conferred upon Wandesford, which was secured to him for life by patent dated 22 March 1633–4 and 17 May 1639 (Lodge, Peerage of Ireland, iii. 196; Strafford Letters, i. 84). The lord deputy consulted with Wandesford and Sir George Radcliffe [q. v.] in all business of importance, thinking them the only privy councillors unswayed by local prejudices or personal aims. ‘There is not a minister on this side knows anything I write or intend,’ he told the lord treasurer, ‘excepting the master of the rolls and Sir George Radcliffe, for whose assistance in this government and comfort to myself amidst this generation I am not able sufficiently to pour forth my humble acknowledgments to his majesty. Sure I were the most solitary man without them that ever served a king in such a place’ (ib. i. 99, 194, ii. 433). During Wentworth's visits to England Wandesford was invariably appointed one of the lords justices who governed Ireland in his absence, at one time in association with Adam Loftus, first viscount Loftus of Ely [q. v.] (3 July 1636), and on a second occasion with Robert, lord Dillon (12 Sept. 1639). During the first of these instances Wentworth addressed to Wandesford an account of an interview with the king which contains the best account of his rule in Ireland, and is the best proof of the entire agreement of the two friends in their political aims (ib. ii. 13; cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 291).
When Strafford finally left Ireland, Wandesford was appointed lord deputy (1 April 1640), being sworn in two days later. The spirit of opposition which prevailed in England spread to Ireland, and the new lord deputy found the Irish parliament no longer subservient. The commons had granted the king four entire subsidies in March 1640; in June they demanded the adoption of a new way of levying the three of these subsidies still unpaid, a change which would in any case cause delay, and largely reduce the amount received by the government. Wandesford temporised, allowing the declaration of the commons claiming the control of taxation to be entered in the council books, but proroguing the parliament to 1 Oct. in order to put a stop to the agitation. This had no effect, and on 9 Nov. the king ordered Wandesford to cause two orders of the commons relating to this question to be torn out of the journals (Carte, Ormonde, ed. 1851, i. 195, 202, 214; Mountmorres, History of the Irish Parliament, ii. 40). On 7 Nov. 1640 the commons also drew up a remonstrance against Strafford's government of Ireland, and sent a committee of their own members to present it to the king. Wandesford prorogued the parliament again on 12 Nov., and would probably have stopped the passage of the committee if he could, but they left Ireland without waiting for his license (Carte, i. 216, 231). These difficulties, and the news of the fall and imprisonment of Strafford, so affected Wandesford that he fell ill of a fever, and died on 3 Dec. 1640. He was buried in Christ Church on 10 Dec.; and his friend Bramhall, bishop of Derry, preached his funeral sermon (Autobiogr. of Alice Thornton, pp. 19–26; English Historical Review, ix. 550). ‘Since I left Ireland,’ wrote Strafford to Sir Adam Loftus, ‘I have passed through all sorts of afflictions … but indeed the loss of my excellent friend the lord deputy more afflicts me than all the rest’ (Strafford Papers, ii. 414). According to Carte, who is confirmed by contemporaries, Wandesford was universally lamented in Ireland, as a man ‘of great prudence, moderation, virtue, and integrity.’ It was observed at his funeral, as a sign of ‘the love God had given to that worthy person, that the Irish party did set up their lamentable hone, as they call it, for him in the church, which was never known before for any Englishman done’ (Thornton, p. 26; Carte, i. 233).
In 1635 Wandesford had purchased from the Earl of Kildare the lands of Sigginstown, near Naas, but resold the estate to Strafford, who intended to build a royal residence there. Instead of it Wandesford acquired (25 July 1637) Castlecomer and the territory of Edough or Idough in the county of Kilkenny. The title to this district had been found to be in the crown by inquisition taken at Kilkenny on 11 May 1635 and the sept of the Brennans who held it declared to have no legal claim to their lands. Strafford expelled them by force, and Wandesford rebuilt the castle, restocked the park, and settled a number of English families on the estate. Wandesford's conscience does not seem to have been quite easy, and by his will, made on 2 Oct. 1640, he ordered his executors to pay them a certain sum in compensation. It recites that they had several times refused ‘such proffers of benefit as he thought good out of his own private charity and conscience to tender to them,’ and that, though neither by law nor equity could he be compelled to give them any consideration at all for their pretended interest, his trustees were to pay them a sum amounting to the value of a twenty-one years' lease of the lands they held in 1635. The legacy, however, owing to the rebellion, was never paid; and in 1695
