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‘The Cat’s Paw’: Helen Arthur, the act of resumption and The Popish pretenders to the forfeited estates in Ireland, 1700–03

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Frances Nolan
Frances Nolan*
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
*
*School of History, University College Dublin, [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the case of Helen Arthur, a Catholic and Jacobite Irish woman who travelled with her children to France following William III’s victory over James II in the War of the Two Kings (1689–91). It considers Helen’s circumstances and her representation in The Popish pretenders to the forfeited estates in Ireland, a pamphlet published in London in 1702 as a criticism of the act of resumption. The act, introduced by the English parliament in 1700, voided the majority of William III’s grants to favourites and supporters. Its provisions offered many dispossessed, including the dependants of outlawed males, a chance to reclaim compromised or forfeited property by submitting a claim to a board of trustees in Dublin. Helen Arthur missed the initial deadline for submissions, but secured an extension to submit through a clause in a 1701 supply bill, a development that brought her to the attention of the anonymous author of The Popish pretenders. Charting Helen’s efforts to reclaim her jointure, her eldest son’s estate and her younger children’s portions, this article looks at the ways in which dispossessed Irish Catholics and/or Jacobites reacted to legislative developments. More specifically, it shines a light on the possibilities for female agency in a period of significant upheaval, demonstrating opportunities for participation and representation in the public sphere, both in London and in Dublin. It also considers the impact of the politicisation of religion upon understandings of women’s roles and experiences during the Williamite confiscation, and suggests that a synonymising of Catholicism with Jacobitism (and Protestantism with the Williamite cause) has significant repercussions for understandings of women’s activities during the period. It also examines contemporary attitudes to women’s activity, interrogating the casting of Helen as a ‘cat’s paw’ in a bigger political game, invariably played by men.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 162 , November 2018 , pp. 225 - 243
Copyright
© Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2018 

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References

1 Anon., The Popish pretenders to the forfeited estates in Ireland, unmask’d and layd open. Being an answer to a letter from a member of parliament, desiring his friend to inquire into the character and circumstances of some persons, who (by the act relating to the forfeitures,) have been, or are like to be restored to their estates (London, 1702). This was among a number of pamphlets produced in response to the act of resumption. For an overview, see Walsh, Patrick, The making of the Irish Protestant ascendancy: the life of William Conolly, 1689–1729 (Woodbridge, 2010), p. 50 Google Scholar , n. 37.

2 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2.

3 The accusation of exorbitance was made in a pamphlet printed and sold in London by B. Bragg in 1703, post-dating the king’s death. The pamphlet was entitled The exorbitant grants of William the III examin’d and question’d (London, 1703).

4 On the war and the circumstances surrounding it, see Childs, John, The Williamite wars in Ireland, 1688–1691 (London, 2007)Google Scholar ; Hayton, D. W., Ruling Ireland, 1685–1742: politics, politicians and parties (Woodbridge, 2004), pp 8–34 Google Scholar ; Simms, J. G., Jacobite Ireland, 1685–1691 (London, 1969)Google Scholar .

5 Commons’ jn., x, 445 (17 Oct. 1690); H.M.C., House of Lords MSS, new series, iv, 38. J. G. Simms incorrectly records this figure as 636,807 acres (J. G. Simms, The Williamite confiscation in Ireland, 1690–1703 (London, 1956), p. 87).

6 See Rose, Craig, England in the 1690s: revolution, religion and war (Oxford, 1999), pp 63–104 Google Scholar ; Horwitz, Henry, Parliament, policy and politics in the reign of William III (Manchester, 1977)Google Scholar .

7 Simms, Williamite confiscation, p. 96.

8 Ibid., p. 97; Commons’ jn., xii, 90 (7 Feb. 1698).

9 Commons’ jn., xiii, 65–6 (15 Dec. 1699).

10 Some of the king’s grants were maintained. See 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, ss 55–6; Simms, Williamite confiscation, p. 115.

11 The Popish pretenders, p. 4.

12 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, ss 1, 2.

13 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, ss 2, 11.

14 ‘Minutes of the proceedings of the commissioners appointed by a late act of parliament made in England, for inquiring into and taking an account of the forfeited estates within the kingdom of Ireland’ (hereafter cited as ‘Minutes of the proceedings’), 3 June 1700–25 Mar. 1701 (P.R.O.N.I., Annesley MSS, ii, f. 1). On Chichester House, see J. T. Gilbert, A history of the city of Dublin (3 vols, Dublin, 1854–9), iii, 57–73.

15 ‘Minutes of the proceedings’, 3 June 1700–25 Mar. 1701 (P.R.O.N.I., Annesley MSS, ii, ff 110–11).

16 A list of the claims as they are entred with the trustees at Chichester-House on College-Green in Dublin, on or before the tenth of August, 1700 (Dublin, 1701). Three folio versions of the printed List were produced, a number of which contain handwritten adjudications, additional claims and indexes. Surviving copies of the List are held in repositories in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States, with two copies in private ownership. The present article uses the copy held at N.L.I., MS 3012. A modern edition is forthcoming with the Irish Manuscripts Commission.

17 Sir Henry Sheres to John Ellis, 1700 (B.L., Add. MS 28,886, f. 45).

18 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, s. 5.

19 Walsh, Protestant ascendancy, p. 50.

20 Register’s minute book, 14 June–17 Sept. 1700 (P.R.O.N.I., Annesley MSS, viii).

21 Walsh, Protestant ascendancy, p. 50. On the Protestant interest more generally, see Wilson, Rachel, Elite women in ascendancy Ireland, 1690–1745: imitation and innovation (Woodbridge, 2015)Google Scholar ; Hayton, D. W., The Anglo-Irish experience, 1680–1730: religion, identity and patriotism (Woodbridge, 2012)Google Scholar ; idem, Ruling Ireland; McGrath, C. I., The making of the eighteenth-century Irish constitution: government, parliament and the revenue, 1692–1714 (Dublin, 2000)Google Scholar ; Connolly, S. J., Religion, law and power: the making of Protestant Ireland, 1660–1760 (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar .

22 The Popish pretenders, p. 3.

23 Commons’ jn., xiii, 598 (6 June 1701).

24 Ibid., 630 (14 June 1701).

25 Ibid.

26 On eighteenth-century understandings of the terms ‘lobby’ and ‘lobbying’, see James, F. G., ‘The Irish lobby in the early eighteenth century’ in E.H.R., lxxxi, no. 320 (July 1966), pp 543–557 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

See also Bergin, John, ‘Irish Catholic interest at the London inns of court’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, xxiv (2009), pp 36–48 Google Scholar .

27 The Popish pretenders, p. 4.

28 Ibid., p. 10.

29 Commons’ jn., xiii, 592–3 (3 June 1701), 633 (16 June 1701).

30 ‘The humble Petition of Hellen Arthur, widow and relict of Robert Arthur of Hackettstown in the County of Dublin Esq. Deceased, in ye behalfe of herself and their two Daughters Frances & Dymphna Arthur’, 22 May 1701 (Bodl., Rawl. MS A 253, f. 134).

31 Ibid.

32 Lords’ jn., xvi, 765 (23 June 1701); 12 & 13 Will. III, c. 11, s. 28.

33 12 & 13 Will. III, c. 11, s. 29.

34 A list of the claims, claim nos 3111–3118.

35 For interrogations of the boundaries between public and private spheres in seventeenth-century England, see, for example, Shoemaker, Robert, Gender in English society, 1650–1850: the emergence of separate spheres? (London, 1998)Google Scholar ; Backscheider, Paula R. and Dykstal, Timothy (eds), The intersections of the public and private spheres in early modern England (London, 1996)Google Scholar . In an Irish context, interest in the fields of women’s and gender history has been slower to ignite. Mary O’Dowd’s pioneering work has, however, had a significant impact and, as a result, there is a growing body of work on women and womanhood in early modern Ireland. See O’Dowd, Mary, A history of women in Ireland, 1500–1800 (Harlow, 2005)Google Scholar ; MacCurtain, Margaret and O’Dowd, Mary (eds), Women in early modern Ireland (Edinburgh, 1991)Google Scholar ; Coolahan, M. L., Women, writing and language in early modern Ireland (Oxford, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar . Wilson’s Elite women examines members of the Protestant ascendancy and is a positive indication that attention has finally turned to women in the period immediately succeeding the Williamite–Jacobite war. By contrast, Protestant Irish women are relatively well represented in studies of the mid- to late-eighteenth century.

36 The only ‘Irish’ exception to this rule is the English-born Frances Talbot, countess and titular duchess of Tyrconnel, whose correspondence, particularly with her influential sister Sarah Churchill, is relatively considerable. See the correspondence of the duchess of Marlborough with her eldest sister, Frances, 1675–1725 (B.L., Add. MSS 61,453, ff 41–185b); correspondence of the duchess of Marlborough with the daughters of her sister, Frances, and Sir George Hamilton, 1691–1702 (B.L., Add. MS 61,454, ff 1–100b); French letters from the duchess of Tyrconnel, 1707 (Bodl., MS Carte 210, ff 5–77); letters to Richard Talbot, earl of Tyrconnell, and other documents, 1679–90 (N.L.I, MS 37, ff 94–96v). A number of petitions submitted by, or on behalf of, Lady Tyrconnel are also extant. See, for example, ‘Tyrconnel (Mme de). Supplique et mémoire’, 1699 (Bibliothèque Nationale de France (hereafter B.N.F.), Arsenal, MS 6040); ‘The humble Petition of Sir John Temple amd Anthony Guidott, surviving Trustees for ffrancis [sic] Countess Dowager of Tyrconnel’, 23 May 1701 (Bodl., Rawl. MS A, 253, ff 151–2).

37 See Ann Lyons, Mary, ‘“Digne de compassion”: female dependants of Irish Jacobite soldiers in France, c.1692–c.1730’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland, xxiii (2008), pp 55–75 Google Scholar ; Corp, Edward, A court in exile: the Stuarts in France, 1689–1718 (Cambridge, 2004)Google Scholar ; Genet Rouffiac, Nathalie, ‘The Irish Jacobite exile in France, 1692–1715’ in Toby Barnard and Jane Fenlon (eds), The dukes of Ormonde, 1610–1745 (Woodbridge, 2000), pp 195–210 Google Scholar ; eadem, ‘Jacobites in Paris and Saint-Germain-en-Laye’ in Eveline Cruickshanks and Edward Corp (eds), The Stuart court in exile and the Jacobites (London, 1995), pp 15–38.

38 See Frances Nolan, ‘“Jacobite” women and the Williamite confiscation: the role of women and female minors in reclaiming compromised or forfeited property in Ireland, 1690–1703’ (Ph.D. thesis, U.C.D., 2015), pp 1–21.

39 Lart, C. E. (ed.), The parochial registers of Saint Germain-en-Laye: Jacobite extracts of births, marriages, and deaths; with notes and appendices (2 vols, London, 1910)Google Scholar , i, 82.

40 Burke’s peerage, baronetage and knightage (107th ed., 3 vols, London, 2003), iii, 3990; The Popish pretenders, p. 5; James McGuire, ‘Talbot, Richard (1630–91)’, in D.I.B.

41 Micheál Ó Siochrú, ‘Cusack, James (c.1590–c.1659)’, in D.I.B.

42 Ibid.

43 A list of the claims, claim nos 3111–3118.

44 Harold O’Sullivan, ‘Land ownership changes in County Louth in the seventeenth century’ (2 vols., T.C.D., Ph.D. thesis, 1991), i, 251.

45 The king to the lords justices for John Arthur, 11 June 1661 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1660–2, p. 352); O’Sullivan, ‘Land ownership’, i, 251.

46 O’Sullivan, ‘Land ownership’, i, 251–2

47 D’Alton, John, King James’ Irish army list (1689) (Dublin, 1855), pp 966–967 Google Scholar .

48 Lists of persons outlawed for high treason in Ireland (T.C.D., MS 744, ff 12, 17v, 22); J.G. Simms (ed.), ‘Irish Jacobites: lists from T.C.D. MS N.1.3’ in Anal. Hib., no. 22 (1960), pp 30, 36, 40; A list of the claims, claim nos 3111–3118.

49 A list of the claims, claim nos 3111–3118.

50 The Popish pretenders, p. 5.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Knights, Mark, Representation and misrepresentation in later Stuart Britain: partisanship and political culture (Oxford, 2005), pp 18–22 Google Scholar .

54 Connell, Philip, Secular chains: poetry and the politics of religion from Milton to Pope (Oxford, 2016), p. 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar .

55 Melinda S. Zook, Protestantism, politics and women in Britain, 1660–1714 (London, 2013).

56 Knights, Representation, pp 20–1.

57 Ibid., p. 21.

58 The Popish pretenders, p. 8.

59 Ibid., pp 3, 10, 12. The peculiarities and progressions of ascendancy identity are teased out by D. W. Hayton in The Anglo-Irish experience.

60 John Skeffington, second Viscount Massereene, to Robert Southwell, 7 July 1690 (N.L.I., Killadoon papers, MS 36,027).

61 Burke, John and Burke, Bernard, A genealogical history of the extinct or dormant baronecties of England, Ireland and Scotland (London, 1844), p. 611 Google Scholar .

62 Petition of Lieutenant Edmund Stafford, Oct. 1692 (T.N.A., SP 63/353, f. 253b). The parliamentary session was prorogued before Stafford achieved his aim, but another attempt in 1695 was successful.

63 Note on Jacobite activity in London, c.1690 (B.L., Add. MS 28,939, f. 85).

64 Col. Henry Luttrell to the lords justices, 1699 (B.L., Add. MS 21,136, f. 59).

65 Nolan, ‘“Jacobite” women’, pp 92–7.

66 Women were said to be waived and not outlawed because they were ‘not sworn to the King as men are, to be ever within the Law’; as such, they were ‘not regarded but forsaken by the Law’ (Giles Jacob, New law dictionary (London, 1729), entry on ‘Waifs’). Twenty-four female names were included in the inquiry commissioners, lists of outlawry in 1699, with fourteen women waived for domestic treason and ten for foreign treason. There was duplication in two cases: those of Honora Sarsfield and Mary O’Gara, who were included under different names. See ‘List of persons outlawed for high treason in Ireland’ (T.C.D., MS 744, f. 47v); ‘List of persons outlawed for foreign treason’ (T.C.D., MS 744, ff 49v, 53v, 71v); Simms, ‘Irish Jacobites’, pp 65, 66, 71, 88; Nolan, ‘“Jacobite” women’, pp 257–9.

67 The Popish pretenders, p. 5.

68 Roper, C. E. A., ‘The Cusacks of Rathgar and their descendants’ in Journal of the County Kildare Archaeological Society, iv, (1911), pp 466–467 Google Scholar .

69 D’Alton, Irish army, p. 61; Aoife Duignan, ‘Cusack, Nicholas (fl. 1688-91)’, in D.I.B.; ‘List of persons outlawed in Ireland’ (T.C.D., MS 744, ff 12, 17v, 38v); ‘List of persons outlawed for foreign treason’ (T.C.D., MS 744, f. 72); Simms, ‘Irish Jacobites’, pp 30, 36, 56, 89.

70 Lart (ed.), Parochial registers, i, 27, 116.

71 Earl of Nottingham to the commissioners of the treasury, 22 Mar. 1693 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1693, p. 79).

72 Ibid.

73 Lady Tyrconnel was a considerable ally for exiled Irish women, securing a number of pensions and awards from Mary of Modena. See Rouffiac, ‘Irish Jacobite exile’, pp 199–200; eadem, ‘Wild Geese’, pp 27–9; Lyons, “‘Digne de compassion’”, p. 69.

74 H.M.C., Stuart MSS, i, 69, 80; Melville Henry Massue, The Jacobite peerage, baronetage, knightage and grants of honour (Edinburgh, 1904), pp 239, 241.

75 It is likely that the younger Arthur boys were enrolled in St Omer’s College near Calais, which was run by the English Jesuits, in the Jesuit Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris or in the Jesuit college at La Fléche, near Angers (this point draws on Corp, A court in exile, pp 149–50).

76 The Popish pretenders, pp 5–6; see also Corp, A court in exile, p. 143.

77 The Popish pretenders, p. 8.

78 Nolan, ‘“Jacobite” women’, pp 189–244.

79 The Popish pretenders, p. 4.

80 Ibid., p. 6.

81 H.M.C., House of Lords MSS, n.s., v, 203–9.

82 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, s. 1.

83 H.M.C., House of Lords MSS, n.s., v, 203; Lords’ jn., xvii, 274–5 (9 Feb. 1703).

84 The Popish pretenders, p. 6.

85 Hayton, David, Handley, Stuart and Cruickshanks, Eveline (eds), The history of parliament: the House of Commons, 1690–1715 (5 vols, Cambridge, 2002), iii, 855 Google Scholar .

86 The Popish pretenders, p. 6.

87 de La Fontaine, Jean, Fables choisies mises en verse (12 vols, Paris, 1668–1694), ix, 17 Google Scholar . La Fontaine’s version gave rise to the term ‘cat’s paw’, but there were earlier idiomatic references to the monkey and the cat. See Elizabeth Dawes, ‘Pulling the chestnuts out of the fire’ in Houwen, L. A. J. R (ed.), Animals and the symbolic in mediaeval art and literature (Groningen 1997), pp 155–169 Google Scholar .

88 The Popish pretenders, p. 7.

89 Coningsby and Sydney to Portland, 27 Sept. 1690 (Nottingham University Library, Portland MSS, PwA 299b).

90 Hayton, Ruling Ireland, pp 42–4.

91 Commons’ jn., xi, 33–4 (16 Dec. 1693), 73 (29 Jan. 1694); Articles of impeachment of high treason and other high crimes and misdemeanours against Sir Charles Porter, knight, and Lord Coningsby, late lords justices of Ireland (Cal. S.P. dom., 1695 & addenda, pp 228–9); Hayton, Ruling Ireland, p. 51.

92 H.M.C., House of Lords MSS, n.s., iv, 33–8.

93 The parliamentary diary of Sir Richard Cocks, 1698–1702, ed. D. W. Hayton (Oxford, 1996), p. 45.

94 Warrant to the lords justices of Ireland to grant to Lord Coninsby a custodium, 8 June 1694 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1694–5, p. 170); Warrant to the lords justices of Ireland to grant a new custodiam to Lord Coningsby, 13 July 1694 (Ibid., p. 225); List of arrears of rents out of the forfeited estates in the county of Dublin, due at or before 1 November 1695 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1695 & addenda, pp 142–3); Warrant for a grant to Thomas, Lord Coningsby, 18 May 1696 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1696, p. 182); H.M.C., House of Lords MSS, n.s., iv, 32.

95 11 & 12 Will. III, c. 2, s. 2; ‘Petition of Thomas Lee and others, executors to John Hely, Gent., deceased, late Lord Chief Justice of his Majesty’s Court of Common Pleas in Ireland’, 31 May 1701 (Bodl., Rawl. MS A 253, f. 206); Commons’ Jn., xiii, 557 (19 May 1701).

96 Autobiographical papers of Sir Stephen Fox, 1690–1714 (B.L., Add. MS 51,324, ff 57–9).

97 A list of the claims, claim no. 556.

98 1 Anne, c. 67 [Eng., private act]; A list of the claims, claim no. 3144.

99 The parliamentary diary of Sir Richard Cocks, ed. Hayton, p. 230.

100 Hayton et al. (eds), House of Commons, 1690–1715, iii, 673.

101 The Popish pretenders, p. 7.

102 A general abstract of incumbrances (P.R.O.N.I., Annesley MSS, xxxv, f. 42).

103 A list of the claims, claim nos 3111–3118.

104 H.M.C., House of Lords MSS, n.s., iv, 37. Alternative spellings are Scravemore, Scravenmore, or Gravemore.

105 Secretary’s minutes of the trustees for the sale of forfeited estates, 6 Jan.–20 Sept. 1701 (P.R.O.N.I., Annesley MSS, iv).

106 Eileen O’Byrne and Anne Chamney (eds), The convert rolls: the calendar of the convert rolls, 1703–1838: with Father Wallace Clare’s annotated list of converts, 1703–1708 (I.M.C., revised ed., Dublin, 2005), p. 3.

107 B.N.F., MS Français 32,103, f. 160, cited in Patrick Clarke de Dromantin, Les réfugiés jacobites dans la France du XVIIIe siècle: l’exode de toute une noblesse pour cause de religion (Bordeaux, 2005), p. 98. Frances Arthur appears twice in the parish registers for Saint-Germain in the course of the 1690s; first, on December 1696, as witness to the baptism of Richard Nugent, son of Richard and Bridget (née Shee); and second, in January 1698, as witness to the baptism of Christopher Tyrrell, son of Jacques and Honorée (née Malone) (Lart (ed.), Parochial registers, i, 111, 132).

108 Debrett, John, The peerage of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (2 vols, London, 1822), ii, 945 Google Scholar . Bernard Burke contradicted Debrett’s account, with the former suggesting that Patrick Dillon married Dymphna Talbot, daughter of Arthur Talbot and grandniece of Tyrconnel (Bernard Burke, A genealogical history of the dormant, abeyant, forfeited, and extinct peerages of the British Empire (London, 1866), p. 191). Given that Patrick and Dymphna Dillon had children named James, Robert, John, Arthur, Thomas, Frances and Helen, it seems likely that the woman in question was originally Dymphna Arthur (Debrett, Peerage, p. 945).

109 The Popish pretenders, p. 8. This article was the winner of the Women’s History Association of Ireland–Irish Historical Studies Publication Prize in 2017. The author wishes to thank Dr C. I. McGrath (University College Dublin) for reading drafts of this article and for providing helpful feedback and encouragement. Thanks are due too, to the Women’s History Association of Ireland and Irish Historical Studies, for the award of the WHAI/I.H.S. Publication Prize, 2017. It is with gratitude that the author also acknowledges the financial support received for this research, both from an Irish Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship and the National Library of Ireland Research Studentship.