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New light on Richard Hadsor, I: Richard Hadsor and the authorship of ‘Advertisements for Ireland’, 1622/3

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Victor Treadwell
Victor Treadwell*
Affiliation:
Ruskin College, Oxford
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Extract

Unlike some members of his profession, Richard Hadsor (c. 1570–1635), a Middle Temple lawyer born in Ireland, has not been caught in the spotlight which historians have aimed at the dramatic political confrontations in England and Ireland during the early seventeenth century. Nor, since he was not a recusant, has he attracted the attention of Irish historians of the legal profession. Although canvassed for both, he never attained a seat in a parliament or a place on the English or Irish judiciary. He had no part in the ‘inflation of honours’ as either a broker or a recipient. Although he spent the whole of his professional life in London, nothing is known of his English social circle — apart from a single reference in his will to Sir lohn Bramston, a fellow Templar — or the value of his private practice, and only a little (which is, however, suggestive) of his clientèle. He wrote nothing for publication. He had no legitimate offspring and, therefore, none of the successful lawyer’s usual inclination to create a substantial patrimony. In consequence, it is hardly surprising that he does not figure in the standard works of biography or even in a commemoration of nearly one thousand Middle Templars straddling several centuries. Nevertheless, in his own time Richard Hadsor was no nonentity, and he deserves to be rescued from an entirely posthumous obscurity by something more generous than a scholarly footnote. His career as a devoted royal servant spanned a period in which the Old English were being relentlessly excluded from high office in Ireland, yet as crown counsel for Irish affairs he succeeded in establishing a distinctive niche in the Whitehall bureaucracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 119 , May 1997 , pp. 305 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1997

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References

1 Hutchinson, John, A catalogue of notable Middle Templars (London, 1902)Google Scholar, which is derived largely from the D.N.B. and Foss, Edward, The judges of England (9 vols, London, 1848-64)Google Scholar; see also the brief notice in Prest, W.R., The rise of the barristers, 1590–1640 (Oxford, 1986), pp 221, 365–6Google Scholar. He did not ‘qualify’ for consideration by (e.g.) Cregan, D.F., ‘Irish Catholic admissions to the English Inns of Court, 1558–1625’ in Ir. Jurist, n.s., v (1970), pp 95–113 Google Scholar, and idem, ’Irish recusant lawyers in politics in the reign of James I’, ibid., pp 306–20, or Kenny, Colum, ‘The exclusion of Catholics from the legal profession in Ireland, 1537–1829’ in I.H.S., xxv, no. 100 (Nov. 1987), pp 337-57Google Scholar. There is an isolated oblique reference to marriage in Hadsor’s letter to Cecil of 26 Jan. 1600, in which he took up the case of’ my mother-in-law’s husband’, Owen Ap Hugh (H.M.C., Salisbury, xii, 16), but this may possibly refer to his step-mother, Maud, who was widowed in 1595. Hadsor’s will (PCC 33 Sadler) is summarised by Ainsworth, John, ‘Abstracts of seventeenth-century Irish wills in the prerogative court of Canterbury’ in R.S.A.I. Jn., lxxviii 1948), pp 24–6 Google Scholar. A wife, past or present, is not mentioned.

2 The argument for Hadsor’s authorship is presented in the appendix (see below) and should be considered at this point. In consequence, references to Advertisements for Ireland, being a description of Ireland in the reign of James I, ed. O’Brien, George (Dublin, 1923)Google Scholar (henceforth cited as Adverts Ire.) in the following essay on Hadsor’s career are used to supplement the other sources and, in particular, crucially to illuminate his politico-administrative role in Irish affairs during the 1620s. In this way too the consonance emphasised in the argument of the appendix is extensively exemplified. Several topics only briefly treated here are more fully expounded in my study, Buckingham and Ireland, 1616–1628: a study in Anglo-Irish politics (forthcoming), to which only chapter and sectional references will be given here.

3 Ingpen, A.R., The Middle Temple benchbook (London, 1912), p. 179 Google Scholar, citing Sir Robert Brerewood’s discourse of the 1630s, for which Hadsor himself would have been a source; Walsh, Micheline, ‘The Hadsors and some other Louth exiles in France and Spain’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xviii, 2 (1974), p. 264 Google Scholar; Harold O’Sullivan, ‘The landed gentry of the county of Louth in the age of the Tudors’, ibid., xxii, 1 (1989), p. 68.

4 H.M.C., Haliday, p. 166; Nicholls, K. W., ‘A calendar of salved chancery pleadings concerning County Louth’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xviii, 2 (1974), p. 119 Google Scholar; Cal.pat. rolls Ire., Eliz., p. 218; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 538–9 (a conveyance of 1584 enrolled in 1622); preambulation of the Pale (Cal. Carew MSS, 1589–1600, p. 196); Shirley, E.P., History of the county of Monaghan (London, 1879), p. 261.Google Scholar

5 Hadsor to Middlesex, 19 Nov. 1622 (Centre for Kentish Studies, Sackville MS ON 8483); Shirley, Monaghan, pp 261, 264; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I. pp 643–4; Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts’, p. 25. As early as January 1599 Hadsor had urged Cecil to promote the settlement of New and Old English tenants in Monaghan ( H.M.C., Salisbury, ix, 19–20 Google Scholar).

6 Register of admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, ed. SirMacGeagh, H.F. (3 vols, London, 1949), i, 61Google Scholar; Cal. S.R Ire., 1601–3, pp 1, 133; Middle Temple records: minutes of the parliament of the Middle Temple, ed. and trans. Martin, C. T. (4 vols, London, 1904-5), i, 430Google Scholar; ii, 610, 617 and passim.

7 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1600, pp 166–7; 1600-1, p. 312; 1601-3, pp 75–6, 432; 1603-6, pp 202–3; 1606-8, p. 218; H.M.C., Salisbury, xi, 494–5 Google Scholar. For Hadsor’s agency in Clanricard’s English land transactions of 24 Jan., 24 Feb., 1 Mar. 1614 see P.R.O., Cal. pat. rolls 11 Jas l;see also Clanricard to Hadsor, 20 Nov. 1626 (N.L.I., MS 3111, f. 129).

8 H.M.C., Salisbury, xii, 248, 394–5Google Scholar; xvi, 267, 324; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1601–3, pp 1, 213; 1611-14, pp 279–80; Acts privy council, 1613–14, pp 65, 410–11. Hadsor’s ‘Discourse’ of 1604, addressed to the king (ed. Joseph McLaughlin, below, pp 337–53), also slipped in a good word for Kildare (see below, p. 311 and n. 19).

9 H.M.C., Salisbury, xvii, 610 Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. dom., 1603–10, p. 306; Thirsk, Joan, Economic policy and projects: the development of a consumer society in early modern England (Oxford, 1978), pp 62–3 Google Scholar; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 402; Stone, Lawrence, The crisis of the aristocracy, 1558–1641 (Oxford, 1965), p. 437.Google Scholar Lennox’s suit for the Irish patent in April 1615 had adduced the support of an ancient record in the Tower, doubtless unearthed by Hadsor: Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615–25, p. 34; see also below, p. 319.

10 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 408, 410, 557; B.L., Add. MS 4794, ff 424, 558–9; N.A.I., Lodge MS, i, ff 23–4. Hadsor was also acting for Aubigny from at least 1606: H.M.C., Salisbury, xviii, 244 Google Scholar; xxi, 6; H.M.C., Sackville, i. 103 Google Scholar; B.L., Add. MS 38170, f. 258.

11 On at least one occasion Hadsor received his fee in the form of Dingwall’s warrant for a buck: Cal. S.P. Ire., 1616–25, pp 164–5. Hadsor’s warrant book (on which, see below, n. 30) had two early Dingwall entries of 1614 and 1616 (Bodl., Carte MS 64, f. 3v, nos 57, 59). For his views on matrimonial unions of the Irish aristocracy see Hadsor to Cecil, 7 May 1601 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1600–1, p. 312). Hadsor had been involved in the settling of the Ormond succession since 1602: H.M.C., Salisbury, xii, 75-6, 280–81, 311–12Google Scholar; H.M.C., Shrewsbury & Talbot, ii: Talbot papers in the College of Arms, p. 240.

12 For a brief account of the Ormond-Desmond struggle see Beckett, J.C., The Cavalier duke: a life of James Butler, first duke of Ormond, 1610–1688 (Belfast, 1990)Google Scholar, ch. 1. There is a much more detailed study in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch 3 (ii b), 7 (ii), 8(i).

13 Hadsor to Cecil, 30 Mar. 1606 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1603–10, p. 306).

14 H.M.C., Salisbury, ix, 19–20 Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1598–9, p. 155; 1599-1600, pp 139, 345–6; 1601-3, pp 1, 133–4; 1606-8, pp 79–80; H.M.C., Salisbury, xv, 145–6 Google Scholar. See also his ‘Discourse’ of 1604 (ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 345–53); Hadsor to Cecil, 17 July 1604 ( H.M.C., Salisbury, xvi, 175 Google Scholar). For references to an earlier paper see Edward Fitzgerald to Cecil, 12 Jan 1601 (ibid., xi, 8–9); Hadsor to Cecil, 28 Jan. 1601 (ibid., p. 23).

15 See Spedding, James, The letters and the life of Francis Bacon (7 vols, London, 1862-74), iii, 45–51Google Scholar; ‘Discourse’, ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 345–53; Asch, R.G., ‘Antipopery and ecclesiastical policy in early seventeenth-century Ireland’ in Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, lxxxiii 1992), pp 62–3 Google Scholar; McCavitt, John, ‘Lord Deputy Chichester and the English government’s “Mandates policy” in Ireland, 1605–1607’ in Recusant History, xx (1990-91), p. 334 Google Scholar n, 73; Hadsor to Lake, 19 May 1617 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615–25, pp 164–5). This letter probably complied with a privy council decision on grievance procedure of September 1615 (sec below, p. 314). Hadsor repeated his criticism of petty officialdom, civil and ecclesiastical, at greater length in Adverts Ire., pp 15–16, 22, 40–41, 45, 47, 51, 54.58-9. For James I’s perception of Catholic loyalty see Kenneth Fincham and Lake, Peter, ‘The ecclesiastical policy of King James I’ in Jn. Brit. Studies, xxiv 1985), pp 182-6Google Scholar.

16 See below, p.318.

17 In addition to the sources cited (n. 14 above) see Hadsor’s propositions of 1632 (Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 681–3); Adverts Ire., pp 49–50. See also his advice to Cecil in Jan. 1599 on planting Old and New English followers in Farney, County Monaghan ( H.M.C., Salisbury, ix, 20 Google Scholar). On assimilation generally, see Jackson, Donald, Intermarriage in Ireland, 1550–1650 (Montreal, 1970)Google Scholar; idem, ‘Violence and assimilation in Tudor Ireland’ in O’Brien, Eoin (ed.), Essays in honour of J.D.H. Widdess (Dublin, 1978), pp 113–26.Google Scholar

18 Discourse’, ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 350–51; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1606–8, p. 281; H.M.C., Salisbury, ix, 20 Google Scholar; xii, 661; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1608–10, p. 180. Chichester’s views are summarised in McCavitt, John, ‘The political background of the Ulster plantation, 1607–1620’ in MacCuarta, Brian (ed.), Ulster 1641: aspects of the rising (Belfast, 1993), pp 14–16.Google Scholar For Hadsor’s critical comments on the state of the plantations in 1622 see Adverts Ire., pp 6–7, 10, 13–14, 17, 20–21, 52. On Irish sluggishness see ibid., pp 2, 24, 33, 43, 57–8.

19 P.R.O., SP 63/216/64, ff 179v-181 v; B.L., Cott. MS Titus BX, ff 79–84; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1603–6, pp 230–39; U.J.A., 1st ser., ii (1854), pp 245–52. For a new edition of this document, edited by Joseph McLaughlin, with a commentary on the circumstances in which it was produced, see below, pp 337–53.

20 ‘Discourse’, ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 346–7; Gruenfelder, John K., Influence in early Stuart elections, 1604–40 (Columbus, Ohio, 1986), p. 130 Google Scholar; For the debate of 26 April and the impact of Davies’s speech see Commons debates, 1621, ed. Wallace Notestein et al. (7 vols, New Haven, 1935), ii, 89–92; iv, 258–60; v, 101–2; [Edward Nicholas], Proceedings and debates, 1621, ed. Tyrwhitt, Thomas (2 vols, Oxford, 1766), i, 327–8Google Scholar; Bodl., Carte MS 95, ff 136v-137r. The significance of Irish questions in the 1621 parliament is examined in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 4.

21 ‘Discourse’ ed. McLaughlin, below, p. 350; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1606–8, p. 314; Moody, T.W., ‘The Irish parliament under Elizabeth and James I’ in R.I.A. Proc, xlv (1939), sect. C, p. 60 Google Scholar; Treadwell, Victor, ‘The House of Lords in the Irish parliament of 1613–15’ in E.H.R., xxx (1965), pp 100-1Google Scholar.

22 Adverts Ire., pp 42–3. On this point see also below, p. 318 and n. 34. For Christopher Hadsor see Cal. S.P. Ire., 1603–6, p. 415. See also the complaint of Justice Saxey: Cregan, ‘Irish recusant lawyers’, pp 310–12. The ‘Mandates’ and their political effects are reviewed in two important studies by John McCavitt:’Chichester and the English government’s “Mandates policy” in Ireland’, pp 320–35; ‘The flight of the earls’ in I.H.S., xxix, no. 114 (Nov. 1994), pp 159–73 Google Scholar.The policy was resumed briefly in 1618: Clarke, Aidan, ‘Pacification, plantation and the Catholic question, 1603–23’ in Moody, T.W. et al. (eds), A new history of Ireland, iii: Early modern Ireland, 1534–1691 (Oxford, 1976), pp 224-5.Google Scholar See also below, p. 325.

23 Cregan, ‘Irish recusant lawyers’, pp 306–20; Kenny, ‘The exclusion of Catholics from the legal profession’; idem, The King’s Inns and the kingdom of Ireland: the Irish Inn of Court, 1541–1800 (Dublin, 1992), ch. 4; McCavitt, John, ‘“Good planets in their several spheares”: the establishment of the assize circuits in early seventeenth-century Ireland’ in Ir. Jurist, n.s., xxiv (1989), pp 248-78Google Scholar. See also Hadsor’s religious neutrality in his ‘Discourse’ of 1604 (ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 349, 351).

24 For the petitions see Cregan, ‘Irish recusant lawyers’, pp 318–19; B.L., Harl. MS 3292, f. 4r, no. 13 (1621); Exeter College, Oxford, MS 95, pp 68, 69 (1622). For official responses see P.R.O., S.P.Ire., Jas I, ccxxxvi. 9, f.3v (no. 6) (1621);B.L., Add. MS 4756, f. 69 (1622). See also Adverts Ire., pp 39–40, 42–3; Hand, G.J. and Treadwell, Victor (eds), ‘His Majesty’s directions for ordering and settling the courts within his kingdom of Ireland’ in Anal. Hib., no. 26 (1970), pp 185-6, 205Google Scholar. The views of the Irish commission were cited by Sir John Bath in his propositions of 1625 for the remedying of grievances: Cal. S.P. Ire., 1647–60, Addenda, p. 311 (see also below, p. 325 and n. 51). For the probationer viewpoint of Roger Wilbraham (1593) and Sir John Davies (1610) see Cal. S.P. Ire., 1592–6, p. 145; 1608-10, p. 451.

25 See ‘Discourse’, ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 347–8, 350; Adverts Ire., p. 5; Middle Temple records: minutes of the parliament of the Middle Temple, i, 322. See also Cregan, ‘Irish recusant lawyers’, pp 315–20. For the Elizabethan commonwealth see Treadwell, Victor, ‘Sir John Perrot and the Irish parliament of 1585–6’ in R.I.A. Proc, lxxxv (1985), sect. C, pp 259–308 Google Scholar, and works cited in n.19.

26 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615–25, pp 150, 164–5, 230, 249, 258, 270; Acts privy council, 1615–16, pp 639–10; 1616-17, pp 143–4; 1618-19, pp 256–7, 462; 1619-21, pp 15–16, 271, 314, 315; Cal. Carew MSS, 1603–24, pp 320–21, 333–4. See also Adverts Ire., pp 13–14; Sackville MS ON 8520, an account, probably by Hadsor, of the intrigues prior to the Longford plantation. For the privy council’s earlier concern with Irish affairs see Alsop, J.D., ‘The privy council debate and committees for fiscal reform, September 1615’ in Historical Research, lxviii (1995), pp 208, 211Google Scholar.

27 For a succinct survey of the Irish wool trade in this period see Kearney, H. F., Strafford in Ireland, 1633–41: a study in absolutism (Manchester, 1959), pp 137–53.Google Scholar

28 Acts privy council, 1619–21, p. 295; 1621-3, pp 9–10. O’Brien supplied the pioneering study of the staple reform, again relying solely on accessible printed sources (on which see below, pp 331–2 and n. 70): ‘The Irish staple organisation in the reign of James I’ in Econ. Hist., i (1926-9), pp 42–56. See also the detailed account of the Jacobean staples, based on MS and printed sources, in Victor Treadwell, ‘Irish financial administrative reform under James I: the customs and state regulation of trade’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast, 1960), ch. 9, esp. pp 325–36. Hunt’s case is examined ibid., pp 228–32. On the rise of Youghal see MacCarthy-Morrogh, Michael, The Munster plantation, 1586–1641 (Oxford, 1986), pp 240–43.Google Scholar I recall concurring in 1979 with Michael MacCarthy-Morrogh on Hadsor’s authorship of’Advertisements for Ireland’.

29 See continued complaints in 1621: B.L., Harl. MS 3292, f. lv; in May 1622: Exeter College, MS 95, pp 74–5 (no. 31);B.L., Add. MS 4756, ff 28r, 30r;in 1623: P.R.O., S.P. Ire., Jas I, ccxxxvii, 43B; see also Hadsor in Adverts Ire., pp 25–6; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 683. Work on the 1641 depositions has begun to yield new evidence of cloth manufacture by immigrants: see, e.g., Nicholas Canny, ‘The marginal kingdom: Ireland as a problem in the first British Empire’ in Bailyn, Bernard and Morgan, P.D. (eds), Strangers in the realm (Chapel Hill, 1991), p. 44 Google Scholar; MacCarthy-Morrogh, Munster plantation, pp 230–38. However, the finishing of Irish cloth was severely hampered by the official restraint of exports of English fuller’s earth: Kearney, Strafford, pp 145, 149.

30 P.R.O., SO 3/6, Mar. 1619. See also ‘A catalogue of pieces in Mr Richard Hadsor’s book of warrants, temp. Jac. I and Car. I’ (Bodl., Carte MS 64, ff 2–4). This a table of contents to a volume (no longer extant?), which contained 208 entries from 14 Apr. 1619 to Oct. 1634, including a few earlier items. For an account of the hitherto unnoticed origin and activities of the king’s secretary for Irish business see Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 1 (iii) and passim.

31 Hadsor to Cranfield, 7 Jan. 1622 (Sackville MS ON 7553); Exeter College, MS 95, pp 1, 3. There are no entries in Hadsor’s warrant book between 11 Apr. and 24 Nov., but these two warrants and (less likely) another of 8 Dec. might have been drafted personally by Hadsor in Ireland and are not absolute proof of his presence in London (Bodl., Carte MS 64, f. 3v, nos 52, 54, 53). At the most, the sequence suggests that he might have returned before 8 Dec.

32 Hadsor to Cranfield, 5 Aug. 1622 (Sackville MS ON 8470); lords justices and council to privy council, 22 June 1622 ( Hickson, Mary, Ireland in the seventeenth century (2 vols, London, 1884), ii, 303–5Google Scholar); Exeter College, MS 95, pp 52, 105.The petitions (25, 29 May, June 5) were entered in the commission’s register (ibid., pp 68–82, 107–12), but there were others which were not, e.g. the O’Ferrall petition on Longford, which Hadsor autographed on 20 June 1622 (T.C.D., MS 672, ff 155r-162v). On MacCoghlan see Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 3 (iii); Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 682.

33 Hand & Treadwell (eds), ‘His Majesty’s directions’, pp 179 n. 2, 180–81; see also below, pp 330–31.

34 B.L., Add. MS 4756, f. 35r. Cf. Adverts Ire., pp 49–51; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 681 (nos 1–3). On the bishops’ leases and on recusancy see B.L., Add. MS 4756, ff 21v, 68v, 23r; Digges to Cranfield, 22 July 1622 (Sackville MS ON 8466); Exeter College, MS 95, p. 127; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615–25, pp 388, 389, 419; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 555, 560–61. See also ‘Discourse’, ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 349, 351–2; Hadsor was a member of the panel which advised the privy council on the summoning of an Irish parliament in the autumn of 1628: Acts privy council, 1628–9, pp 191, 192, 194–5.

35 Sackville MS ON 8470; distribution of revenue business, ibid., MS ON 8455. See also Adverts Ire., pp 8–9, 15, 23, 24, 29–30, 37, 41–2, 46–7, 48–9; and below, pp 322–3.

36 Acts privy council, 1621–3, pp 268–70; Steele, Proclamations, ii, 25; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 556. See also the approving allusion to the copper coinage in Adverts Ire., p. 29.

37 Exeter College, MS 95, p. 123; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 403; Rich’s ‘Journal notes, 20 June 1622’ (N.L.I., MS 8014/4); B.L. Add. MS 4756, ff 25v, 118r; Acts privy council, 1621–3, p. 382; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615–25, p. 364. See also above, n. 9. For the critical Hadsor-Phillips survey of Donegal and Londonderry see B.L., Add. MS 4756, ff 113v-123r. Phillips later made use of Hadsor’s professional services, e.g. in 1633: Cal. S.P. dom., 1633–4, pp 68, 82, 138.

38 Hadsor to Middlesex, 19 Nov. 1622 (Sackville MS ON 8483); Letters of John Chamberlain, ed. McClure, N.E. (2 vols, Philadelphia, 1939), ii, 467Google Scholar; Calendar of Wynn (of Gwydir) papers, 1515–1690, ed. Ballinger, John (Aberystwyth, 1926), p. 169 Google Scholar; Welstead to Falkland, 21 Dec. 1622 (B.L., Add. MS 11033, f. 16); Acts privy council, 1621–3, p. 422. Debriefing by privy council committees began on 16 Jan. (ibid., 1619-21, pp 356–7); cf. the timing suggested by Hadsor’s warrant book entries (see above, n. 31).

39 Acts privy council, 1621–3, pp 421–2; Devon, Frederick (ed.), Exchequer issues of James I (London, 1836), p. 266.Google Scholar Hadsor (like Bourchier, who also was not among the debriefed commissioners) received a warrant for payment of his expenses up to 26 Oct. 1622, but, although renewed in 1625, it remained unhonoured before his death: Cal. S.P. dom., 1625–6, pp 55, 543; Ainsworth, Abstracts’, p. 26.

40 Adverts Ire., pp 10, 11, 40; cf., e.g., B.L., Add. MS 4756, f. 42r. See also the private instructions (T.C.D., MS 808, no. 10 (endorsed ‘Judge Jones his parchment of Irish affairs’), one of the dispersed Jones MSS or possibly a retention of Hadsor (see the appendix)). On the disinclination of the commissioners to disclose their findings before returning to London, see Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 5 (ii).

41 Treadwell, Victor, ‘The Irish court of wards under James I’ in I.H.S., xii, no. 45 (Mar. 1960), pp 19–21.Google Scholar For the great tension between Middlesex and Buckingham at this time see Prestwich, Menna, Cranfield: politics and profits under the early Stuarts: the career of Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex (Oxford, 1966), pp 361-4Google Scholar; Lockyer, Roger, Buckingham: the life and political career of George Villiers, first duke of Buckingham, 1592–1628 (London, 1981), pp 121-2Google Scholar.

42 Acts privy council, 1621–3, pp 389–90, 395. Hadsor had a particular knowledge of these transactions. The earl of Kildare had a grant of some of the abbey lands in Dublin and Mayo in Dec. 1610 (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 193). Hadsor had also drafted a grant of £100 of abbey lands to Sir James Hamilton of May 1620 (Bodl., Carte MS 64, f. 3r, no. 29). Before Falkland’s arrival in Dublin there was a suspicious regrant to Hamilton and Sir James Carroll in Sept. 1621, under which the lord deputy had authorised a first assignment to two of his clients, possibly his proxies, on 19 Dec. 1622 (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 509, 512, 556). See also Alsop, ‘Privy council debate, September 1615’, pp 199, 203, 204, 206, 210.

43 Acts privy council, 1621–3, p. 398; Lockyer, Buckingham, pp 113–14. The king’s secretary was also to be controlled by a new standing commission for Irish affairs from May 1623. See below, p. 323.

44 Blundell to Middlesex, 26 Feb. 1623 (Sackville MS ON 8495); Middlesex to Blundell, 29 Mar. 1623 (ibid.) (my italics); Prestwich, Cranfield, p. 348; Blundell to Rich, 4 Mar., 26 Aug. 1623 (N.L.I., Manchester papers, nos 194, 200). Middlesex’s reform of the Irish finances in fully examined in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch.6.

45 Sackville MS ON 8925; Rymer, , Foedera, xvii, 531 Google Scholar; Prest, Rise of the barristers, pp 345, 376–7; Liber mun. pub. Hib., i, pt 2, pp 50, 51. Bolton had published a highly selective general collection of Irish statutes in 1621. See also Treadwell, ‘Irish court of wards’, pp 15–17. The ill-fated Irish commission of Dec. 1623 is examined in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, chs 6 (vi) and 7 (i).

46 Rymer, , Foedera, xvii, 493-5Google Scholar. See also Middlesex’s memo (Sackville MS ON 7491);’His Majesty’s directions on the revenue’, 1623 (B.L., Add. MS 4756, ff 71v-76r (at ff 71v, 75v)). All of these topics are given detailed treatment in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 6. For the church directions see also above, p. 318.

47 Rymer, , Foedera, xviii, 64-6Google Scholar. For Crew see Williams to Packer, Feb. [1625] ( The Fortescue papers, ed. Gardiner, S.R. (London, 1871), p. 209 Google Scholar).

48 Hadsor to Conway, 18 May 1629 (Cal. S.P. dom., 1625–49, pp 343–4). Hadsor may also have followed up a lead from Sir Patrick Barnewall (see the critical comments in Adverts Ire., pp 11, 18). Hadsor’s warrant book (on the Dungarvan and Tracton grant) (Bodl., Carte MS 64, f. 3v, no. 58); see also Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 594–5. Cork’s accumulation of plantation estates, followed by less burdensome regrants from the crown, was noted by the 1622 commissioners surveying the Munster plantation (B.L., Add MS 4756, ff 88–97 passim); see also Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 594–5. On these topics see Ranger, Terence, ‘Richard Boyle and the making of an Irish fortune’ in I.H.S., x, no. 39 (Mar. 1957), pp 257-97Google Scholar; idem, ‘The career of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork in Ireland’ (unpublished D.Phil, thesis, University of Oxford, 1959), pp 213–21 Google Scholar, 239. I am indebted to Professor Ranger for permission to consult his thesis.

49 Ranger, ‘Boyle and the making of an Irish fortune’, pp 282, 286–7, 290–91. The tortuous passage of this bill can be traced in Proceedings in parliament, 1628, ed. Johnson, R. C., Janssen Cole, M. and Bidwell, W. B. (6 vols, New Haven & London, 1977-83), iv, 360–61Google Scholar n. 3 and passim. Its history merits a micro-study. On the ordnance licence see Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 619, 626, 662, 671, 682.

50 Canny, Nicholas, The upstart earl: a study of the social and mental world of Richard Boyle, first earl of Cork, 1566–1643 (Cambridge, 1982), pp 52, 54–5, 60–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Townshend, Dorothea, Life and letters of the Great Earl of Cork (London, 1904), pp 139-41, 165–7Google Scholar. Pressure on Cork to marry his offspring into the Villiers clan did not cease with Buckingham’s death: Cal. S.P Ire., 1625–32, pp 641–2, 668.

5 See Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 156–8. Aidan Clarke supplies an authoritative summary of the negotiations in ‘Selling royal favours, 1624–32’ in New hist. Ire., iii, ch. 8. Bath’s courtier status and financial reward have hitherto been overlooked: Cal. S.P. dom., 1623–5, pp 210, 219, 332, 520; 1625-6, p. 3. In 1628 Sir James Perrot told the Commons that Bath, a papist resident in London, had been promised a command in the Irish army (Proceedings in parliament, 1628, ii, 167). See also Hadsor’s eloquent plea for Old English employment in court and government and participation in Irish defence in 1604, 1622/3 and 1632 (‘Discourse’, ed. McLaughlin, below, pp 350–52; Adverts Ire., pp 4–5, 49–50; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 681 (nos 1–3)), and Bath’s propositions (ibid., 1647-60, Addenda, pp 308–12 (which clearly date from 1625)).

52 Hadsor’s will recorded an unpaid fee of £240 (i.e. at £100 p.a.) for the period from Michaelmas 1625 to 28 Feb. 1628 (Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts’, p. 26). However, he continued to perform the duties of a commissioner until his death.

53 The significant interaction of the concurrent negotiations of the Graces and the Petition of Right is discussed in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 7 (iv).

54 Proceedings in parliament, 1628, vi, 7, 210-11Google Scholar.

55 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 262, 369, 386, 391; 1633-47, pp 389–90 (a misplaced review of Hadsor’s proceedings against Cork in the 1620s); Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 507; 1629-31, p. 20; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, p. 413; The Lismore papers, ed. Grosart, A.B. (10 vols, London, 1886-8Google Scholar), 1st ser., ii, 305–6, 325, 336–7; Aylmer, G.E., The king’s servants (London, 1961), pp 177–8.Google Scholar

56 Cal. S.P. dom., 1629–31, pp 35, 38, 40; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, pp 474–5, 555; Lismore papers, 1st ser., ii, 336; Stone, Crisis of the aristocracy, p. 441, Townshend, Cork, p. 216.

57 G.E.C, Peerage (Ormond, Desmond).

58 Reeve, L.J., Charles I and the road to personal rule (Cambridge, 1989), p. 189 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liber, mun. pub. Hib., i, pt 2, pp 6, 41.

59 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 681–3; see also B.L., Add. MS 4756, f. 52v. For the political context see Kearney, Strafford, chs 4–5; Wedgwood, C.V., Thomas Wentworth, first earl of Strafford, 1593–1641 (London, 1962), pp 135-9Google Scholar, 155; Clarke, Aidan, The Old English in Ireland, 1625–42 (London, 1966), pp 65–76.Google Scholar

60 Kearney, Strafford, p. 44; Wedgwood, Strafford, pp 158, 159; Clarke, Old English, ch. 5. Nevertheless, like Hadsor, Wentworth did not consider the recusants’ fines primarily as an inducement to religious conformity: Asch, ‘Antipopery’, p. 287 n. 99.

61 Clarke, Aidan, ‘The breakdown of authority, 1640–41’ in New hist. Ire. iii Google Scholar, ch. 10. The most detailed analysis of the complex developments of 1640–41 is provided by Perceval-Maxwell, Michael, The outbreak of the Irish rebellion of 1641 (London, 1994)Google Scholar, chs 4–10.

62 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633–47, p. 730; Simington, R.C. (ed.), The transplantation to Connacht, 1654–58 (Dublin, 1970), pp 64, 102, 227Google Scholar; Walsh, ‘The Hadsors’, p. 263. For lingering references to the Hadsors up to the early 1700s see O’Hart, John, The Anglo-Irish landed gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland (Dublin, 1884; repr. 1969), pp 315, 459, 482–3, 492, 496, 573Google Scholar.

63 Middle Temple records: minutes of the parliament of the Middle Temple, i, 319 and passim; Acts privy council, 1618–19, pp 180–81; Reg. admissions to Middle Temple, i, 80, 108, 117; ‘Letter-book of Sir Arthur Chichester, 1612–1614’, ed. Dudley Edwards, R., in Anal. Hib, no. 8 (1938), p. 124 Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1611–14, pp 266–7, 345. Nicholas Darcy was not, however, admitted to the Middle Temple.

64 Cregan, ‘Irish students’, p. 102; Reg. admissions to Middle Temple, i, 130, 135.

65 Liber mun. pub. Hib., i, pt 2, pp 31, 74, 190; Prest, Rise of the barristers, pp 388, 391; Ingpen, Middle Temple benchbook, pp 163, 176, 180; H.M.C., Salisbury, viii, 312 Google Scholar; Cal. S.P. Ire., 1599–1600, p. 139; McCavitt, ‘Good planets’, p. 273 n. 27 (see also Cregan, ’Irish recusant lawyers’, p. 307); Bodl., Clarendon MS 2, no. 110. For Cusack see Reg. admissions to Middle Temple, i, 109 (1619); Liber mun. pub. Hib., i, pt 2, p. 76; see also below, n. 68. In contrast, Ryves was appointed at the request of his kinsman predecessor (also a Middle Templar): Sir John Davies to his new patron, Buckingham, 21 June 1619 (Bodl., Fortescue papers, f. 245); P.R.O., SO 3/6 (10 Nov. 1619).

66 Ainsworth, John and MacLysaght, Edward, ‘Survey of documents in private keeping’, 2nd series, in Anal. Hib., no. 20 (1958), p. 228 Google Scholar; Cregan, ‘Irish students’, pp 102, 106, 113. For references to Hadsor see Clanricard to Hadsor, 20 Nov. 1626 (N.L.I., MS 3111, f. 127); Clanricard to Lynch, 15 July 1627 (ibid., f. 135). Roebuck, the eldest son of Sir Henry Lynch, Clanricard’s agent, was admitted to the Middle Temple in May 1624, apparently before he had completed his Oxford studies: Clanricard to Lynch, 6 May 1625 (ibid., f. 119). The various Connacht projects of 1624–5 are examined in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 7 (iii).

67 Clanricard to Lynch, 15 Oct. 1623 (N.L.I., MS 3111, ff 111–12); Lodge, Peerage Ire., iv, 26–7.This bizarre little episode in the Ormond-Desmond saga is described in Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, ch. 3 (ii b).

68 Steele, Proclamations, ii, 29; Rushworth, John, Historical collections (7 vols, London, 1659-1701), iv, 157, 159, 170–71, 178–81Google Scholar; Caldicott, C.E.J. (ed.), ‘Patrick Darcy, An argument (1643) ’ in Camden Miscellany, xxxi 1992), pp 197–201, 204–7, 213, 216–18Google Scholar. See also Clarke in New hist Ire., iii, 254–5; Perceval-Maxwell, Outbreak of the Irish rebellion, ch. 7; Morrill, J.S., ‘The fashioning of Britain’ in Ellis, Steven G. and Barber, Sarah (eds). Conquest and union: fashioning a British state, 1485–1725 (London & New York, 1995), p. 16 Google Scholar. James Cusack, king’s counsel (Dublin) and later clerk of the new commission for defective titles, also supported Old English constitutionalism alongside Darcy in 1641: Kearney, Strafford, pp 190, 214, 236–7.

69 See above, n. 2; Adverts Ire., pp i, viii. On the watermark, I am indebted to William O’Sullivan, former Keeper of the MSS at Trinity College, Dublin, for his communication of 3 Sept. 1980.

70 For another example see above, n. 28. It was possibly for this reason that he declined to undertake the task of revising his pioneering monographs on economic and social history. See also the very sympathetic and revealing memoir of O’Brien by James Meehan (Dublin, 1980).

71 Adverts Ire., pp ii-viii; warrant of 6 Aug. 1623 (Cal. S.R Ire., 1615–25, p. 429); the earlier grants (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 248, 226).

72 See above, pp 321–2.

73 On Inns of Courts culture see Prest, Inns of Court, pp 158–67; The diary of Sir Richard Hutton, 1614–1639, ed. Prest, W.R. (London, 1991)Google Scholar, passim.

74 Adverts Ire., pp v-vi, citing Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615–25, pp 345–7. Besides Hadsor, O’Brien omitted Blundell, Jephson and Phillips, who were clearly beyond the Pale. Bourchier’s letters to Ussher mentioned work on Bede (1624) and Henry VIII (1629): Parr, Richard, Life of James Ussher, archbishop of Armagh (London, 1686), pp 86, 406Google Scholar.

75 Adverts Ire., p. 28. Sackville MSS ON 8536, 8539 also contain slighter reiterations regarding the preservation of salmon fry, clandestine enlargements of planters’ estates, and the variations in land measurement (see also Adverts Ire., pp 34, 22, 20). On the mint committee see Sackville MS ON 8558. For complementary accounts of the Irish mint issue see Gillespie, Raymond, ‘Peter French’s petition for an Irish mint, 1619’ in I.H.S., xxv, no. 100 (Nov. 1987), pp 413-20Google Scholar; Treadwell, Buckingham & Ireland, chs 6 (iii) and 7 (ii).

76 Adverts Ire., pp vii, 17–18; Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts’, p. 25; see also Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 342, 480, 511, 512 (warrants of 1618–19).

77 Adverts Ire., pp 10, 11, 13, 17, 19, 20, 40. At least two of the warrants (Desmond, Dutton) cited by Hadsor had been drafted in his own office (with others of the same genre) (Bodl., Carte MS 64, f. 3r, nos 21, 23 ( 1, 19, 24, 25, 29, 30, 31, 50)). On Barnewall see ibid., f. 3v, no. 45 {Adverts Ire., p. 18).

78 See above, pp 316–17, 321–3.

79 Adverts Ire., pp 1, 3, 5, 49.

80 Ibid., pp 3, 39.

81 Ibid., pp 3, 59; see also Commons debates, 1621, iv, 278–81.

82 Adverts Ire., p. 54; Ainsworth, ’Abstracts’, p. 24.

83 Ingpen, Middle Temple benchbook, p. 179. Hadsor had oversight of Temple church property: Cal. S.P. dom., 1603–10, p. 307.

84 Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts’, pp 24, 25.

85 A possible candidate for the list of Hadsor-derived MSS is the private instructions for the 1622 commission, and a strong one is the Longford petition of 20 June 1622 (see above, nn 32, 40), and, indeed, there are other eligible items in T.C.D. MSS 808 and 672. Marsh’s Library, Dublin, is another place where Hadsor MSS or books may have come to rest. The pursuit of this aspect in detail in outside the scope of the present study.

86 The lawbooks were referred to as Littleton [Tenures] and Perkins [Laws of England] (Ainsworth, ‘Abstracts’, p. 24).

87 See O’Brien’s notes (Adverts Ire., pp 1, 2, 3, 50).

88 See, for example, the survey by Laurence, Anne, ‘The cradle to the grave: English observation of Irish social customs in the seventeenth century’ in Seventeenth Century, iii 1988), pp 63–84 Google Scholar, esp. pp 67, 69, 75, which (understandably) does not so differentiate.

89 This paper is the first fruit of my Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship, 1994–6, awarded for the completion of work on the reports of the Irish commission of 1622 and further study of the government of early modern Ireland.