irish representation in the protectorate parliaments

Parliamentary History, Vol. 2.1, p t . 3 (2004), pp. 336-356

Irish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments*

P A T R I C K L I T T L E History of Parliament

Nowhere is the artificial and unequal nature of the Cromwellian union to be seen more clearly, we are told, than in the elections for the three protectorate parliaments, in 1654, 1656 and 1659. English and Welsh M.P.s were allocated 400 seats. The Irish and Scottish M.P.s had 30 each. This arrangement has been seen by historians as ‘the shadow of representation’,’ a ‘parliamentary union of sorts’,’ and as a mere ‘token representation’.3 The imbalance was made worse by the perception that only English government officials and army officers had been returned to Irish and Scottish seats. As the republican M.P., Slingsby Bethell, argued in his diatribe against the 1659 parliament, ‘nothing could be more provoking to those two Nations, then fraudulently to give them the Name of having Members in Parliament: when in truth by the late Elections they had few or none, most of them being chosen at Whitehall’.4 Bethell, his vitriol at full spate, is hardly a credible witness; but his comments have been echoed by later historians. S. R. Gardiner likened the Irish seats to ‘the Ministerial pocket-boroughs of the eighteenth century’.’ Sir Charles Firth said of the 1654 elections that there were ‘few electors’ and as a result ‘most of the members returned were officers of the army’.6 For W. C. Abbott, the elections ‘were so closely supervised by the sheriffs and other oficials’ that only government place-men were ~ h o s e n . ~ In the New Hirtory ofheland, Patrick Corish dismissed these elections in one sentence: ‘Elections were held, but government influence normally succeeded in securing the returns required.’’ Keith Brown’s recent comments typie the consensus which has emerged: ‘the small number of Scottish and Irish members of the Commonwealth and Protectorate parliaments were so obviously agents of the

* This article is based on the draft biographies which I have written for the 1640-60 section of the History of Parliament. I would like to thank the director, Dr Paul Seaward, and my section editor, Dr Stephen Roberts, for their help and encouragenient in its preparation.

’ Il~chard Bagwell, Ireland under tke Stuart3 (3 vols, 1909), 11, 328. * Peter Gaunt, ‘Oliver CromweLl and his Protectorate Parliaments: Co-operation, Conflict and Control’

Aidan Clarke, Prelude fo Restoration in Ireland. ’Ihe End of the Commonwcultk, 1659-60 (Cambndge,

Slingsby Bethell, Narrative . . . ofthe Late l’arliamcnt (1659). p. 10.

in Into Another Mould. Asperts cfrhe I n r e r r e p m , ed. Ivan Roots (2nd edn, Exeter, 1998), p. 74.

1999), p. 14.

’ S. R. Gardiner, History ofrke Commonumltk and Protectorate, 1649-56 (4 vols, 1903). 111, 173. ‘ C. H. Firth, 7 k e Lust Years efthe Protectorate, 1656-8 (2 vols, 1909), 11, 132. ’ W. C. Abbott, The Wri‘tiwgs and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (4 vok, Cambndge, MA, 1937-47),

111, 289. 1’. J . Consh, ‘The Cromwelhan Regme, 1650-60’, In A N e w History oj” Ireland I l l Early Modern

I re lad , 1534-1691, ed. T W Moody, F. X. Martin and F J. Byrne (Oxford, 197h), p. 354.

Irish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments 337 English government - many in fact were Englishmen - that the very idea of union was discredited by the experience’.’

Amid such bold statements, it is easy to forget that the detailed investigation of the nature of the Scottish representative remains incomplete;” and that the Irish M.P.s have received hardly any attention at all. The note of caution sounded by Toby Barnard, in his seminal article on the Cork elections of 1659, is entirely appropriate. ‘Little is known and less has been written about parliamentary elections in seventeenth-century Ireland’, he states, and, referring to the 1650s union parliaments, he adds ‘there has been no detailed analysis of the Irish members to see whether or not they were government nominees’. Barnard goes on to make tentative suggestions as to the general nature of these elections, based on his own unrivalled knowledge of Ireland in the period. Among these points, two are of immediate importance: first, ‘elections in Ireland were not simply a matter of nomination by the Dublin administration’; and secondly, ‘Irish members were not exclusively army officers or civilian officials . . . about half the members in each of the three protectorate parliaments were protestant settlers established in Ireland before 1649.’” Barnard’s suggestions come in sharp contrast to the views of other historians. Could it be that the Irish M.P.s, far from being only English soldiers and adrmnistrators, were in fact representative of the Irish protestant community which they served, and provided it with a platform from which to influence events at Westminster? Now that the History of Parliament project has completed individual biographies of the 61 M.P.s returned to the 20 Irish constituencies during these parliaments, it is possible to conduct the ‘detailed analysis’ necessary to see whether Barnard, or the ever-confident proponents of ‘British’ history, have got it right.

1

The 1654 parliament was the first to return properly elected Irish M.P.s. The Barebone’s Parliament in 1653 had included six members, but these were merely nominated by the council of state at Whitehall.’2 With the formation of the protectorate in December 1653 there was an intention to make parliament into a truly representative body, with 30 Scottish and 30 Irish M.P.s being allowed under

K. M. Brown, ‘The Origins of a British Aristocracy: Integration and its Limitations before the Treaty of Union’, in Conquest and Union. Fashioning a British State, 1485- 1725, ed. Steven Ellis and Sarah Barber (1995), p. 241.

’” This is despite the pioneering work of Pinckney, Casada and Dow: see P. J. Pinckney, ‘The Scottish Representation in the Croniwellian Parliament of 1656’. Scottish Historical Review, XLVI (1967), 95-1 14; J. A. Casada, ’The Scottish Representatives in Richard CromweU’s Parliament’, Scottish Historical Review, LI (1972), 124-47; F. D. Dow, Cromwellian Scotland, 1651-1660 (Edinburgh, 1979), pp. 149-53, 185-7, 237-40. For a near-complete run of the original election indentures for Scotland in 1656 see T.N.A. (P.R.O.), C 219145, unfol. The History of Parliament Trust is currently preparing biographies of all the Scottish M.P.s who sat between 1653 and 1659.

” T. C. Barnard, ‘Lord Broghill, Vincent Gookin and the Cork Election of 1659’. E.H.R., LXXXVIII (1973), 352-3.

l 2 Austin Woolrych, Commonwealth to Protectorate (Oxford, 1982), pp, 134-41,

338 Patrick Little

the Instrument of G~vernmen t . ’~ But there were those in authority who preferred the safer option of continuing the nonlination of members, along similar lines to the selection process of 1653. In May 1654 Croniwell wrote to the lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood, asking him to consider ‘in what manner the thirty persons may be distributed, with most equality . . . and whether you conceive any places or parts in Ireland to be capable of electing members themselves . . . or whether the present condition of affairs be not such, as that particular persons be called by writ for the next ~arliament’.’~ In response, Fleetwood and the parliamentary commissioners were keen to play up the ‘present condition of this desolate country, wherin several counties lie totally waste and uninhabited’, and told Cromwell that ‘we cannot satisfy ourselves, as the present state of affairs here do stand, to present any particular way and course for such elections at this time’.15 The true reason for Fleetwood preferring the nomination, rather than election, of Irish M.P.s was his suspicion of the Old Protestants, whom he saw as closet-royalists. One of the parliamentary commissioners, Edmund Ludlow, pointed the finger: sporadic warfare and continued unrest in Ireland was being used by the Dublin government as a pretext to halt elections, for ‘if the proprietors should chuse, they would return such as were enemies of the English [i.e., the army] interest’.16 Yet Fleetwood’s suspicions of the Old Protestants were not shared by other members of the protector’s council in England, and, crucially, were rejected by Cromwell himself, who had come to value the Old Protestants during his Irish campaigns, and was still on intimate terms with leading figures such as Lord Broghill and Archbishop Ussher.17 As a result, the system agreed in council in June was implemented in late July, when writs of election were sent to Dublin to be distributed to the mayors and sheriffs locally.’8

I f Fleetwood could not prevent free elections, he could influence the distribution of seats - a matter which Croniwell had left to his discretion. The final decision was made by the English council on 2 June 1654, but in reality they merely accepted detailed proposals drawn up by the Irish sub-comnlittee and presented to them by Fleetwood’s ally, John Lambert. The old system of county and borough members, as established under the Irish parliament, was ignored. Instead, individual counties were amalgamated into ‘divisions’ within each of the four provinces, with Leinster having ten M.P.s, Munster nine, Ulster seven and Connaught only four.’’ This pattern of seats seems to have owed more to the study of maps than to a detailed knowledge of the political topography of Ireland. In Leinster, for example, the lumping together of Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny and Queen’s Counties into one constituency, with two M.P.s, ignored the very different geographical terrain and historical settlement

l 3 Acts and 0rdinanc.es of the Inferregnctrn, 1642-60, ed. C. H. Firth and R. S. Rait (3 vols, 191 1) [hereafter A.CO.1, 11, 814.

l 4 Ireland under fhe Comrnonwtdth, ed. Robert Dunlop (2 vols, Manchester, 1913), 11, 424. ’’ Ibid., pp. 427-8. I’ The Memoirs o f E d ~ n u n d Ludlorv, ed. C. H. Firth (2 vols, Oxford, 1894), I , 387-8. ” For Crornwell’s esteem of Ussher see A Collection ofthe State Papers qfJohn Thrrrloe, ed. Thomas Birch

(7 vols, 1742) [hereafter T.S.P.], V, 121-2. Ibid.. 11, 445. Calmfar <$State Papers, Ireiand [C.S. P . I . / 2647-60, p. 800; the Scottish constituencies were decided

at the same meeting: C.S.P. Dam, 1654, pp. 197-9.

Irish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments 339

patterns in the four counties. King’s County was separated from its traditional partner, Queen’s County, and added to Westmeath and Longford to create another apparently arbitrary conglomeration.20 There may have been more sinister motives at work, as Fleetwood still insisted on discriminating against the Old Protestant community. Areas such as Connaught, dominated by Sir Charles Coote, were allowed only four M.P.s for five counties, while the government-controlled areas of Leinster, and the important garrisons such as Limerick and Carrickfergus, were given more seats. To make doubly sure, in each division the elections were to be held in gamson towns.21 This precaution, and measures already in force under the fourteenth and fifteenth articles of the Instrument of Government (denying the franchise to those who had supported the king in England or ‘advised, assisted and abetted’ the Irish rebellion) were designed to ensure the return only of members loyal to the Dublin government. ’*

With all this in mind, historians have naturally seen Fleetwood as the guiding force behind the elections of late July and early August. Gardiner asserted that the M.P.s elected in 1654 ‘were all supporters of the Government, the great majority of them being officers of the army’.23 Paul Pinckney, preparatory to his analysis of the 1656 elections, states that in 1654 the government decided all the places and ‘most of those returned were Army officers’.24 Yet contemporary accounts suggest a different picture. Despite their efforts to control the elections, the end result was deeply unsatisfactory for Fleetwood and his allies, and as early as 8 August there were reports that the chosen M.P.s ‘are not thoroughly liked by some of that place, who say they are malignants in their hearts’.25 The extent of Fleetwood’s failure has been masked by modern confusion over the nature of the Irish army. It is wrong to characterize the Irish army as being officered entirely by baptists and radical independents. James Scott Wheeler had shown that many former Ormondists were absorbed into Cromwell’s army after 1649,26 and in 1651 there were bitter complaints from the parliamentary commissioners of a lack of ‘honest, Religious Officers’ and of ‘that Monarchicall and Cavaleerish interest, and opposition to godliness, wch the greatest of the old Forces, and some of the New, are affected with’.27 The reduction of the army in 1653 had removed many of the old units, but there were still Old Protestants, and ‘ungodly’ Englishmen, on active service.28 Military rank did not automatically mean that a man was a member of a the ‘army interest’: two prominent Old Protestants, Lord Broghill and Sir Hardress Waller, were lieutenant-generals. In adhtion to serving officers, there were those who retained their titles, without holding Cromwellian

2o c.s.p.r. 1647-60, p. 800. ” Ibid. ‘’ A.GO., 11, 817. 23 Gardiner, Commonwealth and Protectorate, 111, 173. 24 P. Pinckney, ‘A Cromwellian Parliament: The Elections and Personnel of 1656’. Vanderbilt University

25 H.M.C., Egmont MSS, I, 555: report ofVernon’s words. ”J. S. Wheeler, Cromwell in Ireland (Dublin, 1999), pp. 100, 118, 193-4. ’’ ‘Inedited Letters’, ed. J. Mayer, Transactions of the Historic Society ofbncashire and Cheshire, new ser., I

*’ T h e Refimental History of Cromwell’s Army, ed. C. H. Firth and G. Davies (2 vols, Oxford, 1940). 11,

Ph.D., 1962, p. 232.

(1860-1). 188-9: John Jones to Thos Scott, 16 Sept. 1651.

587-670.

340 Patrick Little

commissions, who would later be characterized as ‘Persons for Ireland . . . [who] have the names of Officers but are none’.29 The diversity of the officer corps can be seen in an exchange which followed the elections. O n 8 August Fleetwood asked Cromwell €or further orders, considering that ‘so many Chiefe officers’ had been elected, and that Irish security might be compromised as a result. Fleetwood was told to keep six M.P.s back in Ireland, and he selected two baptists (Daniel Axtell and Thomas Sadleir) two moderate officers (Daniel Redman and William Purefoy) and two Old Protestants (Sir Hardress Waller and Sir Charles C ~ o t e ) . ~ ” When analyzing the 1654 election, simply counting the officers is not enough.

An examination of the Irish M.P.s as individuals makes the extent of Fleetwood’s failure all the more apparent. Of the 29 M.P.s,~’ only 12 English officers were returned, and of these, only five were close allies of Fleetwood: Daniel Axtell, John Clarke, John Hewson, Thomas Sadleir and Jerome Sankey. Four others were moderate officers, who were neither religious radicals nor dependent on the lord deputy’s favour.32 The remaining three officers were already associated with the Old Protestant interest: Henry Ingoldsby, the governor of Limerick, had married the daughter of Sir Hardress Waller in 1653; William Purefoy, who had served in Ireland before 1649 and was almost certainly another Waller henchman; and Lieutenant- Colonel Thomas Scot (the son of the regicide) had begun to reject his father’s politics after his marriage into the Old Protestant Peirce family in 1651. The Old Protestants themselves won 16 seats, with the major settler families - the Boyles, Wallers, Cootes, Joneses, Merediths, Jephsons, Coles, Hills and Temples - all being represented. The only anomalous case was that of William Halsey, M.P. for Waterford and Clonmel, who was the only English civilian to be returned, and whose allegiances are uncertain at this stage. Of the 28 other seats, the army interest won five, the moderate officers four, and the remaining 19 were controlled by Old Protestants or their allies. It was hardly surprising that Fleetwood’s allies were disappointed, and that, during the parliamentary session, the lord deputy himself complained that ‘Ther are some, who relate to Ireland (not of the souldiers) who doe ill offices in England, and heare, for us; which, if not t i d y observed and prevented, will prove unhappy.’33

Examining the 1654 returns by constituency underlines the scale of the Old Protestant victory at the polls. The Old Protestants and their allies fall into a clear regional pattern, based on the local interests of a handful of prominent politicians. Thus, the three seats in County Cork went to established settlers, with strong connexions to the Boyle clan: Lord Broghill, William Jephson and Vincent G 0 0 k i n . ~ ~ Sir Hardress Waller, as the dominant figure in Limerick, was elected for Counties

’I’ Narraliue o f f h e Late PmfiamPnt (Feb. 1658), p. 13.

31 The full list provided in Mercunur Polifitus, no. 219 (17-24 Aug. 1654), pp. 3709-10, is reliable apart from inclusion of Dr Henry Jones as a third M.P. for Westmeath, Longford and King’s Counties, where only two seats were available. Only 29 M.P.s were returned because Reynolds was returned for Galway and Mayo and Tipperary and Waterford, and no by-election seems to have been held.

’r:s.p., II, 558.

32 Morgan, Redman, Reynolds and Venables. ’‘ T.S.P., 111, 23. 34 The earl of Cork supported the election of Gookin at Handon, when asked by the provost and

burgesses ‘to advise them in the election ofa burgess’: see Lismore MS 29 (duke of Ikvonshire, Chatsworth, Debyshire): 2nd earl of Cork’s diary, 25 July 1654.


Limerick, Kerry and Clare with his son-in-law, Henry I n g ~ l d s b y ; ~ ~ while the borough seat of Limerick and Kilmallock went to his subordinate, William Purefoy. In Leinster, the Old Protestant interest controlled the midland and northern counties. William Cadogan and John Fowke at Meath and Louth, William Meredth at Kildare and Wicklow, and Theophilus Jones at Westmeath, Longford and King’s, were all local landowners or members of Old Protestant families of long standing. Thomas Scot had married into a Westmeath family and Anthony Morgan also owed his seat at Kildare and Wicklow to the Old Protestant interest. The M.P. for the city of Dublin, Daniel Hutchinson, was a religious independent, and no friend of Fleetwood and the baptists in the army.36 Four of the five army interest M.P.s were grouped in southern Leinster and eastern Munster: Carlow, Wexford, Kilkenny and Queen’s Counties elected Axtell and Sadleir; Tipperary and Waterford returned Sankey (alongside the moderate officer, John Reynolds); and Hewson secured County Dublin. Connaught and western Ulster were dominated by the Old Protestants. The two most important figures in Connaught, Sir Robert King and Sir Charles Coote, were returned, and it is likely that Coote had a hand in the election of the veteran Irish independent, Sir John Temple, for Sligo, Roscommon and Leitrim, and in the return of John Reynolds for Galway and Mayo. Those elected in Ulster had local connexions of their own, such as John Cole in Cavan, and Ralph King at Londonderry, but they also enjoyed close associations with the Coote family. Local influence also determined the election of Arthur Hill for Down, Antrim and Armagh, and his fellow candidate was the moderate oficer, Robert Venables. The garrison towns in Ulster returned officers, with Clarke being returned for Londonderry, Donegal and Tyrone, and Redman for Carrickfergus and Belfast. The regional differences reflected not only land allocations under the Cromwellian settlement, but also traditional power structures which had existed earlier in the century. The Boyles and Cootes had been the dominant protestant families in their areas before 1641, and they now extended their spheres of influence into areas vacated by former catholic grandees. Similarly, the army interest was able to dominate the south-east because of the power vacuum left by the removal of the king’s lord lieutenant, the marquess of O r m ~ n d . ~ ’ In northern Leinster, the Old Protestants were better placed than the army officers to take over areas formerly under old English leadership, and Waller performed a similar trick in Limerick. The only province which experienced a split of loyalty was Ulster, where the military and civilian interests seemed to have co-existed, however uneasily.

The development of distinct regions controlled by the different factions may have reduced the number of disputed elections, although the paucity of evidence may distort the picture. The only recorded dispute was over Counties Kildare and Wicklow, where the local, Old Protestant, sphere of influence was threatened by the army interest. Tensions may have been heightened further by the election being held in Dublin, under the noses of the government and the army headquarters. According

35 H.M.C., Egmonr MSS, I, 556 3h T. C. Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland. E@h Couemrnenf and Refom in Ireland, 1649-60 (Oxford,

37 Dublin, Carlow, Wexford and Kilkenny were the only counties to oppose Gookin, and demand full transplantation of the Irish inhabitants: see Mercurius Politicus, no. 251 (29 Mar.-5 Apr. 1655), pp. 5236-8.

1975), pp. 81-5.

342 Patrick Little

to Sir Paul Davies, who was present at the vote on 2 August, Major Anthony Morgan and Major William Meredith were returned, but ‘with opposition’:

some (particularly Col. Lawrence and others) standing for the ChiefJustice [Oliver] St John, ChiefJustice ofthe Common Pleas in England, Major [Richard] Salloway, Lieut. General [Edmund] Ludlow and Adjutant [William] Alen. Some few votes (about thirty), the Chief Justice and Salloway had, but the other two found all negatives. Alderman Hutchinson and Alderman Tighe voted for St John, but it would not do. Morgan and Meredith had fifty-eight votes3*

Of the three pairings, the moderate soldier, Anthony Morgan, and the local Old Protestant, William Meredith, seem to have represented the county interest; St John and Salwey were put forward, in their absence, by a group which included two Independent aldermen and a group of officers led by the governor of Waterford, Colonel Richard La~rence ;~ ’ and finally, there came two religious radicals, Ludlow and Allen, who would also have been expected to enjoy the support of the ‘army interest’. The result was never much in doubt, as the election indenture shows that this was very much a local election. The 13 signatures at the bottom of the document were headed by three influential Old Protestants: Sir Robert Meredith (the father of William), Sir John Hoey and Sir Theophilus Jones, and the majority of the signatories were landowners in the two co~nt ies .~’ Despite the high profile of the other candidates, the electors of Kildare and Wicklow were intent on returning their own.

The extent of popular involvement in the electoral process, suggested by the Kildare and Wicklow contest, can be seen from the election indentures preserved at the The National Archives.41 These have never been used as a source before, even though 18 of the 20 indentures for the 1654 elections survive. Most of these are in a poor condition, but still reveal the names not only of the M.P.s elected, but also of the chief electors, recorded officially in the document itself, and often as lists of signatures underneath. An examination of the best-preserved indentures from each province should give some insight into the level of local participation in the electoral process. The electors for the boroughs of Londonderry and Coleraine included Richard Brasier, from a prominent Coleraine family, and three aldermen of Londonderry: Simon Pitts, Henry Finch and Henry Osborne. All four had been associated with the boroughs long before 1641 .42 Crucially, the number of the signatories - around 90, forming three columns-supports the claim of the document that this was the decision of the aldermen, burgesses and inhabitants of the two towns. It was hardly surprising that the M.P. chosen was treasurer of Londonderry, Ralph King. Sligo,

’* H.M.C., @motit MSS, I , 553. 31 For Lawrence’s religious views see T.S.P., 11, 212-3. 4” T.N.A. (P.K.O.), C 219/44: other identifiable signatories were all Old Protestants: Philip Ferneley,

41T.N.A. (P.K.O.), C 219144. 42 Barnard, Cmmwellian Ireland, p. 6411; T. W. Moody, The Landondeny Plantation, 1609-41 (Belfast,

193Y), pp. 140, 280n. 448-50; see also T.N.A. (P.R.O.), SP 16/539/2, f. 49r: letter from borough of Londonderry to Kobert Harington, 17 Mar. 1643.

Robert and Richard Kennedy and William Flower (see Clarke, Prelude, pp. 25, 201, 206).


Leitrim and Roscommon also returned two Old Protestants (Sir Robert King and Sir John Temple), but there the electorate was much smaller (1 1 individuals named), and more mixed. The dominant landowner in the region, Sir Charles Coote, headed the list of electors, with his brother, Richard Coote, and a number of Old Protestants (Robert Parke, Richard Crofton, James King, John Lambert and possibly Samuel Shephard) also appearing.43 Yet members of the army were also prominent, with two radicals (Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Brayfield of Axtell’s regiment and Major John Disbrowe of Daniel Abbott’s regiment) alongside one moderate (Captain Theophilus Sandford of John Reynolds’ In this constituency it seems that the Old Protestant interest won through a compromise with the military authorities.

County Dublin makes an interesting case-study. Of the 12 electors named in the indenture, five were important Old Protestant landowners with interests in the county: Sir Hardress Waller, Theophilus Jones, Dudley Loftus, Robert Perceval of Finglas and Robert Kennedy of Mount Kennedy. Six of the seven others can be identified, and they are all members of the Dublin Corporation: Daniel Hutchinson, Thomas Hooke, William CliK Charles Foster and Peter Wybrants were aldermen, and Ralph Wallis was another pre-1649 merchant.45 As in Londonderq and Coleraine, the electorate was entirely made up of Old Protestants; yet the M.P. returned for County Dublin was its military governor, Colonel John Hewson, and he was returned ‘nemine c o n t r ~ ~ d i c e n t e ’ . ~ ~ This was probably an attempt to curry favour with the Dublin administration, as a concession by the Old Protestants in both city and county, rather than the result of government interference in the electoral process. The County Cork indenture shows the power of the Old Protestants in the provinces. The county had come under the influence of the Boyles before 1641, and the M.P. elected in 1654 was the political head of the family, Lord Broghill. The presiding officer, Captain John Baker, was a moderate army officer, who had shown himself sympathetic to the Boyle interest in the early 1650~;~’ and the electorate was apparently dominated by allies of the Boyles, with Charles Gookin and Sir William Hull being joined by Henry Smithwick and at least five other Boyle tenants.48 Many of the surviving signatures are illegible, but at least 25 survive, and the missing part of the indenture may have included as many again. In Cork, as in Londonderry, the Old Protestants were turning out to vote in force.

43 For Parke, see History ofParliament draft biography, and Clarke, Prelude, pp. 224-5; for Crofton and Lambert see R. C. Simington, Books ofSurvey and Distribution I . C o . Roscommon (Dublin, 1949), pp. 72, 85, 165-7; for King see Ireland under the Commonwealth, ed. Dunlop, 11, 634; ‘Major Samuel Shephard’ of the indenture may be the same as the Old Protestant ‘Major William Shephard’ who helped to set out army lands in Sligo in January 1654: ibid., p. 397.

44 Re@meratai History, ed. Firth and Davies, 11, 613, 622-3, 626; Sandford, who acquired land in the region, went on to support the coup of December 1659: see Clarke, Prelude, pp. 112-311; Simington, Rosconimon, pp. 1 1 - 16.

45 Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, pp. 81-5; Clarke, Prelude, p. 294; for Wallis see H.M.C., Efmont MSS, I, 153, 421, 545, 578 and Ireland under the Commonwealth, ed. Dunlop, 11, 706.

46 H.M.C., Efmortt MSS, I, 553. 47 Chatsworth, Lismore MS 28, no. 22; Lismore MS 29: 7 Jan. 1652. 48 Gookin was presumably a kinsman of Vincent; for Hull see Chatsworth, Lismore MS 23, no. 91;

the other tenants are George Prater, Richard Scudamore, Thomas Welsh, Francis Smyth and Anthony Woodley: see National Library of Ireland, MSS 6255-8: 2nd Earl of Cork’s rentals, 1652-7.

344 Putrick Little

As the election indentures suggest, as well as management of elections by regional politicians, such as the Boyles, Wallers and Cootes, by 1654 there was a grass-roots involvement in politics in the Old Protestant community which ensured that a majority of local candidates were returned in the parliamentary elections. Fleetwood was perhaps wise to oppose free elections in Ireland; but he was less justified in his suspicion of the ultimate loyalty of the Old Protestants. As Cromwell had thought, and as such measures as the Union Bill introduced during this parliament demonstrated, the Old Protestant interest was already firm in its support of the pr~tectorate.~’

2

The elections for the 1656 parliament were held under very different circumstances. The departure of Lord Deputy Fleetwood in the summer of 1655, and his replacement as acting-governor by the protector’s younger son, Henry Cromwell, changed the balance of power at Dublin, as the new ruler was eager to reduce the power of the army interest, and, following his father’s lead, relied instead on the support of the Old Protestant community in his attempts to achieve stability in Ireland. Not that Henry Cromwell’s reform programme went entirely unopposed. The radical army officers, led by John Hewson, were intent on undermining Henry Cromwell’s regime from the start, and in this they received at least tacit support from prominent English councillors, including the absentee lord deputy, Charles Fleetwood, and his ally John Lambert. The sniping between Henry Cromwell and his enemies, which intensified once the new parliament had been summoned and writs issued in late June 1656, gave a factional edge to the Irish elections. This factionalism heightened the already urgent need to manage these elections to prevent the open enemies ofthe protectorate from gaining a foothold, and disturbing proceedings. The letters of Secretary Thurloe to Henry Cromwell in July 1656 insisted that ‘the qualifications in the [Instrument ofl government be observed, and the recognition is to be first taken, before they sit in the house’, in an attempt to prevent the election of those who harboured ‘bloody designs against the protector and peace of the nation’, whether royalists or radicals.” Disruptive M.P.s could be excluded once elected, but Thurloe clearly expected the elections themselves to be the main filter, and relied on Henry Cromwell to manage the Irish returns accordingly.

Henry Cromwell was quietly confident of success. In a letter to Thurloe of 6 August, he reported the progress of the elections: ‘things are quiet here; much labouring by some here to get into the next parliament; but 1 hope you will have sober persons sent hence’.51 Direct evidence of this ‘labouring’ is patchy. There seem to have been only two disputes. The first was a contest for County Dublin, between the former parliamentary commissioner, Colonel John Jones, the governor of Dublin, John Hewson (who had held the seat in 1654), and the recorder of Dublin, John Bisse. The first was a critic of the protectorate, the second an ill-concealed enemy of

4y Patrick Little, ‘The First Unionists? Irish Protestant Attitudes to Union with England, 1653-Y’, frkh

50 T.S.P. , V, 176, 213. 5 ’ Ihid., p. 278.

Historiral Studies, XXXII (2000), 44-58.


Henry Cromwell, and the third a civilian Old Protestant. Remarkably, all claimed to stand with the acting-governor’s support, as Henry Cromwell was well aware: ‘It is thought the latter [Bisse] will carry it, though my name and interest (as I hear) without my privitie has been made use of for the two former.’52 Despite such claims, Bisse was returned without difficulty. The County Dublin election indicates the importance of official support to prospective candidates, even when they had local interests of their own. John Bisse probably owed his eventual election to his standing in the county and the city, but he was aided by Cromwellian approval, and, more to the point, by official disapproval of his rivals. The second case was that ofJohn Davies, an Old Protestant merchant returned for Belfast and Carrickfergus. In the course of his long career, Davies had made many enemies, and despite his attachment to parliament in the 1640s, in the next decade he had flirted with the Stuart cause. The election was apparently a free one, with the votes being overseen by the governor of Ulster, Thomas Cooper, who acted as Henry Cromwell’s agent; but the discovery of further information about Davies’s allegiances in the days after the election provoked the government to intervene. First Cooper and then Thurloe wrote to Henry Cromwell urging him to exclude Davies, with the secretary warning that he had evidence to indict him for treason, and concluding ‘he is a most pestilent fellow, and nothinge could be stranger to me in the world, then to finde him in the list of parlament men’.53 Henry needed little prompting, and soon interposed to prevent Davies travelling to Westminster. As with the County Dublin election, at Belfast and Carrickfergus there was a free vote by the inhabitants, with the government intervening only when things started to go wrong. In this, Henry Cromwell seems to have allowed genuine representation for the Irish seats while still following Thurloe’s instructions to exclude those feared of supporting ‘bloody designs against the protector’.

The two case-studies show a high degree of co-operation between the government and the Old Protestants, and this is also reflected in the results of an analysis of the election results across Ireland. The Old Protestant interest, which had secured 19 seats in 1654, returned exactly the same number in 1656. Eleven of these were the same M.P.s as had been elected two years before: in Ulster, Ralph King and Newburgh were again elected for Londonderry boroughs and county respectively; in Connaught, Sir Robert King held Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon and Sir Charles Coote held Galway and Mayo; and in Leinster, John Fowke was returned for Meath and Louth and Theophilus Jones for Westmeath, Longford and King’s Counties. The representation in Munster was virtually unchanged: Broghill, Goolun and Jephson took the Cork seats, Sir Hardress Waller and his son-in-law, Henry Ingoldsby, held Kerry, Limerick and Clare, and the only change in the south-west was the return of Waller’s son, Walter, in place of his subordinate, Wdliam Purefoy, as M.P. for Limerick and Kilmallock. Apart from Walter Waller, there were four other new M.P.s who replaced other Old Protestants in ‘safe’ seats: Richard Blayney (in place of Cole) at Cavan, James Traill (replacing Hill) for Down, Antrim and Armagh, Richard Tighe (instead of Hutchinson) for Dublin City, and Sir Paul Davies probably sat for Kildare and Wicklow in a by-election, once Sir Hardress Waller had elected to sit for

52 Ibid. , p. 327; for Henry Cromwell’s approval ofBisse see ibid., p. 478; ibid. , VII, 593. 53 T.S.P., V, 336, 343, 398-9.

346 Patrick Little

his Munster seat. The extraordinary stability of the Old Protestant vote, which could easily control over half the Irish seats, was undoubtedly based on the relative freedom of the elections, and the fielding of condidates with existing local connexions. There were, however, a few significant changes which point to more aggressive electioneering by the Old Protestants. The remaining three Old Protestant M.P.s took seats from the army interest: Beresford was returned for County Londonderry in place of Colonel John Clarke, the royalist John Davies took the garrison towns of Carrickfergus and Belfast (previously held by Daniel Redman) and, as we have seen, John Bisse saw off a challenge by two officers for the County Dublin seat, defeating the 1654 M.P., Colonel John Hewson. Redman, by now a supporter of Henry Cromwell, was found a seat elsewhere, but the other two results suggest that the Old Protestants were becoming much more open in their opposition to military rule in Ireland.

The Old Protestants were antagonistic to the army, but they were working closely with the civilian government, led by Henry Cromwell. This is suggested by an overview of the eight elections which returned ‘Cromwellians’ -men associated with Henry Crornwell. Three of these sat for the same seats as in 1654: Anthony Morgan at Kildare and Wicklow, Sir John Reynolds at Tipperary and Waterford, and the newly converted Cromwellian, William Halsey, for Waterford and Clonmel. A further three were returned for seats in areas of Old Protestant influence: William Aston sat for Meath in place of William Cadogan, John Bridges for Sligo in place of Sir John Temple, and Henry Owen for Westmeath, replacing Thomas Scot. This shuffling of candidates suggests that the Cromwellians were being accommodated by their Old Protestant allies, whose own men were prepared to step down in favour ofEnglishmen who could (and would) prove more effective political agents at Westminster. The two remaining Cromwellian M.P.s were army officers, but not sympathisers with the army interest: the moderate, Daniel Redman, who transferred his seat from Carrickfergus to Carlow, replacing the radical oficer, Daniel Axtell; and Thomas Cooper, who had sided with Henry Cromwell during 1656, and now sat for Down and Antrim in place of the disgraced moderate officer, Robert Venables. Between them, the Cromwellians and their Old Protestant allies mustered 27 M.P.s. The remaining three were all that remained of the army interest: Thomas Sadleir again sat for Carlow; he may have influenced the election of John Brett for Galway and Mayo; and Daniel Abbott replaced jerome Sankey as M.P. for Tipperary and Waterford. The shrinking share of the army interest reflects the increasing disillusion within the officer corps, faced with official disapproval, rather than the success of direct attempts to clip their wings. With the failure of Hewson to secure County Dublin, the leading officers withdrew from the elections altogether, and sought election across the Irish Sea. Hewson was at first rejected by the borough of Sandwich but was then elected by G~ildford;’~ Sankey was returned for Marlborough; and Clarke was returned for Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire. As a result, although the Irish elections ran smoothly, with few contested seats, there were still a number of English and Welsh M.P.s with Irish commissions, and these, led by Fleetwood, would do their best to oppose Henry Cromwell’s plans in parliament itself

s4 East Kent Archive Centre, Sa/AC8, fK 131 -2; I owe this reference to the kindness ofDr Jason Peacey.

Irish Representation in the Protectorate Purliuments 347

As in 1654, the return of 30 M.P.s in 1656 did not mean that 30 amved at Westminster. A number of army officers were kept in Ireland, although the protector’s nomination of two of them- Cooper and Reynolds - was apparently overruled by Henry Cromwell, as both appeared in parliament shortly after the start of proceeding^.^^ Instead, Henry seems to have followed the 1654 pattern by chosing six to stay: three Old Protestants (Coote, Waller and Ingoldsby), two of the army interest (Abbott and Sadleir) and one ‘Cromwellian’ (Redman).56 This reduced the army interest to a single Irish M.P. (Brett - whose allegiances were beginning to waver by early 1657), while their opponents could call on as many as 22 (once John Davies had been removed). Henry Cromwell’s enemies in England were not prepared to accept such odds, and retaliated by suggesting a number of Irish M.P.s for exclusion from the house, including Bisse, Beresford and Tighe. Henry Cromwell’s reaction was one of bemusement. On 6 October he complained to Thurloe that ‘[I] am well assured the Council have not been rightly informed concerning the gentlemen [i.e., Bisse and Beresford]’ and his comment on Tighe was that ‘the onely fault that ever I heard by any objected against him, was his too much forwardness in appearing for H[is] H[ighness] and go~vemment’.~’ But the closeness of all three to Henry Cromwell suggests that the attempt to exclude them was indeed factionally motivated. Bisse was especially controversial, as the candidate who had defeated Hewson on his home t u 4 and Beresford had replaced another important officer, John Clarke, as M.P. for Londonderry. Henry Cromwell was able to overturn the decision in all three cases by the end of October,” but he was less successful in defending a fourth excluded M.P., Sir Paul Davies, whose application for entry to the house was refused following his election to replace Sir Hardress Waller at Kildare and Wicklow. On 23 February 1657, Henry Cromwell recommended Davies to John Thurloe, saying that he had been sent over ‘to attend the service of his country in Parliament’;59 on 24 March Sir John Reynolds reported that ‘he hath been declared at the Council, [and] will make his entrance tomorrow’;60 but on 30 March Morgan told Henry Cromwell that ‘poor Sir Paul Davies is yet in suspense’, and ‘thinks he shall be hurt to wound YOU'.^* The Davies case confirms that these exclusions had faction, rather than security, at their heart; it also testifies once again to the closeness of the Old Protestant and Cromwelhan groups in Ireland.

Despite the exclusions, and the seconding of members for military duties, there remained a hard core of 20 Irish M.P.s who are recorded as attending the 1656

5s T.S.P., V, 398-9, 424, 443. s6 Abbott’s regiment was kept ‘in the field’ in Tipperary and Waterford see T.S.P., V, 422; Ireland under

the Commonwealth, ed. Dunlop, 11, 622; The Diary uj’ Thomas Burton, ed. J. T. Rutt (4 vols, 1828), I, 288. For Coote (in Connaught) see ibid., pp. 288-9. For Ingoldsby (in Limerick) see ib id . , p. 288; Ireland under the Conrnronwealth, ed. Dunlop, 11, 623, 631; B.L., Lansdowne MS 821, f. 298; MS 822, t 17. Redman was in Ireland April and June 1657: ibid., ff. 59, 79. Sadleir and Waller were not in parliament, and had been kept in Ireland in 1654. ” T.S.P., V, 477-8. ’’ Tighe took his seat on 23 September, Beresford on 15 October and Bisse on 25 October: CJ., VII,

’’ T.S.P., VI, 71. “B. L., Lansdowne MS 822, f. 3.

427, 439, 456.

Ibid.. f. 7.

348 Putrick Little

parliament.6z With Brett’s abandonment of the army interest during the sitting, all of these can be classed as Old Protestants or Cromwellians. This unanimity, which prompted contemporaries to refer to the Irish as ‘much united’ and ‘of one mind’,63 also indicated their commitment to a common political policy of union and ‘settlement’ within the three nations, which would manifest itself most dramatically in the kingship debates of the spring of 1657. Fifteen Irish M.P.s were listed as kinglings - those who voted for a Cromwellian monarchy;64 and it was no coincidence that the M.P. who introduced the hereditary principle into the house was the M.P. for Cork and Youghal, William Jephson, and the chief architect of the Humble Petition was another Old Protestant, Lord B r ~ g h i l l . ~ ~

3

The unity of the Irish M.P.s, which had been a striking feature of the 1656 parliament, was under severe strain by the time elections were held for its successor in the new year of 1659. The intervening period had seen the strengthening of Henry Cromwell’s authority in Ireland, with his appointment as lord deputy in November 1657, but by this time the army interest had clawed back much of its influence in England, and Lambert’s dismissal as general did not affect the standing of men like Charles Fleetwood and John Disbrowe in court circles. This did little to cheer the Old Protestant interest in Ireland, which had greeted the protector’s rejection of the crown with dismay, and now faced a return of their own adversaries at Whitehall. Lord Broghill retired to Ireland, and threatened to eschew any further part in politics, telling Edward Mountagu in November 1657 that ‘I finde I do more oblidge my Poore Farnyly at home; then I can serve ye Publike abroade.’“ His feeling of disillusion was shared by Waller and Coote, and Henry Cromwell besieged Thurloe with requests that they might be rewarded and encouraged by the govern~nent .~~ Another key player from 1656, John Bridges, also withdrew from politics after the refusal of the crown.“ The situation was made far worse by the death of four important Irish M.P.s in 1657-8: Sir Robert King had been too ill to sit in 1656 and was dead by June 1657;h9 Sir John Reynolds was drowned returning from Flanders

These were: Aston, Beresford, Bisse, Blayney, Bridges, Broghill, Brett, Cooper, Fowke, Gookin, Halsey, Jephson, Jones, Ralph King, Morgan, Owen, Reynolds, Tighe, Trail1 and Walter Waller. Sir Robert King was too ill to attend. Thomas Newburgh is not mentioned in the Journals, and his presence on a commission in Ulster in March 1057 suggests that he did not attend this parliament: Ireland itnder the Commonwealth, ed. Ilunlop, 11, 658-9.

h3 T . S . P . , VI, 37; B.L.. Lansdowne MS 822, f. 3. Nunative 4 the Late Porlian~ent, p. 23: including those, like Walter Waller, listed as those whose

‘” For a full account of the Irish contribution to the kingship debates see Pacrick Little, ‘The Political

Oh Uodl., MS Carte 73, f. 156r (20 Nov. 1657); see also Little, ‘Lord Broghill’, pp. 259-63.

counties werc unknown.

Career of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, 1636-60’, University of London Ph.D., 2000, ch. 7.

h7 T . S . P . , VI, 734, 773-4; VII, 155, 176. This is most plausible explanation for his complete disappeatance from the historical record, 1657-9.

‘“’His will was written on 13 Apr. 1657: T.N.A. (P.R.O.), PROD 11/265, ff. 120-1.


in December 1657;70 William Jephson died a year later;71 and Walter Waller, son of Sir Hardress, died at some point between February 1658 and the elections of January 1659.72 A fifth death within this period also had an impact on Irish morale: that of Oliver Cromwell in September 1658. The succession of Richard Cromwell, although welcomed in Ireland, did not inspire confidence in the future. This mixture of disillusion and death was made still more dismal by uncertainty over the Irish franchise. The Humble Petition had made detailed provision for which classes of people might be included in the Irish electorate, but it made no specific mention of the number of Irish M.P.s, or of their constituencies. English boroughs and shires were to return to the 1640 system: but where did that leave Ireland and Scotland? Their right to 30 seats each had been enshrined in the Instrument of Government, but that had been superseded by the new constitution. Supplementary legislation could not be passed in the brief, chaotic second sitting of 1658; and although the English council hurriedly passed its own orders continuing the same system as in 1654 and 1656, this did not stop the opponents of the regime attempting to remove the 60 ‘British’ M.P.s once the parliamentary session began.73

The government’s unease can also be seen in its attempts to manage the 1659 elections. Writing from England, Thomas Clarges told Henry Cromwell that ‘I believe there was never more care taken in the elections for members to sitt in parliament, then at this time.’74 Clarges was in a position to know: as London agent for both the Irish and Scottish governments, he worked closely with Secretary Thurloe in allocating seats for Englishmen in all three nations. On 8 December Clarges urged Henry Cromwell to ensure the election of ‘five or six good argumentative speakers’ in Irish seats, listing five suitable candidates, and advising that the Dublin M.P., John Bisse, should be encouraged to stand down in favour of a government nominee.75 Thurloe wrote to both Henry Cromwell and Broghill saying that ‘it is very necessary, that such be chosen, who will certainly come; for to choose such as cannot come by reason of their trusts, or will not, because of their other occasions, wdl be wholly fmitlesse to us’.76 Despite these exhortations, and constant correspondence between London, Dublin and Edinburgh to ensure placemen had seats, the elections were marred by in~ompetence .~~ Henry Cromwell complained that the writs were late in arriving in Dublin, and in County Cork Broghill had to wait until 20 January before his candidates could go to the polls. As he told Thurloe, ‘I know not wher the omission is, but certaynly ’mas very unhappily contrived, that our election-day should be so late in thes parts, that it was impossible to be at the first sittinge of

70 T.S.P., VI, 665. 71 An An&-Irish Miscellany. Some Records ofthejephsom ofhlallow, ed. M. D. Jephson (Dublin, 1964),

72 He is last mentioned in Febraury 1658, was not returned in 1659, and is not included in lists of Sir

73 For a discussion of this problem see Little, ‘The First Unionists’. 74 T.S.P., VII, 581. 75 Ibid., p. 553. 7h Ibid., pp. 565, 573. 77 Ibid., pp. 555, 559, 572, 583-4, 593, 597.

p. 49.

Hardress’s surviving sons (see D.N.B.; Burke’s Knights ofIreland (1904 edn)).

350 Patrick Little

the parliamer~t.’~’ In addition to the confusion over the handling of the elections, there are signs that the over-management of the Irish elections had contributed to division and unrest in the constituencies, as we shall see.

At first sight, the 1659 elections seem to have been yet another victory for the Old Protestant interest, which returned 20 M.P.s-one more than in 1654 and 1656.79 The usual regional interests again came into play, with the Boyles, Cootes and Wallers returning their clients as M.P.s, and the army interest being squeezed into ever smaller pockets in south-east Leinster, Carrickfergus and Belfast, and Galway and Mayo. The Old Protestants seemed to have won the contest once again. Yet only five of their 20 M.P.s had served Irish seats before (Sir Charles Coote, Vincent Gookin, Henry Ingoldsby, Theophilus Jones and Sir Hardress Waller). A further two had sat elsewhere (Arthur Annesley for Radnorshire in 1647, Henry Markham for Linlithgow Burghs in 1656), but the remaining 13 representatives of the Old Protestant interest were parliamentary virgins. This was almost exactly the reverse of the situation in 1656, when five new members were supported by 14 veterans from the Irish elections of 1654. The promotion of Lord Broghill and Thomas Cooper to the Other House exaggerates the discrepancy, but there is no disguising the decline in the quality of the Old Protestant representation between the two parliaments. The seven Cromwellian M.P.s were an assortment of familiar faces and carpet-baggers. The former included William Aston and Anthony Morgan, who had played an important part in the 1656 parliament, but, without Reynolds and Bridges, Henry Cromwell’s team of agents looked very thin. Two Englishmen had been brought in at Thurloe’s request - the Gray’s Inn lawyer, Thomas Waller, and the former Somerset M.P., John Gorges - and although they had some parliamentary experience, neither had direct connexions with Ireland. The army interest managed to pick up three seats - the same as in 1656 -with John Duckenfield joining the veterans, Thomas Sadleir and Jerome Sankey.’” These men had survived the purges of the Irish army under Henry Cromwell, but were still openly hostile to the regime. Sankey, returned for both Tipperary and Waterford and New Woodstock in Oxfordshire ‘by the endeavours of Colonel Charles Fleetwood’,’’ made no secret of his disdain of the Irish government, telling the Commons when asked to choose his seat, that ‘he would stick to his election in England (with an emphasis)’.82

Two of these elections repay closer attention. The first, held at Jamestown on 13 January for the two seats of Counties Sligo, Leitrim and Koscommon, confirms that the Old Protestants and Cromwellians were still in close alhance. In 1656 the M.P.s had been the Old Protestant, Sir Robert King and Henry Cromwell’s ally, John Bridges, but in 1659 the former was dead and the latter in retirement, so the two places were free. The first seat went to Robert Parke, a Leitrim landowner and

’’ Ibid., p. 600. ’‘ These included four Englishmen who owed their elections to Irish protestant influence: Sir Hardress

Waller’s son-in-law, Sir Henry Ingoldsby, and his brother George Ingoldsby, Broghill’s ally, Henry Markham, and Sir John Clonvorthy’s new son-in-law, Sir John Skeffington. The remaining 16 were from long-established planter fandies.

‘(’A fourth officer, John Brett, must be counted as a ‘Cromwellian’ by 1659. *’ Anthony Wood, Fmti Oxonirnses, ed. P. Bliss (4 vols, 1813). 11, 119. *’ B.L., Lansdowne MS 823, f. 246.

Irish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments 351 Sligo J.P., who had served with Sir Charles Coote in the Irish wars, and was returned ‘by the unanimous consent of the freeholders of the several counties’ at the 1659 election.83 The second M.P. was the Gray’s Inn lawyer, Thomas Waller, who had been put forward by Secretary Thurloe and then ‘recommended’ to the counties by Lord Broghill and the local grandee, Sir John King (son of Sir Robert). In fact, Broghill had persuaded King to withdraw his own candidate, a Mr Green, to allow Waller to sit in his place.84 Considering the care with which Waller’s election was managed, and the risk of offending King, it is surprising to discover that Waller had already been furnished with a seat in Scotland, for Linlithgow Burghs. Thurloe was also behind the Linlithgow election, having ‘first recommended’ Waller in the list of candidates for Scottish constituencies which he sent to General Monck in December 1658.85 The Linlithgow Burghs duly returned Waller ‘fieely and indifferently’ on 6 January-a full week before the election for Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon.86 This apparent duplication may have been an insurance measure by Thurloe, anxious to secure the return of a distinguished lawyer who had strong connexions with the presbyterian party in England, but it seems a curiously inept way to achieve this: not least because if the Scottish M.P.s were forced out of the Commons, the Irish would surely follow them. On the positive side, Walier’s return for two seats reveals the close collaboration between Old Protestants such as Broghill and King and the English secretary of state; it also shows that Thurloe, in common with other members of the Cromwellian regime (including Broghill) was thinking in ‘British’ terms: considering Ireland and Scotland as part of unified whole. As useful billets for court place-men, the Irish and Scottish seats were, for the first time in the 1650s, being treated the same as Comwall or Wiltshire. This was not necessarily to be taken as a compliment.

The second important election, for the three seats which represented the county and boroughs of Cork on 20 January, provides a very different impression. Instead of the prior allocation of seats and the careful management of elections, County Cork witnessed an undignified struggle which revealed the rifts now emerging within the Old Protestant community. As in Sligo, Leitrim and Roscommon, two of the Cork seats (for the county and Cork and Youghal) were effectively vacant, following the death ofJephson and Broghill’s inclusion in the Other House; the third (Bandon and Kinsale) was reserved for its former M.P., Vincent Gookin. The seat for County Cork went to Broghill’s cousin, Sir Maurice Fenton, without dispute, but at the boroughs Broghd’s candidates, Francis Foulkes and William Penn, were confronted by Vincent Gookin, who now stood for Cork and Youghal, and Dr William Petty for Gookin’s old seat of Bandon and Kinsale. As Toby Barnard has argued, the differences between the two sides were not political, but ‘stemmed rather from the tensions of provincial society’, with Gookin deliberately attempting ‘to challenge the Boyles’ power’.87 Crucially, both Broghill and Gookin claimed

*’ Ireland under the Commonwealth, ed. Dunlop, 11, 651; T.N.A. (P.R.O.), SP 28/76, f. 376; T.S.P.,

84 T.S.P., VII, 593, 597, 600; Chatsworth, Lismore MS 30 no. 72: Broghill to Cork, 23 Jan. 1659. ” T.S.P., VII, 572. 86 Worcester College, Oxford, Clarke MS 3/3, f. 61v. ” Barnard, Cromwellian Ireland, p . 357.

VII, 593.

352 Patrick Little

to have Henry Cromwell’s support, with the former having had strict instructions ‘to take care of elections heere’, and the latter claiming to have been ‘put upon it by my L[ord] L[i]eu[tenan]t’.** Significantly, the end result was a draw. After further unpleasantness, Gookin was returned for Bandon and Kinsale and Foulke was elected at Cork and YoughaL8’ Gookin may well have been loohng for an excuse to challenge the Boyle interest locally, but he was only able to do so because of government incompetence. Henry Cromwell was anxious to get Petty elected, and his friends in England had already secured him a seat at West Looe in Cornwall, over two weeks before the Cork elections were held. The situation was thus very similar to that of Thomas Waller, who had been provided with two seats by an over-scrupulous Thurloe. While Sir John King had agreed to abandon his own candidate at Sligo, Broghill had ‘flatly denyed’ to make way for Petty, especially as it meant deferring to Gookin.’”

The dispute between Broghill and Gookin was symptomatic of a more general malaise among the Old Protestants. Broghill, Waller and Coote had all experienced set-backs and reversals during 1657-8, but had rallied to the protectorate after Oliver Cromwell’s death, fearful of the consequences should their enemies take power. There were others whose detachment from the regme merely increased over the next few months. The most notable example is that of Arthur Annesley, who broke ranks with his Old Protestant colleagues during the debate on the franchise in March 165‘9, and sided with the commonwealthsmen and crypto-royalists in what could only be interpreted as an attack on the protectorate itself. Another incident, a few days later, was related to Henry Cromwell by Thomas Clarges: when the Commons voted on whether to transact with the Other House, ‘at the passing of this vote the affirmatives were 198, and the negatives 125, in which number (to the wonder of many) the knight for Kildare was a negative, and a loud one’.’’ Whether this was Dudley Loftus or Henry Markham - both of whom sat for Klldare and Wicklow - the effect was the same. The former, an Old Protestant, was one of Henry Cromwell’s agents; the latter was Broghill’s prottgt; and both should have been supporting, not undermining, the protectorate. The overall unity of the Irish members still held, with hostile commentators, like Slingsby Bethell, accusing them of swinging votes for the government;’2 and in April Loftus was drafting yet another Irish union bill for passage through the common^.'^ Yet these examples of M.P.s breaking ranks, combined with the evidence of tensions over the elections, suggest that some Old Protestants were starting to have doubts about the wisdom of adhering themselves to a declining regime in England. In the months following the collapse of the protectorate, the advantages of union became less and less apparent, until, with the general convention convened in Dublin in early 1660, the Old Protestants took the helm themselves.

” Ibid., pp. 358, 360. H9 Ibid., p. 359. ‘ O Ibid., pp. 359-60. ’’ T.S.P., VII, 640. y2 Bethell, Narrative, pp. 5, 10. 1 1 . ’)3 B.L., Lansdowne MS 823, f. 297r: Dudley Loftus to Henry Cromwell, 19 Apr. 1659

Irish Representation in the Protectorate Parliaments

4 353

Irish representation during the protectorate parliaments reflects both the continuity and the change experienced by the whole country. The factional make-up of the representative remained almost constant. The army interest claimed five seats in 1654, three in 1656 and three in 1659; the moderate officers and English ‘Cromwellians’ vaned the most, with four in 1654, eight in 1656 and seven in 1659; but the Old Protestant interest could always rely on about two-thirds of the seats, with 19 M.P.s in 1654, 19 in 1656 and 20 in 1659. These bald statistics alone discredit the notion that the majority of M.P.s were carpet-baggers, army officers or government officials - Englishmen with no pre-existing ties to Ireland, and no concern for the country or its people. Even Toby Barnard’s corrective, which suggested that ‘about half the members’ were Old Protestants, proves to be an understatement. There was a strong regional basis for this Old Protestant interest, and again this vaned little between the three elections. Munster, the midlands and northern Leinster, Connaught and western Ulster, were all dominated by the Old Protestants, and many of the M.P.s elected for these regions were from families who had held land there for 50 years or more. Individual candidates seem to have benefited from powerful Old Protestant interests, such as the Boyles in Munster or the Cootes in Connaught and western Ulster; they also attracted the support of the wider electorate, as suggested by the surviving indentures from 1654. These strong continuities shed new light on the position of Henry Cromwell, whose conciliatory regime has been seen as bringing the Irish protestant community back from the political wilderness. In fact, the evidence from elections suggest that the Old Protestant interest was already a powerful force in 1654 -a year before Henry Cromwell took over as acting-governor. And when it came to the elections in 1656, the Cromwellian supporters were often found seats in areas controlled by the settler community, just as Old Protestants benefited from government support in more marginal seats. The dynamic was one of co-operation, with a strong Old Protestant interest working in tandem with the Cromwellians - with dramatic results not only at the polls, but also in the division lobbies at Westminster. The crucial importance of the Irish M.P.s in the kingship debates of 1657, identified by Trevor-Roper and others, was but the most obvious manifestation of a long-established collaboration between centre and localities in Cromwellian Ireland.94

The elements of continuity between the three elections should not, however, blind us to the changes also occuring in this period. Tension between the Dublin administration and the Old Protestant community was a notable feature of the 1654 round of elections, with Fleetwood openly supporting the rival army interest. In 1656 the new regime under Henry Cromwell worked with the Old Protestants to produce an Irish bloc at Westminster. By 1659, however, the government and the Old Protestants had moved further apart - with the settlers apparently beginning to resent heavy-handed attempts to manage the elections from abroad. This interference, and the death or disillusion of many experienced politicians, caused unrest in key elections, and was a

y4 Hugh Trevor-Roper, ‘Oliver Cromwell and his Parliaments’, in Religion, the Reformation and Sucial Change (1967), pp. 345-91; see also Little, ‘The First Unionists’, passim.

354 Patrick Little

forestaste of divisions among the Old Protestants in parliament itself. The fall of the protectorate brought even greater changes: the English republicans who took charge were against Irish or Scottish participation in politics, and the new government in Dublin marked a return to the old days of mistrust and exclusion. In response, Old Protestant officers staged a coup in December 1659, and in the spring of 1660 the general convention claimed legislative independence, turning away from the unionism which had prevailed earlier in the decade.95 This last change is startling in its novelty -within a year, unionists had become devolutionists - but it should not cast doubt on the sincerity ofthe Old Protestants whose participation in the Westminster elections can be traced at all levels of society. They were not the victims of a forced union, but active supporters of the Cromwellian state. For them, the union parliament was not a ‘shadow’ or a ‘token’, but the gateway to political influence and material prosperity.

APPENDIX: Irish M.P.s . 1654-9.

I654 Connaught: Sligo, Leitrim, Koscommon

Galway and Mayo

Munster: Co. Cork Tipperary and Waterford

Keny, Limerick and Clare

Cork and Youghal Bandon and Kinsale Waterford and Clonmel Limerick and Kilmallock

Ulster: Londonderry, Donegal, Tyrone

Cavan, Fermanagh and Monaghan Down, Antrim, Armagh

Carrickfergus and Belfast Londondeny and Coleraine

Meath and Louth Leinster: Co. Dublin

Westmcath, Longford, King’s

Carlow, Wexford, Kildare, Queen’s

Sir Kobert King Sir John Temple Sir Charles Coote John Reynolds [also returned for Tipperary and Waterford] Lord Broghill Jerome Sankey John Reynolds [also returned for Galway and Mayo] Sir Hardress Waller Henry Ingoldsby William Jephson Vincent Gookin William Halsey William Purefoy John Clarke Thomas Newburgh John Cole Arthur Hill Robert Venables Daniel Rednian Ralph King John Hewson William Cadogan John Fowke Theophilus Jones Thomas Scot Daniel Axtell Thomas Sadleir

O 5 For the general convention see Clarke, I’relrrde, parrim


Kildare and Wicklow

Dublin City 1656 Connaught: Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon

Galway and Mayo

Munster: Co. Cork

Tipperary and Waterford

Kerry, Limerick and Clare

Cork and Youghal Bandon and Kinsale Waterford and Clonmel Limerick and Kilmallock



Carrickfergus and Belfast Londonderry and Coleraine


Westmeath, Longfiord, King’s


Kildare and Wicklow

Dublin City 1659 Connaught: Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon

Galway and Mayo

Munster: Co. Cork Tipperary and Waterford

William Meredith Anthony Morgan Daniel Hutchinson

Sir Robert King John Bridges Sir Charles Coote John Brett Lord Broghill [also returned for Edinburgh] Daniel Abbott John Reynolds Sir Hardress Waller [also returned for Kildare and Wicklow] Henry Ingoldsby William Jephson Vincent Gookin William Halsey Walter Waller Tristram Beresford Thomas Newburgh Richard Blayney Thomas Cooper James Traill John Davies Ralph King John Bisse William Aston John Fowke Theophilus Jones Henry Owen Daniel Redman Thomas Sadleir Anthony Morgan Sir Hardress Waller [also returned for Kerry, Limerick and Clare] Sir Paul Davies (c.Feb. 1657, vice Waller) Richard Tighe

Robert Parke Thomas Waller [also returned for Linlithgow Burghs] Sir Charles Coote Thomas Sadleir Maurice Fenton Thomas Stanley

356 Patrick Little

Keny, Limerick and Clare

Cork and Y oughal Bandon and Kinsale Waterford and Clonmel Limerick and Kilmallock



Carrickfergus and Belfast Londonderry and Coleraine


Westmeath, Longford, King’s


Kildare and Wicklow

Dublin City

Jerome Sankey [also returned for New Woodstock) Sir Hardress Waller Henry Ingoldsby Francis Foulke Vincent Gookin William Halsey George Ingoldsby Alexander Staples John Gorges Thomas Coote George Rawdon Sir John Skefington John Duckenfield Ralph King Theophilus Jones William Aston Anthony Morgan Francis Aungier Henry Peirce Daniel Redman John Brett Henry Markham Dudley Loftus Arthur Annesley

irish representation in the protectorate parliaments

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