[266] Lords’ Journals, May 10, 1641. ‘The Primate of Ireland, who is no complimenter, reported afterwards to the King that he had then first learned to make supplications aright to Godward, and withal told his Majesty that he had seen many die, but never such a white soul (this was his own expression) return to his maker. At which words the King was pleased to turn himself about and offer a tear to his memory—tantorum mercede bonorum’—Brief and Perfect Relation, p. 97.
[267] Sir P. Warwick’s Memoirs, p. 110. Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion, ii. 101; iii. 204. ‘A wise and promising face ... yet a dark and promiscuous countenance, clouded, unlovely, and presaging an envious and cruel disposition,’ The Earl of Strafford Characterised, 1641, Somers Tracts, iv. 231; and the often printed lines ‘Here lies wise and valiant dust,’ etc., ib. 297. Strafford is at his best in the beautiful letter to Lady Clare, August 10, 1639, and in that to his son from the Tower, April 23, 1641, Strafford Letters, ii. 381, 416; and see his character by Radcliffe, ib. p. 433.
[CHAPTER XIX]
THE REBELLION OF 1641
Parsons and Borlase Lords Justices, Feb. 10, 1640-1.
The Irish Parliament turn against Strafford.
Radcliffe and the Irish Committee.
As soon as Wandesford’s death was known Robert Lord Dillon and Sir William Parsons were appointed Lords Justices. As Master of the Wards Parsons had been useful in increasing the revenue, and he was an able official, though he has a bad name on account of his dealings with land. Dillon, whose son had married Strafford’s sister, had been Lord Justice before, and was obnoxious to the Irish Committee in London; he was therefore quickly superseded in favour of Sir John Borlase, who was a soldier without political experience, and not young enough to learn. Wandesford’s daughter, who was nearly fifteen when he died, says that these two old gentlemen ‘having lived in Ireland many peaceable years could not be made sensible that the Irish had an ill-design against the English,’ and perhaps that is not far from the truth. They were fully occupied at first with the difficulties made by the Irish Parliament. Strafford was in the Tower, and the two Houses who had been his very humble servants now joined in protesting that the complimentary preamble to the Act of Subsidy was ‘contrived, penned, and inserted fraudulently without the privity of the House either by the said Earl of Strafford himself or by some other person’ by his orders. Ormonde spoke against this, but in vain. The London Committee worked in the same direction, though Radcliffe, prisoner as he was and without papers, made a good case against them. They told the King that they had heard ‘with terror and amazement’ of Wandesford’s tearing the leaves out of the journals, and maintained that the subsidies, if raised according to his plan, would be more than the country could bear, while the ports were closed so as to prevent access to his gracious Majesty. Radcliffe showed that the trade of Ireland had doubled during Strafford’s reign, and maintained that substantial justice had been done. The late Remonstrance of the Irish House of Commons had been rushed through and did not represent the facts. To this the Irish Committee replied that Radcliffe was a member, and had not risen in his place to object, that many illegal acts had been done, and that the mild government which preceded Strafford’s had allowed Ireland to grow rich, while he had only reaped the harvest.[268]
Roman Catholic majority.
The queries.