Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 22.djvu/609

 STKAFFORD 585 'than ever, and Wentworth was therefore thrown strongly on the side of Charles, from whom alone opposition to Puritanism could possibly come. This attachment to -Charles was doubtless cemented by Buckingham's murder, but, if he took the king's part with decision and vigour, it must be remembered that, as has been already said, he was above all a man prone to magnify his office, and that things would look differently to him than they had done before he was in his new position. For the charge of apostasy in its ordinary meaning there is no foundation. As yet Wentworth took no part in the general govern- ment of the country. In December he became Viscount Wentworth and president of the Council of the North. In the speech delivered at York on his taking office he -announced his intention of doing his utmost to bind up the prerogative of the crown and the liberties of the subject in indistinguishable union. " Whoever," he said, " ravels forth into questions the right of a king and of a people shall never be able to wrap them up again into the comeliness and order he found them." The session of 1629 ended in a breach between the king and the parliament which made the task of a moderator hopeless. Wentworth had to choose between helping a Puritan House of Commons to dominate the king and helping the king to dominate a Puritan House of Commons. He instinctively chose the latter course, and he threw himself into the work of repression with characteristic energy, as if the establishment of the royal power was the one thing needful. Yet even when he was most resolute in crushing resistance he held that he and not his antagonists were maintaining the old constitution which they had attempted to alter by claiming supremacy for parliament. In November 1629 Wentworth became a privy councillor. In October 1631 he lost his second wife, -and in October 1632 he married Elizabeth Rhodes. In January 1G32 he had been named lord-deputy of Ireland, having performed his duties at York to the king's satis- faction, though he had given grave offence to the northern gentry by the enforcement of his authority. It was a cardinal point of his system that no wealth or station should exempt its possessor from obedience to the king. Not only was the announcement of this principle likely to give offence to those who were touched by it, but in its application Wentworth was frequently harsh and over- bearing. In general he may have been said to have worked rather for equality under a strong Government than for liberty. In Ireland Wentworth would have to deal with a people which had not arrived at national cohesion, and amongst which had been from time to time introduced English colonists, some of them, like the early Norman settlers, sharing in the Catholicism of the natives, whilst the later importations stood aloof and preserved their Protestantism. There was also a class of officials of English derivation, many of whom failed to reach a high standard of efficiency. Against these Wentworth, who arrived in Dublin in July 1633, waged war sometimes with scanty regard to the forms of justice, as in the case of Lord Mountnorris, whom he sent before a court-martial on a merely formal charge, which necessarily entailed a death sentence, not because he wanted to execute him, but because he knew of no other way of excluding him from official life. The purifying of official life, however, was but a small part of Wentworth's task. In one way, indeed, he conceived his duty in the best spirit. He tried at the same time to strengthen the crown and to benefit the poor by making the mass of the nation less dependent on their chiefs and lords than they had been before, and, though Wentworth could not do away with the effects of previous mistakes, he might do much to soften down the existing antagonism between the native population and the English Government. Unhappily his intentions were frustrated by causes resulting partly from his own character and partly from the circumstances in which he was placed. In the first place, Wentworth's want of money to carry on the Government was deplorable. In 1634 he called a parliament at Dublin, and obtained from it a consider- able grant, as well as its co-operation in a remarkable series of legislative enactments. The king, however, had previously engaged his word to make certain concessions known as the "graces," and Wentworth resolved that some of these should not be granted, and took upon himself to refuse what his master had promised. The money granted by parliament, however, would not last for ever, and Wentworth resolved to create a balance between revenue and expenditure before the supply was exhausted. This he succeeded in doing, partly by making a vast improve- ment in the material condition of the country, and partly by the introduction of monopolies and other irregular payments, which created wide dissatisfaction, especially amongst the wealthier class. Towards the -native Irish Wentworth's bearing was benevolent but thoroughly unsympathetic. Having no notion of developing their qualities by a process of natural growth, his only hope for them lay in converting them into Englishmen as soon as possible. They must be made English in their habits, in their laws, and in their religion. " I see plainly," he once wrote, " that, so long as this kingdom continues Popish, they are not a people for the crown of England to be confident of." It is true that he had too much ability to adopt a system of irritating persecution, but from time to time some word or act escaped from him which allowed all who were concerned to know what his real opinion was. For the present, however, he had to content himself with forging the instrument by which the hoped-for conversion was to be effected. The Established Church of Ireland was in a miserable plight, and Wentworth busied himself with rescuing from the hands of such men as the earl of Cork the property of the church, which had in troublous times been diverted from its true purpose, and with enforcing the strict observance of the practices of the English Church, on the one hand upon recalcitrant Puritans, and on the other hand upon lawless disregarders of all decency. In this way he hoped to obtain a church to which the Irish might be expected to rally. Till that time came, he must rely on force to keep order and to prevent any understanding growing up between the Irish and foreign powers. With this object in view he resolved on pouring English colonists into Connaught as James had poured them into Ulster. To do this he had taken upon himself to set at naught Charles's promise that no colonists should be forced into Connaught, and in 1635 he proceeded to that province, where, raking up an obsolete title, he insisted upon the grand juries in all the counties finding verdicts for the king. One only, that of Galway, resisted, and the confiscation of Galway was effected by the Court of Exchequer, whilst he fined the sheriff 1000 for summoning such a jury, and cited the jurymen to the castle chamber to answer for their offence. He had succeeded in setting all Ireland against him. High-handed as Wentworth was by nature, his rule in Ireland made him more high-handed than ever. As yet he had never been consulted on English affairs, and it was only in February 1637 that Charles asked his opinion on a proposed interference in the affairs of the Continent. In reply, he assured Charles that it would be unwise to XXII. 74