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The restoration land settlement in Ireland: a structural view

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Karl S. Bottigheimer
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Extract

In the history of Europe political revolutions are commonplace; cultural and social revolutions are somewhat less abundant; but revolutions in the ownership of property are exceedingly rare. Even the French revolution, the prototype of profound social upheaval, is today regarded by many—particularly the followers of the late Professor Cobban—as a revolution which failed to transform the proprietary class. And in England, the believers in a great seventeenth-century social revolution have either evaded or artfully rationalised the considerable evidence that the land-owning families of 1660 were essentially the land-owning families of 1640. Despite enormous fiscal pressures, the Long Parliament and its successors never embarked upon a serious effort to expropriate or extirpate those it defeated. ‘It is their reformation, not their ruin, is desired’, wrote the author of Burton’s Diary, and the recent work of Mrs Joan Thirsk, the most exactingstudent of the royalist land sales during the interregnum, tends to confirm the verdict.

Type
Articles
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 69 , March 1972 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1972

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References

1 Thirsk, Joan, ‘The sale of delinquents’ estates during the interregnum, and the land settlement at the restoration ’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1950), p. 24.Google Scholar See also ‘The sale of royalist land during the interregnum’ in Econ. Hist. Rev., v (1952–3), and ‘The restoration land settlement’ in Jn. Mod. Hist., 1954.

2 P.R. rep. D.K. 32, app. I (Report upon the Carte papers, by C. W. Russell and J. P. Prendergast, 1877), p. 86.

3 Notes which passed at meetings of the privy council between Charles II and the earl of Clarendon, 1660–7, ed. Macray, W.D. (Roxburgh Club, London, 1896), p. 498.Google Scholar

4 Vincent Gookin to Henry Cromwell, 21 Oct. 1656 (B. M. Lans-downe MS 821, f. 246). The term referred to those who came to Ireland before Cromwell, though some of the ’49 officers only barely qualified.

5 Most protestant ‘royalists’ made their peace with the protectorate sooner or later. Hugh Viscount Montgomery of Ards compounded for his estate in 1657 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1647–60, pp 580–91). Lady Ormonde was befriended by Henry Cromwell ( Dunlop, , Commonwealth, 2, 313).Google Scholar Colonel Marcus Trevor, originally a Welsh royalist, drew on the support of his distant relation, John Jones, the parliamentary commissioner for Ireland ( Dodd, A.H., Studies in Stuart Wales, Cardiff, 1952, p. 102).Google Scholar

6 Even as early as 1641 and 1642 Oliver Cromwell was involved in Irish affairs ( Hill, Christopher, God’s Englishman, London, 1970, p. 62).Google Scholar

7 H.M.C., Egmont, i, 264.

8 See chapter iv of my English money and Irish land: the ’Adventurers’ in the Cromwellian settlement of Ireland (Oxford, 1971) for the conduct of the Munster protestants, especially Inchiquin. Even William Jephson, Inchiquin’s second in command, deserted him at this juncture.

9 Members of this party included Hardress Waller, John Percival, Sir John and Robert King, Sir John Temple, Vincent Gookin, William Jephson, Arthur Hill, Theophilus Jones, and Sir Charles Coote. Between a half and a third of the Irish members of the second protectorate parliament were ‘Ancient Protestants ’, as were at least eight of the seventeen M.P.s who voted for Oliver to accept the title of king. A more detailed analysis of the membership of the interregnum and restoration parliaments is in progress.

10 See Trevor-Roper, H.R., Religion, the reformation and social change (London, 1967), p. 381,Google Scholar and Lynch, Kathleen, Roger Boyle, first earl of Orrery (Knoxville, Tennessee, 1965).Google Scholar

11 D.N.B., art. Henry Cromwell.

12 Ibid.

13 Thurloe state papers, ed. by Birch, T. (London, 1742), 5, 477.Google Scholar

14 Scott, W.R., ‘Members for Ireland in the parliaments of the pro-tectorate’ in R.S.A.I Jn., 23 (1893), pp 75–6.Google Scholar

15 Ibid. C. H. Firth noted the Irish basis of the kingship party in his articles, ‘Cromwell and the crown’ in E.H.R., 1902, 1903, but he made no effort to explain it. More recently, Professor Trevor-Roper has attributed it to the organizational talents of Broghill (Religion, the reformation, and social change, p. 381).

16 The declaration of the army in Ireland, Dublin, 18 Feb. 1660.

17 A list of the members of the convention is in An account of the chief occurrences in Ireland from Monday, 12 March to Monday, ig March (Dublin, 1660). An exceedingly useful list of the Irish parliament of Charles II is appendix Β of Fergus M. O‘Donoghue, ‘Parliament in Ireland under Charles II’ (unpublished M.A. thesis, University College, Dublin, 1970). I am indebted to this work and grateful to the author for permission to use it.

18 Life of James, first duke of Ormonde (Oxford ed., 1851), iv, 42. W. Ε. H. Lecky was among the many who followed Carte in this view. See History of Ireland in the 18th century, i, 107, 111.

19 Bodl., MS. Clarendon 74, ff 408–9.

20 Political anatomy of Ireland (Dublin, 1769), p. 330.

21 They were :

See appendices A and Β of my English money and Irish land.

22 O’Donoghue, op. cit., p. 152. On the other hand only ten members of the Irish commons had shared Charles IPs exile.

23 Bodl., MS Clarendon 74, ff 408–9.

24 Ibid.

25 O’Donoghue, op. cit., p. 61.

26 Even Ormonde, through the agency of his wife, had reached a modus vivendi with Henry Cromwell and the protectorate in Ireland. As O’Donoghue wrote of the restoration M.P.s, ‘The majority had simply gone with the prevailing force of the time ’ (op. cit., p. 152).

27 For an introduction to the court of claims and its background, see the prefatory essay by Dr J. G. Simms to the forthcoming edition of the manuscript record of the court in Armagh Library, to be published by the Irish Manuscripts Commission. I am obliged to Dr Simms for making available this introduction in advance of its publication.

28 Three of the commissioners held seats in the Irish commons : Edward Cook, Sir Edward Deering, and Sir Edward Smith, and all three were said to incline to ‘the English interest’. Sir Richard Rainsford, Sir Thomas Beverly, and Winston Churchill were ‘for the king’ (meaning, in context, the Irish) as was apparently the seventh commissioner, Henry Coventry, until his recall to England in February. See Simms, op. cit.

29 Rules, orders and directions agreed upon by his majesty’s commissioners … (Dublin, 1662). This is not in Wing or the British Museum. There is a copy in the National Library of Ireland (Thorpe pamphlets, vol. xi).

30 Orrery to Clarendon, 8 Nov 1662, Bodl., MS Clarendon 78, ff 81–2.

31 Ibid.

32 Ormonde to Clarendon, 12 Nov. 1662, Bodl., MS Clarendon 78, ff 83–4.

33 The abstract of the claims of all persons claiming as innocents in the city, county of the city, and county of Dublin (Dublin, 1663), Wing A 128.

34 There would appear to be three basic lists of decrees one in the British Museum (Egerton MS 789); one which was burned in the Irish Record Office fire of 1922 after having been published in extenso in the P.R.I, rep. D.K. 19 (1887), app. v, pp 35–88, and the Armagh Library MS soon to be published by the Irish Manuscript Commission. I have been able to consult only the first two of these.

35 Calendar of the Clarendon state papers, 5, ed. Routledge, F J. (Oxford, 1970), p. 292.Google Scholar

36 The only surviving set of this paper appears to be that in the library of Worcester College, Oxford.

37 Orrery to Clarendon, 28 Jan. 1663 (Clarendon cal, ν, 293).

38 My italics. Ormonde to Clarendon, u Feb. 1663, Bodl., MS Clarendon 79, ff 16–9.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ormonde to Clarendon, 21 Feb. 1663, MS Clarendon 79, ff 80–1

43 See especially Clarendon’s letter of 7 Feb. 1663 in Lister, T.H. (ed.), The life and administration of Edward, first earl of Clarendon (London, 1837), 3, 237,Google Scholar with its interesting expression : ‘The truth is, I do believe treason is not made so terrible as the progress it hath lately made in the world requires it should be ’.

44 Clarendon to Ormonde, 28 Feb. 1663, Bodl., MS Carte 47, f. 32.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 Bodl., MS Clarendon 73, f. 264; MS Clarendon 79, f. 90; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1663–5, p. 34.

48 Ormonde to Audley Mervyn, 9 Mar. 1663, Bodl., MS Clarendon 79, ff 94–5.

49 The commons answer, 11 Mar. 1663, Bodl., MS Clarendon 79, ff 96–7; Cal. S.P. Ire. 1663–5, p. 35, Commons’ jn. Ire., 10 Mar. 1663.

50 Ormonde to Clarendon, 7 Mar. 1663, Bodl., MS Clarendon 70 ff 90–1.

51 Russell and Prendergast, for instance, seem to have regarded Blood’s rebellion as the crucial event (P.R. rep. D.K. 32 app. I, p. 86).

52 The horrid conspiracy of such impenitent traitors as intended a new rebellion in the kingdom of Ireland (Dublin, 1663).

58 Ibid.

54 Orrery state letters, ed. Morice, T (London, 1742), p. 13.Google Scholar Shapcote sat for Tiverton as a recruiter in the long parliament and was solicitor-general and attorney general of Ireland under Cromwell. (David Under-down, Pride’s purge (Oxford, 1971), p. 396, n. 27.

55 Cal. S.P. Ire. 1663–5, P. 399. Staples had a private grant of 821 plantation acres in Co. Dublin in partial payment for £2,000 in arrears for army service before 1649 (Bodl., MS Carte 44, f. 474). He sat in the parliament of Richard Cromwell as M.P. for Deny, Donegal, and Tyrone.

56 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1663–5, p. 176. The other M.P.s implicated were John Ruxton, Thomas Boyd, Thomas Scot and Abel Warren (Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 11, p. 668).

57 Such a possibility was suggested by Dr Aidan Clarke when an earlier version of this paper was read to the Irish Historical Society.

58 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1663–5, P. 110, and T.C.D., MS F 3. 18, 47, ‘A narrative of what passed in discourse between Alexander Jephson of Trim and Theophilus Jones at Lucan on Wednesday, May 19, 1663 ’. A critical reconstruction of Blood’s rebellion could be extremely worthwhile.

59 H.M.C. Ormonde MSS, new series, iii, 72, 88–9, 92.

60 Routledge, Clarendon cal., ν, 316.

61 Rec. Comm. Ire. rep., 1821–5 show that only some 8000 ‘adventurers ’ and‘soldiers’ were confirmed in their lands by Charles II. Of these, not less than 500 were ’ adventurers ’ All but approximately 7500 ‘soldiers ’ had sold, or otherwise disposed of, their lands. Petty estimated an even greater shrinkage ’ There have been stated of soldiers’ debentures which served since 1649 about 30,000 and the lands let out in satisfaction of them have not been divided into 1,000 properties’ 1,600 debentures for service before 1649 would not ‘beget 400 proprietors or their assigns’ ( Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, ed. Rupert Hall, A. and Hall, Marie Boas (Madison, Wisconsin, 1966), 2, 54,Google Scholar

62 Bodl., MS Carte 32, ff 297–9.

63 Arnold, L.J., ‘The restoration land settlement in Counties Dublin and Wicklow’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, T.C.D., 1969), p. 146.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., p. 165.

65 Routledge, Clarendon cal., ν- 340.

66 Orrery to Ormonde, 30 May 1664, in Orrery state letters, p. 96.Google Scholar

67 23 Oct. 1663, H.M.C. Ormonde, η.s., iii, 96.

68 He believed that the old distinction between Gaelic Irish and Anglo-Irish was ‘asleep now because they have a common enemy ’. Cited in Simms, J.G., Jacobite Ireland (London, 1969), p. 5.Google Scholar

69 Confiscation in Irish history, p. 191. The names can be perused in the P.R. rep. D.K. 19.

70 Rules, orders, and directions. See n. 29 above.

71 Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 11, p. 633.

72 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1663–5, P.392 and Marquis of Lansdowne, (ed.), The Petty-Southwell correspondence (London, 1928), p. 152.Google Scholar

73 580 is the number given by Butler, W.F.T., Confiscation, p. 197 Google Scholar Perhaps Dr Simington’s forthcoming study of the transplantation will answer these questions.