James admitted that he had used the language imputed to him, but without intending thereby to claim a dispensing power or to promise full toleration, and he sent over a proclamation to that effect for circulation. Against Sir James Gough he made four points, that his turbulent conduct to the Deputy must be taken as directed against the King, that he had no warrant at all to make any report to his Lordship, that he wilfully misrepresented the royal meaning, and that he had cunningly reported only so much as suited him, which was a very small part of what had been said. Gough was to be detained until he made submission, and when he had made it the Deputy might release him as an act of his own favour. In less than a month after the date of the King’s letter Gough made an ample apology. He now understood that his Majesty intended the laws against recusancy to be enforced, ‘but that his subjects should be compelled by violence or other unlawful means to resort to the Protestant churches I think it not his pleasure.’ Their consciences were to be left free. As this pretty nearly represented Chichester’s own ideas, the submission was accepted and Sir James Gough released.[118]
Talbot before the Star-chamber.
The law officers discourage severity
Bacon nevertheless magnifies Talbot’s offence,
but he is ultimately released.
Talbot was brought before the Star-chamber in London on the same day that Gough made his submission in Dublin. At a previous hearing before the Council the English oath of allegiance was tendered to him, and extracts from Suarez and Parsons were read, of which he was given a copy to meditate upon during his imprisonment. Though the oath of allegiance had no statutory force in Ireland the law officers, Hobart and Bacon, had given a cautious opinion that it might be administered to Irishmen in England, ‘but whether it be convenient to minister it unto them, not being persons commorant or settled there, but only employed for the present business, we must leave it unto his Majesty’s and your Lordships’ better judgments.’ This is a plain hint that they did not think it convenient, but they were overruled, and Bacon, who had since become Attorney-General, had to conduct Talbot’s prosecution. The prisoner not unnaturally vacillated a good deal, but at last, having studied Abbot’s excerpts from the two Jesuits, he declared that they involved matters of faith and must be submitted to the judgment of the catholic Roman church, but, he added, ‘for matter concerning my loyalty, I do acknowledge my sovereign liege lord King James to be lawful and undoubted King of all the kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and I will bear true faith and allegiance to his Highness during my life.’ The practical politician who was in Bacon along with the lawyer, the theologian, and the philosopher would no doubt have been satisfied with this; but officially he was bound to accuse Talbot of maintaining a power in the Pope to depose and murder kings. He had not merely refused the oath of allegiance, but had affirmed the power of the Church over civil matters. ‘It would astonish a man,’ said Bacon, ‘to see the gulf of this implied belief. Is nothing exempted from it? If a man should ask Mr. Talbot whether he do condemn murder, or adultery, or rape, or the doctrine of Mahomet, or of Arius instead of Zuarius; must the answer be with this exception, that if the question concern matter of faith (as no question it does, for the moral law is matter of faith) that therein he will submit himself to what the Church will determine.’ Talbot was fined £10,000, but there does not seem to have been any intention to make him pay, and he was allowed to return to Ireland after spending several more months in the Tower. This was euphemistically described by the Privy Council as ‘attendance on his Majesty’s pleasure,’ but they took care that his property should not suffer in his absence. Clemency was shown, but a theoretical gulf had been dug which made it more difficult than ever to reconcile the discordant elements of Irish life.[119]
The King on the constitution of Parliaments,
on Irish grievances,
and on toleration.
On April 12 in the council chamber at Whitehall, and in the presence of Chichester and of the recusant Irish peers and members of Parliament, James delivered the memorable speech which foreshadowed the course of Irish policy until the advent of Strafford. It manifests much cleverness, combined with a characteristic want of dignity. The parliamentary questions were of course decided against the petitioners, who were lectured for their disrespectful bearing at the outset, and for seceding when things went against them. ‘The Lower House,’ he said, ‘here in England doth stand upon its privileges as much as any council in Christendom; yet if such a difference had risen here, they would have gone on with my service notwithstanding. What,’ he exclaimed, ‘if I had created 40 noblemen and 400 boroughs? The more the merrier, the fewer the better cheer,’ adding with a good deal of truth that ‘comparing Irish boroughs new with Irish boroughs old,’ there was not so very much to choose between them, and that for the most part they were likely to increase. The legal point as to members being non-resident he was entitled to pass over lightly, for the law was obsolete in England. ‘If you had said they had no interest,’ he remarked, ‘it had been somewhat, but most have interest in the kingdom, and are likely to be as careful as you for the weal thereof.’ As to civil grievances those complained of were such as were found in all countries, and might be redressed on application to the Lord Deputy, whom the recusants admitted to be the best governor that Ireland had ever had. After full inquiry by an impartial commission the King had ‘found nothing done by him but what is fit for an honourable gentleman to do in his place.’ As to the question of religion, he said the recusants were but half-subjects, and entitled only to half privileges. ‘The Pope is your father in spiritualibus, and I in temporalibus only, and so you have your bodies turned one way and your souls drawn another way; you that send your children to the seminaries of treason. Strive henceforth to become good subjects, that you may have cor unum et viam unam, and then I shall respect you all alike. But your Irish priests teach you such grounds of doctrine as you cannot follow them with a safe conscience, but you must cast off your loyalty to the King.’ And he referred to an intercepted letter from one such priest, which was much more to the purpose than extracts from Suarez and others like him.[120]