as matters did then stand but should oblige them when it might be put in execution so they wait for a time and I pray God their eyes may sinke in their heads while they wait But Reader doe not think there is nothing done against us Is not Ireland our sister Nation Doe not our flesh and our bloud suffer there Doe we not heare of their threatnings breathed against us That when they have finished their worke there they intend England for the Aceldama the seat of war and field of bloud I will not stay thee longer still in the porch Enter in and behold the miseries of Ireland and if thou findest cruelties unexampled remember they are Papists and have as I am informed ten thousand Priests in the head of their armies who besides their tyranny towards our bodies would was it in their power send our souls in fiery chariots into hell So Hoffeus the Jesuite Well reade and bestow some pitty prayers relief on poore Ireland prayses for England increase in the love of Christ and hatred of the Pope I rest Thine I. Cranford Irelands warning to England LOok on me your sister Nation and pitty me I am your bone and your flesh I am wounded by them that I have too long trusted and harboured in my bosome I mean bloudy Papists rather then better friends take warning by me on sad experience Was there ever sorrow like my sorrow Look on me Repent Amend let my sins be your summons my judgements be your feare and learne righteousnesse by them When thy judgements are on the earth the inhabitants thereof shall learne righteousnesse Look on me pray and fight my enemies are yours my cause is yours wee have one God one Christ one Gospel one Religion united under one King if we fail one another now the proud enemy will blaspheme our God dishonour our Royall King scorne our Religion Hold out faith and prayer surely the victory is yours you pray and the enemy blasphemes up and be doing and the Lord shall be with you Shall wee be lesse zealous for the Lord of hosts then they are for their wooden Idols Solicit my Cause to his Majesty to the Parliament make my case yours be with mee as in the body stir now or never Helpe the Lord against the mighty your work will be glorious You shall be called the repairers of our breaches Look on me and adventure you that are Gods Stewards who knows but God intrusted thee with an estate for this Designe The Designe is honourable your purchase a Kingdome for Christ Back your selves with friends weaken the bloud-thirsty enemies secure your selves better try God if hee will not be your Ensurer double and treble Cast thy bread on the waters and after many dayes thou shalt finde it They are bloudy men The bloudy men shall not live out halfe their days They are cruell to the faint to the weary cruell to women to poore children mark what God threatned against Amaleck for the same thing Remember what Amaleck did unto thee c. how hee smote the hindermost even all that were feeble behind thee when thou wast faint and weary and hee feared not God Therefore when the Lord thy God shal give thee rest from all thine enemies round about in the Land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance to possesse it that thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amaleckfrom under heaven thou shalt not forget it Deut. 25. 17 18 19. To confirme the truth of these ensuing Tragick Stories you may be pleas'd to reade this Letter the Copy whereof was read the fourteenth of December in the Honourable House of Commons and also read againe before the right Honorable the Lords at a Committee of both Houses and desired to be entred into the journals of both Houses It was also read in a publike Congregation in London by an eminent Minister on the Fast day for Ireland to stir up bowels of pitty towards them SIR ALL I can tell you is the miserable estate wee continue under for the Rebels daily increase in men and munition in all parts except the Province of Munster exercising all manner of cruelties and striving who can be most barbarously exquisite in tormenting the poore Protestants wheresoever they come Cutting off their privy members eares fingers hands plucking out their eyes boyling the heads of little Children before their Mothers faces and then ripping up their Mothers Bowels stripping women naked and standing by them being naked whilst they are in Travell killing the Children as soon as they are born and ripping up their Mothers bellies as soone as they are delivered driving men women and children by hundreds together upon Bridges and from thence cast them down into Rivers such as drown'd not they knock their brains out with poles or shoot them with Muskets that endeavour to escape by swimming out ravishing wives before their husbands faces and Virgins before their Parents faces after they have abused their bodies making them renounce their Religion and then marry them to the basest of their fellows Oh that the Lord who hath moved the Kingdomes of England and Scotland to send reliefe to these afflicted Protestants would likewise stirre them to effect their undertaking with all possible expedition lest it be too late Some of the persons particularly mentioned to have suffered who are knowne unto you are Master Jerome Minister of Brides his body mangled and his members cut off Master Fullerton Minister of Lughall Simon Hastings his eares cut off Master Blandry Minister hanged his flesh pull'd off from his bones in the presence of his wife in small pieces he being hang'd two dayes before her in the place where shee is now prisoner Abraham Iames of Newtowne in the Diocesse of Clohor cut in pieces and it is reported that the Bishop of Clohor is turned to the Rebels thus moving pardon in presuming to trouble you at this time in your publike imployments doe with humble remembrance of his best respects to you and your vertuous Lady remayn Novemb. 27. 1641. Your Servant to command Thomas Partington A true Relation of the bloudy Massacre and damnable Treason of the cruell Papists intended against Dublin October 23. 1641. desperatly acted in most parts of the Kingdom of Ireland tending to the utter ruine and extirpation of all the Protestants there With a list of the severall tortures cruelties outrages on the bodies of poore Christians related by persons of good credit who are fled from those bloudy men to tell us what they have seen with their eyes and heard with their eares on examinattions of divers of the Actors in this Tragedy illustrated by Pictures BEhold as in a Map of bloud the unwearied plottings and restlesse contrivements of bloudy men only skilfull to destroy whose Religion is founded in bloud whose obedience will not be bounded with oaths asseverations nay execrations as the ensuing Story of cruelty relates who are true as steel to their damned Principles Nulla fides
cum Haereticis whose principles are steept bloud tolerating Rebellion against King and Kingdome murdering of Princes blowing up of Parliament sowing seeds of division betweene Confederate Kingdomes as those two Handfasted and Troth-plighted Nations in a League of love indissoluble blessed be God can testifie blowing up coals of Division hotter then coals of Juniper in the same Kingdome where they live in too much peace Witnesse England who hath had wofull experience of their plottings to breake Union betweene King and people King and Parliament But now behold these bloudy Papists with their Vizard puld off and now acting their plots like incarnate Devils as our Saviour cald their brethren the Scribes and Pharisees For the works of their father they doe I say now acting their Devillish designe on the State of Ireland our sister Nation ayming no lower then the death and ruine of the whole Kingdome at one blow For had their plot on Dublin Castle taken which they had laid with so much subtilty and secrecie as in probability it had had not the keeper of Israel which slumbers not prevented it in a most miraculous manner they had beene by the morning light at work cutting off man woman and child till they had not left one remayning among them that bore the name of a Protestant Blessed be God their snare was broken and that poore City designed to destruction delivered the relation of which Tragedie now begins Oh that our eares may tingle and our bowels yern at the relation of this horrid designe and at the relations of those cruelties and tortures exceeding all parallel unheard off among Pagans Turks or Barbarians except you would enter into the confines of Hell it selfe to see the Devils those Engineers of cruelty acting of their parts I know not where you will find their fellows making it their sport to torture and to vex those poore distressed Protestants he that is most cruell merits most of their bloudy Jesuits Those firebrands of Hell preach to them in their Massings and Conventicles as is truly related by Gentlemen of Ireland of good worth who like Jobs Messengers are escaped their mercilesse hands relating nothing but what they have heard with their eares upon examination of witnesses or seen with their eyes that so men might not be deluded with false and idle Pamphlets but reade and see the truth of things that all men may behold what bloudy Tigres and Vultures these Popish Spirits are how perfidious and basely treacherous to those Nations that succour them never any Kingdom being long at peace where they were tolerated as this fresh bleeding Nation of Ireland can sadly relate you in this ensuing Narration Here begins the bloudie attempts upon the Kingdome of Ireland in the generall and on Dublin in particular UPon the three and twentieth day of October last 1641 the Castle of Dublin should have surprized as at that time it might easily have beene for there was no feare or suspition of Treachery there being at that time foure hundred Irish Papists elected out of most parts of Ireland desperate persons designed and appointed for that bloudy and desperate attempt all lodging and sculking in severall places of the City and Suburbs waiting and expecting the time and watch-word when to give the onset But that God that keepeth Israel saw their bloudy intentions to overthrow and ruinate all the professours of the true Religion disapointed their wicked hopes and to their owne shame and confusion discovered and laid open their hellish plot to succeeding ages that the Lord alone might be admired and they confounded And this he did by moving in the heart of one of their own Countrimen at that time an abhorring of so foule and detestable a Treason and to reveale it to Sir William Parsons Knight and Baronet Master of the Court of Wards and Liveries and Sir John Borlase Knight Master of the Ordnance both Lords Justices of the Kingdome of Ireland The party who discovered the plot had been formerly a servant to Sir John Clotworthy a godly and religious Gentleman but at time when hee revealed their designe hee served one Captaine Mack-Mahowne an Irishman who lodged at the signe of the Artichoake vulgarly called Saint Maries Abbey in the Suburbs of the City of Dublin The servants name was Owen Mack-Connel who being with his Master Captain Mack-Mahown in a house in Cookstreet at the Lodging of the Lord Mack-Gueere also and Irishman in the City of Dublin Upon the two and twentieth of October being the night afore his Master did then and there reveale the whole plot unto him in the presence of the Lord Mack-Gueere and others Owen Macke-onell who discouered the plot of takinge Dublin had a Pistoll Charged with too Bullets the pane primed with powder Brimstone twice offered against him tooke not fire so the Rebells said God will not suffer him to be killed he will be on our side I warrant you Owen Macke-onell leapinge ouer a wall escaped was sent to our Parlament with letters was rewarded 500 lb 200 per Annum At the first the Lord Parsons did seem to slight it but Owen Mack-Counel confidently affirmed the thing to my Lord in the hearing of his servants to be true and withall told him thus viz. My Lord my Lord I have discharged my duty and my conscience look you to it I will goe backe to my Master because neither hee nor the rest shall suspect me Your Lordship shall find my Lord Mack-Gueere at Master Cadowgans house in Cookstreet and Captaine Mack-Mahown at the Artichoke in the aforesaid Maryes Abbey to which place I am going now This Owen Mack-Connel going homewards to his Masters lodging takes up dirt in his hands and besmuts and dirties his face that he might appear to them to have tumbled over and over in the dirt whose approach and entrance into the roome where a great many of them were assembled together drinking and making merry for they intended not to goe to bed was so ridiculous that the company burst out into such a loud and sudden laughter with shouting and hollowing that the place rung of them round about and to welcome him home the company fell to their old course to make him drinke more but at last he told them that he must needs goe down into the yard so they suffered him to goe but commanded two of his companions to attend him and bring him up againe but they let him goe into the yard by himselfe not suspecting what he had done nor what hee meant to doe no sooner was he in the yard but knowing the place leaped over the pale and so escaped from them Great search they made in the yard for him and up and downe the house thinking hee had been crept to bed or hid himself in the barn of stable so that they were amazed to think what should become of him because they generally believed him to be so drunk and in such a pickle they refrained
looking any further after him conceiving that hee was past care to tell tales wheresoever he was and so fell to their mirth and jollitie again But not long after in the midst of their mirth came some of the Guard belonging to the Lords Justices entred the House where there was little or no resistance apprehended Captain Mack-Mahowne and one Rory Magennis being the chief in that place at the Artichoake and brought them bound before the Lords about five of the clock in the morning being upon the Saturday which was the three and twentieth day of October last At the same time and hour the rest of the Guard apprehended the Lord Mack-Gueere in Cookstreet in the house of Master Cadowgan where they found him under a bed with a case of Pistols charged and a Skeene by his side but did not offer to shoot Captaine Mack-Mahowne upon his examination confessed the whole plot how that morning the Castle of Dublin should have beene surprized by forty Irish Papists desperate Villains in this manner following First they should have gone into the Castle to avoid suspition one by one some at the water-gate and some at the Castle-gate each man with his Skeen and so to have met in the great Court and suddenly to have rushed upon the Warders and to have murthered them and so to have possest themselves of their Halberds and other weapons and then to have stood in the entrance of both Gates to let in the rest being three hundred and sixty more appointed for the execution of that Hel-hatcht Designâ— they could not have wanted help the ods was so great on their side I mean the bloudy Romish party and I am of opinion there would have been but little or no resistance their party would have beene so strong there being at that time one hundred Papists to five Protestants within the very City of Dublin to my knowledge and so they are generally throughout the whole Kingdome what a combustion had there been in Dublin that day what a distraction had our poore Country-men I meane the English Protestants been in and I my self being then one belonging to the Crowne Office in Dublin and an eye witnesse of their passages amongst the rest I dare be bold to say that if they had taken that Castle being so richly furnished with all manner of Munition as powder shot and Armes being also strengthened with above one hundred pieces of Ordnance of all sorts with their carriages that all Ireland had been before this day an Acheldama or a field of bloud and I am of opinion that of all the English Plantators in Ireland there would not have been living one Family Some of those Villains that should have surprized the Castle to wit Rory Mack Mahowne William O Neale Thady O Duffe and others have been taken and examined before the Councill and upon their examinations have confessed that upon the Sabbath day night after they had surprized the Castle being the day following their intent was to have marked all the Irish houses with a Crosse to have distinguished them from the English and so to have murthered them by entring forcibly and treacherously upon them and also to have seized all the shipping at the Rings end neere Dublin that there had beene no way or meanes left for man woman or child to have escaped their fury nor any place of refuge left to have found mercy Stand and pause a while and consider the depth of this horrid treason to have cut off all the Protestants Oh the cryes the shreeks the teares of poore souls flying this way and that way still into the mouth of these ravenous Lions and this would have beene their Sabbath dayes work a fit sacrifice for him whose servants they were But praysed be the Lord their net is broken and we have escaped What man so blinde as may not herein behold the handy worke of God and how the hands and hearts of those malicious furies and firebrands of Rome are bent to shed inocent bloud that notwithstanding they have so often failed in their wicked bloudy purposed and intents both private and publike which they have secretly attempted in darknesse will not see although they live in the light nor take warning but still run on in their bloud-thirstinesse to extirpate whole States to suppresse the Truth and to shed the bloud of Gods Saints but I trust they shall fall into the pit that they digged for others It was concluded by the Lords Justices and Councell of Ireland that the aforenamed Owen Mack-Connel who had discovered this Treason should be sent with Letters to the Parliament here in England the King being at that time in Scotland who at his comming was rewarded with a gratuity of five hundred pounds in money and an allowance towards the mayntenance of himselfe his wife and children of two hundred pounds a yeere until his Majesty finde out some better gift to bestow upon him I am verily perswaded that his discovery of this Treason hath preserved the lives of a hundred thousand men women and children and many more in the severall Provinces and Counties of Ireland Now to enter into this direfull Tragedy every step being a step in bloud Heere followeth a true description or relation of sundrie sad and lamentable collections taken from the mouthes of verie credible persons and out of Letters sent from Ireland to this Citie of London of the perfidious outrages and barbarous cruelties which the Irish Papists have committed upon the persons of the Protestants both men women and children in that Kingdome Anno Dom. 1641. THe Irish Nation is well knowne to be a people both proud and envious For the Comonaltie they are for the most part ignorant and illiterate poore and lazie and will rather beg or starve then worke therefore fit subjects for the Priests and Jesuits to spur on upon such bloudy actions and murth ' rous Designes Ignorance is their Mother which is devoid of mercy God deliver all good Christians from the cruelty of such a Mother and Children It is too well knowne the more is the pitie and to be lamented that the Irish have murther'd of the Protestant party in the Provinces of Vlster Lempster Connaght and Munster of men women and children the number of fifty thousand as it is credibly reported by Englishmen who have beene over all parts of the Kingdome and doe protest upon their oaths that there are above five thousand Families destroyed The Kingdome of Ireland hath foure Provinces wherein there are contained two and thirty Counties besides Cities and County Townes in all which places the English are planted up and downe in all parts where the Irish have most murtherously and trayterously surprized them upon great advantages and with out respect of persons either of age youth or infancy of yongmen or maids or of old men or babes stript all to their skins naked as ever they were borne into the World so they have gone out of the
the present employed in his Highnesse Service for the taking of this your Castle you are therefore to deliver unto us free possession of your said Castle promising faithfully that your Ladiship together with the rest in the said Castle restant shall have a reasonable composition otherwise upon the yielding of the Castle wee doe assure you that we will burn the whole Town kill all the Protestants and spare neither man woman nor child upon taking the Castle Consider Madam of this our offer and impute not the blame of your owne folly unto us thinke not that here wee brag your Ladiship upon submission shall have a safe convoy to secure you from the hands of your enemies and to lead you where you leave A speedy replyis desired with all expedition and thus wee surcease Henry Demsy Charles Demsy Andrew Fitz Patrick Conn Dempsy Phelim Demsy John Vicars James m Donel The Lady Offalia her answer to the Rebels For my Cosin Henry Dempsy and the rest I Received your Letter wherein you threaten to sack this my Castle by his Majesties authority I am and ever have beene a loyall subject and a good neighbour amongst you and therefore cannot but wonder at such an assaul I thank you for your offer of a convoy wherein I hold little safety and therefore my resolution is that being free from offending his Majesty or doing wrong to any of you I will live and die innocently and will doe my best to defend my owne leaving the issue to God and though I have beene and still am desirous to avoid the shedding of Christian bloud yet being provoked your threats shall no whit dismay me Lettice Offalia These stories I relate that all true-hearted Protestants may take heart and likewise take notice that God is vindicating his owne glory against these desperate Atheists that began to insult and to aske as wee are credibly informed what is become of the God of the Protestants and likewise what spirit and courage God is able to put into the hearts of those that fight for him and for his cause against his bloud-thirsty enemies And therefore be not dismaid you Protestants 't is a great honour to fight under the Banner of Christ they fight under the Banner of Antichrist the Lord is with you while yee are with him See the blasphemies and cruelties of these bloudy men it is that their names as Amalek may be blotted out from under Heaven for surely the day of recompence is comming that God will make his arrowes drunke in their bloud they love bloud and therefore God will give them bloud in great measure As for instance I shall relate you a bloudy story of one of those cruell beasts The Protestant Troopers about the beginning of February last marched out of Dublin as they use to do to view the Coasts they espied a cruell Rebell hewing and mangling a woman in so horrid a manner that it was not possible to know her having acted his Devillish part he triumph'd over her dead corps and washed his hands in her bloud whereupon the Troopers apprehended this barbarous Villaine in the very act of crueltie and brought him to Dublin with his hands all bloudy and was adjudged to be hang'd immediatly hee ascended the Ladder and would not stay till the Executioner turned him off but desperatly lept off and hanged himself This was in the beginning of February last and is credibly reported by a Citizen of Dublin who saw him thus hanged with his hands all bloudy It is remarkable to take notice of the rice of this bloudy act it was thus A Frier and this Villaine was drinking together in a Village the Frier hearing of a poore English woman there hee commanded this Rebell to murther her which he did as you have read attested by a Gentleman of Ireland of good credit A Woman mangled in so horred a manÌ„er that it was not possible shee should be knowne after the Villaine washed his handes in her bloode was taken by the Troopers adiuged to be hanged leaped of the lader hanged himselfe like a Bloodey Tyger Companyes of the Rebells meeting with the English flyinge for their liues falling downe before them cryinge for mercy thrust theire Pichforkes into their Childrens bellres threw them into the water Would any man believe that these Villains should take children and tosse them with pitchforks like dung into Riversâ— one was an eye witnesse who lost a great estate there and since have received reliefe from the Parliament who saw a cruell wretch throw a woman crying with teares one way and her Childe with a pitchfork another way They have cruelly murdered women great with child and then left them in ditches to the fury of their dogs who learned to be cruell from their bloudy Masters for they have eaten the Children out of the bowels of the mother At Lesgoole Castle in the County of Four managh they have burned fifty Scots men women and children Sixteen Scots more they have barbarously hanged at Cloynes in the County of Monaghan Thirty Scots they burned in Tolagh It is remarkable that they deale thus cruelly with those Noble Scots who have bin renowmed through the Christian World for their zeale against that Antichristian Rabble that these Rebels would wish they had but one neck that they might cut them off at one blow but the Protestant Cause shall stand in England and Scotland when they and their Babel shal be cast into the Bottomlesse pit Rory Mackqueere at New towne in the County of Fourmanagh above foure hundred poore Protestants fled in the Church to shrowd themselves under its roofe for safety from the rage of those men of bloud where they might have been famished but the mercy of this mercilesse Beast affords them quarter to goe away with their clothes to Dublin and vows he will not hurt them before they got out of the Town his Souldiers stript some and killed others like base perfidious wretches The Iresh Lievtenant pretending they came for the King perfidiously come under favour pretends to borrow the armes of the inhabitants as they say to quell the Rebels then breake into their houses and turne their weapons against themselves make havock taking their featherbeds throw out their feathers and in the tikes put up what precious things they can find in the house and carry all away and so turns them out of doores the next company takes away their clothes and clothe them with their rags The next company thinking they may have mony in those rags they will take them also search their mouthes and those parts which modesty will not admit of an expression if they can find none they set their Skeins at their breasts that if they can extort any thing when the poore Protestants are naked Blush ô Sun to behold the inhumane cruelties and beastly usages of these unheard of Cannibals George Forde hanged on a tree in his owne ground cut his flesh a peaces carying it up downe sainge this is the flesh of one of the traitors against our Holy Father the Pope a Proclamation that nether English nor Irish should either sell or keepe in their houses any Powder upon the losse of goods life nether any 〈◊〉 mos whatsoeuer exept with a liconse then but fiue pound at most at 2 Shill ye pound Some Ministers they whip others they set in the stocks and make others goe to Masse against their wils then tell them now they have saved their souls they would hang their bodies A Minister seeing his Wife abused his children roasted desired them to put him out of his extremity of anguish to see such cruelty on those so neere him they most inhumanely cut his tongue out of his head And for a conclusion of this dreadfull Tragedy It is related from one of the last Letters from Ireland that seventeen of those barbarous Monsters came to a Ministers house where they violently fell on him and his wife stript them naked bound them back to back then cut off the Ministers privy members afterward ravished his wife on his back and then inhumanely cut their throats transcendent cruelty exceeding Pagans and Atheists For the oppression of the poor and for the sighing of the needy now will I arise saith the Lord and set him at liberty from him that puffeth at him Psal. 12. 5. FINIS a Abbot Downham Sharp c. de Antichristo b 2 Thess. 2. c Sâ—egedin Spec. Pontificum Rom. d Selnâ—ccer v. â—ae Pontif. e Idea reform antichrist tom. 1. part 2. sect. 2. c 7. f Espens in tit. 1. dig 1. musâ— loc. com g Bellar. de pont Rom. lib. 4. c. 5. h Idaea refor Antichrist vide supra c. 6. i Baleus de actis Rom. Pontif. l. 7. k Hist. Waldens l Sleidanus m Thuanus o Idaea reform Antich tom. 1. part 2. c. 6. p Hist. Waldens q Booke Martyrs tom 1. r Bulla Pii 5â—â— against Queen Elizabeth s B. Carleton t Prideaux Serm. on the Gunpowder Treason u Azorius instit. moral li 8. de poenis haeretic w Symanch instit. lib. 23. 5. 11. Saunders de visibil Monarch l. â— c. 4. x Bannes in 2 2. q. 12. artic 2. y Symanchâ— ubi supra z Azor. inst. mor. l. 8. c. 13. a Eudaem Apol. pro Garnet cap 4. Collect for Gunpowder treason D. Davenan determ. qu 17. D. Prideaux sex Higgajon and Selab b In 32. â— â—ide suprà c Abbor Antilog c. 6. p. 85. England Scotland Witnesse Germany that field of bloud as a book of their miseries called the Lamentation of Germanyâ—â—ely printed â—elates Deut. 32. 30.