to execute his instructions. The puritans made misrepresentations of his conduct to the cabinet, and he was removed.

The administration was now lodged in the hands of Ely the chancellor and the earl of Cork, who received the title of lords justices. These governors, without any authority, proceeded immediately to treat the recusants with the utmost severity, threatening all absentees from the protestant church with the heaviest penalties. The king expressed his disapprobation of their proceedings, which augmented the boldness of the popish party. A fraternity of Carmelites assembled a multitude of their followers to hear divine service according to the rites of the catholic church, in one of the most public places in Dublin. On the approach of the chief magistrate and the archbishop with a body of troops to disperse them, they tumultuously attacked and put the soldiery to flight. Charles, provoked by this public outrage, seized fifteen catholic religious houses and a catholic college; the former he retained for his own use; the latter he assigned to the university of Dublin, to be employed as a place of protestant education. The penal laws were executed with the utmost rigour throughout the kingdom; and, by the advice of the lords justices, the army was ordered by the king to be supported out of the fines imposed upon the catholics for non-attendance on the established worship: a measure of great grievance to the recusants, and attended with but trifling emolument to the crown.

In the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-three commenced the celebrated administration of lord Wentworth, a man of imperious disposition, violent temper, haughty, tyrannical, and absolute, but who tempered these vices in his constitution by the distinguished wisdom of his conduct. With a conviction that the people of Ireland were nothing more than the inhabitants of a conquered country, he determined to treat them as mere slaves, and to keep no object in view but the interest of his royal master. On his landing he summoned the council, but contemptuously neglected to require the presence of several of the members. This insult was aggravated by his conduct to the rest, whom he kept in waiting full two hours before he deigned to make his appearance; and when he did show himself, he entered in a careless indifferent manner,

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without condescending to make an apology for the delay. He waved the business for which they had been assembled, and enjoined them with an authoritative air and tone to represent in their several districts the favour offered by the king to such as would compromise for the renewal of their defective titles to their estates, and to convince the protestants that the support of the royal army was absolutely necessary for their defence. On the next day, when the council was again summoned, they evinced an unwillingness to supply the king's necessities beyond the present year. Wentworth, enraged, proudly informed them that he had summoned them, not from necessity, but from a willingness that they should have an opportunity to display their loyalty and zeal; and that, at the peril of his head, he would undertake to provide for the king's troops amongst them without their assistance. Awed by his lofty demeanour and by the allusion he made to the odious practice of free quarters, they abjectly agreed to furnish another year's provision, to be levied on the protestants, the catholics having provided for the last.

The next step of Wentworth was to summon a parliament, in the lower house of which he hoped to be able to balance the catholic and protestant parties, and to tamper privately with each. The custom of consulting the lords of the Pale, previously to its being convened, was contemptuously neglected. When the council appeared disinclined to observe the mode prescribed by him with respect to the bills to be transmitted, he interrupted their consultations, and informed them that they were not to consider what might be agreeable to the people but what might please the king. On the meeting of parliament, no less than six entire subsidies, consisting of two hundred and forty thousand pounds, were voted by the commons, who relied on the royal promise to grant fresh patents for the estates in Connaught and in the county of Clare. The deputy, however, having secured the subsidies, so far from fulfilling this promise, proceeded immediately to take steps for seizing every estate in Connaught, with a view to establish a new plantation throughout the whole province. In the prosecution of this his favourite scheme, he advanced first to Roscommon, the inhabitants of Leitrim having already consented to the surrendry

of their lands. Having called a jury of the principal men of the county, he informed them, at the head of the commissioners of the plantation, that the scheme would be attended with great advantage to their country, that the king had no interest in it beyond the welfare of his people; that their consent was by no means necessary to establish the king's title, but that it was his majesty's wish they should share in the glory of executing a scheme so beneficial to the commonwealth and to themselves; and that, if they did not return a favourable verdict, the rightful claims of their sovereign would be enforced by a more summary mode of procedure. Conscious of the violent and determined character of the deputy, intimidated by his lofty spirit, and terrified into submission by his menaces, the jury found a title for the king. Their example was followed without hesitation by the inhabitants of Mayo and Sligo. But the jury of Galway, more spirited than those of the former counties, peremptorily refused to acknowledge a title in the crown. Wentworth, exasperated by their obstinacy, imposed on each of them the enormous fine of four thousand pounds, and seized on their persons and estates till the sums should be paid. On the sheriff, also, he adjudged a fine of one thousand pounds for having returned such a jury.

These and other harsh and imperious measures of lord Wentworth were attended with such universal detestation, that complaints against his administration at length reached the ears of the king. He was recalled; but, on representing his con duct personally to his majesty, was confirmed in his authority with still greater powers than before, and was created earl of Strafford and knight of the garter.

On his return he convened a parliament, which readily voted to the king six more subsidies; but which at the same time drew up a very strong remonstrance, setting forth in fourteen separate articles the grievances under which the nation laboured; and appointed a committee to convey it to London. He next, alarmed at the critical posture of the king's affairs both in England and Scotland, raised a body of nine thousand men for his assistance, eight thousand of whom were catholics, on whose loyalty and zeal he knew he could best depend.

Meantime the committee appointed to convey the remon

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strance of parliament, had been received with particular favour by the popular party, who expected considerable assistance from them in the execution of the favourite design then in agitationthe overthrow of the earl of Strafford. Their public instructions directed them to apply to the king only for redress; but they were privately ordered to address themselves to the English house of commons, a power then growing every day stronger than the throne. This step alarmed the earl of Strafford, who perceived in it the first symptom of his danger. By the advice of Charles, however, who assured him he still had power to save him, he fatally, contrary to the dictates of his own judgment and the urgent solicitations of his friends, repaired to London and gave himself up to the parliament, by which he was impeached, committed to custody, and afterwards ordered to suffer death as a traitor. Before the execution of Strafford, the king made a speech to the house of lords, in which he assured them he was well convinced the earl had been guilty of high misdemeanours, but that he could by no means think he had imagined high treason. Notwithstanding this acknowledgment of the earl's misconduct, however, so infatuated was Charles with his favourite's system, and so implicated was he himself in all the acts of his administration, that, by his advice, he appointed his kinsman sir Henry Wandesworth to succeed him in the lord lieutenancy. On the death of Wandesworth, which quickly followed his appointment, he deputed sir William Parsons and lord Dillon, another relative of Strafford, as lords justices of the kingdom: but finding Dillon was exceedingly disagreeable to the Irish, he afterwards cancelled the commission, and appointed sir John Borlase in his stead. Immediately on the commencement of the exercise of their functions, these ministers proceeded to re-establish throughout the kingdom the former moderation in the execution of government, mollifying the rigorous measures of Strafford, and adapting their conduct to the laws and established customs of the realm.

About this time Charles began to be seriously alarmed at the symptoms of disaffection which began to appear in Ireland. Conscious of the repeated instances of insincerity with which he had treated them, he attempted by a last effort to recover

the affections of his injured subjects. In a letter he directed the lords justices to publish to the people all the royal graces he had formerly promised them; and to assure them that they should henceforth more particularly enjoy his favour and protection. Both houses of parliament returned thanks to his majesty for the publication of his graces, and prayed that the present parliament should not be dissolved nor prorogued until laws should be prepared for the redress of all grievances. As the chancellor Bolton had insinuated a doubt, on a charge against him, whether, since the enacting of a law, called the law of Poynings, the Irish house of lords had power of judicature in capital cases, both houses joined in a solemn protestation declaring that the court of parliament ever was and is the supreme judicatory of the realm. After the transaction of this and some other business, both houses of parliament adjourned, during which recess the grand rebellion of one thousand six hundred and forty-one broke out.