and one of the Lord Deputy and general's gentlemen ushers, that had done it; Whereupon the Lord Mountnorris then publickly and in scornful, contemptuous manner answered, Perhaps it was done in revenge of that publick affront which my Lord Deputy had done him formerly, but he has a brother that would not take such revenge.""

Six months had elapsed between this saying and the Lord Deputy's action upon it. Lord Mountnorris at the council of war protested that he intended no prejudice or hurt to the person of the deputy and general, and that he meant only his "brother would die before he would give the deputy occasion to give him such a rebuke."

It was explained in the report of the trial that the affront spoken of amounted to this, "that his said kinsman, being one of the horse troop commanded by the Lord Deputy, in the time of exercising the said troop was out of order on horseback, to the disturbance of the rest then in exercising; for which we the Lord Deputy, in a mild manner reproving him, we observe him to laugh and jeer us for our just reproof of him, which we, disliking, returned to him, and laying a small cane which we then carried on his shoulder, yet without any blow or stroke then given him, therewith told him that if he did serve us so any more, we would lay him over the pate." Mountnorris was brought before a court-martial made up of sixteen officers of rank. The Lord Deputy sat watching the proceedings silent all the while, as he anxiously explains. With one voice the council adjudged Lord Mountnorris, for his said high and great offences, "to be imprisoned, to stand from henceforth deprived of all

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the places with the entertainment due thereto, which he holds now in the army, to be disarmed, to be banished from the army and disabled for ever bearing office therein hereafter, and lastly to be shot to death, or to lose his head at the pleasure of the general." This was dated December 12, 1635. Hatred is a bad counsellor, and the imperious Lord Deputy found reason to suspect that they in their court-martial had overshot the mark. Three days afterwards he wrote to Mr Secretary Coke asking warrant from his majesty to pardon the death sentence. In another letter, eighteen days later, Wentworth writes that, Howbeit I hold the sentence most just, yet were it left me in my choice whether he must lose his head or I my hand this should redeem that." In the same letter the merciful Lord Deputy forwarded a copy of the charge against his lordship of sundry corruptions and misdemeanours in the execution of his office as vice-treasurer which set the king on to direct that four privy councillors should be sent to examine the papers. Across the Irish Sea this affair began to be noised about. The king, taking the part of his deputy, hushed open censure at court; but if Mountnorris had few friends, Wentworth had many enemies, and the utter disproportion of the sentence could not fail to strike even the dullest.

The death sentence was soon remitted by the king. There is still extant a touching letter from Lady Mountnorris' to Wentworth on behalf of her husband, who had "suffered in honour, health, and imprisonment for a word misinterpreted, and already

1 State Papers collected by Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Oxford, 1777, vol. ii., p. 415, and vol. iii., p. 216.

unto twenty thousand pounds lost in estate." In answer to her petition his majesty was pleased to grant (July 18, 1636): "That upon such a submission made by the Lord Mountnorris, as the Lord Deputy shall approve of, he shall have his liberty to come into England; whereof the Lord Deputy is to take notice and give order here accordingly.

"FRANK WINDEBANK."

But it did not suit Wentworth that his victim should get out of his grasp. Writing from London a week after this, he thus instructs Sir Christopher Wandesford, who was doing duty for him in Ireland: "Albeit you receive any direction from Secretary Windebank for his lordship's coming over, yet respite it in any case till you have advertised me."

Lord Mountnorris did not get away till the middle of June 1637, eighteen months after the courtmartial. The exulting Lord Deputy writes: "At his departure hence, he seemed wondrously humbled, so I told him I never wished ill to his estate, nor person, further than to remove him thence, where he was as well a trouble as an offence unto me; that being done (howbeit through his own fault with more prejudice to him than I intended), I could wish there were no more debate betwixt us, told him that if he desired it, I would spare my prosecution against him in the Star Chamber there. He seemed thankful, but to the intent he might recover my good opinion, he desired to answer the bill, that so by his oath, I might be satisfied how innocent he was of having his hand in any such foul slander against me." This practical Macchiavel little dreamed on what future

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occasion he should see the man upon whom he had so wantonly trampled.

The Viscount Adam Loftus, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, in his turn became the victim of the imperious Lord Deputy, by refusing to obey a direct order to make a settlement of his land on the occasion of the marriage of his eldest son. He was thrown into prison and forced to give up the great seal which he had held for twenty years. The odium caused by this arbitrary interference with private rights was increased by the knowledge that it was pressed by a petition from the daughter-in-law with whom it was thought Wentworth had an over great intimacy, as was subsequently proved by letters found after the lady's death. Loftus was magnanimous enough not to press his wrongs against Wentworth when in the grasp of his enemies, for which mercy the humbled oppressor was fain to thank him."

1 See Clarendon, vol. i., p. 222; and Memoirs of the Reign of Charles I., by Sir Philip Warwick, Edinburgh, 1813, p. 126; State Tryals, London, 1719, vol. i., pp. 336-342; also, the History of Ireland, by Thomas Leland, D.D., London, 1773, vol. ii., p. 40.

2 See his letter dated Tower of London, December 19, 1640, in Carte's Life of Ormonde, vol. iii., p. 28.

In the Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Civil War, London, 1892, there are letters never intended for publication, which show the wide dislike with which the "sowre deputie" was regarded, see vol. i., pp. 201, 221, 222, 232. In 1636, Ralph Verney writes from England to Lord Dillon, who was then on Wentworth's suite: "If my Lorde Deputies cominge into England may a cause to draw you hither, the sooner hee comes, the welcomer hee shall bee to mee, though I confesse I know but few that are fond of his presence."

When Strafford's rule in Ireland had come to an end, Sir John Leeke, a retired officer living in Ireland, wrote to Sir Edmund Verney in December 1640: "I writ this purposely to give you to understand of the petition and remonstrances our Lower House of Parliament submitted to the new deputie (Wandesford), and that they might be suffered to go into England, a selected committee to make good the grievances, for we groan insufferedly under them.”

CHAPTER VIII

The Reformation in Scotland. Presbyterianism. Laud's Service Book arrives in Edinburgh. The Solemn League and Covenant. Its Successful Resistance. Sir Henry Vane made Treasurer of the Navy, and Member of Parliament for Hull. The Short Parliament. Second War with Scotland. Sympathy of the Puritans with the Scots. Their Success. Meeting of the Long Parliament.

THE Reformation in Scotland had taken a different course from what it did in England. Not imposed upon the people from above it had been accepted by every rank save in some parts of the north. The model of church government brought by John Knox from republican Geneva allowed the laity a participation in the government of the church which naturally made the people take a deeper interest in its affairs. The kirk-sessions, the presbyteries, and the provincial synods were so many courts, each higher and wider, in which ministers and lay elders sat judging of matters of order, discipline, religion, and morals. The supreme court was the General Assembly, of which some of the highest nobility and many of the gentry were members. In those days when religion was so much mixed with politics it constituted a substitute for a parliament. A portion of the large lands and revenues of the old Romish Church had been saved for the sustenance of the Presbyterian ministers, and a share was also reserved for the