Letters under his privie Signet for the passing and securing of the estates of his subjects here by Letters Patents under the great Seal and Letters Patents accordingly were thereof passed fines payed old rents increased and new rents reserved to the Crown And the said late King was further graciously pleased at severall times to send divers honorable persons of integrity knowledge and experience to examine the grievances of this kingdom and to settle and establish a course for redresse thereof And whereas your Majesty was graciously pleased in the fourth yeare of your raign to vouchsafe a favourable hearing to the grievances presented unto you by agents from this kingdom and thereupon did grant many graces and favours unto your subjects thereof for security of their estates and redresses or remove off those heavy pressures under which they have long groaned which acts of Iustice and grace extended to this people by your Majesty and your said Royall Father did afford them great content yet such was and is yet the immortall hatred of some of the said Ministers of Sate and especially of the said Sir William Parsons the said impeached Iudges and their adherents to any welfare and happinesse of this Nation and their ambition to make themselves still greater and richer by the totall ruine and extirpation of this people that under pretence of your Majesties service the publike faith involved in those grants was violated and the grace and goodnesse intended by two glorious Kings successively to a faithfull people made unprofitable 4 The illegall arbitrary and unlawfull proceedings of the said Sir William-Parsons and of the said impeached Iudges and their adherents and instruments in the Court of Wards and the many willfull erroneous decrees and Iudgements of that Court by which the heires of Catholick Noblemen and other Catholicks were most cruelly and tyranically dealt withall destroyed in their estates and bred in dissolution and ignorance their Parents debts unsatisfied their Sisters and younger brothers left wholy unprovided for the Ancient and appearing Tenures of Mesne Lords unregarded estates valued in Law and made for valuable considerations avoyded against Law and the whole Land filled up with the frequent swarmes of Escheators Feodaries Pursevants and others by authority of that Court. 5 The said Catholicks notwithstanding the heavy pressures before mentioned and other grievances in part represented to your Majesty by the late Committees of both houses of Parliament of this kingdom whereunto they humbly desire that relation be had and redresse obtayned therein did readily and without reluctation or repyning contribute to all the Subsidies Loanes and other extraordinary grants made to your Majesty in this kingdom since the begining of your Raign amounting unto well neer on Million of pounds over and above your Majesties Revenue both certain and casuall And although the said Catholicks were in Parliament and otherwise the most forward in granting the said sums and did bear nine parts of ten in the payments thereof yet such was the power of their adversaries and the advantage they gained by the opportunity of their continuall addresses to your Majesty to increase their reputation in getting in of those Moneys and their authority in the distribution thereof to your Majesties great disservice that they assumed to themselves to be procurers thereof and represented the said Catholicks as obstinate and refractary 6 The Army raised for your Majesties service here at the great charge of the kingdom was disbanded by the pressing importunity of the malignant party in England not giving way that your Majesty should take advice therein with the Parliament here alleadging the said Army was Popish and therefore not to be trusted And although the world could witnesse the unwarrantable and unexempled invasion made by the malignant party of the Parliament in England upon your Majesties Honour Rights Prerogatives and principall Flower of your Crown And that the said Sir William Parsons Sir Adam Loftus Knight your Majesties Vice-Treasurer of this kingdom and other their adherents did declare that an Army of ten Thousand Scots was to arrive in this kingdom to force the said Catholicks to change their Religion And that Ireland could never doe well without a Rebellion to the end the remain of the Natives thereof might be extirpated and wagers were laid at generall Assizes and publike meetings by some of them then and now imployed in places of great profit and trust in this kingdom that within one year no Catholick should be left in Ireland that they saw the ancient and unquestionable priviledges of the Parliament of Ireland unjustly and against Law incroached upon by the orders Acts and proceedings of both houses of Parliament in England in sending for and questioning to and in that Parliament the Members of the Parliament of this kingdom sitting the Parliament here And that by speeches and orders Printed by the authority of both houses in England it was declared that Ireland was bound by the Statutes made in England if named which is contrary to known truth and the Laws here setled for four hundred yeares and upwards And that the said Catholicks were throughly informed of the protestation made by both houses of Parliament of England against Catholicks and their intentions to traduce Laws for the extirpation of Catholick Religion in the three kingdoms and that they had certain notice of the cruell and bloudy execution of priests there only for being priests and that your Majesties mercy and power could not prevail with them to save the life of one condemned priest and that the Catholicks of England being of their own flesh and bloud must suffer or depart the Land and consequently others not of so neer a relation to them if bound by their Statutes and within their power These motives although very strong and powerfull to produce apprehensions and feares in the said Catholicks did not prevail with them to take defensive Armes much lesse offensive they still expecting that your Majesty in your high wisdom might be able in a short time to apply seasonable cures apt remedies unto those evils and innovations 7 That the Committees of the Lords and Commons of this Kingdome having attended your Majesty for the space of nine Moneths your Majesty was graciously pleased notwithstanding your then weighty and urgent affaires in England and Scotland to receive and very often with great patience to heare their grievances and many debates thereof at large during which debates the said Lords-Iustices and some of your privy Counsell of this Kingdom and their adherents by their malicious and untrue informations conveyed to some Ministers of state in England who since are declared of the malignant party and by the continuall solicitation of others of the said privy Counsell gone to England of purpose to crosse and give impediment unto the justice and grace your Majesty was inclined to afford to your subjects of this Realm did as much as in them lay hinder the obtaining of any redresse for the said grievances and
it evidently appear unto them that the said prorogation was against Law and humbly besought the Parliament might sit according to the former adiournment which was then the only expedient to compose or remove the then growing discontents and troubles of the land And the said Lords-Iustices and their party of the Counsell then well knowing that the Members of both houses throughout the kingdom a few in and about Dublin only excepted would stay from the meeting of both houses by reason of the said prorogation by proclamation two dayes before the time gave way the Parliament might sit but so limited that no Act of grace or any thing else for the peoples quiet or satisfaction might be propounded or passed and thereupon a few of the Lords and Commons appeared in the Parliament house who in their entrance at the Castle-bridge and gate and within the yard to the Parliament-house door and recesse from thence were invironed with a great number of Armed men with their match lighted and Muskets presented even to the breasts of the members of both houses none being admitted to bring one servant to attend him or any weapon about him within the Castle-bridge yet how thin soever the houses were or how much over-awed they both did supplicate the Lords-Iustices and Counsell that they might continue for a time together and expect the coming of the rest of both houses to the end they might quiet the troubles in full Parliament and that some Acts of security granted by your Maiesty and transmitted under the great Seale of England might passe to settle the minds of your Maiesties subiects To these requests so much conducing to your Maiesties service and the settlement of your people a flat denyall was given and the said Lords-Iustices and their party of the Counsell by their working with their party in both houses of Parliament being then very thin as aforesaid propounded an order should be conceived in Parliament that the said discontented Gentlemen took Arms in rebellious manner which was resented much by the best affected of both houses but being awed as aforesaid and credibly informed of some particular persons amongst them stood in opposition thereunto that the said Musquetiers were directed to shoot them at their going out of the Parliament house through which terrour way was given to that order Notwithstanding all the before mentioned provocations pressures and indignities the far greater and more considerable party of the Catholicks and all the Cities and Corporations of Ireland and whole provinces stood quiet in their houses whereupon the Lords-Iustices and their adherents well knowing that many powerfull Members of the Parliament of England stood in opposition to your Majesty made their principall application and addressed their dispatches full fraught with calumnies and false suggestions against the Catholicks of this kingdom to them and propounded unto them to send severall great forces to Conquer the kingdom those of the malignant party here were by them armed the Catholicks were not only denyed Arms but were disarmed even in the City of Dublin which in all successions of ages past continued as loyall to the Crown of England as any City or place whatsoever all other ancient and usuall Cities and Corporate Townes of the kingdom by means whereof principally the kingdom was preserved in former times were denyed arms for their money to defend themselves and expresse order given by the said Lords-Iustices to disarme all Catholicks in some of the said Cities and Towns others disfurnished were inhibited to provide Arms for their defence and the said Lords-Justices and Counsell having received an order of both houses of Parliament in England to publish a proclamation of pardon unto all those who were then in rebellion as they tearmed it in this kingdom if they did submit by a day to be limited The said Sir William Parsons contrary to this order so wrought with his party of the Counsell that a proclamation was published of pardon only in two Counties and a very short day prefixed and therein all free-holders were excepted through which every man saw that the estates of Catholicks were first aimed at and their lives next The said Lords-Iustices and their party having advanced their design thus far and not finding the successe answerable to their desires commanded Sir Charles Coot Knight and Baronet deceased to march to the County of Wickloe where he burnt killed and destroyed all in his way And in a most cruell manner man woman and child persons that had no appearing wills to doe hurt nor power to execute it soon after some foot-companies did march in the night by direction of the said Lords-Iustices and their said party to the Town of Sawntry in Fingall three miles off Dublin a Country that neither then nor for the space of four or five hundred yeares before did feel what troubles were or war meant but it was too sweet and too neare and therefore fit to be forced to armes in that town innocent husband-men some of them being Catholicks and some Protestants taken for Catholicks were murthered in their Inne and their heads carried triumphant into Dublin next morning complaint being made of this no redresse was obtained therein whereupon some Gentlemen of quality and others the inhabitants of the Country seeing what was then acted and what passed in the said last march towards the County of Wickloe and justly fearing to be all murthered forsook their houses and were constrained to stand together in their own defence though ill provided of Arms or Ammunition Hereupon a proclamation was agreed upon at the Counsell board on the thirteenth of December 1641. and not published or printed till the fifteenth of December by which the said Gentlemen and George King by name were required to come in by or upon the eighteenth of the said Moneth a safety was therein promised them On the same day another proclamation was published summoning the Lords dwelling in the English-pale near Dublin to a Grand-Counsell on the seventeeth of the said Moneth but the Lords-Justices and their party of the Counsell to take away all hope of Accommodation gave direction to the said Sir Charles Coote the said fifteenth day of the said Moneth of December to march to Clontarff being the house and Town of the said George King and two miles from Dublin to pillage burn kill and destroy all that there was to be found which direction was readily and particularly observed in manifest breach of publike faith by meanes whereof the meeting of the said Grand-Counsell was diverted the Lords not daring to come within the power of such notorious faith-breakers the consideration whereof and of other matters aforesaid made the Nobility and Gentry of the English-pale and other parts of the province of Leinster sensible of the present danger and put themselves in the best posture they could for their naturall defence and imployed Lieutenant Colonel Read to present their humble Remonstrance to your Sacred Majesty and to declare unto you the state
and other Natives of fit capacitie and breeding have been trusted and imployed in all Commissions from the Courts or otherwise in all matters as well concerning the King as other subjects in equall degree with Protestants the Gentry also from time to time even till this Rebellion were appointed Sheriffes Iustices of the Peace high Constables Marshalls upon occasion and all other Officers in the Country that the Law appoints They were also allowed chiefe Officers and Iudges in Corporations and other Liberties and Franchises their sonnes also admitted Clarkes in the Courts and other under Officers which are graces and favours rarely allowed to the pretended Catholiques in England though Natives of this Kingdome so as very few of that Kingdome have been observed to seeke fortunes in other Countries except some that doe passe into this Kingdome for their preferment and except such as do voluntarily travell beyond Seas to the warres and to become Clergy-mer and some students in the Arts as natives of England doe the same their Lawyers also to our deare experience notwithstanding different in Religion are and have been admitted to the Bar and all other practice as Protestants are by which they grow popular and in short time farre richer and greater purchasers then the Protestant Lawyers or Iudges now imployed can doe in many yeares a favour not allowed to like natives here in England which hath been an extreame mischief to that Kingdome of Ireland as hereafter shall appeare many of the prime Gentry have by suite to Your Majesty and Your most blessed Father been advanced to honour of severall degrees have been dignified with titles of Baronets and Knights and for preferment in the Church It is apparant that after the Statute of Secundo many of that Nation were then continued Bishops and other Dignitaries and many newly created upon the yeelding to the externe part of the Reformation though it is to be remembred what is declared of some of them by Statute in that Kingdome enacted in the eleaventh yeare of Queene Elizabeth Cha. 6. In which is this expression viz. Where the right honourable sir Henry Sidney Knight of the honourable Order now Lord Deputy of Ireland hath in his late progressE into Munster and Connaught found amongst other experiences the great abuse of the Clergy therein admitting of unworthy Personages to Ecclesiasticall dignities which hath neither lawfulnesse of Birth Learning English habit or English Language but discended of unchast and unmarried Abbots Priors Deanes Chaunters and such like getting into the said digniries either with force symony friendship or other corrupt meanes to the great overthrow of Gods Holy Church and the evill example of all honest Congregations Be it therefore c. Yet they were continued during their lives howsoever afterwards none were admitted to those places but such as were knowne Protestants and therein the Natives of that Kingdome being so conditioned were freely entertained and many of them so dignified as they are at this day it being not thought fit to put that charge into the hands of Recusants because it hath been since observed as it is now clearely manifest that they are in that Kingdome of Ireland the Seeds-men and wombe of all the distempers and miser able sufferings of the now deplorable Common-wealth which is by many of considerable quality now lamentably acknowledged neither indeed are the Recusants capable of that charge by the Lawes of the Land and if they take offence at those Laws supplications not Murthers Rebellions and depredations were a proper way to sue for the repeale of them but the Nobles that they are become contemptible is a strange affirmation they have been graced by Your Majesty and Your Governours from time to time with all the respects of Honour and Priviledge that is any way due to them and in no lesse measure then the Protestants have been besides it is well knowne that since the Protestant subjects Brittish and others became their neighbours and Tenants and inhabited their now desolate estates the Rents and Revenues of those Lords were so raised as they were brought into a condition to livel ike Noblemen in a civill Common-wealth which they were not before able to doe nor it is beleeved will ever be againe if some as perillously credulous as the Protestant Subiects now ruined have been do not make such adventures as they have done to their cost Lastly where those confederates doe boldly and untruely affirme that their Gentry were debarred from Learning in Universities and publique Schooles first their children though themselves and their Parents Papists were freely admitted into all publique Schooles as well of Your Maiesties foundation as other waies without question of Religion wherein they attained to the knowledge of the Latine and the Greeke Tongues and full introduction into the Arts and all other humane learning And for Universities they know there is but one only Colledge in Ireland founded by Queene Elizabeth and endowed by Your Maiesties most blessed Father for the education of the youth of that Kingdome That Colledge is of smal capacity yet can it not be instanced that any the son of a noble man or Gentleman were refused to be admitted thereunto if they would conforme to the Lawes of the Land and Statutes of that Society neither are they there pressed with the Law till they come to be Graduates and it is well knowne that as well from that University as Innes of Court here in England very many of them have gained learning and knowledge which in many of them now is imployed to the extream annoyance and harme of Your Maiesty and Your Kingdome and though they were not so freely admitted into those Societies and in Corporations because they would not conforme to the Lawes of the Land and Charters Orders and Customes of that society yet many of those lived there and here with greater freedome from those Lawes then the Natives of England of the Popish Religion did in England and yet it is humbly conceived that if their numbers quality and loyalty be rightly weighed and considered there will not be found any good cause or found reasons why the Native Papists of Ireland should have more freedome in Ireland then the Native Papists of England have in England and whereas they so needlesly presse for the free admittance into the Schoole of the Kingdome as they have clearely received that freedome as is above mentioned which also well appeares in the men of this age educated sarre beyond all former times so they should have laid their challenge with all hample acknowledgment and thankefulnesse to Your sacred Majesty and the famous ProresTant Princes preceding Your Muesty and Your English Government For first in the 28th yeare of King Henry the 8th it was enacted that every incumbent should keepe a Schoole in his Parish to teach English Secondly Queene Elizabeth by a Statute in the 12th yeare of her Reigne ordained that there should be a Free Schoole kept in every Diocesse of that Kingdome to
will of those usurping Chieftaines And that Kingdome in a manner from age to age infested with continuall bloody insurrections and intestine commotions In which case it continued even unto the end of the Reigne of Queen Elizabth notwithstanding all that the English Governours sent by her coulde doe being assisted for the most part all that time with Irish Counsellors Iudges and Officers as is herein formerly metioned The Kingdom being held in great poverty and barbarisme notwithsTanding the vast expence of English bloud and treasure spent there by that gracious Queen and some of her Royall predecessors Neither could the Revenues and Profits of the Crowne in any of those times be advanced to above 11000 l. per annum and many times far lesse yea sometimes nothing at all And all it was advanced to was spent there besides the continuall exhaust of treasure out of England even to keep life in the few English that continued there obedient to the Crown and Lawes of England whereas on the other side since the beginning of the Reigne of the blessed King James and Your sacred Majestie successively Vid. Statute 11 Iac. c. 1. in Ireland for the benefit of Law and English government by His and Your wise and pious couduct and direction the English Governours with the assistance of English Iudges and officers have wholly abolished and removed all those Irish powers and jurisdictions and placed the dependencie of the people entirely on the Crown setled and secured a Legall property in every subject of their lands and goods bringing them absolutely into the state of free subjects utterly rased out the Irish Gavelkinde and Tainstry the very pest of the Nation the Farmers and Yeomanry being formerly scarce able out of the earth to gaine meat and sustenance for themselves and for idle Gentry and unimployed youth They introduced Civilitie peace and legall obedience to your Majestie throughout that Kingdome dispersed English habitations and manurance in all parts and Provinces even formerly the most rude Irish and uninhabited who built and erected Corporations and civill societies set up Markets and Faire for Commerce built and placed Churches bridges cawsies and passages gaoles Session houses Schooles for education of youth and thousands of Castles and houses of stone and brick for habitation and defence as did also then by their example many of the old English and Irish which were civilized besides foure walled Townes built in necessary places now since that Rebellion begun maintained for your Majestie by Garrisons They caused inclosures of lands planting of Orchards and Gardens and drayning of Bogs in all places as farre as time could permit They also brought in English habit language and usage and the full and universall exercise of the English lawes in all parts of the Kingdome turning all not formerly turned into Shire grounds setting known limits to all the Counties and Baronies thereof Into all which Iustices of Assize and Gaole delivery were halfe yearely sent for the happy and orderly administration of Justice and setling mens properties Whereas before the Reigne of King James the Iudges could travell no where but in the Pale and that not ordinarily because of Rebellions They placed Sheriffes Iustices of Peace and all Officers of Law in each County well instructed to execute their offices They caused estates for lives yeares and otherwayes to passe between Lord and Tenant for comfort and settlement of the people who were before generally Tenants at will in all parts And by commixture of new English and old English with Irish established indifferencie of Tryall by Iurie in most parts which before by reason of combined Irish Septs and the power of Irish Lords could not be They caused the Irish and others to live in Town-Reads not wandring with their cattell and creates dispersedly and barbarously in mountaines and wastes as formerly They enchartered the Townes and Corporations with enlarged and necessary Franchises Liberties and Jurisdictions aswell for government as ornament and benefit to the great enriching of those Inhabitants and increase of Merchandise they setled a learned Protestant Clergy of all degrees in all the parts of that Kingdom and Ordained the Consistories in a Legall form They caused to be enacted Laws for the course of Justice and quieting mens Estates and Interests agreeable as far as was necessary to the Laws made in England since the 10. of H. 7. They reformed the exorbitancy of Sheriffs who after the Captainships were taken away did in many places succeed them in extortion and oppression They had setled an Army of 2000 foot and 1000 horse intended to be English who tooke nothing of the Country without ready money and a competent Navy to guard the Coast all paid there without charge to England And lastly they had advanced your Majesties Revenues certain and casuall from under 8000 l. per annum as it was when King James began to above 85000 l. per annum besides a great gaine the Farmers of the Customes had for a few yeares to come and all this done with little or no charge to England And as an addition of blessing to all this the people generally by this meanes did wonderfully increase in riches and substance far beyond all other times Rents raised as high as in many parts of England where before lands yeelded little or nothing The breed of Cattell of all sorts wonderfully enlarged bettered and prized and infinite numbers of cowes horses and sheep with very great quantities of wooll yearely sent into this Kingdome and corne multiplied in all parts which redounded to the benefit of the Natives equally if not more then to the English as may appear as by many other things so particularly by the large mariage portions given by the Lords Gentry and others with their daughters ten times above the rates of former times dowries and joyntures of wives and purchase of lands proportionably encreased Mony let at Ten in the hundred at most whereas formerly it was at 15 l. 20 l. and 30 l. and sometimes higher And lastly whereas in all Queen Elizabeths time they could give her but one Subsidie and that but a meane one of 13 s. 4 d. out of every plough-land occupied or manured to continue for ten yeares very few Subsidies having beene granted in Ireland to any former Kings that Subsidy of Queene Elizabeth by reason that the Townes and Corporations were by a Statute freed and that divers exceptions of Gentlemens estates and other waies were incerted and that great quantities of the Kingdome were in the hands of the Irish not till then divided into Plow Lands much whereof was never so done and lastly by reason of the Rebellions of those times did never amount to any considerable summe now in the happy and plentifull Raigne of Your Majesty they were able to raise and grant unto Your Majesty ten Subsidies of one and forty thousand pounds each Subsidy and some of them 45000. l. besides Lords and Clergy over and above great contributions
them to introduce law for the extirpation of Catholique Religion in the three Kingdomes at any time before these Remonstrants openly entred into this actuall Rebellion and bloudy assacination though those Remonstrants draw it in amongst their provocations to take up Armes Neither indeed did those Remonstrants feare any violence or sharpe prosecution from their quiet Neighbours the Protestants in Ireland there having been very great and as now appeares very dangerous patience used towards the Remonstrants aswell by Governours as all Officers and Protestants who would have beene glad to live among them in peace if the Remonstrants could have endured their company Lastly whereas they seeme grieved That the Parliament of England encroached against law and unjustly upon the Priviledges of Parliament in Ireland in sending for and questioning too and in the English Parliament the members of that Parliament They do wel now to expresse sence of it amongst the rest of their pretexts for their wicked acts But when Protestant members of this Parliament against whom that pretended encroachment most extended were sent for they imploring the aid of the Parliament of Ireland to defend them and their priviledges were not holpen therin by the Commons house but were answered by a leading Member of the Cōmons house now a Remonstrant that the House should do well not to take notice thereof least any variance should arise betweene the two Parliaments so unwilling they were to assist the Protestants or maintaine that right which now they so stoutly challenge though a good while afterwards both Houses tooke occasion to write to their Committee in England to sollicite concerning that particular And so little feare had they then of any pernicious purposes in that Parliament against them though they now make mention of that Parliaments unwarrantable invasion since made on your Majesties Rights and Prerogatives as a pretence for their wicked and abominable actions long before that begun In the seventh Article Those Remonstrants doe justly acknowledge your Majesties grace and Princely patience in hearing their grievances 7. Article which would have wrought upon any loyall or dutifull heart to returne love and obedience to so gracious a Soveraigne and at least neighbour-like demeanour towards your Majesties faithfull Subjects the Brittish and Protestants which how they performed their then immediately ensuing acts doe demonstrate But in this Article also they continue their untrue and malicious calumniations against your Majestie in your Governours and Officers who did never give any of them just cause of offence It cannot appeare that the Lords Justices and Counsell did give any untrue Information against them or the Committees of that Parliament neither is it true that any such thing was done for that they know the Counsell of whom the Lords Justices then were gave all the furtherance they could to the going of that Committee Hoping that what your Majestie should be pleased to grant might redound to the common benefit of your people Neither did any Privie Counsellours goe into England of purpose to crosse or give impediment to your Majesties Justice and graces But it is true that the late Lord Dillon afterwards Earle of Roscomon and Sir Adam Loftus your Majesties Vice-Treasurer were about that time sent for by your Majestie upon the motion of your Parliament of England as it seemed to testifie in the cause moved in that Parliament against the Earle of Strafford And if in their attendance there their advice or knowledge concerning any thing there propounded or handled by the Committee were required by your Majestie doubtlesse those Counsellours did faithfully discharge the duty of good servants to your Majestie and true wel-wishers to that Kingdome being both Natives thereof and members of that Parliament Neither did your Majesties Justices and Counsell transmit unto your Majestie or any of the State of England any misconstructions or misrepresentations of the proceedings and actions of that Parliament but rather it may justly be beleeved that those Remonstrants doe worke upon their owne evill imaginations in this as in the former Articles they have presumed to avouch severall knowne untruths Nay the Lords Justices were so farce from any such malevolence to that Parliament or any Members thereof as when they received your Majesties Commission dated the sourth of Ianuary 1640. authorizing them to continue prorogue or determine the Parliamnent as they thought fit They in confidence that the intent of all the Members of the Parliament was for the generall good of the Kingdome and your Majesties service did willingly continue it and gave all countenance and assistance to it which well appeares by a motion made by a noble Peere in the Lords House That the Lords Justices had alwayes chearfully received their requests and Messages and were ready to comply with them desiring it might be entred to the end it might remaine to posteritie It is also conceived that when your Majestie had given direction that all Letters from thence should be kept apart to the end the Committee might have recourse unto them if any such misrepresentations could have appeared to them they would have instanced the same in this Remonstrance and not have offered to your Majestie suppositions for certainties And touching the Parliament of Irelands power of Judicature in matters Capitall there was nothing written from thence concerning that matter untill your Majestie being advertized of the impeachment of the Lord Chancellour and others in the Lords House required the Lords Justices to search and certifie whether any presidents might be found there for such a proceeding Your Majestie then also graciously declaring that as your Majestie intended not to prejudice the Rights of the Lords House so your Majestie did expect that they should nto introduce any new president for that cause Thereupon the Lords Justices having searched and demanded of the two Houses of Parliament if any such presidents they could shew none were produced which the Lords Justices certified backe to your Majesties principall Secretarie as in duty they ought And it is beleeved that those Remonstrants would not now more earnestly presse for that power in Judicature then heretofore was done were it not by the exercise or terrour thereof if their partie could have prevailed to rid themselves of your Majesties English Judges and Officers whom they cannot endure to beare rule amongst them though they clearly saw the Kingdome prospered above any former times under their great labour and travell It is most untrue that your Majesties Protestant officers or subjects did envy the good union betweene the two Houses But the truth is they did labour to cherish and confirme it by their uttermost skill and industry And if your Majesties servants or your Protestant subjects did happen to oppose those Remonstrants in any their undutifull motions and projects either concerning Religion or your Majesties Protestant Clergie or concerning the derogation of your Majesties Prerogatives Rites and authories or malicious practise against your Majesties Officers Those Remonstrants did and now
The False and Scandalous REMONSTRANCE OF The Inhumane and Bloody Rebells of Ireland DELIVERED To the Earl of St. Albans and Clanrickard the Earl of Roscomon Sir Maurice Eustace Knight and other His Majesties Commissioners at Trim the 17. of March 1642. to be presented to His Majesty by the Name of The Remonstrance of Grievances presented to His Majestie in the behalf of the Catholicks of IRELAND Printed at Waterford nine Moneths after by Tho Bourk Printer to the Confederate-Catholicks and untill then concealed from His Majesties good Protestant Subjects Together with an ANSWER thereunto on the behalf of the Protestants of Ireland Also a true Narration of all the Passages concerning the Petition of the Protestants of IRELAND presented to His Majesty at Oxford the 18. of April 1644. With the Reasons inducing the said Protestants to Petition The Proceedings and Successes thereof in Ireland and afterwards in England untill the Protestant Agents were dismissed by His Majesty 30. Maii 1644. Collected in obedience to the Order and Command of the Honorable House of Commons of England For the manifestation of the Truth and Vindication of the Protestants August 27. 1644. IT is this day Ordered by the Committee of the House of Commons in Parliament concerning Printing That the Books intituled An Answer presented to His Majestie at Oxford unto the false and scandalous Remonstrance of the Inhumane and Bloody Rebells of Ireland Together with A Narration of the proceedings at Oxon be forthwith printed and published JOHN WHITE London Printed for Edw. Husbands in the Middle-Temple 1644. A Remonstrance of Grievances Presented to his most Excellent Majestie in the behalfe of the Catholicks of IRELAND To the Kings most Excellent Majestie MOst gratious Soveraigne We your Majesties most dutifull and loyall subjects the Catholicks of your Highnesse kingdom of Ireland being necessitated to take armes for the preservation of our Religion the maintenance of your Majesties rights and prerogatives the naturall and just defence of our lives and estates and the liberties of our country have often since the beginning of these troubles attempted to present our humble complaint unto your Royall view but were frustrated of our hopes therein by the power and vigilancy of our adversaries the now Lords-Iustices and other ministers of State in this kingdome who by the assistance of the malignant party in England now in Arms against your Royall person with lesse difficulty to attaine the bad ends they proposed to themselves of extirpating our Religion and Nation hither to debarred us of any accesse to your Majesties justice which occasioned the effusion of much innocent bloud and other mischiefes in this your kingdom that otherwise might well be prevented And whereas of late notice was sent unto us of a Commission granted by your Majesty to the right honorable the Lord Marques of Ormond and others authorizing them to heare what we shall say or propound and the same to transmit unto your Majesty in writing which your Majesties gracious and princely favour we find to be accompanied with these words viz. Albeit we do extreamly detest the odious rebellion which the recusants of Ireland have without ground or colour raised against us our Crown and dignity which words we do in all humility conceive to have proceeded from the misrepresentations of our adversaries and therfore do protest we have been therein maliciously traduced to your Majesty having never entertained any rebellious thought against your Majesty your Crown or dignitie but alwayes have been and ever will continue your Majesties most faithfull and loyall subjects and do most humbly beseech your Majesty so to owne and avow us and as such we present unto your Majesty these ensuing grievances and causes of the present distempers 1 In primis the Catholicks of this kingdom whom no reward could invite no persecution inforce to forsake that Religion professed by them and their ancestors for thirteen hundred yeares or thereabouts are since the second year of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth made incapable of places of honor or trust in Church or Common-wealth their Nobles become contemptible their Gentry debarred from learning in Vniversities or publick Schooles within this kingdome their younger brothers put by all manner of imployment in their native country and necessitated eyther to live in ignorance and contempt at home or to their great discomfort and impoverishment of the land to seek education and fortune abroad misfortunes made incident to the said Catholicks of Ireland only their numbers quality and loyalty considered of all the Nations in Christendome 2 Secondly that by this incapacity which in respect of their Religion was imposed upon the said Catholicks men of mean condition quality for the most part were in this kingdom imployed in places of greatest honor and trust who being to begin a fortune built it of the Ruines of the Catholick Natives at all times lying open to be discountenanced and wrought upon and who because they would seem to be carfull of the government did from time to time suggest fals malicious matters against them the said Catholicks to render them suspected odious in England from which ungrounded informations their many other ill Offices these mischeifs have befallen the Catholicks of Ireland First the oppositions given to all the graces and favors of your Maiesty or your late Royall Father promised or intended to the Natives of this Kingdom Secondly the procuring of false inquisitions upon fained Titles of their estates against many hundred yeares possession and no travers or petition of Right admitted thereunto and Iurors denying to find such Offices were censured even to their publicke infamy and ruine of their estates the finding thereof being against their consciences and cleere evidences and nothing must stand against such offices taken of great and considerable parts of the Kingdom but Letters-patents under the great Seale And if Letters-patents were produced as in most cases they were none must bee allowed valid nor yet sought to be legally avoyded So that of late times by the underhand working of Sir William Parsons now one of your Lords-Iustices here and the arbitrary illegall power of the two impeached Iudges in Parliament and others drawne by their advice and counsell one hundred and fifty Letters-patents were avoyded in one morning which course continued untill all the Patents of the Kingdom to a few were by them and their associates declared voyd such was the care those ministers had of your Maiesties great Seale being the publick faith of the Kingdom this way of service in shew only pretended for your Maiesty proved to your disservice and the immoderate and too timely advancement of the said ministers of state and their adherents and too neere the utter mine of the said Catholicks 3. That whereas your Majesties late Royall Father King James having a princely and fatherly care of this Kingdom was graciously pleased to grant severall large and beneficiall Commissions under the great Seal of England and severall instructions
of their affaires and humbly to beseech relief and redresse therein the said Lieutenant Colonel though your Majesties servant and imployed in publike trust in which case the Law of Nations affords safety and protection was without regard to either not only stopped from proceeding in his imployment but also tortured on the racke at Dublin 10 The Lord-president of Munster by direction of the said Lords-Iustices that province being quiet with his accomplices burnt preyed and put to death Men Women and children without making any difference of quality condition age or sex in severall parts of that province The Catholicks Nobles and Gentlemen there mistrusted and threatned and others of inferior quality trusted and furnished with Armes and Ammunition The province of Connaght was used in the like measure whereupon most of the considerable Catholicks in both the said provinces were inforced without Arms or ammunition to looke after safety and to that end to stand on their defence still expecting your Maiesties pleasure and alwayes ready to obey your commands Now the plot of the said ministers of State and their adherents being very ripe applications were incessantly by them made to the malignant party in England to deprive this people of all hopes of your Majesties justice or mercy and to plant a perpetuall enmity between the English and Scottish Nation and your subjects of this kingdom 11 That whereas this your Maiesties kingdom of Ireland in all successions of ages since the raign of King Henry the second sometimes King of England Lord of Ireland had a Parliament of their own composed of Lords and Commons in the same manner and forme qualified with equall liberties powers priviledges and immunities with the Parliament of England and only dependant of the King and Crown of England and Ireland and for all that time no prevalent Record or authentick president can be found that any Statute made in England could or did bind this kingdom before the same were here established by Parliament yet upon untrue suggestions and informations given of your subiects of Ireland an act of Parliament intituled An Act for the speedy and effectuall reducing of the Rebells in his Maiesties kingdom of Ireland to their due obedience to his Maiesty and the Crown of England and another Act intituled An Act for adding unto explaining the said former Act was procured to be enacted in the said Parliament of England in the 18. yeare of your Maiesties raign by which Acts and other proclamations your Maiesties subiects unsummoned unheard were declared Rebels and two Millions and a halfe of Acres arrable meadow and profitable pasture within this kingdom were sold to undertakers for certain sums of money and the Edifices Loghes Woods Bogs wastes and their appurtenances were thereby mentioned to be granted and past gratis which Acts the said Catholicks doe conceive to have been forced upon your Maiesty and although voyd and uniust in themselves to all purposes yet continue matters of evill consequence and extreame preiudice to your Maiesty and totally destructive to this Nation The scope seeming to ayme at Rebels only and at the disposition of a certain quantity of Land but in effect and substance all the Lands in the kingdom by the words of the said Acts may be distributed in whose possession soever they were without respect to age condition or quality and all your Maiesties Tenures and the greatest part of your Maiesties standing Revenue in this kingdom taken away and by the said Act if it were of force all power of pardoning and of granting those Lands is taken from your Maiesty a president that no age can instance the like against this Act the said Catholicks do protest as an Act against the fundamentall Laws of this kingdom and as an Act destructive to your Maiesties right and prerogatives by colour whereof most of the forces sent hither to infest this kingdom by Sea and Land disavowed any authority form your Maiesty but doe depend upon the Parliament of England 12 All strangers and such as were not inhabitants of the city of Dublin being commanded by the said Lord-Iustices in and since the said Moneth of November 1641. to depart the said city were no sooner departed then they were by the direction of the said Lords-Iustices pillaged abroad their goods seized upon and confiscated in Dublin and they desiring to returne under the protection and safety of the state before their appearance in any action were denyed the same and divers other persons of ranke and quality by the said Lords-Iustices imployed in publick service and others keeping close within their doores without annoying any man or siding then with any of the said Catholicks in Arms and others in severall parts of the kingdom living under and having the protection and safety of the state were sooner pillaged their houses burnt themselves their Tenants and servants killed and destroyed then any other by directions from the said Lords-Iustices and by the like direction when any Commander in cheif of the Army promised or gave quarter or protection the same was in all Cases violated and many persons of quality who obtained the same were ruined before others Others that came into Dublin voluntarily and that could not be justly suspected of any crime if Irishmen or Catholicks by the like direction were imprisoned in Dublin robbed and pillaged abroad and brought to their tryall for their lives The city of Dublin and Cork and the ancient Corporate Townes of Drogheda Yeoghell and Kinsale who voluntarily received garrisons in your Majesties name and the adjacent countries who relieved them were worse used and now live in worse condition than the Israelites did in Aegipt So that it will be made appeare that more murthers breaches of publick faith and quarter more destruction and desolation more cruelly not fit to be named were committed in Ireland by the direction and advice of the said Lords-Justices and their party of the said Counsell in lesse then eighteen Moneths then can pe paraleld to have been done by any Christian people 13 The said Lord-Justices and their adherents have against the fundamentall Lawes of the Land procured the sitting of both houses of Parliament for severall Sessions nine parts of ten of the naturall and genuine Members thereof being absent it standing not with their safety to come under their power and made up a considerable number in the house of Commons of Clerks Souldiers Serving-men and others not legally or not chosen at all or returned and having no manner of estate within the kingdom in which sitting sundry Orders were conceived and dismisse obtained of persons before impeached of Treason in full Parliament and passed or might have passed some Acts against Law and to the prejudice of your Majesty and this whole Nation and during these troubles Tearmes were kept and your Majesties Court of chief place and other Courts sate at Dublin to no other end or purpose but by false and illegall Iudgements Outlawries and other Capitall proceedings to
yeares which were staid by the then Lord Deputy and Counsell upon great and waighty reasons of state as they then represented to your Majesty till your Majesty might be well informed of the truth of the case yet afterwards by your Majesties command Bills for Acts of Parliament to resettle all those lands in the Natives and other possessours and their heires were sent over under the great Seale of Ireland and returned under the great Seale of England according to Poynings Act and were ready to passe by Parliament there at the then next session and three other Acts parcell of those graces if the confederate Catholiques had not raised this fearfull Rebellion before the beginning of that Session which was appointed to be in November following And where in one of those graces it was desired that all distinctions betweene the Natives and Brittish might be taken away That was a thing most desired by the Brittish and Protestants But these Remonstrants have now shewed that they never so intended They were so farre from that as they have to their uttermost extirpated all the Brittish and Protestants although the English Governours in the Raigne of your Majesty and your royall father had by Statutes repealed thirteen severall old Statutes against Irish many of which were penall to them in a high degree and tended to destruction Touching the Complaints of false Inquisitions taken upon faigned titles and no traverses or petition of right admitted It is a faigned and scandalous information for when any particular Inquisitions were found either for tenures or title of land no traverses or petition of right as farre as Law would allow Vide the statute of 10 Caroli Cap 3 for the benefit of plantations were ever denied to the subject But where generall Inquisitions were found for Plantations in Irish Countries in respect they were for setling the people in a full peace And because the Deputy many of the Counsell your Majesties learned Counsell and chiefe Officers of eminent trust were Commissioners and alwayes present And that the lurors were alwayes the prime men in each Territory and the Offices most publiquely found by their free consent all parties fully heard And that those people had neither legall title nor evidences whereon to to ground traverses And by reason of the great difficulty to obteine indifferency of tryall for the Crowne In these cases which could at best but breed disturbance contrary to the true intent of those publique and beneficiall workes It was thought fit for quieting of those estates by Patents that traverses should not be admitted unto those graund Officers upon every light surmise but only upon good just and legall causes first made knowne and well considered of by your Majesties Counsell neither were ever Jurors sentenced for not finding any of those Offices except in the County of Galway in the Province of Connaught where the Iurors upon only willfullnesse would not find upon just and full evidence as appeared after in the Starrechamber And upon the same evidence Informations being filed in the Exchequor for those lands the prime Lawyers and many of the Gentry of that Countrey in their answers upon oath confessed your Majesties Title and so Judgment passed for your Majestie and seizures issued And afterwards in a Petition signed and preferred by all the Prime Inhabitants in that County your Majesties Title was acknowledged and a plantation desired besides in the Lord Faulklands time many of the prime men Lords and others in three other Counties of that Province tendred to your Majesty a Plantation upon certaine conditions appearing under their hands they well knowing the benefits arising by plantations and your Majesties just Title to those lands and being conscious to themselves of their unjust intrusion into them And touching the illegall avoyding 150 Patents in a morning by underhand working It is an untruth and as to their naming Sir William Parsons in this Article he was none of the Committee that considered of the Patents in Connaught or Munster where this must be meant neither had any thing to doe in that part of the proceedings neither were any thing neere so many Pattents ever questioned in Connaught and the Territories in Munster lately found for your Majestie which must be the places intended by this Article the debate wherof continued several moneths neither was any such course continued or intended to avoid other Patents except what was done by the means of one Iames Cusack Esquire on of his Majesties Counsell at law and Clark of the Commission for defective tytles A Papist Lawyer now a Remonstrant but where the parties in that intended Plantations brought in their Pattents as was required A Committee of some of the prime Judges your Majesties learned Counsel were appointed by the E. of Straford late Lord Lievtenant to view them And where they found them good as many were they were allowed where they conceived them void in law Counsel was fully heard where they confessed the same it was so agreed where they doubted they were left to tryall if they would stand upon it as few did This was done for avoiding of trouble needlesse charge neither was it a new course for in the Vlster Plantation the like course was found fittest and books of the Cases sent to his then Majestie and by him referred to the Judges of England and by them agreed unto and certified back and so the lands passed and in many other cases aswell for pretended grants of Customes Franchises and other things in former times the Cases were ruled by opinion of the Judges directed by the Deputies and in this Parliament both Houses required the Judges opinions on certaine Queries concerning the Government tendred to the House of Lords by the House of Commons but in most of all the other Plantations all Pattents whether void or otherwayes being not many were allowed and the Pattentees had regraunts for the most part of the same lands or if the necessity of the service so required it of others of like quantitie and value as neere as might be sometimes of better value paying only the old Pattent Rents and services except in some cases when generall Pattents being void in themselves were in Queene Elizabeths time made to Irish Lords of whole Countries upon false surrenders where possession did never runne according to their Pattents And in those cases also so much as they were possessed of were repassed unto them at the former rents and services And if these confederates had had as much care of the honour of the great Seale the publique Faith and just duty and service to your Majestie and your Crowne as those Governours Counsellours and Officers alwayes had they would never have broken out into this unnaturall and horrid rebellion having no just ground or cause for any such act Neither were the Ministers of State like to be advanced or like to be benefited by what was done or to be done towards that Plantation of Connaught and the
the Popish Clergie contribute nothing notwithstanding that they have their duties from all the people duly payd them with great summes of moneys left unto them by the death of such as are Papists and by their doctrines of penance and Purgatorie and such like grow farre richer then the Protestant Clergie Yet so it is may it please your honours That after the payment of the said summes of One hundred and fifty thousand pounds and one hundred and twenty thousand pounds the popish partie only was advanced by stay of Execution of the aforesaid Lawes contrary to his Majesties pious intention as your supplicants verily beleeve And whereas in the Government of the said Lords Iustices when the Iudges of Assize in their severall Circuits twice had put the said Lawes in execution against the Papists and thereby brought multitudes to Church who were glad of that occasion to bee freed from the intollerable exactions of the popish Clergie even then about the time of payment of the said forty thousand pounds the said proceedings against the Papists were againe stopped since which time during the Government of the late Lord Lievtenant notwithstanding the said Subsidies both of the Clergie and Laitie Poperie hath beene countenanced farre more then the Protestant Religion they having libertie in the said Citie and in all other parts of the Kingdome to Marry Burie Baptize Communicate after their owne wayes professe their orders we are their severall habits meet in great numbers exercise all manner of Forraigne jurisdiction and Superstitious Ceremonies wthout giving any accompt for the same they having divers Fryaries and Masse-houses that were formerly suppressed by precedent Governours restored to the pretended owners which with other publike Masse-houses newly erected and furnished with Images and Altars are imloyed in the exercise of popish Religion both in the Citie and Countrey And likewise by their Titulary Bishops Dignitaries and numbers of parish priests farr exceeding the number of the Protestant Clergie with many thousands of Iesuites and Fryers the Emiscaries of Rome that swarme through all parts of the Citie and Kingdome especially since the late Proclamation of England against the Papists they have not only impoverished the Kingdome but amongst other their pernicious Doctrines that there is no salvation but in Communion with the Church of Rome and subjection to the Bishop of Rome have so seduced the people and insnared their consciences That no Papist that is made Iustice of Peace Mayor Sheriffe or other Officer will take the Oath of Supremacie And yet they are in all parts of the Kingdome admitted to the said Offices without any such Oath administred unto them and thereby the principall meanes provided for the execution of the said Lawes is taken away And your Supplicants likewise shew that the flourishing estate of the true Protestant Religion hath not beene ecclipsed by the popish Clergie only but by reason that in most parts of the said Kingdome there is many Parishes that have no Minister to read Service others that have no Preaching Minister others that have such Preachers as are very scandalous in their lives and many of the Clergie that suffer their Wives and Children to goe to Masse Besides in most places there is no sufficient maintenance for the Ministrie Yea and some of the Protestant Clergie advance to places of Dignitie in the Church instead of opposing Popery have brought divers popish superstitions into the Protestant Churches Turning Communion Tables into Altars bowing before them worshipping towards the East exhorting the people to confesse their sinnes to a Priest as a matter necessary to salvation with other such like Innovations for which there is no low nor Connon and alsouncharitably if not cruelly prosecuted divers of the Protestants both Clergy and Laity in the high Commission and other Ecclesiasticall Courts and Iudicatures for pretended non-conformity thereby causing some religious Ministers and people to flye the Kingdome others to take the Oath Ex officio against Law and equitie committed others to close prison who refused put downe Lectures discouraged some that kept them or that preached on Sundayes in the Afternoone So that betwixt the Popish faction and those of the Protestant Clergie ill affected as aforesaid being both incouraged under the late Government many Protestants have beene seduced some to popery others to superstitious practices and many others discouraged and full of feares of a change in Religion and not a few unstable in Religion become Newters or Atheists while the Papists thoronout the said Citie and Kingdome have and still doe not in corners only but publikely flocke to and from Masse as ordinarily openly securely and in as great yea greater numbers in some places by fourty to one then others goe to and from the Protestant Churches to the great dishonour of Almightie GOD the derogation of his Majesties Lawes and Authoritie the danger of those poore soules that are either seduced to or hardned in Idolatrie whereby it may appeare that the Papists in all things have bad that freedome for the time past that the Protestants could not obtaine And for the future the Protestants have just cause of feares that the Papists of the said Kingdome though in themselves peaceable yet by the instigation of their Clergie with the multitudes of discontented Iesuites Priests Fryers and others That since the said Proclamation came to them out of England are now more then ever labouring to advance their owne partie depresse the Protestants and hinder Reformation In tender consideration of the Premisses and to the end of the Lawes enacted against Poperie may for the time to come be duly executed throughout the said City and Kingdome the Popish Clergie banished the Masse houses seized or abolished the poore seduced people reformed and all unlawfull designes of the Papists against the Protestants prevented And to the end that all non-preaching and scandalous Ministers in the Protestant Church may be cast out all Innovations suppressed a speedy course taken for time to come that every parish may have an able and painfull Ministrie with meanes sufficient provided for their maintenance that such of the Clergie as are orthodox painfull and unblameable in life may be encouraged and preserved from contempt That all uncharitable prosecution of the Protestants as aforesaid may be stayed And the causes of all the aforesaid evils so searched into that they may for ever be prevented throughout the said Citie and Kingdome May it please this Honourable House for the glory of GOD the honour of our dread Soveraigne and welfare of the said Citie and Kingdome to take the Premisses and every circumstance thereof into consideration So that the poore Kingdome of Ireland may be made partakers of a blessed Reformation with the Kingdome of England by such meanes and in such manner as this honourable House and happy Assembly shall conceive to be most meete And your Supplicants will ever pray c. Copia vera Exem per Jo. Pue No. public Re. And of some disorders and
where hee then found aswell in the house of the said King as other houses in the Towne divers of the goods taken out of the said two Barkes robbed at Clantarfe And by this meanes was strucken off much of that danger And to the end it may further appeare That the Lords of the Pale especially of Meath were in the same Confederacie with the Rebells at Swoards and other parts of Leinster and not forced to take up Armes for their owne safety nor fearing to bee murthered by any under the command of the Lords Justices and Counsell as in the Remonstrance is maliciously and scandalously urged the Lords Justices and Counsell seeing dangers thus multiplyed on all sides receiving Letters of intelligence from all parts of rebellious Acts done and hearing many strange rumours of the generall combination before the said meeting at Swoards or killing at Santry robberies and spoyles being before that time committed on the English in every County in Leinster Their Lordships thereupon desired in their great distresse to have the advice and assistance of those Lords of the Pale in whose fidelitie they formerly much confided as appeares by their comfortable expression thereof in October before aswell to the then Lord Lievtenant in England as to your Majesties principall Secretarie the effect whereof appeared in the Parliametn order sent thither thereupon soone after and printed the twelfth of November 1641. wherein they declared that they conceived the Massacre was intended aswell against your Majesties good Subjects Antient Inhabitants of English blood though of the Romish Religion who have in former Rebellions given testimonie of their fidelitie to the Crowne of ENGLAND as against the Protestants and that they intended to move your Majesty for the encouragement of those English or Irish that should raise Horse or Foote against the Rebells that they should bee honourably rewarded and therefore on the third of the same December the Lords Justices and Counsell did write severall Letters unto those and other Lords in and neere Dublin to meet together with the Lords Justices and Counsell at Dublin the eighth day of the same moneth to the end they might conferre with those Lords concerning the present state of the Kingdome and the safety thereof and specially of the Citie of Dublin in those times of danger to this the Earle of Fingall and the Lords of Gormanston Slane Dunsany Nettervile Lowth and Trimletstowne by their Letter dated the seventh of the same December answered That they had cause to conceive their loyaltie was suspected and that they had received advertisement that Sir Charles Coote at the Connsell Board had uttered some speeches tending to a purpose and resolution to execute upon those of their Religion a generall Massacre whereby they were deterred to come not having securitie for their lives but rather thought fit to stand on their guard till they might heare from the Lords Justices and Counsell how they should bee secured They well knowing that the Lords Justices and Counsell had no force or having force had no intent to hurt them unlesse much greater cause appeared in which Letter they did mention the killing at Santry which it seemes they had not then heard of and could not take that for a ground of their rebellion as now they urge and so they did forbeare to come as they were required but the Earle of Kildare the Lords Fitzwilliams and Houth came at the day appointed with whom Conference was had Thereupon the Lords Justices and Counsell desirous and labouring by all the meanes they could to cleare all erronious conceptions in those Lords and to prevent their hurt by any undutifull resolutions and asmuch as they might to provide against any breach with them least thereby greater extremities might bee drawne upon them and the Rebells at Swoards might be raised in stomacke did print and publish a Declaration dated the thirteenth day of the same December and sent it those Noblemen therein positively affirming That the Lords Justices and Counsell did never heare Sir Charles Coote or any other utter at the Councell board or else-where any such speeches tending to a purpose or resolution to execute upon those of their profession or upon any other a generall Massacre and that that board never intended or meant to dishonour your Majestie or that State or wound their owne consciences by harbouring the least thought of so odious impious and detestable a thing upon any persons whatsoever And that they were had would be ready to inflict due punishment upon any man against whom proofe shall be made of speaking the same therein likewise requiring those Lords to attend the Lords Justices and Counsell at the Board on the seventeenth day of the same moneth of December Thereby also giving to those Lords and every of them the word and assurance of the State for their safe repaire to the Board without danger of any trouble or stay whatsoever of or from the Lords Justices and Counsell or any under their Command who never had intention to wrong or hurt them neither in truth did they feare any such massacre there having never beene any such thing attempted against Papists either in England Scotland or Ireland notwithstanding their difference in Religion and the Protestants provoked by many strange plots in former times The same thirteenth day also of December the Lords Justices and Counsell printed and sent to the said Luke Nettervile and the rest at Swoards their manifest setting forth the truth of the aforesaid action at Santry and that they had no knowledge of it till it was done and their readinesse to give redresse it upon prosecution there were cause either at the Board or at a Counsell of Warre therein also laying before them their high and unsufferable Contempt in not separating according to former Command declaring also that there was no intent or purpose against the lives of them or any other your Majesties good Subjects Protestants or Papists who were not actors or abettors in the traiterous murthers and robberies lately committed but that their care and endeavour alwayes was and should bee to cherish and preserve all your Majesties good Subjects of what profession soever requiring them againe forth with to separate and forbeare further terrour and annoyance to your Majesties good Subjects and therein the Lords Justices and Counsell required the said Luke Nettervile and the rest who formerly signed the Letler to appeare before them at the Counsell board on the eighteenth day of the said moneth where they should receive due hearing and further gave unto them and every of them the word and the assurance of the state as to their persons for their safe repaire unto them without any trouble or stay from them whatsoever and that they had no intention to wrong or hurt any of them all which notwithstanding they did not separate but on the contrary sent men to Clantarfe as aforesaid which gave the Lords Justices and Counsell full assurance that they were resolved to run on
call by the name of publique uses to be in equall degree to the debts owing by the Rebels and by them all forfeited and many of them by Law duely levyed which is a most unequall and unjust thing and the said Proposition cannot nor doth make offer to have the popish Confederates cut off from the debts due to them which they have justly forfeited but onely for a colour of consideration to have the Protestants lose such debts justly due to them as have been unjustly taken from them who have done no act at all to forfeit them 6. Proposition That the late Offices taken or found upon feigned or old titles since the yeere 1634. to entitle your Majestie to severall Countreys in Connaught Thomond and in the Counties of Typperarie Limrick Kilkenny and Wickloe be vacated and taken off the file and the possessors setled and secured in their ancient estates by Act of Parliament And that the like Act of limitation of your Majesties titles for the security of the estates of your Subjects in that Kingdom be passed in the said Parliament as was enacted in the 21 yeere of His late Majesties Raigne in this Kingdom Ans Wee know not of any Offices found on feigned Titles nor what the Confederates may demand in respect of any graces promised by your Majestie which we intend not nor have any occasion to dispute but wee humbly conceive that all those who have committed Treason in the late Rebellion subsequent to your Majesties promise of those graces have thereby forfeited the benefit thereof together with the Lands to which the said graces might else have related and so their whole estates are now justly fallen to your Majesty by their Rebellion which wee conceive is of great importance for your Majesties service to be taken into consideration As first with regard to the Statutes made in the present Parliament of England Secondly by the necessary encrease of your Revenue decayed by the present Rebellion Thirdly the abolishing of the evill customes of the Irish and preservation of Religion Laws and Government there Fourthly the satisfaction of your Protestant Subjects losses in some measure Fiftly the Arrers of your Majesties Army and other debts contracted for that warre and for preservation of that Kingdome to your Majestie Sixtly the bringing in of more Brittish upon the Plantations Seventhly the building of some walled Towns in remote and desolate places for the security of that Kingdome and your good Subjects there Eightly the taking of the Natives from their former dependencie on their Chieftains who usurped an absolute power over them to the diminution of your Regall Power and to the oppression of the Inferiours 7. Propos That all marks of incapacity imposed upon the Natives of that Kingdome to purchase or acquire Lands Leases Offices or Hereditaments be taken away by act of Parliament and the same to extend to the securing of Purchases Leases or Grants already made And that for the education of Youth an Act be passed in the next Parliament for the erecting of one or more Inns of Court Vniversities Frée and Common Schools Ans This we conceive concerneth some of the late Plantations and no other part of that Kingdome and that the restriction herein mentioned is found to bee of great use especially for the indifferencie of Trialls strength of the Government and for Trade and Traffique And we humbly conceive that if other Plantations shall not proceed for the setling and securing of that Kingdome and that no restraint be made of Papists buying or purchasing of the Protestants out of their former Plantations where they were prudently setled though now cast out of their estates by the late Rebellion and unable to Plant the same again for want of meanes and therefore probably upon easie termes will part with their estates to the Confederates that those Plantations will be destroyed to the great prejudice of your Majesties service and endangering of the safety of that Kingdome Touching bearing of Offices wee humbly conceive that their non-conformity to the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome is the onely mark of incapacity imposed upon them and wee humbly conceive that they ought not to expect to bee more capable there then the English Natives are here in England in like case For Schooles in Ireland there are divers setled in all parts of that Kingdome already by the Laws and Statutes of that Realme And if any person well affected shall erect and endow any more Schooles there at their own charges so that the School-master and schollers may be governed according to the Laws Customs and orders of England and the best of Free-schools here wee cannot apprehend any just exceptions thereunto But touching Universities and Inns of Court we humbly conceive that this part of the Proposition savoureth of some desire to become Independant upon England or to make a separation in the Religion and Laws of the Kingdome which can never bee truely happie but in the good unitie of both in the true Protestant Religion and in the Laws of England For as for matter of charge such of the Natives as are desirous to breed their sonnes for learning in Divinity can bee well contented to send them to the Universitie of Lovain Doway and other Popish places in Forraign Kingdomes And for Civill-law or Physick to Padua and other places which draws a great treasure yearly out of your Majesties Dominions but will send few or none of them to Oxford or Cambridge where they might as cheaply be bred up and become as learned which course we conceive is holden out of their pride and disaffection towards this Kingdome and the true Religion here professed And for the Laws of the Land which are for the Common-law agreeable to England and so for the greatest part of the Statutes the Innes of Court in England are sufficient and the Protestants came thither without grudging And it is a means to civilize them after the English Customes to make them familiar and in love with the Language and Nation to preserve the Law in the purity when the Professours of it shall draw from one originall fountain and see the manner of the practise of it in the same great Channells where his Majesties Courts of Justice of England do flow most clearly whereas by separation of the Kingdoms in the places of their principall instruction when their foundations in learning are to be laid a degenerate corruption in Religion and Justice may happily be introduced and spread with much more difficulty to be corrected and restrained afterwards by any discipline to be used in Ireland or punishments there to be inflicted for departing from the true grounds of things which are best preserved in unity when they grow out of the same root then if such Universities and Innes of Court as are proposed should be granted All which we humbly submit to your Majesties most pious and prudent confideration and judgement 8. Propos That the Offices and places of Command Honour Profit
Majesty the better satisfaction in these Particulars and that to the same purpose the book of the said Collection may be perused and considered of as your Majestie shall finde most requisite After reading of which Propositions and Answers thereunto the King asked the Protestant Agents Whether they had Answered unto the Rebels Propositions as they were to be granted by him in Law and Justice and fit for the security of the Protestants of Ireland or prudentially as the times were Who humbly made answere to his Majesty That they looked upon the Rebels Propositions as they appeared to them destructive to his Majestie his Laws Government and Protestant Subjects of Ireland Then the Earl of Bristoll said That if they asked what by law and Justice was due from the Rebells their Answers were full But now the King expected from the said Agents What prudentially was fit for his Majestie to do seeing the Protestants were not in a condition to defend themselves and that the King would not admit the Protestants to joyn with the new Scots or any other that had taken the Covenant The Lord Digby upon motion of the Protestant Agents for further time to answer said It was good to set down those questions in writing and expect their answers to them Then the King asked them What would become of the Protestants in Ireland if the Rebels Agents should break off their Treaty which was to be feared they would do if they had not their Propositions for the most part yeelded unto The Protestant Agents Answered his Majesty That they conceived that the Rebells Agents might be brought to better terms if they were held unto it and that they were confidently assured before their comming out of Ireland that the Lord Muskery refused to come into England with limited Instructions but would be at liberty to do as he should see cause Then the Protestants Agents were commanded to with-draw And since that time were no further called upon And the said Protestant Agents knowing by experience how that the said Rebels had in all parts of the Kingdom broken the Articles of Cessation having begun that course within 3 days after the said Articles of Cessation were published by taking away forceably and detaining notwithstanding many complaints thereof made 369 head of choise English Cows or there-abouts from the poore Inhabitants of the Suburbs of the City of Dublin and by like proceedings in all parts of the Kingdome in taking of divers Castles Forts and Houses and great quantities of Corn and Cattle some by force and some by fraud and by burning divers others and by with-holding divers contributions in all parts of the Kingdome yelded to the Protestant Forces untill the Cessation to the utter destruction of the Protestant Party in divers parts of that Kingdome The said Protestant Agents in the conclusion of the Collection which they had made and presented to his Majestie in Answer of the said Remonstrance did make mention of the said breaches and also of the failers of payment of the far greater part of the 30000. l. by them agreed on to be paid by the Rebels to his Majesties use upon the conclusion of the said Cessation to be applyed towards the maintenance of the Army there and also of their extream bad and unseasonable payment of that small part thereof which they had paid in manifest breach of their undertaking the said failers having occasioned heavie Taxes to be laid upon the poor Protestant Inhabitants and necessitated the Souldiers through want to pillage and plunder thousands of his Majesties good Subjects And the said Protestant Agents did offer to make proof thereof and also that the said confederate Romane Catholiques had broken all the said Articles of Cessation humbly expecting reparation therein but not hearing any further thereof and observing that the said Sir William Stewart and the rest of the Gentlemen above-named which were sent for out of Ireland had by Authority from the Lord Lieutenant and Councell informed his Majesty of 20 severall complaints of notorious breaches made by the said Rebels of the said Articles whereof no right or reparation could be had there notwithstanding many complaints there made They the said Agents delivered to the said Sr Will. Stewart and the rest above named about the 10th of May 1644. a brief of many more great injuries done by the Rebels to the Protestant Party contrary to the said Articles of Cessation especially in Conaght where many of the Souldiers were forced there by to disband desiring them to acquaint the Lords with the same to the end that some course might be taken for redresse and afterwards they understood by them that they had acquainted the Lords of the Committee therewith and that the Lords said that they would acquaint the Agents of the Rebels therewith but heard no more thereof neither were the said Protestant Agents ever called to make proof thereof or of any other their Allegations or to receive hearing therein One particular instance of a notorious breach of the Articles of Cessation which we produced at Oxford we have here inserted being from one of the bloodiest Rebels who exercised the place of Governour of the County of Fermanagh Com. Fermanagh FOrasmuch as the dayly resort and concourse of Catholiques since the Cessation into English Garrisons might bring a great deal of Inconveniency unto our proceedings I do therefore hereby by Vertue of the Lord Generalls Authority given me in that behalf and especially to avoid the eminent perill that hereafter might arise thereof straightly charge and command all manner of persons of what ranke quality or condition soever they be of the Irish Nation of this County not to visit confer talk or parly to or with any person or persons of in or belonging to the Garrison of Eniskillen upon pain of death and of forfeiting all the goods and Chattels belonging to every such offender or offenders And likewise that none of the Inhabitants of this County on the West side of Loghern live dwell or inhabite no nearer to Eniskillen then the River of Arny untill further directions be given to the contrary upon pain of the foresaid forfeiture and penalty Dated the 25 November 1643. Signed Rory Maguire The 12. of May Sir Robert Talbot and Dermot mac Teag ô Bryan two of the Rebels Agents went away out of Oxford towards Ireland The 22. of May 1644. the Lord Viscount Muskery and the rest of the Rebels Agents went away from Oxford towards Ireland but what dispatch they had the Protestant Agents do not know The 26. of May the Protestant Agents seeing the Irish Agents were gone waited on Mr. Secretary Nicholas and desired him to know his Majesties pleasure and commands and whether they should expect any further answer concerning their Agency from his Majestie And the next day Mr. Secretary Nicholas told them That his Majesty commanded him to know of the Committee for Irish affairs Whether they had any thing more to say to the Protestant Agents And the same day Mr. Secretary Nicholas told the said Agents That the Committee saw no reason to detain them any longer and that he would move his Majesty for their dispatch The 30. of May M. Secretary Nicholas presented the Protestant Agents to his Majesty to kisse his hand who told them That he had written to the Marquesse of Ormond concerning the Protestants of Ireland That he would use his best endeavours for them there if he were able as he did for himself here And he said That he meant his good Protestants and not such as did either take or adhere to such as had taken the Covenant By all this which hath been faithfully Related and severall other Circumstances it plainly appears that the Rebels of Ireland intentions are and have been for the extirpation of the Protestants and Protestant Religion and how far forth they have been countenanced therein FINIS ERATA PAge 6. lin 30. for traduce read introduce p. 17. l. 12. for unknown r. known p. 19. l. 32. for Lord r. Lordships p. 21. l. 8. for causelessy r. cautelously ibid. l. 17. for to all r. to tall p. 26 l. 44 for school r. schools p. 27. l. 44. for many r. any p. 28. l. 5. for the r. their p. 39. l. 12. for effecting r. affering p. 40. l. 26. for officers r. offices p. 42. l. 7. after the word point r. before the Rebellion began p. 45. l. 22. for expresse r. presse p. 46. l. 13. for new r. now p. 48. l. 3. for luctation r. reluctation ibid. l. 28. for which r. with p. 53. l. 33. after service r. and the time p. 54. l. 25. for who late then r. who then p. 61. l. 4. for state r. statute ibid. l. 5. for to r. so ibid. for Soveraign r. Soveraignty p. 62. l. 36. after prosecute adde the p. 65. l. 1. for in r. if p. 74. l. 16. for their r. the p. 80. l. 24. for half r. rash p. 81. l. 7. for persecution r. prosecution ibid. l. 34. for rescued r. restored p. 39. l. 38. after Majesty r. Protestant p. 95. l. 20. for persecuted r. prosecuted p. 102. l. 7. for petition r. protestation ibid. l. 11. p. 103. l. 1. for petitions r. petitioners p. 104. l. 34. dele 9. p. 105. l. 22. for Bridgeway r. Ridgeway ibid. l. 24. p. 108. l. 5. for Mr. r Mack ibid. l. 9. p. 112. l. 42. after examined r. and p. 115. l. 43. after his r. Majesties p. 118. l. 1. for he r. the p. 119. l. 4. for compleat r. competent p. 123. l. 27. after those r. orders or p. 124. l. 14. for wherein r. whereon p. 125. l. 14. for or r. for p. 126. l. 46. dele of p. 129. l. 11. for meet r. meere
be maintained by her owne Clergy and her senants of impropriate Parsonages and Viccaridges Thirdly Your Maiesty and Your Royall Father in all the Plantations erected many Free Schooles and endowed them Fourthly many Protestants have built and endowed Free Schooles in speciall places whereas before there were few and those only in some Townes supported by very small salaries not able to give the Teachers subsistance and so in a manner discontinued as well appeared by the ill iteratenes and indeed barbarisme of the people in former times and it cannot be shewed that any Papist there has built or endowed any Schoole nay which is worse all the Popish Clergy and all other Popish Laiety from whom that Clergy can draw any such charity much being so gotten doe send all that can be so gathered to Schooles and Universities beyond the seas whereby that Kingdome is much impoverished and the love and dependency of the people much translated from Your Crowne to forraigne Princes and Potentates To the second Article As they have not spared scandalous and untrue aspersions against Your Maiesty and your Government and against Your Officers and Ministers Arti. 2. which is no other then Art used to cover or if it were possible excuse their odious murthers and other cruelties now committed upon Your Majesties Protestant Subjects so they have presumed to taxe Your gracious Majesty and Your glorious predecessors with want of love and care of their Subjects of that Kingdome by placing as the Remonstrants pretend in the seate of Government and other Offices of eminency men of mean condition and quality who were to begin their fortunes upon the ruines of the Catholique Natives which taxe untrue in it selfe is so undutifull to those Soveraign and gracous Princes as no person of honour will appeare in it but it must be devised by the Romish adversaries of the Clergy or Iesuited Lawyers who now appeare to have been the chiefe firebrands of all these horrible flames which have almost consumed that Kingdome for it cannot be denyed that Your Royall Majesty and the other excellent Princes Your predecessors have since the said Statute of Secundo sent thither to governe Earles Barons and others of noble extraction and plentifull esTates in England and when in intervalls for short times Iustices were appointed they were sometimes Noble men and otherwise men of the best ranke sufficiency and ability to undergoe that charge and it cannot be shewed that many of them have built their fortunes on the ruines of Your Majesties Subjects either Protestants or Preists to whom they 〈…〉 equally in all things but on the contrary some of them have lost themselves and have been much damnified in their estates by their imployment there partly by the unjust clamours and maliciou accusations of of some of those Catholique Natives never enduring long any English Governour or other servants of the King of England that endeavoured the peaceable and legall obedience to the Crowne And it is manifest that of 21 Lieutenants Deputies and Iustices successively Thirty Privy Counsellors and Twelve prime Iudges and several inferior Iudges sent thither out of England since the Statute of 2 do no one of them hath left any Estate there neither were they inriched by that service And though some others and not many left esTates it onely was for the most part by bounty of the Crowne and very few or none by their purchase except the Earle of Strafford who paid great summes of money for all he bought whereas on the other side of eleven prime Iudges and many inferiour Iudges of the birth of Ireland imployed there since the Statute of 2 do every one of them left visible and valuable estates many of them equall at least with the prime Gentry and severall of them in themselves or their posteritie since advanced to titles of honour by the favour of your Majestie and your Royall Ancestors whereby your Majestie may be pleased to judge whether the English or Irish officers have most built their fortunes on the ruines of Catholique Natives It is true that no Natives have been imployed as Chiefe Governours there since the 27. of King Henry the 8. but in former times many of them were untill the last of them gave cause to the King to alter that course And yet since that time most of the prime and inferiour Iudges and the Officers were of the Natives even untill towards the latter end of the Reigne of Queen Eliz. as is before said Vid. the Stat. of 10 H. 7. c. 8. and other Statutes for the prosperitie of Ireland while the English lawes were executed and how it decaied afterwards And if times be compared it will appeare by good records and histories that from the end of the first 90 yeares after the first comming of King Henry the 2d. in which time of 90 yeares the English Colonies spread over all the then most habitable parts of the Kingdome the Townes being also wholly English and the English lawes then only used and obeyed throughout all the English Colonies The Irish then and many yeares after declared enemies and aliens did encroach and prevaile strangely against the English Colonies which happened by reason of the unwise and irregular behaviour of many of the English Lords and Chieftaines of Irish birth who then and after degenerated into Irish manners and usages cast off the English lawes subjected themselves to the Brehon and Irish customes The English Lords falling into mortall quarrels among themselves called in and waged the Irish in their contentions who formerly lived in mountaines bogs were of no force whereby the Irish grew powerfull and bold and so wrested out the English freeholders by allowance of the English Lords which hapned chiefly in the times or by occasion of the civill wars in England joyned with the Irish in marriage fostering gossoprick and all other things even against their own fellow conquerors the English freeholders almost to their utter ruine The Governours also and otehr Officers being for the most part of those old English gave way perhaps necessitated in some times to the Irish encroachments and customes though some of them at severall times behaved themselves nobly and dutifully yet others raised Coyne and Livery and other Irish exactions upon the remaining English Colonies and all other Inferiors All which by the English governours and officers were after taken away insomuch as before the end of the Reigne of King Henry the 8. even al lthe Kingdome except the sive Shires of the Pale walled Townes and som small parts about them which also were much degenerated were turned Irish except a few of prime Nobility the English Law renounced Irish Captainships advanced many of the old English Lores turned Irish Captaines All which Captainships and all exactions coyne and taxes belonging thereunto were after taken away by Act of Parliament And all the Inferiors for the most part wholly reduced into Irish slaverie having neither lands nor goods but at the
some officers in the Country and some Courts might bring upon some perticulars those officers or their servants being for the most part some of the new Remonstrants which officers of whatsoever condition or profession were punished so often as they could be discovered neither did any of those burthens whatsoever they were fall other waies on the Remonstrants then on the Protestant Subjects and whatsoever they were the happy and rich peace setled amongst them by your Majesty and your blessed father which they never before enioyed did more then abundantly recompence them if they could have endured peace and the iust lawes of England And as to their vaunts of the great gifts they say they have bestowed on your Majesty first they did but their dutyes in whatsoever they gave as a part of retribution for the great and inestimable benefits they received by your Majesties gracious government and by your great bounties neither was your Majesty made the richer by any of those guifts for they were all disbursed amongst themselves partly to the old army placed among them for their own safety and quiet if they could have beene content with that happinesse which army would have been sufficient to represse any perticular disorder or insolence if the Remonstrants had not by generall conspiracy suddenly and at once cast of all obedience to your Majesty and the Lawes and surprised your Majesties stores and forts and almost all the armes of the Brittish and Protestants Those guifts were also bestowed in the other necessary occasions of the Kingdom and in truth the new army which consisted for the most part of themselves received the greatest part of those guifts And whereas they affirme that they were the most forward in granting those contributions and subsidies over and above your Majesties Rents and Reveneus which is an expression savouring of some repining at your Majesties receipts in rents which is your Majesties legall due and which they well know comes not to your Majesties privat purse and that they paid Nine parts of tenne of those Subsidies it is most untrue that those Remonstrants were either most forward in granting them or paid such large quantities thereof for first as to the contribution towards the maintenance of the Army your Majesties Protestant Officers and Subjects were the first movers thereof and when they came to be agreed on and paid those Remonstrants were the mayne opposers thereof both in Ireland and in England as doubtlesse your Majesty may remember and is well knowne to many yet living and when they were paid it was with great luctation and clamour amongst them and yet they rested not till they drew from your Majesty under the title of graces matters of more losse to your Majesty then those contributions were worth and as to the Subsidies it is most true that they were first moved by your Majesties Protestant Officers and Subjects not without some difference in alacritie at least in those Remonstrants neither would they have been so granted as there is iust cause to conceive had not these Remonstrants seene the unanimous propention of your Majesties Protestant Subjects and that by a tryall in the House of Commons before that motion made they found that your Majesties Protestants subjects then exceeded them in number would carry it by voices And this may with the more confidence be affirmed in certaine knowledge and upon a second probate which is that when afterwards by occasion of the Lord Straffords troubles in England and of the new Armies lying at Knockefergus and in those parts many Protestant members were absent most of whom upon severall pretences they discharged them and brought in Papist members whereby the Remonstrants partie were growne farre the greater in the Commons House then partly by complaining in England and partly by orders made in the house the Subsidies formerly granted were drawne downe from 41000 l. certaine each Subsidie to little above 12200 l. as appeare by the Subsidy Roll last returned which is farr below the subsidy granted in the tenth yeare of King Iames when the Kingdome was but in growth And as to the proportion paid by the Protestant Subjects it well appeares by the Rolles extant that they paid above a third part of the whole besies the Clergy though neither the quality or quantity of the Lands of Inheritance holden by them in the Kingdom do amount to more then to the fift part nor is the truth thus vouched which desire to arrogate any thing to your Majesties Protestant Subjects in prejudice of the others whom they would rejoyce to see as forward as themselves in all subject duties the rather to merrit in some measure your Majesties princely favours But to give your Majesty and all others a true view as neare as they can of both parties in their actions seeing the Remonstrants presume to stand before them so farre in professions howsoever it is most notorious how the said Protestant Subjects stand in sufferings and here it is desired that the affections and duty of the Protestant Subjects in Ireland may be measured by their actions which have beene and alwaies will be such towards your Majesty your Crowne and posterity as if those Remonstrants would really performe the like your Majesties Revenews and the bounties of your people might wholly come to your Majesties purse without any men of warre to maintayne peace there and then should your Majesty enioy competent benefit of a fruitfull Kingdome which hitherto hath beene made unprofitable to your Majesty and highly chargeable and mischeivous to your Royall Predecessors And lastly as to the distribution of the summs of money given which these Remonstrants would insinuate to have beene to your Majesties diservice and to the profit of their adversaries whom they seeme to designe to be your Majesties Protestant servants and officers the vanity and inconsideratnesse of this imputation will easily appeare upon veiw of your Majesties Officers accompts there extant which will sufficiently cleare that point and manifest the falshood of that scandall To the sixth Article 6. Article It is to be answered that what pressing Importunity was offered to your Majesty by any whom they call the Malignant party in England touching the disbanding of the new Army is best knowne to your Majesty But it is not true that the Lords Justices and Counsell there went about to disband that Army till they received your Majesties warrant so to doe and soone after for doing it received your Majesties gracious approbation and indeed it was of absolute necessity to disband them they having spent all the victualls provided for them and there being no money in your Majesties treasure in Ireland to pay them or the old Army then in charge thereupon and farre in arraere neither was that Kingdome able in a peaceable way to maintaine such an Army as those Remonstrants themselves amongst others openly professed in this Parliament being therein moved by your Majesties direction only to give some helpe thereunto for a
doe ascribe it to malice against them and the Nation which is a most unjust obloquie And though your Majesties Protestant subjects of the Commons House saw and knew that there were then daily and nightly meetings of those Remonstrants and their party then members of both Houses Insomuch as it was in the former Session 1641. moved in the Lords House that an order might be entred against such meetings And though your Majesties Protestant subjects found that from those meetings proceeded daily motions in the Commons House touching the above-mentioned particulars in prejudice of your Majesty your government whichin a manner tooke up all their time to moderate contayn them yet your Majesties said Protestant Subjects of that house did for their parts forbeare any such course of meetings fearing to under goe suspition of siding or inclination to disunion at last finding the continued inconvenience of that practise in the Popish party and hearing also that it was muttered amongst many of the now Remonstrants that they intended to impeach divers of your Majesties principall Officers who could not be drawne to vary from their iust duty to your Majesty and your rights and against some other your Maesties Brittish Protestant Officers who had either given opinion or any waies laboured towards the clearing of your Majesties title to the Lands in Connaught the obstructing frustrating whereof was the Remonstrants darling care all the rest of their pretended greivances both in the fourth yeare of your Majesties raigne and those lately being gathered up and for the most part strained out of particulars and subservient to countenance and support the importunity concerning that businesse which plantation if it had proceeded they knew would have beene a full ground of peace to that Kingdome which they laboured to retaine from your Majesties knowledge Then and not till then some of your Majesties Protestant Subjects of that house in these respects did only once meete in which meeting there were some Papists also of purpose to become in some measure prepared to free themselves and the house from those unreasonable attempts in which meeting nothing was done or agreed that ever gave offence or iust distast to the house or any member thereof which may appeare in that the Remonstrants can mention no disturbance thereby which they would not spare if any such thing they could speake of though they have not trembled to present to your Majesties royall veiw many as strange inventions neither were the Lords Justices so much as acquainted with the meeting It is utterly untrue that during that Session of Parliament which was very long from the 11 of May to the 7 of August there was any certaine knowledge there of the Committees being at the waterside in all which time of the Session little was done to the good of the Common wealth or advancement of your Majesties service for most part spent in Protestations Declarations Votes upon the queries the stay of souldiers from going over seas and private petitions About the 14 day of Iuly 1641. the Lords Justices finding nothing of moment for the generall good or your Majesties service then in doing in the house sent to both Houses to consider of a reasonable time of prorogation or adjournment of that Session the rather because the harvest drew on many members were gone home and the house grown thyn as in some orders appeares in the Lords House Vpon the 30 of Iuly the Commons House desired the Lords House that the adjourning might be staid till the saturday seavenight after which was the 7 of August On the second of August the Lords house ordered that in respect the Judges were very shortly to goe their circuites and some of them already licensed the rest of them should be that day licensed to depart and no more to attend that Session on the same day the Commons house sent to the Lords HOuse that they conceived the prorogation or adjournment was fit to be on saturday the 7 of that moneth and to meete againe the ninth of November following on the 5 of August the Lords House ordered that a Committee of that House should ioyne with a Committee of the Commons whereto the Commons House also assented to acquaint the Lords Justices that both Houses had agreed that a prorogation or adjournment should be on saturday aforesaid and to meete againe on the said ninth of November and desired their Lordships approbation thereof To this the Lords Justices answered them that there were three severall wayes of recesse one by writte-of adjournment for which no president was found in that Kingdome another by adjournment to be entred in the bookes of the Houses as done by the Lords Justices consent and the third by prorogation which their Lordships intended But because the Houses enclyned to an adjournment their Lordships consented thereto by order to be entred in the Houses as by their consent On the 6 of August the Lords House ordered that the adjournment should be on the satturday aforesaid according to their resolution sent to the Lords Justices On the same 6 day the Lords House ordered that a Message should be sent to the Commons House to let them know that they saw no cause to alter their former resolution for the adjournment finding no cause in the letter that day received from the Committee in England nor by what they otherwise understood at the late conference and from the said Earle of Roscommon who late then landed there and who brought the letter from the Committee to expect the Bill desired in any short time for indeed they were then at London undispatched and the Letter said they were then busy about their dispatch And accordingly the next day being the 7 of August their Lordships adjourned the House till the 9 of November following All which being the very truth in this particular it is hardly credible that the Lords Justices and their adherents whosoever is meant thereby would take occasion to use those menacing words to severall Honourable Lords in the Article mentioned viz that if they did not adjourne the Lords House on that day being saturday they would prorogueon Munday following or whether it be likely that by the practises of the Lords Justices and some of the Privy Counsell and their adherents that faction as those Remonstrants injuriously tearme them did or could in such tumultuous and disorderly manner cry out for the adjournment with purpose to prevent the passing of those acts and graces that Session which were expected from your Majesties goodnesse But those Remonstrants having broken faith with your Majesty and all your faithfull people do take liberty to asperse your Majesties Governours and well affected Officers whom they desire for ill ends to make odious to the people of both Kingdoms And as a fatall perclose to this Article they subioyne another palpable untruth That after the artivall of that Committee who came not thither till towards the end of August That Committee could not obtaine
remisenesse in the Protestant Clergie the said Partington was dismissed in that Court upon hearing therof neither were the Lords Justices and Counsell or any of the parties being of the Counsell mentioned in this Article acquainted with the framing of the said Petition And whether the Petition was delivered to the Parliament in England or no was not knowne there only the said Partington saith that that Petition was about the 22. of October 1641. presented by him to the Parliament in England which could not be a motive to this Rebellion which began that very same day at night neither did any thing ever ensue thereof What Sir Iohn Clotworthie did or expressed in that Commons House against Catholiques was not knowne to the Protestants of Ireland nor is it materiall neither is it beleeved that any thing was there moved plotted or contrived against those Remonstrants or that that Parliament resolved any such destructive course against them till they had declared themselves in the late horrid Rebellion and massacred robbed and spoyled your Majesties peaceable and conformable Brittish and Protestant Subjects But the Remonstrants doe practise by confounding of times to gaine some cover for their inhumane perpetrations For their other fearfull speculation of the deplorable and desperate condition they were in by the above mentioned Statute of 2. Eliz. which they seeme to wonder at as a thing lately found amongst the Records there but never executed in that Princesse time nor discovered till most of that Parliament were dead By the danger of which Statute they say no Catholique in that Kingdome could enjoy his estate life or liberty if executed To this it is to be answered that severall Statutes were enacted in that second yeare of that glorious Queene And which State it is that those Remonstrants do to much tremble at is not here understood But it is beleeved that those Remonstrants pretend to find themselves so much greived with the first Chapter of those Statutes first for that it was made principally to repeale the Statutes made by Queene Mary wherein that Queene repealed all Lawes made by King H. 8. against usurped forraigne power iurisdiction and authority and to sett up some other authorities and judicatures in the Church the mischeifs and inconvenience whereof are in that Statute of secundo declared whereunto is to be added that the continuance of such a forraigne power in matters Ecclesiasticall would utterly banish all Protestant Subjects out of that Kingdom and leave your Majestie few good Subjects there for that the Popish party being dissolved from their iust dependancy on your Majesties authority in matters Ecclesiasticall which in true consideration concernes the halfe of your Majesties Royall Soveraigne will apply themselves for all matters of spirituall cognizance to the Pope in whose power it may be to discharge them from alleigeance in civill causes as he hath often done to other Princes which he will not spare to doe for his advantage and to keepe on foot his old claymes And in the second place to restore to the Crowne the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction which of right belongeth thereunto And to authorize apt Ministers for ordering and dispensation thereof for the better eschewing those mischeifes both to Prince and people and to revive certaine Acts repealed by Queene Mary And for the penall part thereof against such as shall maintayne and defend the authority preheminence power or jurisdiction spirituall or Ecclesiasticall of any forraigne Prince Prelate Person State or Potentate It is to be answered That that Statute is not introductive or maketh any new cryme for that offence was formerly Treason by the law for the first offence But that Statute mittigateth the severity of punishment and maketh it not Treason till the third offence committed after the second conviction and attaynder and giveth a great releife to the offendors touching the time of prosecution so that the Subjects terror is lesse then it was before The residue of that law appointeth what manner of persons shal be fit for promotion in the Church or imployment under your Majestie in civill affaires and how Liveries shall be sued by your Majesties Tennants the restriction whereof is in your Majesties hands to moderate at your gracious pleasure wherein they have of late had good experience of your princely clemency And have little cause so to exclaime against your Majesties Lawes as destructive to their lives estates and Liberties If those Remonstrants do so startle at the second Chapter of that Session It may well be said here is a great noise of danger but little hurt done and concerning these two Statutes they were no such concealed things for they were printed amongst all the Statutes of the Kingdome then printed about the 16 yeare of Queene Elizabeth when few of those Parliament men were dead and they were put in execution severally soone after the Statutes were made and long before that Queene died as appeares by the Records extant Only for the second Chapter it may be said that it was not so frequently put in execution for certaine yeares after the Statute made because all men for the most part in that Kingdome when there were any intervalls of peace did come to Church though many of them went to Masse also Recusancy was little then heard of or in many yeares after as is before declared But when Recusancy began over boldly to looke the Government in the face and that not only but many euill effects of Popery began to be dangerous to the safety of the Kings Majesties good people and government Then that Statute was at severall times put inexecution yet without danger to any mans life or estate neither is there any thing in that Statute that may threaten any mans life or estate the most binding part of that Statute being but to settle and maintaine the booke of Common prayer and other Orders Ornaments and Ceremonies in the Church and Churchmen and requires all subjects aswell Protestants as Papists to come to Church every Sonday and Holy day having not lawful cause of absence upon paine to forfeit 9d for every such daies absence And that limmited to an indictment to be found at the next Sessions or Assizes after the offence committed unlesse men would wilfully abuse themselves aswell towards God as the authorized Church and government In which cases other penalties are appointed not reaching to life In which Statute also are other favourable clauses for the ease of the people farre from provoking those Remonstrants to enter into the late hatefull conspiracy against your Majesty your Lawes and iust prerogatives or to commit such outragious cruelties upon your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects as they have done The same Lawes being now in force here in England and much more sharpe against Papists and these Lawes in Ireland have now bin in force above fourescore yeares yet no man ever lost his life or estate upon either of these Lawes nor Liberty for any long time yet do those Remonstrants from this
third in Leinster about Dublin and those parts when the Castle and Citie of Dublin was preserved there was a generall change in all former Counsells yet afterwards the said Garrett Barry and all his men went into Rebellion and so did most of the souldiers and officers of the other two Regiments Besides on the twenty third day of October one thousand six hundred forty one The Rebells in Vlster when they spoiled and murthered the English said with one voyce that Dublin was taken Also are to bee remembred the severall Antecedents to this Rebellion aswell in print as in words uttered by Romish Clergie men and some Laicks that within three yeares a generall Rebellion should be in Ireland mentioned in the printed Deposition of Doctor Iones And in the moneth of October before the execution of this Plott It was consulted in a great Assembly in the Countie of Westmeath at or neere Multifernam consisting as well of the prime Popish Clergie as of the lay Gentrie what should bee done with the Brittish and Protestants whether to murther and kill them all or to kill some and spoile and banish the rest or only to spoyle pillage and banish all And how your Majestie should be limmited in your Revenewes Rights and Authorities as more at large appeares in the said Doctors examination The like Discoveries of the generall Combination appeares in the Digest framed and collected by the Commissioners for examining the spoyles and murthers committed upon the Protestants by the Rebells tendered there by Master Watson and others of those Commissioners and sent over to your Majesties principall Secretarie It appeares also by examinations sent up by the late Lord President of Munster in the beginning of this Rebellion that about the twenty three of October 1641. the taking of the Castle of Dublin and other your Majesties Forts in Vlster c. was then muttered in that Province for a while after in shew quiet And the like in Connaught though at that time neither of those had heard any thing of the discovery from Dublin nor many dayes after By all which is somewhat plaine That the Conspiracy was generall and that the three Provinces stood not so cleare and quiet in November as in this Article is insinuated The Remonstrants being carefull to leave nothing unobjected that malice or Art can invent doe suggest that the Lords Justices and their adherents who those were is not yet knowne well knowing that many powerfull members of the Parliament in England stood in opposition to your Majestie made their principall addresses to them full fraught with calumnies against those Catholiques First it is conceived that there was no such opposition given to your Majestie as in the Article is mentioned when this Rebellion began your Majesty being then in Scotland bestowing your Grace and Royall presence on your Subjects there Neither at that time was any difference heard there betweene your Majesty and your Parliament in England save what concerned the Earle of Strafford whom the Remonstrants most violently prosecuted Secondly the Lords Justices and Counsell did first addresse their advertisement of this Rebellion not to the Parliament of England as the Remonstrants pretend but to your Majestie on the twentie five of October 1641. And to your Majesties then Lievtenant of that Kingdome to whom all addresses thence were to bee made by your Majesties Order A Copie of which Letters to the Lord Lievtenant they then sent to your Majesty and by the answer of that dispatch they were advertised that your Majesty had sent to the Parliament of England concerning that affaire and that your Majesty doubted not of their speedy resolution for releife of your Majesties faithfull Subjects The next dispatch sent away by the Lords Justices and Counsell into England or Scotland was on the fift of November 1641 at which time they directed letters to the Lords of your Majesties privy Counsell in England and considering that your Majesty was then in Scotland and that it then became of absolute necessity to invoke all the powers that might stand with your Majesties honour and good pleasure from whom any deliverance could come to assist for preservation of your Majesties Crowne and Kingdome They then also and not before directed letters to the speakers of both houses of Parliament in England referring the particulars to the Lords of the Counsells letters and moving for succours and then also they sent a dispatch to your Majesty into Scotland and enclosed therein copies of their severall letters to the Lords of the Counsell and both the Speakers and then also signified by their letters to the Lords of the Counfell that they had so written to both the Speakers And touching the denying of Armes to the Catholiques and arming the Malignant party who in the Remonstrants esteeme are all your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects in Ireland though there never appeared any Malignity in them in the least degree either to your Majesty or your government or to these pretended Catholiques quatenus Catholiques True it is that many Roman Catholiques aswell as Protestants were armed by the Lords Justices and Counsell when they were listed into your Majesties Army to defend your Majesties Kingdome rights and government against those confederate Catholiques in the beginning of this Rebellion whose plot and designe was to surprise your Majesties Castle of Dublin and your Monition and stores there and all the rest of your Forts and stores in that Kingdome to extirpate all your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects by death or exile and further as is before mentioned Note there were but â—00 armes in the store It is true also that the Lord Justices and Counsell did deliver Armes and Ammunition as farre as they could possible spare aswell to the Roman Catholiques as Protestant Subjects for defence of their houses in severall parts and in great numbers They did also deliver to the five Counties of the Pale Armes and Ammuniton for 1700 men for defence of those Countryes although your Majesty was no way bound to furnish them with armes for their owne defence and some of those armes upon notice of the defection of those trusted with them were recovered and brought backe and the rest soone after imployed by the confederats to fight against your Majestie and your Armyes And for the Cotholiques in the City of Dublin of whose ancient fidelity in the beginning of this Rebellion the Lords Justices and Counsell were fully perswaded they were not disarmed till most of the Catholiques of the Pale declared themselves in open Rebellion against your Majestie which the Lords Justices and Counsell finding and considering that those Inhabitants of Dublin were for the most part allied matched with the gentry and considerable Inhabitants of the Pale That some of them sent daily intelligence to the Rebels sent them provisions of victualls and otherwayes and sundry of them of good substance went to the Rebels with their goods That great numbers of the Popish prentizes servants and
Iournymen of the City went daily to the Rebels and joyned with them and that daily rumours were spread in the City aswell by words as by papers scattered and found that surprises and massacres were intended against your Majesties Subjects the Protestants of the City then was it thought fit and not before to disarme those Catholiques the better to secure the City for your Majesty and quiet the Catholiques who might well know that the strength of the Protestants was their security and from which Protestants the Catholiques never found any violence offered the Protestants profession abhorring such wickednesse the Lords Justices and Counsell also sent armes and powder to Drogheda delivered armes and powder for zoo men to Wexford they sent powder to Waterford and gave them licence to buy and import powder and armes for their defence though afterwards when they ioyned in the Rebellion the Lords Juces and Counsell restrained it as much as they could They sent powder to Trym they sent powder for Dondalke as far as Drogheda where it was staid because Dondalk was yeilded up to the Rebels before it could come thither they also wrote letters to the severall Townes of Wexford Waterford Gallway and Drogheda commending their then seeming forward affections and encouraging and perswading to stand constantly in duty and faith to your Majestie their Lord and King It is true that the Lords Justices and Counsell received an order of both houses of Parliament in England whereby they did commend to the Lord Leivtenant or in his absence to the Lord Deputy or Lords Justices according to the power of their Commission to bestow your Majesties gracious pardon to all such as were seduced on false grounds and within a convenient time to be declared by their Lordships should returne to their due obedience This Order the Lords Justices and Counsell printed at Dublin forthwith after receipt thereof the 12 of November 1641 and dispersed it into all parts of the Kingdom as farre as they could to try whether it might worke any relenting or application of those confederated Catholiques to the Lords Justices and Counsell to the end they might have further proceeded to have obtevned a more full direction for granting pardon if that could have beene likely to reclaime any of them The Lords Justices also found in their Commission and instructions no expresse warrant to pardon such pernitious Traitours and that in all late former pardons Treasons against your Majesty and murther was excepted and they daily expected the old Levitenants comming over with more ample authority and direction and considered also that on the 30 of October before the Lords Justices and Counsell had by publique Proclamation adventured so farre as to tender your Majesties grace to all seduced Rebels whereupon none then tendred themselves to the Lords Justices and Counsell or any other your Majesties Officers and afterwards on the first day of November 1641 the Lords Justices and Councell foreseeing the danger that the Inhabitants of Meath Lungford Westmeath and Lowth who of the Pale lay next to the Northerne Rebels might be first educed either by strange rumours spread abroad or by the false enticement of the Clergy and desirous to contayne and preserve as many of them as they could did by publique Proclamation advised and drawne by Mr. Plunket and others of the Commons house admonish all that were not Freeholders nor having their hands in blood within ten dayes to submit themselves before any Justice of Peace or cheif Officer of a Corporation and restore the Protestants goods which they had taken thereupon they should be received to mercy whereupon a few submitted in the County of Meath but never restored any thing nor proceeded further to give satisfaction of their loyalty but soone after returned to their former defection and ioyned in the said Rebellion All which advisedly considered the Lords Justices and Counsell thought not fit to prostitute your Majesties royall grace to men so ungratefull and deperded for they plainly saw that the confederacy and their perswasion to carry all by force was so strong as their actions gave no hope of any inclinations to submit themselves to your Majesties grace and mercy No not when your Majesties Proclamation under your royall Signature and privy signet was sent amongst them Commanding them to lay downe Arms nor untill they of the Pale and the Irish of Vlster were beaten from Drogheda and the seige wholly raised which was about the beginning of March and that your Majesties Levitenant Generall of your army was in the feild with a strong force of foote and horse able to March where he pleased in Meath Lowth and Dublin ready to burne and destroy their houses and eize on the former owners thereof if they could be found Then and not till then some and those but very few of Meath rendred themselves to the Leivtenant Generall of your Majesties army who received them as prisoners and a few others of that County rendred themselves at Dublin who were all imprisoned as was just to so notorious and obstinate offendors And it were criminall in the Lords Justices and Counsell not to commit them Neither did the Lords Justices and Counsell ayme at any of their estates but on the contrary alwayes shewed much regret at the unnaturall defection of the pale which had for the most part in other Rebellions stood firme and loyall And certainly they would have beene most glad to have preserved as many of them as they could as well appeared in their readinesse to embrace the Earle of Westmeath and his Familie upon timely application made though the Lords Justices and Counsell had Intelligence of Northerne Rebells resorting to his house They also upon Sir Morgan Cavanaghs false and feigned Protestations permitted him to returne to his house in hope of his good obedience though they had cause to suspect his and hsi sonnes comming to the Towne on the 22. of October one thousand six hundred fourty one They permitted Sir Luke Fitzgerald to depart quietly because he came to them soone after the beginning of the Rebellion though the Protestant Tenants dwelling on his land were despoiled of all their substance not without his privitie as since hath appeared They permitted Robert Harpoole of Frowle and necre Catherlogh to depart upon his faire protestations notwithstanding they had intelligence of his former being with the Rebells The Sheriffe of Longford and others of the Offarralls permitted backe againe though informed to have joyned in pillaging of the Protestants and many others in like manner because the Lords Justices thought fit to forbeare all manner of strictnesse at first hoping they would not so farre forget their duties as afterwards they all did and also divers others about Dublin who entertained Rebells some perhaps of necessity were permitted to be at libertie by the Lords Justices because they desired to retaine as many of them as they could comming in any time before they had openly joyned with the Rebells and committed the
any mans goods so much as touched or laid hands upon till a good time after the Lords Gentry and Inhabitants of the Pale and other Counties were publikely declared Rebels Indeed afterwards the souldiers which came out of England in times when they wanted pay did many unruly acts by pillage and otherwayes But the Lords Justices and Councell did labour to restraine such acts as much as possibly they could which may well appeare by their severall Warrants and Proclamations against pillaging and all other unwarranted violence wherein they adventured so farre as to trench on the martiall part of government rather then so much as might any wayes lie in their power to prevent it to suffer such disordered acts to be done and which were declared to them would and so did indeed prove to be prejudiciall to themselves to have such lawlesse consumption made of of those things which well ordered taken from such persons who had justly merited it and orderly Warrants given for it would long afford them subsistence which restraint though it wrought little yet procured great dislike in the Army to the Lords Justices touching the Calumny of pillaging and burning the houses of persons of ranke and quality imployed by the Lords Justices who kept their houses and annoyed no body and of others having the protection of the State It is most false that any such thing was done by the command or privity of the Lords Justices and Councell neither without the Councell did the Lords Justices doe any manner of thing concerning the government neither can it be conceived reasonable that the Lords Justices and Councell should be answerable for the irregular acts of so unbridled and ill-paid an Army who in those necessitous and extreamly disordered times would not be punished Though the Confederates have no cause to complaine of their losses it being but just vengeance on their wilfull and unprovoked rebellion and for persons of ranke or quality employed no such persons ever offered themselves or were imployed by the Lords Justices and Councell except two of the County of Meath who after they had joyned with the Northerne Rebels wrote to the Lords Justices that if they might have Commission to parly with the Rebels they hoped to doe some good for the quiet of the Countrey which Commission the Lords Justices and Councell gave them Although it after appeared that it was sought by them onely to gaine some colour of security for those persons rebellious complying with the Rebels However the Lords Justices and Councell sent them Commission as is before mentioned being desirous to leave no meanes unassayed that might give hope of any ceasing of extremities being then in very weake case to use that just force that was requisite to compell obedience the British and Protestants being generally robbed and spoyled as is before mentioned and the City daily threatned as well by those of the Pale as other Rebels To this Commission those men soone after made a very frivolous and scornfull returne and indeed dealt most deceitfully in all things with the Lords Justices and Councell seeming by letters to give them intelligence which were no other then either terrour and threatning of the Rebels or publike Acts which they knew would come to their knowledge otherwise from the common fame which will appeare in their Letters yet extant yet were neither of these mens houses burnt at all neither were their goods taken by any direction or command of the Lords Justices But being open Rebels as the rest of that Countrey were when your Majesties forces were of some strength and when it was thought fit by the Lords Justices and Councell and Commanders of the Army to burne and spoyle that Countrey to the end to disappoint the Rebels and send them further off the Army being sent abroad spoyled them as it seemes amongst the rest and indeed burnt many other houses where the Rebels were releeved and harboured and from whence they had opportunity daily to take Cattle by sudden Roads from the lands of Dublin having spoyled and robbed all the British and Protestants round about it And touching protected men the Lords Justices and Councell gave very few Protections finding by ancient and late experience that course to turne onely to your Majesties disadvantage It is true that while the Natives inhabiting within few miles of Dublin were permitted by the Rebels to live on their holdings from whom the active Rebels had daily reliefe The Governour of Dublin gave passes to very many of them to bring corn and other Victualls to Dublin for reliefe of the Towne and so did the Captaines and Commanders of other Garisons of purpose to draw to the Market what they could from the Rebels which all out of their Garisons and their Limits then were either in act or full consent and combination yet were none of those people pillaged or spoiled by any direction of the Lords Justices and Councell but all such things resisted by them as farre as they could possibly do against an unpaid Army neither did the Lords Justices and Councell ever give direction or any permission to violate any word or writing of safety given by them or any Commander or suffer it to be done wheresoever they could withstand it But after long forbearance of those wicked and evill disposed people and it being found by daily experience that under pretext of relieving the City they carried Munition and other provisions out to the Rebells and much more relieved them then the City and by that meanes gave the Rebells much more ready way to annoy and rob the City and that some seeming to labour at the Plow had their weapons hidden neare them and if any of the stragling Souldiers or other British or Protestants ventured to passe by them single or in weake parties they assaulted and murthered them and that from those parts the Lords Justices and Councell or any Commander of the Army could not at any time receive any intelligence to discover where the Rebells haunted or rested though they daily lived and passed among them Then were the Lords Justices and Councell necessitated to disanull and revoke all those passes and pretended protections and yet that was not done but upon a fore-warning and time given and that by publike Proclamation And afterwards were the Army sent out though with the great griefe of the Lords Justices and Councell to burne and spoile those parts which they well foresaw must conclude in their own great distresse as after it did for want of promised provisions out of this Kingdom of all which their proceedings they from time to time advertised your Majesty by their letters to the then Lord Lieutenant your Majesties Secretary Neither was any quarter though somtimes unwarrantably given ever violated by the Lords Justices and Councel or with their privity neither was any man killed or his goods taken by any authority because an Irish man or a Roman Catholique but because a wilfull Rebell And indeed those
Protestant Religion in Ireland according to the Laws and Statutes in the said Kingdome now in force 2. That the Popish titular Archbishops Bishops Jesuits Friers and Priests and all others of the Roman Clergy be banished out of Ireland because they have been the stirrers up of all rebellions and while they continue there there can be no hope of safety for your Maiesties Protestant Subjects And that all the Laws and Statutes established in that Kingdome against propery and popish Recusants may continue of force and be put in due execution 3. That restitution may be made of all our Churches and Church-rights and revenues and all our Churches and Chappels re-edified and put in as good estate as they were at the breaking out of the rebellion and as they ought to be at the charge of the confederate Roman Catholiques as they call themselves who have been the occasion of the destruction of the said Churches and possessed themselves of the profits and revenues thereof 4. That the Parliament now sitting in Ireland may be continued there for the better settlement of the Kingdome And that all persons duely indicted in the said Kingdome of Treason Felony or other heynous crimes may be duely and legally proceeded against out-lawed tryed and adjudged according to Law And that all persons lawfully convicted and attainted or to be convicted and attainted for the same may receive due punishment accordingly 5. That no man may take upon him or execute the Office of a Major or Magistrate in any Corporation or the Office of a Sheriffe or Justice of peace in any City or County in the said Kingdom untill he have first taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance 6. That all popish Lawyers who refuse to take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance may be suppressed and restrained from practice in that Kingdome the rather because the Lawyers in England doe not here practice untill they take the Oath of Supremacy and it hath been found by wofull experience that the advice of popish Lawyers to the people of Ireland hath been a great cause of their continued disobedience 7. That there may be a present absolute suppression and dissolution of all the assumed arbitrary and tyrannicall power which the said confederates exercise over your Majesties subjects both in causes Ecclesiasticall and Temporall 8. That all the Armes and Ammunition of the said Confederates be speedily brought in to your Majesties stores 9. That your Majesties protestant Subjects ruined and destroyed by the said Confederates may be repaired for their great losses out of the estates of the said Confederates not formerly by any Acts of this present Parliament in England otherwise disposed of whereby they may the better be enabled to reinhabit and defend the said Kingdome of Ireland 10. That the said Confederates may rebuild the severall plantation houses and castles destroyed by them in Ireland in at good state as they we eat the breaking out of the rebellion which your Majesties protestant subjects slave beene bound by their severall Patents to build and maintaine for your Majesties service 11. That the great arreares of rent due to your Majesty out of the estates of your Majesties protestant subjects at and since Michaealmas 1641 may be paid unto your Majesty by such of the said Confederates who have 〈…〉 the said rents to the uses of the said Confederates or dessroyed the same by disabling your Majesties protestant subjects to pay the same and have also destroyed all or the most part of all other rents or meanes of support belonging to your said protestant subjects And that your said protestant Subjects may be discharged of all such arreares of rents to your Majesty 12. That the said Confederates may give satisfaction to the Army for the great arreares due unto them since the rebellion and that 〈◊〉 Communcers as have raised forces at their owne charges and laid forth great famines of money out of their owne purses and engaged themselves for money and provisions to keepe themselves their holds and souldiers under their commands in the due and necessary defence of your Majesties right and Laws may be in due sort satisfied to the encouragement of others in like times and cases which may happen 13. That touching such parts of the said Confederates estates as being forfeited for their Treasons are come or shall duely come into your Majesties hands and possession by that Title your Majesty after due satisfaction first made to such as claime by former acts of Parliament would be pleased to take the same into your own hands and possession and for the necessary encrease of your Majesties revenue and better security of your said Kingdome of Ireland and protestant Subjects living under your gracious government thereto plant the same with Brittish and Protestants upon reasonable and honourable tearmes 14. That one good walled Town may be built and kept repaired in every County of the said Kingdome of Ireland and endowed and furnished with necessary and sufficient meanes of legall and just government and defence for the better security of your Majesties Lawes and rights more especially the true Protestant Religion in times of danger In any of which Townes no papist may be permitted to dwell or inhabit 15. That for the better satisfaction of justice and your Majesties honour and for the future security of the said Kingdome and your Majesties Protestant subjects there exemplary punishment according to Law may be inflicted upon such as have there traiterously leavyed warre and taken up Armes against your Majestles protestant Subjects and Laws and therein against your Majesty especially upon such as have had their hands in the shedding of innocent blood or had to doe with the first plot or conspiracy or since that time have done any notorious murder or overt act of Treason 16. That all your Majesties Townes Forts and places of strength destroyed by the said Confederates since the said rebellion may be by them and at their charges re-edified and delivered up into your Majesties hands to be duely put into the government under your Majesty and your Laws of good Protestants and that all strengths and fortifications made and set up by the said Confederate since the said rebellion may be slighted and throwne down or else delivered up and disposed of for Protestant government and security as aforesaid 17. That according to the presidents of former times in cases of generall rebellions in Ireland the attainders which have been duely had by Outlary for Treason done in this rebellion may be established and confirmed by act of Parliament to be in due forme of Law transmitted and passed in Ireland and that such Traitors as for want of Protestant and indifferent Jurors to indict them in the proper County are not yet indicted nor convicted or attainted by Outlary or otherwise may upon due proofe of their offences be by like act of Parliament convicted and attainted and all such offenders forfeit their estates as to Law appertaineth and your Majesty to
with instructions from His Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland and had exhibited a petition and propositions to his Majesty who had promised them a gracious hearing and that they heard that the Rebells Agents were somewhat neare a dispatch and therefore entreated them who as they understood were to be admitted to attend the Lords of the Committee for Irish affairs that afternoone that they would move their Lordship that the protestant Agents who had diver a things of great consequence to offer to their Lordships might be admitted to a full hearing before matters proceeded too farce His Majesty having promised them a gracious hearing and they having attempted many other meanes to obtaine the same and that their Lordships would admit the said protestants Agents to see a copy of what was moved by the rebells being also ready to deliver a Copy of the Protestants Agents propositions The next day Sir George Radcliff sent for the Protestant Agents and in the presence of Sir William Stewart and the rest of the Gentlemen aforenamed he told them that they had acquainted the Lords of the Committee with their desires and that their Lordships commanded them to returne this answer that their Lordships tooke it ill that the said Agents were so forward in prejudicating the Kings Justice and their Lordships and that they should be heard at large before any conclusion were and said further that themselves were thought too forward to present such a request but as to the Protestants Agents desire of having a coppy of the rebells propositions they received no answer The first of May the Protestant Agents were commanded to attend the said Committee for Irish affaires at the audit Chamber in Oxford which accordingly they did The Lords of the Committee then present being the Lord Cottington the Earle of Bristol the Earle of Portland the Lord George Dagby Sir Edward Nicholas Sir Iohn Culpepper and Sir Edward Hade At which time their Lordships caused to be read the Protestants Petition and their propositions presented to His Majesty and the Instructions from the Protestants of Ireland and the order of the Commons house of the Parliament of Ireland of the 17 of February 1643. Declaring the concurrence of that house to the said petition but the Collections made in answer of the Remonstrance of the Irish which would have disproved their untrue pretences was not read Then the E. of Bristol told the said Agents that both the King and themselves were sensible of the prejudicate opinion which the said Agents had of their Iustice by their pressures to be heard and by their beliefe of vulgar reports That the said Agents could not be more carefull of the Protestants and Protestant Religion then their Lordships were To which the said Agents answered that if they had erred in pressing to be heard it was but out of their zeale to the service and for the preservation of the remnant of the poore Protestants of Ireland who intrusted them and out of a desire that His Majesty and their Lordships might be rightly informed of the past sufferings and present deplorable condition of the Protestants there which the said Agents humbly desired might be no otherwise represented to his Majesty and that they might be admitted to the proofe of the particulars contained in the said Protestant Petition which they humbly conceived to be of greatest concernment to them in discharge of their trust whereupon the said Agents were bidden to withdraw and soone after were called in againe and commanded to subscribe the propositions which they had formerly presented to His Majesty and were that day read before their Lordships which they did and the same day they were appointe in the afternoone to attend the Lord Priimate the Lord Bishop of Downe Sir Geo. Radcliff and others and there Sir George Radcliff cold them that they were commanded by the Committee for Irish affaires to let them know how ill they tooke the height and unreasonablenesse of their said Propositions and to deliver them this ensuing message First that their Lordships did not think that the Propositions presented by the pretestant Agents to His Majesty and that morning read before their Lordships were the sence of the Protestants of Ireland Secondly That those Propositions were not agreeable to the Instructions given the said Agents by the protestants of Ireland Thirdly That as those Propositions were drawn they would lay a prejudice on His Majesty and His Ministers to posterity these remaining on record if a Treaty should go on and a peace follow which the Kings necessity did enforce and that the Lords of the Committee apprehended the said Agents did flatly oppose a peace with the Irish Fourthly That it would be impossible for the King to grant the Protestant Agents desires and grant a Peace to the Irish Fifthly That the Lords of the Committee desired the protestant Agents to propose a way to effect their desires either by force or treaty considering the condition of His Majesties affaires in England To which Message the Protestant Agents gave Answer to this effect TO the first that they humbly conceived that the Propositions which they had presented to his Majesty were the sense of the Protestants of Ireland To the second that the propositions were agreeable to the Instructions given to the said Agents by the protestants of Ireland and conduced to the well settlement of that Kingdome To the third that they had no thought to draw prejudice on His Majesty or their Lordships by putting in those propositions neither had they so soone put in propositions had not his Majesty by his Answer to the Protestant petition directed the same To the fourth the said Agents humbly conceived that they were imployed to make proofe of the effect of the protestants Petition to manifest the inhumane Cruelties of the Rebells and then to offer such things as they thought fit for the security of the protestants in their Religion lives liberties and fortunes That the said Protestants had no disaffection to peace so as punishment be inflicted according to law as in the propositions are expressed and that the said pretestants might be repaired for their great losses out of the estates of the rebells not formerly by any Acts of this present Parliament in England otherwise disposed of which the said Agents desired might be represented to his Majesty and the Lords of the Committee accordingly To the fifth that the said protestant Agents were strangers to his Majesties affaires in England and conceived that part more proper for the advice of his Councells then the said Agents and therefore desired to be excused from medling in the Treaty further then the manifesting of the truth of the protestant petition and proposing in the behalfe of the protestants according to the Instructions given them which the said Agents were ready to preforme whensoever they should be admitted thereunto And having read them before their Lordships c. Sir George Radcliff told the said Agents that while they continued so
high and unreasonable in their propositions they must expect nothing but War To which the Agents answered that they were ill furnished for a War but had rather undergoe the hazard of a War then consent to a dishonorable and destructive peace and they further answered that they should betray the trust reposed in them by the Protestants of Ireland if they did admit of any further alterations of the said propositions then as is hereafter mentioned which the said Agents were resolved upon no terms to doe Then Sir George Radcliffe said that he was sure that if the said Agents would fall three parts of foure of the said Propositions that the fourth part would not be consented unto And afterwards Sir George Radclieffe seeing he could no way further prevaile with the said Agents to alter their propositions told them that they were sent over by the Protestants of Ireland to preserve them ☞ and unlesse the said Agents consented to a peace His Majesty being in no condition to send them any reliefe the Irish upon their Agents returne home would destroy the remnant of the Protestants of Ireland and therfore desired the said Agents to consider of some way to secure them To which it was answered by the Protestant Agents that there were five more he yet to come to the end of the Cessation within which time meanes might be found for their reliefe and that it were better that the Protestants should quit Ireland for a time then consent to a destructive peace Then Sir George asked how they could get the Protestants from thence To which it was answered by one of them that His Majesty might make stay of the Irish Agents in England untill the protestants were brought out of Ireland Sir George Radcliff replied that be had rather advise the King to lose that Kingdom then that he should violate his word with the Irish Agents who were come to Treate with His Majesty and had his Majesties promise for their safe returne And the said Sir George said further ☞ that if the Irish had not good conditions it was not likely that they would forbeare Armes untill the end of the time limited by the Articles of Cessation The next day the Protestant Agents delivered the aforesaid propositions unto Secretary Nicholas to be presented to his Majesty or to the Lords of the Committee which he thought fittest which propositions follow in haec verba The humble Propositions of Your Majesties Protestant Agents of Ireland in pursuance of the humble Petition of Your Majesties Protestant subjects aswell Commanders of Your Majesties Army there as others presented to Your Majesty the 18. day of April 1644. and answered by Your Majesty the 25 of the same 1. WE most humbly desire the establishment of the true Protestant Religion in Ireland according to the Lawes and Statutes in the said Kingdome now in force 2. That popery and popish recusants may be suppressed according to the lawes and statutes established in Ireland 3. That the Parliament now sitting in Ireland may be continued for the better setlement of that Kingdome for if that Parliament should be dissolved there would be few or no protestant freeholders found in that Kingdome they being either killed or banished by this rebellion to elect or chuse any of Your Majesties protestant subjects to sit in Parliament hereafter which by consequence may be destructive to Your Majesties rights and prerogatives and protestant subjects in their lives liberties and fortunes 4. That all such lawyers who refuse to take the Oathes of supremacy and alleageance may be suppressed and restrained from practise in that Kingdom the rather because the lawyers in England doe not here practise untill they take the Oath of supremacy And it hath beene found by wofull experience that the advice of the popish lawyers to the people of Ireland hath been a great cause of their continued disobedience 5. That there may be a present absolute suppression and dissolution of all the assumed arbitrary and tyrannicall power which the said confederate Roman Catholiques as they call themselves exercise over Your Majesties subjects both in causes Ecclesiasticall and Temporall 6. That all the Armet and Ammunition of the said confederates may be brought into Your Majesties hands when any conclusion shall be made 7. That Your Majesties protestant subjects ruined and destoyed by the said confederates may be repaired for their great losses out of the estates of the said confederates not formerly by any Act of Parliament in England otherwise disposed of in such manner and measure as Your Majesty in Your high Wisdome shall think fit whereby they may the better be enabled to reinhabit and defend the said Kingdome of Ireland 8. That the said confederates may rebuild the severall Plantation Houses and Castles destroyed by them in Ireland in as good state as they were at the breaking out of the rebellion which Your Majesties protestant subjects have beene bound by their severall patents to build and maintaine for Your Majesties service or otherwise that Your Majesty will discharge Your said protestant subjects of that Covenant or condition in their severall patents and that an Act be passed in this present Parliament to that purpose And whereas severall Castles and Houses were surrendered upon Quarter upon Articles under their hands with solemne Oathes or otherwise to preserve the said Castles and houses from being defaced or demolished That the said confederates who have so Articled with any of Your Majesties protestant subjects may rebuild the said Castles or Houses in as good state as they were at the time of surrendring up of the same upon Articles as aforesaid or such a considerable fine may be levied out of the Estates of the said confederates as may rebuild the said Houses as Your Majesty in your high Wisdome shall think fit 9. That the great arrears of rent due to Your Majesty out of the Estates of Your Majesties protestant subjects at and since Michaelmas 1641. may be paid unto Your Majesty by the said confederates who have either received the said Rents to the uses of he confederates or destroyed the same by disabling Your Majesties protestant subjects to pay the same and have also destroyed all or the most part of all other rents or meanes of support belonging to Your said protestant subjects or that Your said protestant subjects may be discharged of all such arrerages of rents to Your Majesty And that Your Majesty will be further graciously pleased to give an abatement of the great yearly rents payable from Your protestant subjects for some reasonable time as in Your Majesties high wisdome shall be thought fit for their encouragement and enablement to replant that Your Kingdome in respect the said lands for the most part depopulated by the said confederates will not be worth Your Majesties rents for a long time 10. That Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to take into Your Majesties hands so much of the confederates estates as are necessary to be planted
Councell board which they did and His Majesty being present told them That they were sent over by his Protestant subjects to move him in their behalfe and desired to know in what condition the Protestants were to defend themselves in case a peace should not be concluded which was answered by the Protestant Agents That they humbly conceived they were imployed first to make proofe of the effect of the protestants petition and disprove the scandalous aspersions which the Rebells had cast on His Majesties government and the protestants of Ireland The King said that needed not for to what purpose is it to prove the Sun shines this day when we all see it The Agents said they found not His Majesty satisfyed but that the five severall Counties called the English Pale were forced into Rebellion by his governours To which His Majesty answered That that was but an assertion of the Irish Then the King againe defired to know in what condition the protestants were in to defend themselves in case he should not make a peace with the Irish The said Agents desired some time to make an answer to that Question but His Maiesty answered That he thought they had come prepared to declare the whole condition of that Kingdome And further asked whether they would have Peace or no. To which it was answered by the Agents That peace was the thing they had been bred up in and that they were not against peace so it might stand with His Majesties honour and safety of his protestant subjects in their Religion Lives Liberties and Fortunes Then the Lord Digby told His Majesty That they desired Peace The Duke of Richmond and the Earle of Linsie replied it is true the Agents have expressed that they are not against Peace so that it may be with honour to His Majesty and safety to His Majesties Protestant Subjects of Ireland Then the King said he had rather they should have their Throates cut by Warre then that they should suffer by a Peace of His making And that hee would take a care that the Protestants of Ireland should be preserved His Majesty told the said Agents that they should have a Copy of the Propositions of the Irish and wished them to make an answer to them And the said Agents being wished to withdraw and being sent for in againe His Majesty told them That for the cleering of the matter he must tell them two things the first was That he could not relieve his Protestant subjects in Ireland either with Men Money Armes Ammunition or Victuals And secondly That he could not allow them to joyne with the new Scots or any others that had taken the Covenant with them And on the same day about one of the clocke the Protestant Agents received a copy of the Rebels high and destructive propositions from Secretary Nicholas who wisht them from His Majesty to put in their answers thereunto within two daies On which the Agents desired two daies longer which was granted And on the 13 of May 1644. at the Councell-board the King Prince and Duke of Yorke with many of the Lords there sitting the Protestant Agents presented unto His Majesty their answers to the Rebels propositions both which hereafter follow in haec verba The Propositions of the Roman Catholiques of Ireland humbly presented to His sacred Majestie in pursuance of their Remonstrance of grievances and to be annexed to the said Remonstrance Together with the humble Answer of the Agents for the Protestants of Ireland to the said Propositions made in pursuance of your Majesties directions of the ninth of May 1644. requiring the same 1. Proposition THat all acts made against the Professors of the Roman Catholique Faith whereby any restraint penalty mulct or incapacity may be laid upon any Roman Catholique within the Kingdome of Ireland may be repealed and the said Catholiques to be allowed the freedome of the Roman Catholiqus Religion Answer To the first We say that this hath been the pretence of almost all those who have entered into rebellion in the Kingdome of Ireland at any time since the Reformation of Religion there which was setled by Acts of Parliament above 80 yeeres since and hath wrought good effects ever since for the peace and welfare both of the Church and Kingdome there and of the Church and Kingdome of England and Protestant party throughout all Christendome and so hath been found wholsome and necessary by long experience And the repealing of those Laws will set up Popery againe both in jurisdiction profession and practice as it was before the Reformation and introduce amongst other inconveniences the Supremacy of Rome and take away or much endanger your Majesties supreame and just authority in causes Ecclesiasticall a diminution of honour and power not to be endured the said Acts extending as well to seditious sectaries as to popish recusants so as by the repeale thereof every man may seeme to be left to choose his owne Religion in that Kingdome which must needs beget great confusion and the abounding of the Roman Clergy there hath been one of the greatest occasions of this late rebellion Besides it is humbly desired that your Majesty will be pleased to take into your gracious consideration a clause in the Act of Parliament passed by your Majestis Royall assent in England in the seventeenth yeere of your Reigne touching punishment to be inflicted upon those that shall introduce the authority of the See of Rome in any case whatsoever 2. Proposition That your Majesty will be pleased to call a free Parliament in the said Kingdome to be held and continued as in the Remonstrance is expressed And the Statute of the tenth yeere of King H 7. called Poynings Act and all Acts explaining or enlarging the same be suspended during that Parliament for the speedy settlement of the present affaires and the repeale thereof to be there further considered of Answer Whereas they desire to have a free Parliament called reflecteth by secret and cunning implication upon your Majesties present Parliament in Ireland as if it were not a free Parliament we humbly beseech your Majesty to resent how dangerous it is to make such insinuation or intimation to your people of that Kingdome touching that Parliament wherein severall Acts of Parliament have already past the validity whereof may be endangered if the Parliament should not be approved as a free Parliament and it is a point of so high nature as we humbly conceive it not properly to be discussed but in Parliament and your Majesties said Parliament now sitting is a free Parliament in law holden before a person of honour and fortune in that Kingdome composed of good loyall and well affected subjects to your Majesty who doubtlesse will be ready to comply in all things that shall appeare to be pious and just for the good of the true Protestant religion and for your Majesties service and the good of that Church and State That if this present Parliament should be dissolved it would
be a great tenour and discontent to all your Majesties protestant Subjects of that Kingdome and may be also a meanes to 〈◊〉 many of your Majesties subjects to quit that Kingdome or peradventure to adhere to some other party there in opposition to the Roman Irish confederates rather then be lyable to their power which effects may prove of most dangerous consequence And we humbly offer unto your Majesties consideration your owne gracious expression mentioned in the grounds and motives inducing your Majesty to agree to a Cessation of Armes for one whole yeere which the Roman Catholiques of Ireland printed at Oxford 19 Octob. 1643. viz. And let all Our good subjects be assured that as we have for these reasons and with this caution and deliberation consented to this preparation to peace and to that purpose doe continue Our Parliament there so we shall proceed in the accomplishing thereof with that care and circumspection that we shall not admit even peace it selfe otherwise then as it may be agreeable to conscience honour and justice We also humbly desire that such Lawes as your Majesty shall thinke fit to passe may be transmitted according to Poynings Law and other Laws of explanation thereof or of addition thereunto now in force with great contentment and security to your Majesties protestant Subjects But if the present Parliament be dissolved we humbly represent unto your Maiesty that so many of your ablest and best protestant Subjects have been murthered or banished by this rebellion that few or no protestant Free-holders will be found in the Counties Citles and Burroughs to elect and choose Knights Citizens and Burgesses which will be most dangerous to your Majesties rights and prerogatives and good subjects and may begēt great disputes in after-tmes For the repealing of Poynings act notwithstanding their feigned expressions of their loyalty yet it plainly appeares they doe not repose so much trust in your Majesties Justice as it becommeth loyall Subjects to doe and such they pretend themselves to be for that they seeke thereby to prevent your Majesty and your Councell of England and Ireland of so full a view and time of mature consideration to be had of Acts of Parliament of Ireland before they passe as in prudence is requisite and hath been found necessary by the experience of well neere 200 yeeres and if their intentions were so cleare as they professe we know not why they should avoyd the strictest view and try all of your Majesty and Councels of both Kingdomes this their desire tending to introduce a great diminution of your Royall and necessary power for the conservation of your Regall State and protection of your good protestant Subjects there and elsewhere And what speciall use they aime at in seeking such repeale your protestant Subjects as they know not the particulars so can they coniecture of none unlesse the said confederates have some designe by way of surprize to obtrude upon your Majesty in their new desired Parliament some Acts in justification of their ill done actions and for condemning such of your protestant Subjects as have in their severall degrees most faithfully served your Majesty there which we the rather believe seelng they have vowed by their Oath of association and the Bull lately published in Ireland since the cessation the destruction of the Protestants there when they have their Swords in their hands to put the same in execution 3. Proposition That all Acts and Ordinances made and passed in the now pretended Parliament in that Kingdome since the seventh day of August 1641. be clearely annulled and declared voyd and taken off the file Answer We humbly desire that they may particularize those Ordinances which may prejudice your Majesties service for we are well assured that the Parliament now sitting in Ireland on signification of your Majesties pleasure therein will either give your Majesty full satisfaction or repeale any unjust Orders or Ordinances whatsoever which may be prejudiciall to your Majesty And there may be some Orders or Ordinances which may concerne particular persons in their lives liberties or fortunes that may suffer unheard by the admitting of so generall a Proposition which is meerly proposed as we humbly conceive to put a scorne on your Majesties Parliament now sitting there and to discourage your Majesties Protestant Subjects who have faithfully served your Majesty in that Parliament 4. Proposition That all Indictments Attainders Outlaries in the Kings Bench or elsewhere since the said seventh day of August 1641. and all Leters Patents Grants Leases Custod Bends Recognizances and all other Records Act or Acts depending thereupon or in prejudice of the said Catholiques or any of them be taken off the file annulled and declared voyd first by your Majesties Proclamation and after by Act to be passed in a free Parliament Answer This we conceive to be a very bold Proposition not warranted as we also conceive by any example and tending to introduce an ill president in after times for it was never seene that Records were taken off the file but where there was some corruption or fraud or some illegall or unjust carriage used in and concerning the procuring or making up of such Records and the same first well proved upon due examination And it may not onely conceale but in some sort seeme to justifie their abominable treasons murthers cruelties massacres and plunders acted against your Majesties Person Crowne and Dignity upon the persons of your Majesties most loyall protestant Subjects in that Kingdome and encourage the papists there to doe the like againe besides the discouragement it may beget in your Majesties Officers and Subjects to doe their duties in the like insurrections which may happen hereafter which also may prove very prejudiciall to your Majesties rights and revenues if the Records to support the forfeitures wherein many of them are or may be grounded should be taken off the file and cancelled 5. Proposition That inasmuch as under colour of such Outlaries and Attainders debts due unto the said Catholiques have been granted levyed and disposed of and of the other side that debts due upon the said Catholiques to those of the adverse party have beene levyed and disposed to publique use That therefore all debts be by Act of Parliament mutually released or all to stand in statu quo notwithstanding any grant or disposition Answer We humbly conceive that in times of peace and most setled government when the course of Law and Justice is most open and best observed that the debts due to the Crowne and actually levied and payd in to your Majesties use ought not to be restored though the Records of the forfeitures should be legally reversed which is farre from the present case and this proposition tendeth to crosse that just right of your Majesty and to make the disposition by the confederate popish Rebels of debts due to Protestants and by the said Rebels by fraud and force levyed and disposed in maintenance of their Rebellion which cunningly they
time But it is now plainly seene that the secret reason why those Remonstrants so distasted and in Parliament laboured against the disbanding of that Army was because by their disbanding they saw themselves like to be disappointed of such a helpe and of those Armes with a more fall hand to execute their bloody designe upon your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects which it seemes was consented unto by many of these Remonstrants members of both houses in the May session of Parliament before as was declared by Hugh Mac Mahon upon his examination Those Remonstrants well knowing that the greatest part of that Army aswell the common souldier as many of the Commanders were ready to be imployed by them in that exploit as since more fully appeared And that this their confederacy seems to be begun at that time or before doth somewhat more appeare in that at the next Session in Iune and July when that Army was disbanded and that your Majesty for good reasons had commanded by your severall warrants that they should be sent over sea to serve other Princes in amity with your Majesty those Remonstrants tooke great paynes to frame reasons to stay them which by their meanes the Lords Justices were then pressed to transmit to your Majesty And that they were unwilling to supply those Princes whose aide they so undutifully soone afterwards sollicited against your Majesty and your Majesties true Subjects and servants not that they beleived the kingdome could not well spare those men being then loose and noe way setled but that they intended shortly to make an other use of them to the utter destruction of your Majesties good Subjects as lamentable experience now evinceth besides it was then made knowne to the Lords Justices and Councell That the Priests and Jesuits diswaded the Colonels Captains and Souldiers all they could from going over which was on the same grounds to open which secret a little further It must be also remembred that in that Session upon a pretence that some of the Lord Straffords servants had placed powder under the Parliament House with purpose to blow them all up which was a meere fiction They moved the house to send certain Committees of Lords to the Lords Justices wherein the lord Magwier a chief conspirator as himselfe confessed was a most busie man to require search for the powder which they curiously performed and veiwed every corner on purpose to see what Armes were brought in that being a place where Arms had been in former times kept though the Officers of the Ordnance assured them that noe powder had been laide there for some yeares before neither was there any at that time And when they had seene what there was they adventured and drew the other Lords of that Committee then and now good Subjects to renew their motion to the Lords Justices to be admitted to see the stores of powder and armes placed in other parts in and about the Castle to whom the Lords Justices then answered that those were the Kings precious Iewels not to be without speciall cause shewed and so refused them whereat they seemed discontented as being left in uncertainty in what state your Majesties stores stood which they desired much to know especially whether the powder Armes were all there where they lay that if they were not come in they might find them elsewhere or if there then by the intended surprize to be sure of them and to know where on the suddaine to find them As for that strange Chimera of bringing a 10000 Scots into that Kingdome to force the Catholiques thereof to change their Religion and that Ireland would never be well without a Rebellion to the end the Natives might be extirpated It is little marvile that those Remonstrants in whose braines exterpation of Brittish and Protestants did so much runne which they to their uttermost power soone after executed had their hearts full of Rebellion which they wickedly practised soone after could easily fancy such thoughts in other men as one colour of excuse amongst others for their own evill intents But that those persons named in this Article should declare or advise such an act to the disturbance of that blessed peace in setling whereof they have beene principall actouts and in that Kingdome where their whole subsistance is and where their children are matched to Natives knowing also as they doe that such an action cannot be without great meanes and authority to support it it is incredible neither can they conceive that it will gaine more credit with any intelligent man then the tale of wagers mentioned in this Article the true particular whereof is That at an Assizes at Wexford a little before the Rebellion certaine Papists and Protestants being at the Sheriffs table at dinner a Protestant and a Papist had some conference about Religion The Protestant at last wished the Papist to come to Church as most of them had done formerly whereto the Papist answered he would never go to Church the Protestant said I wil give you 5 l. you shal give me 50. l. for it if you come not to Church before this time Twelve-Moneth he well knowing that the Papist would not come to Church whereat the Papist seeming startled was very earnest to understand the secret of that wager which at last the Protestant discovered and so it proved a merriment to the whole table as is well knowne to the Remonstrants And these are some of the grounds whereon these Remonstrants pretend to found their bloody Massacre which soone after ensued to the destruction of your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects What the Parliament in England protested or intended concerning the Catholiques in Ireland The Protestants in Ireland were not much moved with the rumours thereof being strangers thereunto and presumed those Remonstrants were better setled in the assurance of your Majesties Protestant subjects love to them and your Majesties gracious favours and care shewed to their security It is true that some Prints have been seene here seeming to averr that Lawes made in England will bind in Ireland if Ireland named This is a power that may equally concerne your Majesties Protestant subjects as those confederates But it being a matter yet farre from determination might have been thought more fit to be disputed in peaceable and civill Assemblies then canvased by Armes in open hostilitie against your Majestie and your obedient Subjects and the resolution written in the blood of so many thousand innocent Protestants unable to resist and that by treacherous surprize without the least notice of force intended especially seeing therein they say truly and that in all respects only truly hitherto in their Remonstrance that your Majesties high wisedome was able to apply seasonable cures to any such evils or innovations neither can it be beleeved that those Remonstrants or Catholiques of Ireland as they call themselves could be truly informed of any Protestation made by both Houses of Parliament in England or an intention in