I

Wandesford and Wentworth were distantly related but their relationship strengthened throughout the English parliaments of the 1620s, where they became close allies.Footnote ⁹ Wandesford sat as MP for the Yorkshire constituencies of Richmond in the parliaments of 1625 and 1626 and Thirsk in 1628.Footnote ¹⁰ He played a significant role in the 1626 parliament when Wentworth was unable to sit, having been chosen as sheriff in 1625 which prevented him standing for election.Footnote ¹¹ In Wentworth’s absence, Wandesford was involved in the parliamentary attack on the king’s favourite (George Villiers, the duke of Buckingham) and led the committee investigating the charge of corruption against him. On 28 April 1626, Wandesford presented the shocking charge that Buckingham had poisoned James I.Footnote ¹² There are glimpses of Wandesford’s political views in the second half of the 1620s in letters he wrote to Wentworth, and he believed that a middle way to navigate political life was essential. During Wentworth’s imprisonment for refusing to pay the forced loan in 1627, Wandesford described his view that the government is fearful of ‘perverse and croked’ liberty which arises from the people which needs to be ‘chandged into the obedience and dewtye of a natural suiect’. He argued that ‘itt is no tyme nowe to playe at sharpe with the Crowne’,Footnote ¹³ perhaps reflecting on his radical actions in the parliament of 1626 and now considering a moderate course. In January 1628, Wandesford reflected on divisions between members of parliament, and between king and parliament, writing: ‘if there be a dislocation betwixt one member and another, much more betwixt the head and the member; the weaker must be drawen up to the stronger, or else they will never be ioyned and confirmed together.’Footnote ¹⁴ Wandesford’s letters also provide insight into his strong anti-Catholic attitudes. When Wentworth was appointed as lord president of the Council of the North in December 1628, Wandesford was delighted that the Catholics’ ‘Days of Security and Quietness … must now be turned into Anxiety and Watchfulness’.Footnote ¹⁵

Historians have debated whether Wentworth’s appointment represented a ‘change of sides’, from parliamentary champion to court supporter, also becoming a member of the English privy council in November 1629.Footnote ¹⁶ Wandesford may similarly have shifted position, from leading a parliamentary attack against Buckingham to performing minor administrative roles for the crown. Wandesford lost his post of commissioner of the peace after his involvement in the impeachment attempt on Buckingham, but Wentworth facilitated his reappointment, and he also gained the position of deputy bailiff of Richmondshire and deputy constable of Richmond and Middleham Castle, chief seneschal of the manor of Ripon, and an appointment to the royal commission to investigate fees and new offices. He was also offered the ambassadorship to Spain but turned this down, believing that his anti-Catholic views made him unsuitable for the post.Footnote ¹⁷ Hinting at the proximity of their relationship, Wandesford wrote that he was in Wentworth’s hands to ‘mould me what forme you please’.Footnote ¹⁸ Since the records of the Council of the North are lost and the Strafford papers provide few opportunities to consider the work of the council under Wentworth’s lord presidency,Footnote ¹⁹ it is difficult to determine the role Wandesford played.Footnote ²⁰ However, an undated account of a council meeting at Sir Arthur Ingram’s house, in which Wandesford, Radcliffe, Ingram, Sir William Ellis and Sir John Lowther discussed where and when decrees against Sir Conyers Darcy should be read, suggests that Wandesford was given considerable power in Wentworth’s absence.Footnote ²¹ Darcy and Thomas Belasyse, baron Fauconberg, who had a long-standing feud with Wentworth, plotted to undermine the lord president’s government in the north, petitioning the king in 1630 to charge Wentworth with injustice.Footnote ²² The council meeting deteriorated into an argument over whether the vice-president, Sir Edward Osborne, should hear the judgement of the council. Suggesting the authority vested in him, Wandesford stated: ‘you say I am in my lords place I am therefor imagin[ing] what he would doe if he were p[re]sent.’ Ingram felt his power was being undermined and ‘clapping his hands upon the table’, stormed out ‘into the garden in a greate radge’. Wandesford ordered Ingram to return to the meeting so that it could be concluded.Footnote ²³ This glimpse into Wandesford’s participation shows that he was involved in the Council of the North, but also enables comparison between Wentworth and Wandesford’s approaches. Mark Empey highlights Wentworth’s dominance over the councillors; in contrast, Wandesford made multiple attempts to keep control within this council meeting, before resorting to warning of ‘the danger of incurring the wrath of the lord president’.Footnote ²⁴ Wandesford’s ability to stand in for Wentworth was stymied by his less dominant personality and position as the representative of the king’s representative, diminishing his authority. Wentworth’s vice-president of the Council of the North experienced similar issues. As Fiona Pogson highlights, Osborne’s letters to Wentworth outline ‘his inability to make council members accept his authority and show due respect to his position’.Footnote ²⁵ These problems were to re-emerge for Wentworth’s other deputy Wandesford, but this time in Ireland.

Wandesford also proved useful in carrying messages and protecting Wentworth’s relations with important figures at court. For example, in September 1632, Wandesford reported that he had presented the lord deputy’s service to James Hay, the earl of Carlisle, and attended upon William Laud, then the bishop of London.Footnote ²⁶ Wandesford also reported on rumours that might threaten Wentworth’s position, such as claims that he was pursuing the lord treasurership in October 1632. This led to Wentworth writing to Lord Treasurer Weston professing that ‘since I had the Honour to serve his Majesty, Calumny and Mis-report have been my Portions’.Footnote ²⁷ Wentworth knew the dangers of being distant from the seat of power and how ‘malicious rumours at court’ could lead to the downfall of officeholders, as Empey noted.Footnote ²⁸ Wandesford’s function as Wentworth’s news reporter was recognised by Francis Cottington, chancellor of the exchequer, writing to Wentworth in November 1632 that he would leave the news of ‘All other Business … to the Pens of Mr Wandesford and Mr Radcliffe’ who would provide him with a ‘perfect Account of every particular’.Footnote ²⁹ These activities, along with his role in the Council of the North, prepared Wandesford to support Wentworth when he secured his next promotion.Footnote ³⁰

II

Wentworth’s rise continued, becoming lord deputy of Ireland in January 1632. Before arriving in Ireland eighteen months later, he spent time working out his Irish policy, gathering together a team of trusted men including Wandesford and negotiating the right to appoint his preferred nominees to crown offices.Footnote ³¹ Wandesford was created master of the rolls (a post left vacant on the death of Francis Aungier in 1632 and which the earl of Cork recorded in his diary that he wrote to Wentworth to suggest ‘Mr Ratcliff might succeed in that office’)Footnote ³² and a privy councillor in May 1633.Footnote ³³ Ciaran Brady notes that although the lord deputies in Ireland were still required to meet and consult with the Irish privy council, ‘the discretionary nature of such an obligation’ became apparent due to the Crown’s concession that Wentworth could consult with a select group of handpicked men.Footnote ³⁴ Wentworth wrote to Lord Treasurer Weston, describing the Irish privy council as ‘a Company of Men the most intent upon their own Ends that ever I met with’ and used this to justify the inclusion of his own group of trusted supporters, which became an ‘inner’ privy council to which Wandesford was essential.Footnote ³⁵

The office of the master of the rolls was established in Ireland during Henry VIII’s reign as part of a ‘programme of assimilation through reconciliation’, with an Irish parliament playing an integral role. English political structures that were required as part of the process of summoning parliament, such as chancery, counties and local officers like sheriffs and chief officers, were established in Ireland, along with institutions needed to execute the decisions of parliament, including courts and the office of the master of the rolls.Footnote ³⁶ Creating Wandesford master of the rolls, therefore, gave him a senior judicial office within Irish government, providing the administration with a check on the Irish chancery process and the guardianship of chancery records. Rather than this post being simply a sinecure, Wandesford devoted himself to his duties, performing them ‘efficiently, capably and somewhat too impartially for the powerful nobles who appeared before him’, ensuring large fees were paid to the office.Footnote ³⁷ His biographer, Thomas Comber, suggested that Wandesford invested his own money into the office, funding a new building after learning that an earlier fire had destroyed many rolls.Footnote ³⁸ By the end of 1634 when his family joined him in Ireland, Wandesford had reformed the administration of the rolls office, posting up a table of fees and fining and dismissing a clerk who was found guilty of extortion.Footnote ³⁹ Wandesford also profited personally from his office. Richard Boyle, the earl of Cork, recorded in his diary on 9 July 1636 that in lieu of the enrolment fees for his daughter’s jointure and the ‘Lymittacons and Remaynders of all my lands in Ireland’, he gave Wandesford ‘my own saddle gelding’.Footnote ⁴⁰

From the outset, Wentworth emphasised the ceremonial role to his deputyship to augment his position as the king’s representative in Ireland. Arguably, this caused problems for Wandesford when acting as Wentworth’s deputy, as he was unable to exert the same authority as the king’s chosen representative. Although previous lord deputies had employed rituals with ‘monarchical connotations’ to establish their position, Wentworth utilised a ‘more sophisticated ritual strategy’ to articulate his viceregal status, as well as ‘an ambitious public building programme’.Footnote ⁴¹ Wentworth also built Jigginstown House, claiming it was for the king’s use, though its layout was ambiguous as Wentworth ‘did not know whether he would live in it as the king’s guest, or as his host’.Footnote ⁴² Jane Fenlon argues it would serve as royal accommodation and a family home for Wentworth when not needed by the king, with such buildings fitting the position of the lord deputy.Footnote ⁴³ Brendan Kane suggests that Jigginstown was also intended to ‘overawe the locals as a physical embodiment of the Deputy’s official and social pre-eminence’,Footnote ⁴⁴ as well as signalling royal support for his policies. However, Wentworth was also accused of self-aggrandisement for his own benefit, rather than that of the king. James Howell, a former secretary of the Council of the North under Wentworth’s predecessor Lord Scrope, informed his correspondent Mr Jackson in March 1638 that ‘the Lord Deputy kings it notably in Ireland’.Footnote ⁴⁵ Wentworth was aware he could be undermined when absent from the English court and relied on his position as the king’s chosen representative to bolster his position. However, as Wandesford was one step further removed from being the king’s direct representative, he found it more difficult to reinforce his pre-eminence when deputising for Wentworth.

Wentworth emphasised his position as the king’s representative as soon as he arrived in Ireland on 23 July 1633, meeting with the lords justices and the Irish privy council in the council chamber of Dublin Castle that afternoon to mark the transference of power.Footnote ⁴⁶ Wandesford read the king’s commission to Wentworth, having been sworn in as master of the rolls the day before.Footnote ⁴⁷ Wentworth also used the occasion to swear Wandesford into the privy council, thus publicly signalling his importance to Wentworth’s deputyship.Footnote ⁴⁸ Julia Merritt suggests that due to his distrust of the Irish privy council and their motives, Wentworth ‘kept his own counsel secret and revealed his intentions to virtually no one’.Footnote ⁴⁹ Wandesford’s role on the Irish privy council was to support Wentworth’s agenda and balance opposition to the administration amongst the councillors.

Wentworth’s initial dealings with the Irish privy council were challenging. Brady argues that Wentworth was playing a political game allowing the privy councillors to debate the issue of revenue raising, whilst intending from the start to call parliament.Footnote ⁵⁰ New English members of the council believed that imposing recusancy fines was the best way to deal with the £20,000 deficit for the financial year 1633–4 as well as being a suitable long-term policy.Footnote ⁵¹ Wentworth reported in his correspondence that Radcliffe had advised him against this, believing it would exacerbate divisions within Ireland and make it harder to manage any future parliament as it would be ‘subject to misconstruction’.Footnote ⁵² In light of these divisions and to further reinforce his own position, Wentworth requested additional powers from the king, asking that the Irish privy council be ordered to follow the same conduct rules as the English privy council, that ‘their Speech may not be directed one to another but only to the Deputy’ and that councillors must attend meetings.Footnote ⁵³ This protocol would reinforce his authority as lord deputy and help him to maintain control over the council. However, emphasising himself as the king’s representative would store up trouble for the future when Wandesford was required to stand in as the ‘deputy’s deputy’.

III

Preparing for and managing the Irish parliament of 1634–5 was the most important concern for Wentworth’s administration from the outset. Wentworth informed the English secretary of state, Sir John Coke, that the decision to hold parliament was to be given careful consideration with Wandesford and Radcliffe.Footnote ⁵⁴ The preparations were extremely time-consuming, Wandesford explaining to his son-in-law Thomas Danby the month before parliament met that Wentworth ‘hath not spent 3 houres together in his private affayres’.Footnote ⁵⁵ The work was exacerbated by the differences between the English and Irish parliaments, underpinned by Poynings’ Law of 1494, which meant that the Irish parliament was not able to initiate legislation. The king could not call a parliament in Ireland himself, as this was a right afforded to the governor of Ireland on his appointment; however, the lord deputy could not announce its summoning or issue writs for elections, before he had received the commission from the king and English privy council. The 1634 commission allowed prorogation but also stated that parliament would end if the subsidy act had not been passed within a few weeks of meeting.Footnote ⁵⁶ The administration’s law officers prepared drafts of legislation or oversaw privy councillors’ preparations of bills. The Irish administration then sent the bills to the king and English privy council for approval; the solicitor-general provided legal advice and the wider privy council would highlight political concerns. If the king approved, the bill was engrossed under the great seal of England and returned to the Irish administration. If the Irish administration accepted any changes made to the bill, it was then submitted to the Irish parliament for approval. This was a lengthy process and if further changes to the bill were made in Ireland, it then had to be returned to the English government for approval.Footnote ⁵⁷ Prior to Wentworth’s administration, Poynings’ Law was understood to curb the power of the Irish administration and was supported by parliament. However, R. Dudley Edwards and T. W. Moody, and later Aidan Clarke, showed that Wentworth manipulated its function to bolster his executive power and reduce that of parliament. Clarke argued that this was ‘revolutionary’ and ‘used to empower the government to regulate the proceedings of parliament in minute detail’.Footnote ⁵⁸ Wentworth employed two methods of control through his interpretation of Poynings’ Law. First, parliament could not do anything without royal assent and, secondly, parliament could only communicate with the king and privy council in England via the Irish administration. This left parliament with one remaining power: to withhold their consent from bills put before it. However, even this was overridden when Wentworth passed bills which they had rejected as an act of state (such as the Gunpowder Bill) and suggested that he would do this for other rejected bills after parliament had sat.Footnote ⁵⁹ These measures of control reduced the trepidation with which Irish parliaments were usually approached by the crown. In addition, as Bríd McGrath argues, Wentworth saw parliament ‘as an instrument of state, not as a possible partner in government’, setting the tone for his handling of parliamentary relations. Parliament was prepared to work with the administration in an ‘atmosphere of cooperation’, but this was not ‘recognised, appreciated or reciprocated’.Footnote ⁶⁰

Wentworth’s approach to subduing the role of parliament was also prompted by the Catholics’ expectation of the granting of the Graces in the parliament of 1634–5. This was a series of reforms agreed in 1628 by Irish delegates and the king at Whitehall, which would allow loyal Catholics to engage fully in public life, in return for their grant of £120,000 to the king.Footnote ⁶¹ However, Wentworth was aware that these concessions would hinder his intended plantation policy and, therefore, had no intention of allowing them to pass into law. Wentworth’s administration approached parliament with the full intention of manipulating it to their own ends.

A well-run parliament could also reinforce Wentworth’s position as lord deputy. Shaw notes that ‘parliaments were ripe occasions for viceroys with monarchical pretentions to play out their fantasies’ and Wentworth’s emphasis on ritual and ceremony supports this.Footnote ⁶² However, as Kane points out, Wentworth also placed great importance on the honour of the position of viceroy, visible in his approach to the office of lord president of the Council of the North and then in his Irish administration.Footnote ⁶³ Wentworth’s presence in Ireland during the 1634–5 parliament meant that the administration’s agenda was carried out fairly successfully. His opening speech to parliament on 15 July 1634 stated that the primary purpose was to raise supply for the king, and a second session for consideration of proposals and grievances would only occur if this was accomplished. Wentworth made it clear that parliaments had no right to influence government policy or control state administration,Footnote ⁶⁴ outlining his interpretation of Poynings’ Law to subdue the Irish parliament. In 1640 when Wandesford was lord deputy in Wentworth’s absence, he struggled to assert his authority over parliament. This was partly due to his less forceful personality but also as he was the proxy for the king’s representative. Wentworth’s crafting of this authority through ritual and ceremony, and through the careful application of his take on Poynings’ Law, prevented Wandesford from easily stepping into his shoes.

Another way of controlling parliament was by packing it with supporters of Wentworth’s agenda. Hugh Kearney argued that Wentworth’s success was patchy, with some of his candidates elected but in other places rejected.Footnote ⁶⁵ As Wentworth had only recently arrived in Ireland and, therefore, lacked ‘local connections’, he was reliant on privy councillors to ‘exert their influence especially for his own associates, who had no connections with Ireland, and, more especially, with any constituency’. Nonetheless, Wandesford secured a seat for the borough of Kildare, probably through the influence of Richard Boyle, the earl of Cork, or his son-in-law George Fitzgerald, Lord Kildare.Footnote ⁶⁶ However, it was as master of the rolls that Wandesford first played a prominent role in an Irish parliamentary setting; at the official opening of the House of Lords on 14 July 1634, Wandesford read the king’s commission for holding the Irish parliament.Footnote ⁶⁷

The first session of parliament sat for only eighteen days (14 July–2 August 1634) and focused on raising supply for the king as determined by the royal commissions to summon parliament.Footnote ⁶⁸ Wandesford was nominated to the committee for privilege, the committee for grievances, a committee to discuss when the next session of parliament should be held (of which Wandesford was also nominated speaker) and the committee to prepare the petition of Graces and present it to the lord deputy. Wandesford, along with Radcliffe and Wentworth’s secretary Sir Philip Mainwaring, was also part of the committee concerned with the book of orders which recorded the activities of the House.Footnote ⁶⁹ Coleman Dennehy demonstrated that Irish parliaments selected committee members to ‘supervise entries into the journals’ which were later used as ‘a source of precedent for privilege cases’.Footnote ⁷⁰ It was useful for Wentworth’s men to keep a close eye on the parliamentary record and Wandesford appeared in committees for each of the sessions of the 1634–5 parliament to oversee the book of orders.Footnote ⁷¹ Wandesford repeatedly sat on committees discussing supply and settling the king’s debt, reflecting the importance of this issue.Footnote ⁷² He was also involved in the committee ‘for drawing and perusing of such Acts as are necessary to be transmitted into England’ on 28 July 1634.Footnote ⁷³ Having Wandesford and other members of his cabal closely involved in these committees provided Wentworth with information about problems before issues became difficult to tackle. Dermot B. Fenlon argues that the Commons appeared to be ‘fairly pliant, with both Protestants and Catholics competing for the Deputy’s favour’.Footnote ⁷⁴ Reflecting on the first session of parliament, Wandesford reported to Thomas Danby that ‘In parlament all things succeded well and I hope the whole kingdome will receive satisfaction in all things concerning the goverment’.Footnote ⁷⁵

In the second session of parliament, however, MPs were less accommodating. Catholic MPs expected the Graces to be enacted and on 11 November, the Commons demanded Wentworth’s answer. On 27 November, Wentworth presented his decision, rejecting those Graces which would give the Old English security of their lands.Footnote ⁷⁶ As a result, the Commons became harder for the administration to handle, and the government needed to find ways to reinforce its status. Wentworth wrote to Secretary Coke on 16 December 1634, describing the openly oppositional stance of some of the members. He reported that he had asked the privy councillors to ensure that their associates were not absent from parliament so that he could rebuild the Protestant majority and regain control.Footnote ⁷⁷ In the third and final session from January to April 1635, discontent continued, particularly in relation to Wentworth’s changes to supply where he required each county to be assessed according to its wealth. Parliament was dissolved by order of the king, leaving Wentworth contemplating a plan to ensure the continuation of a Protestant majority in parliament, by disenfranchising some boroughs returning Catholic members.Footnote ⁷⁸

IV

Wandesford first deputised for Wentworth as a lord justice in summer 1636, alongside the lord chancellor, Viscount Adam Loftus; Wentworth had been called to England by the king.Footnote ⁷⁹ Wandesford hoped to return to England too, but informed his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Danby: ‘it is his l[ordshi]ps pleasure and the infinite grace of his Ma[jes]ty to give me an Imployment here, far beyond my meritt, of great honor.’Footnote ⁸⁰ Wandesford felt the pressure of this enormous responsibility and sought advice from Wentworth to ensure his policies were thoroughly enacted. Wentworth wrote a lengthy letter to Wandesford from England on 25 July 1636, with detailed responses to his deputy’s concerns in several letters, from how to deal with Wentworth’s political adversaries, granting church livings, issues relating to the plantation policy, the army and trade, to more personal matters such as purchasing land in Ireland and appointing Wandesford’s secretary Cadogan. Wentworth declared he had ‘acquitted myself to every syllable of the letters you have writ me’, then described his meeting with the king, comparing the state of the Church, army, revenue, justice and trade in Ireland on his arrival with the improvements he claimed to have made.Footnote ⁸¹

Wentworth profited personally from his time in Ireland, and this extended to those close to him. For example, Radcliffe had significant lands in Sligo and was involved in the tobacco monopoly with Wentworth, in which Wandesford invested £1,500.Footnote ⁸² The plantation policy offered much opportunity for self-enrichment. This developed out of Henry VIII’s policy of taking church lands and declaring them crown property, leading to the concept of plantation by which land could be granted to settlers once the crown had proven its ownership of the land title.Footnote ⁸³ The scheme granted crown-owned lands in Ireland to English settlers who, it was believed, would bring stability, Protestantism and increased revenue to Ireland.Footnote ⁸⁴ In June 1634, Charles I ordered the Commission of Defective Titles, which included Wandesford, to investigate whether Irish landholders could prove their ownership. A warrant instructed the keeper of the king’s records in Bermingham Tower, Dublin Castle’s record office, to deliver all records and charters relating to Idough in County Carlow to the master of the rolls.Footnote ⁸⁵ Wandesford’s purchase of land that had been processed by the commission could easily be interpreted as corruption. Indeed, whilst Wentworth was in England in 1636, he wrote to Wandesford urging him to be as transparent as possible in his purchase of Idough, advising him to do nothing without the order of the Irish council and if possible, to wait until Wentworth’s return to Ireland, ‘lest it be objected that you were both Judge and Party’.Footnote ⁸⁶ This was decidedly dangerous territory as the plantation policy had already attracted opposition within the 1634–5 parliament.

Wandesford initially purchased land in County Kildare from the earl of Kildare, but relinquished it to Wentworth when he decided to build Jigginstown near Naas.Footnote ⁸⁷ Wandesford next chose Idough, owned by James Butler, earl of Ormond. He was amenable to the plantation of his lands, hoping to settle his debts, but also as he faced tensions with his tenants, who disliked his association with Wentworth’s administration and neglect of his lands.Footnote ⁸⁸ However, the native Irish owners of the land, the O’Brennans and Ormond’s uncle, Richard Butler, Lord Mountgarret, opposed it, although the latter was convinced to pass his lands under the Commission for Defective Titles.Footnote ⁸⁹ The O’Brennans continued to refuse the king’s title and a court of inquisition at Kilkenny in May 1635 ordered their removal from the land.Footnote ⁹⁰ The earl of Arundel also claimed the land through descent from Strongbow’s daughter,Footnote ⁹¹ with the O’Brennans backing him after he promised protection,Footnote ⁹² but his claim was ultimately dismissed.Footnote ⁹³

By leading the Commission of Defective Titles that awarded the Ormond lands to the king, Wandesford risked charges of corruption, yet he was willing to bend the rules for his own profit. Despite the king’s dubious claim, the commission ruled in his favour, declared that the current occupants were living on the land illegally and designated the earl of Ormond and Robert Ridgeway, the earl of Londonderry, as the king’s tenants. Wandesford and Radcliffe had already pre-empted the reallocation of the king’s title by securing a lease from Ridgeway for the Idough ironworks.Footnote ⁹⁴ Wandesford wanted to manufacture iron pots, used in the production of iron ordnance. He sought permission from the monopolist Mr Brown to do so in Ireland, agreeing to pay £4,000 annually for the right to produce up to 2,500 pots.Footnote ⁹⁵ Idough was subsequently granted to Sir Charles Coote and Wandesford, and later to Wandesford alone.Footnote ⁹⁶ His plantation at Castlecomer provides evidence that he profited at the expense of the Irish.Footnote ⁹⁷ Though his letters to Ormond stressed ‘justice and reason’ and the king’s right to the land, both his will dated October 1640 and his book of advice to his son, urging him that ‘conscience is not acquitted till restitution is made’, suggest misgivings about the dispossessed O’Brennans.Footnote ⁹⁸

V

Although Wentworth’s team sought to portray the 1634–5 parliament as a success, the 1640 sessions of the 1640–8 parliament quickly exposed the fragility of his administration, particularly when it was left largely to Wentworth’s deputy rather than the king’s direct representative. Although by the late 1630s the administration had created ‘a political base and a greater knowledge of Ireland’, with privy councillors who ‘accepted their total dominance’,Footnote ⁹⁹ discontent over Wentworth’s financial and plantation policies erupted in parliament in 1640. Crucially, for much of 1640, the king’s chosen representative, Wentworth, was absent. Recalled to England by Charles I in 1639 to assist with the Bishops’ Wars in Scotland, he attended just the first session of the Irish parliament in March, before leaving shortly after, never to return. Wentworth’s emphasis on the lord deputy’s power being ‘respected as tantamount to the true king’s in London’ was an illusion, but as Shaw argues, it was ‘a necessary one, because the administration in Dublin was an unstable oligarchy and the viceroy’s standing was precarious’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ If Wentworth’s position was difficult, Wandesford found it even more challenging, as he was further removed from the seat of power. Wandesford, initially acting as lord justice alongside Lord Dillon but later raised to the position of lord deputy, had to try to maintain control over Ireland.Footnote ¹⁰¹ The experiences of MPs in the 1634–5 parliament are also significant. Wentworth’s disregard for ‘legality and political norms’ and his interpretation of Poynings’ Law reshaped Irish parliamentary practice, ‘denying some of its core functions, disregarding protections for MPs and issuing rejected bills as acts of state’.Footnote ¹⁰² Once Wentworth left for England in April 1640, MPs were determined to reassert traditional parliamentary procedures which Wentworth had overridden.

In Wentworth’s absence, Wandesford’s main task was preparing for parliament: drafting legislation for approval by the king and English privy council and attempting to create a supportive majority in the Irish House of Commons. Wentworth’s associates were aware that a parliament was imminent; Wentworth wrote to Radcliffe from Whitehall on 10 December 1639, stating that he had written to the lords justices, informing them that ‘the King resolves of a Parliament both here and ther’.Footnote ¹⁰³ The Irish parliament was intended to set a good example to the English parliament, which had not met for eleven years, by generously granting supply. The timing of the two parliaments meant that the granting of supply in the first session of the Irish parliament would be completed before the English parliament met.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Preparation time was limited as the king ordered Wentworth to be present at the start of both the English and Irish parliaments in spring 1640. Therefore, Radcliffe was ordered by Wentworth to begin the process for summoning parliament, ‘for if your Parliam[en]t ther begin not by or nere the seconde of Marche, I shall not be back … in time’.Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Initially, Radcliffe and Wandesford appeared to have secured a pro-administration majority in parliament through a faction of officeholders and relatives. However, absences due to some MPs having posts in the army, and others leaving with Wentworth for England in April 1640, weakened the administration in later sessions.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Wandesford sat for Kildare, along with Wentworth’s brother, Sir George.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Wandesford was joined in parliament by several kinsmen; his son, George, sat for Clogher in Tyrone, and his half-brother, William, sat for Lifford, although was also returned for Ballinakill.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ His brother, John, was elected for Inistiogue, but the election was contested and he was replaced by John FitzGerald in autumn 1640. MPs were legally required to be Irish-born and resident in their constituencies, a rule often ignored by Protestants and especially the New English. There is no evidence John Wandesford ever attended parliament but his replacement by FitzGerald, who was also non-resident and additionally able to use his election as MP to defer a Castle Chamber sentence against him, was seen as an affront to the administration.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

Parliament convened on 16 March 1640,Footnote ¹¹⁰ two days prior to Wentworth’s arrival in Dublin from England, and in Wentworth’s absence, the lords justices — Wandesford and Lord Dillon — made the opening speech.Footnote ¹¹¹ Parliament was officially opened on 20 March once Wentworth had recovered from his journey, with initial success in the spring session, before relations between MPs and the administration deteriorated. Kearney argued that support for the administration and the granting of supply relied on the presence of the king’s representative, personified in Wentworth, but once he left Ireland, loyalty quickly waned. Kearney and Clarke both suggested that Wentworth’s removal to England on 3 April created the final collapse of loyalty to his government.Footnote ¹¹²

Despite the problems that surfaced later in the year, Wentworth emphasised that the House of Commons had co-operatively voted four subsidies, writing to Marquis Hamilton on 24 March that

The Irish privy council wrote to Secretary Windebank informing him that there had been ‘not one Negatiue voice’ in granting supply.Footnote ¹¹⁴ However, these positive accounts masked the reality that ‘intimidation and imprisonments’ were used to get the bill through parliament.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Significant damage was also done to the relationship between parliament and the administration. The preface to the subsidy bill exuberantly praised Wentworth’s Irish administration and this was not a reflection of most MPs’ views. However, as MPs had no power to amend bills and were also keen to speed up preparations against Scotland for which this money was needed, the bill was passed through the House without requesting an amendment, which would require the bill to be returned to the king and English privy council.Footnote ¹¹⁶

Government presence within parliamentary committees continued to be key to maintaining control over MPs.Footnote ¹¹⁷ In the first session of parliament, Wandesford, Radcliffe and Sir Edward Trevor, a privy councillor who sat for County Down, sat on more than half of the committees.Footnote ¹¹⁸ On 21 March 1640, the Committee of Privileges and the Committee of Grievances were nominated, and both included key governmental representatives including Wandesford. The latter met again on 26 March and despite a trimming down of members, Wandesford remained part of the committee.Footnote ¹¹⁹ Wandesford also acted as a representative of the House of Commons to the Lords. After deciding that they did not want to send a joint declaration concerning supply to the king, the Commons selected Wandesford to attend the Lords to ‘acquaint them with the Reasons of the House, in not joining with them in the said Declaration’.Footnote ¹²⁰ Lord Ranelagh stated that Wandesford had delivered the Commons’ message ‘in very good Language’ suggesting that he had carefully maintained a positive relationship between the two Houses.Footnote ¹²¹

On 1 April, parliament was adjourned until June, and Wentworth appointed Wandesford as lord deputy of Ireland.Footnote ¹²² Having been appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland at the same time as becoming earl of Strafford in January 1640, Wentworth now had the right to choose his own deputy. However, this made Wandesford merely the ‘representative’s representative’, limiting his authority. He faced widespread discontent against Wentworth’s regime while many supporters were in England during the second session of parliament, weakening the governmental majority and leaving committees without prominent allies.Footnote ¹²³ Radcliffe’s absence was particularly notable as he intimidated MPs to strengthen governmental control. Indeed, Radcliffe and Wentworth’s mistreatment of parliament was highlighted in later impeachment proceedings against them.Footnote ¹²⁴ Wandesford’s milder personality was also of concern to Wentworth, writing to Radcliffe on 4 November 1640 that he should remind Wandesford that being ‘a fine well-natured gentleman’ would not help him to maintain control over parliament.Footnote ¹²⁵ In addition, as lord deputy, Wandesford himself could not sit as an MP, again limiting the executive’s control. It is also noteworthy that when the English Short Parliament opposed the king, the Irish parliament followed suit, highlighting the importance of inter-parliamentary influence across the three nations.Footnote ¹²⁶

Before parliament reconvened on 1 June, Wandesford was already concerned about the signs of a more assertive parliament that he had witnessed in the spring, where the Commons had started to take the initiative, setting up committees to look into officials’ fees and reserving the right to draft legislation during the parliamentary recess. McGrath argued that the administration had nothing to lose in allowing this as ‘government heavyweights’ sat on the committee, and it could ultimately ‘refuse or fail to transmit bills to England’.Footnote ¹²⁷ However, Wandesford doubted his ability to control parliament, describing to Sir Gervase Clifton a ‘wall of separation’ between parliament and the Irish administration.Footnote ¹²⁸ Wandesford was right to be concerned about his abilities to contain parliament’s grievances. Although MPs had granted supply readily enough in the first session in Wentworth’s presence, as required in the commission for parliament where the requirement to pass subsidy bills within thirty days of parliament starting was set out,Footnote ¹²⁹ this was offset in June by their return to the traditional way of raising supply for the remaining three uncollected subsidies. Assessing and collecting subsidies was traditionally part of the Irish parliament’s remit, unlike in English parliaments.Footnote ¹³⁰ However, this had been overturned by Wentworth in 1634 who, as McGrath has shown, used ‘strong-arm tactics’ to increase each subsidy’s value, threatening the ‘maximum possible rating to pressurise MPs into agreeing a fixed sum for each county’. The first four subsidies were to raise £40,000 and the final two £45,000.Footnote ¹³¹ Reversing Wentworth’s policy, on 13 June 1640 the House of Commons asserted that the supply was to be levied ‘in a moderate parliamentary way after an easy and equal rate of each man his estate’.Footnote ¹³² This would have dramatic implications for the actual amount of revenue raised from the supply granted in the first session. If the 1634 system had been applied, four subsidies would have amounted to £160,000, but this was reduced to £81,000, and only £68,000 of this was actually paid. However, it is important to note the wider economic context here. Ireland had been badly affected by poor harvests between 1637 and 1640, and this impacted the ability to raise supply.Footnote ¹³³

Wandesford was also concerned by Protestant MPs attacking the Church of Ireland. They were angered by Wentworth’s changes to the church, which had particularly offended Scottish Presbyterians.Footnote ¹³⁴ The Commons submitted a petition on 17 June demanding that forty-four complaints against the clergy be addressed.Footnote ¹³⁵ On the same day, a petition was presented to the House by John Chylde against John Atherton, the bishop of Waterford and Lismore, accusing him of sodomy.Footnote ¹³⁶ Wandesford wrote to Radcliffe on 21 June 1640, stating he would ‘blush when you see what stuff is in itt’.Footnote ¹³⁷ This move was highly discomforting for the Irish administration, as Atherton had been one of the driving forces in Wentworth’s plans to restore church temporalities and after trial, he was hanged on 5 December 1640.Footnote ¹³⁸

The Irish House of Commons was intent upon gaining redress of their grievances and blocked some of Wentworth’s bills from proceeding through the House. For example, the bill intended to secure Wentworth’s policy of plantation in Connaught and Limerick was referred to a sub-committee and never seen again, even though government supporters, including Radcliffe, were sitting on the committee.Footnote ¹³⁹ Wandesford also faced an attack upon the right of the administration to control the membership of the House of Commons.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ The Commons issued writs to seven Anglo-Irish controlled boroughs, which had sent MPs to previous parliaments, directly revoking Wentworth’s orders. This shows that, along with the rejection of the plantation bill and challenges to the way in which supply was to be levied, a more unified form of opposition was emerging within parliament, regardless of religion.Footnote ¹⁴¹ Indeed, Wandesford was concerned that ‘those of our owne partye (as we call them) have joyned apparantly’ with Irish opponents.Footnote ¹⁴² This was a startling realisation for Wandesford who was reliant upon government supporters within parliament, particularly in the absence of Radcliffe, who had by then joined Wentworth in England.Footnote ¹⁴³ Writing to Radcliffe, Wandesford also enclosed a copy of ‘A declaration concerning the levying of subsidies in a parliamentary way’ by which the Commons intended to ‘avoid Precedents in future Times’ and would ensure that the three remaining subsidies would be levied the traditional way.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ Wandesford explained that this version of the declaration was ‘much more moderate’ than the committee had hoped,Footnote ¹⁴⁵ which suggests that the administration still had some control within committees. However, Wandesford was now convinced that he was losing control of parliament. In its current form, he did not ‘thinke fit to give waye unto’ this declaration regarding supply and was faced with two choices. He could either ‘breake of this meting in displeasure and by that means hazard the tymely coming in of the subsedyes’ or ‘give way to this ill president against the Crowne, w[hi]ch is a thing I may not doe’. Wandesford described the House of Commons as so ‘intemperate’ that he was obliged to dissolve it. The privy council agreed, voting to prorogue parliament.Footnote ¹⁴⁶ Wandesford wanted Wentworth to be aware of these difficulties, although he professed he did not wish to worry him.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ On 17 June, Wandesford gave the royal assent to the eleven acts passed and then illegally prorogued parliament until 1 October 1640, which he believed would calm the situation over supply.Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Before parliament was prorogued, the Commons entered a resolution into the Commons Journal in which they reclaimed control of taxation.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Wentworth later blamed Wandesford for parliament’s action as this was a dangerous prerogative, writing to Radcliffe on 5 November 1640 to tell Wandesford that ‘he must tenir roide [hold tight], and not suffer my gentlemen to grow insolent upon him, and that his old rule of moderate counsels will not serve his turn in cases of this extremity’.Footnote ¹⁵⁰ Wandesford advised his daughter, Katherine, ‘There is nothing better to preserve civill societye among strangers, then mylde and temperate replyes’ and this suggests the rather more moderate and conciliatory approach that Wandesford favoured, but which Wentworth advised against in managing parliament.Footnote ¹⁵¹ Wentworth felt Wandesford was not exerting enough authority, letting parliament gain the upper hand. This was exacerbated by Wentworth’s continued emphasis upon his own authority which was based on his position as viceroy of Ireland and that he was the representative of the king.Footnote ¹⁵²

Wandesford felt isolated during the summer of 1640; Wentworth and Radcliffe were still in England. In June 1640, he begged Radcliffe to keep his word ‘for returning so soon’ as he could. In August 1640, facing the recall of parliament in October, Wandesford reiterated his request that Radcliffe return to Ireland.Footnote ¹⁵³ Parliamentary supply was coming in very slowly with £8,000 still outstanding in early August.Footnote ¹⁵⁴ This money was needed to pay for a large standing army in Ulster to protect Irish interests as Charles I was fighting the Bishops’ Wars against Scotland. Wandesford was frustrated by Wentworth’s apparent lack of understanding of the financial situation in Ireland and thus his ineffectual demands that an army be raised and supplied.Footnote ¹⁵⁵ He wanted Radcliffe to discuss this with Wentworth before he returned to Ireland and hoped that on Radcliffe’s return, he would be able to ‘unwynde us all out of this laborinth’.Footnote ¹⁵⁶ The administration had to recall parliament to secure further supply, despite the danger that parliament was likely to proceed in an assertive manner. Wandesford faced an almost impossible task. He needed to appease parliament to gain supply to pay for an Irish army to be used by the king against Scotland, especially now that the Scots had defeated Charles I’s forces at the Battle of Newburn on 28 August 1640. However, parliament would then be in a good position to negotiate the redress of their grievances, and Wandesford feared that he would be forced into a corner. For example, in June, the Commons demanded that the Committee of Grievances and Privileges meet regularly to consider issues and ‘prepare them into Heads against the next Sitting’. There are earlier examples of the Irish parliament suggesting and drafting legislation known as ‘heads of bills’, for example in the 1613–15 parliament called by Lord Deputy Chichester. The administration could, of course, refuse to forward to England any bills of which they disapproved.Footnote ¹⁵⁷ However, Wentworth took a very different approach, explaining to the House of Lords that in his view, Poynings’ Law prevented members of both Houses from writing their own acts and that they could only petition the lord deputy and privy council to draw up bills and transmit them to England.Footnote ¹⁵⁸ There was limited government influence in this committee, amounting to one of Wandesford’s relatives and one of Wentworth’s secretaries.Footnote ¹⁵⁹ Wedgwood argues that Wandesford ‘lacked the strength and skill’ to control parliament,Footnote ¹⁶⁰ but arguably, no amount of skill would have made a difference. Without the vice-regal presence of Wentworth and the backing of Radcliffe, and in the face of an increasingly assertive parliament, Wandesford was in an impossible situation.

The second session of parliament commenced on 1 October 1640. Radcliffe arrived in Ireland the previous month to support Wandesford.Footnote ¹⁶¹ As parliament assembled, Wentworth was still the king’s chief minister and his fall from grace was not inevitable. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Wandesford stood firm on key issues, refusing to back down on the plantation policy and to issue writs for the boroughs which had been excluded from returning MPs.Footnote ¹⁶² The issue of supply remained contentious. A committee met on 17 October to consider how the remaining three subsidies would be collected. On 20 October, the committee advised that an individual’s property would be taxed at one-tenth of its value, reducing each subsidy from £40,000 to £12,000. At this new rate, four subsidies would raise little more than the value of a single subsidy.Footnote ¹⁶³ The House of Lords also complained about the burden of supply that was to fall upon them, sending a committee to present their concerns to Wandesford, hoping that ‘a Moderation be used in taxing them’. They also asked that in the future, the Subsidy Bill be drawn up in a different way so that the Lords’ contribution was ‘at least in Proportion with the Commons’. On 7 November, the earl of Ormond assured the Lords that Wandesford would ensure that the king would tax them with ‘Ease, Moderation and Equality’.Footnote ¹⁶⁴ The Lords were reinforcing the need to return to traditional ways of raising supply, perhaps seeing Wandesford in a weaker position than Wentworth, so he could be forced to acquiesce to their demands.

The vulnerability of Wandesford’s position as Wentworth’s representative was made clear when the House of Commons presented the Humble and Just Remonstrance on 9 November 1640, outlining their grievances against the government.Footnote ¹⁶⁵ The committee members were reproached for passing their remonstrance without debating it within the House, but excused themselves by stating they believed that Wandesford intended to adjourn parliament, and therefore they had been forced to pass the remonstrance without further debate.Footnote ¹⁶⁶ The remonstrance accused Wentworth of introducing arbitrary government in Ireland and formed the basis of the English Long Parliament’s impeachment case against him in November 1640. This presented accusations of misuse of office in Ireland and of advising the king to use the Irish army against his English subjects.Footnote ¹⁶⁷ Wandesford’s response was to hurriedly prorogue parliament until 17 November,Footnote ¹⁶⁸ but this only served to make the Commons more oppositional when they reconvened. Indeed, a committee immediately started writing impeachment articles against Wentworth and his rule in Ireland. The membership of this committee shows that opposition to Wentworth’s administration now transcended traditional groupings of Irish political opposition, with Catholics and Protestants, as well as New and Old English, united.Footnote ¹⁶⁹ Although parliament had only been in session for a single day, Wandesford again prorogued it in an attempt to prevent this impeachment attack on Wentworth.Footnote ¹⁷⁰ Following Wentworth’s instructions, on 19 November, Wandesford tore out the page from the Commons Journal that recorded the decision made in October to reduce the subsidies, and its confirmation on 11 November.Footnote ¹⁷¹ The Commons protested against Wandesford’s actions by petitioning the king, reporting that when Wandesford tore out the pages, ‘it struck a strange terror and amazement into the hearts of all your Majesty’s subjects of that kingdom, who either saw or heard it’. They professed that the problems between the Irish Commons and the administration ‘arose simply from the arbitrary action of the Council in applotting the first subsidy, and in demanding a far larger sum than could be paid’, arguing that the Irish parliament had been forced to agree to subsidy ratings that were much higher than in England. The petitioners requested that they be allowed to travel to England to ‘bring the truth to your knowledge’ and asked that the order torn from the Commons Journal be restored.Footnote ¹⁷² Wandesford attempted to prevent a committee of Irish MPs from going to England to present their case to the king.Footnote ¹⁷³ Ultimately, Wandesford was unable to withstand the attacks of a more assertive and ambitious parliament, and despite his attempts to ward off problems by sudden prorogations, the parliament clearly had the upper hand.

VI

The turmoil of the parliamentary sessions of 1640, the responsibility of deputyship and worry about Wentworth who had recently been impeached by the English parliament, took a huge toll upon Wandesford’s health. Lord Scudamore wrote that Wandesford had fallen into a trance upon learning of Wentworth’s imprisonment in the Tower of London for high treason and Radcliffe’s impending arrest.Footnote ¹⁷⁴ Wandesford dined with the earl of Ormond, Lord Robert Dillon, Radcliffe and others on 29 November, but became ill shortly afterwards and died on 3 December 1640.Footnote ¹⁷⁵ He was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, with the king ordering the treasury to pay his funeral expenses of £1,300 and awarding exemption on his heirs’ wardship, although his daughter, Alice Wandesford, later wrote that the family did not receive these benefits.Footnote ¹⁷⁶ Wentworth claimed that he was so distraught to learn of Wandesford’s death that it ‘more affects me than the prospect of my own, for in him is lost the richest magazine of learning, wisdom and piety that these times can boast’. Writing to Lord Chancellor Adam Loftus on 15 December 1640, Wentworth stated that since leaving Ireland, he had experienced ‘all sorts of afflictions … but indeed the loss of my excellent friend the Lord Deputy more afflicts me than all the rest’.Footnote ¹⁷⁷

In conclusion, Wandesford was a close friend and confidante throughout Wentworth’s life and played an integral role during his lord deputyship and later lord lieutenancy of Ireland. Wentworth relied on Wandesford to support his Irish administration as a privy councillor, master of the rolls, member of parliament and as a source of support and advice. Wentworth needed a close support system which enabled him to delegate to men he could trust. Much of their work was carried out behind the scenes, so the work of Wentworth’s cabal is at times difficult to piece together, although an investigation of their actions through primary source material can be rewarding. When Wentworth needed to leave a deputy in charge of Ireland whilst he attended the king in England in 1636 and 1639–40, Wandesford acted on Wentworth’s behalf, firstly as one of two lords justices and later as lord deputy of Ireland. This was challenging as Wentworth frequently emphasised his link to the king as his chosen representative, which in turn diminished the status of anyone acting as his deputy. Wandesford was seen as ‘the representative’s representative’ and was, therefore, unable to exert the same authority and command the same respect. Wandesford clearly faced problems of asserting his authority in Ireland in Wentworth’s absence, particularly during the 1640 sessions of the 1640–8 Irish parliament. It was possible for the king’s representative to control the Irish parliament, but when the king’s authority was further removed with the introduction of the deputy’s deputy, it became increasingly difficult to quell unrest. With Wentworth’s absence from Ireland throughout much of 1640 and Irish grievances coming to a head, the presence of a ‘substitute’ of the king’s chosen representative led to the Irish administration unravelling. Wandesford was at the eye of the storm, with mounting discontent against Wentworth at the very time that he was acting as ‘stand in’. Wandesford’s meeker disposition, especially in the absence of Radcliffe and Wentworth’s more forceful and aggressive personalities, is also of note — and indeed, Wentworth indicated this in his correspondence from England in 1640. The confrontational atmosphere between parliament and the Irish administration was to set the scene for the outbreak of the 1641 Irish rebellion and, therefore, Wandesford’s role in the Irish administration and failure to manage parliament needs recognition.