Raleigh’s successor. Church property.
Cork and Wentworth.
Richard Earl of Cork was certainly the most important man in Ireland, and was generally considered the King’s richest subject. He had made his great fortune himself, and it would be hard to show that it was not made honestly. There were many opportunities for speculation after the Desmond wars, and he used them to the utmost, buying in the cheapest market, and selling, if he sold at all, in the dearest. After Grandison’s death he was made Lord Treasurer, and he was a royalist to the backbone. If Wentworth had been a constitutional statesman, rather than a despotic viceroy, he would have made a friend of Cork; but he preferred to humiliate him, caring nothing for his hostility, provided some of his money could be diverted to the King’s coffers. Like most public men in Ireland, Lord Cork was in possession of some land which had belonged to the Church, and of some livings also. He purchased Raleigh’s vast possessions for 1500l., after their nascent prosperity had been destroyed in the last Desmond rebellion, and it was no fault of his if the Church had been badly treated at the time of forfeiture. Lismore Cathedral had been burned down by the White Knight and his crew, but even in this case Cork made some attempt at restoration, and might have done more if his title had not been disputed by Laud and Wentworth, who made Bishop Michael Boyle of Waterford their stalking horse in the attack on his great kinsman. ‘I knew the bishop well,’ said Laud, ‘and when he lived in the college (St. John’s) he would have done anything or sold anyone for sixpence profit.’ The see-lands at Lismore and Ardmore were leased to Raleigh by two bishops, and the blame should fall on him rather than upon Boyle, who purchased the property as it stood. Wentworth was right in trying to recover Church property which had been wrongly alienated, but not in making the holder personally responsible. In the end Ardmore was restored to the see, and Lismore was confirmed to the Earl of Cork. After the breaking up of the third Parliament in 1629, Cork was pressed to lend the King 15,000l. on the security of the Irish customs, and had some difficulty in getting his money back. Wentworth took care that he should pay his full share of the subsidy. ‘I do believe,’ he wrote in 1640, ‘there is no man living hath suffered so much by his (Strafford’s) oppressions and injustice as myself, who with truth affirm that I am the worse by 40,000l. for him in my personal estate, and 1200l. a year in my revenue; and all is taken from me by his power without any suit in law. He hath enforced me to pay 4200l. within this five years for subsidies, which might have ransomed me if I had been prisoner with the Turks, and was more than himself and all the lords of the Council paid, for the last subsidy in England.[232]
The case of Youghal College.
Wentworth demands a fine of 30,000l.,
and takes 15,000l.
Real reason of Wentworth’s hostility.
Cork presents 1000l. to the King.
Of the many disputes between the Lord Deputy and the Lord Treasurer one must be noticed particularly. In 1464 Thomas Earl of Desmond founded at Youghal a college for a warden, eight fellows, and eight singing men, who were to serve the church hard by and perhaps others in the neighbourhood. The institution slipped through the net which swept away ordinary monasteries, but the celibate life in common came to an end after the Reformation, and Wetheread, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, became warden. He died in 1592, having let the house to Sir Thomas Norris, and this lease was afterwards renewed to Raleigh’s trustees, whose interest Boyle purchased. That he was thus in possession of Church property was evident, but it was in lay hands before he acquired it, and he had bought out those concerned without any secrecy. The original title was not very good, and Cork took every means possible to strengthen his position. His cousin, Richard Boyle, Bishop of Cork, was warden many years before Wentworth’s arrival, and in 1627 agreed with the three then surviving fellows to release their claims in consideration of life annuities, amounting altogether to 86l. 13s. 4d. a year. Both parties swore to fulfil their contract. Wentworth determined to prosecute Cork in the Castle-chamber for being privy to a fabricated bond and for taking or imposing an illegal oath. Something would be recovered for the Church, but the main object was to extract enough money from the Earl to pay off or reduce the existing Crown debts in Ireland. Wentworth demanded 30,000l. as a voluntary fine to avoid exposure. The charge of forgery was found to be false, and as to the oath Cork, who throughout maintained that he had done nothing wrong, could show that it was voluntary on both sides, and of a character not uncommon in Ireland. His friends, including his eldest son, knew perfectly well what the result of a trial would be, and induced the Earl to pay 15,000l., Wentworth pleasantly representing this as a saving of that sum to the accused. The day of trial was actually fixed, and Cork found his old antagonist, the Chancellor, sitting on a form in the gallery, who said he had read all the pleadings and that there was nothing in them. ‘Then,’ says Cork, ‘I told his lordship that I hoped he would deliver his vote for my clearing. “Nay, by my faith (quoth he) I will not promise you that.” I replied again that if he were in my case I would clear him if my conscience did assure me he were not guilty. His lordship answered that it was very necessary for me to be exceeding careful of myself; for that it was not my cause, but my judges, I was to fear.’ In the end Cork had the property confirmed to him by the King, abandoning certain tithes and presentations worth about 700l. a year, which were recovered for the Church, but which were in lay hands when Cork acquired them. ‘God’s wounds, sir,’ said Wentworth to the Earl, ‘when the last Parliament in England broke up you lent the King 15,000l. And afterwards in a very uncivil unmannerly manner you pressed his Majesty to restore it you. Whereupon I resolved before I came out of England to fetch it back again from you, by one means or other. And now I have gotten what I desired you and I will be friends hereafter.’ The money was duly paid within two years. Laud congratulated himself on having kept the King steady throughout; but Charles seems to have had some misgivings, for he excused Cork from subscribing towards the Scotch campaign, and afterwards graciously accepted a thousand pounds in gold, which were sent down to the North after him.[233]
Sir Piers Crosbie’s case.