.

Of course, the people of the north hated him. While he was earning the
applause of the archbishop and the king, and entitling himself to new
honors and increased power, he was sewing the seeds of the bitterest
animosity in the hearts of the people every where. Still he enjoyed
all the external marks of consideration and honor. The President of
the North was a sort of king. He was clothed with great powers, and
lived in great state and splendor. He had many attendants, and the
great nobles of the land, who generally took Charles's side in the
contests of the day, envied Wentworth's greatness and power, and
applauded the energy and success of his administration.

Ireland was, at this time, in a disturbed and disordered state, and
Laud proposed that Wentworth should be appointed by the king to the
government of it. A great proportion of the inhabitants were
Catholics, and were very little disposed to submit to Protestant rule.
Wentworth was appointed lord deputy, and afterward lord lieutenant,
which made him king of Ireland in all but the name. Every thing, of
course, was done in the name of Charles. He carried the same energy
into his government here that he had exhibited in the north of
England. He improved the condition of the country astonishingly in
respect to trade, to revenue, and to public order. But he governed in
the most arbitrary manner, and he boasted that he had rendered the
king as absolute a sovereign in Ireland as any prince in the world
could be. Such a boast from a man who had once been a very prominent
defender of the rights of the people against this very kind of
sovereignty, was fitted to produce a feeling of universal exasperation
and desire of revenge. The murmurs and muttered threats which filled
the land, though suppressed, were very deep and very strong.

The king, however, and Laud, considered Wentworth as their most able
and efficient co-adjutor; and when the difficulties in Scotland began
to grow serious, they recalled him from Ireland, and put that country
into the hands of another ruler. The king then advanced him to the
rank of an earl. His title was the Earl of Strafford. As the
subsequent parts of his history attracted more attention than those
preceding his elevation to this earldom, he has been far more widely
known among mankind by the name of Strafford than by his original name
of Wentworth, which was, from this period, nearly forgotten.

To return now to the troubles in Scotla