Between these two royal residences Went- | ed, whenever his infirmities gave him respite. worth now divided a great portion of his time. He passed some of his time also among books, His mode of living equalled in magnificence the and, in one portion at least of these studies, houses themselves. At his own charge he had his thoughts upon a stormy political future. maintained a retinue of 50 attendants, besides "I wish," writes his friend Lord Conway to his troop of 100 horse, which he had originally him, "you had had your fit of the gout in Engraised and equipped at an expense of £6000, land, lest you should attribute something of the and kept up at an enormous yearly cost. This disease to the air of that country. I send you style of living, which he took care to bear out the Duke of Rohan's book, 'Le parfait Capiin every other respect, he characteristically taine.' Do not think the gout is an excuse from vindicated to Cottington as "an expense, not fighting, for the Count Mansfelt had the gout that of vanity, but of necessity, judging it not to be- day he fought the battle of Fleury." In the come me, having the great honour to represent his pleasures of the table he indulged little. "He majesty's sacred person, to set it forth, no, not in was exceeding temperate," observes Radcliffe, any one circumstance, in a penurious mean man- "in meat, drink, and recreations. He was no ner, before the eyes of a wild and rude people." whit given to his appetite; though he loved to Nor did he scruple to conceal the fact that his see good meat at his table, yet he ate very litown private fortune had been assisted, in these tle of it himself; beef or rabbits was his ordivast charges, by certain public profits. "It is nary food, or cold powdered meats, or cheese very true," he writes to Laud, "I have, under and apples, and in moderate quantity. He was the blessing of Almighty God, and the protec- never drunk in his life, as I have often heard tion of his majesty, £6000 a year good land, him say; and for so much as I had seen, I had which I brought with me into his service; and reason to believe him; yet he was not so scruI have a share for a short term in these cus- pulous but he would drink healths where he toms, which, while his majesty's revenue is liked his company, and be sociable as any of there increased more than £20,000 by year, his society, and yet still within the bounds of proves nevertheless a greater profit to me than temperance. In Ireland, where drinking was ever I dreamed of." When Laud read this grown a disease epidemical, he was more strict passage to Charles, the king observed, impa-publicly, never suffering any health to be drunk tiently, "But he doth not tell you how much;" and plainly intimated that he grudged the minister his share of profit. Wentworth had few occasions of gratitude to Charles during a life worn out in his service.! In respect of these customs, it is not to be doubted that Charles's suspicions were grossly unjust. He would have had more of abstract justice with him in object-acteristically shown. He returns to the warning to a different source of his lord-deputy's revenue, that of the tobacco monopoly, for, on the latter ground, undoubtedly, Wentworth was open to grave charges, though even here the king was the last person from whom with any propriety they could issue.

Tom."

at his public table but the king's, queen's, and prince's, on solemn days. Drunkenness in his servants was, in his esteem, one of the greatest faults." Throughout his various admirable letters to his young wards, the Saviles, in whose education he took extreme interest always, the hatred of this vice is still more char

ing again and again, coupling with drunkenness the equal vice of gaming: the one a "pursuit not becoming a generous, noble heart, which will not brook such starved considerations as the greed of winning;" the other, one "that

The lord-deputy's private habits have been father to the lady." These are Wentworth's words. The described. He hawked, he hunted,* and fish-chancellor refused to submit to the judgment on the ground that the action ought to have been brought in the ordinary courts of law, and that the tribunal before which it was tried was both illegal and partial. Wentworth, upon this, had resorted to his usual severity, and was now waiting its issue with the king. It may be worth stating, that mistakes have been made with respect to the name of the lady chiefly affected in this case by Mr. MacDiarmid and other writers, in consequence of Sir John Gifford having brought the original action. She was Lady Loftus, not Lady Gifford.

fecting passer-by, a curse upon the memory of "Black
Such is the name by which the Irish peasantry
remember Strafford. When M. Boullaye-le-Gouz vis-
Red Ireland, he found this castle in the property and
pos-
Son of Sir George Wentworth, Strafford's brother, and
Farded by forty English soldiers.-Mr. Croker's MS.
* Strafford Papers, vol. i., p. 128.

Laud writes, "I have of late heard some muttering about it in court, but can meet with nothing to fasten on: my it makes me doubt somebody hath been nibbling about -See Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 127.

: Witty he writes to Laud, "We are in expectance every hour to hear what becomes of us and the lord-chantest-to say the plain truth, whether we shall have a govenment or no; and to the intent that I might be the better to utrumque paratus, at this present I am playing the Robin Hood, and here in the country of mountains and woods beating and chasing all the out-lying deer I can light of. B, to confess truly, I met with a very shrewd rebuke the other day; for, standing to get a shoot at a buck, I was so samaably bitten with midges as my face is all mezled over ever since, itches still as if it were mad. The marks they set will not go off again, I will awarrant you, this week. I never feit or saw such in England. Surely they are Junger brothers to the muskitoes the Indies brag on so I protest, I could even now well find in my heart to play the shrew soundly, and scratch my face in six or seven Fares"-Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 173. This allusion to the lord-chancellor had reference to a judgment recently g ven against that dignitary by Wentworth himself, in a sat brought against him by Sir John Gifford, on behalf of Sir Francis Rushe, for an increase of portion to the lady who had married young Loftus: "According to the lordcheacellor's own clear agreement with Sir Francis Ruishe, P

* For some accounts of his fishing exploits, see Papers, vol. ii., p. 213, &c. Laud appears to have relished the lorddeputy's presents of "dryed fish" amazingly, and to have been anything but fond of his "hung beef out of Yorkshire." His grace had a shrewd eye to appetite: "Since you are for both occupations, flesh and fish, I wonder you do not think of powdering or drying some of your Irish venison, and send that over to brag too."

+ Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 45. Some of Lord Conway's letters referred to matters not quite so decent, and the lord-deputy's replies gave him no advantage on that

score.

See Papers, vol. ii., p. 144-146. Conway's acquaintance with his intrigues has already received notice, and the following passage from one of Wentworth's letters to this confidant is not a little significant: "I desire your judg ment of the enclosed, which was written to this your servant the other day, and chancing to open and read it in the presence, I burst out before I got it read, that the standersby wondered what merry tale it might be that letter told me. But I must conjure you to send it me back, not to trust it forth of your hands, only if you will, I am content you show it my Lord of Northumberland and my Lady of Carlile, lest if it were shown to others they might judge me Vane, or something else, of so princely a favour! For less, the least of her commands are not to be taken-what, then, may we term these her earnest desires ?"

shall send you, by unequal staggering paces, to | your grave, with confusion of face."*

No public duty was neglected meanwhile, for from his country parks and castles Wentworth in an hour or two could appear in the Dublin presence-chamber. The king sent him every license he required against the Lordchancellor Loftus; and that nobleman, for having disputed the judicial functions of the deputy, "that transcendent power of a chancellor," as Wentworth scornfully called him, was deprived of the seals, and committed to prison till he consented to submit to the award and to acknowledge his error.†

But while the king thus secretly authorized these acts of despotism, the English court, no less than the English nation, were known to be objecting to their author. Impatiently he wrote to Laud, demanding at least the charge, something on which to ground an issue. "The humour which offends me," he exclaims, "is not so much anger as scorn, and desire to wrest out from among them my charge; for, as they say, if I might come to fight for my life, it would never trouble me-indeed, I should then weigh them all very light, and be safe under the goodness, wisdom, and justice of my master. Again, howbeit I am resolved of the truth of all this, yet to accuse myself is very uncomely. I love not to put on my armour before there be cause, in regard I never do so but I find myself the wearier and sorer for it the next morning."

He could get no satisfactory answer to this, for in truth the English court by this time had enough upon its hands. The king meditated a war with Spain for the recovery of the palatinate, to which he was the rather urged by the queen, since France had already engaged. Fortunately, before taking this step, he was induced to advise with the lord-deputy of Ireland. This was the first time Wentworth had ever been consulted on the general affairs of the kingdom, and he instantly forwarded a paper of opposing reasons to the king, so strongly and so ably stated that the war project was given up.‡ The queen's indifferent feeling to him, it may well be supposed, was not removed by such policy.◊

Strafford Papers, vol. i., p. 169, &c. And see an admirable letter at p. 311 of vol. ii.

This case was brought forward at the impeachment, and was much aggravated by a discovery, which has been before named, in reference to the young Lady Loftus. "In the preferring this charge," says Clarendon, "many things of levity, as certain letters of great affection and familiarity from the earl to that lady, which were found in her cabinet after her death, others of passion, were exposed to the public view (vol. i., p. 175). Ample details of the entire course of the transaction will be found in referring to the Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 67, et seq., 82, 160, et seq., 172, et seq., 179, 196, 205, 227, et seq., 259, et seq., 298, 341, 369, 375, 389.

The document will be found in the Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 60-64. It is one of the ablest of Wentworth's arguments for his scheme of absolute power. He takes occasion to say in it, "The opinion delivered by the judges, declaring the lawfulness of the assignment for the shipping, is the greatest service that profession hath done the crown in my time."

It ought to be stated, to Wentworth's honour, that, though he much desired to have stood well with her majesty, he declined to purchase her favour by acts inconsistent with his own public schemes. See curious evidences of this in Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 221, 222, 257, 329, 425, 426, &c. When she had solicited an army appointment for some young courtier, he wrote an earnest entreaty to her chamberlain, accompanying his reasons for declining

The peace, however, which Lord Wentworth so earnestly recommended was now more fatally broken. The whole Scottish nation rose against Charles, in consequence of Laud's religious innovations. Wentworth was not at first consulted respecting these commotions, but he had thrown out occasional advice in his despatches which was found singularly serviceable. He strove as far as possible, by urging strong defensive measures, to prevent an open rupture. "If," he wrote to Charles, "the war were with a foreign enemy, I should like well to have the first blow; but being with your majesty's own natural, howbeit rebellious subjects, it seems to me a tender point to draw blood first; for, till it come to that, all hope is not lost of reconciliation; and I would not have them with the least colour impute it to your majesty to have put all to extremity till their own more than words enforce you to it."+

Nor did Wentworth serve Charles at this conjuncture with advice alone, for by his amazing personal energy he forced down some opening commotions among the 60,000 Scottish settlers in Ulster, and not only disabled them from joining or assisting their countrymen, but compelled them to abjure the covenant. Nor this alone. He forwarded from Ireland a detachment of troops to garrison Carlisle; he announced that the army of Ireland was in a state of active recruiting and discipline; he offered large contributions from himself and his friends towards the necessary expenses of resistance; and by every faith of leyalty, and bond of friendship and of service, he called on every man in Yorkshire to stir himself in the royal cause. "To be lazy look. ers on," he wrote to the Lord Lorne, "to lean to the king behind the curtain, or to whisper forth only our allegiance, will not serve our turn! much rather ought we to break our shins in emulation who should go soonest and farthest, in assurance and in courage, to uphold the prerogatives and full dominion of the crown; ever remembering ourselves that nobility is such a grudged and envied piece of monarchy, that all tumultuary force offered to kings doth ever, in the second place, fall upon the peers, being such motes in the eyes of a giddy multitude as they never believe themselves clear-sighted into their liberty indeed till these be at least levelled to a parity as the other altogether removed, to give better prospect to their anarchy."

The sluggish and irresolute councils of England looked ill beside the movements of the deputy. The king asked a service from him, but the instructions came too late. "If his majesty's mind had been known to me in time," he wrote to Vane, the treasurer of the household, "I could have as easily secured it against all the covenanters and devils in Scotland as

the appointment: "If I may by you understand her majes-
ty's good pleasure, it will be a mighty quietness unto me;
for if once these places of command in the army become
suits at court, looked upon as preferments and portions for
younger children, the honour of this government, and, con-
sequently, the prosperity of these affairs, are lust." The
king himself appears to have made it a personal request of
Wentworth, that he should carry himself "with all duty
and respect to her majesty."-Vol., ii., p. 256.
*See vol. ii., p. 191, 192, 235, 280, 324, &c.
+ Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 314.
Ibid., vol. ii., p. 270, 338, 345.

Ibid., p. 210.

Anne with you for a time in England, to recov-| er her health, I have at last been able to yield so much from my own comfort, as to send both her and her sister to wait your grave, wise, and tender instructions. They are both, I praise God, in good health, and bring with them hence from me no other advice, but entirely and cheerfully to obey and do all you shall be pleased to command them, so far forth as their years and understanding may administer unto them.

Woodhouse, where my cousin Rockley will supply him. And I must humbly beseech you to give order to their servants, and otherwise to the_taylors at London for their apparel, which I wholly submit to your ladyship's better judgment, and be it what it may be, I shall think it all happily bestowed, so as it be to your contentment and theirs, for cost I reckon not of; and anything I have is theirs so long as I live, which is only worth thanks, for theirs and their brother's all I have must be whether I will or no, and therefore I desire to let them have to acknowledge me for before.

"Nan, they tell me, danceth prettily, which wish (if with convenience it might be) were not lost, more to give her a comely grace in the carriage of her body, than that I wish they should much delight or practise it when they are women. Arabella is a small practitioner that way also, and they are both very apt to learn that, or anything they are taught.

"I was unwilling to part them, in regard those that must be a stay one to another, when by course of nature I am gone before them. I would not have them grow strangers whilst II am living. Besides, the younger gladly imitates the elder, in disposition so like her blessed mother, that it pleases me very much to see her steps followed and observed by the other. "Madam, I must confess, it was not without difficulty before I could perswade myself thus to be deprived the looking upon them, "Nan, I think, speaks French prettily, which who, with their brother, are the pledges of all yet I might have been better able to judge had the comfort, the greatest at least, of my old her mother lived. The other also speaks, but age, if it shall please God I attain thereunto. her maid being of Guernsey, the accent is not But I have been brought up in afflictions of this good. But your ladyship is in this excellent, kind, so as I still fear to have that taken first as that, as indeed all things else which may bethat is dearest unto me, and have in this been fit them, they may, and I hope will, learn betcontent willingly to overcome my own affections ter with your ladyship than they can with their in order to their good, acknowledging your lady-poor father, ignorant in what belongs women, ship capable of doing them more good in their breeding than I am. Otherways, in truth, I should never have parted with them, as I profess it a grief unto me not to be able as well as any to serve the memory of that noble lady in these little harmless infants.

Well, to God's blessing and your ladyship's goodness I commit them! where-ever they are, my prayers shall attend them, and have of sorrow in my heart till I see them again I must, which I trust will not be long neither. That they shall be acceptable unto you, I know it right well, and I believe them so graciously minded to render themselves so the more, the more you see of their attention to do as you shall be pleased to direct them, which will be of much contentment unto me; for, whatever your ladyship's opinion may be of me, I desire, and have given it them in charge (so far as their tender years are capable of), to honour and observe your ladyship above all the women in the world, as well knowing that in so doing they shall fulfil that duty whereby of all others they could have delighted their mother the most; and I do infinitely wish they may want nothing in their breeding my power or cost might procure them, or their condition of life hereafter may require; for, madam, if I die tomorrow, I will, by God's help, leave them ten thousand pounds apiece, which I trust, by God's blessing, shall bestow them to the comfort of themselves and friends, nor at all considerably prejudice their brother, whose estate shall never be much burdened by a second venter, I assure you.

and otherways, God knows, distracted, and so awanting unto them in all, saving in loving them, and therein, in truth, I shall never be less than the dearest parent in the world!

"Their brother is just now sitting by my elbow, in good health, God be praised; and I am in the best sort accommodating this place for him, which, in the kind, I take to be the noblest one of them in the king's dominions, and where a grass time may be passed with most pleasure of that kind. I will build him a good house, and by God's help, leave, I think, near three thousand pounds a year, and wood on the ground, as much, I dare say, if near London, as would yield fifty thousand pounds, besides a house within twelve miles of Dublin, the best in Ireland, and land to it which, I hope, will be two thousand pounds a year, all which he shall have to the rest, had I twenty brothers of his to sitt beside me. This I write not to your ladyship in vanity, or to have it spoken of, but privately, to let your ladyship see I do not forget the children of my dearest wife, nor altogether bestow my time fruitlessly for them. It is true I am in debt, but there will be, besides, sufficient to discharge all I owe, by God's grace, whether I live or die. And next to these children, there are not any other persons I wish more happiness than to the house of their grandfather, and shall be always most ready to serve them, what opinion soever be had of me, for no others' usage can absolve me of what I owe not only to the memory, but to the last legacy that noble creature left with me when God took her to himself. I am afraid to turn over the leaf, lest your ladyship might think I could never come to a conclusion; and shall, therefore," &c.

I thought fit to send with them one that teacheth them to write; he is a quiet, soft man, but honest, and not given to any disorder; him I have appointed to account for the money to He had arranged everything for his deparbe laid forth, wherein he hath no other direc- ture, when one of his paroxysms of illness seiztion but to pay and lay forth as your ladyshiped him. He wrestled with it desperately, and shall appoint, and still as he wants to go to set sail. On landing at Chester, he wrote to

Lady Wentworth a sad description of the ef- same time, to Secretary Cooke, in the highest fects of the journey upon his gout, and the spirits, to assure him and his master that they "flux" which afflicted him. He rallied, how-need not fear for his weakness. "For," exever, and appeared in London in November, 1639. In a memorable passage, the historian May has described the general conversation and conjecture which had prepared for his approach. Some, he says, remembering his early exertions in the cause of the people, fondly imagined that he had hitherto been subservient to the court only to ingratiate himself thoroughly with the king, and that he would now employ his ascendency to wean his majesty from arbitrary counsels. Others, who knew his character more profoundly, had different thoughts, and secretly cherished their own most active energies.

Wentworth, Laud, and Hamilton instantly formed a secret council-a "cabinet council," as they were then enviously named by the other courtiers-a "junto," as the people reproachfully called them. The nature of the measures to be taken against the Scots was variously and earnestly discussed, and Wentworth, considering the extremity of affairs, declared at once for war.

claims the lord-lieutenant, “I will make strange shift, and put myself to all the pain I shall be able to endure, before I be anywhere awanting to my master or his affairs in this conjuncture, and, therefore, sound or lame, you shall have me with you before the beginning of the Parliament. I should not fail, though SIR JOHN ELIOT were living! In the mean space, for love of Christ, call upon and hasten the business now in hand, especially the raising of the horse and all together, the rather, for that this work now before us, should it miscarry, we all are like to be very miserable; but, carried through advisedly and gallantly, shall by God's blessing set us in safety and peace for our lives at after, nay, in probability, the generations that are to succeed us. Fi a faute de courage, je n'en aye que trop! What might I be with my legs, that am so brave without the use of them? Well, halt, blind, or lame, I will be found true to the person of my gracious master, to the service of his crown and my friends." Strange that, at such a moment, Lord Strafford should have recalled the memory of the virtuous and indomitable Eliot! He was soon doomed to know on whose shoulders the mantle of Buck

Supplies to carry it on formed a more difficult question still, but it sank before Wentworth's energy. He proposed a loan-subscribed to it at once, by way of example, the enor-ingham's great opponent had fallen. mous sum of £20,000—and pledged himself to bring over a large subsidy from Ireland, if the king would call a Parliament there. Encouraged by this assurance, it was resolved to call a Parliament in England also. Laud, Juxon, Hamilton, Wentworth, Cottington, Vane, and Windebanke were all present in council when this resolution was taken. The king then put the question to them whether, upon the restiveness of Parliament, they would assist him "by extraordinary ways." They assented, passed a vote to that effect, writs for Parliaments in both countries were issued, and Wentworth prepared himself to quit England.

In March, 1640, Strafford again arrived in Ireland. The members of the Parliament that had just been summoned crowded round him with lavish devotion, gave him four subsidies, which was all that he had desired, and declared that that was nothing in respect to their zeal, for that "his majesty should have the fee-simple of their estates for his great occasions." In a formal declaration, moreover, they imbodied all this, declared that their present warm loyalty rose from a deep sense of the inestimable benefits the lord-lieutenant had conferred upon their country, and that all these benefits had been effected "without the least hurt or grievance to any well-disposed subject."* The authors of this declaration were the first to turn upon Strafford in his distress. Valuing their praise for its worth in the way of example, the earl forwarded it to England, and re

Charles, unsolicited, now invested him with the dignity of earldom. His own very existence seemed dependant on Wentworth's faith, and there was sufficient weakness in the character of the king to render it possible for him to suppose that, even at such a time, the in-quested it to be published to the empire. ducement of reward might be necessary as a He had now been a fortnight in Ireland. precaution. The lord-deputy was created Earl Within that time, with a diligence unparalleled of Strafford and Baron of Raby, adorned with and almost incredible, he had effected these rethe Garter, and invested with the title of Lord-sults with the Parliament, and levied a body of heutenant, or Lieutenant-general of Ireland-a 8000 men as a re-enforcement to the royal artitle which had not been given since the days my. He again set sail for England. of Essex. "God willing," wrote Strafford to I pause here to illustrate the character of his wife immediately after, "you will soon see this extraordinary person in one respect, which the lieutenant of Ireland, but never like to have circumstances are soon to make essential. His a deputy of Ireland to your husband any more."* infirmities of health have frequently been alluOn his way to Ireland, the earl was overta- ded to, but they come now upon the scene more ken at Beaumaris by a severe attack of gout, fatally. No one, that has not carefully examyet, still able to move, he hurried on board, not-ined all his despatches, can have any notion of withstanding the contrary winds, lest he should be thrown down utterly. He wrote, at the

Letter in the Thoresby Museum, Biog. Brit., vol. vii., p. 4182. Some days before he had written to her characterstic news of his children. "The two wenches," he said, "are in perfect health, and now, at this instant, in this house, lodged with me, and rather desirous to be so than with their grandmother. I am not yet fully resolved what to do with them." They were afterward sent back to Lady Clare till the Lady Strafford arrived in London.

their frightful nature and extent.

The soul of the Earl of Strafford was indeed lodged, to use the expression of his favourite Donne, within a "low and fatal room." We have already seen his friend Radcliffe informing us that in 1622 “he had a great fever, and

See Strafford Papers, vol. ii., p. 396, 397. Rushworth, vol. in., p. 1051. Nalson, vol. i., p. 280–284. † See Radcliffe's Essay.