Wentworth became a privy counsellor in November 1629. On 12 January 1632 he was made Lord Deputy of Ireland, arriving in Dublin in July the following year. He had recently suffered the loss of his beloved second wife Arabella in childbirth. Despite his genuine grief for Arabella, his third marriage to Elizabeth Rhodes in 1632 was also a happy one; but through a strange lapse of judgement he did not announce it publicly for almost a year, by which time damaging rumours about the presence of a young woman in his house (who was reputed to be his mistress) had gained wide circulation. Wedgwood remarks that it was typical of Wentworth to be oblivious to the bad impression which actions like this might make on the public. Gossip later linked his name with that of Eleanor Loftus, daughter-in-law of Lord Chancellor Loftus, but although a warm friendship existed between them, and her death in 1639 caused him much grief, there is no evidence that their relationship went beyond friendship.