of them that would accept of it together with the Excommunication of the Marquess now Duke of Ormond and the order of Publication thereof whereupon Sir Nicholas Plunket who subscribed the said Instructions and principally insisted on the forementioned Particulars was sent for by the Committee of Lords who had the Examination of that Affair and acknowledging his hand-writing Report thereof was made to his Majesty and Council by whom it was ordered about the 14th of March 1661. That no more Petitions or Addresses should be received by the Irish to the obstruction of the Settlement of that Kingdom and that Sir Nicholas Plunket should thence-forward no more presume to come into his Majesties Presence nor to Court Likewise there was produced an Oath previously taken by several of the Popish Nobility Clergy and others of the Gentry of Ireland before the Articles of Peace made in 1648. which they so much insist upon wherein they swear and engage That if those Articles of Peace were not in every particular for their advantage performed they would not be concluded by any thing therein Which appear'd to be so damnable a Piece of Treachery as it was highly resented in Council and the rather for that his Grace stood up and justified that to his knowledge it was a Truth And lest the memory of so great a Deliverance should slip out of our thoughts I shall in the next place present you with the Anniversary Act for its observance that this may be to us not less then the Passover to the Israelites for a Memorial and a Feast to the Lord throughout our Generations by an Ordinance for ever AN ACT FOR Keeping and Celebrating the three and twentieth day of October as an Anniversary Thanksgiving in this Kingdom WHereas many Malignant and Rebellious Papists and Jesuits Friers Seminary Priests and other Superstitious Orders of the Popish pretended Clergy most disloyally treacherously and wickedly conspired to surprize His Majesties Castle of Dublin His Majesties principal Fort of this Kingdom of Ireland the City of Dublin and all other Cities and Fortifications of this Realm and that all the Protestants and English throughout the whole Kingdom that would not joyn with them should be cut off and finally by a general Rebellion to deprive our late Sovereign Lord of ever blessed memory King Charles the First of this his ancient and rightful Crown and Sovereignty of this Kingdom and to possess themselves thereof all which was by the said Conspirators plotted and intended to be acted on the three and twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord God One thousand six hundred forty and one a Conspiracy so generally inhumane barbarous and cruel as the like was never before heard of in any Age or Kingdom and if it had taken effect in that fulness which was intended by the Conspirators it had occasioned the utter ruine of this whole Kingdom and the Government thereof And however it pleased Almighty God in his unsearchable Wisdom and Justice as a just punishment and deserved correction to his People for their sins and the sins of this Kingdom to permit then and afterwards the effecting of a great part of that Destruction complotted by those wicked Conspirators whereby many thousand British and Protestants have been massacred many thousands of others of them have been afflicted and tormented with the most exquisite torments that malice could suggest and all Mens Estates as well those whom they barbarously murthered as all other good Subjects were wasted ruined and destroyed yet as his Divine Majesty hath in all Ages shown his Power and Mercy in the miraculous and gracious deliverance of his Church and in the protection of Religious Kings and States so even in the midst of his Justice he was graciously pleased to extend Mercy to his Majesty and to this his Kingdom and good Subjects therein not only in mercifully discovering to the then Lords Justices by one Owen O Connelly a meer Irish Man but trained up in the Protestant Religion who out of a sense of his Duty and Loyalty to his Majesty and for the preservation of his good People and as an effect of that Religion he was trained up in revealed that hideous and bloody Treason not many hours before the appointed time for the Execution thereof but also in preserving the said Castle and City of Dublin and some other Cities Towns and Castles in the Kingdom from the bloody hands of the barbarous Conspirators as also in thereby rendring deliverance of the Lives of the said Lords Justices and Council and of all the British and Protestants in Dublin and in the said other Cities Towns and Castles preserved and of sundry other British and Protestants faln into the hands of those rebellious Conspirators and likewise in sending us Succours out of England hither by the Piety Care and Wisdom of our late Sovereign Lord King Charles the First whereby with Gods blessing the good Subjects of this Kingdom have hitherto continued safe under his mighty Protection notwithstanding the unexampled rage and implacable malice of those merciless Rebels Wherefore as we do most humbly and justly acknowledge Gods Justice in our deserved punishments in those Calamities which from the Councils and Actions of those Conspirators and their Adherents have faln upon us in this Kingdom in general so we do in like manner acknowledge that even in exercising of that his Justice he remembred Mercy also and magnified his Mercies to us in those great Blessings which we humbly confess to have proceeded meerly from his infinite Goodness and Mercy and therefore to his most holy Name we do ascribe all Honour Glory and Praise And to the end this unfeigned Thankfulness may never be forgotten but may be had in a perpetual Remembrance that all Ages to come may yield Praises to his Divine Majesty for the same and have in memory that joyful Day of Deliverance Be it therefore Enacted by the Kings most Excellent Majesty with the Assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in this present Parliament assembled and by Authority of the same that the three and twentieth day of October shall be kept and celebrated as an Anniversary holy day in this Kingdom for ever and that all Persons do at that day forbear all bodily Labour and the exercise of their Trades and that all and singular Ministers in every Cathedral and Parish Church or other usual place for Common-Prayer within this Realm of Ireland shall always upon the three and twentieth day of October say Morning Prayer and give thanks to Almighty God for that most happy and miraculous Deliverance and Preservation far above the expectations of those wretched Conspirators And that all and every Person and Persons inhabiting within this Realm of Ireland shall yearly upon the three and twentieth day of October diligently and faithfully resort to the Parish Church or Chappel accustomed or to some usual Church or Chappel where the said Morning Prayer Preaching or other Service of God
Or their perfidious breach of Quarter as that of Captain Sanders which we rather remit to future Story not touching what they do in open War but their putting the blood of War in their Girdles in the time of Peace Though we must say that when the Instructions for the Protestant Agents of Ireland came afterwards to be consider'd great artifice there was that the cruelties committed against the Protestants after Quarter given Promises and Oaths for security or safe Convoy should be struck out But no more of this The State considering these sad truths and that none but a considerable Army was to appear abroad they provided 4000 Foot and 1500 Horse to be sent out under the Command of the Earl of Ormond Lieutenant General of the Army While Preparations were making for this Expedition Sir Simon Harcourt who loved always to be in action the 26th of March 1642. took a small Party of men and went out towards the County of Wickloe where he found the Rebels had possessed themselves of a Castle called Carrickmain within four miles of Dublin and seeing him draw near to it with those small Forces and finding him to have no Artillery so as their Walls were of sufficient strength to bear them out against any attempts he could make they began to brave him from within and to use reproachful signs from the top of the Castle thereby to express their contempt and scorn of him This his spirit was not well able to brook and considering the Castle was not invincible and that it would be very great advantage to the City of Dublin to remove so ill a Neighbour and that with two Pieces of Battery he could take it in some few hours he sent presently away to the Lords Justices to acquaint them with his Design and to desire them to send unto him the two Great Guns for the effecting of it They very well approv'd his Design and gave present order for the carrying them out together with all necessaries and provisions fitting for the service In the mean time he took special care for the surrounding of the Castle and disposing of his Men so as they might prevent the Rebels issuing out In which Service Serjeant Major Berry with 200 Fire-locks viewing the Castle was shot in his side though he died not till eight days after of a Feaver All things being put in order whilst they attended the coming of the Great Peeces now on their way Sir Simon Harcourt with some of the Commanders laid themselves down under the side of a little thatch'd house standing near the Castle which they took as a shelter to keep off the Enemies bullets from whence he suddainly rose up to call to the Souldiers to stand carefully to their Arms and to their Duties in their several Stations Which one of the Rebels from within perceiving discharged his Piece at him and shot him into his right breast under the neck bone and being so wounded he was carried off expressing his submission to the good hand of God and much joy'd to pour out his last blood in that Cause The pain of his Wound was so great as they could not bring him to Dublin but carried him to Mirian a house of the Lord Fitz-Williams where the next day he died to the great grief of the English and the prejudice of the Service His Lieutenant Colonel Gibson took the Command of that Party and the great Guns being come within the space of very few hours made a breach sufficient for the Souldiers to enter who being mightily enraged with the loss of their most beloved Colonel entred with great fury putting all to the Sword sparing neither Man Woman or Child The first Officer that led them on in the breach was Robert Hammond Brother to Doctor Hammond that famous and excellent Divine Ensign to Sir Simon Harcourt who carried himself very gallantly in this Service and from thence return'd into England where in the ensuing War by the several exploits he perform'd in the Reduction of the West of England under the Command of the Parliament he attain'd unto a very great Reputation and one of the chief Commanders in their Army And at the King 's coming to the Isle of Wight was Governour of Carisbrook Castle and of the Isle and upon his notice to the Parliament that the King was arriv'd there had Command to attend his Majesty with Respect and Honour with a promise that nothing should be wanting to defray the Kings expences in which service a ticklish task at that time I do not find that he forfeited his trust or otherwise demean'd himsélf then was well accepted At the time that Sir Simon Harcourt went forth the Lords Justices and Council finding what ill Instruments the Priests continued to be in kindling and fomenting the Rebellion caused as many of them as were in Town to be seized on who being put into French bottoms were shipt into France By this time the intended preparations to march forth under the Lieutenant General the Earl of Ormond were ready The Design was to relieve several Places of strength some besieged others much distressed by their wants and necessities but which way the Army was to march or what Place they were first to go to was kept as a secret However the Army Saturday the second of April 1642. marched from Dublin towards the Naas with 8000 Foot and 500 Horse arriving at Athy the 5th being 27 miles from Dublin from whence they sent out several Parties to relieve Carlow Marryburrough Balinokill the Burr Caterlagh Clogh-grevan Ballylivan and several other Castles and Towns then in distress which they did without much opposition releasing many Women Children and other unprofitable People much incommoding those Places Sir Patrick Weams Captain of the Lieutenant Generals Troop Captain Armstrong Captain Yarner Captain Harman Captain Schout Colonel Crafford Sir Richard Greenvile Sir Thomas Lucas and Sir Charles Coote in their several Commands doing excellent service in their Relief of these Castles and strong Holds The last passing with no little danger through Mountrath Woods whence Sir Charles Coote's Heir had his title worthy his and his Fathers merits to Marryburrough a Place of great consequence seated amongst ill Neighbours Whilst these things were acting the Rebels having gathered their Forces from Wickloe Wexford Caterlagh Kildare Queen's County Kilkenny Tipperary and West-Meath on Easter Sunday the 10th of April they displayed 40 Colours within two miles of Athy near the Barrow of which Colonel Crafford gave speedy intelligence under the Command of the Lord Viscount Mountgarret the Lieutenant General 's great Unkle making of the old English and Irish near 10000 men Horse and Foot which the Lieutenant General perceiving on the other side of the River of the Barrow to have sent out some Horse near Tankardstown over against Grangemellain His Lordship return'd to Athy giving out he would fight them the next day but their numbers vastly exceeding his and he having done the
by a Letter from Sir Robert Stewart they were pacified and all the Affairs of that Province managed by Sir Charles Coot Sir Robert Stewart being at Liberty upon his Parole Before this Townsend and Doily two Colonels under Inchequin in Munster sent over to the Committee at Derby-House some Propositions for the surrender of the Towns in Munster upon Condition of indempnity and receiving part of the Arrears for the whole Army this was pretended to be acted by the consent of Inchequin and that he with his own hand had approved and interlin'd them in several Places Hereupon the Committee at Derby-House sent back Colonel Edmond Temple with an Answer to those Colonels and Power withall to Treat with the Lord Inchequin about somewhat more certain and more reasonable to be propounded by him But before his arrival there Sir Richard Fanshaw the Princes Secretary was come from the Prince to Inchequin with a Declaration of the Princes Design to send the Duke of York into Ireland with such of the revolted Ships as remain'd in Holland and to let him know the hopes he had that by his assistance and the Army under his Command both he and his Father might be restored This so puft up Inchequin as that he would hear of no Overtures and made him absolutely dis-avow to have had any knowledge of the Propositions sent over and thereupon imprisoned Townsend and Doily thereby putting an issue to that Negotiation Fortifying besides all the Harbours against the Parliaments Forces placing and displacing their Officers as he thought most convenient to introduce the Kings keeping a Correspondence with the West of Ireland as yet free to all Trade and holding frequent intelligence with Jarsey where the Prince was said would keep his Court Thus the Interest of the Parliament was wholly lost in Munster where Sir William Fenton Colonel Fair Captain Fenton and other Officers for their affections to the Parliament being imprison'd were exchang'd in December for the Lord Inchequin's Son imprison'd in the Tower about October 1648. Near this time Owen Roe attempted to rescue Fort-Falkland besieged by the Lord Inchiquin and Colonel Preston joyn'd but he was repulsed with the loss of many men as his Lieutenant General Rice Mac-Guire and Lewis More dangerously hurt which put Owen to such straits as he made an Overture to Colonel Jones by his Vicar-General O Rely to surrender Athy Mary-burrough and Rebban and lay down his Arms if he and his Confederates might have the priviledges they had in King James's time But Jones could better improve the Offers to a beneficial delay than ascertain any thing Though afterwards Owen Roe and his Council of Officers further offered That if he nor the new expected Army from England would not molest him in his Quarters but give him leave to depart with his Forces into Spain he would not joyn with Ormond Preston or Inchiquin And here we must resume our account of the Marquis of Ormond who after he had in vain solicited supplies of Money in France to the end that he might carry some Relief to a Kingdom so harrassed and worn and be the better thereby able to unite those who would be sure to have temptation enough of Profit to go contrary to the Kings obedience his Excellency was at last compelled being with great importunity called by the Lord Inchiquin and the rest who were resolv'd to uphold his Majesties Interest to transport himself unfurnish'd of Money sufficient Arms or Ammunition considerable and without any other Retinue than his own Servants and some old Officers of the Kings And in this Equipage he Embarqu'd from Haure de Grace in a Dutch Ship and arriv'd about the end of September 1648. at Cork where he was receiv'd by the Lord Inchiquin Lord President of Munster and the Irish with much contentment soon after whose arrival even the 6th of October he published the ensuing Declaration By the Lord Lieutenant General of Ireland ORMOND TO prevent the too frequent prejudices incident through jealousies distrusts and mis-constructions to all undertakings We account it not the least worthy our labour upon the instant of our arrival to prepare this People whose welfare we contend for with a right understanding of those intentions in us which in order to his Majesties Service we desire may terminate in their good To enumerate the several Reasons by which we were induc'd for preservation of the Protestant Religion and the English Interest to leave the City of Dublin and other his Majesties Garrisons then under our Power in this Kingdom in the hands of those intrusted by his two Houses of Parliament were to set forth a Narrative in place of a Manifest It may suffice to be known that those Transactions had for one main ground this confidence That by being under the Power of the Houses they would upon a happy expected composure of Affairs in England revert unto and be revested in his Majesty as his proper right But having found how contrary to the inclinations of the well-affected to his Majesties restauration in England the Power of that Kingdom hath unhappily devolv'd to hands imployed onely in the art and labour of pulling down and subverting the Fundamentals of Monarchy with whom a pernicious Party in this Kingdom do equally sympathize and co-operate And being filled with a deep sense of the Duty and obligations that are upon us strictly to embrace all opportunities of employing our endeavours towards the recovery of his Majesties just Rights in any part of his Dominions Haing observed the Protestant Army in the Province of Munster by special providence discovering the Arts and practises used to intangle the Members thereof in engagements as directly contrary to their Duties towards God and Man as to their intentions and resolutions to have found means to manifest the Candor and Integrity thereof in a disclaimer of any obedience to or concurrence with those Powers or Persons which have so grosly vari'd even their own professed Principles of preserving his Majesties Person and Rights by confining him under a most strict Imprisonment his Majesty also vouchsafing graciously to accept the Declaration of the said Army as an eminent and seasonable expression of their fidelity toward him and in testimony thereof having laid his Commands upon us to make our repair unto this Province to discharge the duties of our Place We have as well in obedience thereunto as in pursuance of our own duty and desire to advance his Majesties Service resolved to evidence our approbation and esteem of the proceedings of the said Army by publishing unto the World our like determination in the same ensuing particulars And accordingly we profess and declare First to improve our utmost endeavours for the settlement of the Protestant Religion according to the example of the best Reformed Churches Secondly to defend the King in his Prerogatives Thirdly to maintain the Priviledges and Freedom of Parliament and the Liberty of the Subjects that in order hereunto we shall oppose
Evidence enough there being many then in Dublin who own'd their Lives and whatever of their Fortunes was left purely to him so that he doubted not but that he would be worthy of their Protection Within few days after when the Marquess did not suspect the poor man to be in danger he heard that Sir Charles Coot who was Provost Martial General had taken him out of Prison and caused him to be put to death in the morning before or assoon as it was light of which Barbarity the Marquess complained to the Lords Justices but was so far from bringing the other to be question'd that he found himself to be upon some disadvantage for thinking the proceeding to be otherwise then it ought to have been This was the Case of Mr. Higgins and this the Marquess's part in it and the poor man was so far from complaining of his breach of Promise at his death how confidently soever it be aver'd that he exceedingly acknowledged the Favour he had receiv'd from his Lordship prayed for his Prosperity and lamented his want of Power to do that which the World saw his inclination prompted him to The proceeding against Mr. White was very different and in this manner The Marquess being upon his march with his Army he quarter'd one night at Clonin an house of the Earl of West-Meaths who was residing there with his Wife and Family when he was at Supper many of the Officers being at the Table the Lady of the House upon some whisper she receiv'd from a Servant expressed some trouble in her Countenance which the Marquess who sate next her perceiving asked her what the matter was she told him in his ear that she was in great apprehension of an honest man who was in her house and much fear'd the Souldiers confessing he was a Priest The Marquess replied that if he was in the house and kept himself there he was in no danger for as the Souldiers would attempt nothing while the Marquess stai'd there so he would leave a Guard at his departure that should secure it against Straglers or any Party that should stay behind which he did accordingly In the morning when he was ready to march he receiv'd information that the Rebels were possessed of a Pass by which he was to go whereupon he sent some Troops to get a Foard three miles from the way the Army was to march and by that means to come upon the Rear of the Rebels by the time the Army should come to the Pass which being done after a short Encounter in which many were killed the Rebels were put to flight and the Pass gain'd In this action Mr. White was taken on Horse-back with a Case of Pistols who desired to be brought to the Marquess which being done he told him he was the Person for whom the Countess of West-Meath had besought his favour the night before and that his Lordship had promised that he should be safe The Marquess told him if he were the same Person it was his own fault that he was not safe if he had staid in the house he was in this had not befaln him that it was now out of his Power to preserve him himself being bound to pursue those Orders which the Lords Justices had given him Nevertheless he did endeavour to have saved him at least till he might be brought to Dublin But the whole Army possessed with a bitter spirit against the Romish Clergy mutinied upon it and in the end compelled the Marquess to leave him unto that Justice which they were authoris'd to execute and so put him to death Who can now upon these two Instances and no other can or have been given reasonably and honestly say that the Marquess hath had his hands defiled with the blood of Priests And from the time that he had the chief Power committed to him there was not one Priest how Maliciously Rebelliously or Treacherously soever they behaved themselves against the Kings Service and the Person of the Lord Lieutenant who suffered death but also all other acts of Blood and Rage which are not necessary though hardly avoidable in the most just War were declined and discountenanced by him nay for his Respect to affairs of this nature that they might be evenly and without passion carried on did he not often undergo even with his own Party a suspicion of not being sufficiently faithful The Consequences of which had many Censures The truth is the Rebellion was odious to him yet his desire often to reclaim the Irish by Mercy palliated what otherwise might have finished some thought the War sooner then it had its Determination I shall pass over the many Tautologies and impertinent Calumnies in the said Declaration all which are sufficiently answer'd and clear'd by what is already contain'd in this Narrative and shall onely insert their conclusion in their own words as followeth For the prevention of these Evils and that the Kingdom may not be utterly lost to his Majesty and his Catholick Subjects this Congregation of Archbishops Bishops and other Prelates and Dignitaries of both Clergies of this Kingdom found our selves bound in Conscience after great deliberation to declare against the continuance of his Majesties Authority in the Person of the Lord Marquess of Ormond having by his Misgovernment ill Conduct of his Majesties Army and breach of Publick Faith with the People in several Particulars of the Articles of Peace rendred himself incapable of continuing that great Trust any longer being questionable before his Majesty for the aforesaid Injuries and ill Government to which effect we will joyn with other Members of this Kingdom in drawing a Charge against him And we hereby manifest to the People that they are no longer obliged to obey the Orders and Commands of the said Marquess of Ormond but are until a General Assembly of the Nation can be conveniently called together unanimously to serve against the common Enemy for the defence of the Catholick Religion his Majesties Interest their Liberties Lives and Fortunes in pursuance of the Oath of Association and to observe in the mean time the form of Government the said Congregation shall prescribe until otherwise ordered by an Assembly or until upon Application to his Majesty he settle the same otherwise And we do Fulminate the annexed Excommunication of one date with this Declaration against all opposers of the said Declaration Here we are arrived at one of the most fatal Conclusions of a desperate People any History ever mention'd yet as the case stood it was not possible for his Excellency to chastise their folly and madness such a reverence and esteem this unhappy Nation hath ever had of their Clergy that a seditious Frier and he happily none of their highest Order neither could take the Colours in the head of a Regiment and pronouncing damnation to those who should presume to march contrary to the General 's command caused the Soldiers to throw down their Arms and disband as fell out in an
to prescribe invite all his Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects to such a Declaration which yet until they should understand the Clergies sense upon the first Proviso they said they did humbly as fit for a time to forbear To the fourth they answered That whatsomever his Excellency should find to be within their power and would direct to be done concerning the Place of Residence for his Person they would readily obey his Lordships command therein To the fifth they answered That upon conference with his Excellency of the Places fit to be Garrison'd and the number of Men fit to be put in them they would according to the Articles of Peace use their utmost endeavours to have such Garrisons so agreed upon admitted And to the last they said They had at all times been ready and willing that his Excellencies Charge should be supported out of the Revenue of the Kingdom and that they were now ready to concur in assigning any of the Dues already accrued or such as should grow due hereafter or to impose any new Allotment upon the Subject towards his maintenance When the Lord Lieutenant perceived that the temper and desire of the Commissioners of Trust was so different from that of the Congregation and that in truth they were afflicted and scandalized at the exorbitancy of the other and that they thought they should be able to reduce them from the destructive Counsels they were engaged in He would not upon any experience or judgment of his own restrain them from attempting what was not impossible to compass and which many would have concluded would be compassed if attempted and which what other effect soever it had would make evident that there was not a concurrence in the Nation in those Acts which were likely to destroy the Kingdom And therefore he willingly consented that the Commissioners should go to Gallway where the Committee of the Congregation resided whereof the Bishop of Ferns was one to whom they shewed the Letter they received from the Lord Lieutenant and desired them to consider the state of the Kingdom and to know from them what they conceiv'd remain'd that might best tend to the preservation of the Nation without keeping the Kings Authority amongst them for that many of the most considerable would instantly make their conditions with the Enemy if the Kings Authority were taken away and that there was no hope of keeping or leaving that Authority but by revoking the Excommunication and Declaration For the Lord Lieutenant would not stay to keep it nor would he leave it nor the Marquis of Clanrickard undergo it but on these terms And hereupon they used all those Reasons and Arguments which cannot but occur to all men who are not blinded with Passion and Prejudice to induce them to such a Retraction as could onely advance the happiness or indeed the subsistence of the Nation But the Bishops were inexorable and instead of abating any of that fury they had formerly express'd that added new contumelies and reproaches to all the Authority of the King they said They observ'd by the Lord Lieutenants Letter that he had informed his Majesty of the Disobediences and Affronts that had been put upon his Authority and consequently that he had suggested matter unto his Majesty for making that Declaration against the Peace That they had perused the Declaration which had been published in Scotland disavowing the Peace And that they were of opinion for ought appeared to them That the King had withdrawn his Commission and Authority from the Lord Lieutenant That in the said Declaration the Irish Nation as bloody Rebels were cast from the protection of the Kings Laws and Regal Favours And therefore it might be presum'd that he would not have his Authority kept over such a Nation to govern them whereas they had been of opinion and all their endeavours had been employ'd to keep the Kings Authority over them But when his Majesty throws away the Nation as Rebels from his protection withdrawing his own Authority they could not understand the mystery of preserving the same with them or over them nor how it could be done That they believed the best remedy the Kings Authority being taken away by that Declaration of meeting the Inconveniency of the Peoples closing with the Parliament is the returning to the Confederacy as they said was intended by the Nation in case of the breach of Peace on his Majesties part that they said would keep an union amongst them if men would not be precipitately guilty of the breach of their Oath of Association which Oath by two solemn Orders of two several Assemblies was to continue binding if any breach of the Articles of Peace should happen on his Majesties part That the Kings Authority and the Lord Lieutenants Commission being recalled by that Declaration they were of opinion that the Lord Lieutenant had no Authority to delegate his Authority to any other And if they must expose their Lives and Fortunes to the hazard of fighting to the making good of that Peace seeing the danger was alike to defend that or get a better Peace why should they bind themselves within the limits of those Articles so disowned And so with several Tautologies urged the Declaration in Scotland as a ground and excuse for all their proceedings when what they had done as we have before took notice of was before the issuing forth of that Declaration In fine they concluded they could not consent with safety of Conscience to the revoking their Declaration and Excommunication demanded by the Lord Lieutenant nor to give assurance to him or the Commissioners of Trust for not attempting the like for the future And to manifest their inveterate malice against him being in Galway the Captain of the Guard of the Town commonly called The Captain of the Guard of the young men did make search for him in the said Town as after a criminal person or a fugitive thereby endeavouring to bring contempt and scorn upon him and his Majesties Authority placed in him And now you must know they would not make this Declaration in case of Conscience of so vast an extent and importance without forsooth setting down their Reasons under their hands which for the Doctrine sake I would not conceal from the world that it may better judge of those Spiritual Guides who made themselves guilty of that mass of mischief and ruine that flowed from thence Their first Reason was Because the Kings Authority was not in the Lord Lieutenant nor was then they said power in them to confer a new Authority on him which would be destructive to the Nation if it continued in him and preservative in another and that they said was their sense when they declared against the Kings Authority in his Person so that though they had presumption enough to take the Kings Authority out of his Lieutenants hands by their Declaration and Excommunication and to inhibit all men to submit unto it they had now modesty to
Citizens or others it is intended they shall be freed from any Suit or Censure in the Civil Judicature for things done in relation to the War during the time limited Memorandum as to the fourth Article aforegoing it is intended That the Citizens not excepted against within a month may tarry without particular application and have four months after warning given to remove themselves and Families and six months to carry away their Goods Memorandum also That all Soldiers or other persons not excepted in the second Article who through sickness are disabled to remove themselves at present shall have liberty to march away when they shall recover and have equal benefit with others in their conditions respectively And that from twelve of the clock this day there shall be Cessation of all acts of Hostility on either part But the Persons besieged not to come without the Walls except into the Island and the way leading to it nor the Besiegers to come within the Walls or Island saving into St. John's Gate until the time limited for surrender without license from the other Party respectively And lastly it is agreed That no Person shall be understood to forfeit the benefit of any the Articles for another mans breach thereof unless he be found to be consenting thereto or privy to it without discovering or endeavouring to prevent it Provided this extend not to indempnifie the Hostages in case of fail or of surrender In testimony whereof the Parties first above-mentioned have interchangeably set their Hands and Seals to the day and year first above mentioned Bar. Stackpoll Don. O Brien Dom. White Pierce Lacy. Nich. Haly. John Baggot It cannot be believ'd that these unequal and severe Conditions would have been accepted from any Army not strong enough to have imposed upon a People unwilling to submit to them and in a season of the year that alone would have secured a Place less provided for resistance but that Colonel Fennel the same night these hard demands were sent into the Town received in St. Johns Gate Tower 200 men from Ireton and the other were removed into another Fort called Price's Mill where after they had continued two days and the People of the Town not yet agreeing what they would do a Drum was sent through the City commanding all manner of Soldiers in pay within the Town to repair to our Ladies Church and there to lay down their Arms which was presently obeyed and the Soldiers being bid forthwith to leave the Town Ireton the 29th of October marched in and receiving the Keys was without any contradiction quietly possessed thereof causing as many of the excepted Persons as could be found to be committed to Prison and made Sir Hardress Waller Governour of the City In this manner was Limerick defended by the Catholick Irish and this obedience did the Prelates and Clergy in their need receive from those over whom they had power enough to seduce from the Duty they owed to the King and from submitting to his Authority and now was the Harvest that they gathered the fruit of all their labours The Instances of severity and blood which Ireton gave upon his being possess'd of this Place were very remarkable Edmund O Duyr the Bishop of Limerick had the dexterity and good Fortune that either by marching out amongst the Common Soldiers or by concealing himself with some faithful Friend in the Town which is not so probable to escape their hands and afterwards died at Brussels pursued with the malice of the Nuncionist Zealots whilst Ireton manifested what his portion would have been by the treatment they gave to Terlagh O Brien the Bishop of Emly whom they took and without any formality of Justice and with all reproaches imaginable caused him to be publickly hanged This unhappy Prelate had from the beginning opposed with great passion the Kings Authority and most obstinately adhered to the Nuncio and to that Party still which was most averse from returning to their Allegiance and was thus miserably and ignominiously put to death even in that City whence he had been a principal Instrument to shut out his Majesties Authority It may be remembred in the former part of this Discourse that when the King at Arms proclaim'd the Peace at Limerick in 1646. one Dominick Fanning a Citizen of the Town rais'd a Mutiny which Rabble affronted the Herald and wounded the Mayor and was himself by the Nuncio for that good service made Mayor in the former's place This man continuing the same bitterness of spirit against the King's Authority always opposed the receiving of a Garrison from the Lord Lieutenant This Dominick Fanning being one of those 24 which Ireton had excepted found a way amongst the Common Soldiers to get out of the Town notwithstanding all the diligence that was used to discover him When he was free and in safety he returned to the Town to fetch some Money that he had privately hid and to make some provision for his subsistance which he had not time to do before But going to his own house his Wife refused to receive him or to assist him in any thing whereupon he departed and after he had walked up and down the streets some time the weather being extreme cold he went to the Main-guard where was a good Fire and being discovered to be a Stranger and asked who he was voluntarily confessed that he was Dominick Fanning for whom such strict search had been made he was thereupon apprehended and the next morning carried before the Governour and immediately hanged The same Fate had Frier Wolf and Alderman Thomas Strich who when the Lord Lieutenant would have entred that Town in 1650. for its preservation rais'd a Tumult and shut the Gates against him And this very Colonel Fennel who by possessing himself of the Port and turning the Cannon upon the Town betray'd it to the Enemy though he had for the present the benefit of the Articles was within few months after taken by them and without any consideration of his last merit hanged as the rest had been In a word All those who had been the first causers and raisers of the Rebellion or who with most malice and obstinacy opposed their return to the Kings obedience and had the misfortune to fall into the Enemies hands as the Bishop of Ross whose Fate we have before told you Jeffery Baron who kept Waterford from receiving the Lord Lieutenant taken afterwards at Limerick and there hanged and many others were made examples of the like nature About the same time that Limerick was surrendred Sir Charles Coot defeated a Party of the Fitz-Patricks and Duyr's Forces who had regain'd Meleke Island after the taking of it by Colonel Axtel undergoing a resolute defence thereof to the baffling of his Foot which were worsted two or three times together but the Gallantry of his Horse recovered the Honour making 300 resolute Irish accept of Quarter for their Lives some 300 being slain and drown'd This business of Limerick
Oratory is seldom unsuccessful but what the people got by following this thrifty Counsel some have taken the pains to compute and it is found that the Impositions laid and levied upon the people to support Usurpation and Tyrannie in a few bad years came to more than the most chargeable Princes had raised in some Ages to conquer Enemies and Infidels abroad whilest this was employed to make Enemies of Friends and little better than Infidels of Christians at home I confess this Animadversion is not so seasonable now or proper to he applyed to you who in your Liberalities have outgone all Example and prevented even the Kings wishes nor are those Liberalities the less but the more valued by Him that he intends to apply them intirely to the security and improvement of a true Protestant and a right English Interest in this Kingdom There is nothing that declares indeed that constitutes perfect Union and a happy Harmony so much as mutual trusts and confidence and the interchange of gifts and benefits it is so in private Friendship and it is much more so in that good Intelligence which must make a King and His people happy The King has trusted you as far as ever King trusted Subjects and He has given you more than ever any King or Lord of Ireland had to give You have trusted the King with all you had and all you had to pretend to and you have given Him more than he thought of to desire Let it not therefore be apprehended that this Commerce must cease by the Prodigality on both sides as if there were no more to be given or received No my Lords and Gentlemen protection from Forreign Invasion and Rebellion at home the due and uncorrupt administration of Government and of the Laws and under them the advancement and encouragement of Piety and Learning Trade and all sorts of Industry and Improvements are benefits that may to the end of time descend from the Throne to you and yours And a due subjection to that Government and obedience to those Laws and application to that Piety and Learning to that Trade and Industry and to those Improvements may be as lasting Retributions from the People to the Throne I should here end this unusual Exercise but that I am commanded by the King to let you know that as He is abundantly satisfied with those demonstrations of Duty Loyalty and Affection you have given him during the whole time of your sitting so he looks with great Pleasure and Delight upon those Acts of Grace and Bounty that have past from him to you and he commands me to be sure not to forget to assure you upon all Proper Occasions that all his Promises shall be inviolably observed and that he will consent to whatever else may make this Kingdom flourishing and happy whether it shall be the Enacting of new and profitable or the repeal of old unuseful or burthensom Laws To say anything of or from my self in this place may be Presumption but to say nothing to you my Lords and Gentlemen to whom I owe so much must be Ingratitude You have before and since My Arrival been pleased to make many and obliging Expressions of your Approbation of the Kings choice of Me for this Government I have great reason to fear both the King and you consulted your Indulgence to Me more than your judgement of Me. Yet without much Presumption or Vanity I think I may say thus far the King and you may be excusable that He chose and You approved a Person whose Fortune and Family must prosper or decay must Ruine or Subsist by and with this Kingdom This has not perhaps always been the case and it is possible mean Abilities thus stimulated may be more profitable and industrious than greater actuated by less or by contrary Incentives There are upon me all imaginable Obligations to apply all that is in me to the safety and prosperity of this Kingdom Those of duty fidelity and thankfulness to the best and most bountiful Master in the World those of Retribution and Gratitude to you for extraordinary and liberal manifestations of kindness and affection and those self-preservation and Happiness Hence it may be concluded reasonably and naturally that my endeavours will be hearty and faithful and my failings which shall be as few as I can unvoluntarily and therefore the more pardonable You will presently when I am retired be at liberty to adjourn your selves to the time you desired Referrable to fol. 326. A form of Divine Service to be used October 23d appointed by Act of Parliament Anno Regni Car. 2di 14. die 27. Sep. 1662. to be kept and Celebrated as an Anniversary Thanksgiving in this Kingdom of Ireland THe begining of the Service to be according to the Form of the Common-Prayer then proper Psalms as 3. 9. 12. 46. 144. Proper Lessons for the First 2 Chron. 13. or Jer. 30. For the Second Lesson Mat. 9. or Acts 5. or Acts 23. And after the Collect for the Sunday this following Collect. ALmighty God and heavenly Father who out of thy most wise and watchful Providence and tender mercies towards us thine unworthy Servants hast been pleased as at all other times so on this day to prevent the extreme malice michievous imagination and bloody intention of our Enemies by revealing so wonderfully and opportunely their Rebellion and cruel Enterprises plotted against our dread Soveraign Lord the King and the whole State of this Realm for the subversion of this Government and the utter extirpation of the truth of thy Gospel and pure Religion professed amongst us We most humbly praise and magnifie thy glorious name for thine infinite goodness in this our marvellous deliverance We confess it was thy mercy thy mercy alone most merciful Father that we were not consumed And therefore not unto us not unto us O Lord but unto thy name be ascribed all honour and glory in all Churches of the Saints throughout all Generations For thou Lord didest discover unto thy Servants the snares of death thou didst break them and we were delivered Be thou still our mighty Protector and scatter our Enemies that delight in blood infatuate their Councils enfeeble their strength put fear in their hearts and accomplish this thy mercy in our safety and future deliverance And to that end strengthen the hands of our gracious King the Lord Lieutenant the Nobility and Magistrates of the Land with Jugdment Justice and Power to restrain such workers of Iniquity who pretend Religion and practise Rebellion and devout thine Inheritance This Lord we crave at thy merciful hands together with the continuance of thy powerful Protection over our dread Soveraign the whole Church and these Kealms and the speedy Conversion of all our Enemies and that for thy dear Sons sake Jesus Christ our only Mediator and Advocate Amen After the Litany this Prayer for the Second Collect. O Eternal God in whom we live move and have our being and by whom alone
Conspiracies hatch'd our ruine not discernable ere the Monster arriv'd at its Birth a Prodigy scarce credible in so vigilant a State Though when it 's consider'd how tenderly the great concerns of Religion the principal wheels of all Commotion in a State were handled the astonishment that things aspir'd to so much Villany may easily be unridl'd Towards the end of the Lord Falkland's Government there being great need of Money for support of the standing Army in Ireland and maintaining of 500 Horse and 5000 Foot much by extraordinary means having been otherwise disposed the Catholicks of Ireland glad of the occasion seem'd very forward to supply the State in hopes of a Connivance if not a Toleration of their Religion though therein they were onely to bear their share or rather offered their Mite with the Protestants which they improved to so great an insolence as the Lord Falkland with the Council was forced to take notice in a Proclamation dated the 1st of April 1629. That the late Intermission of Legal Proceedings against Popish pretended Titulary Arch-bishops Bishops Abbots Deans Vicars General Jesuits Friers and others of that sort that derive their pretended Authority and Orders from the See of Rome in contempt of his Majesties Royal Power and Authority had bred such an extraordinary insolence and presumption in them as he was necessitated to charge and command them in his Majesties name to for bear the exercise of their Popish Rites and Ceremonies Notwithstanding which their Insolencies afterwards so increased as that the power of the High Commission rais'd in respect of them being withdrawn they erected a new University at Dublin to confront his Majesties Colledge there continuing their Nunneries and Monasteries that thence many things were objected against the Lord Falkland's Government to clear which the Council of Ireland in his defence to the King the 28th of April 1629. declared That towards the insolencies of the Papists and the late outragious presumption of the unsetled Irish in some parts your Deputy and Council of late us'd particular Abstinence holding themselves somewhat limited concerning them by late Insinuations Letters and Directions from England And yet afterwards so mindful too were the Lords of the Council in England of what had been by the State of Ireland happily supprest that the 31 of January 1629. they return'd their acknowledgment and put the State of Ireland in mind How much it concern'd the good Government of Ireland to prevent in time the first growing of such evils for that where such People are permitted to swarm they will soon grow licentious and endure no Government but their own which cannot otherwise be restored than by a due and seasonable execution of the Law and of such Directions as from time to time have been sent from his Majesty and Council c. further encouraging them to carry a soft or harder hand according to their discretions Which I do not find but they prudently observ'd though all was too little to root out the Leven that had season'd the Batch during the Government of the then Lords Justices As Dr. Bedel the Reverend Bishop of Kilmore takes notice of at large with a deep and hearty resentment worthy his Piety Courage and Learning till the arrival of Thomas Lord Viscount Wentworth who by his singular Wisdom Courage and quick Intelligence so managed affairs there though some thought they were carried on too severely as doubtless the Nation in general was never more seemingly in obedience what ever afterwards was aggravated against that Noble Person whose behaviour was less pleasing to some men interess'd in the detection of their morose and sinister dealings than to the Nation which flourish'd under his Auspicious Government Reverence is that wherewith Princes are girt from God Yet then the contrivance of some Spirits was so restless as Anno 1634. being the 10th of King Charls the First they design'd to have engag'd the Nation in a War which one Ever Mac-Mahon an eminent Popish Priest privately discovered to some of the Privy Council at Dublin at whose feet he prostrated himself for mercy having with others been employ'd abroad to Foreign Princes viz. the Pope the Kings of France Spain and other Princes on that service as in the Relation writ by the Lord Macquire in the Tower is apparent the Design having been of as ancient a Date as the Isle of Rhee's Enterprise 1628. About which time the Earl of Tyrone and Cardinal Richlieu held an intimate correspondence though the King of France's Wars then in Italy frustrated for that time the Insurrection and Invasion Upon the discovery of which Ever Mac-Mahon seeming penitent had his Pardon So that the thing being onely treated of in general the prudence of the Governour giving the People no suspicion that he feared it and yet watched against it blasted their design The same Providence we may also believe this Noble Person had in the antecedent warnings which the Reverend Dean of Kilmore particularly mentions though he in reference to the Intregues of State mov'd not so visibly as to make every one capable of his foresight Prime Ministers are not to level their proceedings to the capacities of all who pretend vigilancy of the State yet thence during his Government all things in the Publick proceeded with a serene countenance so as the Lord Deputy Wentworth came for England and return'd into Ireland several times with his Majesties greatest Approbation and the Peace of the Nation Anno 1634. a Parliament was summon'd in Ireland by his motion 1. For that the Contribution from the Countrey towards the maintenance of the Army ended that December 2. For that the Revenues there fell short of his Majesties Charges 20000 l. yearly 3. That there was a Debt of 80000 l. upon the Crown 4. For that there had been no Subsidies but one since the beginning of King James's Reign and the People were now grown wealthy being continued in their Estates who ever had enjoy'd them twenty years By the Supply of which Parliament the Lord Deputy paid the 80000 l. Debt due from the Crown than which nothing was more to his Majesties Honour and his Servants Integrity in testimony of which his Majesty saith That they cannot but witness who know that Kingdom that during the Government there by Lieutenants of his choice that Kingdom enjoyed more Plenty and Peace than ever it had since it was under the subjection of the Crown of England Traffick by Sea and Trade by Land increas'd Values of Land improv'd Shipping multipli'd beyond belief never was the Protestant Religion more advanc'd nor the Protestants protected in greater security against the Papists Inasmuch as we must remember you the Parliament capitulating with him to nominate a Governour for Ireland that the present Rebellion was begun when there was no Lieutenant there and when the Power which had been formerly us'd in that Kingdom was question'd and disgrac'd when those in the Parliament there by whom that Rebellion was hatch'd
the late exorbitances so bitterly decried in Parliament of Paper Petitions or Bills in Civil Causes to be brought before them at the Council-board or before any other by their Authority reducing by his Majesties approbation the Subsidies from 40000 l. a Subsidy to 12000 l. a Piece Bringing all things to that compliance as best suited with his Majesties Interest and the quiet of the Nation that if it were possible there might not be the least discontent or jealousie rais'd amongst the People and for a season all things seem'd so peaceable as never any Government was less excepted against Yet then in the end of the year 1640. his Majesty being inform'd of an intention to raise Troubles in Ireland commanded Sir Henry Vane his Principal Secretary to write unto these Lords Justices this Letter Right Honourable HIs Majesty hath commanded me to acquaint your Lordships with an advice given him from abroad and confirm'd by his Ministers in Spain and elsewhere which in this distemper'd time and conjuncture of affairs deserves to be seriously consider'd and an especial care and watchfulness to be had therein which is That of late there have passed from Spain and the like may well have been from other Parts an unspeakable number of Irish Church-men for England and Ireland and some good old Soldiers under pretext of asking leave to raise men for the King of Spain whereas it is observ'd among the Irish Friers there a whisper runs as if they expected a Rebellion in Ireland and particularly in Connaght Wherefore his Majesty thought fit to give your Lordships this notice that in your wisdoms you might manage the same with that dexterity and secresie as to discover and prevent so pernicious a Design if any such there should be and to have a watchful eye on the proceedings and actions of those who come thither from abroad on what pretext soever And so herewith I rest Your Lordships most humble Servant Henry Vane White-hall March 16. 1640. Which was delivered to the Lord Justice Parsons and since his death found in his Study and by Sir James Barry Lord Baron of Santry a right Honourable and worthy Person presented to his present Majesty who look'd upon it as a precious Jewel discovering his Father's Royal thoughts towards the preservation of his Protestant Subjects and People But how far it was at first communicated is uncertain though being of so great a Trust it may very well be believed to have been often reflected on with caution and prudence Certain it is that notwithstanding that there was an Item that there should be an especial care against levying of Soldiers for Spain yet Colonel John Barry Colonel Taaff Colonel Garret Barry and Colonel Porter had all Warrants to transport 4000 Men thither which several of the House of Commons in Ireland and England too with much artifice though with divers ends endeavour'd to prevent on plausible terms As that from the experience of what they might learn abroad they afterwards might prove ill Instruments at home whereas it was more necessary that they should be employ'd on Husbandry whereof that Kingdom had great need And many of the active men of the House of Commons in Ireland as Darcy the Lawyer Plunket Chevers Martin and others urg'd their stay with a passion seemingly much concern'd for that amongst many Reasons which I will not undertake at so long a distance positively to remember though I had the honour to be a Member of that House yet I cannot forget that their chief Argument was drawn from the Spaniards having long born an ill will to England and her Empire And therefore they did not know mark the insinuation how soon those very Regiments acquainted with every Creek of the Kingdom might be return'd on their own Bowels having naturally a love to their Religion which such an Incendiary as the King of Spain might soon inflame to the highest prejudice Which I the longer insist on for that the Collection of Murthers committed on the Irish published by R. S. 1662. would insinuate the better to invalidate the Abstract of Murthers committed by the Irish that the Catholick Members of the House of Commons in Ireland never hindred as that Abstract affirms the Transportation of the Earl of Straffords disbanded Soldiers into Spain purposely to advance the Rebellion which is clear they did Inasmuch as upon these and other Arguments their Transportation was deferr'd though if the discontented Irish Army had been disposed of beyond-Sea according to the Contracts with the French and Spanish Ambassadors it was very clear as is judicially affirmed that there could have been no Rebellion in Ireland the Pretence and Means thereof having been thereby taken away though some were of opinion that where-ever these Forces had been they could yet easily have been brought over again as others have been since the principal Heads of the Rebels Army being led by old experienc'd Soldiers who at the breaking out of the Rebellion were generally beyond-Sea as the Leimster Forces by Colonel Preston a branch out of the House of Gormanston the Ulster Forces by Owen Roe O-Neal both bred in Flanders Munster Forces by Garret Barry and the Connaght Forces by one Burck animated with their Cause and the Pope's encouragement And it cannot be denied that the promiscuous compleating of the Army lately rais'd of 8000 Foot and 1000 Horse in Ireland taught many of the Common Soldiers the use of Arms who otherwise would have been ignorant thereof And evil in Perrot's and Fitzwilliam's Government much took notice of and by Camden in his Eliz. Anno 1593. towards the end observ'd in the like case to be most improvidently done as afterwards was found the Irish being always disloyal to the English Upon which I cannot but reflect on what Antalcidas in Plutarch * tells Agesilaus of being sorely hurt by the Thebans That they had paid him his deserved hire for teaching them against their wills to be Soldiers who before had neither will nor skill to fight Certain it is that most of these Soldiers thus rais'd betook themselves to the Rebels Party although very few of their Officers if we may credit a late Historian were polluted with the crime Yet notwithstanding the Letter fore-cited and many troublesome passages in Parliament wherewith the Lords Justices and Council were not seldom alarm'd sufficient to waken their confidence no Cloud not the breadth of a hand appear'd but the Lords Justices kept a fair correspondence with the Parliament giving all the furtherance they could to the going of their Committee into England hoping that what his Majesty should be pleased to grant at their requests might redound to the common benefit of the Nation Neither did the Lords Justices or Council transmit unto his Majesty or any of the State of England any mis-reprehensions of the proceedings and actions of that Parliament as some maliciously insinuated in as much as a Noble Person a Peer in the Lords House said That the Lords Justices had
the State First they agreed That their Loyalty to his Majesty should be still reserv'd say they of the modest sort but both his Revenues and Government must be reduc'd to certain bounds His Rents none other than the antient Reservations before the Plantations and the Customs so order'd as to them should be thought fitting Secondly For the Government such as would be esteem'd Loyal would have it committed into the hands of two Lords Justices one of the antient Irish Race the other of the antient British Inhabitants in the Kingdom provided that they be of the Romish Profession Thirdly That a Parliament be forthwith call'd consisting of whom they shall think fit to be admitted wherein their own Religious Men shall be Assistants Fourthly That Poining's Act must be repeal'd and Ireland declar'd to be a Kingdom independent on England and without any reference to it in any case whatsoever Fifthly All Acts prejudicial to the Romish Religion shall be abolish'd and it to be Enacted That there be none other Profession in the Kingdom but the Romish Sixthly That onely the antient Nobility of the Kingdom shall stand and of them such as shall refuse to conform to the Romish Religion to be remov'd and others put in their room Howsoever the present Earl of Kildare must be put out and another put in his place Seventhly All Plantation Lands to be recall'd and the antient Proprietors to be invested into their former Estates with the Limitations in their Covenant express'd That they had not formerly sold their Interests on valuable Considerations Eighthly That the respective Counties of the Kingdom be subdivided and certain Bounds or Baronies assign'd to the Chief Septs and other of the Nobility who are to be answerable for the Government thereof and that a standing Army may be still in being the respective Governours are to keep a certain number of men to be ready at all Risings out as they term it they also being to build and maintain certain Fortresses in places most convenient within their Precincts And that these Governours be of absolute Power onely responsible to the Parliament Lastly For maintaining a Correspondency with other Nations and for securing the Coasts that also they may be render'd considerable to others a Navy of a certain number of Ships is to be maintain'd that to this end five Houses are to be appointed one in each Province accounting Meath for one of them that to these Houses shall be allotted an Annual Pension of certain thousands of Pounds to be made up of part of the Lands appropriate to Abbeys and a further Contribution to be rais'd in the respective Provinces to that end That these Houses are to be assign'd to a certain order of Knights answerable to that of Malta who are to be Sea-men And to maintain this Fleet that all Prizes are to be apportion'd some part for a Common Bank the rest to be divided to which purpose the selling of Woods serviceable for this use is forbidden The House for this purpose to be assign'd to the Province of Leimster is Kilmainham or rather Howth the Lord of Howth being otherwise to be accommodated provided he joyn with them that place being esteem'd most convenient in respect of situation which they have small grounds to hope for For the effecting of which they consider'd that the Forces of the Kingdom would easily amount to two hundred thousand able men wanting onely Commanders which as I have already took notice of might be supplied from O-Neals Regiment in Flanders and other places breeding up the Irish in Arms and Rebellion And for Money the other Sinew of War they were resolv'd not to want it if it could be rais'd-either from Tenant or the Farmers of the Customs who having it then ready were to bring it to their respective Banks So as nothing was omitted which rationally might further their design Which after the State by Proclamation had made known and many on suspicion were daily seiz'd on Certainties of its success were hourly brought to the State That night the Lord Blany brought the ill news of the Rebels seising upon Castle Blany in the County of Monaghan and his Wife and Children and Servants as also of the surprisal of Carrick Mac-ross a House of the Earl of Essex's and Sir Spotswood's in the same County burning divers Villages robbing and spoiling many English none but Protestants On Sunday Sir Arthur Tirringham gave intelligence that the Irish in Newry had broken up the King's Store of Arms and had seiz'd upon them and the Ammunition there listing themselves under the command of Sir Con Mac-Gennis Knight and one Creely a Monk Thus almost every hour some like Job's Messengers hasted to the State as preserv'd onely to acquaint them of the disasters of their Relations and the sufferings of the Protestants of which with all circumstances to it the Lords Justices and Council gave his Majesty an account by Sir Henry Spotswood being then in Scotland and sent Owen O Conally with Letters dated the 25th of October to the Earl of Leicester Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the effect of which Letter you may see in its proper place In the interim the State being from all parts terrifi'd with the insolencies of the Rebels they scarce knew how to steer their course no Money being in the Treasury and the main part of the Citizens being justly suspected for that being mov'd to advance Money on the occasion will Posterity believe it their whole Community would not reach 50 l. And such as had escaped the violence of the Rebels having nothing but their Persons for a prey could contribute little many of which were so frighted with what they had seen and suffered that like inanimate Bodies they appear'd sensless and stupid However the Lords Justices and Council having secur'd the Castle by a Company of Foot under the command of Sir Francis Willoughby one of the Privy Council a known and experienc'd Soldier and setled Sir Charles Coote also of the Privy Council in the Government of the City wherein as in other Services he proved afterwards signally eminent and noble They advertis'd the Earl of Ormond whom the Rebels boasted they had made of their Party then at his House at Carrick of what had hitherto happen'd desiring him to repair to Dublin with his Troop which he accordingly observ'd about the beginning of November About the 27th of October the Lords Justices and Council sent Commissions to the Lords Viscounts of Clandeboys and of the Ardes to raise the Scots in the Northern Parts they also writ to Sir William and Sir Robert Stewart with other Gentlemen of Quality in the North Giving them power to prosecute the Rebels with Fire and Sword yet so as to rescue such as should submit to his Majesties Grace and Mercy signifying withall That although by the said Commission they gave them full power thereunto yet they did then let them know that for those who were chief among the Rebels and Ring-Leaders of the
many other testimonies of their Conjunctions that which is confirm'd by a very credible Person of Colonel Richard Plunket of Dunsaghly in the County of Dublin within the Pale one destin'd for the taking of the Castle of Dublin who affirm'd openly That he had a Contract under the hands of all the Lords of Ireland that were Catholicks to stand firm in this Insurrection most of their actions confirming his words And Relie's Wife told James Talbot a Person of eminent note amongst them That if those of the Pale would have let them alone and not set them on work they were so well at ease as they would never have begun that troublesome task Upon which it is evident though Some would insinuate the contrary that both the old Irish and old English what ends they would severally pretend to have centred in the destruction of the Protestants and that the old English Papists were a little backwarder than the Irish was in that they had something more to loose than the other and so would put them first upon the work wherein themselves were equally engag'd Which the Lords Justices and Councel perceiving writ the 3d. of Decemb to the Earl of Fingal the Lord Viscount Gormanston and the rest of the Lords of the Pale To come to Dublin and consult for the safety of the Kingdom Luke Nettervile and others having caus'd Proclamation to be made at Lusk twelve miles from Dublin that all the Gentry of the County should upon pain of death meet within three or four days at Swoards within six miles of Dublin which accordingly they did constituting Captains Richard Golding Thomas Russel Francis Russel Robert Travers Christopher Hollywood and other Commanders their Militia amounting on that short warning to 1200. which would have been impossible to have rais'd had they not before been Armed and instigated to that Cause Upon which these Lords of the Pale Conspirators with the first return'd to the Lords Justices the 7th of Decemb. this Answer receiv'd the 11th May it please your Lordships WE have received your Letters of the 3d. instant intimating that you had present occasions to confer with us concerning the present state of the Kingdom and the safety thereof in these times of danger and requiring us to be with you there on the 8th of this instant We give your Lordships to understand that we have heretofore presented our selves before your Lordships and freely offered our advice and furtherance towards the particulars aforesaid which was by you neglected which gave us cause to conceive that our Loyalty was suspected by you We give your Lordships further to understand that we have receiv'd certain advertisement that Sir Charles Coote Knight at the Council-board hath offered some speeches tending to a purpose and resolution to execute upon those of our Religion a general Massacre by which we are all deterr'd to wait on your Lordships not having any security for our safety from those threatned evils or the safety of our lives but do rather think it fit to stand upon our best guard until we hear from your Lordships how we shall be secur'd from those perils Nevertheless we all protest that we are and will continue faithful advisers and resolute furtherers of his Majesties Service concerning the present state of this Kingdom and the safety thereof to our best abilities And so with the said tender of our humble service we remain Your Lordships humble Servants Fingall Gormanston Slane Dunsany Nettervile Oliver Lowth Trimblestone And Luke Nettervile Esq George Blackney of Rickenhore Esq George King of Clantarfe Gent. and others met at Swoards being charged on their Allegiance the 9th of Decemb. immediately on sight of the Lords Justices Warrant to separate and not to unite any more in that manner without direction from the State They instead of obedience to the States command return'd this answer That they were constrain'd to meet there together for the safety of their lives That they were put into so great a terror by the rising out of some Horse-Troops and Foot-Companies at Dublin who kill'd four Catholicks for no other reason than that they bore the name of that Religion as they durst not as they pretended stay in their houses and therefore resolved to continue together till they were assured by their Lordships of the safety of their Lives before they ran the hazard thereof by manifesting their obedience due unto their Lordships Upon which the Lords Justices and Council publish'd a Proclamation the 13th of Decemb. to satisfie the world of the innocency of the State from the guilt of any mans blood and concerning the four they alledg'd were kill'd as Papists they were such as were found faulty in rebellious actions of which one was a Protestant Commanding them furthermore on the allegiance to his Majesty to separate upon the sight of their Warrant and that Luke Nettervile and his Accomplices should appear before the State on the eighteenth of the said month to the end they may be fully heard by the State To which end the Lords Justices and Council thereby gave them and every of them the word of the State that they might then securely and safely repair thither without danger of any trouble or stay whatsoever And that the Lords of the Pale might not be less satisfi'd in what they objected the same day also the Lords Justices and Council publish'd a Proclmation and sent it to those Noblemen positively affirming That the Lords Justices and Council did never hear Sir Charles Coote or any other utter at the Council-board or else-where any speeches tending to a purpose or resolution to execute on those of their Profession or any other a general Massacre nor was it ever in their thoughts to dishonour his Majesty or the State by so odious impious and detestable a thing giving them assurance of their safety if they would repair thither the 17th of that Month. Yet notwithstanding these Condescensions or whatsoever else the State could do whereby the doubts of those men might be remov'd and their security ascertain'd still the Torrent of the Pale ran to make up the intended Deluge despising whatsoever security or faith the State was pleased to promise them Whereupon the Lords Justices and Council were enforc'd to send this Warrant to the Earl of Ormond and Ossory to send out a Party of Soldiers Horse and Foot against those that dar'd so impudently to affront them By the Lords Justices and Council William Parsons John Borlase FOrasmuch as divers of the Inhabitants of Clantarfe Rhaheny and Kilbarrock have declared themselves Rebels and having robb'd and spoil'd some of his Majesties good Subjects are now assembled thereabouts in Arms in great numbers mustering and training of their rebellious Multitudes to the terrour and danger of his Majesties good Subjects as well at Land as at Sea which their boldness is acted in such manner as to put scorn and affronts upon this State and Government they acting such depredations even before
were in assuring them that without further Supplies of all kinds the Soldiers being so unruly as the Lieutenant General the 23d of May 1642. was forc'd to publish a sharp Proclamation against their exorbitancies it was not possible for them to carry on the War or to hinder the Incursions of the Rebels even into those parts which they had recovered out of their hands thought fit to take another course for the present And that the Forces they had in Ireland might be ready for action and in the mean time not wholely unserviceable they allotted after no little opposition to the contrary to several Captains and other Officers of the Army such convenient Houses and Villages as they had taken from the Rebels giving them leave to carry their several Troops and Companies under their Command to Quarter in them by which means they freed themselves from the present Charge of providing Victuals for them forcing them to live upon the spoils of their Enemies which they quickly found the way to do and made themselves Masters of all the Cattel and other Substance of those that lived within reasonable distance of them By which means all the considerable Places belonging to the Rebels within twenty miles of Dublin came to be in the hands of the Soldiers as having them granted by way of Custodium for the present unto them an Expedient acceptable to the Officers and extremely prejudicial to the Rebels The 10th of June the Lords Justices and Council finding themselves much prejudic'd by their Protections they had given to many who under pretext of labouring at the Plow had their Weapons hidden near them to cut off stragling Soldiers and Protestants as they passed by them single The State to prevent such inconveniencies withdrew their former Protections by a Proclamation of that Date A circumstance much insisted on by the Rebels but the Reasons of the State will best appear by their Proclamation no Protection being ever violated by the State with their privity or revoked but on time given And now that the State of Ireland might have the less charge upon them they thought it convenient to send the Lord Mac-Guire and Mac-Mahon into England whose Fates I shall here give you a particular account of though they suffered not till some years after Mac-Guire was one principally design'd for the surprizal of the Castle of Dublin and the securing or murthering of the Lords Justices and Council for which intent he came purposely the day before to Dublin but the Plot being that night detected he fled disguised from his usual Lodgings at one Nevils a Chirurgeon in Castle-street and secretly hid himself at one Kerns a Tailor in Cook-street where he was found in a Cock-loft by Mr. John Woodcock one of the Sheriffs of Dublin standing with his Cloak wrapped about him in an obscure place in which posture he was apprehended and brought before the Lords Justices and Council to whom he confessed sufficient to be committed to the Castle the 23d of October about the time he intended to have perpetrated his Villany in that Place from whence the 12th of June 1642. after several Examinations had of his Guiltiness he with Hugh Oge Mac-Mahon was sent into England where they both continued Prisoners some years in the Tower of London whence they made an escape the 18th of August 1644. and were retaken the 20th of October following Strange that in such a time they could not secure their Escape but vengeance would not suffer them to live Mac-Mahon in Michaelmass-Term the 18th of November that year was tried at the Kings-Bench-Bar in Westminster-Hall and shortly after executed at Tyburn Whilst the Lord Mac-Guire made such a defence for himself as his final Trial was not till the 10th and 11th of February 1644. in Hilary-Term at which time he was brought to the Kings-Bench where after his Indictment read for conspiring to disinherit the Kings Majesty to raise Sedition and breed a miserable slaughter amongst the Kings Subjects he first mov'd to have his Peers being Baron of Inskillin in Ireland and forceably brought to Westminster for that none ought to be condemn'd but by such in pursuance of which he pleaded the Statute the 10th of H. 7. whereby all the Statutes made in England should from thence-forth be in force in Ireland Upon which the King's Council Serjeant Roll and Whitfield beside Pryn and Nudigate demurr'd and the Defendant joyn'd in the Demurrer At length Judge Bacon declar'd that an Irish Baron was triable by a Jury in England so the Lord Grey was tried for Acts done in Ireland upon which an Order pass'd the 10th of February by the Lords and Commons for his Trial at which he desir'd respite for the summoning of his Witnesses which in consideration that his Lordship had had long time to expect his Trial and that no Witnesses could say any thing against what the Witnesses on the Kings side could prove was deni'd Afterwards he made a general Challenge against 23 that were Empannel'd for the first Jury which peremptory Challenge was accepted the Law allowing it And the Prisoner for that time was discharg'd with a Command to be brought again the next day which was done accordingly Then he mov'd that his Plea of Peerage might be referr'd to another Court or to the Lords but that was deni'd for that he had put himself on the Countrey besides the Lords and Commons had order'd his Trial. Then another Jury was nam'd which his Lordship accepted against for that he conceiv'd it not fit that those who had bought his Land should pass upon his Trial. To clear which after some heats in arguing betwixt the Kings Council and the Defendant the Judge consented that the Jury should be required upon Oath to answer whether any of them had any Adventure or share of the Rebels Lands in Ireland Which being answer'd in the Negative the Court proceeded and he being in several Circumstances besides his Confession found Guilty the Judge demanded why Sentence should not pass against him his Lordship amongst other things too tedious and of little concern to mention desir'd to know by what Seal the Judge proceeded against him Who answer'd By the Old and Order of Parliament To which the Lord Mac-Guire repli'd That under favour he conceiv'd that the Ordinance of Parliament for a new Great Seal made the old invalid To which the Judge repli'd That he acted by the old Seal being made a Judge at that time Besides there is nothing saith he done in this Court by the new Seal the Sheriffs are hereby a Charter that comes in from year to year and there is no other Seal in order of Execution After which the Judge proceeded to Sentence which he heard patiently having doubtless long the Sentence of death in himself and accordingly he was Drawn Hang'd and Quarter'd at Tyburn the 20th of February 1644. But to return to the State who in the manner before mention'd continu'd the Army
until about 20 of the Rebel's Horse escaped away together leaving the rest of their Company to be killed and taken Prisoners as they were during which time the Foot and Cannon performing well their parts drove the Enemy to shift away to save themselves which Captain Hermon seeing pursued their Rear with some Horse with which he did notable good execution and to say the truth it is probable that most of the Rebels had that day been cut off had not the un-passable deep High-way betwixt both Armies hindred our left Wing of Horse from giving on upon their side and also the disorder that hapned to the right Wing of the Horse by their unhappy wheeling to the left hand But so soon as the Officers of those Troops could reduce their Men again into order my Lord Lisle and Sir Richard Greenvile presently pursued the Enemy with 2 Troops and sent Sir William Vaughan with 2 Troops more to pursue others flying away to the right hand And having followed the chase of them about 2 or 3 miles distant from the Army the Rebels having made their escape over Bogs and un-passable Grounds for Horse our Horse were fain to leave them and return to the rest of the Army where the Cannon stood In which service were 300 of the Rebels slain amongst which were a great number of their best Gentry and Commanders There were of the Rebels taken Prisoners Colonel Cullen their Lieutenant General Major Butler besides divers other Captains and some of their Ensigns of the English Forces were slain not full 20 Men in which service Sir Thomas Lucas unhappily received a very sore wound in his head That night the English Army lodged at Ballybeggan After which time the Army march'd without molestation of any Enemy until they return'd to Dublin whether the Rear of the Army came safe on Munday the 27th of the same month 1643. Where they were again Quarter'd even to the undoing and great desolation of that poor City which had now suffered so much and so long under the burden and insolencies of unpaid wanting Soldiers as they were unable to bear it longer and with loud cries and complaints made known their Grievances to the Lords Justices and Council wholely unable to relieve them And indeed such was the posture of the present affairs at that time as every thing tended to bring on a Cessation yet for the present the Lieutenant General that the Soldiers might be quieted publish'd a strict Edict Prohibiting all Soldiers to offer the least violence to any who brought Provision to the Market or any Inhabitants of the Town under the severest Penalties of the Marshals Court which for a time begat an obedience But the Army being ill Cloath'd meanly Victuall'd worse Paid and seldom employ'd in service necessity enforc'd them to those outrages Humanity could not take notice of many of them being the effects of a very pinching want though the Lords Justices and Council to the great dislike of the Army pursued some of the Offenders with exemplary Justice A sense of which with the Meagre return which Serjeant Major Warren brought out of England on his sollicitation for the Soldiers Pay and the dissatisfaction that thence arose some of the Officers not all there was a Party that presum'd they might have gone through with the work had there not been another in the Loom afterwards presented the State the 4th of April 1643. with a Paper in such a stile threatning so much danger as the Lords Justices and Council remitted the Copy of it to the Parliament of England which here follows My Lords AT our first entrance into this unhappy Kingdom we had no other design than by our Swords to assert and vindicate the Right of his Majesty which was here most highly abused to redress the wrongs of his poor Subjects and to advance our own Particulars in the prosecution of so honest undertakings And for the rest of these we do believe they have since our coming over succeeded pretty well but for the last which concerns our selves that hath fall'n out so contrary to our expectations that instead of being rewarded we have been prejudic'd instead of getting a Fortune we have spent part of one And though we behave our selves never so well abroad and perform the actions of honest men yet we have the Reward of Rogues and Rebels which is Misery and Want when we come home Now my Lords although we be brought to so great an Exigence that we are ready to rob and spoil one another yet to prevent such outrages we thought it better to try all honest means for our subsistence before we take such indirect courses Therefore if your Lordships will be pleased to take us timely into your considerations before our urgent wants make us desperate we will as we have done hitherto serve your Lordships readily and faithfully But if your Lordships will not find a way for our preservations here we humbly desire we may have leave to go where we may have a better being And if your Lordships shall refuse to grant that we must then take leave to have our recourse to that first and primary Law which God hath endued all men with we mean the Law of Nature which teacheth all men to preserve themselves Hence with what countenance some gave it it was thought the Rebels as to the bringing in of the Cessation and their further Aims prevail'd more than in all their Battels Treacheries and Surprizals About Easter the Rebels under Preston besieg'd Baranokil at which time even the 11th of April Colonel Crafford march'd forth of Dublin with 13000 Foot and 130 Horse a Culvering and a Saker Drake towards Monastar-Even that with his Party he might there live and if he should be advised by the Garrisons thereab outs he had Orders to set upon Preston who had with him 4000 Foot 500 Horse three Pieces of Battery and four Field-Pieces But here we must acquaint you that about November 1642. the Lords Justices sent his Majesty then at Oxford a short Petition in the name of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland which they had received from them desiring that his Majesty would appoint some persons to hear what they could say for themselves with many expressions of Duty and Submission Shortly after which Sir James Mountgomery Sir Hardress Waller Knights and Colonels Colonel Arthur Hill and Colonel Audley Mervin a Committee for Ireland in behalf of themselves and other Commanders in his Majesties Army there attended his Majesty at Oxford setting forth by their Petition as follows May it please your Sacred Majesty WE your Majesties most humble Subjects being entrusted from considerable parts of your Majesties Forces in the Kingdom of Ireland to petition your Majesty and your Parliament for Supplies and finding that your Majesty had committed the care and managing of that War to your Parliament here we address'd our selves unto the same whose sense of our miseries and inclination to redress appear'd
be looked on as a Dream more than a Truth considering the shortness of the Expedition though none could more prudently have acted whilst he was upon the Place nor was there any whom the Soldiers would more readily obey such was his Courage so great his Integrity The Lord Broghil and Sir Arthur Loftus at the same time preferr'd Articles against the Lord Inchequin But the Parliament was so imbroil'd about the Disbanding the Independent Army then mutinous and Inchequin had so many to favour themselves countenanc'd him as little if any thing became of the Impeachment But to return to the Confederates who when they saw the Ships return'd from England with Supplies of Soldiers Money and great store of Provisions and the Commissioners to treat with the Marquis for putting all into the Parliaments hands rais'd the Siege seeming less united amongst themselves and desirous to make Conditions with the Lord Lieutenant whilst General Preston and his Officers frankly entred into a Treaty with the Marquis of Clanrickard whom the Lord Lieutenant authoriz'd to that end and with deep and solemn Oaths undertook and promised to stand to the Peace and from thenceforth to be obedient to his Majesties Authority and to joyn with the Marquis of Ormond against all those who should refuse to submit unto them On the other side the Commissioners from the two Houses of Parliament who were admitted into Dublin to treat with the Lord Lieutenant observing the very ill condition the Town was in besieged by two strong Armies by whom they within expected every hour to be assaulted concluded that the want of Food and all necessaries for defence would compel the Marquis with the importunity and clamour of the Inhabitants and Soldiers to receive Supplies of Men Money and Victuals which they had brought upon any terms and therefore stifly insisted on their Propositions refusing to consent that the Marquis should send any Messenger to the King that upon information how the case stood he might receive his Majesties direction what to do And how the Parliament in Ireland then in being might be continued which by the delivering of the Sword without his Majesties pleasure imparted could not be secured from being dissolved and without which he then resolved not to proceed to any conjunction with them and so had privately dispatched several Expresses to the King as soon as he discerned clearly that the Irish were so terrifi'd by the Nuncio and his Excommunication that there was little hope of good from them with full information of the state of Affairs and expected every day a return of some of the said Messengers with signification of his Majesties Pleasure Thus the Treaty with the Marquis not succeeding the Commissioners from the Two Houses of Parliament return'd again to their Ships about the end of November and carried all the Supplies they had brought to the Parliaments Garrisons in the Province of Ulster being much incens'd against the Lord Lieutenant for declining an entire union with them and inclining as they said he did to a new confidence in the Irish Yet they found but cold entertainment amongst the Scots At which time Dr. John Maxwel formerly Bishop of Ross in Scotland now Archbishop of Tuam in Ireland hearing of Commissioners from the Parliament of England grew so envenom'd thereat suspecting the Covenant which he had ever abhorr'd should be imposed as sicercely imprecating it and being broken with the calamities of the Times he di'd the 14th of Febr. 1646. and was buried in Trinity Church Dublin at the munificence of the Marquis of Ormond By this time the Marquis of Clanrickard had an entire trust answerable to what he had begun to treat of with General Preston from the Lord Lieutenant as a Person superiour to all temptations which might endeavour to lessen or divert his Affection and Integrity to the King or his Zeal to the Romish Catholick Religion in which he had been bred and to which he had most constantly adher'd he had taken great pains to render the Peace which had been so long in consultation effectual to the Nation and had both by Discourse and Writing endeavour'd to disswade the Nuncio from prosecuting those rough ways which he foresaw were like to undo the Nation and dishonour the Catholick Religion He found General Preston and the Officers of his Army less transported with passion and a blind submission to the Authority of the Nuncio than the other and that they professed greater duty and obedience to the King and that they seem'd to be wrought on by two Conclusions which had been speciously infus'd into them The first was that the Lord Lieutenant was so great an Enemy to their Religion that though they should obtain any Conditions from the King to their advantage in that particular he would oppose and not consent unto the same The other that the King was now in the hand of the Scots who were not like to approve that Peace had been made all that Nation in Ulster refusing to submit to it And if they should be able to procure any Order from his Majesty to disavow it the Lord Lieutenant would undoubtedly obey it These specious infusions the Marquis of Clanrickard endeavour'd to remove and undertook upon his Honour to use all the Power and Interest which he had in the King Queen and Prince on behalf of the Romish Catholicks and to procure them such Priviledges and Liberty for the free exercise of their Religion as they could reasonably expect And undertook that the Lord Lieutenant would acquiesce with such directions as he should receive therein without contradiction or endeavour to do ill Offices to the Catholicks He further promised that if any Order should be procured from the King during the restraint he was then in to the disadvantage of the Catholicks then He would suspend any obedience thereunto until such time as his Majesty should be at liberty and might receive full information on their behalf And upon the Marquis of Clanrickard's positive undertaking these particulars and the Lord Lieutenant having ratifi'd and confirm'd all that the Marquis had engag'd himself for General Preston with all the Principal Officers under his Command signed this ensuing Engagement WE the Generals Nobility and Officers of the Confederate Catholick Forces do solemnly bind and engage our selves by the Honour and Reputation of Gentlemen and Soldiers and by the Sacred Protestation upon the Faith of Catholicks in the presence of Almighty God both for our selves and as much as in us lies for all Persons that are or shall be under our Command that we will from the Date hereof forward submit and conform our selves entirely and sincerely to the Peace concluded and proclaimed by his Majesties Lieutenant with such additional Concessions and Securities as the Right Honourable Ulick Lord Marquis of Clanrickard hath undertaken to procure and secure to us in such manner and upon such terms as is expressed in his Lordships Undertakings and Protestation of
solicite for considerable Aids in Moneys to be sent timely the preservation of the Catholick Religion in this Kingdom depending thereon If you find upon the place that a settlement of Peace cannot be had according to the several Instructions that go with the Commissioners to his Holiness and Christian Majesty and Prince of Wales nor such considerable Aids that may probably prove for the Preservation of the Nation then you are to inform your self by correspondence with our Commissioners imployed to Rome whether his Holiness will accept of this offer of being Protector to this Nation and if you find he will not accept thereof nor otherwise send such powerful and timely Aids as may serve to preservation then you are by advice of other the Commissioners imployed to his Majesty and Prince of Wales and by correspondence had with the Commissioners imployed to Rome and by correspondence likewise with our Commissioners imployed since if it may be timely had to inform your self where the most considerable Aids for preserving this Nation may be had by this offer of the Protectorship of the Nation in manner as by other Instructions into France grounded on the same of the Assembly is contain'd and so to manage the disposal of the Protectorship as you and the rest of our said Commissioners shall find most for the advantage of the Nation The like Instructions for Spain bearing the same Date Upon these and other considerations ever in his view the Marquess thought it much more prudent and agreeable to the Trust reposed in him to deposite the Kings Interest and Right of the Crown of Ireland into the hands of the Lords and Commons of England who still made great profession of Duty and Submission to his Majesty from whom it would probably return to the Crown in a short time then to trust it with the Irish from whom less then a very chargeable War would never recover it in what state soever the Affairs of England should be and how lasting and bloody and costly that War might prove by the intermedling and pretences of Foraign Princes was not hard to conclude In that such Auxiliaries many times prove dangerous Assistance not being over-tender or much distinguishing betwixt the Party they come to assist and that they come to subdue when they are made Umpires in such Quarrels as may be guessed by the Accompt in the 14th Appendix of which the Lords and Commons of the Parliament of Ireland being very sensible they thus in March expressed themselves and their condition to the Parliament of England The Declaration of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled in Ireland of the present Estate and distressed Condition of the Protestants in the said Kingdom and their Address unto the most Honourable the Parliament of England for Relief WE the Lords and Commons of the Parliament of Ireland having by the Mercy of God your Care of us and the Industry of those intrusted by his Majesty with the Government here preserved unto us the means of sitting together and of delivering freely our thoughts concerning the condition of this miserable Kingdom whereof we are the representative Body and finding withall the Government our Selves and indeed the Protestants in the Kingdom reduced to that final point of Extremity that if not very speedily supported and preserved all in these Parts must become a Prey unto the bloody and inhumane Rebels and this City of Dublin the chief Seat and Cittadel of this Kingdom with the other Garrisons depending thereupon be turn'd into the prime Seats and Strengths of those who have given evident proof that they aim not at less then the extirpation of all Protestants and the setting up the abominable Idol of the Mass and Superstition and at the shaking off of all Loyalty and Subjection to the Crown of England We therefore hold it our duty as being also perhaps the last which we by reason of the near approach of a powerful and pernicious Enemy may have the means to discharge in this Capacity to make the present Address and Representation of our miserable Condition to the most Honourable the Parliament of England which as it hath in all times of common Danger been the Fountain from whence the Power and Lustre of the Crown of England in this Kingdom hath sprung so it is now the onely Sanctuary unto which in behalf of our selves and the distressed Interest thereof we can fly for Succour and Preservation We hold it un-necessary to particularize our present Wants and Miseries and Imposibilities of further subsistance of our selves since they are too well known even to our Enemies in so much as it may be feared that the benefit which we confidently expect by the great diligence and Wisdom of the most Honourable the Parliament of England may not arrive timely for our Relief and Preservation nor can we so misdoubt the Wisdom Justice and Piety of those Honourable Houses whereof we have had heretofore very real and great experience which we do here with all thankfulness acknowledge as to fear that they will suffer the Protestant Religion the Interest of the Crown of England and of the Protestants in these important Garrisons and Quarters to be sacrificed unto the fury of the merciless Rebels But on the contrary as we do earnestly desire so are we most confident that the Goodness and Wisdom of the most Honourable the Parliament of England will so seasonably send over a sufficient Power as well to subdue and suppress these merciless and bloody Rebels as to maintain these places accompanied with an assurance from the most Honourable the Parliament of England for enjoying those Conditions of Honour subsistance and safety which have been lately offered by their Commissioners for and in the name of the most Honourable the Parliament of England to those who have hitherto govern'd and preservd them and to his Majesties Protestant Subjects and those who have faithfully and constantly adhered unto them unto which they may be pleased to joyn such further additions of Grace and Bounty as to their Wisdoms and Goodness shall be thought fit as that they and all the Protestants and such others as have faithfully and constantly adhered unto them may find Security and Preservation therein whereby we may heartily joyn under those whom the said most Honourable the Parliament of England shall appoint in prosecuting so Pious a War and being Gods Instruments for the bringing just Vengeance upon such Perfidious Rebels and in restoring the Protestant Religion and Interest of the Crown of England in this Kingdom to its due and former Lustre which we will ever strive with the hazard of our Lives and Fortunes to maintain While the Marquess was in this deliberation being privy to the Parliaments actions he receiv'd information that the King was delivered by the Scots to the Commissioners of the two Houses of Parliament who were then treating with him for the settling of Peace in all his Dominions and at the same time several Persons of
thereof engaging the Kings Customs and the tenths of Prizes for payment and by this means which cost him much labour and time he found himself in a condition to draw several Forces together which he did about the beginning of May having made the Lord Inchequin Lieutenant-General of the Army the Earl of Castlehaven Lieutenant-General of the Horse and the Lord Taaff Master of the Ordnance at the General Randezvouz at Cashol whilst the Scots reduc'd Ulster and Connaght and it being thought fit to lose as little time as might be in marching towards Dublin as soon as any considerable number of men were once together he sent the Earl of Castlehaven with some Forces to take in several Garrisons which were possessed by Owen O Neal in the Queen's County which was the way he intended to march and so would have no Enemy in his Rear And the Earl of Castlehaven accordingly took the Fort of Maryborrough and other Places in that County and Athy and Reban in the County of Kildare whereby their passage was open for the further March Having thus began the Campania the Lord Lieutenant appointed a General Randezvouz for the whole Army at Cloghgrenan alias Glaughgrenan an house of his upon the River Barrow near the Castle of Caterlaugh where he made a Conjunction of all the Forces Protestant and Irish Who by the Wisdom and Temper of the Principal Officers mingled well enough and together about the end of May made a Body as it's generally reported of 3700 Horse and 14500 Foot with a Train of Artillery consisting of four Pieces of Cannon But when they were thus met all the Money which could be rais'd by the Commissioners or which had been rais'd by the Corporate Towns was so near spent in drawing the Forces out of their Quarters and in those short Expeditions into the Queen's County and County of Kildare that they could not have advanced in their March if the Lord Lieutenant had not upon his own Private Credit borrowed 800 l. of Sir James Preston by means whereof he gave the Common Souldiers four days Pay and so about the beginning of June marched from Cloghgrenan and the same Evening appear'd before Talbots Town a strong Garrison of the Enemies which together with Castle Talbot two miles distant from the other was within 3 days surrendred to the Marquess upon promise of Quarter which they had and then he march'd to Kildare which Town was likewise surrendred unto him as were Castle Sallogh and Castle Carby at Kildare He was compelled to stay 3 or 4 days both for want of Provision and for a Recruit of 2000 Foot which by the Lord Inchequin's Care and Diligence was then upon their March and being join'd he was in hope by a suddain and speedy Motion to have engaged Jones who at that time viz. 12. of June was march'd from Dublin as far as Johnstown with his Army consisting of 1000 Horse and 3000 Foot and so having encouraged his Souldiers with 3 days Pay which he was likewise compelled to borrow on his Credit out of the Pockets of Persons of Quality attending on him and of the Officers of the Army he passed the River of Lifly and Jones having upon intelligence of his Motion in great disorder rais'd his Camp and retir'd into Dublin after that Major Cadogan by his Command had done notable and severe Service about Tecroghan burning the Countrey not in 5 years before Visited and had beaten a part of the Marquess's Forces though he got not so much by his Victory though considerable as Jones afterwards lost by Treachery the Garrison of Allan being delivered up for 200 l. The Marquess encamped his whole Army at the Naas twelve miles from Dublin that he might maturely deliberate what was next to be undertaken being now the middle of June That which appeared worthy of debate was whether the Army should first make an Attempt upon Dublin in which it was believ'd there were very many both Officers and Souldiers and other Persons of Quality well affected to the Kings service and who had formerly served under the Marquess and esteem'd him accordingly who might make that work more easy Or whether the Army should be first imployed in the taking in of Trim Tredagh and other out-Garrisons from whence the City receiv'd much Provisions of all kinds and from whence Provisions to the Army would be cut off and much other prejudice might arise But upon full consideration the Council of War which consisted of the General Officers inclined to the former concluding that if they could take Dublin all other places would quickly fall into their hands and if they should delay it and waste their Provisions in those lesser Attempts there might probably arrive out of England such supplies of Men Money and other necessaries to Jones which were daily expected as might render that important work almost impossible Hereupon the Lord Lieutenant marched the very next morning toward Dublin and that afternoon re-passed the whole over the River of Liffy by the Bridge of Lucan and encamped near that place to rest his men a few hours He marched very early in the morning being the 19th of June and appear'd by nine of the Clock at a place called Castleknock in view of the City and hearing that Jones had drawn out all his Horse into the Green not far from the Walls he sent a Party of Horse and Musketiers to face them while he drew his whole Body within less then Cannon-shot of their Gates hoping thereby to give some countenance to those in the Town to raise some Commotion therein and having spent some part of the day in this posture and expectation after some slight skirmishes between the Horse writes one others say considerable where the Earl of Clanrickards Regiment of Horse was sorely beaten though they ralli'd twice He found it necessary to draw off and encamped that night at a place two miles from the Town called Finglas whither great multitudes of Roman Catholicks whereof most were aged Men Women and Children whom Jones had turned out of the City repair'd to him whom he sent with all due Order for their Reception into Quarters adjacent The Marquess was no sooner in his Quarters then he receiv'd sure intelligence that Jones had sent his Horse to Tredagh from whence they would have been able to have distressed his Army several ways and to have interrupted Provision which came out of the Countrey out of the Magazines which were at least 30 miles distant And several Officers were of opinion upon the view they had taken that day of the Enemy and the countenance they had observed of their own men that they were not presently provided for a formal Siege and as ill to attack the Town by a brisk attempt and therefore he resolv'd to remain encamp'd at that place for some time whereby he might take the advantage of any opportunity that within the Town would administer unto him and presently sent the Lord Inchequin
and to the Peace of this Kingdom to be put into the actual possession of his Estate he paying and contributing to the maintenance of the Army and necessary burdens of the Countrey proportionable to the rest of his Neigbours 2. That you cause the Articles of War to be put in execution amongst all the Forces under your Command whereof we send you down herewithall a Copy 3. Whereas it is well known to belong to us as General of the Army in this Kingdom under his Majesty to dispose of all Military Offices and Commands whether in Chief or Subordinate which Right we cannot in Honour suffer to be lost from the Sword and whereas some Commissions lately have been Procured giving Power to other Commanders to name and place all sorts of Military Officers under the respective Commands in which Commissions nevertheless and much more in the Instructions there is an express reference to us and to our Approbation from which they are to receive their validity We do therefore Order and Declare our Pleasure thereby That no Commander whatsoever within the Province of Ulster do assume to themselves the nomination of Military Officers as Colonels Lieutenant-Colonels Majors Captains Lieutenants Cornets or Ensigns upon pretence of any late Commission but leave them to our discretion as in this Kingdom hath ever been accustomed 4. If any Person shall speak or act to the prejudice of his Majesties Authority or Affairs let him upon proof be forthwith Imprisoned and his Estate secured and an Information sent up to us of the nature of his Crime that we may give further Order therein And if any Ecclesiastical Person in his Prayer or Sermon shall presume to exercise the People to Sedition or Disobedience or shall intermeddle in Pulpit or Consistory with the managery of Civil Affairs or shall derogate from the present Government or Governours of this Kingdom or shall teach that his Majesty is not to be admitted to the possession of his Crown until he hath given satisfaction to his Subjects or until he have taken such Oaths and Covenants as are impos'd upon him without his Consent without Law contrary to the Dictates of his own Conscience upon proof thereof without further Circumstance let his Estate be confiscated to the use of the Army and himself be either imprisoned or banished or tryed for his Life as the Enemy shall deserve 5. If there be any Person whose Loyalty is suspected let the Chief in Command upon the Place administer unto him the Oath of Allegiance and if he refuse it let them secure both his Person and Estate and send up an information to us that we may cause proofs to be made against him 6. Although we cannot now take notice of the Scotch Army in this Kingdom or of any distinct from that which is committed into our hands by his Majesty we expecting a joynt obedience of all Forces English Scotch and Irish indifferently as branches of the Army under our Command yet in respect your old Quarters are straightn'd by the Garrison of Belfast by our very good Lord the Lord Vicount Montgomery of the Ards we are well pleased in lieu thereof to assign unto you for the enlargement of your Quarters so much of the Countreys of Antrim as was possessed or enjoyed by Sir John Clotworthie's Regiment now disbanded of themselves and because we cannot but judge that this dissolution of them proceeds from the aversness to his Majesties Service and therefore we require that none of them be admitted into any Troops as Horsemen or Dragooners 7. For Answer to your other Proposition if any Postage shall be sent down from them or from the other Provinces of the Kingdom into Ulster for his Majesties Service upon any occasion it is our Pleasure they have their Quarter and Provision for the present in these Quarters through which they pass but the whole Province of Ulster is to contribute proportionably towards the Charge 8. Let the Siege of Derry be prosecuted by the common advice of the Lord Vicount Mountgomery of Ardes Robert Stewart Sir George Monro and Colonel Audley Meryin 9. We desire the said four Persons last mention'd likewise to consider and certifie what fit Augmentation of Quarter and further Provision may be assign'd to the Regiment and Troops of Esteline without prejudice or with the least prejudice to any other of his Majesties Forces ORMOND Upon the Lord Inchiquin's success at Dundalk the lesser Garrisons of Newry Narrow-water Green-Castle and Carlingford were easily subjected and the Lord Inchiquin in his return being appointed to visit the Town of Trim the onely Garrison left to the Parliamentarians in those parts except Dublin in two days after he had besieged it he made himself Master of it and so return'd with his Party not impair'd by the Service to the Lord Lieutenant in his Camp at Finglass Owen O Neil still continued his affection to the Parliamentarians and when he found that his design of drawing the Marquis of Ormond's Army from Dublin could not prevail he hastned into Ulster and upon the payment of 2000 l. in money some Ammunition and about 2000 Cows he rais'd the Siege of London-derry the 8th of August the onely considerable Place in that Province which held for the Parliament under Sir Charles Coot and which was even then reduc'd to the last extremity by the Lord Viscount Mountgomery of Ardes Sir George Monro Sir Robert Stewart Colonel Audley Mervin and others and must in few days have submitted to the Kings Authority if it had not in that manner been relieved by the Irish under O Neil with whom Colonel Richard Coal in the behalf of Sir Charles Coot Lord President of Connaght had made Articles of Cessation as Colonel Monk had done before on the grounds of necessity the 22. of May 1649. the benefit of which he acquainted the State with desiring that the Propositions presented by him might be accepted which was thought by them a demand so extravagant and of such dangerous consequence to the whole Kingdom as it was ill resented Owen Roe and his Party having been first engaged in those horrid Massacres and presently rejected And though Sir Charles Coot was not censur'd because it was presum'd he did it out of necessity yet several Votes passed against him as to that Cessation though he was continued in his Imployment and having received the pleasure of the Parliament concerning the Cessation made by him with Owen Roe presently acquainted him therewith who according to Articles betwixt them did soon retire and as we shall see afterwards came to an agreement with the Marquis of Ormond finding he could not by any means he could use draw himself or his Party to be accepted of by the Parliament an attempt he earnestly solicited engaging to maintain their Interest with the hazard of his Life and Fortune against all opposers whatsoever with whom joyn'd the Lords Gentry and Commons of the Confederate Catholicks of Ulster though many were of
of Alderman Piers Creagh and John Bourk and heard what John Bourk and the other had to say as from that Corporation In Answer whereunto we imparted some Particulars unto them wherein we expected satisfaction which if you send us to the Rendezvous to morrow where we intend to be we shall visit that City and imploy our utmost Endeavours in setling the Garrison necessarily desired there both for the defence and satisfaction of that City And so we bid you heartily farewel From Clare June 12. 1650. To our very loving Friend the Maior of Limerick These Your loving Friend ORMOND The Particulars he proposed to them were 1. To be receiv'd in like manner and with such respect as the Lord Lieutenants heretofore had always been 2. To have Command of the Guard giving the Word and Orders in the City 3. That there might be Quarter provided within the City for such Guards of Honse and Foot as he should carry in which should be part of the Garrison and whereof a List should be given at the Rendezvous The next day when the Marquess came to the Rendezvous two Aldermen met him there and inform'd him that the City had consented to all that he had proposed to them except only the admittance of his Guards which they were unwilling to do whereupon he sent Messengers back with this Answer That he intended not the drawing in of his Guards out of any mistrust he had of the loyalty of the Magistrates of that City to his Majesty or of their affection to himself but for the dignity of the Place he held and to prevent any popular Tumult that might be raised by desperate interested Persons against him or the Civil Government of that City whereunto he had cause to fear some loose People might by false and frivolous suggestions be too easily instigated And to take away all possibility of suspicion from the most jealous he told them The Guards he meant to take with him should consist but of 100 Foot and 50 Horse and even those too to be of their own Religion and such as having been constantly of their Confederacy were interessed in all the Benefits of the Articles of Peace And so not imagining that they could refuse so reasonable an Overture he went towards the City but when he came very near the Gates the same Aldermen came again to him to let him know That there was a Tumult rais'd in the City by a Franciscan Frier called Father Wolf and some others against his coming into the Town and in opposition to the desires and intentions of the Maior and the principal Citizens and therefore disswaded his Excellency's going thither until the Tumult should be quieted So that the Lord Lieutenant was compell'd with that Affront to return and rested that night at Shanbuoly three miles from the City from whence he writ to them the sense he had of the Indignity offer'd him And wished them to consider not only by what Power they had been made a Corporation first and by whose Protection they had since flourished but also what solid Foundation of safety other than by receiving the defence he had offer'd them was or could be proposed to them by the present Disturbers of their Quiet And desired their present Answer That in case he might be encouraged to proceed in the way he had laid down of serving the King and preserving that City from the Tyranny of the Rebels he might immediately apply himself thereunto or failing in his Desires therein he might apply himself and the Forces he had gathered for that purpose to some other Service But neither this nor all he could do upon subsequent Treaties and Overtures moving from themselves could not at all prevail with them No! not his offer of putting himself into the City and running the Fortune of it when Ireton was encamp'd before it But they continually multiplied and repeated their Affronts towards him with all imaginable Circumstances of Contempt and in the end that we may have no more occasion of mentioning the seditious Carriage of this unfortunate City broke open his Trunks of Papers which he had left there seized upon the Stores of Corn laid up there for the supply of the Army when he believed that Place would have been obedient to him and some Corn belonging to himself and dispos'd of all according to their own pleasure and receiv'd some Troops of Horse into the City which contrary to the Marquess's Order left the Army and with those Troops levied and rais'd Contribution in the Countrey adjacent upon those who had honestly paid the same for the use of the Army according to those Orders which they were to obey And when the Marquess sent to the Maior to deliver the Officer of the said Regiment as a Prisoner to the Guard appointed to receive him he could receive no other Answer and that not in a week than that the Government of that City was committed to Major General Hugh O Neal and therefore he the Maior would not meddle therein And when the like Orders were sent by the Marquess to Hugh O Neal he return'd Answer That he was only a Cypher and not suffered to act any thing but what the Maior and Council thought fit So that in truth that City was no less in Rebellion to the King than the Army under Ireton was though it did for a time resist that Army and could never have been subdued by it if it had ever been in that obedience to the King as by their obligation it ought to have been and therefore must have less peace of Conscience to support them in the Calamities they have since undergone In the Letter formerly inserted from the Marquess of the first of May it is said That in pursuance of a former Agreement he had granted a Commission to the Bishop of Clogher for the Command of the Province of Ulster It will be therefore necessary to express what that Agreement was and the Proceedings thereupon Amongst the Articles which had been made with General Owen O Neal it was provided that in case of the said Neal's death or removal by Advancement or otherwise before any settlement in Parliament to which all the Articles of Peace related that the Nobility and Gentry of the Province of Ulster should have Power to name one to the Lord Lieutenant or chief Governor for his Majesty to Command in the place of the said O Neal and the said Command was to be conferred accordingly upon the Person so to be named and according to his Power Owen O Neal being dead the Nobility Bishops and Principal Gentry of that Province made choice of the Bishop of Clogher to succeed him in the Charge and having signified such their Election under their hands to the Lord Lieutenant the first of April he granted such a Commission to him as he was obliged to do James Marquess of Ormond the Earl of Ormond and Ossory Vicount Thurles Lord Baron of Archlo Lord Lieutenant General
and set at liberty by him and whom the Bishops themselves in their Letter of the 12th of September 1650. to the Earl of Westmeath c. do acknowledge to be preserved by the Marquess and for which many will rather expect an Apology than for any Jealousie he could entertain of the Persons who behaved themselves in that manner towards the King's Lord Lieutenant They charge him with having represented to his Majesty that some Parts of the Kingdom were dis-obedient which absolutely deny any Dis-obedience by them committed and that thereby he had procured from his Majesty a Letter to withdraw his own Person and the Royal Authority if such dis-obedience was multiplied and so leave the People without the Benefit of Peace This was the Reward his Excellency out of his Envy to a Catholick Loyal Nation prepared for their Loyalty and Obedience seal'd by the shedding of their blood and the loss of their substance Whether the obstinate and Rebellious carriage of Waterford Limerick and other Places which brought destruction upon themselves did not deserve and require such a Representation to be made unto the King may be judged by all men upon what hath been before truly set down of those Particulars and if the Places themselves had not acknowledged that dis-obedience yet the Prelates seemed to lament those Acts of Dis-obedience and most earnestly disswaded him from leaving the Kingdom promising all their endeavours to reduce the People to Obedience which was onely in their Power to have done else the Marquess would not so long have exposed Himself and his Honour to those Reproaches or suffered his Person with the Impotent Title of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to have remained in that Kingdom and every day to hear of the rendring and betraying of Places to the Enemy which he could no more remedy then he could infuse a Spirit of Obedience Unity and Understanding into that unhappy infatuated Nation Yet he was so far from wishing that his Majesty should absolutely withdraw his Royal Authority from them how unworthy soever they made themselves of it that he offered to leave the Kings Power in the Person of the Marquess of Clanrickard as he afterwards did hoping that since their great exception was to him for being a Protestant they would with all Alacrity have complied with the other who is known to be a most zealous Roman Catholick yet a great Royalist They reproach'd him That while he was an Enemy to the Catholicks he had been very active in unnatural executions against them and shedding the blood of poor Priests and Churchmen But since the Peace he had shewed little of action keeping himself in Connaght and Thomond where no danger was or the Enemy appear'd not Here you see they would neither suffer him to have an Army to oppose the Enemy nor be content that he should retire into those Places where the Enemy could least infest him and from whence with those few Troops which remained with him he defended the Shannon and kept the Enemy from getting over the River while he staid there And for the former activity and success against them which they were content to impute to him it was when he had a free election of Officers an absolute Power over his Garrisons where he caused the Soldiers continually to be exercised their Arms kept in order and from whence he could have drawn his Army together and have march'd with it to what place he would which advantages he was now without and the Enemy possessed of and therefore it was no wonder that they now obtain'd their Victories as easily as he had done formerly But since they were so disingenious and ungrateful there being many amongst them whose lives he had saved not without suspicion of being favourable to them when he should have been just to charge him with being active in unnatural executions against them and in shedding the blood of poor Priests and Church-men and for the Improvement and Propagation of Calumny it hath pleased some Persons to cause that Declaration to be Translated in Latin and Printed thereby to make him odious to the Roman Catholicks and have named two Priests who they say were by his order Executed and put to death in cold blood and after his promise given to save their lives whose names were Mr. Higgins and Mr. White It will not be impertinent to set down at large the Case of these two Persons that from thence men who have no mind to be deceived and mislead may judge of the Candor and Sincerity of those Persons who would obtrude such Calumnies to the World It must therefore be known that when these two Priests were put to death the War was conducted and carried on by the two Houses of Parliament that the Government of Ireland was in the hands of the two Lords Justices who upon the inhumane and barbarous Cruelties first practised by the Irish Catholicks in the beginning of the Rebellion had forbidden any quarter to be given to those whom they found in Arms and principally against all Priests known Incendaries of that Rebellion and prime Actors in exemplary Cruelties and the Marquess of Ormond was then onely Lieutenant General of the Army and received all Orders from the Lords Justices and Council who having intelligence that a Party of the Rebels intended to be at such a time at the Naas order'd him to draw some Troops together with hope to surprize them And the Lieutenant General marching all night came early in the morning into the Town from whence the Rebels upon notice were newly fled In this Town some of the Souldiers found Mr. Higgins who might it's true have easily fled if he had apprehended any danger in the stay When he was brought before the Marquess he voluntarily acknowledged that he was a Priest and that his Residence was in the Town from whence he refused to fly away with those that were guilty because he not onely knew himself very innocent but believ'd he should not be without ample Evidence of it having by his sole Charity and Power preserved very many of the English Protestants from the rage and fury of the Irish and therefore he onely besought the Marquess to preserve him from the violence of the Souldiers and to put him securely into Dublin to be tried for any Crime which the Marquess promis'd to do and perform'd it though with so much hazard that when it was spread abroad amongst the Souldiers that he was a Priest the Officer into whose Custody he was intrusted was assaulted by them and it was as much as the Marquess could do to relieve him and compose the mutiny When he came to Dublin he informed the Lords Justices and Council of the Prisoner he had brought with him of the good Testimony he had receiv'd of his peaceable Carriage of the pains he had taken to restrain those with whom he had Credit from entring into Rebellion and of very many charitable Offices he had perform'd of which there wanted not
Hereupon the Assembly unanimously professed all obedience to his Majesty's Authority as it was vested in him and petition'd him to assume it without which they said the Nation would be expos'd to utter ruine And the Bishop of Ferns hitherto averse to the Royal Authority more particularly importuned him in the Name of the Clergy not to decline a Charge which could only preserve the King's Power in that Kingdom and the Nation from destruction promising so entire a submission and co-operation from the whole Clergy that his Authority should not be disputed In further assurance of which the General Assembly issue forth this Declaration By the General Assembly of the Kingdom of Ireland ALthough this Assembly hath endeavour'd by their Declaration of the 7th of this month to give full testimony of their Obedience to his Majesty's Authority yet for further satisfaction and for removal of all Jealousies we do further declare That the Lords Spiritual and Temporal Gentry or People Clergy or Laity of this Kingdom shall not attempt labour endeavour or do any Act or Acts to set free or discharge the People from yielding due and perfect Obedience to his Majesty's Authority invested in the Lord Marquess of Clanrickard or any other Governour or Governours of this Kingdom And in case of any such Labour Act or Endeavour by which any mischief might ensue by seducing the People we declare That no person or persons shall or ought to be led thereby but by their disobedience on any such grounds are liable and subject to the heavy censures and penalties of the Laws of the Land in force and practis'd in the Reign of Henry the 7th and other Catholick Times Nevertheless it is further declared That it is not meant or intended by any thing herein contained that this Nation will not insist upon the performances of the Articles of Peace and by all just ways and means provide against the breach and violation of the same And inasmuch as his Majesty is at present as we are informed in the hands of a Presbyterian Party of the Scots who declared themselves Enemies to this Nation and vowed the extirpation of our Religion we declare That it is not hereby intended to oblige our selves to deceive obey or observe any Governours that shall come and duely nominated or procured from his Majesty by reason of or during his being in an un-free condition that may raise a disturbance in the present Government established by his Majesty's Authority or the violation of the Articles of Peace Loghreogh 23d of Decemb. 1650. Copia vera Joh. Comyn Dep. Cler. There was then in the possession of the Roman Catholicks the entire Province of Connaght in which they had the strong Castle of Athlone the strong and important Town and Harbour of Gallway Sligo and many other lesser Forts and Places of strength They had also a good part of the Province of Munster and in it the City of Limerick which by the strong situation of it and the advantages it might have from Sea could alone with the help of Gallway have maintain'd War against all the Parliaments Forces in Ireland They had many Parties of Horse and Foot in Leimster Munster and Ulster under Clanrickard Castlehaven Dillon Muskery the Earl of Westmeath Hugh O Neal Dungan Moor Preston and others which being drawn together would have constituted a greater Army than the Enemies were Masters of And the Marquess of Clanrickard had argument enough of hope if he could have been confident of the union of the Nation and that he might reasonably have promised himself if he could have been confident of the Affection and Integrity of the Clergy which at length they promised with that solemnity that if he had not confided therein the fault would have been imputed to him for they could do no more on their part to create a belief in him He was therefore content to take the Charge upon him and obliged them presently to consider of the way to keep all the Forces together when he should have drawn them together and to secure the two Towns of Gallway and Limerick with strong Garrisons which was the first Work concluded on all hands necessary to be performed Very few days had passed after the Lord Deputy had upon such their Importtunity and Professions taken the Government upon him when it was proposed in the Assembly before their Condition was impaired by any other progress or new success of the Enemy That they might send to the Enemy to treat with them upon surrendring of all that was left into their hands an Inclination the Nuncio was long before inclin'd to perswading the supream Council when there was but so much as a speech of Truce to joyn rather with the Parliamentary Scots than the Royalists and pray'd for the success thereof in hopes that thence much good might accrue to the Catholick Religion And when the same was opposed with indignation by the major part of the Assembly the Bishop of Ferns himself who had so lately importuned the Marquess of Clanrickard to assume the Charge of Lord Deputy and made such ample promises in the Name of the Clergy seem'd to concur with those who were against treating with the Enemy but instead of it very earnestly pressed That they might in order to their better defence return to their ancient Confederacy and so proceed in their Preservation without any respect to the King's Authority And this Motion found such concurrence in the Assembly from the Bishops Clergy and many others that many of the Officers of the Army and some of the principalest of the Nobility and Gentry found it necessary to express more than ordinary passion in their contradiction They told them They now manifested that it was not their Prejudice to the Marquess of Ormond nor their Zeal to Religion that had transported them but their dislike of the King's Authority and their resolution to withdraw themselves from it That they themselves would constantly submit to it and defend it with their utmost hazard as long as they should be able and when they should be reduced to Extremity that treating with the Enemy could no longer be deferred they would in that Treaty make no provision for them but be contented that they should be excluded from any benefit thereof who were so forward to exclude the King's Authority Upon these bold though necessary Menaces to which they had not been accustomed the Clergy and their Party seem'd to acquiesce and promised all concurrence inasmuch as from this very time all the Factions and Jealousies which had been before amongst them seem'd outwardly quieted though the Irish in all Quarters of which the Enemy were possessed not only submitted and compounded but very many of them enter'd into their Service and marched with them in their Armies and the Lord Deputy grew as much into their dis-favour as the Lord Lieutenant had been and his being a Friend to the Marquess of Ormond destroyed all that Confidence which his being
the Rebellion all found guilty thereof were excepted from Pardon their Estates confiscated and the others who had only assisted in the War were to forfeit two parts of their Estates and be banished And accordingly great numbers of them were transported into Spain the latter end of this Summer Yet the Marquess of Clanrickard did not leave the Kingdom in many months after the Surrender of Galway but endeavour'd by all means possible to draw the scattered Forces together that he might prosecute the War afresh according to his Majesty's Letters in the years 1650 and 1651. encouraging him to his continuance in Arms as advantagious by way of Diversion to his then intended progress of promoting his Design in Scotland and coming into England And to that end the 16th of May the Marquess of Clanrickard with the Connaght Forces marched to Ballishannon which he took by storm and presently after Dungal-Castle where the Ulster Forces under Sir Phelim O Neal the Relie's and Mahon's joyned with him but upon intelligence that Sir Charles Coot and Colonel Venables were marched against him he retired to Armagh intending for Raphoe Whilst Sir Charles Coot in his pursuit of him retook Ballishanon and Dungal-Castle gaining also Sligo Ballymote and many other Garrisons so as the Marquess was forced to shelter himself in the Isle of Carrick And having receiv'd his Majesty's Command to take care of his own security that he fell not into the Enemy's hands he having no Port to friend where he might choose a Vessel and being so betrayed by the Irish as not securely to stay 24 hours in a Place was compelled to have a Pass from the Parliaments Forces not excepting any other Conditions for himself than that he might for some time remain secure in their Quarters without taking the Oath usually imposed by them and have liberty to transport himself and 3000 Irish more into any Prince's Countrey and Service then in Amity with England which was granted and in March 1652. he was transported into England in a Vessel belonging to the Parliament after he had born the Title of the King's Deputy in Ireland little more than two years not with greater submission from the Catholick Irish than had before been paid to the Lord Lieutenant and so retired to London where not long after he died and was thence carried to Summerhill a pleasant Seat of his own which Bradshaw had in Custodium near Tunbridge in Kent and was buried in the Parish-Church He was a Person much respected for his Integrity and though of a contrary opinion to those then in Usurpation looked on as a Favourer of the English and one that no ways indulged the Cruelties and Pretensions of the Irish. This was the Fate of that unhappy Nation both under Protestant and Roman Catholick Governours neither having had the credit to be Masters of the Irish Temper fomented by the Insolencies of the Priests and whatever might instigate them against the English Government Soon after the Marquess of Clanrickard's Departure the lesser Concerns of that Nation were with little trouble and charge brought in obedience to the Parliament who declared the 26th of September 1653. That the Rebels were subdued and the Rebellion appeased and ended and thereupon proceeded to the Distribution of their Lands in pursuance of the Act for Subscriptions 17 Carol. 1. Some time before which a High Court of Justice was setled in Ireland a Name we have reason not to mention without horrour and astonishment considering who was summoned to such a Tribunal which certainly would never have been how vain how ambitious how prodigious soever some mens Success was a Strumpet often leading one to Attempts above their first thoughts had not the Rebels of Ireland for carrying on their pernicious Practices avouched the sacred Authority for their pretence and colour that though these with Pilate washed their hands from the Blood of this Righteous One yet they have as the shame so the guilt of that Royal Blood on themselves who originally gave the occasion of such a Discourse which afterwards was made one of the pretended Causes for the most barbarous and inhumane Act ever perpretated Inter tragicoe Fortunoe Exempla omnibus retro seculis memorandus Upon which eloquent Du Moulin one of the clearest Lights of the French Church honouring me with a Letter on that Subject thus passionately discovers his Resentment La Morte de vostre bon Roy d'une facon si indigne si horrible par les Maims des Independans M'outre le Coeur de Douleur C'est une action sans Example un opprobre ineffacable a nostre Religion vostre Nation tant Genereuse a elle perdu tout Courage Les Escossoes se taisent ils la dessue Mais quoy Il faut Mettre le doigt sur la bouche adorer les Conseils de Dieu qui sont Inscrutables It is observable let some foam as they please that there were none who so much as pretended to have a Reverence for the Church of England that ever had the least hand in this foul and ugly Business An instance of that is in what the Lord Chancellor Hide acquainted the Parliament with in express words from his Majesty when he was imployed in an Embassy to Spain That the Horrid Murther of his Royal Father was not the Act of the Parliament or People of England but of a very wretched and little Company of Miscreants in the Kingdom fol. 41. Upon which Monsieur Moses Amiraldus the Excellent French Divine hearing of the Protestant Religion aspersed as seditious and treasonable writ a Piece in French in vindication of the Protestant Religion and dedicated it to our King Charles the 2d in the time of his Exile when Militiere and others would have inforced the barbarous Martyrdom of his Royal Father as a just Motive to his apostatizing and not trusting his safety to the Protestant Religion whereas all these blustering Storms as the Bishop of Derry observes in his excellent Tract against Militiere radicated him deeper in his Religion that what these intended for his evil proved his good And certainly whatsoever conspired to compleat so execrable a Design as the Murther of the King nothing contributed more than the Irish deluding his Sacred Majesty so long with their Promises of a competent Army whereby he relying on them too confidently assured of their Ability and Power to perform it deferred those Agreements which else he might have seasonably composed at home And could there ever be an equaller Distribution of God's Vengeance than that they by a parallel Court should suffer the loss of their Estates Lives and Fortunes Which though un-usual was the only Expedient sufficiently set forth in the ensuing Speech of the Lord Lowther's a Person of that Gravity and Worth as whatsoever may be said by others can never reach the State of the Question more fully with less animosity and greater truth than he hath done at the Trial of Sir Phelim O Neal in February
Person who openly shewed himself against the Anabaptists then raging and countenanced the University then in a low Ebb bestowing upon it Bishop Usher's Library composed of the choicest and best picked Books extant carrying himself so as some of the Rigour of his Father was thereby taken off and that disordered Nation brought into the Condition of a flourishing State Yet afterwards when he might have had many to have seconded him he tamely yielded in 1659. the Government to Steel the Parliaments Lord Chancellor and Miles Corbet their Chief Baron of the Exchequer his Brother Richard having surrendred the Protectorship in England very meanly with a submission as he termed it to Providence So that Family expired And the Affairs of England growing every day full of change Ireland understanding what Sir George Booth had nobly attempted in England grew thence early in its dutiful Address to his Majesty And Sir Theophilus Jones further'd by his Reverend Brother Colonel Warren Bridges Thompson Lisle Warder and Temple seized Dublin Castle Sir Charles Coot about the same time preferring an Impeachment of Treason against Ludlow Tomlinson Corbet and John Jones and weighing the Consequences of the present Distempers he together with the Council of the Officers of the Army present at Dublin the 16th of February 1659. made a Memorable Declaration concerning the Re-admission of the Secluded Members about the same time sending Captain Cuffe to attend Colonel Monk into England a General Convention being the 7th of February before Summon'd by the Vigilance and excellent Contrivance and Industry of Doctor Dudley Loftus in which Sir James Barry afterwards Lord Baron of Santry was Chairman Several Affairs of greatest Consequence came there to be considered First the Arrears of the Souldiers they were to be fastned to the Design by their Interest and by the discharge of what was due to them then what was most popular and look'd least to the mark they aim'd at came under consideration in as much as they continued till May 1660. having readily accepted of the Kings Declaration from Breda of the 14th of April 1660. laying hold by their Declaration of the 14th of May of his Condescentions as the fittest expedient to cement the divided Interests in his three Kingdoms which his Majesty in his Printed Declaration for the settlement of Ireland takes especial notice of in these words That our good Subjects the Protestants not Usurpers as the Irish in their Case entitle them in our Kingdom of Ireland have born a very good part in the Blessing of our Restitution and that they were early in their dutiful Addresses unto Us and made the same Professions of a Resolution to return to their Duty and Obedience to Us during the time of Our being beyond the Seas which they have since so eminently made good and put in practice And here I cannot pass over that when the Irish Brigade came to assist Lambert against Sir George Booth now Lord Delameere and were in the North with him at that time advancing to know what General Monk intended they under Redman and Bret first drew back though some of their Officers in their canting mood thought to have wheedled General Monk into a Compliance The Convention gave his Majesty 20000 l. the Duke of York 4000 l. and the Duke of Glocester 2000 l. and in May adjourned to the first of November a standing Committee remaining in the interim And the 18th of December 1660. his Majesty by his Letter approved of this Convention which met again the 22. of January and Sir William Dumvell was appointed Chairman it continued till May 1661. Before they determined they had by a Committee very sensible and gallantly defended at Court the English Interest against the Irish who by reason of the Peace which had been made with them in 1646. and 48. thought they had very much to plead for his Majesties favour when upon the whole it was proved that if any of them were afterwards Loyal the generality disobeyed whatever had been indulged them and the Contract was not to be understood to be made with a Party but the Community of which more in its due place His Majesty was no sooner setled in England but upon both Houses of Parliaments apprehension of the late Rebellion and the Irish flocking at his Return into England he within few days published his sence of that horrible Conspiracy in the ensuing Proclamation By the King A PROCLAMATION Against the Rebels in Ireland C. R. CHarles by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all Our loving Subjects of England and Ireland Greeting We taking notice by the Information of the Lords and Commons now Assembled in Parliament That after the vast expence of Blood and Treasure for the suppressing of the late horrid Rebellion in Ireland begun in October 1641. There are yet many of the Natives of that Our Kingdom deeply guilty of that Rebellion who have of late broke out into new Acts of Force and Violence some Murthering Robbing and Despoiling several of Our English Protestant Subjects there planted and others of them by force Entring upon and Disquieting the Possessions of several Adventurers and Souldiers there to the great and manifest disturbance and hinderance of Our English Plantation And being very sensible of the innocent bloud of so many thousands of Our English Protestant Subjects formerly slain by the hands of those barbarous Rebels and of new mischiefs of the same kind likely to fall out as the sad issue and consequents of so unhappy beginnings Do therefore by the advice of the said Lords and Commons now assembled as well to testifie Our utter abhorring of the said late Rebellion as to prevent the like for the future and for the present establishment of the Peace of that Our Kingdom hold it Our duty to God and the whole Protestant Interest to Command Publish and Declare and do by this Our Proclamation accordingly Command Publish and Declare That all Irish Rebels other than such as by Articles have liberty to reside in these Our Dominions and have not since forfeited the benefit thereof now remaining in or which hereafter shall resort to England or Ireland be forthwith apprehended and proceeded against as Rebels and Traitors according to Law And that the Adventurers and Souldiers and other Our Subjects in Ireland their Heirs Executors Administrators and Assigns who on the first day of January last past were in the Possession of any of the Mannors Castles Houses Lands Tenements or Hereditaments of any the said Irish Rebels shall not be disturbed in such their Possessions until We by the advice of the Lords and Commons now assembled as aforesaid or such Parliament as We shall call in England or Ireland shall take further Order or that they be Legally evicted by due course of Law And all Our Justices of Peace Mayors Sheriffs and other Officers both Civil and Military both in England and Ireland are hereby
in Ecclesiae unitate servanda omnium nostrûm salus potissimum consistit Jam vero Potestas hujus belli sumpta est primum à Jure Naturali deinde ab Evangelico Jus Naturale potestatem nobis facit defendendi nosmetipsos contra Manifestissimam Haereticorum Tyrannidem quia contra jus Naturae sub paena Mortis cogunt Nos priorem Nostram de Pontificis Romani Primatu fidem abjurare novamque planè contrariam Religionem invitos recipere ac profiteri Quale Jugum nec Christiani Judaeis aut Turcis nec illi Nostris unquam imposuerunt Deinde cum Christus in Evangelio Regni Caelorum claves hoc est summam Ecclesiae suae administrationem Petro dederit Hujus Apostolorum principis legitimus in eadem Cathedra successor Gregorius decimus tertius in Ducem ac Generalem hujus belli Capitaneum nos elegit ut ex ipsius literis ac Diplomate abundè constat quod quidem tanto Magis fecit quia Ejus Praecessor Pius Quintus Elizabetham istarum Haeresium patronam omni regia Potestate ac Dominio jam ante privaverat quod ipsum Ejus Declaratoria Sententia quam ipsam apud nos habemus manifestissimè testatur Itaque jam non contra legitimum Angliae Sceptrum honorabile Solium dimicamus sed contra Tyrannam quae Christum in Vicario suo loquentem recusans audire immo Christi Ecclesiam suo foemineo sexui etiam in fidei causis de quibus cum Authoritate nec loqui deberet ausa subjicere merito regiam Potestatem amisit Porro quod ad modum Ejusdam belli administrandi pertinet nec bona Nostrorum Civium invadere nec privatas inimicitias à quibus liberisumus persequi nec summam regnandi potestatem nobis usurpare cogitamus Imo restituatur Deo statim suus Honor nos continuò parati sumus gladium deponere atque iis qui legitimè praeerunt obedire Sin aliqui quod absit Haereses propugnare ac Deo suum honorem auferre deinceps pergant nam quos de praeteritis paenitet iis nihil opponimus nec unquam opposituri sumus Illi utique sunt qui de Hibernia veram pacem auferunt illi sunt qui bellum patriae suae inferunt non Nos Quando enim Pax non cum Deo sed cum Diabolo habetur uti nunc se res habet tunc non immerito una cum Servatore Nostro dicere debemus Non veni pacem in terram mittere sed Gladium Si Ergo Bellum quod ob Pacem cum Deo renovandam gerimus longè Justissimum est Qui nobis in hoc bello adversantur damnationem sibi acquirent habituri adversarios non solum omnes Sanctos quorum reliquias sanctas Imagines Haeretici conculcant sed etiam Deum ipsum Cujus Gloriam oppugnant Atque haec sint satis hoc in loco Nam si quis plenius horum omnium rationem perspicere velit Is perlegat aequitatem rationem hujus Edicti quam alias plenius edendam Curavimus APPENDIX II. Fol. 24. The Relation of the Lord Maguire written with his own hand in the Tower and delivered by him to Sir John Conyers then Lieutenant to present to the Lords in Parliament BEing in Dublin Candlemass Term last was twelve Moneth 1640. the Parliament then sitting Mr. Roger Moore did write to me desiring me that if I could in that spare time I would come to his House for then the Parliament did nothing but Sit and Adjourn expecting a Commission for the continuance thereof their former Commission being expired and that some things he had to say unto me that did merely concern me and on receipt of his Letter the new Commission for continuing the Parliament landed and I did return him an Answer that I could not fulfil his request for that present and thereupon he himself came to Town presently after and sending to me I went to see him at his Lodging And after some little time spent in salutation◠he began to discourse of the many Afflictions and Sufferings of the Natives of that Kingdom and particularly in those late times of my Lord Strafford's Government which gave distast to the whole Kingdom And then he began to cularlize the suffering of them that were the more antient Natives as were the Irish how that on several Plantations they were all put out of their Ancestors Estates All which sufferings he said did beget a general discontent over all the whole Kingdom in both the Natives to wit the Old and New Irish. And that if the Gentry of the Kingdom were disposed to free themselves furtherly from the like inconvenience and get good Conditions for themselves for regaining their Ancestors or at least a good part thereof Estates they could never desire a more convenient time than that time the distempers of Scotland being then on foot and did ask me what I thought of it I made him answer that I could not tell what to think of it such matters being altogether out of my Element Then he would needs have an Oath of me of secrecy which I gave him and thereupon he told me that he spoke to the best Gentry of Quality in Lemster and a great part of Connaght touching that matter and he found all of them willing thereunto if so be they could draw to them the Gentry of Ulster for which cause said he I came to speak to you then he began to lay down to me the case that I was in there overwhelmed in Debt the smalness of my Estate and the greatness of the Estate my Ancestors had and how I should be sure to get it again or at least a good part thereof and moreover how the welfare and maintaining of the Catholick Religion which he said undoubtedly the Parliament now in England will suppress doth depend on it For said he it is to be feared and so much I hear from every understanding man the Parliament intends the utter subversion of our Religion by which perswasions he obtained my consent And so I demanded whether any more of Ulster Gentry were in Town I told him that Phillip Reyly Mr. Jorilagh O Neal brother to Sir Phelim O Neal and Mr. Cosloe mac Mahone were in Town so for that time we parted The next day he invited Mr. Reyly and I to dine with him and after dinner he sent for those other Gentlemen Mr. Neale and Mr. mac Mahone and when they were come he began the discourse formerly used to me to them and with the same perswasions formerly used to me he obtained their consent And then he began to discourse of the manner how it ought to be done of the feazability and easiness of the Attempt considering matters as they then stood in England the troubles of Scotland the great number of able men in the Kingdom meaning Ireland what succours they were more then to hope for from abroad and the Army then raised all Irishmen and well armed meaning the Army
informed and to prevent any attempt against Religion and presently after I departed into the Country and Mr. Reyly being a Member of the House of Commons stayed the Prorogation and on his coming into the Country sent to me to meet him and I came to his House where he told me that he heard for certain that the former Narration of Barnewall to me for I did acquaint him with it was true and that he heard it from several there also was Emar mac Mahone made firmly privy to all our proceedings at Mr. Reylys lately come out of the Pale where he met with the aforenamed John Barnewall who told him as much and he formerly told me and moreover that those Colonels that lately came over did proffer their Service and industry in that Act and so would raise their men under colour to convey them into Spain and then seize on the Castle of Dublin and with their Arms there to Arm their Souldiers and have them ready for any occasion that should be commanded them but that they had not concluded any thing because they were not assured how the Gentlemen of the remote parts of the Kingdom and especially of Ulster would stand affected to that Act and that assurance of that doubt was all their impediment Then we three began to think how we might assure them help and of the assistance of Ulster Gentlemen It was thought that one should be sent to them to acquaint them there with and they made choice of me to come by reason as they said that my Wife was allyed to them and their Countrey-woman and would believe me trust me sooner than other of their parts they or most of them being of the Pale And so without as much as to return home to furnish my self for such a Journey Volens nolens they prevailed or rather forced me to come to Dublin to confer with those Colonels and that was the last August was Twelve-month Coming to Town I met Sir James Dillon accidentally before I came to my Lodging who was one of those Colonels and after Salutations he demanded of me where my Lodging was which when I told him and parted the next day being abroad about some other occasions in Town I met him as he said coming to wait on me in my Chamber but being a good way from it he desired me to go into his own Chamber being near at hand And then began to discourse of the present sufferings and afflictions of that Kingdom and particularly of Religion and how they were to expect no redress the Parliament in England intending and the Scots resolving never to lay down Arms until the Catholick Religion were suppressed Then he likewise began to lay down what danger it would be to suffer so many able Men as was to go with them to depart the Kingdom in such a time Neither said he do their other Gentlemen that are Colonels and my self affect our own private profit so as to prefer it before the general good of the Kingdom And knowing you are well affected thereunto and I hope said he ready to put your helping-helping-hand to it upon occasion I will let you know the resolution of those other Gentlemen and mine which is if we are ready to raise our Men and after to seize on the Castle where there is great great store of Arms and arm our selves there This was the first motion that ever I heard of taking the Castle for it never came into our thoughts formerly nor am I perswaded ever would if it had not proceeded from those Colonels who were the first motioners and contrivers thereof for ought known to me and then to be ready to prevent and resist any danger that the Gentlemen of the Kingdom like thereof and help us For we of our selves neither are able nor will do any thing therein without their assistance I began according to the directions that were sent with me to approve of their Resolution and also to let him know how sure he might be of the assistance of those of Ulster Then he told us that for my more satisfaction I should confer with the rest of the Colonels themselves as many as are privy to the Action and accordingly a place of meeting was appointed that afternoon and on the time and place appointed there met Sir James himself Colonel Bourne and Colonel Plunket And that former Discourse being renewed they began to lay down the Obstacles to that Enterprise and how they should be redressed 1st If there should VVar ensue how there should be Money had to pay the Souldiers 2ly How and where they should procure succours from Forreign parts 3dly How to draw in the Pale Gentlemen 4thly Who should undertake to surprise the Castle and how it should be done To the first it was answered That the Rents in the Kingdom every where not having respect whose they should be due to the Lords and Gentlemen thereof should be collected to pay the Souldiers And moreover they might be sure nay that there was no doubt thereof to procure money from the Pope who gave several promises formerly to my Lord of Tyrone in case he could make way to come into Ireland to maintain six thousand men yearly at his own charge and that notwithstanding that my Lord of Tyrone was dead yet that he would continue the same forwardness now To the second it was answered by Colonel Bourne that help from abroad could not fail them For said he Colonel O Neal told me that he had or would procure in readiness I do not remember which of those the Colonel spake or whether he spoke positive that Colonel O Neal had Arms or would procure them Arms for ten thousand men And moreover said he I make no great question that if we send into Spain we shall not miss of aid for I being in London the last year in the Scots troubles I was in conference with one of the Spanish Ambassadours there then and talking of their troubles then a-foot he said That if the Irish did then rise too and send to Spain their Messengers would be received under Canopies of Gold These last words he told me and some one man of those that were present privately whose name I cannot call to mind neither well remember I whether he spoke to them all or no then it was thought that when they were both in Arms for defence of the Catholick cause they would be succoured by the Catholick Princes of Christendom To the third it was answered by Colonel Plunket That he was as morally certain for those were his words as he could be of any thing that the Pale Gentleman would joyn with them and assist them For he said I have spoke to several of them since my landing in the Kingdom and I find them very ready and willing and withal I have at London spoke to some of the Committees and particularly to my Lord of Gormonstowne to let them know his resolution and they approved it very well
we are protected in all our dangers and distresses we thy people and sheep of thy Pasture do acknowedge our selves above all others infinitely bounded unto thy heavenly Majesty for thy many unspeakable benefits daily conferred and heaped upon us especially for the enlightning us with thy heavenly truth and planting thy Gospel amongst us for placing over us a most gracious King a faithful Professour and Defender of the same a wise and vigilant Lieutenant And as at this time especially we praise thee for the discovery and prevention of the bloody and treacherous designs of the Enemies of thy Truth and People We laud and magnifie thy Glorious name for these thy Mercies and will ever shew forth thy praise from generation to generation for it was thy goodness alone that we were not delivered over for a prey unto their Teeth Thy prudence not our foresight thy love not our merit that we appear this day before thee That the Enemy did not triumph in our utter destriction nor root up the Uine which thy right hand had planted O Lord God of hosts look down from Heaven and behold and visit this thy Uine water it with thy blessing and make it to fill the Land to the astonishment of our Enemies but unto the joy of all that wish well unto our Sion So will we not go back from thee but will serve thee in fear and holiness all the days of our lives through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen The Third Collect after the Litany O Most Gracious Lord God we of this Nation whom thou didst snatch as a brand out of the fire of the late horrid Massacre we this day assembled before thee do with shame and sorrow acknowledge and confess That our Sins had most justly provoked thee to Wrath when thou didst suffer those men of blood to make their Sword fat with the Slaughter of so many thousand Innocents-And we may as justly fear that our not being made better by thy former Judgements thou mayest be compelled to make thy Sword sharper and return upon us in greater fury because our sins are greater more bold more provoking in particular our neglect and contempt of thy sacred Ordinances our vain and false swearing for which the Land mourns our unchristian uncharitableness and shameful intemp rance our sacriledge and covetousness hypocrisie slandering and deep security in the midst of all our sins and dangers These together with a glorying in our impieties might in justice have brought upon us a sudden and horrible destruction But contrary to the method of thy proceedings against others thou hast spared us thereby woing us to return unto thee by unfeigned Repentance Thou hast magnified thy mercy towards us that we may magnifie thee as we do this day this memorable day O Lord for thy patience and long suffering notwithstanding all our provocations we repent O pardon we return O vouchsafe to receive us and enable us to walk worthy of thy great past deliverance by a more strict and holy future obedience for the merits of Jesus Christ our only Saviour and Redeemer Amen At the second Service this Fourth Collect to be said after the Collect for the King MOst merciful and bountiful Lord God seeing thou hast been graciously pleased to preserve thy most unworthy people from total desolation and dayly to follow us with the blessing of peace and good Government make us therefore O Lord in all thankfulness to be obedient to thy will in all things to be faithful and constant in our duty to the King and to all that are in Authority under him to be sincere in thy worship zealous of good works of one faith and one mind studying to be quiet forbearing one another and forgiving one another even as God for Christs sake hath forgiven us so that when every one in his several place shall labour to advance the good both of Church and State and by a through Reformation of our lives shall become a people whom thou mayest take delight to bless then thy Judgements which we have deserved and therefore fear may be averted and our sinful Souls saved in the day of the Lord Jesus Then with one heart and voice we may all praise thee in thy Church and always sing joyfully that thy loving kindness is ever more and more towards us and the truth of the Lord endures for ever These mercies we most unworthy to ask humbly beseech thee to grant for the benefit of this Church and Nation and glory of thy Name through Jesus Christ our only Saviour and Redeemer Amen For the Epistle Nehem. 4. from ver 7. to ver 16. or 2 Cor. 1. from ver 3. to ver 11. For the Gospel Mat. 14. from ver 23. to ver 34. or Mat. 15. from ver 1. to ver 13. or Mat. 5. from ver 1. to ver 14. And then proceed as in the Book of Common Prayer Other Particulars We might add but how can We conclude better then with the voice of the Church for so wonderful a deliverance from so unnatural and inhuman a Conspiracy which hath produced besides other horrid effects this Abbreviate of so sad a Tragidy and the expence of so vast a Treasure Omissions containing several Additions to the History FOl. 9. line 23. Crime which for the Honour of those Gentlemen rather then that it 's undeniably true I would willingly believe it being easy to be made out that many of these instigated if not headed the Commonalty afterwards Fol 10. l. 25. of Lands though the Law heretofore was held otherwise and much of his Majesties Revenue stands upon that Title Fol. 13. l. 39. Epistle which expression of his is the more to be took notice of in that being a prime Instrument of State He hath more Grounds then others to build these Conjectures upon Fol. 28. l. 12. Rebellion the Commission Granted to the Lord Gormanston was as follows By the Lords Justices and Council W. Parsons Jo. Borlase RIght Trusty and well beloved We greet you well Whereas divers and most disloyal and malignant Persons within this Kingdom have traiterously conspired against his Majesty his Peace Crown and Dignity and many of them in Execution of their Conspiracy are traiterously assembled together in a Warlike manner and have most inhumanly made destruction and devastation of the Persons and Estates of his Majesties good and loyal Subjects of this Kingdom and taken slain and imprisoned great Numbers of them We out of our care and zeal for the common good being desirous by all means to suppress the said Treasons and Traitors and to conserve the Persons and Fortunes of his Majesties loving Subjects here in safety and to prevent the further spoil and devastation of his Majesties good People here do therefore hereby require and authorize you to Levie Raise and Assemble all every or any the Forces as well Footmen as Horsemen within the County of Meath giving you hereby the Command in chief of all the said Forces and hereby further
requiring and authorizing you as Commander of them in Chief to arm array divide distribute dispose conduct lead and govern in Chief the said Forces according to your best discretion and with the said Forces to resist pursue follow apprehend and put to death kill and slay as well by Battle as otherwaies all and singular the said Conspirators Traitors and their Adherents according to your discretion And according to your Conscience and discretion to proceed against them or any of them or by Martial Law by hanging them or any of them till they be dead according as it hath been accustomed in time of open Rebellion and also to take wast and spoil their or any of their Castles Holds Forts Houses Goods and Territories or otherwise to preserve the lives of them or any of them and to receive them into his Majesties favour and mercy and to forbear the devastation of their or any of their Castles Holds Forts Houses Goods and Territories aforementioned according to your discretion Further hereby requiring and authorizing you to do execute and perform all and singular such other things for Examination of persons suspected discovery of Traitors and their Adherents parlying with and granting protections to them or any of them taking up of Carts Carriages and other Conveniences sending and retaining Espials Victualing the said Forces and other things whatsoever conducing to the purpose aforementioned as you in your discretion shall think fit and the necessity of the service require further hereby requiring and authorizing you as Commander in Chief to constitute and appoint such Officers and Ministers respectively for the better performance and execution of all and singular the premises as you in your discretion shall think fit And do hereby require and command all and singular his Majesties Sheriffs Officers and Ministers and loving Subjects of and within the County of Meath and the borders thereof upon their Faith and Allegiance to his Majesty and to his Crown to be aiding helping and assisting to you in the doing and Executing of all and singular the premises This our Commission to continue during our Pleasure only and for the so doing this shall be your sufficient Warrant Given at his Majesties Castle of Dublin November 1641. To our very good Lord Nicholas Gormanstowne Vic. Com. R. Dillon Jo. Temple Ja. Ware Rob. Meredith Fol. 86. l. 45. Osburn's Castle as also of the notable service of Ballially in the County of Clare well defended by Bridgeman and Cuff though slenderly succoured by Bowatty how oft soever invoked of whose neglect they were not a little sensible Fol 88. l. 39. a Careful General 's not upon diffidence that his Commands entrusted to others would be the insufficienter executed No his Souldiers had long experienced even the best of Quality amongst them that no commands were to be disobeyed But that the Souldier seeing his General to share in labour might undergo the like with more willingness and courage Examples of hardship born by such as might have ease wonderfully work on those who can have no exemption Fol. 97. l. 4. Laws of the Land This Oath of Association the later Paragraph excepted was the 26th of July 1644. in the General Assembly of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland at Kilkenny declared by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Knights and Burgesses of that house full and binding without addition of any other words thereunto and enjoyned to be took by all sorts of People Fol. 104. l. 28. That War and by some speeches it was apprehended that the drift in requiring subscriptions was to engage the Army against his Majesty in detestation whereof some Officers rent the Book of Subscriptions in pieces Fol. 105. l. 303. 8000 men A necessity the State was then unhappily reduced to and as his Majesty takes notice that his Ministers who suffered the return of his Army and their quartering in the City were not to be blam'd if they durst not suffer the Souldiers to march farr or stay long in the Enemies Country when there was but 40. Barrels of Powder in all the Store Fol. 106. l. 14. their Weight and afterwards by the King's approbation with C. R. with a Crown on one side and the value on the other Fol. 120. l. 4. with 300 l. In as much as their General Bourk having a good opinion of his Gallantry sent a Summons signifying That He was commanded by the Councel of the Confederate Catholiques of Ireland to demand the delivery of the Castle to his hands for the use of his Majesty and if not deliver'd upon this Summons Mercy was not to be expected although for his part He desired not the effusion of Christian blood yet if such a Paper-house should be kept against him who had such an Army such Artillery a day longer he could not by the practice of VVar be censur'd cruel if no Quarter were given a terrible Minaâ—e and considering the force he had and the Weakness of the House not irrational Fol. 140. l. 32. their Coneurrence In November 1643. the Parliament in Ireland sitting the House of Commons had in debate a Remonstrance declaring the Inhumanity of the Rebels that it might be recommended to the King a Committee was sent from the House to the Lords Justices who advising with the upper House at that time very thin and highly influenc'd were answer'd That there were greater matters of State to be considered so nothing further proceeded thereon Fol. 155. l. 44. with the Rebels which Perinchief writes was procured by the Scots to make their Ware more valuable Fol. 156. l. 6. witnessing the Conclusion which as the Cessation His Majesty prosesseth to have been forced to during the late troubles and was compelled to give the Irish a full Pardon for what they had before done amiss upon their return to their Duty and their Promise of giving Him a vigorous Assistance which how answer'd by their obedience hereafter appears Fol. 167. l. 39. into England who carried with them these Propositions from the Lord Lieutenant to the Parliament of England 1. That the said Lord Lieutenant will prosecute the VVar against the Irish Rebels as vigorously as he shall be enabled thereunto by the Parliament of England and that he will faithfully serve the Crown of England therein 2. That whilst he hath the Government of this Kingdom and the Command of the Armies therein none of the supplies of Men Moneys Arms Munition Victuals or any other Provisions of what kind or nature soever which shall by the Parliament of England be sent over or joined with the Forces already under his Command nor any of the said Forces now under his Command nor any other Forces that shall be under his Command shall in any wise be employed either within this Kingdom or without it but by the express Direction of the said Parliament of England 3. That he will not upon any Command or by virtue of any Power or Authority whatsoever enter into any Treaty with the said
better understood by the Records of the Age then to be descanted on now An Alphabet of the Counties wherein such Murthers as are here mentioned were committed Counties fol. ANtrim 109 Armagh ibid. Catherlagh 111 Cavan 112 Clare ibid. Cork ibid. Donnegall ibid. Down 113 Dublin 114 Fermanagh ibid. Gallway 115 Kerry ibid. Kildare 116 Kilkenny ibid. Kings County 117 Leytrim 118 Limerick ibid. Londonderry ibid. Longford ibid. Lowth ibid. Mayo 119 Meath ibid. Monaghan 120 Queens County ibid. Roscommon 121 Sligo 122 Tipperary 123 Tyrone ibid. Westmeath 124 Wickloe ibid. Dr. Robert Maxwell since Bishop of Kilmore his Examination worthy deliberate and serious Reflexions but not here to be flied to as quoted in the Abstract That only to be sought for in the Archives of Dublin DOctor Robert Maxwell Rector of Tynon in the County of Armagh sworn and examined and first touching the nature of the Rebellion deposeth and saith that to begin higher than the 22th of Octob. 1641. at the coming in of the Scots to Newcastle he observ'd Sir Phelim O Neil Tirlagh oge O Neil his Brother Robert Hovenden Esq. deceased and generally all his Popish Neighbours overjoyed and at their peaceable disbanding as much cast down and dejected calling the English base degenerate Cowards and the Scots dishonourable Bragadochies who came into England not to fight but to scrape up wealth merchandizing their honours for sums of money But he this Deponent did not much heed those distempered speeches as every where rise in those days and as proceeding from bankrupt and discontented Gentlemen and the rather because many in Ireland at that time measuring the Scots Laws by their own accompted the Scots subjection not much better than Rebellion although since by the Event their Judgments are now rectified yet he asked what they meant to be thus sad at good News but joyful at evil They said if the two Kingdoms had gone by the ears they hoped the Earl of Strafford whose Government had been most avaritious and tyrannical would in regard of his forwardness have perished in the Combustion But this he the Deponent thought not worth the informing because what they said most men thought from the disbanding of the Scots until the breaking out of the present Rebellion He observed also frequent and extraordinary meetings of Priests and Fryars almost every where under colour of Visitations and at the first summons of Fryars to the number of two or three thousand in a Company they would usually meet together for a twelvemonth before the Rebellion who with others of the same stamp borrowed what sums of money they possibly could from the Brittish ane often without any apparent necessity neither did it afterwards appear what they did with the money so borrowed for they would not pay any man a penny And the Deponent further saith That in April 1641. there went a report amonst the Irish the Deponents next Neighbours that the Earl of Tyrone was seen with Sir Phelim O Neil in the Wood of Ballynametash but upon Examination they denied it yet since the Rebellion they told the Deponent That a great man out of Spain was at that time with him but they would not name him and about three years before that one Priest mac Case came from Rome with the Pope's Bull for the Parish of Tynon and being kept out by Sir Phelim talked freely of a Rebellion plotted and intended by him and others Upon which the Priest went to Dublin to inform the Lord Deputy thereof by whom being examined he either said nothing to the purpose or was not believed or was taken off by Sir Phelim And further saith That Sir Phelim O Neil a little before the Rebellion brought two Hogsheads of Gunpowder from Dublin under colour of Wine by Patrick O Dogherty Vintner of Kynard he bought a great part thereof by ten or twelve pounds in the name of most of the Gentry in the Country This he bragged of to the Deponent afterwards and that he likewise told this Deponent when the Lord Magwyre and other Rebels were taken in Dublin his man James Warren and Friar Paul O Neil were apprehended amongst them having sent them thither a little before to assist and attend the Issue of the business but said that upon Examination at Council-table they were both dismissed contrary to his expectation He said also that some Lord or other spoke for them This Deponent further saith That he heard Sir Phelim O Neil upon his first return from Strabane say that this Plot was in his head five or six years before he could bring it to any maturity but said that after it was concluded by the Parliament meaning the Popish party he was one of the last men to whom it was communicated He said likewise That to bring about his own ends he had formerly demeaned himself as a fool in all great mens Company but that he hoped by that time the greatest of them saw that Sir Phelim O Neil was no such fool as they took him for And further saith That he this Deponent heard Sir Phelim's Brother Tirlagh oge O Neil say that this business meaning the Rebellion was communicated by the Irish Committee meaning the Popish Irish unto the Papists in England who promised their assistance and that by their advice some things formerly resolved upon were altered saying it was a good Omen and undoubted sign of Divine Approbation that the Parliament here should send over a Committee the major part whereof were Papists He also affirmed that when the Protestants of the lower House in Ireland withdrew themselves apart unto Chichester-Hall The Papists at the same time never dreaming the Deponent should live to tell it again debated concluded and signed a combinatory Writing of this Rebellion under their hands in the Tollbooth or Tolsell which he said that Session drew on and hastned sooner than it was intended and when the Deponent answered That the Papists in all former Parliaments which either of them had seen usually and without exception consulted apart as often as they pleased He replied in great choler But so did never the Protestants before And this Deponent further saith That in Decemb. 19. 1641. he the Deponent heard Sir Phelim in his own House and in the hearing of Mr. Joseph Traverse and others say That if the Lords and Gentlemen meaning Popish of the other Provinces then not in Arms would not rise but leave him in the lurch for all he would produce his Warrant signed with their hands and written in their own blood that should bring them to the Gallows and that they sate every day at Council-board and whispered the Lords Justices in the ear who were as deep in that business as himself And saith also That on the third day after this Rebellion began Neil's wife a most bloody woman and natural Daughter to the late Earl of Antrim told this Deponent that all Ireland was in the same case with Ulster for said
the present state of Ireland * Fol. 216. His Majesties third Letter concerning the Cessation The Treaty towards a Cessation The Irish Commissioners the 23. of June 1643. first presented themselves to the Lieutenant-General Their Commission from the Supream Council The Treaty deferred against which the Commissioners excepted The Insolencies of the Irish in Reply to a Warrant of the State Colonel Monk against Preston The Lord Moor killed Read Husband 's Collect fo 340. The Rebels very audacious and active upon the very point of the conclusion of the Cessation The Cessation concluded His Majesties Motives to the Cessation fol. 355. Octob. 19. 1643. Reasons given in by the Judges for the continuance of this Parliament against a free one sought by the Rebels Sept. 13. 1643. His Majesties fourth Letter touching the Cessation and his care of his Army * Annals Eliz. Anno 1595. The Cessation begat great heats betwixt the King and his Parliament * His Majesties Answer to the Commissioners last Paper at Uxbridge fol. 557. Monro's Letter to the Lords Justices in dislike of the Cessation The Supream Council's Letter from Kilkenny to the Lords Justices touching the Scots breach of the Cessation Several Regiments transported into England The Oath imposed upon the Souldiers going for England * See his Majesties Message from Oxford the 24. of Jan. 1645. Fol. 227. * View their Letter again of the 15th of Octob. 1643. * Octob. 24. 1644. The Irish break the Cessation Agents being to go from the Rebels to Oxford the Protestants Petition the State that they might have some to attend at the same time his Majesties Pleasure Motions made upon the Cessation that some of the Confederates should be admitted unto their dwellings The Marquisâ— of Ormond made Lord Lieutenant the 21. of Jan. 1643. The Lord Lieutenant regulating of the Army * The Establishment of which with the rates set on each Commodity according to an Act of Council made at the Council Board the 4th of December was by Proclamation at the Castle of Dublin published the 9th of December 1644. As the 12th of Oct. preceding there had passed one of the same nature though this more large * Appendix 10. 11. * The Lord Viscount Muskery Sir Robert Talbot Dermot Mac Trag O Bryan c. The Confederates sent their Agents to Oxford The Lord Lieutenant from the Council Board sent others * Sir William Stewart Sir Gerard Lowther Sir Philip Percival Justice Donnelon to whom were added being resident at Oxford Sir George Radcliffe Sir William Sambach * Captain William Ridgeway Esquire Sir Francis Hamilton Sir Charles Coote Captain William Parsons the Insolencers of the Confederates Appendix 12. The Protestant Committee of the Irish Parliament pressed the execution of the Laws against the Rebels c. * The Lord Cottington Earl of Bristol Portland Lord George Digby Sir Edward Nicholas Sir John Culpeper Sir Edward Hide c. These of the Council much troubled betwixt the contests of the Rebels and Protestants The Irish Agents seemingly mov'd at what they were from the Confederates inforced to stand upon The King's Admonition to the Irish Agents at their departure * Appendix 13. The Irish Agents Behaviour on their Return into Ireland The Earl of Glamorgan's unjust Management of the King's Affairs in Ireland Legible in his Message dated at Oxford 29. Jan. 1645. * July 18. 1644 * The Lord Inchequin The Lord Broghil Sir Wil. Fenton Sir Percy Smith Lieut. Col. Wil. Brocket Lieut. Col. Tho. Serle Serjeant Major Muschamp The Lord Inchequin's revolt to the Parliament after the Cessation The Scots preserve themselves against the incursions of the Rebels 1645. * The Lord D. principal Secretary * The Lord I. from Ascot 27. Aug. 1645. * In a Letter printed at Oxford pag. 3. * Col. Fitz-Williams's Letter to Lord D. 16. July 1645. In his Letter from Caerdiff 3. August 1645 * To whom and the Irish Agents the King in his Letter to the Queen Jan. 30. 1644. advises not to give much Countenance 1646. The first Peace concluded The Lord Lieutenant upon Agreements on all sides repair'd to Kilkenny expecting there to receive Advance for his Majesty's Service * In his Works fol. 320. A Congregation of Clergy are summon'd contrary to his expectation to Waterford They inveigh against the Peace they had lately consented to The King of Arms barbarously used at Limerick The Confederates treachery to cut off the Lord Lieutenant The Congregation at Waterford declared Peace void The Nuncio's exorbitant carriage The Oath taken by General Preston The Nuncio besieges the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin and the Consequences thereof Some of the Supream Council being appointed to confer with the Lord Lieutenant the Nuncio admonishes them not to proceed That nothing yet might be ill resented of by the Lord Lieutenant the Supream Council wins on his Patience The Nuncio's Excommunication Matth. 16. 18 19. John 20. 23. 2 Cor. 2. 11. The two Generals Preston and O Neil being with the Nuncio engaged to sit down before Dublin sends a Letter with Propositions The Lord Lieutenant in great straits at the approach of the Nuncio to Dublin Upon the Irish breach of faith the Lord Lieutenant made a shew of delivering all into the Parliaments hands * Sir Gerr. Lowther Lord Chief Baron Sir Francis Willoughby Sir Paul Davis Knights The Parliament of England Voted Philip Lord Lisle Lord Lieutenant of Ireland He arrives in Ireland Knockmohun a strong Garrison Sir Rich. Osborn Governour His Expedition with his Commission soon determin'd being oppos'd by those who afterwards were accus'd * 7th of May. The Confederates upon Recruits out of England piece again with the Lord Lieutenant * Sir Thomas Wharton Sir Rob. King Sir John Clotworthy Sir Rob. Meredith Knights Rich. Salway Esq. The Lord Lieutenant not being admitted to send to the King the Treaty with the Parliaments Agents broke off The Marquis of Clanrickard's fidelity Upon the Marquis of Clanrickard's free dealing with the Confederates General Preston and others sign an Engagement Upon this there seem'd to be some Agreement betwixt the Lord Lieutenant and Confederates they taking Commissions from the Lord Lieutenant Yet after all the Officers of General Preston being not Excommunication-proof the Lord Lieutenant was again disappointed The Lord Lieutenant returns to Dublin which being not able to supply his Souldiers they were forced to be quarter'd on the Countrey where nothing but Victuals were taken by them The Assembly at Kilkenny justifie the Commissioners yet agreed with the Congregation at Waterford The Irish being in all things sound treacherous those who were most averse to the Parliament yet now wished the Lord Lieutenant might conclude with them The Lord Lieutenant's Conviction that the Irish intended to renounce the Crown of England A Motion to call in a forreign Prince The Kings Answer to the Lord Lieutenant upon his signification of his Streights in Dublin The Lord Lieutenant delivers Dublin to the Parliaments Commissioners though upon his
on the Rebels Northward who encountred them sharply but were soon affronted by ours many of the Enemy were slain but of ours none onely by the breaking of a little brass Peece a Gunner was hurt which yet gave them so rugged a Salute that they took leave of us and we recovered some Provisions Sir Henry Tichborn that night with some Musketiers falling on their Court of Guard and killed some of their Sentinels As the 11th of February Lieutenant Greenham with a Party of Horse and Foot routed 60 of the Enemy taking a Lieutenant Ensign and several other Prisoners Sallying also forth the next day with the like success getting in some Grain and burning the Countrey By these Sallies though some were relieved the Souldiers in general fell into great extremity Horse-flesh Dogs and Cats being greedy food yet having but an intention to seek God February the 14th a booty of 80 Cows and 200 Sheep being offer'd they were though with much hazard soon recovered of the Enemy And from the worst of Winds a Northwest it instantly turn'd to the best a S. E. and so continued till in the Evening that Sabbath having all that day crav'd the blessing from God tidings came in that our Relief was come within the Bar viz. two Pinnaces 6 Gabbards 3 Frigots with one Shallop with a plentiful Relief for three months a large Fisher-Boat of the Rebels loaden with Herring going to the Confederates being also brought in notwithstanding what Cables Masts of Ships and other things they had chain'd over the River to prevent their arrival so faithful and fortunate was Captain Stutfield whose happy Conduct Trodath had now twice experienc'd in the height of misery a mercy not to be forgot no more then that that Sunday morning about four of the Clock Sir Phelim O-Neale marching silently with all the strength he could make made so bold an Attempt as to apply scaling Ladders to the Walls especially near St. Laurence Gate where sometimes a Sentinel had been omitted two of which they had presently fixed and on each one mounted the Sentinel missing fire the Assailants presumed higher till the Sentinel knocked them down with the Butt of his Musket and cried out to the Guard who instantly plyed the rest with their fill of shot so that they left thirteen of their Ladders and many of their dead behind them nor could all that the Rebels Officers could say encourage their Souldiers to return With the last Relief there came a Proclamation dated the 8th of February 1641. from the State prizing Sir Phelim O-Neals head at 1000 l. O-Relie's and others at 600 l. and the rest of the Principal at 400 l. if they were brought in before the 25th of March next which made the Souldiers ready to be abroad the Proclamation may be found at large in the Appendix After that the Lords Justices and Council had thus particularly named those then in Rebellion and sate a Price on their heads few if any were ever brought in so intire were the Confederates though in former Rebellions this Policy produced good effect whereupon the Commons in Parliament Ordered all rotten Members fit to be cut off and new to supply their Places publickly affixing in their Orders their Names whom they knew engaged in the Rebellion which Sir Audley Mervin brings in as just evidence of their Conviction from undeniable Presidents of Parliament how many Nocent Persons soever have since passed in Triumphant innocency whilst those stand by whose evidence if admitted would write the Letter of Condemnation on their foreheads However the Catholick Lords of the Pale could words make them innocent fram'd a Protestation against the Proclamation of the eight of February but so false scandalous and insinuating that no answer further then every intelligent mans abhorrency thereof is requisite or expedient Since the last Relief the Rebels as to their Menaces were somewhat milder and relief and hope having now animated the Souldiers the 26 of February the Governour issued out with 220 Foot and 120 Horse to Beaubeck securing thereby some Corn and Hay for the service of the Town and then advanc'd to Smithstown where they met a Party of the Rebels fought them and slew 300. Serjeant Major Fortescue took two Colours Captain Bryan a Drum and eightscore Cows near Gellingston where not long before they had defeated our men Colonel Preston was there hard put to it The Victory that it might tend to the raising of the Siege was pursued by 600 Foot and 120 Horse under the Conduct of my Lord Moore with Carriages and two Field Pieces who assaied Stanime which they found so unexpectedly Fortified as having onely slain some of their men abundance of rain falling the great Guns did small execution that thence the Party return'd that night and called in upon Colp a little Village where they loaded themselves with Corn and return'd without any opposition Those of Stanime hearing of our Supplies and resolution to come on quitted the Castle few days after which without further work fell into our hands scarce a day now passed without some attempt upon the Enemy The first of March Sir John Borlase Jun. Lieutenant Colonel had the Command of four Companies with which he fac'd the Enemy and beat them with much disadvantage securing at that time 200 l. worth of Corn burning withall such of their Lodgings as remain'd of the former days work at Colp and return'd with great satisfaction Whilst the same day the Lord Moore and the Governour marched further and the Rebels having lin'd Hedges and Ditches Captain Billingsley very resolutely scour'd those places with 80 Musketiers soon routing them a Lieutenant with 13 Souldiers were slain and a Captain of the O-Neals taken Prisoner The Castle of Colp after much hazard was taken and all therein viz. 26 were slain save the Captain who was taken Prisoner The third of March some Forces marched out under the Command of Colonel Waineman to Marlington three miles off Tredath with whom all Persons were permitted to pillage and return'd home with all sorts of Grain having burnt Draicot's house and some other places considerable at which time the Rebels forsook many of their Houses and we began to be at pretty ease The first of March the Lord Moore commanded out a Party of 400 Foot and 80 Horse on the Northside amongst his Traiterous Tenants to Talagh-hallon where Sir Phelim O-Neal with Colonel Mac-Bryan had that night confederated together eight Colours instantly appear'd being intrench'd much to their advantage but our men Lieutenant Colonel Byron commanding the Foot drew up boldly and gave such sure fire as they soon betook themselves to their last refuge their heels near 400. with 7 Captains were slain and one took Prisoner viz. Rory-mac-Art-mac-Cross-mac-Mahon and one Colour 100 Muskets were taken and Pikes covered the ground others securing themselves by a bog near at hand were so roughly admonished by a Drake from us that they soon removed their standing This hot
skirmish was in sight of our Walls the Lord Moore in this encounter behaving himself most gallantly indeed no man braver for after he was known by the Rebels they endeavoured to have seized on him yet though he had but 7 in his Company being then at a distance from the main Body charged them home killed many scattered the rest and got off clear After that Tredath had relieved it self and his Majesties Forces became full Masters of the field several as the Lord Nettervile Lord Slane and others writ Letters to the State to excuse themselves as did those with the Lord Gormanston about the 21st of March to the Earl of Castlehaven under the name of the United Lords that he would move the State for a Cessation of Arms and to know upon what Conditions they might come in and submit which the Lords Justices and Council thought a demand full of Insolency they having till then acted with the forwardest of the Rebels notwithstanding whatever dehortations or encouragements the State gave them to the contrary so that then the State had no power to mitigate their Crimes Nor did the Lords Justices and Councel then think fit to prostitute his Majesties Royal Grace to men so ungrateful and unnatural Besides the State in their Commission and Instructions found no express Warrant to pardon such pernicious Traitors as before they inclined to come in hoped to carry all before them by surprizal or open force In the last Service of my Lord Moore 's Barnewell of Rahasket one of dangerous Parts was taken with some Priests and Friers Darcy of Platten in Meath about two miles from Tredath was soon after summon'd who denied the surrender of his House to the Earl of Ormond yet after hearing of two Peeces of Battery surrendred it However at Atherdee the Rebels killed all the Protestants whilst the Earl of Ormond Lieutenant General leaving Dublin the 7th of March prosecuting the Design formerly mention'd upon the arrival of the Forces out of England that they might not be idle in the City was not far from Tredath with 3000 Foot and 500 Horse burning the County of Meath and several of the Lords of the Pale's Houses in their March who came to Tredath the 11th of March exceedingly admiring that such weak Walls should be able to resist so potent an Enemy His Lordship with the Governour the Lord Moore Sir Thomas Lucas Sir Simon Harcourt Sir Robert Ferrall and others in a Councel of War determin'd to prosecute the Rebels But the Earl of Ormond with the rest of his Forces being summon'd to Dublin on Business of great importance beneath the capacity of those who would have had it otherwise the Work fell wholly on the Lord Moore and the Governour who were by the Earl of Ormond recruited with four Companies of Foot and two Troops of Horse and two Peeces of Battery and upon the 21. of March with 1000 Foot and 200 Horse they march'd forward finishing what they had left unburnt at Slane and other Villages in the way And the 23. of March they advanc'd with Fire and Smoak towards Atherdee about a mile from Town the Enemy was descried to be drawn up into two Divisions reported to be 1100 or 1500. upon which Sir Henry Tichborn drew his Souldiers into Battalia sending up a forlorn Hope before to scour the Ditches which they so effectually did as stumbling upon an Ambuscado of the Enemy's Musketiers they beat them out of their Holes drawing so nimbly upon them as they killed about 400 of them in a miles space At the foot of the Bridge our Foot found some resistance by Musketiers plac'd in a Tower upon which Sir Henry Tichborn finding a passage over the River galled them so on the other side that they soon abandon'd it The passage thus open'd the Horse enter'd and with a full career chas'd them through the Town where one Lieutenant Colonel and five Captains of the Rebels were slain the Lord Moore doing much execution with his own hands Now the passage being clear our Forces made an assault on Dundalk fortified by the Rebels with a double Wall double Ditch Marsh-ground on one side and Sea on the other so that our difficulty was great Yet we approach'd the Town the 26th of March about Nine in the Morning planted our Ordnance on a little Hill near the Gate which 500 of them defended a while against a forlorn Hope of ours till they pursued their Work so close as they made many of the Rebels fall at which they retired which our Men perceiving increas'd their fears by shouting that at length a Division under the Command of Lieutenant Colonel Waineman of about 300 resolutely approach'd the Gate with Pick-axes and after a strong encounter enter'd with the Horse who pursued the Enemy with a full Gallop killing many but upon the turning towards the next Gate seeing 2 or 3 brass Peeces planted and 500 of the Rebels ready to receive us we fairly retreated whilst a Castle plac'd at the head of that Street man'd with their best Musketiers in our return played very hot upon us whereby 10 of our Men were slain and Ensign Fortescue a sprightly Gentleman one Serjeant and one that carried the Colours for another Lieutenant Francis Moore was there also shot upon the shoulder-piece of his Armour without much hurt a Gentleman that merits much for his service through the whole Business At this we being not subject to lose any Men the Governour and the Lord Moore were so enraged that they set the Houses near the Castle the only Remora on fire through which the Wind blowing the smoak on the Castle and the Souldiers making bundles of dried Bean-stalks intermixt with Tow and Gunpowder and carrying these on their heads they got themselves un-descried to the Castle-door where they laid down their bundles and giving fire by a train of Powder blew up the Door and some other Boards those within being almost choaked and fully frighted leapt out at a Window and a Serjeant of Captain Owen's with 5 Men upon condition that they might have the pillage of the Place enter'd it and speedily shewed by their naked swords on the top of the Castle that they were Masters of it At which the Governour and the Lord Moore were reviv'd and immediately quench'd the Fires and man'd the Castle with 30 good Musketiers who playing thick into the Town hindred the Rebels from walking the Streets Afterwards we drew up two Peeces of Ordnance against the inner Gate and with 10 Wool-packs found in the Castle very opportunely a kind of Bulwark was made for the Musketiers which the Rebels perceiving left their Peeces there loaden Whereupon the Governour took a Division of a Party of Horse and drew by the back of the Town towards the North-Gate killing 40 in his way and enter'd at a by-Gate found the Town deserted The Lord Moore in the interim also beating open the Gates took possession of the two brass Peeces and another