Ireland under the Stuarts and during the Interregnum, Vol. I (of 3), 1603-1642. Bagwell, Richard
appear when called upon, but Barnewall had to go to England.25
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
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.
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
CHAPTER III
THE FLIGHT OF THE EARLS, 1607
When Mountjoy left Ireland at the beginning of June 1603 he was accompanied by Tyrone, and by Rory O’Donnell, whose brother’s death had made him head of the clan. The party, including Fynes Moryson the historian, were nearly wrecked on the Skerries. On the journey through Wales and England Tyrone was received with many hostile demonstrations, mud and stones being often thrown at him; for there was scarcely a village which had not given some victims to the Irish war. The chiefs were entertained by Mountjoy at Wanstead, and after a few days were presented to the King, who had declared by proclamation that they were to be honourably received. Their reception was much too honourable to please men who had fought and bled in Ireland. Sir John Harrington, who had last seen Tyrone in his Ulster fastness sitting in the open air upon a fern form and eating from a fern table, gave his sorrow words in a letter to Bishop Still of Bath and Wells. ‘How I did labour after that knave’s destruction! I adventured perils by sea and land, was near starving, ate horse-flesh in Munster, and all to quell that man, who now smileth in peace at those who did hazard their lives to destroy him; and now doth Tyrone dare us old commanders with his presence and protection.’ Tyrone and O’Donnell were present at Hampton Court on July 21 when Mountjoy was made Earl of Devonshire. Before that date Tyrone was in communication with Irish Jesuits in London, and among others with the famous Archer. Devonshire’s one idea seems to have been to decide every point in his favour, and he was in a situation, so far as Ulster was concerned, not very different from that which the Earls of Kildare had formerly occupied in the Pale. He was made the King’s Lieutenant in Tyrone, and even obtained an order for 600l. on the Irish treasury, which Carey hesitated to pay, since the result would be to withhold their due from others whose claims were not founded on rebellion, but on faithful service. When he went back to Ireland in August, the sheriffs of the English and Welsh counties through which he passed were ordered to convey him safely with troops of horse, for fear of the people.28
After his return Tyrone lived some time at Drogheda, the gentry of the Pale being unwilling to entertain him. The horrors of the late war were remembered, and the beaten rebel was generally unpopular. He had not means to stock or cultivate the twentieth part of his country, yet he took leases of more to give him a pretext for interference. He pretended that all fugitives from Tyrone should be forced to return, and Sir John Davies thought it evident that he wished exceedingly to ‘hold his greatness in his old barbarous manner.’ Otherwise there could be no object in his opposition to having a sheriff appointed for Tyrone, and yet he could hardly hope to raise another rebellion, for he was old and poor and his country extremely depopulated.29
Chichester to Salisbury, December 7 and 9, 1605; petition by the nobility and gentry of the English Pale, No. 593; Lords Gormanston, Trimleston, Killeen, and Howth to Salisbury, December 8; Davies to Salisbury, No. 603; Barnewall to Salisbury, December 16. Carew’s Brief Relation of passages in the Parliament of 1613 in
Letter to Cecil, 1602,
Calendar of State Papers,
John Byrd to Devonshire, September 8, 1603, with enclosure; Meehan’s
Davies to Cecil, April 10, 1604.