Sidney’s last days in Ireland.
Sidney took the advice of his famous son, delaying his return till September, but sending over Waterhouse at once with such instructions as were likely to smooth his path. The Queen was reminded that the cess question was not yet fully settled, that the auditor’s books could not be posted in a minute, that a foreign invasion was at hand, that there were many unfinished causes scarcely fit to be entrusted to a new hand, and that her Majesty owed her Deputy 3,000l., for which he held the Treasurer’s warrant. If anything could make Elizabeth acquiesce in the neglect of her orders it was an allusion to the 3,000l., and she allowed Sidney to stay where he was until he had an opportunity of conferring with Gerard. Sir William Drury was nominated Lord Justice to take up the government as soon as it should be vacant. Rory Oge was disposed of soon after this, and a branch of the Scottish MacDonnells, long settled at Tinnakill, in the Queen’s County, received a pension of 300l. a year in consideration of giving the Queen constant service as gallowglass. In the meantime the MacMahons had broken out, and driven off cattle from the Northern frontier of the Pale. Lord Louth followed with a few horsemen, and falling into an ambuscade was himself slain, as well as the eldest son of the loyal Sir Hugh Magennis. The loss of an active and thoroughly well-affected young lord of twenty-three could not be passed over, and Sidney invaded Monaghan, destroying everything that he could lay hands on. MacMahon came to Newry with a withe about his neck and sued for pardon; but Sidney had by that time left Ireland.[356]
He leaves Ireland finally.
Gerard was detained in Wales by illness, and Sidney sent first Attorney-General Snagg, and afterwards Ludovic Briskett, Clerk of the Council, to keep his cause alive at Court. Men, money, victuals, and munition were required, for there was talk of a descent by Stukeley, and the Lord Deputy wished to hold a Parliament to renew the subsidy of 13s. 4d. on each ploughland which had expired, and to renew the Act imposing a duty on wines, which was about to expire. But all eyes and ears were now turned to the Netherlands, and Waterhouse wrote to warn Sidney that he would get nothing except perhaps ammunition, and that the money last sent was regretted. ‘Irish alarms,’ he said, ‘are so far from waking courtiers out of their sleep that, as I am sure, till they hear that the enemy is landed, they will never think of aid that may carry with it extraordinary charge. There is now no speech of the return of the Earls of Ormonde and Kildare.... The States have made John Norris general, &c.’ Thus matters stood when the Irish Chancellor arrived in Dublin; and no time was then lost in completing the arrangements about cess. An assembly of notables was convened from Dublin, Meath, Louth, Kildare, King’s and Queen’s Counties, Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny, and Tipperary, and the agreement already referred to was thus made. Sidney at this time took a strong dislike to Gerard, whom he accused of ambitious dealing and of plotting against him at Court. ‘He did not let to say that he had brought over such warrants for himself and restraint for me as I could do nothing without him,’ and he was accused of boasting that Ireland should be governed with a white rod when Drury ruled by his direction.[357]
His character.
At eight o’clock on the evening of September 12, exactly three years after his arrival, Sidney embarked at Wood Quay, and when on board his vessel surrendered the sword to Gerard, and finally severed his connection with Ireland. If we except Strafford and Cromwell, he was perhaps the ablest man who ever reigned in Dublin Castle, and there is a charm about him which belongs to scarcely any one else even in the Elizabethan age. Who shall say how much his famous son, and scarcely less famous daughter, owed to a father whose letters of advice remain as almost unapproachable models, and whose life showed such a noble example? The official correspondence of the time is full of allusions to his powers of work, to the hours which he sat patiently through, and to the confidence which his decisions commanded. Though suffering from a painful disease, he shrank from no journey, and the rapidity of his movements was extraordinary. Fortune, ease, and health were given up to the public service, and though he complained he never hesitated. ‘I had no time,’ he said, ‘to apply my mind to take physic in Ireland.’ He well knew the value of exercise and reasonable leisure, but he denied himself both. As Elizabeth’s representative he was accustomed to take a high line, and he sometimes dared to maintain the dignity of the Crown even against the great Queen who wore it. Her cousin Ormonde should not be favoured in his causes except according to law. Mr. Christopher Hatton should not have a license to export yarn in defiance of an Irish Act of Parliament. If the Queen let fall hasty words detrimental to the Irish service, her Viceroy would rebuke her for being ‘so great an enemy to her own profit.’[358]
His relations with the Queen.
And thus it came to pass that while Elizabeth honoured, and perhaps loved, the man in whose arms her brother breathed his last, and whose wife had lost her looks and almost her life in nursing her through the small-pox, she was not sorry when an opportunity offered of wounding his masterful spirit. When he seemed to bargain with her for the retention of the Welsh Presidency as a condition of entering on the hated Irish service, she rebuked him for daring to limit her prerogative, and when he made a gay figure at Court she said it was no wonder, for that he held two of her best offices. But she took care to leave him both places, and sometimes called him Harry. She grumbled at the expense of his government, but in the end seldom refused to give him nearly as much money as he asked for. He tells us that he lost 9,000l. by his Irish service, which was an enormous sum in those days, but Elizabeth, though she might never replace money so spent, at least did not neglect his children.
His personal qualities.
Sidney was a ready speaker and a vigorous writer. Campion professes to give one of his speeches, but about such reports there must always be some doubts. The letters, however, are there, and if Sidney spoke nearly as well as he wrote, we can well believe that a great effect was sometimes produced. His written style is full and vigorous, and gives a much better idea of Elizabethan English than that of many professed authors whose affectation of elegance only tended to obscurity. Sidney was very fond of heraldry, and not a little proud of his right to display the bear and ragged staff. Indeed, he particularly impressed upon his sons the necessity of living up to the standard of their mother’s family—a family, as modern students cannot help observing, which produced Edmund Dudley, Northumberland, and Leicester. This was an amiable weakness; a certain irascibility was a worse defect in a statesman, but his anger was soon appeased, and there can be no doubt that he was personally very popular. Among many virtues this defect was noted, that he was too fond of the pleasures of the table, and among Irish-speaking people the nickname of ‘big Henry of the beer’ was sometimes given to him. He was once accused of flirting with a married woman, but this may have been only gossip, and affection for her husband breathes in every line of Lady Mary Sidney’s letters.[359]