Global Crisis
Page 127
40. HMC Third Report, 3, rough minutes taken by Vane at the meeting of the ‘committee of war’ on 5 May 1640.
41. Bruce, Notes, viii, Northumberland to Lord Conway, 5 May 1640; Adamson, The noble revolt, 552 n. 211. Elliott, ‘The year of the three ambassadors’, 175–6, describes the complex negotiations between Strafford and Spain, December 1639 – September 1640.
42. Bruce, ‘Notes’, xiii, Windebank to Conway, 26 May 1640 (‘the rendezvous is again put off till the 1st of August’); Adamson, The noble revolt, 551 n. 202, Northumberland to the earl of Leicester, 21 May 1640; Naworth, A new Almanacke for … 1642, sig. C2; CSPD 1640, 118 and 627, George Douglas to Roger Mowatt, Stepney, 5 May 1640, and Strafford to Cottington, Huntingdon, 24 Aug. 1640. CSPD 1640–1, 630, Vane to Windebank, York, 25 Aug. 1640, also lamented ‘the great rains that fell on Saturday’, hampering military operations; while CSPV 1640–2, 72, Giovanni Giustinian to Doge and Senate, 7 Sep. 1640, noted the havoc caused by ‘the rain which has recently fallen most copiously’.
43. Haig, Historical works, II, 379, written in the 1650s.
44. Adamson, The noble revolt, 47, Lord Savile to Lord Loudun, 8 July 1640, together with an erudite demonstration of the authenticity of this (and of the letter signed by Savile and six other peers) at pp. 549–51.
45. Rushworth, Historical Collections, III, 1,214–15, Petition of the Yorkshire gentry, 28 July 1640.
46. CSPD 1640–1, 15, Vane to Windebank, York, 5 Sep. 1640. Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, II, 173, Vane to Windebank, York, 11 Sep 1640, reported the king's ‘great apprehension’ concerning ‘Newcastle and the coals’ needed by London.
47. Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, II, 168–71, minutes of the council meeting, 2 Sep. 1640.
48. Gardiner, Constitutional documents, 134–5, Petition of 12 peers, 28 Aug. 1640, the same day as Newburn and the ‘humble petition’ of the Yorkshire gentry – although the peers, meeting in the earl of Bedford's house in London, of course knew of neither.
49. CSPD 1640–1, 15, Vane to Windebank, York, 5 Sep. 1640; and Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, II, 179, same to same, 14 Sep. 1640.
50. Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, II, 182, Vane to Windebank, York, 18 Sep. 1640; Rushworth, Historical Collections, III, 1,275, the king's speech on 24 Sep. 1640.
51. Hardwicke, Miscellaneous State Papers, II, 197, Vane to Windebank, York, 11 Oct. 1640.
52. Ibid., II, 193, Vane to Windebank, York, 1 Oct. 1640; Rushworth, Historical Collections, III, part 1, 11–12, the king's speech on 3 Nov. 1640; PLP, I, 63, 65 and 69.
53. Adamson, The noble revolt, 223.
54. Anon., A declaration, A4 (almost certainly by Oliver St John); page 340 above (on the minutes of 5 May 1640).
55. Knowler, The earl of Strafforde's letters, II, 416, Charles I to Strafford, 23 Apr. 1641.
56. PLP, IV, 164–5, the king's speech on 1 May 1641; Clarendon, History, 320–1, reporting his conversation with Essex on 26 Apr. 1641.
57. BL Addl. 21,935/138–9, Wallington's ‘Historical notes and meditations’ for 3 May 1641; Adamson, The noble revolt, 285–6, quoting Bishop Warner's diary (another source attributed these words to John Lilburne).
58. Adamson, The noble revolt, 288–91, quoting Pym and the earl of Stamford; Groen van Prinsterer, Archives, 2nd series, III, 459, Dutch ambassadors to the prince of Orange, 7 May 1641 OS (‘bien plus générale et horrible que n'a esté celle de la Fougade’); and 465, Sommelsdyck to Orange, 9 May 1641 (‘horible conspiration contre le parlement et la liberté bien plus grande que celle de la Fougade’).
59. Cressy, ‘The Protestation’, 266–7, 271, 273 (quotations from John Turberville and Sir John Bramston; he also prints the text). Foreign ambassadors stressed the Scottish connection: the Protestation ‘qu'ils appellent un convenant, comme en Écosse’ (Groen van Prinsterer, Archives, 2nd series, III, 444, Rivet to prince of Orange, London, 4 May 1641 OS); ‘a union exactly like the Covenant in Scotland’ (CSPV 1640–42, 148, Giustinian to Doge and Senate, London, 6 May 1641 OS).
60. Sanderson, Compleat history, 418 (James Howell, in his preface, hailed Sanderson as ‘an eye and ear witness’); Kilburn and Milton, ‘The public context’, 242, quoting Sir Philip Warwick. Hollar's remarkable engraving of the execution on 12 May 1641 is at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Execution_of_Strafford_%28State_3%29.jpg
61. CSPD 1641–3, 17, Henry Vane to Sir Thomas Roe, Whitehall, 18 June 1641; Fletcher, The outbreak, 192–9 (details on the petitions); Adamson, The noble revolt, 121–2, citing An order made to a select committee … to receive petitions (Dec. 1641) and the Commons Journals. One constituency agent claimed he had printed enough copies ‘that every man of the House might have one’ – if true, well over 500 copies: Kyle, ‘Parliament’, 94.
62. Articles of the large treaty, 48, treaty articles approved 7 Aug. 1641. PLP, VII, 231–2, lists the 53 senior appointees.
63. Marshall, A peace-offering, 45–6.
64. Perceval-Maxwell, ‘Ulster 1641’, 103, quoting the ‘Desires concerning unity in religion’ proposed by the Scottish commissioners; Gaunt, The English Civil War, 94 (from Russell's 1987 essay ‘The British Problem and the English Civil War’).
65. HMC Fourth Report, I, 164–7, sworn depositions of William Murray, Colonel Alexander Stewart and Colonel John Cochrane (quoting the bloody desire of the earl of Crawford) to a committee of the Scottish Parliament, 22–27 Oct. 1641. Colonel Stewart was absolutely clear about his willingness to murder the two noblemen, adding: ‘[This] is the custome of Germanie, where I have served, that if they sett uponn us eftir we have takin prisoners, with a greater partie, they use to kill the prisoners.’
66. Bray, Diary, IV, 78–9, Sir Edward Nicholas to Charles I, Westminster, 29 Sep. 1641, returned by Charles with marginal comments on 5 Oct. For the use of ‘little Will: Murray’ as a confidential courier, see ibid., 118, Queen Henrietta Maria to Nicholas, 10 Nov. 1641.
67. Adamson, The noble revolt, 394, Nicholas to Vane, 9 Oct. 1641 (Adamson notes the significance of the plural ‘dominions’, with the implication that the king intended to punish his enemies in England and Ireland too). Bray, Diary, IV, 86, Nicholas to Charles I, 11 Oct. 1641, stated that he had received ‘Your Majestie's commaunds by apostile of the 5th present’ on ‘Satterday last’, that is, 9 Oct.
68. Adamson, The noble revolt, 405, Endymion Porter to Nicholas, 19 Oct. 1641.
69. Bray, Diary, IV, 76 and 79, Nicholas to Charles I, 27 and 29 Sep. 1641.
70. TCD Ms 839/135, deposition of Mulrany Carroll, Co Donegal, 26 Apr. 1643.
71. Ohlmeyer, ‘The “Antrim Plot” of 1641: a rejoinder’, 434–7, printing Antrim's ‘Information’ in May 1650. The veracity of the earl's evidence, which deeply compromised Charles, has been hotly disputed ever since. See the summary of the debate in Lamont, ‘Richard Baxter’, 345–7, which confirms Professor Ohlmeyer's deduction that Antrim did not lie.
72. Gillespie, ‘Destabilizing Ulster’, 111, Edward Chichester to Ormond, May 1641; TCD Ms 838/30–1, deposition of Donnell Gorme McDonnell, gentleman, 11 Mar. 1653.
73. TCD Ms 809/14, Examination of Owen Connolly, 22 Oct. 1641. See similar quotes in ch. 19 below.
74. Gilbert, History of the Irish Confederation, I, 8–9 (who also records that the Justices received a warning even earlier but did not believe it); TCD 809/13v, examination of Connolly, 22 Oct. 1641. See also the sanitized account of the ‘discovery’ of the plot in HMC Ormonde, n.s. II, 1–3, Lords Justices to earl of Leicester, 25 Oct. 1641. Clarke, Old English, 161 n. 1, notes that Connolly's story is full of inconsistencies and contradictions, and speculates that they stemmed from his anxiety to conceal the extent of his own involvement. In 1659 a mere 30–40 conspirators captured Dublin Castle (ch. 12 below), which shows what a few men could achieve.
75. TCD Ms 816/133v, deposition of Roger Puttocke, 1 Mar. 1642; and Ms 834/92v deposition of Richard Grave, 25 Oct. 1641 (thus only two days after
the events he described). Canny, Making, 469–70, gives an excellent account of the capture of the Ulster forts, and his maps at pp. 479 and 504 show the progress of the rising. Although the outbreak of rebellion may seem somewhat haphazard, the similar behaviour of plotters in different areas reveals considerable coordination: Perceval-Maxwell, The outbreak, 253.
76. BL Harl Ms. 5,999/29v, ‘Discourse’ by Henry Jones and others who compiled the depositions, Nov. 1643.
77. I have chosen depositions that give first-person testimony: TCD Ms 839/14v, John Kerdiff, Co. Tyrone, 28 Feb. 1642; Ms 833/28v, Dorcas Iremonger, Co. Cavan, 22 Mar. 1642; Ms 821/42v, Gilbert Johnstone, Tipperary, 20 Feb. 1643. See also Ms 817/35, deposition of Rev. Emanuell Beale, Queen's county, 11 Apr. 1642: the Catholics ‘had no pittie upon poore Englishe people’ and ‘stript an infinite number of women and children, in the cold, which have died through the same’.
78. Clarke, ‘The 1641 depositions’, 113, estimated that one-fifth of all depositions mentioned settlers who died in 1641 through privation while another one-fifth mentioned those who died by violence. His subsequent research suggests that the weather killed more settlers than did the rebels (personal communication, July 2004). Corish, ‘The rising of 1641’, 291, argued that exposure to the weather killed twice as many Protestants as did the rebels.
79. TCD Ms 837/12–13, deposition of Thomas Richardson, Co. Down, 13 June 1642. (Hickson, Ireland, I, 312, prints this document with the wrong date, the wrong profession – she read ‘taylor’ instead of ‘saylor’ – and several errors of transcription.)
80. Castlehaven, Memoirs, 28–9; HMC Ormonde, n.s, II, 251–2, Lords Justices to Charles I, 16 Mar. 1643. Canny, Making, 488–91, 496–7, 520–4 and 527–8, and Perceval-Maxwell, The outbreak, 230–1, discuss the role of priests and friars in encouraging violence against the Protestants. ó Siochrú, ‘Atrocity’, details Protestant violence against Catholics.
81. TCD Ms, 830/41–2, deposition of Anthony Stephens, 25 June 1646.
82. Corish, ‘The rising of 1641’, 291–2; ó Siochrú, ‘Atrocity’, 59–60. TCD Ms, 809/8v and 10v, deposition of Archdeacon Robert Maxwell, 22 Aug. 1642, twice mentioned the figure ‘154,000’; and the Lords Justices repeated it in March 1643 (Bradshaw, Hadfield and Maley, Representing Ireland, xx and 192–3). See also ch. 12 below.
83. Bray, Diary, IV, 97, Nicholas to Charles I, 25 Oct. 1641, with royal postscript dated 30th; TCD Ms 835/158, deposition of John Right, Co. Fermanagh, 5 Jan. 1642. Hickson, Ireland, I, 114–15, prints O'Neill's alleged royal commission, dated Edinburgh, 1 Oct. 1641, and the depositions she printed at pp. 169–73 and 188–9 reveal how well the forgery worked.
84. Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 228–40, the Remonstrance presented to the king on 11 Dec. 1641. Adamson, The noble revolt, 387, records the first reference to ‘King Pym’ in early October 1641; and at p. 443 notes that the title Grand Remonstrance dates from the nineteenth century.
85. Nalson, An impartial collection, II, 668, speech by Sir Edward Dering, 22 Nov. 1641.
86. Details from letters calendared in CSPD 1641–43, 215–17. See also Pearl, London, ch. 4.
87. Catherine Macaulay, History, III, 150, printed the queen's high words but gave no source – however, since Henrietta Maria would later threaten to enter a convent unless her husband failed to do what she said (page 356 above), this outburst seems plausible. In a note, Macaulay added that the countess of Carlisle overheard the exchange and sent a warning to the House and again gave no source – but this time one of the ‘Five Members’, Sir Arthur Haselrig, himself confirmed the story and provided details of his narrow escape: Rutt, Diary of Thomas Burton, III, 93, Haselrig's speech on 7 Feb. 1659 (as quoted in the text).
88. Gardiner, History, X, ch. 103, produces a masterly account of these events in the course of which he wonders why Charles did not ‘attempt to seize [the five members] in their beds, as the French parliamentary leaders were seized in 1851’ – concluding that, first, Charles wanted ‘to preserve the appearance of legality’ and, second, that ‘it was not in his character to expect a persistent refusal’ (pp. 134–5).
89. CSPD 1641–3, 240–2, Thomas Wiseman and Robert Slingsby (one of the ‘swordsmen’ who entered the Commons) to Pennington, 6 Jan. 1642; Cressy, England on edge, 393, quoting John Dillingham. The Venetian ambassador commented on the ‘constant bad weather’: CSPV 1640–2, 269 and 276, letters of 3 and 17 Jan. 1642. Without Lady Carlisle's message, Charles would have found his ‘birds’ in the chamber and his armed entourage (which far outnumbered the MPs) would doubtless have tried to remove them by force. Since the MPs carried their swords in the chamber and since, given the rumours of a coup, some may also have come with concealed firearms, it is hard to see how the day could have ended without bloodshed in the Palace of Westminster.
90. BL Addl. 21,935/162, Wallington; Cressy, England on edge, 396, quoting Ellis Coleman; and Groen van Prinsterer, Archives, 2nd series, IV, 7, Heenvliet to Orange, London, 19 Jan. 1642 OS, relating an extremely indiscreet audience given by the queen the previous day.
91. Churchill, The World Crisis, 274 (on the escape of the Goeben, but adding that the same ‘sinister fatality’ would later ‘dog’ the Dardanelles campaign); Adamson, The noble revolt, 503, echoing and citing Russell, Causes, 10.
92. My argument contradicts Kishlansky, ‘Charles I’, who seems to me to select examples from England (and to a lesser extent, Scotland) that show the king in a favourable light. He entirely ignores Charles's Irish initiatives. No doubt Kishlansky will object that almost all my examples come from Scotland and Ireland, the countries that first rebelled. I plead guilty as charged.
93. Russell, The Fall, 524.
94. Sharpe, Personal rule, 183; Scott and Bliss, The works, V, pt 2, 317–70, prints Laud's accounts and royal apostils (quotations from pp. 319, 348 and 337); Donaldson, The making, 44–7.
95. The last sentence of James I, His Maiesties speech (1607), sig. Hv.
96. Clarendon, History, 567–8, Green, The letters, 65 (early May), 68–9 (11 May), and 80 (30 May 1642) – three rebukes written within a single month. Did any other early modern monarch endure such constant criticism?
97. Manchester's deputy, Oliver Cromwell, angrily retorted: ‘My lord, if this be so, why did we take up arms at first? This is against fighting ever hereafter. If so, let us make peace, be it never so base.’ Events would show that the earl was right. Woolrych, Britain in Revolution, 291, reconstructs the exchange from two later recollections.
98. Sharpe, Personal rule, 930; Braddick, God's fury, 42 and 95. On ‘guilty as charged’, see page 341 above.
99. Shagan, ‘Constructing discord’, is eloquent on this point. The Armada veteran in 1640 was Lord Mulgrave.
100. Burnet, Memoirs, 203, Charles to Hamilton, Dec. 1642.
101. Gardiner, The Hamilton papers, 6, Hamilton to Charles, Dalkeith, 7 June 1638. On the need for a ‘willingness to wink’ among seventeenth-century rulers, see ch. 2 above.
102. Wharton, History, 47, Laud's diary entry for 2 Dec. 1632: ‘The small pox appeared upon his Majesty; but God be thanked, he had a very gentle disease of it.’
Chapter 12 Britain and Ireland from Civil War to Revolution, 1642–89
1. Rushworth, Historical Collections the fourth and last part, II, 1,397, the ‘charge’ read by John Cook; Hill quoted page xxvii above.
2. Balfour, Historical works, III, 409; Gilbert, History of the Irish Confederation, VI, 270–1; Anon., A bloudy fight, 8; Lenihan, ‘War and population’, 8, quoting Colonel Richard Lawrence in 1655, and 1, quoting Seán Ó Conaill, ‘Tuireamh na hÉireann’, a poem written between 1655 and 1659.
3. Bennett, Civil Wars, 363. Other data from Gentles, The English Revolution, 435–56; Aylmer, Rebellion or revolution?, 71; Porter, Destruction, 65–6; and Wheeler, Making, chs 6–8.
4. Morrill, Cheshire, 28–9, 108–9
5. Gentles, The English Revolution, 437; Plumb, Growth, 1.
6. Walter, Understanding, 20
1, the ‘Humble petition’ of Essex, 20 Jan. 1642 OS; Clifton, ‘The popular fear’, 29–31, lists the panics that occurred over the winter of 1641–2.
7. Aidan Clarke calculates that Jones's Remonstrance cited 78 of the 637 depositions then available. Orihel, ‘“A presse”’, 129–37, lists pamphlets published in England between Nov. 1641 and Aug. 1642 that dealt with Ireland.
8. Baxter, Holy commonwealth (1659), 472–3 and 478–9 (explicitly citing ‘the Examinations by the Irish Justices’, and notably the exaggerated figure given by Archdeacon Robert Maxwell in his deposition: page 352 above); Lamont, ‘Richard Baxter’, 347–8, quoting Baxter's Memoirs.
9. Walter, Understanding, 319–20, on the Essex petition, and 325–6, on Stephen Marshall, Meroz Cursed (London 1642, on Judges 5:23), preached some 60 times as well as circulating widely in print. For a demonstration by women demanding measures to end unemployment two weeks before, and the use made of it by parliamentary leaders, see Pearl, London, 226–7.
10. Russell, Fall, 496, quoting Henry Wilmot.
11. Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 244–7 and 21–3, prints the Nineteen Propositions (1 June 1642) and the king's response (18 June).
12. Walter, Understanding popular violence, 18, quoting Ephrain Udall, The good of peace and the ill of warre, and Smith, ‘Catholic’, 119, Lord Dorset to the countess of Middlesex, Aug. 1642. Jack Straw was another leader of the 1381 revolt; Robert Kett had led the Norfolk rebels in 1549.
13. Kenyon, Stuart Constitution, 194, marginal comment of the king on a letter in Nov. 1641; Russell, Fall, 437, quoting the reaction of some Kentishmen to the proclamation of 10 Dec.; Walter, Understanding popular violence, 129, instructions.