[157] Clarendon’s parting speech, February 12, 1686-7, is in the appendix to King’s State of the Protestants. No mention is made of the Ulster Scots. Evelyn’s Diary. Luttrell’s Diary, March.
[CHAPTER XLIX]
GOVERNMENT OF TYRCONNEL, 1687-1688
Tyrconnel Lord Deputy, February 1687.
James forced Sheridan upon Tyrconnel as secretary, and made him chief commissioner of revenue to make the Irish service worth his while. Clarendon thought him a ‘wicked, cheating man,’ and the new Lord Deputy objected to him, not on that ground, though he accused him of dishonesty, but because he knew he was sent to be a drag on him. He could not avoid taking him, but did so with a very ill grace, advising him to give up drinking, and not imitate Sir Ellis Leighton or Mr. Ellis, ‘the first having ruined Lord Berkeley, and the other, the blackest and most corrupt of villains, my Lord Arran.’ Sheridan answered that he was the most abstemious of men, that he abhorred corruption, and that for all he cared Tyrconnel might give the secretary’s place to his nephew, Sir William Talbot. He at first refused to go unless he had a seat at the Irish Council, but Tyrconnel said he had asked the King for this and been refused. Nevertheless, when Lord Bridgeman spoke about it to James, he at once consented, saying that Tyrconnel had never mentioned the matter to him. In January the new Viceroy and Sheridan were at Chester, where Cartwright was now installed as bishop, along with Richard and Anthony Hamilton and two Irish lords. Fitton joined them at Holyhead, and they all talked of Irish affairs while waiting for a wind. Tyrconnel suggested that Christ Church should be taken from the Protestants, that a Catholic militia should be raised and trained, and that Catholics should fill all places. Sheridan and Fitton disagreed, ‘both of them knowing these things were contrary to His Majesty’s intentions and interest.’ It is clear that they were against his interest, but not that they were against his intentions. On reaching Dublin, Sheridan was sent to Clarendon with the King’s letter of recall, repeating one from Sunderland in which he was directed to give up the sword to Tyrconnel within a week of his arrival. Before he received the sword, and while still a private person, the latter demanded the surrender for punishment of one of Clarendon’s servants who had attributed the change to the dog Talbot. Tyrconnel was sworn in as Deputy, not Lord Lieutenant, on February 12, and Clarendon was Cartwright’s guest at Chester a few days later. He heard a sermon from Mr. Peake in the cathedral on the duties of governors, and it seems not to have been pleasant, for the bishop thought of suspending the preacher, though both Lord Derby and Mr. Cholmondeley interceded for him. Ten days afterwards Cartwright sent his carriage to meet Porter, and found the ex-Chancellor’s children ‘set in a stage-coach broke in the quicksands three miles from Chester.’ They were rescued, and next day their father and mother were brought safely from Neston.[158]
The Coventry letter.
When Nagle left Ireland it was thought probable that he would return as Attorney-General, and that part of his business would be to attack the Act of Settlement. The King had assured Clarendon that it ‘must always be kept untouched, though many ill and disaffected people are secured in their possessions by it.’ Nagle was back in November, and neither then or later did Clarendon have any intimation from the English Government that a change of policy was intended. It was not until January, shortly before his recall, that he received through private hands the copy of a letter from Nagle to Tyrconnel purporting to have been written on the road at Coventry, but doubtless composed in London as the result of careful deliberation. In it the Acts of Settlement and Explanation and the administration of them were vigorously attacked. About the same time the Benedictine Philip Ellis, afterwards Bishop of Segni, was allowed, or, as some thought, bribed, by the Irish in London to preach at St. James’s against the Acts. Tyrconnel admitted that he had inspired the sermon and promised Ellis the bishopric of Waterford as a reward. The contents of Nagle’s letter were known in Ireland before Clarendon got his copy, and the writer complained of its surreptitious publication. Tyrconnel had the original, and his denial is worth little. Both letter and sermon were disliked by moderate men, but they evidently foreshadowed extreme measures. Less than a year after the date of Nagle’s manifesto, Barillon knew that James had made secret preparations for repealing the Act of Settlement.[159]
The Land Settlement threatened.
The commission of grace issued less than eleven months before the late King’s death expired with him. The court constituted by it had not time to do much, but it excited hopes and fears, for the old proprietors expected to get money in exchange for their claims, while the men in possession saw that their titles were endangered. Clarendon found men’s minds much disturbed, and thought the best way to quiet the country would be to renew the commission. He believed the Protestant holders under the Act of Settlement, as well as the many Roman Catholics who had bought land from them, would be willing to pay well for confirmation of their titles, and 150,000l. might thus be raised to compensate the most deserving sufferers. Lord Chancellor Porter sounded the men of his own profession, and found them generally favourable to such a policy. Chief Justice Keating was strongly of that opinion, and at first James seemed inclined to agree, but contrary influences prevailed, and Clarendon was informed that the King preferred a parliament to a commission. He was to take counsel with Tyrconnel and others as to how much landowners would be willing to pay for clear titles, with a suggestion that the parliamentary way might bring in the larger amount. Rice and Nagle supported Tyrconnel, who inveighed against the idea of a commission with much cursing and swearing, holding that it would bring in little money, ‘but would confirm those estates which ought not to be confirmed.’ In the meantime many secret meetings were held among the Roman Catholics. A letter found at Christ Church after morning prayer on the last day of August professed to be written by one who ‘politically went to mass’ in order to gain admission to these conclaves, which he said were attended by nine bishops, ten Jesuits, and eighteen friars, and that letters were received from the Queen, from Lord Castlemaine, from the Pope and cardinals, and from the King of France. All this was no doubt greatly exaggerated, and the writer’s name did not transpire, but Clarendon knew from other sources that there were many private consultations at which Tyrconnel attended, and that at one of these it was resolved to send Nagle to England. When he returned, after having written the Coventry letter, there was more uneasiness than ever, and he soon became Attorney-General, displacing Domville, who had held that office ever since the Restoration. As a practising lawyer, says Archbishop King, Nagle ‘was employed by many Protestants, so that he knew the weak part of most of their titles.’[160]
Protestant corporations attacked.