Andrew D. Nicholls. 1999. The Jacobean Union: A Reconsideration of British Civil Policies Under the Early Stuarts. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

1. In a provocative article a few years ago Jenny Wormald suggested that King James VI & I knew all too well that his plans for a British union would falter through the unwillingness of the English and Scots to accept the destruction of their two separate nations. James, argued Wormald, sought an unachievable goal so as to achieve a lesser, more realistic one which was simply a peaceable co-operation between the two kingdoms and a smooth succession (Wormald 1996, 164). In this James succeeded. He managed to make sure that his subjects from North and South of the border did not fall to killing each other with as much regularity as could have been expected. But was this really what James's plans for union were all about?

2. It is certainly debatable whether James, who had indeed many years to plan his accession, really thought in terms of such a singular policy goal. While his accession was by no means an absolute certainty he devoted a considerable amount of time to the politics of his godmother Elizabeth's kingdoms. With the Western Isles' traditional connections with Counties Down and Antrim in Ulster we can appreciate how James did not confine himself to thinking solely of what he would later call mainland Britain. Union would have dramatic and long-lasting repercussions for Ireland as well as for England.

3. A reappraisal of the union is made all the more pertinent with the appearance of Andrew Nicholls' new book, The Jacobean Union with its subtitle proclaiming a reconsideration of early Stuart policies in the light of the union (Nicholls 1999). Following in the footsteps of Bruce Galloway's seminal 1986 study, The Union of England and Scotland, 1603-1608 is a challenging task indeed. In a wide-ranging study Nicholls looks at both James and Charles as rulers of the multiple kingdoms and sets out to ask some extremely pertinent questions. Did James indeed have preconceived ideas for a British union state? Was there a British security policy or indeed foreign policy under the early Stuarts? Was there a degree of co-operation between England and Scotland in commercial and colonial endeavours as a result of the union?

4. These are all worthy questions yet curiously Nicholls proceeds to answer them all in negative terms. It is a strange exercise in dashing his reader's hopes. His approach is perhaps weighted unduly with the concern to find the unfindable, a sense in which the project for the creation of Great Britain in 1603 had political results. Nicholls notes a plethora of examples as to how political unity just did not happen. For example, the Scottish Convention of Royal Burghs was compelled to send its own consul to Lisbon in 1609 because the English representative in Portugal was exacting fees from Scottish ships which called there, without doing anything to help the Scots. Nicholls correctly observes that as far as trade was concerned 'ultimately, entrenched economic and political interests in the kingdoms themselves tended to prevail in resisting greater coordination' (Nicholls 1999, 146). Free trade between England and Scotland was short-lived, existing from 1604-1611, when the Scots restored tariffs on English goods.

5. A search for political uniformity is also largely contingent on the definition of 'British' and perhaps inauspiciously, Nicholls writes of Britishness as a blanket geo-political term when referring to more than one of the four countries within James's three kingdoms. This can cause confusion as our conception of Britain was not the early Stuart one. James wanted Britain to refer to a united England (with Wales) and Scotland but the vast majority of MPs both north and south of the border would not consider this political rapprochement at all. However, Nicholls' assertion that 'notions of "Britishness" could not be formulated within a single state simply because of the union of the crowns... clear expressions of "British consciousness" were rare' is deceptive (Nicholls 1999, 6). The Jacobean period saw a flood of writing espousing just such a British consciousness, arising not just from those wishing to flatter their new king's pet project. The poet and antiquarian Michael Drayton cannot easily be written off as a dilettante writing paeans for James. Having been snubbed by the king in 1603 Drayton wrote Poly-Olbion, a bold vision of British unity addressed to Henry, Prince of Wales and continued to advocate a British culture long after Henry's death in 1612. Drayton was not alone in keeping an antiquarian interest in Britishness alive throughout the Jacobean period while playwrights picked up upon Britain's ancient past as a topic of great interest. The absence of a British consciousness in the Jacobean period has been greatly exaggerated (Marshall 2000a, Marshall 2000c).

6. There are inherent contradictions in Nicholls's argument, especially over the degree of forethought James had regarding the Union. On one hand Nicholls writes 'James had nurtured a sincere but uncomplicated sense of what British unity should entail since at least the mid-1580s, far in advance of his succession to the English throne.' Then he adds 'James had not, however, formulated in advance any specific plans regarding how he would coordinate or combine the governments of his three kingdoms when he became "king of all".' Finally he reverts to his first train of thought: 'James had begun to identify issues that were common to the kingdoms of the British Isles long before 1603 and... he continued to emphasise the need to coordinate particular policies in these areas after the failure of union in 1607' (Nicholls 1999, 7, 8, 24). It is difficult to get a sense of where James was coming from via this series of statements. Also problematic is the manner in which Nicholls makes strong statements while sadly providing little evidence for his claims. 'Shared kingship' he writes, 'also offered the possibility of shared resources and personnel that individuals from one of the British kingdoms might utilise when they needed assistance in dealing with foreign governments.' Indeed, but when he probes this thought he finds that this co-operation happened extremely rarely - he cites a single Caroline example (Nicholls 1999, 128).

7. Nicholls derives his evidence largely from Parliamentary sources which perhaps limits his search and at times he takes King James at his word, particularly regarding Ireland. When the king expressed concerns at events in Ireland to his MPs he was touching a raw nerve for the majority of the Houses aware of the costs of the Nine Years War and the dangers which Catholic Ireland could pose as long as the exiled Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone lived. Perhaps more cynical appraisals of James bringing up such a spectre so as to secure money from Parliament might be in order. Nicholls rightly draws attention to the fact that after 1607 the Scottish Privy Council communicated with its Irish counterpart or with the Lord Deputy personally with greater frequency and on a wider range of issues than had previously been the case. Other statements regarding Anglo-Irish affairs are more troubling. In a footnote Nicholls writes 'there was not, and probably could not have been, a genuinely Irish contingent at court... Stuart policy in Ireland was to wrest power away from the Catholic, Old English aristocracy, as well as from native Irish chieftains.' He reiterates this point later that the catholic populations of Ireland were marginalised by both James and Charles (Nicholls 1999, 71 fn. 15; 130-31). To be fair this would ultimately be the case but, as will be discussed below, without the benefit of hindsight we can see that James particularly was keen to advance any individual Irishman who worked to differentiate between civility and so-called barbarism in Ireland.

8. Charles Stuart trod a different course and Nicholls could well have contrasted the two kings' attitudes towards Ireland, placing events in context and perhaps not taking for granted the outbreak of hostilities in Ulster in 1641. Furthermore, citing Sir John Davies's views on Ireland as gospel truth, as Nicholls does, is a worrying matter, as it distorts the activities of, for example, Sir Arthur Chichester who as Lord Deputy in the first half of James's reign often worked against the kind of legal imperialism espoused by Davies (Nicholls 1999, 131; Pawlisch 1985; McCavitt 1998).

9. King James desired union as he desired peace. The means of achieving these desires was through ensuring that all his subjects accepted a particular standard of civilised behaviour. James's ire towards the dress and conduct of the Highland Scots was well known throughout his reign north of the border and this clearly affected his perception of what union should accomplish. We must avoid being dismissive of his often expressed desire that there should be one king and one law in his Great Britain. The political situation did not allow this to be carried through to its ultimate conclusion of a single polity but the effects of this thinking had a profound effect on the third of James's kingdoms. In his Certain Considerations Touching the Plantation in Ireland (1609) Francis Bacon noted that 'God hath reserved to your Majesty's times two works, which amongst the acts of kings have the supreme pre-eminence; the union, and the plantation of kingdoms' (Maley 1995, 7). The plantation in Ulster was a direct result of the Union of the Crowns, a settlement comprised in theory of near equal numbers of Scots and English which not only filled the power vacuum created by the Flight of the Earls in 1607 but demonstrated the King's desire that his subjects from both north and south of the Scottish border could co-exist as one community. 1 This relationship between Britain and Ireland, and the creation of a British national identity in Ulster a century before it came into existence on the British mainland are the clearest indicators of the manner in which union had tangible results. The term British was increasingly used to distinguish new Ulster planters of English, Welsh and Scottish origin from the native population, whether Old English or 'mere Irish' (Treadwell 1998, 39; Marshall 1999; Marshall 2000b).

10. James's relations with Ireland were ameliorated by Ireland's relations with James. If we are to understand the manner in which Anglo-Irish relations underwent such a transition as they did following the reign of Queen Elizabeth, we need to consider not only what the king did but what people on both sides of the Irish Sea thought about it. If we do this we can begin to appreciate that King James I of Ireland oversaw one of the most significant cultural transformations in early modern Irish history. It was to be accompanied by the rewriting of Ireland.

    I

    My lord, in this service I expect that zeal and uprightness from you that ye will spare no flesh, English nor Scottish, for no private man's worth is able to counterbalance the perpetual safety of a kingdom which this plantation being well accomplished will procure. 2

11. In the process of guarding his English and Scottish kingdoms from harm James Stuart was keen that a secure and emphatically British plantation in Ulster should prevent Ireland ever becoming a springboard for invasion. Whether he was more concerned about the threat from the Irish themselves or from the Spanish is uncertain - in June 1608 Henri IV told Carew that he had heard that Spain was planning to send seven warships to Ireland. 3 James's letter to Chichester, however, reveals the concern that he had as to the success of Ulster in the domestic security of the British mainland.

12. Historians have traditionally downplayed the tenor of James's relationship with Ireland. Ireland, like the Scottish Highlands was for James the source of barbarism, of uncouth savages worthy only of reform to more civilised codes of dress, speech and behaviour. Ireland was where James dumped the Grahams, that troublesome clan cleared from the borders, or Middle Shires as James liked to call them between Scotland and England (Lee Jr 1990, 212). As with many aspects of Jacobean history, revisionism has undermined the old demonisation of James Stuart as a pedantic buffoon, but the manner in which historians like Maurice Lee Jr and John McCavitt have depicted Jacobean Ireland has ignored a key indicator of popular opinion (Lee Jr 1990, 196-232; McCavitt 1998). It is a source all the more significant because it reflects over a short period of time the massive change in the way Ireland was viewed at the heart of the British monarchy. The London stages began James's reign by depicting Ireland as a place of conflicting cultures, wherein natives were savage fools and concluded the reign with a play which depicts a country of nobility and regal dignity.

13. It is often forgotten that James's Irish subjects, like those in England, Scotland and Wales could appeal directly to their king over grievances and that no-one prior to Strafford in 1635 tried to stop such appeals (Treadwell 1998, 25-6). A canny conciliatory approach characterised James's attitude towards Irish affairs, especially during the first five years of his reign but the turmoil of Strafford's regime was a long way off even after Buckingham began to take a hand in Irish affairs in 1616. The church settlement in Ireland during James's reign appears remarkably moderate. The Thirty Nine Articles (1563) were not imposed on the Church of Ireland until 1634 and an Irish New Testament and Book of Common Prayer were made available during James's reign, even if native Irish parishes lacked ministers or readers to employ them (Treadwell 1998, 31). Tyrone was effectively restored to power by the Treaty of Mellifont in 1603 while an act of oblivion, promulgated in the same year pardoned all offences committed before James's reign. Decisions regarding Tyrone were transferred to London and such was the former rebel's influence that the proposal for the establishment of a Presidency of Ulster was scotched on his protest. In August 1606 it was stated that while James 'would not maintain Tyrone in any encroaching upon his subjects as were not fit, so he would wish all occasion to be taken from him of just complaint, considering what a dependency the Irish have on him and how ticklish their disposition is towards the state, and he an instrument apt to make innovation' (McCavitt, 1998, 91; 134).

14. Far from solely supporting a new plantation elite, James also maintained close links with key Catholic lords. If Elizabeth bestowed her affection on Ormond, James maintained particular friendships with Clanricard who acquired English peerages despite extending his patronage to Dominican friars on his Athlone estate and with Sir Randall MacDonnell, officially reprimanded for harbouring priests (Treadwell 1998, 109). MacDonnell, with his Scottish connections in the Isles remained close to James, having been an ally prior to James's accession to the English throne. MacDonnell received a secure tenure of his estate of 340,000 acres in 1603 and went on to become Viscount Dunluce in 1618 and Earl of Antrim in 1620.

15. If James wanted to plant for the purposes of creating a 'civilised' and uniform British presence in order to combat what he perceived as savagery, he was quite prepared to countenance Irish Catholic help for the same purpose. He had proved this when refusing Bishop of the Isles Thomas Knox's request for assistance in combating the Jesuits in Argyll on the basis that anyone who could civilise the Highlanders, even if Catholic, could go ahead with his blessing (Wormald 1996, 168). James's desire for civility was echoed by David Rothe, Catholic bishop of Ossory, who in 1614 proposed to the assembled synod that they should 'eliminate barbarous customs, abolish bestial rites and convert the detestable intercourse of savages into polite manners and a care for the commonwealth' (Treadwell 1998, 30). This was precisely the way James saw it, but it comes as no surprise. James was more than just passively interested in the theory of religious unity, he actively promoted it as a touchstone of foreign policy (Patterson 1997). His desire was to see his Catholic subjects in Ireland convert to Protestantism but if they would not conform in religion then they should at least conform in culture. Abandoning Irish dress codes, language and agricultural methods were all indicators of civility and those Irish nobles who put on an outward show of Briticisation were as welcome at the English court as any other visitor from the three kingdoms.

16. Rewards went not only to the British planters. Between 1603-1629 there were two hundred and fifty eight new Irish knighthoods, of which just under one third were awarded to men of Old English or Irish name. Indeed, Victor Treadwell has noted how 'the Nine Years War had demonstrated the continuing attachment to the crown of the bulk of the Old English and Irish aristocracy, which had been led since 1585 by five earls, four connected by marriage to prominent English families; the title of the fifth, the earl of Clancarty, was extinguished in 1597 on his death without male heirs.' Irish Catholicism was not necessarily a hindrance when it came to awards from the King. Irish natives achieved a more generous representation in peerages between 1621-1629, with recusants like Lord Delvin promoted to earl of Westmeath in 1621 and Nicholas Netterville created a viscount in 1622 (Treadwell 1998, 105-6; 107; 110). Though previously barred as a result of unruly behaviour c1422, Irishmen began to attend the Inns of Court and the Middle Temple in particular. Dominic Sarsfield, the son of an Old English merchant family in Cork entered the Middle Temple in 1594, became chief justice in Munster, then chief justice of common pleas in November 1610 via Sir John Davies' patronage. His appointment was renewed in 1616, he was created a baronet in 1619 and became Viscount Kinsale in 1625 (Gillespie 1987, 43-4; Williamson 1925).

17. James's native Irish subjects outside of the ranks of the nobility accorded their Stuart king an Irish ancestry and feted him as one of their own. Poems written in Irish by two Ulster poets on James's accession indicate the optimism felt at that time: Eochaidh Ó hEodhasa from Fermanagh received 300 acres as a 'deserving native' under the terms of the plantation and contrasted in his poem the metamorphosis of Ovid to the changes wrought by James's accession: 'The brilliant sun has lit up, King James is the dispersal of all mist.' The second poet Eoghan Ruadh Mac an Bhaird from Donegal invoked both prophecy and James's genealogy in legitimizing his right to the crown of Ireland:

    That young Prince so high of mind, James Stewart, shall have Ireland's wondrous crown - an honour, I know, he well deserves...
    prince whose hand gives straight judgments - it will now be said - talk not of 'taking new territory'; thou hast already a right to red-sworded Ireland...
    The Saxons' land has been long - 'tis well known - prophesied for thee; so likewise is Ireland due to thee, thou are her spouse by all the signs... (Ó Buachalla 1993, 9-10; Also Cunningham 1986, 148-70)

    James's genealogy was of particular interest to the Irish literati, the conclusion made by Breandán Ó Buachalla being that 'on his mother's side James was descended from the Ulster King Fergus, the first Irish King of Scotland, whereas on his father's side he was descended from Corc, the fifth-century king of Munster' (Ó Buachalla 1993, 11). James boasted of his descent from Fergus and even a leading Scottish scholar like John Mair, who clearly played down the purely fictitious period of Scottish history, did not discard the myth of Fergus, son of Ferchard and the early arrival of the Scots in Britain via Ireland (Williamson 1979, 101).

18. Catholic clerics sought to ensure obedience to the new king. As Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland from 1601 Peter Lombard advocated the policy whereby it was possible for a Catholic people to give allegiance in temporal matters to a heretical prince. Through his vicar Rothe he had this policy adopted and approved by the clerical synods at Drogheda (1614), Kilkenny (1614), Armagh (1618) and Cashel (1624).Where conflict did arise in Ireland it did not immediately reveal a political polarisation within Irish society. According to Red Hugh O'Donnell's mother, the leaders of the rebellion of 1608 were guilty of 'treason against their King' while according to Eoghan Rua Mac an Bhaird when Rory O'Donnell went to Dublin in 1603 he parleyed with Mountjoy, 'the deputy of the High King of Ireland'. As Ó Buachalla notes, it was 'a central fact of Irish political life: that the overall aim of Catholic Ireland's élites was to come to terms with the King, since they realized that it was only through him that they and their cause could prosper' (Ó Buachalla 1993, 13; 14). Indeed, political allegiance in Ireland could be tremulous but Catholicism did not mean an inherent predilection for disloyalty to the Crown. Prior to his rising from 18 April to his death on 5 July 1608, Sir Cahir O'Doherty had been foreman of the jury which indicted Tyrconnell for treason in January. In February he was seeking to become part of the household of Prince Henry and he enlisted the support of his good friend Sir Randall MacDonnell, then about to leave for England in order to attend court on personal business (McCavitt 1998, 143).

19. By associating with leading Irish noblemen and recognizing the importance of loyalty over religious conformity, James sought to make Ireland part and parcel of his united kingdoms. Ireland was certainly to be no longer peripheral. That it was subsequently demoted and exploited by Strafford for Charles I should not blind us to the important way in which James improved upon the relationship of Britain and Ireland bequeathed to him by Queen Elizabeth. The manner in which those in London viewed the Irish is the final piece in this puzzle and here too there is a body of evidence which suggests that indeed a transformation was under way.

    II

20. The theatre's usefulness for our understanding of early Stuart political and cultural institutions has been proved on a number of recent occasions (Mulryne and Shewring 1993; Wiseman 1998; Marshall 2000c). As with stage portrayals of the Scots and Welsh the Irish occur rarely and when they do there are, unsurprisingly plenty of opportunities for humour. Mockery of the accent could not fail to amuse a London audience for whom trips to watch the lunatics in Bedlam was entertainment and bear bating was sport. However, the manner in which Ireland and the Irish are portrayed on the stages does give a remarkably clear indication of the movement of the western kingdom from the periphery into the centre of political awareness as well as the shift from ignorance to familiarity.

21. Literary study of Ireland in the early modern period to date has looked at Ireland primarily from the perspective of Spenser's View of the Present State of Ireland and Shakespeare's Henry V (Bradshaw, Hadfield and Maley 1993, 60-75; 93-115; 116-131; Baker 1997, 17-65). There are alternative Jacobean sources, some of which can expand our understanding of literary context enormously. As an example, a topical matter concerning Shakespeare's The Tempest which has not been considered by literary scholars as a potential source is revealed in the Irish State Papers. In 1609 James resolved to have 1000 Irish swordsmen sent to serve in Sweden, not only so that he might help Sweden, but also so that as many native Irish soldiers as possible might be removed out of the country, helping the course of the plantation. All did not go as planned, however, as we read in an entry for October that there was a mutiny on one of the ships, the Irish taking prisoner the gentleman appointed to oversee them. The Irish then

    let her [the ship] run upon a shelf with intention to land and to escape away; but in effect a contrary wind set in, with, which some other accidents, detained them in the harbour until with forces of some of the next garrisons and with boats they were forced to yield themselves within 24 hours after. 4

    Ironically, one of the boats used to prevent the Irish escaping contained the London agents who had been surveying the country for possible investment and who were returning home. The fact that they were thus confronted first hand with the political instability of the region and its inhabitants did not, however, deter them from recommending the building of the city of Londonderry. Yet further problems were to confront the voyage of the Irish to Sweden, as a month later they reached England:

    This day is reported that some 1,000 or 2,000 Irish, shipped to go to the wars of Sweadland, [Sweden] being taken with a tempest near this coast, their ships were forced to put back and came into the Thames. There the men were landed to refresh themselves in Kent, and could not be gotten on board again, but spread all over the country, which is now pestered with these people. The Masters of the ships are blamed for suffering them to land.

    By the middle of December matters were still chaotic:

    The Irish who... were put back from their journey to Swedland upon the coast of Kent, have been collected, some from their ships, some straggling about the country, to be penned up and kept here till next spring for that employment, the Sound being now frozen. They are 1200, and are kept by 400 together in several places. 5

    Here then were a band of foreigners shipwrecked on an island and subsequently acting in an unruly manner as a result of a 'tempest' and far closer to home than any supposed Bermudan tale.

22. The first significant Jacobean stage depiction of the Irish appears three years later in 1612 at a time when institutions had recently been put into place for oversight of Irish affairs outside of the direct remit of the Lord Deputy. Based in London, the Commission for Irish Causes had been instituted on a permanent basis in March 1611. It provided a system of checks and balances, with expert advice for the English privy council and the King on Irish matters. The commissioners all had experience in Ireland: during Chichester's tenure as Lord Deputy (until 1616) they included Sir Roger Wilbraham, Sir Robert Gardiner, Sir Anthony St Leger, Sir James Ley, Sir James Fullerton and Sir Humphrey Winch. Gardiner, Ley and Winch were former Chief Justices of the King's Bench in Ireland. Wilbraham was a former solicitor general in Ireland, a position he had held for seventeen years, while St Leger had been Master of the Rolls from 1593-1609. Fullerton was a Scot who had served James in Ireland prior to 1603 and contrary to McCavitt's assertion that his presence in the group was 'peculiar' we need to remember that this body was assembled by a king who wished for parity between English and Scots in respect of Irish business. It was to be a British commission, though circumstances left it primarily an English one. This is born out by McCavitt's recognition that the body's existence derived from Francis Bacon's advocacy of a 'council of plantation'. As has already been noted, Bacon recognised how plantation was the child of the Union of the Crowns (McCavitt 1998, 31).

23. In February 1612 Chichester had taken stern action against certain Catholic clergy. The executions of Bishop O'Devany of Down and Connor and Patrick O'Loughran, formerly a chaplain to Tyrone had occurred as a result of evidence that they were being used by Tyrone to whip up anti-Protestant sentiment in Ireland. Against this background of uncertainty Webster's The White Devil was first performed in London (McCavitt 1998, 175; Webster 1967). The cynical Flamineo refers to how 'an Irish gamester that will play himself naked, and then wage all downward, at hazard, is not more venturous.' (I.ii.30-32) Tales of the Irish predilection for gambling to the point of absurdity had circulated via Holinshed and as Sheila Cavanagh has noted, the depiction of such vice was intended to distance the Irish in terms of their behaviour and culture from the English so that their 'protection' and 'civilisation' by the English might be the easier to justify (Cavanagh 1993, 116-131).

24. Further examples of Irish barbarity are made clear later in the play. Francisco refers to how some 'cunning fellow' intends 'as th'Irish rebels wont were to sell heads, So to make prize of these' (4.1.81-2) and later in the same long speech he again comments: 'Like the wild Irish I'll ne'er think thee dead, Till I can play at football with thy head. (4.1.137-8) Meanwhile the Duke Bracciano refers to the keening of Irish women over the dead: 'Ye'd furnish all the Irish funerals With howling, past wild Irish.' (4.2.96-7) For the London audience in 1612 The White Devil reinforces the notion that the Irish were a totally alien culture.

25. 1613 was a key year in the politics of Jacobean Ireland. Prior to the summoning of the only Irish parliament of James's reign, the king had considered such a convocation as early as October 1604. When the two Houses finally came together in May 1613 trouble immediately flared with the fiasco regarding the election of the speaker and the subsequent walk-out by the Catholic members precipitating a prorogation and a direct appeal to the king. 6 The absenting MPs feared a host of anti-Catholic legislation. They were not the only ones with fears. James was worried about events leading up to the meeting of the parliament, in particular reports that the native Irish had begun stockpiling arms in 'woods and other secret places' in County Cavan. 7 A smooth session could have allowed James a great deal of personal satisfaction as there were matters both of profit and principle at stake for him. The acceptance of English law could have been ratified, legislation against impropriation passed along with the annexation of chantries to the crown, the elimination of plowing by the tail and the removal of the exemption from paying customs duties which four ports including Dublin enjoyed. On 26 July 1613 James issued a proclamation in which he noted the fears that he was going to adopt anti-Catholic legislation. He agreed to listen to all sides but provided that everyone agreed to accept his decision as final. He then appointed a commission, not, he told Chichester, out of any dissatisfaction with him but out of a desire to ensure that complaints were made in the form of petitions rather than through a recourse to violence. At this time James considered a reconciliation with Tyrone, not surprising given the deterioration in relations between England and Spain in the early part of 1613 - the firmly Protestant match of the Princess Elizabeth to Frederick, Elector Palatine took place on 14 February. The English government expected renewed conflict, and feared Tyrone being backed by Spanish forces.

26. Throughout the period of the commission James was aware that the failure of the Parliament might lead to more serious trouble. In spite of this he treated the recusant representatives with consideration during the summer of 1613 except for two who would not condemn the Jesuit Suarez's views on the deposing and killing of kings. One recanted after three months in prison, the other was prosecuted in Star Chamber. The Venetian ambassador was, however, aware of the contingency plans that were being made: 'Powder and shot have been sent to Dublin and the considerable body of soldiers on the coast to guard Ireland have received orders to be on the alert, showing that while the King displays his munificence and favour, he also has an eye on force.' 8 Concerns regarding the situation in Ireland would doubtless have been on the agenda in the two meetings held between James and Richard Boyle, earl of Cork during his visit to England between August 1613 and February 1614 (Treadwell 1998, 75). Though the delegates were sent home in January 1614, significantly they remained in London over the Christmas period.

27. Why it was significant is because Ben Jonson's Christmas offering for the festivities in 1613 / 14 was his Irish Masque. The subject of its immediate context caused J O Bartley concern: 'We know of no reason why Jonson should have had any special Irish interests; but he devotes more space to Irish characters than do any of his fellow dramatists' (Bartley 1954, 21). This can actually be explained. Jonson of all people had an eye to his king's interests. In his masque Oberon on New Year's Day 1611 he managed to balance the military aspirations of the young Prince Henry while studiously managing to avoid angering his pacifist king. Jonson as a juggler knew that Ireland interested his king, that James liked the idea that all his kingdoms be looked after. Consequently the physical staging for Oberon had been quite explicit:

    The new hall of the palace was furnished as usual with its galleries round about, a green carpet on the floor, a dais at the top for the king and queen. At the bottom a very large curtain painted with the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland, with the legend above Separata locis concordi figantur (Jonson 1952, 522).

    'May what is separated in place be joined by harmonious peace' read the inscription facing those courtiers who had turned up to see the masque. Jonson had the ability to read the king's mind and his Irish Masque is no exception.

28. Lisa Jardine is dismissive of the masque, writing of it as being 'absurd in its comfortable colonial optimism' while also, somewhat distressingly from the perspective of historical contextualization she adds that it is 'an apt representation of English aspirations towards Ireland... at the turn of the sixteenth century' (Jardine 1993, 60). The fact that the masque was performed over a decade after the beginning of the seventeenth century, that as a masque it was written and performed primarily for a (Scottish) king and not for the English people and that Jardine goes on to look at the work of Spenser in her article should make us wary of subsuming Jonson's work within the mantle of Elizabethan studies. Jardine is not alone in this type of ahistorical analysis. In her article 'The Jacobean masque as colonial discourse', Rebecca Ann Bach ignored the Ulster plantation ongoing in 1613, trying instead to fit the colonial context of this Jacobean masque into the shoes of the failed Elizabethan wars in Ireland (Bach 1995). In 1613 those wars were over and Queen Elizabeth was dead. The circumstances of Irish politics had changed radically with the accession of a King whose Celtic background was to mark out as profound a divide as possible between him and his predecessor.

29. David Lindley has contextualised much of the masque but has missed out on a key aspect of the performance (Lindley 1986, 350-359). Aside from its comic presentation of the four Irishmen Dennis, Donnell, Dermock and Patrick the masque celebrates an emphatically British interest in Ireland. Our first hand reports derive from the garrulous John Chamberlain who wrote to Alice Carleton on 30 December 1613 that 'yesternight there was a motley maske of fiue english and fiue Scotts'. Knowing Jonson, this is no coincidental allocation of roles. In the circumstances of a plantation project which the King wished to see equally divided between his English and Scots subjects, the fact that five courtiers from each nation danced clearly represented royal policy. On 5 January 1614 Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton that while the masque was well liked and had been repeated 'theyre deuise (wch was a mimicall imitation of the Irish) was not so pleasing to many, wch thinke yt no time (as the case stands) to exasperat that nation by making it ridiculous' (Jonson 1941; Chamberlain 1939, 498).

30. The 'many' to which he refers may well have included any number of those Catholic Irishmen who happened to be in London at the time. It is impossible to state with any certainty whether members of the Irish delegation were in the hall watching the masque performed but Chamberlain's disquiet hints that exasperation could have been felt by some of the onlookers, some of them perhaps being made aware that their king had only a limited amount of patience. The masque's conclusion involved the literal throwing off of Irish mantles to reveal English courtly garb underneath. Thus would civility triumph over rudeness. This is not to say that the triumph of English Protestantism over Irish Catholicism was being lauded. The Old English members of the delegation would have seen their civility celebrated in the revelation of courtly dress. Assimilation of the Irish into the English world continued with Jonson's Irish Captain Whit in Bartholomew Fair, performed in October 1614, a comic character devoid of any racial commentary other than the accent. Like his fellows Haggis and Bristle, Whit had become part of the English landscape.

31. The threat posed by the conspiracy in Ulster in 1615 was balanced out by the death a year later of Tyrone. James could breath easier knowing that one nemesis at least was no more and went on to strengthen the plantation and his coffers by creating the first baronets of the Kingdom of Ireland in 1619. 9 In the same year Thomas Middleton, in his mayoral pageant The Triumph of Love and Antiquity referred to 'The ciuilly instructed Irish man, And that kind Sauage, the Virginian' (Middleton 1619, B3). Sarcasm perhaps, but this should be considered in light of the positive manner in which native Americans were discussed prior to the 1622 massacre of colonists. That event seems to have been behind a lost and anonymous Tragedy of the Plantation of Virginia, which suggests that the early American experience was predicated on a tragic interpretation of Anglo-Indian affairs (Marshall 1998; Marshall 2000c).

32. In response to criticism of his policy in Ireland King James claimed in 1621 that the country had never been more orderly and that it had been 'one of his masterpieces to reform it' (Lee Jr 1990, 226). His concern with peace and civility over religious conformity is evinced by the character of life in the county of Londonderry, where, as in other parts of Ireland Catholic worship and jurisdiction were regularly exercised. John McGillen was in the Londonderry assizes in March 1621 convicted of exercising the office of Catholic priest, but he was one of many priests who functioned in the county with the connivance of local officials and landowners. A few months after McGillen's conviction George Downham, Bishop of Derry conducted a visitation of his diocese and reported that the law was ineffective to remove catholic priests. He got no help from the military and officials hindered him. As T W Moody noted 'it was difficult to induce the sheriffs of Londonderry, Tyrone, and Donegal, to apprehend priests against whom he had procured a writ, and if he did succeed in getting a priest apprehended and convicted, official corruption was likely to secure his release' (Moody 1939, 286-7) This combination of administrative laissez faire and tacit religious toleration allowed plantation to proceed without much sustained resistance from Irish natives and consequently the remainder of James's reign saw a picture of a calm and ordered Ireland emerge on the stages.

33. Confirming this reappraisal of the Irish made by playwrights is Thomas Dekker's The Welsh Embassador of c1623 (Dekker 1961, 301-404). Not since Henry V had there been such a lengthy stage portrayal of two of England's neighbours, the Irish and Welsh. Here the King's two brothers Eldred and Edmond disguise themselves as Reese ap meridith, ap shon, ap lewellin, ap morris (!) and Teage mac Breean for the majority of the play. In taking on the guise of the Welshman, Eldred notes that 'at the end of the last battaile in Wales, I drunck healthes in metheglin amonge 'em, never mett nobler companions, and staid so longe, I could gabble very handsomly...' (2.2.115-117) The portrayal is of course comic, as would be expected, but this is an interesting admission of admiration. Edmond then tells of his experience with the Irish:

    Morrogh mac Breean the kinge of Leinstar, Dermot kinge of Vlster, with Mac Dermond kinge of Connacht who weare all three in thatt battaile against vs, when the fight was done and all freinds, so souct mee in Vsquebagh my very braines burnt blew, so that ifaatla for an Irishman gett but a taylor to fitt mee, and pluck my tongue out if I runne not glibb awaie with it. (2.2.123-128)

    Again doubtless a comic rendition of this tale of war and alcohol would have been staged but it is a far warmer depiction than Webster's in 1612. Here the character talks of the Irish historical past of a recently planted country without any apparent need to censure the natives or decry them as being excessively barbaric. Later in the play Eldred's entrance as an Irish footman who desires to see the King is the source of this commentary on Ireland:

    Kinge. Whats hee?
    Voltimar. The embassadors Irish footman full of desire to see how much you and an Irish kinge differ in state. Which of the Irish kings know you sirrah?
    Edmond. I once serve and runne alonge by Morrogh mac Breean kinge of Leinster and I know all de oder Irish princes.
    Kinge. How does the kinge of Leinster.
    Edmond. Yfaatla passinge merry; he loues dee deerely; Dæardæry his queene too speake well of dee, and Osha Hanassah de kings broder wid Dermott Lave-yarach tell mee and I come into England to giue dee a towsand comendacons...
    Kinge. The kinge of Leinster is a noble soldier.
    Edmond. Crees a mee, he does not care for de divill.
    Voltimar. Wiser man hee.
    Kinge. The Queene is wonderous faire sirrah, is shee not.
    Edmond. Queene Dæardæry yfaatla now is white as de inside of a pome water, and as vppright as anie dart in Ireland. (3.2.131-155).

    We are told of Irish princes loyal to the King of England and that the King believes Leinster to be a 'noble soldier'. These are emphatically not savage Irish. The island of Ireland had, by 1623, become depicted as a place far more similar to England, while retaining the difference of its language, tradition and alcohol. The plantation in Ulster had begun to take hold, differences were no longer threats to cultural superiority as the culture of the Irish, like that of the Welsh had been subsumed within a wider British mantle.

    III

34. James VI and I valued peace over unity while his son valued unity over peace. When viewed from the perspective of three kingdoms rather than two the Union of the Crowns has a significantly different character. Ireland was where James saw his plan for Great Britain come into existence a century before the Act of Union pulled Scotland and England into a united kingdom. This does not mean that we can speak of there being a British political entity in Ireland in the early seventeenth century but there is certainly evidence of a British cultural entity, in the form of a colonial people who saw themselves as separate from the Irish, a people whose descendants would form the majority of Northern Ireland's population today. 10

35. Victor Treadwell's recent book on the Duke of Buckingham's dealings in Ireland has revolutionised the manner in which we view the relationship between England and Ireland in the Jacobean period. The complexities of the patronage relationships and the extent of Buckingham's machinations across national boundaries reveals how England and Ireland became tied at the hip politically from this period onwards. Andrew Nicholls's book does not make us change our conception of early Stuart history - Galloway's work remains unsurpassed in terms of its consideration of the union period in England - while we look forward with increasing exasperation to a biography of King James that will finally consign D H Willson's vituperative volume to oblivion.

Notes

1. Initial settlement patterns tended to segregate English and Scots planters, usually at their own request, but events like the 1641 rebellion pulled settler communities closer to each other through mutual bonds of nationality.

   

2. King James to Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland, printed in Akrigg 1984, 334-5.

   

3. PRO SP 78/54, ff102-107. Canny claims that adventurers in Ireland and Virginia expended more energy in catering for the possibility of Spanish invasion than in defending themselves against natives. See Canny 1977, 57.

   

4. Calendar of State Papers (Ireland) [Henceforward CSP Ireland] III (1608-1610), 263, 264-5; 304 (dated 31 October).

   

5. Purnell and Hinds 1936, 195-6 (30 November 1609), 201 (14 December 1609).

   

6. McCavitt attributes to the walkout a degree of ulterior motivation, describing it as 'a carefully orchestrated manoeuvre, influenced in no small measure by catholic priests' (McCavitt 1998, 184).

   

7. CSP Ireland, 1611-14, 324.

   

8. CSP Venetian, 1613-1615, 30.

   

9. The challenge to the bona fides of the conspiracy made by Gillespie (1987) has been refuted by McCavitt (1998, 202-4); Akrigg (1962, 234-5) notes that the creation of baronets was a success, in that it brought in £120,000 at the time.

   

10. Some wanted the differences erased completely. Gentry in Munster called in 1628 for an act in which 'the subjects and natives of this kingdom may be deemed, called and reputed as those of the British nation and not termed mere Irish' (Treadwell 1998, 39).

    

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