Аннотация:In the spring of 1616 observers at James I’s court were somewhat startled to learn that an Irish official holding a post below the rank of great office had been appointed lord deputy of Ireland. In the king’s name, English privy councillors announced that Oliver St John, former master of the ordnance in Ireland, had been chosen to succeed Arthur Chichester, the incumbent Irish governor. Preoccupied with notions of hierarchy, the royal court reacted with contempt and shock to the announcement. Edward Sherburne, agent to Dudley Carleton, England’s ambassador to the Hague, perhaps reflects best the contemporary attitude in his biting comment that such an unusual appointment could have only one possible explanation. St John was a distant kinsman of the rising favourite, George Villiers, and Sherburne noted with undertones of cynicism: ‘Sir Oliver St John made lord deputy of Ireland by Villiers’ influence whose power is so great “as what he will, shall be’”.
