with both Falkland and Cork. He was stiff-necked, and Wentworth demanded subserviency, as he showed in the cases both of Wilmot and Mountnorris. Having been acting viceroy for four years, Loftus was not inclined to step down too far, and he considered that a Chancellor’s rights and position were quite independent of the viceroy. That, no doubt, was the unpardonable sin. ‘Most men,’ says Clarendon, who had good opportunities of judging, ‘that weighed the whole matter, believed it to be a high act of oppression, and not to be without a mixture of that policy which was spoken of before in the case of the Lord Mountnorris; for the Chancellor, being a person of great experience, subtlety, and prudence, had been always very severe to departed deputies; and not over agreeable or in any degree submiss to their full power; and taking himself to be the second person of the kingdom during his life, thought himself little less than equal to the first, who could naturally hope but for a term of six years in that superiority; neither had he ever before met with the least check, that might make him suspect a diminution of his authority, dexterity, or interest.’ ‘The lofty humour of this great man,’ says Sir Philip Warwick, ‘engaged him too often and against too many. And particularly one dispute with the old Chancellor Loftus, which was sullied by an amour, as was supposed, betwixt him and his daughter-in-law.’ Clarendon has some ambiguous expressions to which the same meaning has been given, and the fact that Sir Robert Loftus refused to join in the suit against his father is capable of being construed in the same way. Such charges, however, are much easier to make than to disprove, and we are not called upon to believe that there was any intrigue. Writing to his friend Conway in August 1639, he announces young Lady Loftus’ death as that of ‘one of the noblest persons I ever had the happiness to be acquainted with; and as I had received greater obligations from her ladyship than from all Ireland besides, so with her are gone the greatest part of my affections to the country, and all that is left of them shall be thankfully and religiously paid to her excellent memory and lasting goodness.’[231]
The great Earl of Cork.