Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 60.djvu/281

 The ‘graces’ which Wentworth refused to pass into law were two: one which agreed to confirm defective titles to land, and the other giving a special promise to the landowners of Connaught that their right to their estates should never again be questioned. As far as the past was concerned, it was not that he wanted to seize lands from owners whose titles had been lost or destroyed in the wars which had devastated Ireland: he merely wanted to make the concession profitable to the state; and, with that end in view, he appointed commissioners to negotiate separately with the landowners, requiring them to set aside a permanent rent to the crown in consideration of a confirmation of their titles. The case of Connaught was part of a larger policy. Wentworth had set his mind on carrying further the plantation policy of James I. English colonists were to be settled in the purely Celtic regions to teach the natives the advantages of English civilisation, and in the meantime to form a garrison against domestic disaffection or foreign invasion. It was without effect on his mind that in 1635 the Ulster plan was shown not to have effected all that had been expected of it in this direction, and that, in accordance with a decree of the English Star-chamber, the city of London was declared to have forfeited its lands in that province for allowing the natives to encroach upon lands set apart for the settlers and for other similar misdemeanours; while it was shown in the progress of the inquiry that the natives, so far from embracing protestantism, had remained constant to their own religion. Wentworth resolved to plant Connaught with Englishmen, and, to carry all before him, visited that province in person in the summer. He insisted on the highly technical claim that Connaught had been granted in the fourteenth century to Lionel, duke of Clarence, and that, King Charles being the duke's heir and prescription not being available against the king, all Connaught belonged to the crown. In Roscommon, Sligo, and Mayo he got juries to pass a verdict in favour of this view of the case. In Galway the jury being recalcitrant, he fined the sheriff for returning a packed jury, sent the jurymen before the castle chamber to answer for their action, and procured a decree from the court of exchequer to set aside their adverse verdict. His proceeding in this case showed his character at his worst. In pursuit of an object which to him appeared politically expedient—the settlement of Englishmen in Connaught—he not merely swept aside all consideration for the wishes and habits of the people with whom he was dealing, but justified his action by the employment of legal chicanery. After this it was of little importance that Charles's plighted word had been given not to do the very thing which his imperious minister was doing in his name.

So harsh to the feelings of whole communities, Wentworth was not likely to avoid giving offence to private persons, especially as he was subject to occasional fits of the gout, which did not, when they occurred, render him more forbearing. In November 1634 he summoned before him one Esmond, who had refused to carry some of the king's timber in a vessel belonging to himself. Irritated by Esmond's attitude, he shook his cane at, though it is almost certain that he did not strike, him. He, however, sent Esmond to prison, where he soon afterwards died of consumption. It was at once given out that he died from the consequences of a blow inflicted by the lord deputy (cf., iii. 888, with State Papers, Dom. ccccxx. 36, and a statement by Lord Esmond in State Papers, Ireland, undated).

Wentworth's eagerness to secure from the English officials at Dublin the same devotion to the public service that he himself displayed brought him into collision with Lord Mountnorris, the vice-treasurer and an active member of the council. During the greater part of 1634 and the spring of 1635 Wentworth had constantly to complain of his acts of malversation, or at least of irregular practices, in the execution of his office. Mountnorris, probably knowing that the eye of the lord deputy was upon him, had begun to make arrangements for his resignation. In April 1635 he broke them off, and announced his intention of leaving his case in the king's hands. It is to be supposed that he was encouraged by the knowledge that there was a party at court hostile to Wentworth, and that this party was supported by the powerful interest of the queen, who disliked Wentworth's resistance to her wish to grant snug berths in Ireland for her favourites. Mountnorris was now quick to take offence. A kinsman of Mountnorris having dropped a stool on Wentworth's gouty foot, Mountnorris spoke of this event at a dinner at the lord chancellor's as having been done in revenge. ‘But,’ he added, ‘I have a brother who would not take such a revenge.’ On 31 July Charles gave authority to Wentworth to inquire into Mountnorris's malpractices (Strafford Letters, i. 448), and in another letter empowered him to bring Mountnorris before a court-martial (ib. i.