Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:30:02.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sir Piers Crosby, 1590–1646: Wentworth’s ‘tawney ribbon’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Aidan Clarke
Aidan Clarke*
Affiliation:
Department of Modern History, Trinity College, Dublin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Sir Piers Crosby, knight and baronet, lived for fifty-six years, but it is not perhaps too much to say that only a single day in that life has brought him to historical notice. That day was 28 November 1634. On the previous afternoon, Lord Deputy Wentworth had informed a joint meeting of the two houses of the Irish parliament that his government was not prepared to honour the promise which King Charles I had given to landed proprietors in Ireland six years earlier and would not permit the passage of acts relinquishing historic royal claims to Irish land. When the commons met on 28 November, a majority of the members vented their anger and disappointment by defeating an entirely uncontroversial government bill. Prominent among that majority, their ringleader if Wentworth is to be believed, was a renegade privy councillor, Sir Piers Crosby. That Wentworth’s account of what happened was seriously misleading is well established, and I have examined it elsewhere as an illustration of the proposition that one of Wentworth’s major achievements was to impose his version of the events of his deputyship upon generations of historians, approving and disapproving alike. His influence similarly colours historical impressions of the people with whom he dealt, and the purpose of this paper is to suggest the interpretative difficulties to which that may give rise by reconstructing the shape of the career of one individual who suffered the dual misfortune of crossing Wentworth’s path and being remembered only by what Wentworth wrote of him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 102 , November 1988 , pp. 142 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For information received, my thanks are due to Sarah Barber, Michael Dore, Caroline Hibberd, Brian Jackson, Rolf Loeber, Michael MacCarthy-Morrogh, Bríd McGrath, Nicholas Perry and, especially, Jane Ohlmeyer.

2 Clarke, Aidan, ‘28 November 1634: a detail of Strafford’s administration’ in R.S.A.I. Jn., xciii (1963), pp 161-7Google Scholar.

3 The earl of Strafforde’s letters and dispatches, ed. Knowler, William (2 vols, London, 1739), i, 199 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., pp 350–51.

5 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 100.

6 Strafford’s letters, i, 350–51.

7 Wentworth to SirCoke, John, 2 Mar. 1635 (Sheffield City Library, Strafford MSS, vol. 5); Strafford’s letters, i, 371 Google Scholar.

8 Lords’ jn., iv, 275; Cal. S. P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 302; SirWare’s, John ‘Diary of events’, p. 214 (Dublin Public Library, Pearse Street, Gilbert papers, MS 169)Google Scholar.

9 Strafford’s letters, i, 393.

10 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 100; Wentworth to Coke, 19 May 1635 (Strafford MSS, vol. 9).

11 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 105; P.R.O., S. P. Ire., 63/255/38; Wentworth to Coke, 6 July 1635 (Strafford MSS, vol. 9); Strafford’s letters, i, 432.

12 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 114; Strafford’s letters, i, 476.

13 Clarke, Aidan, The Old English in Ireland, 1625–41 (London, 1966), pp 92–100 Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., p. 99; Coke to Wentworth, 16 Nov. 1635 (Strafford MSS, vol. 9); Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 252.

15 Strafford’s letters, i, 497.

16 Ibid., i, 504.

17 Kearney, H.F., Strafford in Ireland (Manchester, 1959), pp 71-2, 164–5Google Scholar; Clarke, Aidan, ‘Selling royal favours, 1624–32’ in Moody, T.W., Martin, F.X. and Byrne, F.J. (eds), A new history of Ireland, iii (Oxford, 1976), pp 253, 255Google Scholar.

18 Strafford’s letters, i, 504.

19 Rushworth, John, Historical collections of private passages of state, 1618–48 (6 vols, London, 1682-1701), iii, 888–902 Google Scholar.

20 Coke to Wentworth, 18 Apr. 1636 (Strafford MSS, vol. 9).

21 Strafford’s letters, ii, 4, 20.

22 The MSS of the Earl Cowper (3 vols, H.M.C., London, 1888–90), ii, 18.

23 Strafford’s letters, ii, 5–6, 20, 21; Wentworth to Charles I, 23 Aug. 1636 (Strafford MSS, vol. 3).

24 Cal. S.P.dom., 1635–6, p. 554.

25 Ibid., 1637–8, p. 432; P.R.O., S.P. 323, pp 293, 294; Strafford’s letters, ii, 20.

26 Strafford’s letters, ii, 33–4.

27 Ibid., ii, 79.

28 G.E.C., Baronetage, 1625–49, pp 376–7.

29 McCusker, P.J., ‘Ballentaken-Beragh in the seventeenth century’ in Seanchas Ardmacha, x (1982), p. 470 Google Scholar.

30 Cal. S.P. dom., 1637–8, pp 432, 432–3, 519–20; P.R.O., S.P. 323, pp 293–4, 314.

31 Cal. S.P. dom., 1637–8, p. 520; T.C.D., Crosbie papers, MS 3821, no. la; Anon., ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (i)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xvii (1916), p. 15 Google Scholar

32 Anon., ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (ii)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xviii (1917), pp 102-4Google Scholar; McCusker, loc. cit., p. 470.

33 Cal. S. P. Ire., 1633–47, pp 204–5, 206; P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/256/118; Strafford’s letters, ii, 253, 259; ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (i)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xvii (1916), p. 15.

34 Strafford’s letters, ii, 230; Bliss, James (ed.), The works of William Laud (9 vols, London, 1847-60), vii, 423 Google Scholar.

35 Strafford’s letters, ii, 252, 307.

36 Wentworth to Conway, 10 Dec. 1638 (Strafford MSS, vol. 10). According to the earl of Clarendon, Holland, ‘was a very handsome man, of a lovely and winning presence and gentle conversation’ (History of the great rebellion (6 vols, Oxford, 1888), i, 79)Google Scholar. On the enmity of the two, see Donaghan, Barbara, ‘A courtier’s progress: greed and consistency in the life of the earl of Holland’ in Historical Journal, xix (1976), p. 329 Google Scholar.

37 Strafford’s letters, ii, 282–4, 286, 307.

38 Ibid., ii, 258, 328–9.

39 Rushworth, Historical collections, iii, 888–902; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 14; P.R.O., S. P. Ire., 63/257/12, 13, 14, 15; Cal. S.P. dom., 1639, pp 113–14; Cowper MSS, ii, 229.

40 Strafford’s letters, ii, 218.

41 Rushworth, Historical collections, iii, 902; Cal. S.P. dom., 1639, p. 410; Grosart, A.B. (ed.), The Lismore papers (2nd ser., 5 vols, London, 1888), iv, 48 Google Scholar.

42 Clarke, Aidan, ‘The earl of Antrim and the First Bishops’ War’ in Irish Sword, vi (1963), pp 108-15Google Scholar.

43 Lismore papers, 2nd ser., iv, 48.

44 Cowper MSS, ii, 216; Coke to Wentworth, 6 Mar. 1639 (Strafford MSS, vol. 6); Lismore papers, 2nd ser., iv, 34, 38; Strafford’s ‘letters, ii, 246.

45 Bellievre to Noyers, 10 Mar., 14 Apr., 3 May, 22 July 1639 (P.R.O., Baschet transcripts, 31/3/71, ff 29, 50, 58, 91).

46 Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français, 15916 [N.L.I, microfilm, pos. 110], ff 235, 241, 255–5v, 256–6v; Carles, Pierre, ‘Troupes irlandaises au service de la France, 1635–1815’ in Études Irlandaises, new ser., viii (1983), pp 194ffGoogle Scholar.

47 Lords’ jn., iv, 143.

48 Ibid., pp 195, 197, 199; Rushworth, John (ed.), The tryal of Thomas, earl oj Strafford (London, 1680), pp 128, 154Google Scholar.

49 Jansson, Maija, Two diaries of the long parliament (New York, 1984), p. 60, n. 113 Google Scholar.

50 Lords’ jn., iv, 266, 275, 366; H.M.C, rep. 4, app., House of Lords MSS, p. 53.

51 Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 252; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 313.

52 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–42, p. 307.

53 O’Grady, Hugh, Strafford and Ireland (2 vols, Dublin, 1923), p. 15Google Scholar.

54 Kearney, Strafford in Ire., p. 62.

55 Wedgwood, C.V., Strafford, 1593–1641 (London, 1935), pp 148, 149, 219Google Scholar; idem, Thomas Wentworth, first earl of Strafford, 1593–1641: a revaluation (London, 1964), pp 157, 165, 185, 201, 246–7, 253, 329.

56 Harrison, Alan, ‘Séanadh Saighre’ in Éigse, xx (1984), pp 140-41Google Scholar.

57 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1600–1, p. 118; ibid., 1601-3, pp 195–6.

58 Hickson, Mary, Selections from old Kerry records, historical and genealogical (London, 1872), p. 2 Google Scholar.

59 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1601–3, p. 56.

60 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1606–8, pp 95, 140, 190, 194, 221, 245, 362, 464–5; ibid., 1608-10, p. 216; Cal. pat. rolls, Ire., Jas I, pp 115, 141; Cal. Carew MSS, vi, 258; Fitzgerald, Walter, ‘Notes on the family of Patrick Crosby of Maryborough’ in R.S.A.I.Jn., liii (1923), pp 133-50Google Scholar; ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (i)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xvii (1916), p. 15; Dunlop, Robert, ‘The plantation of Leix and Offaly’ in English Historical Review, vi (1891), pp 91-4Google Scholar. A somewhat similar proposal had been made by the O’Mores themselves in 1584 (P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/107/61 (1), 62, 63).

61 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 257; P.R.O.I., Inquisitions, 1A/48/64, no 3; 1A/48/89, no. 7.

62 T.C.D., Crosbie papers, no. 1.

63 Fitzgerald, ‘Notes on the family of Crosby’, p. 146.

64 Acts privy council, 1615–16, p. 662.

65 G.E.C, Baronetage, p. 376.

66 Ca. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 326.

67 Acts privy council, 1616–17, p. 326; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 248, 252, 316, 337, 354–6, 407–8. Crosby was in possession of the disputed lands when the area was surveyed by the 1622 commission (B.L., Add. MS 4756, f. 81).

68 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 454.

69 Malone, William, A reply to Mr James Ussher (Douai, 1627), pp E3 r-vGoogle Scholar.

70 Cuddy, Neil, ‘The revival of the entourage: the bedchamber of James I’ in Starkey, D.A. (ed.), The English court from the wars of the roses to the civil war (London, 1987), p. 194 Google Scholar.

71 Fitzgerald, ‘Notes on the family of Crosby’, p. 145.

72 G.E.C., Peerage; Walter Fitzgerald, loc. cit., p. 146. Crosby’s wife had died in March 1618.

73 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 454.

74 Hill, George, The plantation in Ulster (Belfast, 1877), p. 535n.Google Scholar; McCusker, ‘Ballentaken-Beragh’, pp 455–72.

75 Cal. S.P. dom., 1619–23, p. 108; ibid., 1628-9, p. 440.

76 H.M.C. rep. 4, app., House of Lords MSS, p. 8.

77 Acts privy council, 1625–6, pp 355, 410, 447.

78 Clarke, Aidan, ‘The army and politics in Ireland’ in Studia Hibernica, iv (1964), pp 28–53 Google Scholar.

79 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 73–4; P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/267/40.

80 Larkin, J.F. (ed.), Stuart royal proclamations (Oxford, 1983), ii, 59–61 Google Scholar.

81 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1647–60, p. 97 (wrongly dated); P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/268/54.

82 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1647–60, p. 312.

83 Ibid., 1625-32, pp 144, 149; P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/243/400, 415.

84 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 273, 281.

85 Ibid., pp 109, 155; P.R.O., S.P., Ire., 63/243/439.

86 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, pp 148–9.

87 Acts privy council, Jan.-Aug. 1627 pp 293, 293–4, 297; Clarke, ‘The army and politics in Ireland’, pp 43–4.

88 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 267; Acts privy council, Sept. 1627—June 1628, pp 43–4; Cal. SP. dom., 1627–8, p. 324.

89 Gardiner, S.R., England under the duke of Buckingham and Charles (2 vols, London, 1875), ii, 128-36, 168–70Google Scholar.

90 Cal. S.P. dom., 1627–8, p. 435; P.R.O., S.P. 84/78.

91 Cal. S.P. dom., 1627–8, pp 509, 522; ibid., 1628-9, pp 2–3, 63, 66, 99, 265, 279; Acts privy council, Sept. 1627–June 1628, pp 235, 237, 238, 367, 370–71, 373, 382, 389; Aylmer, G.E., ‘St Patrick’s day 1628 in Witham, Essex’ in Past and Present, no. 61 (1973), pp 139-48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

92 Clarke, ‘The army and politics in Ireland’, pp 47–8.

93 Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, pp 58–9.

94 Ibid., pp 81, 263, 271, 276; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 385, 450, 462.

95 Ibid., pp 376–7, 385; ibid., 1647-60, pp 127–8; Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 275; Acts privy council, July 1628–Apr. 1629, pp 115–16, 135, 188–9.

96 He was so described for the first time in a king’s letter of August 1628 (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, pp 358–60); see Kevin Sharpe, ‘The image of virtue: the court and household of Charles I’ in Starkey (ed.), The English court, p. 228.

97 Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 577; ibid., 1629-31, pp 4, 76, 117, 151–6; H.M.C. rep. 10, app., pt v [Municipal archives of Waterford], pp 272–3.

98 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 381; Hill, Plantation in Ulster, p. 536n.; McCusker, ‘Ballentaken-Beragh’, p. 469; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, pp 358–60, 557.

99 Her brother, Lord Noel, and her trustees were instructed to look after her (Acts privy council, July 1628–Apr. 1629, p. 220; ibid., 1629-30, p. 29; Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 369).

100 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1647–60, p. 144; P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/269/76; Acts privy council, 1630–31, p. 259.

101 Clarke, ‘The army and politics in Ireland’, p. 52.

102 Insh, P., Scottish colonial schemes, 1620–1686 (Glasgow, 1922), pp 40–112 Google Scholar.

103 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 555, 558.

104 Ibid., p. 576.

105 Insh, Scottish colonial schemes, pp 110–11.

106 Laing, David (ed.), The royal letters, charters and tracts relating to the colonization of New Scotland (Edinburgh, 1867), pp 121-2Google Scholar.

107 Rogers, Charles (ed.), The earl of Stirling’s register of royal letters relative to the affairs of Scotland and Nova Scotia from 1615 to 1635 (2 vols, Edinburgh, 1885), ii, 513-14Google Scholar; Insh, Scottish colonial schemes, p. 111.

108 McGrail, T.H., Sir William Alexander, first earl of Stirling (Edinburgh, 1940), pp 118-19Google Scholar.

109 Burnet, Gilbert, Memoirs of James and William, dukes of Hamilton (Oxford, 1852), p. 7 Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 608, 615; Crosby to Hamilton, 21 Jan. 1631 (National Register of Archives, Scotland, Hamilton papers, GD. 406/1/191).

110 ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (i)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xvii (1916), p. 6.

111 Cal. S.P. dom., 1631–3, pp 55, 113, 118, 129–30, 131, 132, 230; Cowper MSS, i, 438.

112 Cal. S.P.Ire., 1625–32, p. 629; Birch, Thomas, The court and times of Charles I (2 vols, London, 1848), ii, 135 Google Scholar.

113 Burnet, Memoirs of Hamilton, pp 6–31; Roberts, Michael, Gustavus Adolphus: a history of Sweden, 1611–32 (2 vols, London, 1953-8), ii, 608-15Google Scholar; Register of the privy council of Scotland, 1633–35 (Edinburgh, 1904), pp xliv, 101.

114 Strafford’s letters, i, 69.

115 Cal. S.P. col., 1574–1660, p. 95.

116 Smith, Charles, The antient and present state of the county of Kerry (Dublin, 1756), p. 246 Google Scholar; Lismore papers, 2nd ser., iv, Notes and illustrations, pp 291–2.

117 Charles I to Wentworth, 14 Aug. 1632 (Strafford MSS, vol. 4).

118 Cal. pat. rolls, Chas I, p. 644.

119 Kearney, Strafford in Ire., p. 195n.

120 Owen Roe O’Neill to Kearney, 25 Aug. 1634 (Strafford MSS, vol.14).

121 Smuts, R.M., ‘The puritan followers of Henrietta Maria in the 1630s’ in English Historical Review, xciii (1978), pp 26–45 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

122 Carles, ‘Troupes irlandaises’, p. 194.

123 Jennings, Brendan (ed.), Wild geese in Spanish Flanders, 1582–1700 (I.M.C., Dublin, 1964), pp 280-81, 283, 572, 573Google Scholar.

124 O’Neill to Brendan Jennings, 25 Aug. 1634 (Strafford MSS, vol. 14).

125 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, pp 62–7.

126 Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 70.

127 His presence was recorded on 15 Nov. (ibid., p. 81).

128 Rushworth, Historical collections, iii, 888–902.

129 Calendar of the MSS of the marquess of Ormonde (new ser., 8 vols, H.M.C., London 1902–20) ii, 10–32.

130 Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 291–2, 293–5.

131 P.R.O.I., Carte transcripts, ii, f. 51; Ormonde MSS, i, 131.

132 Clarke, Old English, ch. X.

133 H.M.C, Franciscan MSS, p. 111.

134 Snow, Vernon and Young, Anne Steele (eds), The private journals of the long parliament, 7 March — 1 June 1642 (New Haven, 1987), pp 8–9Google Scholar.

135 H.M.C. rep. 5, app. House of Lords MSS, p. 50; Lords’ jn., iv, 374.

136 Giblin, Cathaldus (ed.), ‘Vatican Library, MSS Barberini Latini’ in Archivium Hibernicum, xviii (1955), p. 111 Google Scholar.

137 ‘Sir John Ware’s ‘Diary’, p. 232 (Gilbert collection, MS 169).

138 Fitzgerald, ‘Notes on the family of Crosby’, p. 149.

139 ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (ii)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xviii, pp 102–4.

140 Ibid., pp 102–3; Ormonde MSS, i, 100; H.M.C. rep. 4, app. House of Lords MSS, p. 159

141 P.R.O.I., Carte transcripts, xvii, ff 64, 129.

142 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 645; P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/264/56, ff 33–4.

143 P.R.O.I., Carte transcripts, xvii, f. 344; xviii, f. 3.

144 Gilbert, J.T. (ed.), The history of the Irish confederation and war in Ireland (7 vols, Dublin, 1882-91), vi, 81 Google Scholar.

145 Bodl., Carte MSS, vol. 164, f. 267.

146 Gilbert, Ir. confed., vi, 21–2; Thomas Carte, , The life of James, duke of Ormond (6 vols, London, 1851), iii, 265-6Google Scholar.

147 Commentarius Rinuccinianus, ed. Kavanagh, Stanislaus (6 vols, I.M.C., Dublin, 1932-49), ii, 491 [923]Google Scholar.

148 Fitzgerald, ‘Notes on the family of Crosby’, pp 148–9.

149 ‘The case of Sir Piers Crosby, Baronet (ii)’ in Kerry Arch. Mag., xviii (1917), p. 105.

150 G.E.C., Baronetage, pp 377–8.