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The Intrigue to Deprive The Earl of Essex of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Clement E. Pike
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Extract

In drawing your attention to an intrigue to deprive the Earl of Essex of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland it may perhaps be worth while to say a few words about the dignity and emoluments of that office. At the period of which we are treating, the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland was regarded without question as the most exalted position which an English subject could obtain out of England. In England itself there was only one post, the Lord Treasurership, which surpassed it, and it may be questioned whether the sword of the Lord Lieutenant did not confer more power than the staff of the Lord Treasurer. The Lord Lieutenant directly represented the Crown in a land which, for centuries, no English monarch had visited. He had his Court, his guards; he was head of all the military force in the country. Lord Halifax, on one occasion, expressed disinclination for the post, because ‘he did not love,’ he said, ‘a new scene, nor to dine with a sound of trumpet and 36 dishes of meat on his table.’

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 5 , December 1911 , pp. 89 - 103
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1911

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References

page 90 note 1 In aletter from Essex to Harbord, February 14,1674, Essex shows how the prohibition of the cattle trade had increased the income by the increase in wool duties. He also says that Ormond had 3000l. a year more than the present governor, this being deducted when Lord Robartes came.

In the Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, is a list of payments to be made for military affairs. The list to begin from April 1666. According to this paper the Lord Lieutenant was to receive 100l. per month, a retinue of 50 horse at 59s. 6d. a day, other allowances, bringing the amount up to 3860l. 17s. 6a, As General of the Army he receives 4331l. 6s. 8d.; Captain of troop of horse, 723l. 18s. 4d.; as Colonel, 608l. 6s. 8d.; Captain of foot company, 261l. 11s. 8d.; for his guard of halberdiers, etc., 1848l. This would amount to 11,634l. 0s. 10d. to represent the allowance for military purposes only. (See Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, p. 68.)Google Scholar

page 91 note 1 ‘The place of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland was popularly reported to be worth forty thousand pounds a year.’ See Macaulay, 's History, chap. iii. p. 151.Google Scholar

page 93 note 1 Essex's own simile is more forcible. ‘This country has been perpetually rent and torn since His Majesty's restoration. I can compare it to nothing better than the flinging the reward, upon the death of a deer, among a pack of hounds, where everyone pulls and tears what he can for himself: for it has been no other than a perpetual scramble.’—Essex to Harbord, June 12, 1675.

page 94 note 1 Writing to Harbord on April 24, Essex himself had given vent to this rumour. ‘I hear that my Lord of Sunderland has a promise to succeed me and that procured by the Dutchess of Monmouth.’

page 95 note 1 The Lord Lieutenant's Commission empowered him to appoint a Deputy, and for the King to send one, without consulting him, would have been irregular.