own inner temper; and the dark gloomy countenance, the full heavy eye,
which meet us in Strafford's portrait are the best commentary on his
policy of "Thorough." It was by the sheer strength of his genius, by the
terror his violence inspired amid the meaner men whom Buckingham had
left, by the general sense of his power, that he had forced himself upon
the Court. He had none of the small arts of a courtier. His air was that
of a silent, proud, passionate man; and when he first appeared at
Whitehall his rough uncourtly manners provoked a smile in the royal
circle. But the smile soon died into a general hate. The Queen,
frivolous and meddlesome as she was, detested him; his fellow-ministers
intrigued against him, and seized on his hot speeches against the great
lords, his quarrels with the royal household, his transports of passion
at the very Council-table, to ruin him in his master's favour. The king
himself, while steadily supporting him against his rivals, was utterly
unable to understand his drift. Charles valued him as an administrator,
disdainful of private ends, crushing great and small with the same
haughty indifference to men's love or hate, and devoted to the one aim
of building up the power of the Crown. But in his purpose of preparing
for the great struggle with freedom which he saw before him, of building
up by force such a despotism in England as Richelieu was building up in
France, and of thus making England as great in Europe as France had been
made by Richelieu, he could look for little sympathy and less help from
the king.

[Sidenote: Ireland under the Stuarts.]

Wentworth's genius turned impatiently to a sphere where it could act
alone, untrammelled by the hindrances it encountered at home. His
purpose was to prepare for the coming contest by the provision of a
fixed revenue, arsenals, fortresses, and a standing army, and it was in
Ireland that he resolved to find them. Till now this miserable country
had been but a drain on the resources of the Crown. Under the
administration of Mountjoy's successor, Sir Arthur Chichester, an able
and determined effort had been made for the settlement of the conquered
province by the general introduction of a purely English system of
government, justice, and property. Every vestige of the old Celtic
constitution of the country was rejected as "barbarous." The tribal
authority of the chiefs was taken from them by law. They were reduced to
the position of great noble