The Causes of the English Civil War by Conrad Russell

Author:Conrad Russell [Conrad Russell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-11-30T07:18:00+00:00

He spoke too soon: not for the first time, the insistence that religious dissent was disloyal proved a self-fulfilling prophecy, and this officer, John Barry, became within the year a leader of the Irish Rebellion.72

Two other British issues played a large part in bringing about the Irish Rebellion. One was the question of the authority of the English Parliament in Ireland, which was of course a question very closely related to the question whether Ireland was safe for Catholics. The conventional opinion in England, and even more the conventional opinion in Ireland, was that the English Parliament had no authority in Ireland. However, the Irish Parliament, using every opportunity which came to hand, had called on the aid of the English Parliament in getting a hearing for the Irish Remonstrance against Strafford.; That Remonstrance played a vital part in the junto's strategy, and Pym and Clotworthy made a big contribution to getting it heard. It took the Irish Parliament some while to realize that they had raised a genie they could not control.

Pym for a long while was very cautious in making any claim to authority in Ireland, but it was difficult to impeach a Lord Deputy of Ireland without claiming a jurisdiction over Irish affairs, and the Scots, with a carelessness so consistent that it looks like a case of accidentally on purpose, referred to Ireland as being subject to the Parliament of England.74 The lawyers managing the prosecution of Strafford discovered a claim in Coke's report of Calvin's Case that the Parliament of England had power to legislate for Ireland in express words, and found it useful. Viscount Gormanston, one of the senior Irish peers, who was in England as a witness against Strafford, noticed this claim and protested at it.75 The Irish Privy Council noticed, and objected to attempts to summon the Lord Chancellor and Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, `persons whose continuall attendance heere is very necessary', to answer questions in England.71 Some Irish suitors tried to take advantage of the chance to appeal to English jurisdiction, and in June 1 641 one Tighe O'Roddy had his appeal referred back to Ireland `to save time'-pointedly refraining from waiving the claim to jurisdiction. 77 By August 1641 the House of Lords was making a full and explicit claim to authority over Ireland.78 By 1642 Henry Parker was reacting to an alien jurisdiction in just the same way as the English had done to Scotland in 1604: he claimed that `England and Ireland are one and the same dominion, there is as true and intimate a union betwixt them as betwixt England and Wales'.79

As the anti-popery of the English Parliament grew more intense, Irish anxiety on this issue grew deeper. Roger Moore appears to have seen the danger by February 1641. He told his fellowconspirators that `the welfare and maintaining of the Catholic religion, which . . . undoubtedly the Parliament now in England will suppress, cloth depend on it: for said he, it is to

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