Philip Chesney Yorke

“ Towards the native Irish Wentworth's bearing was benevolent but thoroughly unsympathetic. Having no notion of developing their qualities by a process of natural growth, his only hope for them lay in converting them into Englishmen as soon as possible. They must be made English in their habits, in their laws and in their religion. “I see plainly,” he once wrote, “that, so long as this kingdom continues popish, they are not a people for the Crown of England to be confident of.” High-handed as Wentworth was by nature, his rule in Ireland made him more high-handed than ever. ”

“ Horace Walpole characterized him in a series of his smartest antitheses as “a singular person whose life was one contradiction.” “He wrote against popery and embraced it; he was a zealous opposer of the court and a sacrifice for it; was conscientiously converted in the midst of his prosecution of Lord Strafford and was most unconscientiously a persecutor of Lord Clarendon. With great parts, he always hurt himself and his friends; with romantic bravery, he was always an unsuccessful commander. ”

“ While Henry’s envoys were encouraged at Rome in believing that he might then make another marriage, Henry himself gave Catherine assurances that no other union would be contemplated in her lifetime. But Catherine with courage and dignity held fast to her rights, demanded a proper trial, and appealed not only to the bull of dispensation, the validity of which was said to be vitiated by certain irregularities, but to a brief granted for the alliance by Pope Julius II. Henry declared the latter to be a forgery, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to procure a declaration of its falsity from the pope. ”

“ Like Pym, a student of Bacon's wisdom, he believed in the progress of England along the lines of natural development, but that development, in opposition to Pym, he was convinced could only proceed with the increase of the power of the executive, not of the parliament, with a government controlled by the king and not by the people. ”

“ Guy Fawkes himself was to take ship immediately for Flanders, spread the news on the continent and get supporters. The conspirators imagined that a terrorized and helpless government would readily agree to all their demands. Hitherto the secret had been well kept and the preparations had been completed with extraordinary success and without a single drawback; but a very serious difficulty now confronted the conspirators as the time for action arrived, and disturbed their consciences. The feelings of ordinary humanity shrunk from the destruction of so many persons guiltless of any offence. ”

“ Before her death she dictated a last letter to Henry, according to Polydore Vergil, expressing her forgiveness, begging his good offices for Mary, and concluding with the astounding assurance—“I vow that mine eyes desire you above all things.” The king himself affected no sorrow at her death, and thanked God there was now no fear of war.
Catherine is described as “rather ugly than otherwise; of low stature and rather stout; very good and very religious; speaks Spanish, French, Flemish, English; more beloved by the islanders than any queen that has ever reigned.” ”

“ However atrocious its conception and its aims, it is impossible not to feel, together with horror for the deed, some pity and admiration for the guilty persons who took part in it. “Theirs was a crime which it would never have entered into the heart of any man to commit who was not raised above the lowness of the ordinary criminal.” They sinned not against the light but in the dark. ”

“ Bolingbroke gradually superseded Oxford in the leadership. Lady Masham, the queen’s favourite, quarrelled with Oxford and identified herself with Bolingbroke’s interests. The harsh treatment of the Hanoverian demands was inspired by him, and won favour with the queen, while Oxford’s influence declined; and by his support of the Schism Bill in May 1714, a violent Tory measure forbidding all education by dissenters by making an episcopal licence obligatory for schoolmasters, he probably intended to compel Oxford to give up the game. ”

“ The Jacobite Sir William Windham had been made chancellor of the exchequer, important military posts were placed in the hands of the faction, and a new ministry of Jacobites was projected. But now the queen’s sudden death on the 1st of August, and the appointment of Shrewsbury to the lord treasurership, instantly changed the whole scene and ruined Bolingbroke. “The earl of Oxford was removed on Tuesday,” he wrote to Swift on the 3rd of August, “the queen died on Sunday! What a world is this and how does fortune banter us!” ”

“ He reformed and instilled life into the Church and rescued church property. His strong and even administration broke down the tyranny of the great men over the poor. Such was the government of "Thorough," as Strafford expresses it. Yet these good measures were all carried out by arbitrary methods which diminished their usefulness and their stability. Their aim moreover was not the prosperity of the Irish community but the benefit to the English exchequer, and Strafford suppressed the trade in cloth " lest it should be a means to prejudice that staple commodity of England." ”

“ The refusal of the Whigs to grant terms in 1706, and again in 1709 when Louis XIV. offered to yield every point for which the allies professed to be fighting, showed that the war was not being continued for English national interests, and the ministry were supported by the queen, the parliament and the people in their design to terminate hostilities. But various obstacles arose from the diversity of aims among the allies; and St John was induced, contrary to the most solemn obligations, to enter into separate and secret negotiations with France for the security of English interests. ”

“ Vane and others were for a mere defence against invasion. Strafford's advice was the contrary. “Go on vigorously or let them alone . . . . go on with a vigorous war as you first designed, loose and absolved from all rules of government, being reduced to extreme necessity, everything is to be done that power might admit. . . . . You have an army in Ireland you may employ here to reduce this kingdom . ”

“ We shall be left as a prey to the wolves that will besides drive our greatest patron [the king of Spain] to stoop to a peace which will be the utter ruin of our edifice, this many years in building.” Unfortunately, about this time the Jesuits, who thus thrived on political intrigue, and who were deeply implicated in treasonable correspondence with Spain, had obtained a complete ascendancy over the secular priests, who were for obeying the civil government as far as possible and keeping free from politics. ”

“ If such was the event in Ireland, where political ideas were still rude and elementary, still less could success be expected from the attempt to introduce the centralization and absolute power of the executive into England, where principles of government had been highly developed both in theory and practice, and a contrary tendency had long been established towards the increase of the rights of the individual and the power of parliament. ”

“ On the 15th of September he was created earl of Bristol. He urged on the marriage treaty, believing it would include favourable conditions for Frederick, but the negotiations were taken out of his control, and finally wrecked by the arrival of Charles himself and Buckingham in March 1623. He incurred their resentment, of which the real inspiration was Buckingham’s implacable jealousy, by a letter written to James informing him of Buckingham’s unpopularity among the Spanish ministers, and by his endeavouring to maintain the peace with Spain after their departure. ”

“ In January 1640 he was created earl of Strafford, and in March he went to Ireland to hold a parliament, where the Catholic vote secured a grant of subsidies to be used against the Presbyterian Scots. An Irish army was to be levied to assist in the coming war. When in April Strafford returned to England he found the Commons holding back from a grant of supply, and tried to enlist the peers on the side of the king. On the other hand he induced Charles to be content with a smaller grant than he had originally asked for. The Commons, however, insisted on peace with the Scots. ”

“ According to Herville, the French envoy, Bolingbroke declared to him that in six weeks he could have secured everything. Nevertheless the exact nature of his projects remains obscure. It is probable that his statement in his letter to Windham that “none of us had any very settled resolution” is true, though his declaration in the Patriot King that “there were no designs on foot . . . to place the crown on the head of the Pretender” is a palpable falsehood. ”

“ By the death of his father Digby had succeeded in January 1659 to the peerage as 2nd earl of Bristol, and had been made K.G. the same month. He returned to England at the restoration, when he found himself excluded from office on account of his religion, and relegated to only secondary importance. His desire to make a brilliant figure induced a restless and ambitious activity in parliament. He adopted an attitude of violent hostility to Clarendon. In foreign affairs he inclined strongly to the side of Spain, and opposed the king’s marriage with Catherine of Portugal. ”

“ While arousing in the course of his career the most bitter enmities—and no man's death was ever received with more public rejoicing—Strafford was capable of inspiring strong friendships in private life. ”

“ His public life presents none of those acts of devotion and self-sacrifice which often redeem a career characterized by errors, follies and even crimes.
One may deplore his unfortunate history and wasted genius, but it is impossible to regret his exclusion from the government of England. He was succeeded in the title as 2nd Viscount Bolingbroke, according to the special remainder, by his nephew Frederick, 3rd Viscount St John (a title granted to Bolingbroke’s father in 1716) , from whom the title has descended. ”

“ In the discussions upon the Petition of Right, Bristol supported the use of the king’s prerogative in emergencies, and asserted that the king besides his legal had a regal power, but joined in the demand for a full acceptance of the petition by the king after the first unsatisfactory answer. He was now restored to favour, but took no part in politics till the outbreak of the Scottish rebellion, when he warned Charles of the danger of attacking with inadequate forces. ”

“ Wentworth arrived in England in September 1639, after Charles's failure in the first Bishops' War, and from that moment he became Charles's principal adviser. Ignorant of the extent to which opposition had developed in England during his absence, he recommended the calling of a parliament to support a renewal of the war, hoping that by the offer of a loan from the privy councillors, to which he himself contributed £20,000, he would place Charles above the necessity of submitting to the new parliament if it should prove restive. ”

“ His project now was to bring over Prince Charles to head a royalist movement in the island; and having joined Charles at Jersey in April 1646, he intended to entrap him on board, but was dissuaded by Hyde. He then travelled to Paris to gain the queen’s consent to his scheme, but returned to persuade Charles to go to Paris, and accompanied him thither, revisiting Ireland on the 29th of June once more, and finally escaping to France on the surrender of the island to the parliament. At Paris amongst the royalists he found himself in a nest of enemies eager to pay off old scores. ”

“ Nothing could have been more disastrous to the cause of the Roman Catholics than their crime. The laws against them were immediately increased in severity, and the gradual advance towards religious toleration was put back for centuries. ”

“ He was a man of high character, who refused to compound with falsehood and injustice, whose misfortune it was to serve two Stuart sovereigns, and whose firm resistance to the king’s tyranny led the way to the great movement which finally destroyed it. ”

“ In 1742 and 1743 he again visited England and quarrelled with Warburton. In 1744 he settled finally at Battersea with his friend Hugh Hume, 3rd earl of Marchmont, and was present at Pope’s death in May. The discovery that the poet had printed secretly 1500 copies of The Patriot King caused him to publish a correct version in 1749, and stirred up a further altercation with Warburton, who defended his friend against Bolingbroke’s bitter aspersions, the latter, whose conduct was generally reprehended, publishing a Familiar Epistle to the most Impudent Man Living. ”

“ In Walpole’s own words, “as St John had the duchess entirely on his side I need not add what must or might in time have been the consequence,” and he prepared for his dismissal. But once more Bolingbroke’s “fortune turned rotten at the very moment it grew ripe,” [11] and his projects and hopes were ruined by the king’s death in June. [12] Further papers from his pen signed “John Trot” appeared in the Craftsman in 1728, and in 1730 followed Remarks on the History of England by Humphrey Oldcastle, attacking the Walpoles’ policy. ”

“ With a strong and untrammelled executive directed by a single will, wise reforms could be carried out, the weak defended against the strong, the resources of the country developed to their full extent, the hesitations, delays and contradictions caused by barren discussions avoided, and the national forces concentrated on objects worth the aim. ”

“ In May 1712 St John ordered the duke of Ormonde, who had succeeded Marlborough in the command, to refrain from any further engagement. These instructions were communicated to the French, though not to the allies, Louis putting Dunkirk as security into possession of England, and the shameful spectacle was witnessed of the desertion by the English troops of their allies almost on the battlefield. Subsequently St John received the congratulations of the French minister, Torcy, on the occasion of the French victory over Prince Eugene at Denain. ”

“ Thus on the 7th of November he had no knowledge of the mine, and it is only after Fawkes’s examination by torture on the 9th, when the names of the conspirators were drawn from him, that the government was able to classify them according to their guilt and extent of their participation. The inquiry was not conducted by Salisbury alone, but by several commissioners, some of whom were Roman Catholics, and many rivals and secret enemies. To conceal his intrigue from all these would have been impossible, and that he should have put himself in their power to such an extent is highly improbable. ”

“ In 1704 St John took office with Harley as secretary at war, thus being brought into intimate relations with Marlborough, by whom he was treated with paternal partiality. In 1708 he quitted office with Harley on the failure of the latter’s intrigue, and retired to the country till 1710, when he became a privy councillor and secretary of state in Harley’s new ministry, representing Berkshire in parliament. He supported the bill for requiring a real property qualification for a seat in parliament. ”

“ The Long Parliament assembled on the 3rd of November 1640, and Charles immediately summoned Strafford to London, promising that he “should not suffer in his person, honour or fortune.” He arrived on the 9th and on the 10th proposed to the king to forestall his impeachment, now being prepared by the parliament, by accusing the leaders of the popular party of treasonable communications with the Scots. The plan however having been betrayed, Pym immediately took up the impeachment to the Lords on the 11th. ”