Above : Picture Of Wentworth

The prosperity of Ireland was, however, to be sought—such was the Deputy’s view—not for her own sake, but that she might minister to the prosperity of England and the power of the English Crown. There¬fore, any branch of Irish industry which seemed to threaten to rival or interfere with a similar industry in England must be at once repressed.

It was for this reason that Wentworth sought to effect the ruin of the Irish Woollen trade. He declared that from it two dangers were to be feared. The cheaper rate of labour in Ireland might enable Irish woollens to be offered at a price which would undersell, in the English markets, the native products ; while an Ireland able to supply her own needs, as regards clothing and household stuffs, might become so independent as to be formidable.

The trade was, however, an old one, and widely spread over the country. Centuries before this, Irish serges and other woollen stuffs had been famous, not only in England, but on the Continent. To repress it would take time, and this time was not accorded to Wentworth. When, in 1640, his viceroyalty came to an abrupt end, he had been able to effect little against the woollen industry ; only his written words remain to reveal to posterity his hostile intentions. On the other hand, he had done a good deal to foster another branch of manufacture, that of linen, which he favoured as peculiarly suitable for Ireland, and not constituting a danger to England, where there seemed no prospect of developing it.

This, too, was a long-established Irish industry. Irish linens were exported in great quantities, and sold in England, in the Netherlands and elsewhere. Owing to discouragement, the trade had now diminished, and the quality of the linen produced had also apparently deteriorated. Still, Wentworth found, as he declares, that the people were ” apt to spin,” and that the women were ” naturally expert ” at the art. He brought improved flax from Holland, bearing himself part 0f the expense from his private resources, and invited over to Ireland Flemish and French weavers to instruct the people in improved methods. Wentworth and the Churches.—In Church government, as in civil, Wentworth’s main object was order and what he regarded as due sub-ordination to authority.

The Catholics he did not greatly persecute, though, in order to extort money, he threatened on several occasions to enforce against them the strict letter of the recusancy laws. His chief objection to the ” Graces ” was probably that, had they been passed, they would have seriously interfered with this welcome source of supply. He appears, on the whole, to have disliked the Catholics, who acknowledged at least a spiritual superior, even if a foreign one, less than he disliked the Protestant Dissenters, whom he considered as rebels against all authority.