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

Reform of the currency

The money issued in 1601 contained only 25 per cent. of silver, but it was easily counterfeited with a much greater alloy, and interested people gave out that it contained no silver at all. Soon after his accession James consented to revert to the old practice of Ireland, and to establish a currency containing 75 per cent. of silver; but this was ordered by proclamation to be received as sterling. The name sterling had hitherto been applied to the much purer coinage of England, and a new element of confusion was thus introduced. The base coin of 1601 was cried down at the same time, so that a shilling should be received for fourpence of the new money. When Davies arrived he found that people would not take the dross even at the reduced rate, and they were even more unwilling to do so when another proclamation cried down the new and comparatively pure shillings also from twelvepence to ninepence. The King had granted 20,000 pardons in a few months, but Davies was of opinion that he would gain more popularity by giving twopence for every bad shilling and then recalling the whole issue than by all his clemency. The Solicitor-General could speak feelingly, his fees on all the pardons being paid in copper, while the royal revenue was in the same way reduced almost to nothing. Soldiers and officials were the greatest losers, for they had to take what the proclamations allowed, while traders could not be forced to do so. A few were sent to prison for refusing, but this only caused discontent without securing obedience, and there was a riot at Galway. The matter was brought to a crisis by a case decided in the summer of 1604.¹⁴

The case of mixed money

Inconvenience of separate Exchequers

The bad money was proclaimed current in May 1601, and in April, while the pure coin of England was still current in Ireland, one Brett of Drogheda, merchant, having bought wares from one Gilbert, in London, became bound to Gilbert for 200l. on condition to pay the said Gilbert, his executors or assigns 100l. sterling current and lawful money of England at the tomb of Earl Strongbow in Christchurch, Dublin, on a certain future day, which day happened after the said proclamation of mixed monies. On that day Brett tendered 100l. in mixed money of the new standard. The question was whether this tender was good. Sir George Carey, being Deputy and Vice-Treasurer, ordered the case to be stated for the judges who were of the Privy Council, and they decided after an immense display of learning that Brett had rightly tendered in the only lawful money of Ireland, that Gilbert was worthy of punishment for refusing to receive it, and that the Irish judges could take cognisance of no money except what was established by proclamation. The several courts of record in Dublin accepted this as law, and all the cases pending were so decided. In other words, Ireland repudiated the greater part of her debts. The situation created was intolerable, for credit was destroyed; but it was not till the beginning of 1605 that the English Government made up its mind that the various kinds of coin in Ireland might be lawfully current for their true value. In 1607 English money was made legal tender in Ireland at the rate of sixteen pence Irish to the shilling. All who knew the country best wished to have one coinage for England and Ireland, but official hindrances were constantly interposed, and the difficulty was not got over until after the unification of the two Exchequers in 1820. Some establishment charges are still paid with deductions for the difference between old Irish and sterling money.¹⁵

Sir Arthur Chichester Lord Deputy

Carey retained the Vice-Treasurership along with the acting Viceroyalty, the power of the sword and of the purse being thus held in a single hand. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that charges of extortion should have been brought against him, and that he should be accused of having become very rich by unlawful means. He had only one-third of the viceregal salary, two-thirds being reserved for Devonshire as Lord-Lieutenant. There is no evidence that Salisbury or Davies gave much credit to the charges against Carey, who was himself anxious to be relieved, and who suggested that Sir Arthur Chichester should fill his place. Chichester, who had gained his experience as Governor of Carrickfergus, at first refused on the ground that he could not live on one-third of the regular salary, and he was given an extra 1,000l. per annum with 500l. for immediate expenses. He remained at the head of the Irish Government until 1616.¹⁶

CHAPTER II
CHICHESTER AND THE TOLERATION QUESTION, 1605-1607

The rival Churches

The question of religious toleration was one of the first which Chichester had to consider, for the movement in the Munster towns was felt all over Ireland. Priests and Jesuits swarmed everywhere, and John Skelton on being elected Mayor of Dublin refused after much fencing to take the oath of supremacy. Sir John Davies, who had yet much to learn in Ireland, thought that the people would quickly conform if only the priests were banished by proclamation. Saxey, chief justice in Munster, was much of the same opinion, but both these lawyers admitted the insufficiency of the Established Church. The bishops, among whom there were scarcely three good preachers, seemed to them more anxious about their revenues than about the saving of souls.

The penal laws against Recusant

The experience of James’s only Irish Parliament was to show it was scarcely possible to legislate against the Roman Catholics even when many new boroughs had been created for the express purpose of making a Protestant majority. The Act of Uniformity passed at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign remained in force, but little was done under it as long as she lived. It only provided a fine of one shilling for not attending church on Sundays and holidays, and could have little effect except upon the poor, though it might give great annoyance. Another Act prescribed an oath acknowledging the Queen’s supremacy, both civil and ecclesiastical, and denying that any ‘foreign prince, person, prelate, State, or potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction,’ &c. This oath might be administered to all ecclesiastical persons, to judges, justices, and mayors, and to all others in the pay of the Crown on pain of losing their offices. The open maintenance and advocacy of foreign authority was more severely visited, the penalties being the forfeiture of all goods and chattels, real and personal, with a year’s imprisonment in addition, for those not worth 20l. The second offence was a præmunire, and the third high treason. And so the law remained during the whole reign of James. The English oath of allegiance prescribed after the Gunpowder Plot involved a repudiation of the Pope’s deposing power; but this was not extended to Ireland.¹⁷

Power of the priesthood

Case of the Jesuit Fitzsimon

The repressive power in the hands of the Irish Government was weak as against the population in general, but so far as law went it was ample against the priests, who, of course, could not take the oath of supremacy; and against officials who were of the same way of thinking. Mountjoy was successful against the recalcitrant towns, but his back was no sooner turned than Sir George Carey reported that the country swarmed with ‘priests, Jesuits, seminaries, friars, and Romish bishops; if there be not speedy means to free this kingdom of this wicked rabble, much mischief will burst forth in a very short time. There are here so many of this wicked crew, as are able to disquiet four of the greatest kingdoms in Christendom. It is high time they were banished, and none to receive or aid them. Let the judges and officers be sworn to the supremacy; let the lawyers go to the church and show conformity, or not plead at the bar, and then the rest by degrees will shortly follow.’ Protestant bishops naturally agreed, though Sir John Davies thought their own neglect had a good deal to say to the matter; but he admitted that the Jesuits came ‘not only to plant their religion, but to withdraw the subject from his allegiance, and so serve the turn of Tyrone and the King of Spain.’ Now that Ireland was at peace, he thought it probable that they would gladly go away, and cites the case of Fitzsimon, a Jesuit who had petitioned to be banished. Fitzsimon, however, had been five years a prisoner in the Castle, during one month of which he had converted seven Protestants, including the head warder. The King released him mainly on the ground that he did not meddle in secular matters, and he was on the Continent till 1630, when he returned to Ireland and lived there till long after the great outbreak of 1641. About the time of Fitzsimon’s release the Protestant Bishop of Ossory was able to give the names of thirty priests who haunted his diocese, including the famous Jesuit James Archer, who was said to have legatine authority. Archer was closely connected with Tyrone, and had been his frequent companion in London, disguised as a courtier or as a farmer, and busy with Irish prisoners in the Tower. Davies advised that priests and Jesuits should be captured when possible and sent to England, where the penal laws could take hold of them; and if this were done, he thought all Ireland would go comfortably to church. Chief Justice Saxey gave much the same advice in a more truculent form. The opinions of all Englishmen officially concerned with Ireland are reflected in the King’s famous proclamation of July 4, 1605, which Chichester, who had then succeeded to the government, found awaiting him in Dublin on his return from the north.¹⁸

Royal Proclamation against Toleration

James begins by repudiating the idea prevailing in Ireland since the Queen’s death that he intended ‘to give liberty of conscience or toleration of religion to his subjects in that kingdom contrary to the express laws and statutes therein enacted.’ He insisted everywhere on uniformity, resenting all rumours to the contrary as an imputation on himself, and even, as was reported, declaring that he would fight to his knees in blood rather than grant toleration. Owing to false rumours, the Jesuits and other priests of foreign ordination had left their lurking-places and presumptuously exercised their functions without concealment. The King therefore announced that he would never do any act to ‘confirm the hopes of any creature that they should ever have from him any toleration to exercise any other religion than that which is agreeable to God’s Word and is established by the laws of the realm.’ All subjects were therefore charged to attend church or to suffer the penalties provided. As to the Jesuits and others who sought to alienate their hearts from their sovereign, ‘taking upon themselves the ordering and deciding of causes, both before and after they have received judgments in the King’s courts of record … all priests whatsoever made and ordained by any authority derived or pretended to be derived from the See of Rome shall, before the 10th day of December, depart out of the kingdom of Ireland.’ All officers were to apprehend them and no one to harbour them, on pain of the punishments provided by law. If, however, any such Jesuit or priest would come to the Lord Lieutenant or Council, conform, and repair to church, he was to have the same liberties and privileges as the rest of his Majesty’s subjects.

The Proclamation fails

Devonshire, however, who was still Lord Lieutenant, was opposed to making any curious search for priests who did not ostentatiously obstruct the Government, and his views prevailed with the English Council. Chichester willingly acquiesced, and reported some weeks after the appointed day that no priests, seminaries, or Jesuits of any importance had left the country and that searches, even if desirable, would be useless, ‘for every town, hamlet, or house is to them a sanctuary.’ Just about Carrickfergus, where he was personally known, some secular priests had conformed, and Davies, who thought Government could do everything, believed the multitude would naturally follow. ‘So it happened,’ he said, ‘in King Edward the Sixth’s days, when more than half the kingdom of England were Papists; and again in the time of Queen Mary, when more than half the kingdom were Protestants; and again in Queen Elizabeth’s time, when they were turned Papists again.’ He did not see that the national sentiment of England was permanently hostile to Roman aggression, while the authority of the Crown was accepted as the only refuge against anarchy. The state of feeling which existed in Ireland was just the opposite.¹⁹

Sir John Everard’s case

Sir John Everard, second justice of the King’s Bench, was ordered to conform or resign, though admitted to be a very honest and learned man. It was so difficult to find a successor for this able judge that he was continued in office for eighteen months after the King’s order, when he resigned rather than take the oath of supremacy. Of his loyalty in civil matters there was no question, and he received a pension of a hundred marks, which Chichester wished to make a hundred pounds. In 1608, when the Irish refugees in Spain contemplated a descent upon Ireland, Everard refused to take part in the plot, and he lived to contest the Speakership with Sir John Davies in the Parliament of 1613.²⁰

Vacillation of Government

December passed, and yet none of the priests had left the country. The Gunpowder Plot was discovered in the meantime, but there was no evidence of ramifications in Ireland, and the English Government half drew back from the policy of the late royal proclamation. It was decided, and apparently at Chichester’s suggestion, that no curious search should be made for clergymen of foreign ordination. The immediate result of the severe measures taken in England was to drive the Jesuits and other priests over to Ireland, where the law was weaker and less perfectly enforced, and where they were sure of a good reception.

Robert Lalor’s case, 1606

Præmunire

Submission of Lalor

Robert Lalor, who had for twelve years acted as Vicar-General in Dublin, Kildare, and Ferns, was, however, arrested. He had powerful connections in the Pale, and it was thought that his prosecution might strike terror into others, more especially as he was a party to many settlements of land. Lalor was convicted under the Irish Act of 1560 as an upholder of foreign jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical, and remained in prison for some months. He then petitioned the Deputy for his liberty, and was induced to confess in writing that he was not a lawful Vicar-General, that the King was supreme governor, without appeal, ‘in all causes as well ecclesiastical and civil,’ and that he was ready to obey him ‘either concerning his function of priesthood, or any other duty belonging to a good subject.’ After this his imprisonment was greatly relaxed, and he was allowed to see visitors freely, to whom he boasted that he had not allowed the King any power in spiritual causes. It was then resolved to indict him under the Statute of Præmunire (16 Richard II.), which was of undoubted force in Ireland, for receiving a papal commission, for assuming the office so conferred, and for exercising every kind of episcopal jurisdiction under it, especially ‘by instituting divers persons to benefices with cure of souls, by granting dispensations in causes matrimonial, and by pronouncing sentences of divorce between divers married persons.’ The case was tried by a Dublin city jury, and all the principal gentlemen in town were present as spectators. Lalor tried to draw a distinction between ecclesiastical and spiritual, but this was quickly overruled, and his former confession was read out in open court. Davies went into the legal argument at great length, and in the end Lalor was fain to renounce the office of Vicar-General and to crave the King’s pardon. The jury then found the prisoner guilty, and in the absence of Chief Justice Ley, Sir Dominick Sarsfield gave judgment accordingly. Part of the penalty was the forfeiture of goods, and this was important, because the Earl of Kildare and other great proprietors had used the late Vicar-General’s services as a trustee, and the Crown lawyers had thus a powerful engine placed in their hands. Lalor was probably banished according to law, as his name disappears from the State correspondence. He had ceased to be of any importance, for his confession destroyed his influence with the recusants.²¹

Enforced conformity

The Mandates

Effect of the Gunpowder Plot

The Irish Statute of 1560 was the only one available for coercing the laity, and its fine of one shilling, even when swelled by costs, was altogether insufficient to impress the gentry or wealthier traders, and it was resolved to eke it out by recourse to the prerogative pure and simple. All men’s eyes naturally turned to the seat of government, and the first example was made there. Mandates under the Great Seal were directed to sixteen aldermen and merchants, of whom Skelton, the late mayor, was one, ordering them to go to church every Sunday and holiday, ‘and there to abide soberly and orderly during the time of common prayer, preaching, or other service of God.’ They refused upon grounds of conscience, and the case was tried in the Castle Chamber. During the proceedings and while the court was crowded, Salisbury’s dispatch arrived with the news of the Gunpowder Plot, and Chichester ordered it to be read out by Bishop Jones, who had just been made Lord Chancellor, and who took the opportunity to make a loyal speech. This dramatic incident may or may not have influenced the decision which imposed a fine of 100l. upon six aldermen and of 50l. each upon three others, one of whom, being an Englishman, was ordered to return to his own country. Five days later similar sentences were passed upon three more, while three were reserved to try the effect of a conference with Protestant theologians. One of the sixteen escaped altogether by conforming to the established religion, and he was the only one who did conform. This could not be thought a brilliant success, and the mandates were soon subjected to a direct attack.²²

The Act Uniformity in Munster. Sir H. Brouncker

In the province of Munster, where Sir Henry Brouncker succeeded Carew in the summer of 1604, a more energetic course was followed. Brouncker had for many years farmed the customs of wine imported into Ireland, and had probably in that way learned much of the underground communications with Spain. He found Cork swarming with priests and seminaries who said mass almost publicly in the best houses and strenuously maintained that it was ‘his Majesty’s pleasure to tolerate their idolatry.’ For a time he was interrupted by the plague, but soon resumed his efforts to fill the churches and to apprehend the priests of Rome. His idea was to clear the towns while leaving the country districts alone, but he had little success, for the proscribed clergy were everywhere favoured and harboured in gentlemen’s houses under the name of surgeons and physicians. Brouncker maintained that he was of a mild disposition, but that he was driven by the obstinacy of the people to take sharp courses. In one circuit of his province he deposed the chief magistrates in every town except Waterford, ‘where the mayor was conformable,’ and he threatened them all with the loss of their charters. He thought it possible to collect enough fines to make the black sheep support the white.

Priest-hunting

The Mayor of Cork goes to church

At Limerick he captured Dr. Cadame, a notable priest long resident there, but at Carrick-on-Suir two of the worst priests in Ireland just eluded him. William Sarsfield, mayor of Cork, had been fined 100l. for disobedience to the mandates in the summer of 1606. The general answer given by him and others in the same position was ‘that their forefathers had continued as they were in the Popish religion, and that their consciences tied them to the same,’ not one of them, according to Brouncker’s return, ‘being able to define what conscience was.’ Before the year was out, the President was able to report that Sarsfield, in spite of his Spanish education and his first stubbornness, had ‘by a little correction been brought to church, and so in love with the word preached, and so well satisfied in conscience, that he offered to communicate with him.’ This sounds rather like a profane joke by a man who had been brought up among the countrymen of Suarez and Escobar, and in any case conformity so obtained was of little value. Bishop Lyon, however, had done his duty in providing preachers in his diocese, and perhaps some real progress might have been made if all bishops had been like him. At all events there was a congregation of 600 at Youghal, and some tendency to conformity was apparent even to Chichester’s eyes. Both President and Bishop received the thanks of the English Council, and Salisbury encouraged Brouncker to persevere, but when he died in the following spring James found that ‘his zeal was more than was required in a governor, however allowable in a private man.’ It was not easy to serve a sovereign who insisted on proclaiming the duty of persecution while shrinking from the unpopularity which his own words naturally produced. The fines imposed at Kinsale were altogether remitted in regard to the poverty of the town, elsewhere they were much reduced. The total, however, was considerable, while individuals were ‘reasonably well contented’ at escaping so easily.²³

The Mandates in Connaught

In Connaught Clanricarde had been made Lord President for his services at Kinsale, and no doubt his influence had been increased by his marriage to Essex’s widow. He was in England at the end of 1605, and Sir Robert Remington, the Vice-President, made some show of proceeding like Brouncker. Mandates were issued and a few fines imposed upon citizens of Galway, but these were not fully paid, and there is no evidence that anything was done outside that single town.²⁴

Opposition to the Mandates. Sir P. Barnewall

Barnewall and others imprisoned

Sowing the dragon’s teeth

A petition against interference ‘with the private use of their religion and conscience’ was presented to the Lord Deputy, and signed by two hundred and nineteen gentlemen of the Pale, of whom five were peers. The principal framer of this document was probably Henry Burnell, the lawyer, who was now very old, but who was still the same man who had opposed Sidney thirty years before, and Richard Netterville, who had then been his colleague. The chief promoter was Sir Patrick Barnewall, who was Tyrone’s brother-in-law, and from whose house of Turvey the northern chief had eloped with Mabel Bagenal in 1591. According to Carew, he was ‘the first gentleman’s son of quality that was ever put out of Ireland to be brought up in learning beyond the seas.’ The petition was presented to Chichester by Sir James Dillon and others during the last days of November, and an answer was soon pressed for. The movement being evidently concerted, and Catesby’s plot being very recent, Burnell and Netterville were restrained in their own houses on account of their infirmity, while Barnewall, Lord Gormanston, Dillon, and others were imprisoned in the Castle. Gormanston and three other peers forwarded a copy of the petition to Salisbury, and complained bitterly of the severe measures which had been taken against the aldermen for no offence but absence from the Protestant service. With something of prophetic instinct Barnewall expressed a fear that the Irish Government were laying the foundation of a rebellion, ‘to which, though twenty years be gone, the memory of those extremities may give pretence.’ Most of the prisoners were soon released on giving bonds to appear when called upon, but Barnewall had to go to England.²⁵

Toleration not understood

France

Spain

Germany

Italy

Bacon’s advice

What we mean by toleration was nowhere understood in the early part of the seventeenth century. Even Bacon, who admired the edict of Nantes, which had not wiped out the memory of St. Bartholomew, had no idea of abrogating the Elizabethan penal code. Henry IV.’s famous edict was an exception; it was one of the kind that proves the rule, for he saw no way of securing the French Protestants but by giving them a kind of local autonomy which could not last. Rochelle was an impossibility in a modern state, and when that frail bulwark was destroyed persecution gradually resumed its sway. Of Spain, the birthplace and fixed home of the Inquisition, it is unnecessary to speak. In Germany neither party practised any real toleration. In Italy Spanish interests were dominant, and Elizabeth died an excommunicated Queen. Clement VIII. abstained from treating her successor in the same way, but he had hopes by mildness to obtain better terms for the faithful in England. Both in England and Ireland any intention of forcing men’s consciences was always disclaimed, while outward conformity was insisted on. And in the case of the Roman Catholics, who took their orders from a foreign and hostile power, it was really very difficult to say exactly how much belonged to Cæsar. Bacon was more liberal than anyone else, but his ideas fell very far short of what is now generally accepted. In Ireland, he advised Cecil, after the Spaniards had been foiled at Kinsale, ‘a toleration of religion (for a time not definite), except it be in some principal towns and precincts, after the manner of some French edicts, seemeth to me to be a matter warrantable by religion, and in policy of absolute necessity. And the hesitation in this point I think hath been a great casting back of the affairs there. Neither if any English Papist or recusant shall for liberty of his conscience transfer his person, family, and fortunes thither do I hold it a matter of danger, but expedient to draw on undertaking and to further population. Neither if Rome will cozen itself, by conceiving it may be some degree to the like toleration in England, do I hold it a matter of any moment, but rather a good mean to take off the fierceness and eagerness of the humour of Rome, and to stay further excommunications or interdictions for Ireland.’ Bacon saw the difficulty clearly, and perhaps he saw the working solution, but to persevere steadily in such a course was not in James’s nature, though Chichester might conceivably have done so if he had had a free hand.²⁶

Barnewall and Chichester

Barnewall puzzles the Council

Barnewall sent to England

Victory of Barnewall

Sir Patrick Barnewall was committed prisoner to the Castle on December 2, 1605. ‘Well,’ said he, ‘we must endure as we have endured many other things, and especially the miseries of the late war.’ ‘No, sir,’ answered Chichester, ‘we have endured the misery of the war, we have lost our blood and our friends, and have indeed endured extreme miseries to suppress the late rebellion, whereof your priests, for whom you make petition, and your wicked religion, was the principal cause.’ In writing to Salisbury afterwards Sir Patrick attributed the invention of the mandates to Chief Justice Ley, but it is much more likely that Davies was their author. After an imprisonment of three months, Barnewall was again brought before the Irish Council, and argued soundly in maintaining that recusancy was only an offence in so far as it was made one by statute, and that therefore all prosecution of it except that prescribed by Act of Parliament was illegal. At a further examination when the Chancellor, who was a bishop and ought to have known better, spoke of the King’s religion, Barnewall saw his advantage and exclaimed ‘That is a profane speech.’ He was not sent to England till near the end of April, and at the end of May the English Government had not yet found time to attend to him. At first he was allowed to live under restraint at his own lodgings in the Strand, but was afterwards sent to the Tower, probably with the idea of making an impression upon the public mind in Ireland. It was found impossible to answer his arguments, and the Privy Council asked the Irish Government for information as to the ‘law or precedent for the course taken in issuing precepts under the Great Seal to compel men to come to church.’ They admitted that such authority was ‘as yet unknown to them,’ but rather sarcastically supposed that the Lord Deputy and Council were better informed. The Irish Government were acting entirely by prerogative; but several of the judges in England pronounced the mandates not contrary to precedent or authority. Barnewall was induced to make some sort of submission more than a year after his original arrest. Being called upon to make one in more regular form he refused, and was then sent to the Fleet prison for a month. Having signed a bond to appear within five days of his arrival, he was returned to Ireland at the beginning of March, 1607, and Chichester at once saw that no progress had been made.

The Mandates are abandoned

Barnewall refused to make any submission in Dublin, and in the end it was found necessary to drop all proceedings against him. His detention in London was really a triumph, for the Irish recusants regarded him as their agent, and subscribed largely for his support. Waterford contributed 32l. and the collection was general all over Ireland. He gained in fact a complete victory, and such progress as Brouncker had made in procuring outward conformity was at once arrested. The mandates were never again resorted to.²⁷