With Wentworth now the King's closest adviser and soon in virtual command of his armies, Mr Wandesford became Lord Deputy of Ireland on 1 April 1640.
He was left with an increasingly impossible task, as developments in Scotland and England interacted with the grievances of Ireland. To add to his worries and forebodings, Wentworth had just made another bitter enemy. On being made Earl of Strafford, he had chosen for his secondary title to be Baron Raby. Why cause so needlessly such deep offence to Sir Henry Vane of Raby Castle? Mr Wandesford himself would never accept a title or honours – he felt it was unsuitable in those unsettled times that threatened the King's own future.
 |
| Scots musketeers, from website of The Earl of Manchester's Regiment of Foote |
In early September Mr Wandesford will have heard with utter dismay that the King's attempt at another campaign against the Covenanting Scots had only produced the invasion of England and the Covenanters' victory over the Royalist forces at the Battle of Newburn on the River Tyne. The border between Scotland and England was now at the River Tees. So Scottish troops were only a few miles from the Wandesford estates. To add insult to injury, a fortnight after the battle, the King signed the Treaty of Ripon agreeing to pay £850 a day to the Scottish soldiers' upkeep.
 |
| Musket ball: found about 5 miles south of Sedgefield |
The Irish Parliament grew ever more difficult to manage and was now trying to impeach Strafford. It would be no use Strafford advising his old friend to subdue them by holding firm, saying his "old rule of moderate counsels will not serve his turn in cases of this extremity". Strafford was always supremely confident that his own bold and dictatorial methods would succeed. Alice often heard Mr Wandesford speak to his wife of his forebodings for the future of the kingdoms.
In the middle of November, Mr Wandesford learned that his colleague Sir George Radcliffe was about to be accused of High Treason and that the English Parliament had started impeachment proceedings against his great friend Wentworth, now Strafford. On hearing this, Mr Wandesford sat in a sort of trance.
Not long afterwards he was taken ill with a fever and kept at home for some days. Feeling well again, he attended church but realised on coming home that he had not fully recovered. He took to his bed again and soon the fever grew on him. He did not expect to get better and he prepared for death.
On the Tuesday he called for his Will, which he had executed the month before, to be read over to him in the presence of witnesses. He spoke at length to his son George, urging him to fear and love God, to do his duty, to love and honour his mother and always to consult his uncle Sir Edward Osborne. He had no doubt that the three kingdoms were heading for disaster. He would call Alice, now nearly fifteen, to his bedside and, looking at her steadily, say, "Ah poor child, what must thou see and thine eyes behold," and, praying for her, turn away with a great groan.
On the Wednesday night, the doctors laid live pigeons, cut in half, to the soles of his feet – a sure way to bring down even the most malignant fever. "Are you come to the last remedy?" he asked them, smiling. He knew that his illness would outwit their skill. He died on Thursday 3 December 1640 at home in Damas Street, after declaring his faith and hope in God to Bishop Bramhall of Derry, a Yorkshireman he had known for many years, who gave him absolution. He was forty-eight.
When they embalmed his body, they found that his heart was decayed on one side and this was felt to be because of the burden of work and care that he had carried. They buried him with state in Christ Church under a marble slab before the Lord Deputy's seat.
Mr Wandesford had faced many problems but he believed in conciliation and moderation and he didn't make enemies. At his funeral, the Irish paid him the high tribute of keening for him – singing a lament. It was never known to be have done for an Englishman before, Alice remembered, and when the unearthly, mournful cry of 'Och – Ochone' was raised, it so terrified her grieving twelve-year-old brother Christopher that from that time, she said, he fell into a fit of the spleen – a serious depression.
 |
| Cannon ball: found about 5 miles south of Sedgefield |
NotesThe King's campaigns against his Scottish kingdoms in 1639 and 1640 are known as The Bishops' Wars.
Keening, which in time became a profession for women, was strongly discouraged by Protestant clergymen in later years. A BBC World Service Documentary called Songs for the Dead, including audio recorded in the 1950s of one of the last professional keeners, Brigid Mullin, can be heard here
And a hint of how it must have sounded at Christ Church in 1640 when it so frightened young Christopher Wandesford can be gleaned from this video of Professor Ó Madagáin giving a verse of the Caoineadh Art Ó Laoghaire (Keen for Art O’Leary) followed by the Cry or Gol, the "Och ochón", which is the "hone" that Alice mentions. Imagine this being unexpectedly sung full-throated by a great gathering of people
War comes to Ireland: 1641
The shocked and grieving family stayed on in the house at Damas Street. Mrs Wandesford was a woman of great strength of character. She was preparing to leave, but she kept up the great household as befitted the Lord Deputy's widow while she paid off the debts and discharged the servants. The expense was a worry because she couldn't get at her own money in England, but the King had promised that the funeral would be paid for out of the Treasury and that the estate wouldn't have the cost of George's wardship – he was yet another underage Wandesford heir. George was now seventeen and she sent him out of Ireland to finish his education.
So Mrs Wandesford, the three younger children and her two little grandsons were still in Dublin when they heard that their family friend the Earl of Strafford had been condemned to death by an act of attainder when legal proceedings by Parliament against him had failed. He was executed before a large crowd on Tower Hill on 12 May – murdered, as far as Alice and her family were concerned. His many enemies, including Sir Henry Vane of Raby Castle and Sir Thomas Layton of Sexhow, had finally succeeded and his King's slipperiness and political mistakes had been fatal to him.
And the Wandesfords were still in Dublin when the Irish Rebellion broke out on 23 October 1641.
Long-term grievances and the short-term hardships of poor harvests and economic difficulties had come to a head. The descendants of the Norman French lords and the descendants of the Irish whom they had conquered had drawn together in the face of hostility from their Protestant rulers. Ulster landowners had planned a preemptive strike so they could, like the Scots, take over their kingdom and force concessions from the King. They succeeded in Ulster but they were betrayed in Dublin and they failed to take the city. Their bloodless coup had failed. Massacres of Ulster Protestants and bloody war were the result. The extreme violence of the uprising was followed by the extreme violence of the retaliation.
When the plot was discovered, wild rumours spread through Dublin. That night Mrs Wandesford and her household, with everything they could take, fled into the safety of the Castle.
The next fortnight was spent in the city, packing up to leave in a nightmare time of fear and constant alarms. Terrified, short of sleep, food and rest, fifteen-year-old Alice fell ill of a desperate flux, a dysentery which they called the Irish Disease. But Mrs Wandesford found a ship that would take them all and they had a safe and quiet passage across the Irish Sea.
Safely ashore, they stayed several weeks in the beerhouse at Neston Quay because Alice was so ill. Sickness and grief had taken a heavy toll on this tender, loving, sensitive girl, who was prone all her life to ominous dreams foretelling family deaths. A doctor came out from Chester to see her and she was cared for lovingly by her mother until at last she gained enough strength to make the journey by coach to Chester, or Weschester as it was still often called.
Note
The Irish rebellion and the war that followed is known as the Confederate War, from the Confederation of Kilkenny formed by the rebels in May 1642.
