genius for business and administration. Manufactures were established,
the breeding of cattle and fish introduced, mines opened, colonists from
England encouraged to come over, the natural resources of the land
developed, bridges, harbours and roads constructed, and towns settled,
order being maintained by 13 castles garrisoned by retainers.

While himself quickly accumulating vast riches, the services which
Boyle rendered to the government and to the nation at such a time of
disorder and transition were incalculable. He soon became the most
powerful subject in Ireland. On the 25th of July 1603 he married, as his
second wife, Catherine, daughter of Sir Geoffrey Fenton, secretary of
state, and was knighted. In 1606 he became a privy councillor for
Munster and in 1613 for Ireland. On the 6th of September 1616 he was
raised to the peerage as Lord Boyle, baron of Youghal, and on the 26th
of October 1620 was created earl of Cork and Viscount Dungarvan. He was
appointed on the 26th of October 1629 a lord justice, and on the 9th of
November 1631 lord high treasurer. Though no peer of England, he was "by
writ called into the Upper House by His Majesty's great grace," and took
his place as an "assistant sitting on the inside of the Woolsack."[1]
The appointment of Wentworth (Lord Strafford), however, as lord deputy
in 1633 put an end to the predominant power and influence of Cork in
Ireland. "A most cursed man," he writes in his diary on Wentworth's
arrival, "to all Ireland and to me in particular." In reality these two
great men had much in common, held similar views of administration, and
had the same talents for practical statesmanship. Cork had already
carried out in Munster the policy which Strafford desired to see
extended to the whole of Ireland. But Cork belonged to the "spacious
days of great Elizabeth," and for such a man there was no room within
the narrow despotism and intolerance of the government of Charles. The
subjection of the great was part of Strafford's settled policy, and
consequently, instead of seeking his collaboration in developing the
country and in maintaining order, he studied merely to diminish his
influence. He subjected him to various humiliations. He forced him to
remove his wife's tomb from the choir in St Patrick's at Dublin, and
deprived him arbitrarily of the greater part of the revenues of Youghal,
a portion of the Raleigh estates. "No physic," wrote Laud, delighted,
"better than a vomit if i