Selected quad for the lemma: england_n
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A39585
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A narrative of the Irish popish plot for the betraying that kingdom into the hands of the French, massacring all Englidh Protestants there, and utter subversion of the government and Protestant-religion, as the same was successively carryed on from the year 1662 : given in to both Houses of Parliament / by David Fitzgerald.
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Fitzgerald, David.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing F1072; ESTC R7381
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34,384
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38
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the said Neal that I did resolve to Travel into France the said Neale said that he did prevail with a great many young Gentlemen to venture their Fortunes abroad and that he did believe if they did generally know in Vlster how the Game was playing for them that there would be hardly any left in the whole County but would all unanimously go for France but added that he did conceive it would be of dangerous consequence to him to declare what his knowledge was of the affairs abroad and how likely they were to have good success in their undertakings if they did prove obedient to such as were intrusted to give them timely notice and that it was for want of good and prudent management Viz. Costellows the last design so long in agitation was discovered These Officers being crossed in their Voyage and their men dispersed went back into France again from whence about a year after the said Lieutenant Hurly returned into Ireland and resided in New-Castle or thereabouts for half a year or upwards where it was credibly reported that he did train up several Gentlemen by teaching them to Exercise Pike and Musket And it was generally affirm'd then amongst the Papists that in several parts of Ireland the like method was used in order to being in readiness to receive Commands from such as were appointed for the carrying on the said Conspiracy in the Kingdom of Ireland About the year 1675 Captain John Lacy came out of France into Ireland giving an account of the affairs abroad to Bishop Mullowny and the rest of the Popish Clergy in that Country giving them full assurance The Romish Religion in Ireland established that all was working on for the better chargeing and commanding them to be very urgent with the people and to omit no opportunity and that they should suddenly see their Religion better setled in Ireland than ever before and that they would be rid of that yoke of Heresie which they had so long suffered under and that now the minute was nigh at hand on which their Fortune depended or their utter Destruction These words he did utter in the presence of several of the Clergy as I have been told by the said Mullowny and others and the said Lacy declared the same in effect in my company About the said year News came fresh into Ireland That the King of England was very ill and the report sometime after was strong that His Majesty was dead some affirming that if he was not that it was impossible for him ever to recover which gave great incouragement to their design The King fell ill which gave much encouragement to the said design At which time there flocked great multitudes out of France into Ireland giving notice That they would be in Arms and such as had none should use their endeavours to procure some and that the time was come on which they would execute their designs But His Majesty by God's Mercy recovering from the said Distemper gave them much discouragement for that time instead of their former hope His Majesty being well recovered from his sickness gave much discouragement to the party s insomuch That those desperate persons returned into England as we in Ireland supposed and continued there some time before the Parliament assembled and then returned into Ireland with no less hopes of good success than formerly declaring to the people there that there was great industy used in preparing a Bone to throw between both Houses of Parliament which gave the Malecontents there The Officers gone out of Ireland hopes that by means thereof they would bring their horrid designs long in agitation to effect That is to say to abolish the Laws established and the Protestant Religion and upon the Ruines thereof to erect Popery and establish Arbitrary Government Again returned with new hopes But coming short of their wicked expectations they returned into France About the year 1676 I saw Doctor Creagh otherwise called the Titular Bishop of Cork Bishop Creagh came out of France and Rome who as I was told by one Doctor Stretch was newly come from France and Rome afterwards in Limerick happening to be in the company of the aforesaid Bishop Mullowny who was my former acquaintance and knew that I was privy to several passages and intrigues of this kind he told me that they had received further intelligence concerning the said affairs by Bishop Creagh and several others of the Popish Clergy who were lately arrived in Ireland and that they had instructions to proceed and authority from his Holiness the Pope for to quit and discharge the Roman Catholicks of Ireland from their Allegiance to the King of England saying That the King of England had no Right to Ireland but what he had from the Pope and that the King being an Heretick the same right returned to the Pope again and said the French were not then in a condition to perform what was formerly agreed upon Bishop Mullowny This is the same Mullowny that fomented the former Rebellion saying That the Articles in order to the carrying on of the said design were in the hands of the Titular Arch-Bishop of Tuam and did not question but every point therein mentioned should be faithfully performed adding that there were those in England appointed for to supply His Majesties Wants One Lynch and keep off Parliaments until this were accomplished It was a general rumour throughout Ireland amongst the Popish Clergy and Gentry for several years before especially 1675 and 1676 That his Royal Highness in 1677 ensuing at the furthest should be King As soon as I had this intelligence from the said Mullowny and others I acquainted John Piggott Esq a Justice of the Peace Acquainted John Piggott Esq with the said particulars with that in particular in the aforesaid years who being examined before the Lord Lieutenant and Council in November 1679 did not only acknowledg the same but gave it in his Examinations under his Hand and Seal and so far I refer my self to the said Examinations which are now in the custody of Sir John Davis Secretary of State in the Kingdom of Ireland How this and a French design and the Plot discovered against His Majesties Life here in England doth agree I will not take upon me to determine but refer the inferences to the Judicious Reader On or about the 2d of November 1677 Collonel Pierce Lacy invited me to go with him to Limerick he being then to treat about the said design with the Lord Brittas Mr. John Macnamarra of Crattellagh and several others who were engaged in carrying on the same as I have been told by the said Lacy Bishop Mullowny and many more of the Popish party About January 1677 The Lord Brittas Captain Thomas Bourk and several others with them came into the Barony of Conollue in the County of Limerick where they had several private Consultations one whereof was at the House of
for investing a Forreiner with that Kingdom and subverting his Majesties Government there I thought it incumbent upon me as a Christian and in duty obliged as a Loyal Subject to my King and in Charity and kindness to all you my dear though many of you very much misled Country-men to bring the same to light that so a vigilant eye and strict hand being kept over the male-contents in that Kingdome that they may not be seduced by the ill arts and specious pretences of their cruel Priests whereby the Blood and Confusions the horrors and desolations necessarily attending such insurrections and desperate Rebellions may be obviated and prevented I confess my Education and course of life more influenc'd by Mars than Mercury renders me very little skill'd in the art of perswasion and had not this extraordinary occasion and the command of Authority oblig'd me I should have been far enough from appearing in Print but since I have so just and necessary a call thereunto I would gladly improve the opportunity to give a few advertisements which well weighed and pursued might be of good use to you and your posterity I know I make this address to you upon very disadvantagious Terms for t is not to be doubted but your crafty Priests who make no Conscience of standering any mans name nay of Murdering his person where it may either tend to conceal their own Villainies or advance their Divelish cause have already fill'd you with abundance of prejudice and represented me to you as the worst of men but my satisfaction is that as God and my own Conscience bear me witness that I have declared nothing but what is most punctually true so there are too many of you the Priests and Gentry especially that know it to be so and that how loud and and causelesly soever they may rail at me yet at the same time their own Souls give their Tongues the lie and therefore my comfort is that how much soever what I shall say to you may be against your present bigotted humour yet it is still most conducive both to your duty and your real Interest which I heartily wish you may not too late be sensible of it being much better to prevent than Repent Affliction sayeth the wisest of men makes people wise and t is a Proverb that Experience is the Mistris of Fools How incorrigibly stupid then must you be whom such tedious I am sorry I cannot say undeserved nor unprovoked Afflictions and so many repeated lamentable Experiments of the ill success and fatal consequences of Intriguing with Forreiners and Rebelling against your Lawful Governours has not yet been able to contain within bounds of Loyalty and obedience tell me seriously and in earnest do you think that the blood of two hundred thousand peaceable Protestants and Loyal Subjects by you most Barbarously Butcher'd in the Rebellion begun 23 October 1641 does not yet Cry loud for vengeance upon you the persons or at least defendants of those whose accursed hands were embrued in that detestable Massacre And yet what did you gain by it though you had the Popes Blessing and his Bulls of Pardon and his Nuncio to head you and promises from Spain to assist you and though you started your Rebellion at a Juncture when Scotland and presently after England by the arts of the same Jesuitical and Popish Incendiaries who blew you up into a flame were engaged in a Common Combustion and consequently in the eye of Reason unable to yield any assistance towards crushing the hellish designes yet do you not remember that Providence was pleased to defeat your Projects to blast your enterprizes to confound your Forces to give you up to so total a conquest till at last you became the scorn of all the world and there wanted but little to render you as vagrant as contemptible as odious as Jews and root out the memory of the Irish Nation from off the face of the Earth And since by the Mercies of God and superabundant Indulgence of our Gracious King great numbers of you are returned from a desperate Exile and reinstated in your forlorn Possessions at least to a greater degree than most of you had reason to hope for what a most prodigious Ingratitude both to Heaven and your Earthly Soveraign will it be for you again to to tempt the fates and engage your selves in new Rebellions What can you expect from such undertakings equally foolish and wicked but everlasting slavery and utter irretreivable Ruine Wherefore since those attempts however guilded over with plausible pretentions by your designing Clergy-men who haveing nothing themselves to lose are like the desperate fallen Angels always tempting you to mischief that they may have the more numerous partners both in their Guilt and punishment are in themselves most nefarious and unjust and tend to nothing but destruction I shall endeavour to lay before you the sandy foundations wherein all the hopes are built and demonstrate that you have as little Policy as right in such black and hitherto still blasted endeavours As for your Army which you expect out of France I am apt to think it 's a delusory medium drawn over your eyes by the Jesuitical party to deceive you and no Prince will give you any assistance until you your selves first appear in action for till then they cannot give any trust to you as it happened in the three Spanish Invasions and after you are broken into action you must depend upon their Charity and discretion whither they will aid you or no but be assured their supplies will be but faint and small as you have found before from the Spaniards by sad experience There is no confidence to be put in the power of any Forraigne Prince but it will be your duty as well as wisdome to rely upon the goodness of your own natural Prince he having been so merciful and indulgent unto you Nor is it reasonably to be imagined that any Christian Prince much less the most Christian King should commit or countenance so horrid an act as to raise a Rebllion in the Territories of another Prince who is the greatest and best I had almost said the only friend he hath in Europe but I am not ignorant that it is a French Maxim that a man ought not to be a slave to his word that Interest is Right and all things Lawful that make for their Princes Glory and Grandeur suppose therefore he should permit some of his forces to go over into Ireland as he did unto Portugal contrary to the faith of the Pyrenaean treaty and the Irish Papists to joyn with them it will assuredly prove the ruine and confusion of them if it be considered that the English have all the strong holds in that Kingdom at their command and how easily an Army may be transmitted out of England and Scotland into Ireland and what an obstinate defence the English there will make before they will depart with these estates they now enjoy and which