disobedience. Ormond admitted that he was aware of the order; but he added, that, as he was invested with his Earldom per cincturam gladii, he was not only entitled, but obliged by a superior authority, the royal command, to attend Parliament gladio cinctus. The Deputy, though sorely mortified at the rebuke, was prudent enough to conceal his anger. He dismissed Ormond, and sent for his friends Radcliffe and Wandesforde to take counsel with them whether he should admit his mistake, or avenge his offended dignity. His advisers recommended the milder course; they reminded him of the influence of Ormond in the House, of the necessity of gaining over some of the Irish nobles to his side; and they pointed out that the talents and courage he had already displayed, made his friendship highly desirable. Overtures were made to him and gladly accepted. The quarrel was soon forgotten, and there was no firmer supporter of Wentworth's policy ever after than Ormond.* The young Earl of Kildare did not think he was treated by the Deputy with the respect due to his high position as first peer of the realm. He determined, in consequence, to absent himself from Parliament, and to send his proxy. The King wrote to him, insisting on his personal attendance. He obeyed; but either from resentment, or through the influence of the Earl of Cork, his father-in-law, he opposed every measure brought forward by the Crown. Wentworth did not conceal his anger; he even went so far as to reprimand the Earl. Kildare, stung by such insolence, took ship privately for England, intending to lay the whole matter before the King, and seek redress from him. But the Deputy's letter anticipated him; he was told that he could regain the royal favour only by submission and a promise of future service to the Crown, a course which he was wise enough to adopt.f

During the Christmas recess Wentworth submitted to the Secretary of State his doubts about the future. The next session would open on the 26th of January; it would end before Easter; and all the laws he needed could be passed within that time. He doubted whether it was best absolutely to dissolve the Parliament or merely prorogue it; he inclined to the latter course. If prorogued, it could do no harm, it could exercise no power; at any moment before the day named for meeting "it might be blown over with the least breath from his Majesty." The House was well composed; the Protestants formed a compact majority, entirely devoted to the King's interests; it would not be easy to get such another. They would enable him to hold a rod over the Popish party, by putting it in the King's power to pass against them all the laws of England concerning religion; they would help to confirm and settle his Majesty's title to the plantations of Connaught and Ormond-a thing much desired by the Protestants. Even though it should be found that the Crown had no title to the countries, for reasons of State, and for the strength and security of the kingdom, an act would be readily carried through Parliament conferring them on the King. The King's arbitrary nature could not brook the constitutional check of a Parliament. He would not

* Carte, "Life of Ormond," I. 64.

† Leland, III. 20.

66

have it prorogued; it should be dissolved in all haste. "My reasons," he writes to the Deputy, are grounded upon my experience of Parliaments here; they are of the nature of cats-they ever grow curst with age; so that if you will have good of them, put them off handsomely when they come to any age. For young ones are ever most tractable; and, in earnest, you will find that nothing can more conduce to the beginning of a new than the well ending of the former Parliament. Therefore, now that we are well, let us content ourselves therewith." Wentworth, against his better judgment, prepared to carry out the King's wishes; he had stated his reasons plainly, and all that was left him was to obey.

The two Houses united in a petition to the King for the establishment of a mint in Ireland, Several had been set up in this country during the reign of Edward I., to the great benefit of the Crown, which derived from them an annual profit of £3,000. The value of the exports from Ireland to foreign countries exceeded that of the imports by £200,000 a year. Very little of the foreign coin brought into the kingdom found its way to the English mint; it was more frequently taken to France or Spain, "to the great loss of the Crown and to the injury of the country, since the scarcity of coin seriously impeded the increase of commerce." Wentworth supported their petition with earnestness. He proposed that a mint should be established on the same principles and subject to the same duties as the English mint. All the cost of the smelting-houses and other things necessary for the work was to be borne by Ireland. The only persons he thought likely to offer any opposition to the scheme were the officers of the English mint; even though they should suffer a little in purse, he contends that "they should not be made such darlings, as to allow their private interests to interfere with the good of the King and his people." The prospect of new profits to the Crown triumphed over their opposition; and the King, on the 11th of March, gave his consent to the request, with certain cautions and conditions, to be stated afterwards, in return for the loyalty and good affection shown by the Parliament. But the English Privy Council put such difficulties in the way, that the project was given up; "thereby giving the Irish people occasion to reflect on the unhappiness of their situation in being under the control of a body of men of a different country, who have no natural inclination for the welfare of theirs, nor any interest in the good of it."*

Both Houses reassembled on the 26th of January, 1635. The weather, "extreme fierce and strong," had prevented the sailing of the ship bearing the necessary despatches from the King. The attendance of members too was small. The Houses were in consequence adjourned for a week. A committee had been appointed early in the session, to consider the best means of taxing the people for the payment of the subsidies that had been agreed to. It was at first proposed to appoint commissioners for Dublin and to send them into the country; another proposal was that each county should furnish

*Carte's "Life of Ormond," I. 80.

its own commissioners. Wentworth pointed out that a subsidy raised in this way would cause much dissatisfaction, though it would amount to no more than £30,000 or £35,000. He therefore issued orders to choose commissioners for the counties adjoining Dublin, of whom two in each were Councillors. They had special instructions "to appoint assessors, and to examine them on oath, if necessary, about the uttermost value of every man's lands and goods within their several limits; and then when such presentment had been given in, in writing, to consult again with the committee before they proceeded to the final rating." Sir Christopher Wandesforde and Sir Charles Coote carried out the proposed plan in the county of Kildare; it was so well executed, that "it wrought the effect he secretly desired, and indeed had in his eye all the way. A mighty fright arose that, every man's income being known, it would be rated at the highest value." The Commons assembled in secret, and determined to bring in the subsidies themselves by setting a rate on each county, and appointing officers to raise it. Every subsidy payable by the Commons would amount to £40,000; the State would have the right to assess the proportions to be paid by the nobility and clergy as formerly. He assured the Committee of the House, appointed to make him this proposal, that the King was inclined to ease the people as much as might be; that he preferred their good affections to their money. He felt certain that £40,000 with their good likings would be more pleasing to him than twice as much raised another way. He would venture, therefore, to accept their offer for the first four subsidies; but for the last two, as only one could be paid each year, he should expect they would make them up to £45,000 each. But the whole amount should be made up in "neat money," without any defalcations upon certificates of persons severally charged in divers counties, and over and above the allowance of sixpence per pound set down by the statute for collecting the same. The next day the House assented" with all alacrity and cheerfulness to this new demand; they named commissioners, and assessed every county, thus leaving them the best contented that is possible, and the Crown free from their scandal and outcry." Six Commissioners were appointed to see that the burden was laid equally on the poorer and on the wealthier classes. For twenty years the nobility had given no subsidy; their contributions to the general exchequer must have been trifling indeed, if we may judge from the case of Lord Cork, who paid but six shillings and eight pence Irish a quarter to the revenue.

The most important Acts passed by the Parliament of 1634 were those of Uses and Wills. By the common law, lands and tenements could not be transmitted by will; hence no one could in this way provide for his younger children by charging his real estate, when his personal was not sufficient; nor could they be regularly conveyed from one to another unless by solemn livery and seisin, matter of record or writing sufficiently made bonâ fide, without cozen or fraud. Means were, however, invented to alter the property and possession of lands by fraudulent feoffments, fines, recoveries, and other assurances to secret uses and trusts, by long leases for a thousand years;

and sometimes by wills, made either in writing or by words, signs or tokens for the most part at the moment of death. Long leases were employed by Catholics to deprive the King of the wardship of their children, and save the heirs from taking the oath of supremacy on the suing out their liveries. The chief penalty of rebellion, the forfeiture of the lands of attainted rebels, was lost to the Crown by their timely transfer to the safe keeping of friends. The Acts now passed provided that all persons, for whose use any one else was seized of any lands or rent-charges, should be deemed in actual possession thereof; and that no conveyance of inheritance or freehold, by bargain or sale, should be valid, unless by writing enrolled in one of the King's Courts at Dublin, or in the county where such estate lay before certain officials, within six months after the date of the deeds. The chief object of these laws was to get hold of the youthful heirs of the Irish chieftains, that they might be reared in the tenets of Protestantism; a good foundation would thus be laid for the reducing of the rest of the nation to uniformity in religion, no people in the world being more disposed to follow the religion of their great lords than the Irish.* "These Acts," writes Wentworth to Laud, “will gain six wardships to one to the Crown, besides an opportunity to bring up the best families in religion as they fall, which in reason of State is of infinite consequence, as we see experimentally in my Lord of Ormond, who, if he had been left to the education of his own parents, had been as mere Irish and Papist as the best of them, whereas now he is a very good Protestant, and consequently will make not only a faithful, but a very affectionate servant to the Crown of England. I judge it, without all question, far the greatest service that can be done to the Crown on this side, to draw Ireland into a conformity of religion with England." A third Act was passed later in the session, making these two retrospective; it vacated all fraudulent conveyances and encumbrances upon estates by lease or otherwise, and all fraudulent sales and alienations of goods and chattels, made since the beginning of King James's reign; and it inflicted severe penalties on such persons as were privy to the fraud.

The other laws passed during this session met with little opposition, their object being to promote the quiet and well-being of the realm. The odious distinction between English and Irish was abolished; taxes were imposed for the building of bridges and the repairs of highways; fishing on the sea-coasts was encouraged; the interest on loans was reduced to ten per cent.; the barking of trees, the burning of corn in the straw, the destroying of hedges and fences, were made penal. Some few measures which had been defeated by the Catholic party early in the session, Wentworth determined to put into execution by the exercise of the royal prerogative; the most important was that which would forbid Catholic parents to send their children to foreign countries to be educated. This "the King not only approved, but required to be effectually executed and with speed.'

* Leland, III. 25

With the Parliament there sat also a convocation of the clergy of the Protestant Church. They granted eight subsidies to the King; and at the same time, they petitioned the Crown to redress several grievances, and to correct some disorders in ecclesiastical affairs. They complained, that "in the whole Christian world the rural clergy were not reduced to such extremity of contempt and beggary as in the kingdom of Ireland, by means of the violent intrusions into their rights in times of confusion, having their churches ruined, their habitations left desolate, their tithes detained, their glebes concealed, and, by inevitable consequence, an invincible necessity of a general non-residency imposed upon them; whereby the ordinary people were left wholly destitute of all possible means to learn true piety to God, loyalty to their prince, and civility one towards another." The parish churches and the parsonages were oftentimes in ruins. The tithes had been sold to laymen; in some dioceses there was scarce a living that was not farmed out at a few pounds a year to the patron himself or to someone else for his use. Even the provisions made for their support, on the settling of the plantations, had been defeated by the Commissioners and the planters. Five pounds was a very common stipend; in Connaught there were few vicarages the value of which exceeded forty shillings. Even the bishopricks had been impoverished by absolute grants and long leases made by the former holders. The natural result was, that no men of learning could be found to accept such wretched livings; the incumbents were oftentimes ignorant, irregular in their lives, a scandal to their profession, and objects of scorn to both Catholics and Puritans. They now asked that certain appropriations, still in the possession of the Crown, should be devoted to the support of a resident clergy.*

An act was passed by the Parliament, "confirming all grants made or to be made by the late King James, the present King, or any other persons, of any manors, lands, &c., for the erection or support of any school, for the maintenance of any minister, or the building or maintaining of any church, school, or hospital, or for any other pious and charitable use; it obliged the bishops to be careful in executing and performing such trusts and uses, and subjected them to the inspection of the Court of Chancery, and to the cognizance of the Deputy and Privy Council at the Council board. Wentworth resolved to make an effort to restore the property to its original uses, even at the risk of incurring the enmity of some of the holders. "In faith,” he writes to Laud, "I shall have at these ravens now this Parliament is passed; and if I spare a man among them, may God not spare me." Lord Cork was forced to surrender tithes amounting to £2,000 a year. Lord Clanrickard was found to have engrossed as many parsonages and vicarages as he could mortgage for £4,000, and a yearly rent of £80. The Church property needed to be protected not only against the rapacity of the laity, but of the clergy too. He therefore caused an Act to be passed, "that all grants, leases, and incum

*The Schedule will be found in "Letters," &c. I. 384.