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Talbot examined before the
Star Chamber - He is declared Guilty and fined - A Farcical Trial -
Baconian Wisdom displayed - The Irish Parliament opens - Its ways are
ways of Pleasantness, and all its paths are Peace - A Subsidy Bill
passed Tyrone, Tirconnell, and O'Dogherty attainted - Fynes Moryson on
the Present State of Ulster.
"I do acknowledge my
sovereign liege lord King James to be lawful and undoubted King of all
the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and I will bear true
faith and allegiance to his Highness during my life." So said William
Talbot, ex-Recorder of Dublin, when questioned before the Star Chamber
in London, concerning the result of his study of the works of Suarez,
the Jesuit, excerpts from which he had been meditating upon during his
sojourn in the Tower. One would imagine that any sane sovereign would
have been satisfied with such a plain and evidently sincere expression
of loyalty. Not so James, who, in addition to being worldly minded, was,
in George Eliot's happy phrase, other-worldly minded also. He would be
the shepherd, not alone of the bodies of his subjects, but also of their
souls. Their spiritual welfare, indeed, occupied, as Head of the Church,
not a little of His Majesty's kind attention.
Looking back from a day
in which science and super-naturalism must be content to coexist, if not
to walk hand in hand, to a day in which superstition of the most vulgar
type held sway over the mightiest minds, one cannot help (when one has,
with an effort, put aside a vision of the cruelty of creeds) being
struck with the humour of this Star Chamber comedy. A comedy enacted
before the most solemn tribunal in Europe the Inquisition alone
excepted. In the first place, Talbot had been requested to take the
English oath of allegiance, although the oath had no statutory force in
Ireland. In the second, Talbot's clear statement of unswerving loyalty
to the King really left nothing on that score to be desired; but because
he, when questioned on the subject of the doctrine of regicide and the
deposition of Kings, as set forth by Suarez and Parsons, replied that in
the abstract these were matters of faith and must be submitted to the
judgment of the Catholic Roman Church, he was condemned, and solemnly
fined ; 10,000, a sum which his judges well knew he did not possess, and
therefore could not possibly pay. In addition to this comedy of errors,
Bacon, who must be regarded as the Pooh Bah of the play, being
politician, lawyer, theologian, and philosopher, and having, as his
later life revealed, more in common with this Gilbertian character than
his contemporaries were in his early days aware of, was quite satisfied
in any one or all of the roles enumerated that Talbot was innocent, but
in his official capacity of Attorney-General he was far from being so,
and, therefore, with ultra-Baconian gravity he declared that "it would
astonish a man to see the gulf of this implied belief", and asked: "Is
nothing exempted from it? If a man should ask Mr. Talbot whether he do
condemn murder, or adultery, or rape, or the doctrine of Mahomet, or of
Arius instead of Zuarius; must the answer be with this exception, that
if the question concern matter of faith (as no question it does, for the
moral law is matter of faith) that therein he will submit himself to
what the Church will determine.*'
The Irish Parliament,
which on account of various causes had been prorogued six times, now met
on nth October, being opened by Chichester in person. The Lord Deputy
was armed with a letter from the King, in which His Majesty made his
final pronouncement on Irish affairs. A spirit of compromise pervaded
this communication. The Government were right, therefore they were to be
quiescent; the Opposition were wrong, but were to be left severely alone
lest they should be tempted to go further astray. As already stated, it
was settled that the members for boroughs incorporated after the writs
were issued were not to sit during the present Parliament, and the
decision of the Commissioners with regard to three other boroughs was
confirmed. Everything else was declared to be in order.
This letter the Lord
Chancellor read aloud to the assembled House, which listened patiently
enough as the royal writer led them by tortuous ways through
labyrinthian arguments to a welcome finale. Sir John Davies, as Speaker,
"wearing his learning lightly like a flower", made one of his graceful
speeches full of classical allusions which must have had much the same
effect upon the majority of his Irish audience, some of whom could speak
no English, as Milton's elephant had upon our First Parents, when,
according to our great blind poet, to make them sport he "wreath'd his
lithe proboscis". More serious business followed, and the recusants, to
their credit be it said, listened as patiently while the Speaker offered
up a prayer as they did to his many references to Ęschylus, Sophocles,
Homer, Herodotus, Pindar, and Plato".
In the subsequent
sessions of this Parliament, until it was dissolved in October, 1615, no
further display of angry feelings between the two parties took place,
both Talbot and Everard exerting themselves to prevent any disturbance.
There were, in fact, mutual concessions. An intended penal law of a very
sweeping character was not brought forward ; while, on the other hand,
large subsidies, which gratified the King, were readily voted, a fact
which greatly surprised Vice-Treasurer Ridgeway, seeing that the House
was "com- pounded of three several nations, besides a fourth (consisting
of Old English Irelandized, who are not numbered among the mere Irish or
New English), and of two several blessed religions (whatsoever more),
besides the ignorance of almost all (they being at first more afraid
than hurt), considering the name, nature, and sum of a subsidy'*.
Ignorance there
undoubtedly was, though the willingness to pay was palpable, many of the
Irish members expressing their gratification at the result of the vote,
and even asserting that a further subsidy would have been given if
required, but for the great loss of cattle during the preceding severe
winter. By this Bill, Parliament gave to the Crown two shillings and
eightpence in the pound from every personal estate of the value of three
pounds and upwards, and twice that sum from aliens; and four shillings
in the pound out of every real estate of the value of twenty shillings
and upwards. Half the money was to be paid in the September following,
and the balance in March, 1616.
It was popularly supposed
that "the King was never the richer for Ireland", and the preamble of
the Bill sets forth as much. "But forasmuch as since the beginning of
His Majesty's most happy reign all the causes of war, dissension, and
discontentment are taken away " (Ulster being successfully planted!),
the King was now "in full and peaceable possession of his vineyard", and
naturally expected to get something more than sour grapes therefrom.
An Act of oblivion and
general pardon was passed, "no kingdom or people" being, in Davies's
opinion, in "more need of this Act for a general pardon than Ireland".
The measure, however,
which renders this first Irish Parliament of James most memorable was
the Bill for the attainder of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, Hugh Roe
O'Donnell, Earl of Tirconnell, Sir Cahir O'Dogherty of Innishowen, and
several other Ulster chiefs. This was passed by the Commons without a
single dissentient voice; Sir John Everard, indeed, speaking in its
favour, said: "No man ought to arise against the Prince for religion or
justice", and added that the many favours bestowed upon Tyrone in
particular had greatly aggravated his offence. Davies, highly pleased,
wrote: "Now all the states of the kingdom have attainted Tyrone, the
most notorious and dangerous traitor that was in Ireland, whereof
foreign nations will take notice, because it has been given out that
Tyrone had left many friends behind him, and that only the Protestants
wished his utter ruin. Besides, this attainder settles the Plantation of
Ulster."
The passing of this Act
of Attainder, and its being sanctioned by the Catholic party, has been
deplored by many historians of Ireland, notably by Thomas Moore, who
considered that it had been allowed to pass in a suicidal spirit of
compromise, and, judged from that standpoint, he thought it assumed "a
still more odious character, and left a stain upon the record of the
proceedings".
The King was highly
delighted with the liberal terms of the subsidy, and addressed a letter
of thanks to the Lord Deputy begging him to express his feelings to
Parliament. His Majesty now "clearly perceived" that "the difficult
beginnings of our Parliament" in Ireland "were occasioned only by
ignorance and mistakings, arising through the long disuse of Parliaments
there; and therefore", he said, "we have cancelled the memory of them".
"And we are now", he added, "so well pleased with this dutiful
confirmation of theirs, that we do require you to assure them from us
that we hold our subjects of that kingdom in equal favour with those of
our other kingdoms, and that we will be as careful to provide for their
prosperous and flourishing estate as we can be for the safety of our own
person."
The recusants, taking
advantage of these assurances, renewed their appeal for relief from the
grievances of the penal statutes. They pleaded their good services in
the present Parliament, the readiness with which they had granted a
large subsidy, their subserviency even in sacrificing the northern
chieftains, especially the Earls of Tyrone and Tirconnell, who had been
looked upon as the pillars of the Catholic faith in Ireland; and they
even more than hinted at their willingness to vote further grants to the
Crown provided that the obnoxious Acts complained of were, if not
repealed, even temporarily relaxed. But they soon found that, in spite
of the show of moderation and indulgence he had lately assumed, nothing
was further from the King's thoughts than to give up any of the points
on which he had insisted. James exulted in the manner in which he had on
this occasion weathered the gale of Irish faction; and no sooner had the
subsidy Bill passed than the Irish Parliament was suddenly and
unexpectedly dissolved, leaving untouched several measures for the
improvement of Ireland which had been recommended to the consideration
of the Government.
Of twenty projected Acts,
"concerning the common weal or general good of the subject", only two
became law, those against piracy and against benefit of clergy in cases
of felony. A Bill for confirming royal grants to undertakers in Ulster
came to nothing. The old laws proscribing the natives of Irish blood, as
well as those against the Scottish settlers, were repealed, for England,
Scotland, and Ireland were now "under one Imperial crown". Finally, the
Statute of Kilkenny, and all other Acts prohibiting commerce between
English and Irish, were to be treated as obsolete.
In the midst of these
many and great changes Fynes Moryson, who, as secretary to Mountjoy, had
returned with him to England, now revisited Ireland. "At this time", he
says, "I found the state of Ireland much changed; for by the flight of
the Earl of Tyrone and the Earl of Tirconnell, with some chiefs of
countries in the north, and the suppression and death of Sir Cahir
O'Dogherty, their confederate in making new troubles, all the north was
possessed by new colonies of English, but especially of Scots. The mere
Irish in the north, and all over Ireland, continued still in absolute
subjection, being powerful in no part of the kingdom excepting only Con
naught, where their chief strength was yet little to be feared, if the
English-Irish there had sound hearts to the State.
"But the English-Irish in
all parts, and especially in the Pale, either by our too much cherishing
them since the last rebellion (in which we found many of them
false-hearted), or by the King's religious courses to reform them in
their obstinate addiction to popery (even in those points which oppugned
His Majesty's temporal power), or by the fulness of bread in time of
peace (whereof no nation sooner surfeits than the Irish), were grown so
wanton, so incensed, and so high in the instep, as they had of late
mutinously broken off a Parliament called for the public good and
reformation of the kingdom, and from that time continued to make many
clamorous complaints against the English governors (especially those of
the Pale against the worthy Lord Deputy and his ministers), through
their sides wounding the royal authority; yea, in all parts, the churl
was grown rich, and the gentlemen and swordsmen grown needy, and so apt
to make a prey of other men's goods."
Among the grievances
pointed out in a memorial presented at this time by the Catholics were,
that their children were not allowed to study in foreign universities,
that all the Catholics of noble birth were excluded from offices and
honours, and even from the magistracy in their respective counties; that
Catholic citizens and burgesses were removed from all situations of
power or profit in the different corporations; that Catholic barristers
were not permitted to plead in the courts of law; and that the inferior
classes were burdened with fines, distresses, excommunications, and
other punish- ments, which reduced them to the lowest degree of poverty.
Contemplating which state
of things the modern reader will scarcely echo Cowper's words:
"Religion! what treasures untold reside in that beautiful word!" |
