Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642

Ussher on the things that are Cæsar’s

This was not published for some time, but while the negotiations were still in progress George Downham, bishop of Derry, a Cambridge man and a strong Calvinist, preached at Christ Church before the Lord Deputy and Council. Having read the judgment of the twelve prelates, he called upon the congregation to say Amen, and ‘suddenly the whole church almost shaked with the great sound their loud Amens made.’ Ussher himself preached next Sunday to the same effect, saying much of Judas and the thirty pieces of silver. He was, however, strongly in favour of a grant being made for the army, and his speech to the assembled notables a few days later urged the duty of contributing to the public defence. ‘We are,’ he said, ‘now at odds with two of the most potent princes in Christendom; to both which in former times the discontented persons in Ireland have had recourse heretofore, proffering the kingdom itself unto them, if they would undertake the conquest of it.’ Desmond had offered the island to France in Henry VIII.’s time, and after that the Spaniards had never ceased to give trouble. Nor were matters much improved by the late plantations; for while other colonising states had ‘removed the ancient inhabitants to other dwellings, we have brought new planters into the land, and have left the old inhabitants to shift for themselves,’ who would undoubtedly give trouble as soon as they had the chance. The burden of the public defence lay on the King, and it was the business of subjects to render Cæsar his due.¹⁶⁴

Irish soldiers in England

The Act of Supremacy defied

Bargain between the King and the Irish agents

The Irish agents did not leave Dublin until very near the end of 1627, and on reaching London found that toleration was by no means popular. Considerable bodies of Irish troops were billeted in England, sometimes coming into collision with the people and causing universal irritation. The famous third Parliament of Charles I. met on March 17, and one of their first proceedings was to petition the King for a stricter administration of the recusancy laws. A little later the Commons in their remonstrance against Buckingham complained of the miserable condition of Ireland, where Popery was openly professed and practised. Superstitious houses had been repaired or newly erected, and ‘replenished with men and women of several orders’ in Dublin and all large towns. A few months later a committee reported that Ireland was swarming with friars, priests, and Jesuits who devoted themselves to undermining the allegiance of the people. Formerly very few had refused to attend church in Dublin; but that was now given up, and there were thirteen mass houses, more in number than the parish churches. Papists were trusted with the command of soldiers of their own creed, and the Irish generally were being trained to arms, ‘which heretofore hath not been permitted, even in times of greatest security.’ The agents no doubt found that they had a better chance with the King than with anyone else, and they consented to waive the promise not to enforce the shilling fine for non-attendance at church, being perhaps privately satisfied that such enforcement would not take place. The agents were of course all landowners or lawyers nearly related to them, and they procured the much more important undertaking that a sixty years’ title should be good against the Crown. They agreed to pay 120,000l. in three years for the support of the army, but there were complaints that this was too burdensome, and the time for completing the payment was afterwards extended to four years.¹⁶⁵

A Parliament is promised, but not held

Proclamation against regular clergy, April 1, 1629

Recall of Falkland, Aug. 1629

It was provided by the graces that the limitation of the King’s title to land and other important concessions should be secured by law, and the opening of Parliament was fixed for November 1. Roman Catholics who had formerly practised in Ireland or who had spent five years at the English inns of court were to be admitted to practise as barristers on taking a simple oath of allegiance, without any abjuration of the papal authority, and this was a considerable step towards toleration. A Parliament had been promised by the original graces in 1626 and clamoured for by the assembly of notables in 1627, but it soon appeared that it would be impossible to hold it by the beginning of November 1628, and people in Ireland were sceptical as to there being any real intention to hold one at all. Falkland issued writs, however, and it appears that some elections actually took place, when it was discovered in London that the provisions of Poynings’ Act had not been complied with. The measures proposed to be passed should have been first sent from the Irish Government, and an answer returned under the Great Seal of England authorising or amending them. The objection proved fatal, and no Parliament was held, while the Irish nobility and gentry complained that even the purely administrative part of the Graces had not been acted upon. The Government required that the 120,000l. already granted should be paid into the Exchequer, but there would then be no security for the troops being paid, and the Irish gentry, with good reason, feared that they might pay their money without escaping the extortion and disorder of the soldiers. In the meantime the English Government suggested that more activity might be shown against the religious orders in Ireland, and Falkland gladly issued a proclamation forbidding the exercise of all ecclesiastical jurisdiction derived from Rome, and ordering all monasteries and colleges to dissolve themselves. It was not intended to interfere with the secular clergy nor with the laity. According to Falkland the immediate effect of this proclamation was very great. The Jesuits and Franciscans blamed each other, and there was no resistance in Dublin. But at Drogheda, the residence of Ussher, who was a party to the proclamation, it was treated with contempt, ‘a drunken soldier being first set up to read it, and then a drunken serjeant of the town, both being made, by too much drink, incapable of that task, and perhaps purposely put to it, made the same seem like a May game,’ and mass was celebrated as regularly, if not quite so openly, as before. It was at this moment that Falkland’s recall was decided on, though he did not actually surrender the government for six months, the King declaring his unabated confidence and his wish to employ him about his person. No money was, however, allowed him for travelling expenses, and he had to sell plate and furniture, while a troop of horse and company of foot, which he held by patent for life with reversion to his second son, were cashiered. Gondomar, he observed, ‘did term patents the common faith.’ Yet he claimed to have governed more cheaply than any of his predecessors, no money having been remitted from England during his whole term of office, and he had increased the revenue by 14,000l. He had acquired no land for himself, and we may probably dismiss as mere scandal the statement that he had a share in the nefarious profits of certain pirates. He cannot, however, be considered a successful viceroy, and the querulous tone of his letters has prejudiced historians against him.¹⁶⁶

Falkland falsely accused, 1631

Falkland was an unpopular man, and many objections were made to him. He was accused of conspiring with Sir Dominic Sarsfield, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, to procure the condemnation of one Bushell, a man of eighty, for the murder of his wife with intent to divide his property between them. Falkland brought this case before the Star Chamber, Lord Mountnorris being one of the defendants. He had said that the Lord Deputy ‘would not suffer the King’s servants to enjoy their places.’ Falkland succeeded completely after a trial which lasted several days. Wentworth, who gave judgment in his favour, exonerated Mountnorris, who was only proved to have said that the Deputy’s government was tyrannical and that he prevented the King’s servants from enjoying their places. ‘My Lord Mountnorris,’ said Wentworth, ‘I acquit: every word must not rise up in judgment against a man.’¹⁶⁷

Youthful escapade of Lucius Cary

One of Falkland’s later acts was to give a company to his eldest son Lucius, who was under twenty, and the Lords Justices who succeeded him transferred the command to Sir F. Willoughby, who was an excellent soldier. Young Cary admitted this, but added ‘I know no reason why therefore you should have my company any more than why therefore you should have my breeches,’ and so challenged him to fight. Willoughby said he had specified that he had rather not have this particular company or that of Sir Charles Coote. The duel did not take place, but Cary spent ten days in the Fleet, whence he was released on his father petitioning the King.¹⁶⁸

Cork and Loftus Lords Justices, 1629-1633

Lord Danby, who as Sir Henry Danvers had been President of Munster, was named for the viceroyalty, but at his age he was unwilling to undertake such an arduous task. Lord Chancellor Loftus and Lord Cork were then appointed Lords Justices, the army being placed in Wilmot’s hands. The Lords Justices were on very bad terms, but Secretary Lake urged them to make friends, and a solemn reconciliation took place in Lord Wilmot’s presence, ‘which I beseech God,’ Cork wrote, ‘his lordship observe as religiously as I resolve to do, if new provocations enforce me not to alter my resolutions.’ Wilmot was sanguine enough to think that they would not quarrel again. Their instructions were to suppress all Popish religious houses and all foreign jurisdictions, and to persuade the army and people to attend divine service. Trinity College, Dublin, was to receive every encouragement and care was to be taken in the exercise of ecclesiastical patronage and to rescue benefices from lay hands. The King’s intention to call a Parliament was reiterated and a large discretion was left to the Lords Justices, but judicial appointments, nominations to the Privy Council, and commissions in the army were reserved to the Crown.¹⁶⁹

Raid on religious houses in Dublin, and Cork

So little effect had Falkland’s last proclamation against the regular orders, that Wilmot reported the establishment of seventeen additional houses within four months after its publication. ‘The Archbishop of Dublin,’ Lord Cork notes in his diary, ‘and the mayor of Dublin, by the direction of us the Lords Justices, ransacked the house of friars in Cook Street.’ Thomas Fleming, a Franciscan, was titular archbishop of Dublin, and his order had been much strengthened by his appointment. On St. Stephen’s Day, the day after Christmas, 1629, Archbishop Bulkeley, accompanied by the mayor and a file of musketeers, visited the Franciscan church during high mass, cleared the building, and arrested some of the friars, who were promptly rescued by a mob 3,000 strong. Showers of stones were thrown, and Bulkeley was glad to take refuge in a house. The Lords Justices appeared with their guard, but there were not soldiers enough available to act with effect, and Wilmot reported that there was not one pound of powder in the Castle. The friary was razed to the ground in the presence of the Recusant aldermen. A month later the English Privy Council approved strongly of what had been done, and ordered the demolition of the convents, which should be turned into ‘houses of correction, and to set the people on work or to other public uses, for the advancement of justice, good arts, or trades.’ The regulars had increased in every considerable town, and at Cork Sir William St. Leger by the Lords Justices’ order seized four houses; but all the inmates had warning, and escaped. There was room for forty Franciscans and twenty Dominicans, the Jesuits and Augustinians also being suitably accommodated. The Jesuit church and college in Back Lane, Dublin, were, however, annexed to Trinity College, and the former was for some time used as a lecture-room.¹⁷⁰

Weakness of the Government, 1630

The attitude of the Lords Justices to each other was little better than an armed neutrality, and not much could be expected from a Government so constituted. At the beginning of 1631 even Wilmot thought there would be an open rupture, and the Lords Justices had differences as long as they were in office; but they agreed so far as to reduce the army, and something like a proper relation between income and expenditure was thus arrived at. In May 1630 about 200 notables met the Council, and with the exception of Lord Gormanston they all demanded a Parliament, which was fixed for November, but which never met. Cork said he had known Ireland for forty-three years and had never known it so quiet, but he thought it impossible for any public man really to understand the country because the priests kept governors and governed permanently estranged. Spanish attempts on Ireland had always failed, and he did not fear them, but there was a constant source of danger in a population of hardy young men with nothing to do. The English settlers were indeed numerous, but comfortable farmers with wives and children would not easily be induced to come out and fight; and the Irish understood this perfectly. Even in Dublin and Meath large armed bands had broken into houses by night and taken what they wanted. The Government were just strong enough to hang or disperse such banditti, but the last of the voluntary subsidy would be paid at the end of 1632, and at the beginning of that year Wentworth had been appointed Deputy.¹⁷¹

St. Patrick’s Purgatory demolished

The Queen desires its restoration

Wentworth’s opinion

The Ulster settlement had not put an end to St. Patrick’s Purgatory on Lough Derg, in Donegal, in the territory of Termon-Magrath, which the wicked old Archbishop of Cashel had held by patent and transmitted to his son. The Lords Justices found no difficulty in agreeing on this subject, and they bound James Magrath in a penalty of £1,000 ‘to pull down and utterly demolish that monster of fame called St. Patrick’s Purgatory, with St. Patrick’s bed, and all the vaults, cells, and all other houses and buildings, and to have all the other superstitious stones and materials cast into the lough, and that he should suffer the superstitious chapel in the island to be pulled down to the ground, and no boat to be there, nor pilgrimage used or frequented during James Magrath’s life willingly or wittingly.’ The work seems to have been thoroughly done, to the great grief of some people; and Henrietta Maria, with her own hand and in her own tongue, begged Wentworth to restore a place to which the people of the country had always been so devoted. It was, she said, the greatest favour that he could do her, and the liberty granted should be used very modestly. This letter was sent by Lord Antrim, who had probably suggested it, and he was commissioned to press the matter on the viceroy. Without granting the Queen’s request, Wentworth was able to say truly that the thing was done before his time, but that it would be hard to undo it; and he advised her to wait till a more suitable opportunity. In the meantime he was most anxious to serve her Majesty without the intervention of Antrim or any one else. The Purgatory was ‘in the midst of the great Scottish plantations,’ and the Scots were only too anxious for an excuse to find fault with the King’s Government. Pilgrimages to Lough Derg were resumed in course of time, and it was estimated that as many as 13,000 devotees went there annually in the early part of the nineteenth century.¹⁷²

CHAPTER XI
GOVERNMENT OF WENTWORTH, 1632-1634

Wentworth Lord Deputy, Jan. 1632. His antecedents

His rapid promotion

Dr. James Welwood, physician-in-ordinary to William III., wrote a short history of the hundred years preceding the Revolution and dedicated it to the King. He gave Strafford full credit as a great orator and greater statesman, and as a zealous opponent of illegal taxation during the first three Parliaments of Charles I., but goes on to say that ‘the Court bought him off, and preferred him to great honours and places, which lost him his former friends, and made the breach irreconcilable.’ That was the orthodox Whig view of the case, which prevailed when the Stuart monarchy had been finally converted into the parliamentary system of Walpole. The Puritans were satisfied to call Strafford an apostate, and the Whigs followed them. But he never really belonged to the popular party, and he sought office from the first, not only from ambition but from a love of efficient government. He became Custos Rotulorum of the West Riding in 1615, when he was only twenty-two, and a member of the Council of the North less than four years afterwards. A year later he was a successful candidate for the representation of Yorkshire, with a Secretary of State as his colleague, no other than Sir George Calvert, who became the Roman Catholic Lord Baltimore. In seeking the support of an influential neighbour at the election held on Christmas Day, 1620, Wentworth said: ‘In London I will carry you to Mr. Secretary, make you known to him, not only procure you many thanks from him, but that you shall hereafter find a readiness and cheerfulness to do you such good offices as shall be in his way hereafter. Lastly, I hope to have your company with me at dinner that day, where you shall be most welcome.’

His breach with the Puritans

Wentworth and Pym

Early in 1626, when he was only thirty-two, Wentworth applied to be made Lord President of the North in the event of a vacancy which was then expected. He stated that he had no wish to rise except by Buckingham’s means, and that he reposed under the shadow of his favour. He was at that time out of Parliament, the favourite having had him made sheriff of Yorkshire on purpose to exclude him. The death of Buckingham cleared the way for Wentworth, and in a little more than a year after his commission to the Marshalsea for refusing to pay the forced loan, he had found no difficulty in accepting a barony, a viscounty, and the coveted Presidency of the North. His action was really analogous to that of a modern politician who opposes the Government of the day, not with a view to overthrow it, but in order that he himself may be taken inside. Though this kind of thing is never admirable we find no great difficulty in tolerating it, but it was different in the time of Charles I.; men were too much in earnest and the principles at stake were too great. It is, therefore, possible to believe Welwood’s story about Wentworth’s relations to Pym, for which there does not appear to be any contemporary authority, but which may have been derived from those who were alive at the time. According to this account Wentworth, when he had determined to make his peace with the Court, asked Pym to meet him alone at Greenwich, where he enlarged upon the danger of extreme courses, and advised him to make favourable terms for himself and his friends while there was yet time. ‘You need not,’ answered Pym, ‘use all this art to tell me that you have a mind to leave us, but remember what I tell you, you are going to be undone. Remember that though you leave us now, I will never leave you while your head is on your shoulders.’¹⁷³

Wentworth’s alliance with Laud

‘Thorough’

A close union between Church and State formed a necessary part of Wentworth’s political system. He hated sectaries, though he does not seem to have had any very strong theological bias. Archbishop Abbot was accused by his enemies at Court of being too intimate with Sir Thomas Wentworth, when still in opposition, the real fact being that they had met once in nine months, and then only for consultation about a young Saville to whom they were joint guardians. With Laud Wentworth had much more in common, and sought his acquaintance as soon as he became a Privy Councillor, late in 1630. ‘Coming to a right understanding of one another,’ says Heylin, ‘they entered into such a league of inviolable friendship’ as only death could part, and so co-operated for the honour of the Church and his Majesty’s service. They were in correspondence about Irish affairs before Wentworth left England, and agreed upon a policy of ‘Thorough’ both in civil and ecclesiastical affairs. Very soon after his arrival in Dublin Wentworth congratulated the bishop upon his translation to Canterbury, and the latter pointed out in reply that the Church was much ‘bound up in the forms of the common law,’ and that there were many clogs to the State machinery. ‘No such narrow considerations,’ wrote Wentworth soon after, ‘shall fall into my counsels as my own preservation, till I see my master’s power and greatness set out of wardship and above the exposition of Sir Edward Coke and his year-books, and I am most assured the same resolution governs in your lordship. Let us then in the name of God go cheerfully and boldly; if others do not their parts I am confident the honour shall be ours and the shame theirs, and thus you have my Thorough and Thorough.’¹⁷⁴

Wentworth’s assistants

Wandesford

Radcliffe

In one of his first letters from Ireland Wentworth says he trusted nobody on that side of the channel but Christopher Wandesford and George Radcliffe, who were his cousins and had made themselves useful in Yorkshire. Both had begun in opposition, and had followed their leader when he espoused the cause of prerogative. Wandesford became Master of the Rolls, and was the last holder of that office in Ireland who sat as a judge until quite modern times. It became a sinecure in the hands of Sir John Temple, who succeeded him, was held by the Duke of Leinster in 1789, and on his resignation was granted in co-partnership to the Earls of Glandore and Carysfort. Radcliffe, who was attorney-general of the northern presidency, was compensated for the loss of his English practice by a grant of £500 a year, and became the Lord Deputy’s secretary. He preceded him to Ireland and prepared his way there. The rest of the Irish officials Wentworth treated as mere clerks. After a year and a half’s experience on the spot he considered nothing ‘more prejudicial to the good success of these affairs than their being understood aforehand by them here. So prejudicial I hold it indeed, that on my faith there is not a minister on this side who knows anything I either write or intend, excepting the Master of the Rolls and Sir George Radcliffe, for whose assistance in this government and comfort to myself amidst this generation I am not able sufficiently to pour forth my humble acknowledgments to his Majesty. Sure I were the most solitary man without them that ever served a king in such a place.’¹⁷⁵

Radcliffe and Mainwaring

Radcliffe retained the Lord Deputy’s full confidence to the end. He was his chief adviser always, and his representative when away from Ireland; but it was found necessary after a time to appoint another secretary through whose hands most of the official correspondence passed. The person chosen was Philip Mainwaring, of a Cheshire family, but on pretty intimate terms with Wentworth, with whom he may have become acquainted from having sat in Parliament for Boroughbridge. He is well-known from Vandyke’s picture, where he looks up in astonishment or dismay at the angry face of the master who is dictating a despatch to him. Cottington for some reason thought Mainwaring a dangerous man to appoint, and while recommending him at Wentworth’s request, declared that the latter would burn his fingers; but he became chief secretary in the summer of 1634, and remained in office until the outbreak of the civil war. Laud had a good opinion of him.¹⁷⁶

Sir George Wentworth, Lord Dillon and Adam Loftus

In matters of state Wentworth seems to have given his full confidence only to Wandesford and Radcliffe, but he got a good deal of help from his brother George, who married Frances Rushe of Castle Jordan in Westmeath. Amongst the natives of Ireland he chiefly trusted Robert, Lord Dillon, whose son James married his sister Elizabeth, and Adam Loftus of Rathfarnham, the Archbishop’s grandson and cousin to the Chancellor, who supported his policy from the beginning.

Delay about Wentworth’s appointment, by which the King hopes to make money

Wilmot’s warning

If we are to believe the letter-writer Howell, who had dealings with Wentworth in the summer of 1629, the latter was then already talked of for the Irish viceroyalty. In the autumn of 1631 Weston more than once urged him to come to Court ‘for some important occasions’ not specified. Some of his friends thought there was a plan to ruin him by imposing the thankless Irish service, but he himself went no further than to hint that there were probably powerful people who would be glad to set him ‘a little further off from treading on anything themselves desire.’ The appointment did not take place until the beginning of 1632, but the King’s intention had then been for some time known, and Wentworth may have occupied himself with Irish affairs long before the public announcement. Lord Wilmot, who was commander-in-chief as well as president of Connaught, wrote from Dublin to Cottington that the appointment was expected and freely discussed in Ireland. Wilmot thought his own long service might possibly have made him Lord Deputy, but things being as they were he was ready to give his best support to the man who had been preferred before him. He saw clearly that money would be a main object with Charles, and gave emphatic warning that it would not be safe to economise by reducing the army, consisting as it did of 2,000 foot and 400 horse distributed in companies of 50. ‘Such as they are,’ he said, ‘they give countenance unto justice itself, and are the only comfort that the poor English undertakers live by, and at this hour the King’s revenues are not timely brought in but by force of soldiers … out of long experience I have seen these people are ready to take the bit in their teeth upon all advantages, as any people living, although they pay for it, as many times they have done before, with all they are worth.’ A little, he declared, might be done in Ireland even with a small army, but if he had the means to make a great display of force the King might do what he liked. Wilmot wished to leave Ireland, where there was little to look forward to, and he was soon to find that thirty years’ laborious service was no valid title to royal favour.¹⁷⁷

Conditions of the appointment

Advice of Parsons

The Lords Justices give offence

Death of Sir John Eliot

When announcing the appointment of a new Deputy to the Lords Justices of Ireland, the King asked for a detailed account of the revenue and of the state of the army. He required them ‘not to pass any pardons, offices, lands, or church livings, nor to confer the honour of knighthood upon any, or to dispose of any company of horse or foot there in the interim.’ While waiting for the Deputy, they were to confine themselves to the administration of civil justice and the maintenance of military discipline. Wentworth wrote himself a few days later asking for information as to the state of Ireland. Sir William Parsons, with whom as well as with the Lords Justices he was quite unacquainted, wisely advised him to do nothing until he crossed the channel and could see for himself. In the meantime he made arrangements with the King by which power was concentrated in his hands. To secure secrecy and promptness it was agreed that he should correspond on financial matters direct with the Lord Treasurer, and on general business direct with Secretary Coke, instead of with the Privy Council or any committee of it. The whole patronage, civil and ecclesiastical, was made to depend on the Lord Deputy, while grants of places in reversion were annulled for the past and forbidden for the future. No new office was to be created without the Deputy’s advice, and it was promised that no Irish complaint should be entertained in England unless it had been made to him first. By direct orders from the King the Lords Justices were directed to pay no arrears or other debts, but to confine their expenses of government strictly to the current cost of the establishment. They nevertheless sanctioned payment of a large sum to Sir Francis Cook. Wentworth was highly indignant, but Cottington wrote that Mountnorris as Vice-Treasurer would probably refuse to pay the money out of an almost empty Exchequer. ‘Your old dear friend Sir John Eliot,’ he added, ‘is very like to die.’ He did die six weeks later in the unwholesome prison where he lay, as a consequence of adhering to the cause which the new Lord Deputy had deserted. Yet Wentworth seems to have been surprised at the abuse which his rather late found loyalty brought upon himself. He had bound himself hand and foot to the service of the magnanimous prince who had ordered that Sir John Eliot should be buried in the Tower, in the church of that parish where he died.¹⁷⁸

Deficiency of the revenue

Fines for not going to church

First difference with Lord Mountnorris

The Lords Justices reprimanded

Wentworth was well inclined to take the advice given by Parsons, but there was one department of Irish affairs which would not wait, and that was the revenue. The Lords Justices announced that they would have to begin the financial year on April 1, 1632, with less than £14,000 still to be raised out of the £120,000 promised in 1628. This was not enough to pay the army till December, and they realised that it was impossible to decrease that force. They could suggest no better means of making the ends meet than by ruthlessly exacting the fines of one shilling a Sunday from the Irish Roman Catholics who refused to go to church. A worse kind of tax could scarcely be devised, but it was legal, and Wentworth had made no scruple of levying it in Yorkshire. He sent over a Roman Catholic agent to Ireland, who obtained a promise of £20,000 from his co-religionists on condition of escaping the Sunday dues for another year. This provided money for immediate necessities, but he had no idea of letting the Protestants escape. He told Cottington that it was safer to displease the minority than the majority, and grounded his action upon this. It is not surprising that he made enemies of the Protestants in the long run, and that he did not make friends of the Roman Catholics. Nor was he particularly anxious to conciliate the men with whom he would have to work in Ireland. Lord Mountnorris lingered at Chester on account of his wife’s health, and Wentworth ordered him to go over at once and attend to his financial business. The letter is civil enough in form, but contains the scarcely-veiled threat that Mountnorris would be the sufferer if he were untrue to him or suspicious of him in any way. Considering that he himself evidently distrusted the Vice-Treasurer it was hardly wise to bid him send over £2,000 of the new Deputy’s salary at once, ‘for,’ he said, ‘I have entered fondly enough on a purchase in Yorkshire of £14,000, and the want of that would very foully disappoint me.’ To the Lords Justices Wentworth was still more outspoken. They had disobeyed orders by keeping secret the King’s letter of instructions which they had been ordered to publish, by ordering the payment of Sir Francis Cook’s arrear, and by failing to send over a detailed statement of the Irish revenue. Wentworth said plainly that he would not allow such presumption in them as to ‘evacuate his master’s directions, nor contain himself in silence, seeing them before his face so slighted, or at least laid aside very little regarded.’¹⁷⁹