president left the room. Bellasys was sent before the privy council at Westminster, and, after a month's imprisonment, agreed on 6 May 1631 to make due submission both there and at York (Rushworth, ii. 88). More important was the struggle with Sir David Foulis [q. v.], a Scot who had received a grant of lands from James I, and who, after assailing Wentworth's personal honesty, urged the sheriff of the county to refuse obedience to the president's summons to York, on the ground that the council of the north had been erected by the king's commission, and not by act of parliament (ib. ii. 205). Wentworth stood forth in defence of the prerogative. In a letter written to Carlisle on 24 Sept. 1632 (Forster MSS. in the South Kensington Museum) he took his stand on the necessity of preventing subjects from imposing conditions on the king, in his eyes the cause of offence in the last parliament after the acceptance of the petition of right. When Foulis attempted to bargain with Charles by offering to gain him the affections of the gentry if he were himself taken into favour, Wentworth's wrath blazed higher. His majesty, he said, would but gain by making Foulis an example of his justice. Ordinary men were not to be allowed to bargain with the king (Wentworth to Carlisle, 24 Oct., in the Preface to Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1631–3). To Wentworth the king was the depository of the idea of the state, called on to execute justice without fear of persons or parties. In the end Foulis was punished with fine and imprisonment by a sentence in the Star-chamber. Lord Eure, too, resisted an order in chancery in his house at Malton till Wentworth ordered up guns from Scarborough Castle, and had them fired at his house in Malton. Sir Thomas Gower, having insulted the king's attorney at York, took refuge in London, and, on the plea that he was out of the jurisdiction of the northern circuit, drove off Wentworth's officers who attempted to arrest him in Holborn. Charles took Wentworth's part, and on 21 March 1633 a new set of instructions were issued (Rymer, xix. 410), giving the fullest possible powers to the council of the north.
By this time Wentworth, though still continuing president and executing his office by deputy, had been transferred to a wider sphere of action. On 12 Jan. 1632 he had been appointed lord deputy of Ireland, though he did not enter Dublin till 23 July 1633. His first difficulty was likely to arise, not from the native Irish, but from the English immigrants or their descendants, who occupied all posts in Dublin, were seated at the council table, and had the ear of influential personages at the court of Charles himself. Accordingly while still in England Wentworth had drawn up proposals securing the Irish revenue against encroachments, and protecting himself against the granting of writs by the king behind his back, and these proposals were on 22 Feb. 1632, by Charles's order, registered in the council book, that they might not be disregarded (Strafford Letters, i. 65). His own government was to be, according to the watchword frequently found in his correspondence with Laud, ‘thorough’—that is to say, founded on a complete disregard of private interests, with a view to the establishment, for the good of the whole community, of the royal power as the embodiment of the state. On his arrival in Dublin he found that the contribution which had been granted by an informal assembly in return for the grant by Charles of certain ‘graces’ was coming to an end, but he obtained its renewal for a year by mingling hopes of a parliament with hints that he would otherwise be compelled to exact the money by force. Being thus enabled to pay his soldiers, he reduced his little army to discipline. It was to the army that he looked to secure his power in the last resort; but he hoped rather to build it up on the basis of good government, fostering the material prosperity of the country. The piracy which was rife in St. George's Channel was put down. Schemes were entertained for opening commerce with Spain. The growth of flax was introduced and industry of every kind encouraged, except that, with the view of rendering Ireland dependent on England, the exportation of salt was to be a monopoly in the hands of the government, and any attempt to manufacture woollen cloth was to be discouraged. Wentworth's aim was in the end to make Irishmen as prosperous as Englishmen were, but at the same time to make them as like Englishmen as possible, in order that they might be equally loyal to the English crown.
Wentworth was thus brought to seek the reform of the protestant church in Ireland, which was far from being in a state to win the hearts of Irishmen. The ecclesiastical courts were mere machines for extortion. Scarcely a minister was capable of addressing an Irishman in his own tongue. Churches were in ruins, the clergy impoverished and ignorant, and their revenues often in the hands of the laity. The Earl of Cork, for instance, had secured the revenues of the bishopric of Lismore, worth 1,000l. a year, by the annual payment of 20l. Wentworth ordered a suit
