A Precedent for Parliaments
James decides to hold Parliament in Dublin - Instructs Carew accordingly - Changes in the Country since Perrot's Parliament - Efforts made to outvote the Roman Catholics - Creation of New Boroughs - The New Boroughs in Ulster - The Catholics apprehensive of Results - They address the King - Their Address ignored - Parliament opens in Dublin Castle - Selection of a Speaker - Ludicrous Scenes - The Recusants remonstrate and withdraw.
Although no monarch ever sat on the throne of England who held stronger views than did James, with regard to the divine right of Kings to govern right or wrong as they thought fit, he was nevertheless somewhat meticulous in his methods of obtaining legal sanction for the deeds which he held whether those deeds were sanctioned by law or not he had a perfect right to do. In this he resembled Henry VIII, who was not contented until both Houses of Parliament besought him, almost on their knees, to marry Jane Seymour as speedily as possible after the sentence of execution had been carried out on Anne Bolyn; which marriage, nevertheless, he had himself determined should be solemnized before Anne was twenty-four hours in her grave.
In like manner James, who decided that the natives of Ulster had no interest in or title to the land of their fathers, and had by his decision freed the Crown from all claims, legal or equitable, became all the more desirous to obtain legal sanction for the Ulster plantation ; and, deeming the holding of a Parliament in Ireland the best means of realizing his wishes, he determined to hold a Parliament in Dublin as speedily as possible, and instructed Lord Carew accordingly.
As over a quarter of a century had elapsed since the last Parliament had been held in Dublin, there were many delays before His Majesty's wishes could be realized. The last Parliament had been that summoned by Perrot in 1586, and of those who had attended on that occasion only four temporal peers and the same number of bishops survived ; even a complete list of the members of Perrot's Parliament could not be found, and the officials who acted when Perrot was Deputy being either dead or otherwise out of reach, even the law and practice of Parliament were forgotten.
In the long interval which had elapsed, immense changes had taken place in the country, not only in regard to its social and political condition, but even in the form and character of its representation. Formerly the members of the House of Commons represented little more than the old English Pale; whereas, since the date just mentioned, no less than seventeen additional counties had been formed, as well as a number of new boroughs, which the Lord Deputy was daily increasing by virtue of a royal commission. In order to carry out the royal policy in Ireland it was necessary to secure a Protestant majority, and this could hardly be done without creating new constituencies.
Of the seventeen new constituencies formed since 1586, many were expected to send Catholic representatives, and it was by the creation of new boroughs that Chichester proposed to overwhelm the Catholic vote of the country. Thirtynine new boroughs accordingly were created, of which no fewer than nineteen were in Ulster; many of them mere hamlets or scattered houses, inhabited only by some halfdozen of the new Ulster settlers, several of them not even being incorporated until after the writs had been issued. Of course the power of the King to make boroughs could not be disputed, but no previous communication of the design to summon Parliament, or of the laws it was proposed to enact, had been made pursuant to Poynings' Act, and the Catholics naturally apprehended a design to impose fresh burthens upon them.
The new boroughs in Ulster were Agher, Armagh, Ballyshannon, Bangor, Belfast, Belturbet, Charlemont, Clogher, Coleraine, Derry, Donegal, Dungannon, Enniskillen, Lifford, Limavady, Monaghan, Newtownards, Newry, and Strabane. The majority of these have since justified their selection, but in the other provinces some of the newly created boroughs were too poor even to pay the wages which it was then usual to give their representatives. The University of Dublin now returned two representatives for the first time.
The announcement of the King's intention to call a Parliament in Ireland became a subject of the greatest alarm to the Roman Catholics. On the advice of Carew a rumour was spread that every member of the House of Commons would be required to take the oath of supremacy or be disqualifie^; which rumour would, it was hoped, " be a means to increase the number of Protestant burgesses and knights, and deter the most spirited Recusants from being of the House".
Although James issued his instructions to Carew with regard to his desire to hold a Parliament in Ireland as early as June, 1611, it was not found possible to carry out the King's wishes until May, 1613. In the meantime, the rumours to which reference has been made thoroughly aroused the Catholics throughout the country; and in October, 1612, Sir Patrick Barnwell, notwithstanding his bitter experience in the Tower in 1605, wrote protesting against the formation of new boroughs; and in November, six of the principal lords of the Pale, Lords Gormanston, Slane, Killeen, Trimbleston, Dunsany, and Louth, addressed a letter to the King in which they complained of not having been previously consulted as to the measures to be laid before Parliament, and claimed to be the Irish Council within the meaning of Poynings' Act,
The Catholic lords then proceeded to express "a fearful suspicion that the project of erecting so many Corporations in places that can scantly pass the rank of the poorest villages in the poorest country in Christendom, do tend to naught else at this time, but that by the voices of a few selected for the purpose, under the name of burgesses, extreme penal laws should be imposed upon your subjects here, contrary to the natures, customs, and dispositions of them all in effect".
They also protested vigorously against the recent enforcement of the penal laws then in existence: "Your Majesty's subjects here in general do likewise very much distaste and exclaim against the deposing of so many magistrates in the cities and boroughs of this kingdom, for not swearing the oath of supremacy in spiritual and ecclesiastical causes, they protesting a firm profession of loyalty, and an acknowledgment of all kingly jurisdiction and authority in your Highness; which course, for that it was so sparingly and mildly carried on in the time of your late sister of famous memory, Queen Elizabeth, but now in your Highnesses happy reign first extended unto the remote parts of this country, doth so much the more affright and disquiet the minds of your well-affected subjects here, especially they conceiving that by this means those that are most sufficient and fit to exercise and execute those offices and places, are secluded and removed, and they driven to make choice of others, conformable in that point, but otherwise very unfit and uncapable to undertake the charges, being generally of the meaner sort".
The writers of this important letter proceeded, with not a little courage, to point out to the King that there were already numbers of Irish rebels on the Continent, and it was therefore undesirable to add to the number of those who " displayed in all countries, kingdoms, and estates, and inculcated into the ears of foreign kings and princes the foulness (as they will term it) of such practices". It was by "withdrawing such laws as may tend to the forcing of your subjects' conscience "that His Majesty might settle their minds and ensure their loyalty.' "And so upon the knees of our loyal hearts, we do humbly pray that your Highness will be graciously pleased not to give way to courses, in the general opinion of your subjects here, so hard and exorbitant, as to erect towns and corporations of places consisting of some few poor and beggarly cottages, but that your Highness will give directions that there be no more erected, till time, or traffic and commerce, do make places in the remote and unsettled countries here fit to be incorporated, and that your Majesty will benignly content yourself with the service of understanding men to come as knights of the shires out of the chief countries to the Parliament".
The six loyal Roman Catholic lords concluded their letter by saying: "And to the end to remove from your subjects' hearts those fears and discontents, that your Highness farther will be graciously pleased to give orders that the proceedings of this Parliament may be with the same moderation and indifferency as your most royal predecessors have used in like cases heretofore; wherein, moreover, if your Highness shall be pleased out of your gracious clemency to withdraw such laws as may tend to the forcing of your subjects' consciences here in matters concerning religion, you shall settle their minds in a most firm and faithful subjection ".
This letter produced no immediate result; it is said to have angered the King, who resented any opposition to his authority, and he became more resolute in the carrying out of his design. In order to stamp with his approval the measures which the Lord Deputy was taking to secure a Protestant majority, Chichester was created a peer under the title of Baron Chichester of Belfast, an honour which, the King observed, had only been deferred in order that the meeting of Parliament might give it additional lustre.
Of the 232 members returned, 125 were Protestants, 101 belonged to the Recusant or Catholic party, and 6 were absent. The Upper House consisted of 16 temporal barons, 25 Protestant prelates, 5 viscounts, and 4 earls, of whom a considerable majority belonged to the Court party. Seeing that Parliament was about to assemble, and that no action had been taken in connection with the letter of protest addressed to the King, a petition, dated 18th May, 1613, was presented to the Lord Deputy by a number of recusant lords, embodying the complaints already put forward, and further calling the Deputy's attention to the undue bias shown by returning officers and sheriffs. An unhappy reference was made when, in commenting on the presence of troops at the ceremony as a slur on their loyalty, the Roman Catholic lords protested against trie House assembling in Dublin Castle on account of its juxtaposition to the gunpowder magazine. At this Chichester flared up, and reminded the grumblers "of what religion they were of, that placed the powder in England and gave allowance to that damnable plot" (the Gunpowder Plot), "and thought the act meritorious, if it had taken effect, and would have canonized the actors".
On the very date of this petition Parliament met in Dublin Castle. All was bustle and stir in the capital of Ireland for this memorable meeting. The Government, remembering recent disturbances in the city when "the ruder part of the citizens" had driven the mayor from the tholsel and had forbidden him to repair for succour to the Lord Deputy, provided 100 foot soldiers for the protection of all parties. The recusants had repaired to the meeting accompanied by armed retinues, but all was peace without the historic building whilst all was war within.
The first trial of strength between the parties was in the election of a Speaker. Sir John Everard, member for Tipperary, who in 1607 had resigned his position as Justice of the King's Bench rather than take the oath of supremacy, was proposed by the recusants; and Sir John Davies, the Attorney-General, who had been returned for Fermanagh, by the Court party. The recusants deemed the numerical majority of their opponents to be factious and illegal, as it really was; and in the absence of the Court party in another room, for the purpose of being counted, according to the forms then in use, they placed their own candidate in the Speaker's chair, in which he was held down by Sir Daniel O'Brien of Clare and Sir William Burke of Galway.
On the return of the Court party, Sir Thomas Ridgeway, the Vice-Treasurer, who sat for Tyrone, and Sir Richard Wingfield, afterwards Viscount Powerscourt, offered to tell for both parties; and after much confusion, caused by the Opposition making by their movements the counting difficult, it was found, of a possible 232, that 127 were for Davies, and Everard was therefore called upon by Sir Oliver St. John, Master of the Ordnance, to leave the chair. This he was unable to do. Whereupon the tellers made Davies sit on his knees; and, seeing that this ludicrous proceeding had no effect upon the sedentary would-be Speaker, they pulled Everard out of the chair, tearing, it is said, his clothes by their violence. On the other hand, an eyewitness declared that " not so much as his hat was removed on their Speaker's head ".
Their Speaker, hat and all, having been ejected from his chair, the recusants left the House, William Talbot, member for Kildare, who had been removed from the Recordship of Dublin for refusing to take the oath of supremacy, shouting to be heard above the din as he left the chamber: " Those within are no House; and Sir John Everard is our Speaker, and therefore we will not join with you, but we will complain to my Lord Deputy and the King, and the King shall hear of this ". On reaching the outer door the Opposition found that, during the division, it had been locked, and Sir William Burke, with Sir Christopher Nugent, member for Westmeath, re-entered and demanded egress. Sir John Davies, who was in the Speaker's chair, courteously invited them to be seated, but they declined, and, the doors being opened, the entire party departed, stating that they would never again return.