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hours waiting, "attending on his leisure." | Pale was, it may be readily supposed, a very Thus tamed and brought into something round one indeed: "As he was the mouth like training, they had also been augmented which came to open for them all, I thought fit by two friends of his own, Sir George to close it as soon as I could." The Earl of Radcliffe and Sir Christopher Wandesford. Fingal was simply informed that his quesStrongly averse as he was to the interference tion was ignorant, impertinent, and preof official counsellors, no man living had sumptuous, and the claims of himself and more respect than Strafford for advisers of colleagues utterly contemptible; and his his own choosing. Years of uninterrupted lordship retired from the presence-chamber, friendship, during which he had habitually, himself "a little out of countenance," and and on all occasions public and private, the Pale wholly extinguished. consulted them, had proved the ability and affection of these two: he brought them with him to Ireland, and they formed his cabinet, and never left his side. They three met every day, debated on whatever question was coming on, argued pro and con, discussed circumstances and probable consequences, and thoroughly sifted it before bringing it into public.

The important meeting of the councilboard still remained. Strafford's proposition to parliament was simply a demand of six subsidies of thirty thousand each; and he sent in that proposition for discussion at the board, purposely keeping away himself, that he might elicit the more freely their real sentiments, but ready to interpose on the first symptom of matters going wrong. That symptom very soon appeared.

He was threatened with more plagues, in the shape of councils and official ad- We have mentioned some Stewart misvisers, even than the Irish Council-board. takes of government; the bargaining poliA certain body existed, known by the name cy, a descent from high ground, and ipso of the "Lords of the Pale," of whose pri- facto confession of weakness, was one. vileges it was difficult at that time to say King James had gone on, throughout his what they exactly were, and how far they reign, buying and selling with his parliahad grown obsolete and been superseded ment, piecing offer and demand together: by political changes. The body existed, I will give this, if you will give that-so however, and claimed to be consulted upon much prerogative for so many pounds sterthe opening of parliament; and it number- ling-till the royalty and the nation seemed ed many noblemen among its members, the at last exhibiting themselves as two marweight of whose family names was a re-ket-women, at a stall, bating and cheapenspectable addition to the more venerable, ing and cheating each other. The blunder but less ascertainable claims of the body. still went on; and the Council had hardly The representative of the Pale on this laid their wise heads together, before they occasion was the Earl of Fingal, a some-made it. They spread the annual payment what empty-headed nobleman, who, on the of the subsidies over a year and a half, and strength of being a leader or tool of the then coupled even this diminished demand disaffected party, assumed the man of im- with a monopoly and a pardon bill, as a portance, and gave himself consequential quid pro quo to the popular party to buy off airs. He waited in due form and ceremo- the opposition. But Strafford was at hand, ny for and in the behalf of the Pale, on the and waiting in his cabinet: information lord deputy-had heard a report that there reached him from Radcliffe and Wandeswas to be a parliament-was anxious to ford of the turn things were taking; his know the truth of the matter, as in that mind in a moment fastened on the weak case their Lordships of the Pale would pre-point, and before the discussion could propare themselves for deliberation as to the ceed further, the lord deputy was in procourse to be pursued upon so critical an pria persona at the head of the council occasion; their Lordships of the Pale were exceedingly desirous to promote the good of their country, and their Lordships of the Pale thought their advice and counsel highly necessary for that end-all this, says Strafford, in a grave electorate kind of way. Strafford had a variety of modes of answer, according to the merits of cases and individuals; but for one he had a great partiality-the round answer-a phrase of very frequent occurrence in his despatches. The answer to the representative of the

board, giving his sage councillors as rough a set down as ever set of erring politicians received. Did they imagine that the king would degrade himself by such wretched, paltry shifts? No, no: my great master, and my gracious master, and my royal master, and my sovereign master, would act very differently. "Like all other wise and great princes, his majesty expected to be trusted; he would not in any case admit of conditions, or be proceeded withal as by way of bargain or contract; he would

be provided for as the head, and care for acuteness in making it one of the first acts his people as members; as a gracious and to correct this disorder - when change good king, but still according to the order would be less invidious than afterwards, of reason, nature, and conscience-himself, and would come as a simple order from his people afterwards. They had begun the king, without any appearance of peraltogether at the wrong end, thus consult-sonal pride on the deputy's part-"I crave ing what would please the people in a parliament, when it would better become a privy council to consider what might please the king, and induce him to call one." Think no more, he continues, of your mo. nopoly bills, of your parliament pardons"poor shallow expedients! The king has no fancy for them. It is far below my great master to feed his people with shadows or empty pretences: if the noble and real favors of a gracious and wise king will not carry it, he will do without your money, and expect with patience the honor that will attend him, the repentance that will fall upon yourselves in the conclusion."

such a direction from his majesty," he says, "that they may know it to be his pleasure: otherwise I shall be well content it may be spared, having in truth no such vanity in myself as to be delighted with any of these observances." Nevertheless he sent with his letter as accurate a table of etiquette, for the king's approval, as the most rigid master of the ceremonies could desire. Noblemen were admitted on days of meeting to the presence chamber; the drawing chamber was assigned to the untitled class below them, who were not however allowed to bring in their servants; the gallery to the members of the council. The audacity Full of his own majestic illimitable idea of the gentlemen ushers, who had been in of the monarchy, Strafford went on, and the habit of following their masters the poured forth the whole of his royalist soul lord chancellor and the treasurer into the upon the assembled council. He rose from lord deputy's presence, was repressed, and eloquence to poetry; the beams of light they were enjoined to stop at the galleryand truth were invoked upon the demon of door: the purse-bearer, who had ambitioussuspicion"That spirit of the air that ly mixed himself with the councillors in walked in darkness between king and peo- the gallery, received the same direction; ple:" and from the midst of a magnificent and the lord chancellor, it was added, ought labyrinth of sentences, and an overshadow. to be too proud to carry his own purse in ing cloud of imagery, the board was in- the lord deputy's presence. formed that in case they and Parliament Policy and feeling combined produced refused to accept the Lord-deputy's view these arrangements. Strafford's awful he should forthwith put himself at the head ideas of the monarchy colored every thing of his majesty's army, and there persuade down to a king's little finger with majesty. them fully that his majesty had reason on his If the king wrote a letter, it was his side the puissant Straffordian oath-on cred pen" that officiated: if he went from peril of my life and that of my children-one place to another, it was his "blessed followed the threat. journey." And as the representation and "Annuit et totum nutu tremefecit Olym-reflection of royalty, he regarded himself pum."-The conncil was fairly taken aback as raised far above nobility: he taught the and overwhelmed by this portentous dis- proudest of Irish lords to feel their "implay of energy; the proposition of the six mense distance," and hide their diminished subsidies passed free from all degrading ap-heads before the shadow of a king. He pendages; and no wills or councils inter. vened now between Strafford and his parlia

ment.

One thing more he thought proper to attend to, because he would lose no chance of success-the ceremonial department. He resolved to have the most stately and gorgeous ceremonial of a parliament that had ever been known in Ireland.

On Strafford's first arrival he found every thing connected with court etiquette in the lowest possible state of neglect. A melée of all ranks used the vice-regal castle in club-house fashion, parading galleries, swinging doors, and making themselves free every where. Strafford showed his

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had a natural, even a simple love of pomp and ceremony, and, but for a strong intellect, would have been bombastic; as it was, nobody was less so. "I am naturally modest," he says of himself, with real simplicity, "and extreme unwilling, to be held supercilious and imperious among them" and his social habits formed a sufficient contrast to his haughtiness as viceroy. He was fond of conversation and shone in it, especially in the entertaining depart. ment; and, whenever he could spare the time, after supper walked off his friends into his cabinet, where he smoked and told good stories, of which he had a copious supply, or at Christmas time played at

affected, to tell you plainly, that if you do not leave, I say, as a person thus qualified, thus perfectly and cheerfully conform yourselves to fulfil his Majesty's desires, you render yourselves to all equal minds the most unwise, the most unthankful, the most unpardonable people in the world.

Primero and Mayo, at which he was an can be said is far subordinate, yet you will admit adept. At his public table he was very me, that sees how much the whole frame of this conscientious in playing the don on one Commonwealth, by a close consent of parts, is point. It was always splendidly provided, of this present meeting, as a person that hath no like to settle or suffer with the good or bad success though he partook but sparingly of it him- end but uprightly to dispense my master's jusself; but he allowed no toasts, except on tice amongst you, without acceptance of persolemn days the King, Queen, and Prince, sons; nor expects, hopes for no other reward, in order to mark his discountenance of the than through the monuments and testimonies ĺ habits of drinking then universal in Ireland. trust I shall be able to leave behind me, to be As the great day of the opening of par-children, a true lover of your country: give me acknowledged when I am gone, by you and your liament drew near, vast pains were taken to collect all the information on the ceremonials which had been observed on such occasions; tables of forms and precedence were ransacked, solemn rolls and parchments reproduced from the dust of ages, and heraldry, with her inspiring insignia "For lay your hands upon your hearts, and and mystic antique glare, summoned to the tell me if ever the desires of a mighty and scene. On July 14, 1634, with the sound powerful king were so moderate, so modest, of trumpets and wave of banners, a mag- taking, asking nothing for himself, but all for nificent procession moved to the parlia- you. His Majesty hath contracted a vast debt ment house, through the streets of Dub. merely in the service of this crown, and now lin, such as Ireland, it was said, had never wishes you to ease him of the burden. His Maseen before her whole aristocracy (ac-jesty issueth all he hath willingly for your protection and safety-nay, hath entered into a cording to exact order of rank and date of new charge of seven thousand pounds a year patent)-knights and squires, dukes, earls for safeguarding your coast. His Majesty and and barons in their robes, bishops and arch- his royal father have had but one subsidy from bishops in their rochets, privy councillors and ministers of state with all the badges of office; the courts of law were emptied of their judges and serjeants: heralds, pursuivants, and troops, filled up the interstices, and serjeants-at-arms with naked swords flanked; the long line wound up with Strafford himself, who marched surrounded with all the paraphernalia of viceregal pomp, Lord Brabazon bearing his "Suffer no poor suspicions or jealousies to vitiate your judgment. Take heed of private train, Lord Ormond the sword, Lord Kil-meetings and consults in your chambers. Here more the cap. The procession halted at is the proper place. His Majesty expects not the great entrance of St. Patrick's, where to find you muttering and mutinying in corners. the chapter and choir met them, and, with I am commanded to carry a wakeful eye over the Archbishops of Cashel and Tuam, head- these private and secret conventicles; therefore ed them into the cathedral, singing the Te beloves you look to it.

you, where England hath given them thirty subsidies; and can you be so indulgent to yourselves as to be persuaded you must ever be exempt: if it should be so, certainly the stars were more propitious to you than to any other conquered nation under heaven. No, no; let no such narrow, inward considerations possess you; but roundly and cheerfully apply yourselves to the contentment of his Majesty after your long peace.

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it Deum: and after service and a sermon from Finally," he concludes, "I wish you a right the Primate, Strafford opened the session. Cassandra among you to speak truth, and not judgment in all things, yet let me not prove a Step by step all had succeeded hitherto, be believed. However, speak truth I will, were and Strafford determined not to be want- I to become your enemy for it. Remember, ing to himself at the wind-up scene. Sum- therefore, that I tell you, you may easily make moning every nerve and muscle, and strain- or mar this parliament. If you proceed with ing every joint, for a last effort, he threw respect, without laying clogs or conditions upon down the gauntlet, declared in a speech to do, you shall infallibly set up this parliament the king, as wise men and good subjects ought of unshrinking swing and power his full eminent to posterity, as the very basis and resolution, and dashed the royalty in the foundation of the greatest happiness and face of the Irish parliament. "And al-perity that ever befell this nation. But if you beit," he continues, after a general sketch

of affairs

"Albeit his Majesty need insist upon no other argument to bow you to his just desires, but his own personal merit, and those sovereign duties you owe him for his justice and protection, in comparison whereof I confess indeed all that

meet a great king with narrow circumscribed hearts, if you will needs be wise and cautious above the moon, remember again I tell you, you shall never be able to cast your mists before the eyes of a discerning king; you shall be foun out; your sons shall wish they had been the children of more believing parents; and in a time when you look not for it, when it shall

be too late for you to help, the sad repentance of not for two little girls that came now and an unadvised breach shall be yours-lasting then to play with me." honor shall be my master's."

The following December witnessed another equally successful session of parlia ment; and simultaneously with it, an Irish convocation met for the discussion of a most fundamental point, which called all Strafford's zeal and activity as a churchman into requisition.

The speech, delivered with rude fiery vehemence of action and tremendous force of lungs, fairly overcame the house. With out staying to balance arguments or examine motives, they were thoroughly taken aback and surprised by a voice which made their ears ring again, and the old walls reThe Church had been the very first and verberate, and they instinctively reasoned earliest care of the lord deputy on his enthat a man who had such lungs at such a trance into office: it needed reform full as time, was not to be trifled with. No bar- much as the state, and it appealed more barian leader indeed, Thracian or Cau- forcibly, because more directly, to his relicasian, could have hit upon a more ab-gion. Strafford's was essentially a religious original theory of power, a nearer approach mind: he regarded himself as on a mission to elemental government before chaos was for the cause of good against evil, as all reduced to order. And the Irish lords, de- heroic minds since the foundation of the scendants of the chieftains, staring in mute world have done, as even in our own day, wonder at their magnificent Norman vice- with all his miserable alloy, did Nelson feel roy-one man singly confronting and beat- in his battles with an atheistical power. ing a nation-was indeed a scene of old Plantagenet fire, a wild autumnal lighting up of the monarchy before its sun set. The six subsidies, a larger supply than an Irish parliament had ever given, were passed whole, without opposition.

It was the fight of the Church of England against puritanism, a complex fight. The puritan was a compound of the democrat and the fanatic, his mind the visionary seat of a religious republic, and the scene of a grotesque imagery of drum and pulpit, "My lords and gentlemen" would not sword and Genevan gown: he looked onhave been extremely pleased, could they ward through fields of blood to the battle have overlooked Strafford's shoulder, as he of Armageddon, the new empire of the penned a paragraph to Laud shortly after" saints," and crown and mitre trampled "Well spoken it is, good or bad. I cannot tell whether: but whatever it was, I spake it not betwixt my teeth, but so loud and heartily that I protest unto you I was faint withal at the time, and the worse for it for two or three days after. It makes no matter; for this way I was assured they should have sound at least, with how little weight soever it should be attended. And the suc cess was answerable; for had it been low and mildly delivered, I might perchance have gotten from them, It was pretty well; whereas this way filling one of their senses with noise, and amusing the rest with earnestness and vehemence, they swear (yet forgive them, they know not what they say) it was the best spoken they ever heard in their lives. Let Cottington crack me that

nut now."

under foot. The Royalist had as deeply felt a theory, on the other side, of Church and King. The hierarchical system which had co-existed with the nation from the first, was embraced in his idea of the national life; and to puritanize the Church involved a sort of death or metempsychosis of the nation. A theory real as the solid earth in its day, now passed. Alas, one age has a mode of linking and associating, which another has not, and time after time the cubical verity, the primordial ideal atom betrays its joining and comes undone. The two sides were on the eve of gathering their embattled fronts: Strafford, imaginative, intense, in the royalist view, seemed destined and marked out for the antagonist of the fighting visionary on his way to Armageddon, and his Irish mission bound him both to purge a puritanizing and to fortify a despoiled Church for the approaching struggle. But he had, moreover, on this subject an intimate friend and guide, to whom he owed the strength of his convictions and whose suggestions wholly ruled him.

The last allusion carries a train of melancholy with it. The height of Strafford's success was the moment which brought peering from its hole that court envy which pursued him to his dying day. Even now the canker had begun; a too sensitive mind, a body worn by illness, depressed, though they did not sour him. He felt him- Amid the crowd of intriguing, bustling, self yoxgivos, and talked of old age and short-headed statesmen, that thronged the gray hairs;" In good earnestness, I court of the Stewarts, Strafford had observ should wax exceeding melancholy were ited one man with a view—who had taken his

line, and who kept to it with an unwearying | therefore from henceforward I take upon and dogged pertinacity, from which no hu- me to command, lay down your sword for man power could divert him. A continual the time and know your duty." resident at court through a most busy period, The Irish Church campaign opens with Archbishop Laud had maintained, amidst a series of irregular encounters between the business levities and distractions of such Strafford, with Laud at his back, and a an atmosphere, one grave uniform imper- variety of earls, barons, knights, bishops, turbable course, which only waited now for archbishops, deans, and dignitaries of all Buckingham's death, to raise him, a simple kinds, lay and ecclesiastical, to get back king's chaplain to begin with, to the pre- sundry Church spoils in their possession. miership. Strafford's observations at the There is a mixture of seriousness and fun Star Chamber had impressed him with a in the correspondence of the two on these vast respect for the future primate: on the opening transactions; both in high spirits other hand, Laud's critical and experienced at the new prospects in Church and State; eye observed in his admirer the statesman and Strafford getting his hand in, and taking whom it was of the utmost consequence to no small pleasure in the exercise. He had engage for the Church's cause. It was his in a remarkable degree what Bishop Butler policy to lay hold of and indoctrinate such calls "indignation at public vice;" a case men he had gained an influence even over of oppression roused all the knight-errant the light-hearted Buckingham; and now in his breast; he was famed in his county that more difficult times were approaching, as the protector and avenger of the poorer he was not sorry to see within his reach a class, and the poor Irish Church, appealing politician of a new and more serious school. to his justice from the extortion and sacriThe connection thus begun on public lege of the great, was just the object to grounds cemented into the closest and ten- rouse him. "I foresee," he says of Church derest private friendship. Though most spoliation, "this is so universal a disease, different men-it is almost absurd to com- that I shall incur a number of men's dispare them they had many points in com- pleasures of the best rank among them. mon; the same union of an irritable and But were I not better lose these for God sensitive with a most affectionate temper; Almighty's sake, than lose him for theirs? the same untiring patience, the same indo- So you see I shall quickly have as few mitable courage. The subtle Hamilton well friends as may be." Thus excited, the described their two kinds of courage, when, Primate and Lord-deputy begin hallooing on the meeting of Charles' last parliament, he and answering one another across the warned the king of the approaching fate of Channel, like voice and echo-Arcades his two ministers, because the "one would be ambo et cantare pares at respondere parati. too great to fear, and the other too bold to fly." Backwards and forwards goes the watchThe feeling of a common cause and common word "Thorough," the symbol of political danger strengthened their intimacy as time force and vigor-a heathen reader would went on there is no basis for private friend-imagine it some Ossianic deity, from its ship like the public one, like union in a great extraordinary personality; and in rapid cause, where there are no differences of succession pass and repass the names of opinion about it; and Laud and Strafford "my Lord Cork" and " my Lord Antrim," On all the questions that came "my Lord Clanricard" and "Sir Daniel on in Church and State they felt absolutely O'Brien," and "Sir Henry Lynch,"-and alike, and reflected like two mirrors each then my lords the bishops, his grace of other's views. Higher feelings mingled Cashel, their lordships of Down, Cork, with those of affection. The mind of Waterford, Killala-"The Church cormoStrafford, naturally formed for reverence, rants!" says Laud-"they are fed so full honored the Church in the person of its upon it that they have fallen into a fever." Primate the Archbishop's "Salutem in "Have at the ravens,"-replies Strafford, Christo" met its response ; and "your son," "if I spare a man of them, let no man ever and "my ghostly father," and "the glory of spare me."-"Your lordship is a good phythat obedience which I have set apart for you, 99 sician,' ," writes back Laud-"no physic expressed the deeper regard of the church- better than a vomit, if given in time, and man towards his spiritual superior. Laud you have taken a judicious course to adaccepted the submission with a smile. minister one so early to my lord of Cork. "Well, you have given me the freedom; I Join Sir T. Fitz Edmonds to the rest of his will make use of it; and as long as you fellows, and make him vomit up Cloyne." shall retain the obedience of a son, I will "I shall trounce a bishop or two in the take upon me to be your ghostly father. If castle chamber," writes Strafford" The

had none.

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