British and Irish History: Biographies

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Wentworth, Thomas

The Oxford Companion to Irish History | 2007 | Copyright

Wentworth, Thomas (1593–1641), created 1st earl of Strafford in 1640, and appointed lord deputy by Charles I in 1632. Wentworth aimed at restoring church and king at the expense of Old English recalcitrance and New English corruption by an active policy, nicknamed ‘thorough’, in finance, religion, land, and administration.

Irish customs revenue was boosted and a regular subsidy obtained from the Dublin parliament by playing Old English off against New over the Graces. Wentworth subsequently created a government party of trusted officials including Wandesford, Sir George Radcliffe, chief secretary 1633–9, and Sir Philip Mainwaring, as well as various MPs divorced from country interests.

Wentworth forced the Church of Ireland convocation to discard its ‘Calvinistic’ articles of 1615 and began installing high‐church bishops such as John Bramhall in Derry. Lay impropriations were attacked to strengthen the church financially and enable it to support a well‐educated clergy.

By discovering ancient royal titles, Wentworth hoped to plant a quarter of Old English‐held lands. Beginning in Connacht in 1635 juries proved crown title in Mayo, Sligo, and Roscommon, and eventually, despite the activism of Patrick Darcy and Richard Burke, earl of Clanricard, in Galway. Parts of Clare and Tipperary were also to be planted and Wentworth himself commenced in Wicklow. The object was to increase crown revenue and to so impoverish the Catholic gentry that they could no longer maintain their clergy.

Wentworth was not uniformly successful—the king eventually exempted the Clanricard estates in Galway. Richard Boyle and Adam Loftus may have been humbled but Mountnorris escaped punishment for maladministration. Indeed, Wentworth's policies and absolutist methods, including the manipulation of Poynings's Law and the use of Castle Chamber, alienated all sections of Irish society.

When war broke out in Scotland (1639), Wentworth imposed the Black Oath and returned to England as the king's chief adviser. He was created earl and promoted to lord lieutenant. The Irish army he prepared to invade Scotland frightened the English parliament, which in November 1640 commenced impeachment proceedings. A delegation of Irish parliamentarians, combining Old and New English, testified against him. Although Wentworth countered charges of subverting the fundamental laws of England and Ireland, parliament passed a bill of attainder. ‘Black Tom Tyrant’ was so unpopular that the king was forced to assent to his execution on 12 May 1641. Van Dyck's two portraits of Went‐worth—as the energetic administrator and the military governor—are hugely symbolic.

Bibliography

Kearney, Hugh , Strafford in Ireland 1633–41: A Study in Absolutism (1959)

Hiram Morgan

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