Sidney’s criticisms.
Sidney’s high prerogative doctrines somewhat warped his mind. He condescended to say that Netterville was ‘son of a second and mean Justice of one of the benches;’ as if that could possibly prejudice his advocacy. He praised the Chancellor for acting as a partisan, though no doubt he was fair enough about prices. ‘He hath in public places both learnedly, discreetly, wisely, and stoutly dealt in the matter of cess, and rather like a counsellor at the bar than a judge on the bench.’ After all this is very doubtful praise, though Gerard was not acting in his judicial capacity.[335]
True bill against the cess.
Before their emissaries started for England, the gentlemen of the Pale procured a bill to be brought before a Meath grand jury, of which the first clause contains these words: ‘We find Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of her Majesty’s realm of Ireland, Sir Lucas Dillon, &c. (all the council), ... gave commission to Thomas Cusack of Gerardiston, sheriff of Meath, to charge ... cess ... corn, beef, butter, &c., and carts and carriages ... 1,800l. or thereabouts ... said sheriff has levied.... Sir Robert Tressilian, Chief Justice of England, was put to death for misconstruing the laws in Richard’s time.’ Further clauses indict the inferior ministers occupied about the cess. By advice of the presiding judge, the charge against the officers of State was erased, but the rest of the Bill was presented and justified, and Burnell said openly in the Court of Star Chamber that he would have carried the case through, but that it would have delayed his journey to England.[336]
Nature of the tax.
The details of the question at issue between Sidney and the Lords of the Pale are extremely obscure, and for a variety of reasons. Thus, when they complained that the exaction amounted to 9l. per ploughland, he offered to take 3l. 6s. 8d., but they refused, ostensibly from unwillingness to burden their heirs. One explanation is that the ploughland was a very uncertain measure, though generally reckoned at 120 Irish acres, and that the acreage had always been very much understated. It was feared that Sidney would measure the land more carefully and reduce the ploughlands to a uniform size, thus extracting much more money than might be supposed from his apparently liberal offer. Many lands had been exempted by favour or custom, and such exemptions tended to multiply; it was feared that Sidney might extinguish them. Grass lands had perhaps not been taxed at all, for Sidney only allowed 700 ploughlands in Meath, Westmeath, Kildare, and Dublin. The surface of those counties, without including Wicklow, contains nearly 11,000 ploughlands of 120 Irish acres each. On inquiry, Sidney found that the charge at existing prices came nearly to 8l. a ploughland, ‘for ease of which, by making the burden to be borne more universally, I by proclamation dissolved all freedoms that had not had their continuance time out of memory of man, whereof there were many, the most by a statute pretending thereby an increase of military men, which God knoweth, and I, are of little worth, ... the statute is expired.’ Many repined, but ‘it was proved that they had no real reason to do so.’[337]
Netterville and his colleagues admitted that 1s. per acre Irish, or 8d. sterling, was the rent of land ‘in most, or at least in many places,’ within the Pale. They allowed that a foot soldier could not live on 8d. a day, nor a horseman on 9d., and they said roundly that there was no way but to increase these sums, declaring, and we may well believe declaring truly, that the Queen already lost more by the jobbing consequent on insufficient pay than she could lose by giving the extra 1d. a day, which the soldiers asked for. That so small an increase would content them reasonably they inferred from the fact that it had often been accepted by them in lieu of cess. The Pale was willing to victual soldiers maintained for its defence, provided a fair price was paid for it, Netterville and his colleagues pledging themselves to use all their influence to obtain the Queen supplies if only she would seek them constitutionally from Parliament.[338]
On the arrival of the three Irish lawyers in London, Walsingham assured Sidney that nothing should be done to prejudice his authority. The Privy Council received the strangers coldly, and Leicester took occasion to ‘ruffle that seditious knave Netterville’ in a style which pleased his brother-in-law greatly. The contention that cess was altogether illegal did not recommend itself to the Queen or her Ministers. Kildare and Ormonde, Gormanston and Dunsany, were in London, and being called before the Council admitted that the cess was customary, and only begged that consideration might be showed to the Pale in time of scarcity. The triumvirate, as Waterhouse calls them, were accordingly committed close prisoners to the Fleet, and Sidney was gently cautioned to shear his sheep and not to flay them. He confessed, indeed, that he ‘held a straighter hand in the matter of cess, the rather to bring them to a certain rent for the release of the same.’ Netterville had seen this clearly enough, and therefore the Lord Deputy writes him down ‘as seditious a varlet and as great an impugner of English government as any Ireland beareth.’[339]
The chiefs of the Pale under arrest.