6

and thus induced a resolution of the House, that grievances and supply should go hand in hand.' Unlike his predecessor Elizabeth, who had the art to concede an untenable point in most instances with apparent ease and good humour, Charles even in compliance was so ungraceful and evasive, that his concessions occasioned scarcely less discontent than his refusals. He was, at last, constrained to sanction the Petition in the usual way: the Bill of Supplies was immediately passed; and alarmed at the danger of his favourite, whom the Commons were proceeding to accuse as the author of all their ill-usage, he suddenly terminated the session by a prorogation.

As Wentworth was one of the greatest characters then in England, the Monarch was naturally anxious to win him over to his party. In this endeavour, in which he was powerfully seconded by his Lord High Treasurer Weston, he unfortunately succeeded so well, that before the end of the session the apostate patriot became one of the most strenuous supporters of that despotism, which he had in it's beginning so virtuously and so vigorously opposed.

Unhappily for his memory, his admirers, anxious to prove him more than man, have abandoned the plea which humanity affords to palliate his defects. "Sir Edward Coke," says one of his. advocates,* "might have his particular disgust, Sir

* The Author of the Dedication to his Letters, Mr. Hume, a far more dexterous apologist, while he strives to leave on the minds of his readers the most favourable impression of this statesman, avoids suspicion in this instance by a partial acknowledgement of the truth. "His fidelity to the King," he remarks, was unshaken: but as he now employed all his counsels to support the prerogative, which he had formerly bent all his

John Elliot his warmth, Mr. Selden his prejudices to the Bishops and clergy, and others farther designs upon the constitution itself, which might cause them to carry on their opposition. But Sir Thomas Wentworth, who was a true friend to the episcopal government of the church, and to a limited monarchy in the state, could have no reason, when the Petition of Right was granted, to refuse to bear his share of toils and pains in the service of the public, or to withstand the offers of those honours:" as if that Petition had not been already violated, before these honours were yet conferred; and the very office which he accepted, with it's added and exorbitant powers, did not imply the farther violation of it. In the sequel, indeed, we shall have occasion but too often to record, and to deplore, his activity in invading those very rights, which it was formed

to secure.

One of the bribes, by which this frail man was seduced, was the presidency of the Council of York, or of the North.* He was at the same time created

powers to diminish, his virtue seems not to have been entirely pure, but to have been susceptible of strong impressions from private interest and ambition."

*This Council (says Macdiarmid) was peculiarly suited to the genius of an absolute monarchy. The same forms of administering justice had prevailed in the four northern counties as in the other parts of England, till the thirty-first year of Henry VIII.; when an insurrection, attended with much bloodshed and disorder, induced that Monarch to grant a Commission of Oyer and Terminer to the Archbishop of York, with some lawyers and gentlemen of the county, for the purpose of investigating the grounds of these outrages, and bringing the malefactors to punishment according to the laws of the land. The jurisdiction of this Commission extended over the counties of York, Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland, the

Baron Wentworth,* and soon afterward Viscount, with a seat in the Privy Council. Ashamed at first of his apostasy, he endeavoured to conceal it: at length however he requested an interview. with Mr. Pym, for the purpose of justifying his conduct, when that upright commoner observed; "You have left ús, but we will not leave you, while your head is on your shoulders." To complete his change beyond the hope of a restoration, he now contracted an intimate friendship with Archbishop Laud, and seconded him but too faithfully in all his measures.

Of a disposition naturally impetuous, overbearing, and vindictive, during his presidency in the north he exercised his power with great severity, and in some cases even with childish insolence: particularly in that of Henry Bellasis, the son of Lord Falcon

bishopric of Durham, the cities of York, Kingston upon Hull, and Newcastle upon Tyne. It's good effects in restoring tranquillity caused it's duration to be prolonged; and, on the re-appearance of commotions in those quarters, it was in succeeding times frequently renewed. An abuse gradually arose out of a simple expedient. Elizabeth, and after her James, found it convenient to alter the tenor of the Commission, to increase the sphere of it's jurisdiction, and to augment it's circumscribed legal authority by certain discretionary powers. And to such an ascendency was this court raised by the enlarged instructions granted to Wentworth, that the Council of York now engrossed the whole jurisdiction of the four northern counties, and embraced the powers of the Courts of Common Law and Chancery, and even the exorbitant authority of the Star-Chamber.

* In this patent, as a lure to his vanity, the claim which he advanced to an alliance with the blood royal through Margaret grandmother of Henry VII. was ostentatiously acknowledged, and displayed as a ground for his new honours. His friend and relation Wandesford also, though from his violent hostility to the court employed by the Commons in framing the Articles of impeachment against Buckingham, was received into favour.

berg, who was committed to prison for not having taken off his hat to him; though he pleaded in his defence, that he was talking to Lord Fairfax, and that his face was turned another way.' A month's confinement, and a written acknowledgement of his contrition, procured the noble offender's release.

His next preferment was, the Lord Deputyship of Ireland; where his administration proved highly arbitrary and oppressive. For this important office he received his commission in January, 1632: but it was not till July in the following year, that he was able to reach the place of his destination. After spending a considerable time in the arrangement of his private affairs, he was still delayed some months by unfavourable winds: for strange as it may now appear, so dangerously was the Irish Channel infested by pirates, that he could not venture to pass over without the convoy of a man of war, which was obliged to go round by the Thames. Upon arriving in that kingdom, he was invested with more ample powers than had been granted to any of his predecessors. Nevertheless, he speedily solicited and obtained a farther extension of them; alleging, in vindication of his request, that Ireland was a conquered country.' The law he treated with contempt; and declared, that he would make an act of state to be of equal power with an act of parliament.' He had also in letters to the King, and in the Privy Council of England, urged his Sovereign to measures of government of the most despotic description.

His grand objects were to render the royal power completely uncontrollable in Ireland; and to derive from that island a revenue sufficient, not only to sup

port it's own expenditure, but also to replenish the English treasury. Schemes, indeed, he had for enriching his new subjects, and plans for promoting their civilisation; but "in all these affairs," he stated in a letter to his misguided master," the benefit of the crown must and shall be my principal, nay, my sole end."

For this purpose, with not less sagacity than ambition he drew up, by the King's leave, a paper of Instructions for his conduct, in which he anticipated almost every imaginable difficulty, and armed himself with all but absolute power; subjoining likewise the remarkable clause, that these ample regulations were to be considered as changeable on the spot, wherever the advancement of his Majesty's affairs required.'

Of the Irish Privy Council, which had been accustomed to bear a great sway in the management of the state, he summoned only a select number: these, after waiting for some hours his Lordship's leisure, he seemed to treat rather as auditors than as Councillors: and though in compliance with the wishes of Ireland, and his own views of it's indispensableness, he overcame his Sovereign's reluctance upon the subject of calling a parliament in that kingdom, he proceeded (in pursuance of his projected intrigues) with a high and resolute hand, to subdue every appearance of opposition. Successfully reminding the Council, which in conformity with the provisions of Poynings' law had assembled to deliberate on the propositions to be transmitted to his Majesty, as proper subjects for senatorial discussion, of the inseparable breach between Charles and his English parliament : "I could tell them," says he in one of his letters,

VOL. III.

t