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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Sir Piers Crosby, knight and baronet, lived for fifty-six years, but it is not perhaps too much to say that only a single day in that life has brought him to historical notice. That day was 28 November 1634. On the previous afternoon, Lord Deputy Wentworth had informed a joint meeting of the two houses of the Irish parliament that his government was not prepared to honour the promise which King Charles I had given to landed proprietors in Ireland six years earlier and would not permit the passage of acts relinquishing historic royal claims to Irish land. When the commons met on 28 November, a majority of the members vented their anger and disappointment by defeating an entirely uncontroversial government bill. Prominent among that majority, their ringleader if Wentworth is to be believed, was a renegade privy councillor, Sir Piers Crosby. That Wentworth’s account of what happened was seriously misleading is well established, and I have examined it elsewhere as an illustration of the proposition that one of Wentworth’s major achievements was to impose his version of the events of his deputyship upon generations of historians, approving and disapproving alike. His influence similarly colours historical impressions of the people with whom he dealt, and the purpose of this paper is to suggest the interpretative difficulties to which that may give rise by reconstructing the shape of the career of one individual who suffered the dual misfortune of crossing Wentworth’s path and being remembered only by what Wentworth wrote of him.
1 For information received, my thanks are due to Sarah Barber, Michael Dore, Caroline Hibberd, Brian Jackson, Rolf Loeber, Michael MacCarthy-Morrogh, Bríd McGrath, Nicholas Perry and, especially, Jane Ohlmeyer.
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27 Ibid., ii, 79.
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40 Strafford’s letters, ii, 218.
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45 Bellievre to Noyers, 10 Mar., 14 Apr., 3 May, 22 July 1639 (P.R.O., Baschet transcripts, 31/3/71, ff 29, 50, 58, 91).
46 Bibliothèque Nationale, Fonds Français, 15916 [N.L.I, microfilm, pos. 110], ff 235, 241, 255–5v, 256–6v; Carles, Pierre, ‘Troupes irlandaises au service de la France, 1635–1815’ in Études Irlandaises, new ser., viii (1983), pp 194ffGoogle Scholar.
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62 T.C.D., Crosbie papers, no. 1.
63 Fitzgerald, ‘Notes on the family of Crosby’, p. 146.
64 Acts privy council, 1615–16, p. 662.
65 G.E.C, Baronetage, p. 376.
66 Ca. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 326.
67 Acts privy council, 1616–17, p. 326; Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, pp 248, 252, 316, 337, 354–6, 407–8. Crosby was in possession of the disputed lands when the area was surveyed by the 1622 commission (B.L., Add. MS 4756, f. 81).
68 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 454.
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72 G.E.C., Peerage; Walter Fitzgerald, loc. cit., p. 146. Crosby’s wife had died in March 1618.
73 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 454.
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75 Cal. S.P. dom., 1619–23, p. 108; ibid., 1628-9, p. 440.
76 H.M.C. rep. 4, app., House of Lords MSS, p. 8.
77 Acts privy council, 1625–6, pp 355, 410, 447.
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83 Ibid., 1625-32, pp 144, 149; P.R.O., S.P. Ire., 63/243/400, 415.
84 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, pp 273, 281.
85 Ibid., pp 109, 155; P.R.O., S.P., Ire., 63/243/439.
86 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, pp 148–9.
87 Acts privy council, Jan.-Aug. 1627 pp 293, 293–4, 297; Clarke, ‘The army and politics in Ireland’, pp 43–4.
88 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1625–32, p. 267; Acts privy council, Sept. 1627—June 1628, pp 43–4; Cal. SP. dom., 1627–8, p. 324.
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95 Ibid., pp 376–7, 385; ibid., 1647-60, pp 127–8; Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 275; Acts privy council, July 1628–Apr. 1629, pp 115–16, 135, 188–9.
96 He was so described for the first time in a king’s letter of August 1628 (Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Chas I, pp 358–60); see Kevin Sharpe, ‘The image of virtue: the court and household of Charles I’ in Starkey (ed.), The English court, p. 228.
97 Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 577; ibid., 1629-31, pp 4, 76, 117, 151–6; H.M.C. rep. 10, app., pt v [Municipal archives of Waterford], pp 272–3.
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99 Her brother, Lord Noel, and her trustees were instructed to look after her (Acts privy council, July 1628–Apr. 1629, p. 220; ibid., 1629-30, p. 29; Cal. S.P. dom., 1628–9, p. 369).
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111 Cal. S.P. dom., 1631–3, pp 55, 113, 118, 129–30, 131, 132, 230; Cowper MSS, i, 438.
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127 His presence was recorded on 15 Nov. (ibid., p. 81).
128 Rushworth, Historical collections, iii, 888–902.
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130 Commons’ jn. Ire., i, 291–2, 293–5.
131 P.R.O.I., Carte transcripts, ii, f. 51; Ormonde MSS, i, 131.
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