757 



STRAFFORD, EARL OF. 



STRAFFORD, KARL OF. 



7LQ 



29th September, 1633." Advising him to "distrust himself and fortify 

 his youth by the counsel of his more aged friends before he undertakes 

 anything of consequence ; " he adds, " it was the course that I 

 governed myself by after my father's death, with great advantage to 

 myself and affairs, and yet my breeding abroad had shown me more 

 of the world than yours hath done ; and I had natural reason like 

 other men. only I confess I did in" all things distrust myself, wherein 

 you shall do, as I said, extremely well if you do so too. ' (' Let. and 

 Deap.,' vol. i., p. 169.) 



The letter from which the above quotation is made contains so 

 much good advice, so well and so weightily expressed, that it may 

 bear a comparison with Burleigh's celebrated 'Advice to his Son :' the 

 resemblance in some passages is striking. With respect to the greater 

 part of this advice, particularly what regards economy and regularity 

 in the management of his private affairs, temperance in drinking, and 

 abstinence from gaming, it was the rule by which Wentworth shaped 

 his own conduct, and to which, according to Radcliffe, he strictly 

 adhered. The part of the advice to which he himself least adhered 

 was that recommending calmness and courtesy of demeanour ; for 

 even his most intimate friend Sir George Radcliffe admits that "he 

 was naturally exceedingly cholerick," and the actions of his life show 

 that in that particular he was never able thoroughly to subdue 

 nature. 



In the same year in which he was married, Wentworth went into 

 France, having previously been knighted. He was accompanied by 

 the Rev. Charles Greenwood, fellow of University College, Oxford, as 

 his 'governor,' or travelling tutor, for whom he entertained the greatest 

 respect and regard to the end of his life. In February 161f, he 

 returned to England. He was returned and sat for the county of 

 York in the parliament which began April 5th, 1614. Radcliffe's 

 account as to this date, though rejected by the writers in the 

 ' Biographia Britannica,' and Mr. MacDiarmid, is confirmed by Browne 

 Willis's ' Notitia Parliamentaria,' vol. iii., p. 169 : " Co. Ebor. -Jo. 

 Saville, kt., Thomas Wentworth, kt. and bart., anno 12 Jac. I., began 

 April 5, 1614, and continued till June 7, and was then dissolved." 

 During this short parliament, which continued only two months, 

 Wentworth does not appear to have spoken. Mr. Forster, his latest 

 biographer, says that he has examined the Journals, and finds no trace 

 of Wentworth's speaking on either side in the great struggle that was 

 then going on. ('Life of Strafford,' in the 'Cabinet Cyclopaedia;' 

 ' Lives of Eminent British Statesmen,' vol. ii., p. 197.) 



In 1615 Wentworth was appointed to the office of custos rotulorum 

 for the west riding of the county of York, in the room of Sir John 

 Savile; an office of which Savile attempted to deprive him about two 

 years after, through the influence of the favourite, the Duke of Buck- 

 ingham, but without success, though he succeeded afterwards. The 

 result was a feud between Wentworth and the Saviles, the father and 

 son, Sir John Savile the younger, afterwards Lord Savile. In 1621 

 Wentworth was again returned to parliament for the county of York ; 

 and this time he brought in Sir George Calvert, one of the secretaries 

 of state, along with him. In Michaelmas term he removed his 

 family from Weutworth Woodhouse to London. He took up his 

 abode in Austin Friars, where in 1622 he had a "great fever." When 

 he began to recover, he removed, about July, to Bow, where shortly 

 after his wife the Lady Margaret died. On the 24th of February 

 162, he married the Lady Arabella Hollis, a younger daughter of the 

 Earl of Clare, a lady, observes Radcliffe, " exceeding comely and beauti- 

 iful, and yet much more lovely in the endowments of her mind." 



Hitherto, though Wentworth had not taken a very prominent part 

 in the proceedings of parliament, still he was considered to have acted 

 with the party that opposed the court, as appears from the fact of his 

 being, on the eve of the calling together of a new parliament, among 

 the number of those whom Buckingham attempted to disable from 

 serving, by having them pricked sheriffs of their respective counties. 

 In November 1625 Wentworth was made sheriff of Yorkshire. A 

 passage from one of his letters at this time shows that he was never 

 inclined to go the lengths that some others did in resistance to the 

 royal prerogative. (' Let. and Desp.,' vol. i., p. 33.) 



In May 1627 he was committed a prisoner to the Marshalsea by the 

 lords of the council for refusing the royal loan ; and about six weeks 

 after, his imprisonment was exchanged for confinement at the town of 

 Dartford in Kent, from which place he was not to go above two miles. 

 About Christmas he was released, and shortly after the third parlia- 

 ment of Charles began, in which Wentworth served as knight for 

 Yorkshire. Wentworth had now resolved to make the court party 

 more aware of the extent of his talents than they yet appeared to be. 

 On the discussion of the general question of grievances, he spoke 

 with an ability and spirit which proved to them that he might turn 

 out euch an enemy, that he was worth having as a friend. It has 

 been usual to speak of Weutworth as an apostate ; but he never 

 appears to have been at heart on the popular, or rather the parlia- 

 mentary side. His whole conduct both before and after he became 

 the king's minister shows that he considered the general movement in 

 modern Europe to be not towards democracy, but towards the establish- 

 ment of absolute monarchy. The several springs of Wentworth's con- 

 duct are now fully laid bare in a manner that they could hardly be to 

 his contemporaries, and in a manner that few men's have ever been to 

 after-ages, by the publication of the two large folio volumes of his 



' Letters and Despatches,' one of the most valuable collections of 

 papers, both in a political and historical point of view, ever made 

 public. In that collection there are two letters (Strafford, ' Let. and 

 Desp.,' voL i., pp. 34, 35), to Sir Richard Weston, chancellor of the 

 exchequer, containing very unequivocal overtures, the non-acceptance 

 of which at the time would seem to have produced the indignant out- 

 break of patriotic eloquence above alluded to. 



In June 1628, the parliament ended. In July Sir Thomas Went- 

 worth, having been reconciled to Buckingham, wag created Baron 

 Wentworth. The death of Buckingham feoon after removed the only 

 obstacle to higher honours. In Michaelmas term he was made 

 Viscount Wentworth, Lord President of the North, and a privy 

 councillor. 



The establishment of the Council of the North originated in the 

 frequent northern rebellions which followed Henry VIII.'s suppression 

 of the lesser monasteries, and extended over the counties of York, 

 Northumberland, Cumberland, We-stmoreland, and Durham. The 

 commission, though apparently only one of oyer and terminer, con- 

 tained a clause authorising the commissioners to hear all causes real 

 and personal, when either of the parties was poor, and decide according 

 to sound discretion. This clause was declared by all the judges to be 

 illegal. James issued a new commission, by which the commissioners 

 were not ordered to inquire " per sacramentum bonorum et legalium 

 hominum," or to be controlled by forms of laws but were merely 

 referred to certain secret instructions which were s^nt down to tho 

 council. Against this however the judges had the courage to protest, 

 and to issue prohibitions on demand to the president and council ; 

 and the instructions were ordered to be enrolled, that the people might- 

 have some chance of knowing them. 



Dr. Knowler, the editor of the ' Strafford Papers,' in the adulatory 

 dedication of them to his patron, the grandson of the Earl of Strafford, 

 gravely observes that "Sir Thomas Wentworth, who was a true friend 

 to episcopal government in 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 toil and pains in the service of 

 the public, or to withstand the offer of those honours his majesty 

 was graciously pleased to make him, especially when it gave him an 

 opportunity of setting an example of a wise and just and steady 

 administration." 



Wentworth's acceptance of the office of president of this council 

 was a flagrant violation of the fundamental principle of the Petition 

 of Right. His career in the office too did not belie the promise of its 

 acceptance. One of his first acts was to declare that he would lay 

 any man by the heels who ventured to sue out a prohibition in the 

 courts at Westminster. (Rushworth, vol. ii. p. 159.) And one of the 

 judges (Vernon), who had the courage to resist these encroachments 

 on the ancient laws of the land, Wentworth tried hard to have re- 

 moved from his office. (Strafford, ' Let. and Desp.,' vol. i. pp. 129, 

 130.) Indeed, like his friend and coadjutor Laud, Wentworth never let 

 slip an opportunity of expressing his bitter dislike of the interference 

 of the judges and common lawyers with his scheme of governing, not 

 by the laws of England, but according to " sound discretion." 



In January 1631, Wentworth was made lord deputy of Ireland. 

 The principle on which he set about governing there was in substance 

 the same as that of his government in the presidency of York. 

 "These lawyers," he writes to the lord marshal, "would monopolise 

 to themselves all judicature, as if no honour or justice could be rightly 

 administered but under one of their bencher's gowns." (Strafford, 

 ' Let. and Desp.,' vol. i, p. 223.) And he adds, a line or two after, 

 "Therefore if your lordship's judgment approve of my reasons, I 

 beseech you assist me therein, or rather the king's service, and I shall 

 be answerable with my head." It is remarkable how frequently he 

 alludes to this last as the test of the soundness of the policy of his 

 measures. They were in the end so tested, and being found wanting, 

 he was taken at his word ; he was called upon to pay, and paid the 

 forfeit. One of the principal means by which Wentworth sought 

 to squeeze money out of the people of Ireland was by holding a 

 parliament. 



Wentworth's political economy was not very sound, yet he saw far 

 enough to discover that to enrich the king, the way was, to begin by 

 enriching the people. " For this is a ground," he says, " I take with 

 me, that to serve your majesty completely well in Ireland we must 

 not only endeavour to enrich them, but make sure still to hold them 

 dependent upon the crown, and not able to subsist without us." 

 (Stafford's ' Let. and Desp.,' vol. i. p. 93.) But the plan he proposed 

 does not seem certainly very well adapted for enriching the people. 

 " Which will be effected," he proceeds, " by wholly laying aside the 

 manufacture of wools into cloth or stuff there, and by furnishing them 

 from this kingdom; and then making your majesty sole merchant of 

 all salts on that side ; for thus shall they not only have their clothing, 

 the improvement of all their native commodities (which are principally 

 preserved by salt), and their victual itself from hence (strong ties and 

 enforcements upon their allegiance and obedience to your majesty) ; 

 but a means found, I trust, much to advance your majesty's revenue 

 upon salt, and to improve your customs. The wools there grown, and 

 the cloths there worn, thus paying double duties to your crown in both 

 kingdoms ; and the salt outward here, both inward and outward there." 

 He thus sums up the advantages of the measures proposed : "Holding 



