The Protestants have no working majority.
Our Tudor and Stuart sovereigns looked upon Parliament mainly as an instrument for putting money in their purse. Ireland was a dependency, and was generally a source of expense rather than of income until after the Restoration, when inconvenient criticism was avoided by charging pensions upon the Irish establishment. ‘The King was never the richer for Ireland,’ though private adventurers sometimes made fortunes there. Chichester had greatly improved the revenue, and as there was peace in his time, except for the brief rebellion of O’Dogherty, there were good hopes of making Ireland a paying concern. After his return from England he issued letters asking for a free gift from the county of Dublin; intending to do the same elsewhere if this first appeal was successful, and hoping thus to raise 20,000l. A nest egg was provided by the Archbishop and Lord Howth, who put their names down for 100l. apiece, but the Roman Catholic majority hung back, and as soon as it was known that a parliamentary subsidy would be asked for the chance of any other contribution grew less and less. The Bill, which was the first of the kind in Ireland, was duly forwarded to the English Council, but there were many delays before it was remitted, and it did not reach Ireland until two days after Parliament had been again prorogued. The constituencies generally appear to have made their representatives regular allowances, and this was found very burdensome. Chichester had found it impossible to keep the Houses sitting with no business before them. Moreover for want of occupation the members began to make inconvenient inquiries into the general course of government, and they rejected Bills for the confirmation of titles to lands acquired by forfeiture in Elizabeth’s time. The Papists, wrote Winwood’s secretary, had been in a majority during the whole session ‘through their careful attendance and the negligent attendance of the Protestants, and this had given them such confidence of their own strength that they have dared to mutter, not many days before the Parliament was prorogued, that the new charters might yet be made void, that the Act of 2 Elizabeth might be suspended, and that the recusant lawyers who were put from pleading might be again admitted to the bar.’[122]
Last session of the Parliament, 1615.
A subsidy cheerfully granted,
but collected with difficulty.
Optimism of Sir John Davies.
Parliament was again prorogued at the end of January 1615, and James, seeing little chance of a supply, was on the point of directing a dissolution. But he changed his mind, and decided to be guided by the proceedings on the money Bill. The Houses met accordingly on April 18, and the subsidy was granted without any difficulty. Vice-Treasurer Ridgeway thought this a half-miracle, the House of Commons ‘being compounded of three several nations, besides a fourth, consisting of old English Irelandised (who are not numbered among the mere Irish or new English) and of two several blessed religions (whatsoever more), besides the ignorance of almost all (they being at first more afraid than hurt) concerning the name, nature, and sum of a subsidy.’ Contrary to the settled practice of later times the Bill was introduced first in the House of Lords. Winwood’s secretary, who sat for Lifford, was allowed precedence in the debate, and was much struck by the readiness of all parties. Many of the Irish assured Blundell that they would willingly have given two subsidies if it had not been for the great loss of cattle during the late severe winter. Nobody knew what the sum raised was likely to amount to, but Ridgeway thought it might reach 30,000l. in money and cows. Chichester said it could not be got in coin unless specie were sent from England to pay the officials, who were all in debt; their creditors might then be enabled to meet the tax. Former benevolences and cesses in Ireland had been raised on land only, and there were many exemptions for waste and in favour of influential people. Goods were now included, and taxed at 2s. 8d. in the pound for natives and 5s. 4d. for aliens and denizens. The imposition on realty was 4s. and 8s. English precedent was departed from in so far that the clergy were taxed as well as the laity, but this was changed in Strafford’s time. Half the money was to be paid in September 1615, and half in the following March. The preamble of the first Irish subsidy Bill bears evident marks of Davies’s hand, setting forth that Ireland had been hitherto only a source of expense to the Crown owing to continual disturbances. ‘But forasmuch,’ it proceeds, ‘as since the beginning of his Majesty’s most happy reign all the causes of war, dissension, and discontentment are taken away,’ principally by extirpating traitors and placing English and Scotch colonies in Ulster, the King was now ‘in full and peaceable possession of his vineyard,’ and entitled to expect some income from it. The King’s letter of thanks is an echo of this, but it was Carew and not Davies that proved a true prophet when a worse war than Tyrone’s broke out in that very Ulster which was supposed to be ‘cleared from the thorns and briars of rebellion.’[123]
Proposed legislation, most of which is abandoned,
against Recusants,
for a fixed revenue,