A LETTER From a Person of HONOUR in the COUNTREY Written to the EARL of CASTLEHAVEN BEING Observations and Reflections Upon his Lordships MEMOIRES Concerning the WARS of IRELAND LONDON Printed for Nath. Ponder at the Peacock in the Poultrey 1681. A LETTER Written to the EARL of CASTLEHAVEN My Lord Castlehaven HAving Received your Lordships of the 24th Current with your printed Memoires which you are pleased in some sort to Intitle me to and I will not conceal from your Lordship that I am not yet ashamed now I have read them though I cannot approve all in them that I was the first incentive to your Writing them which was upon this occasion having sat along with your Lordship in Parliament and observing for the most part such a consent between your Lordship and me in proceedings there upon the most abstracted Principles of Honour and Allegiance I could not but account of your Lordship as a true Englishman and a Loyal Subject whatsoever blemish your engagement under the confederate Rebels of Ireland had before fixed on you and having heard you so often pathetically declare your self fully to mine and most honest Mens Minds against the dangers of the growing greatness of the French and the too fast Declension of the Spaniard between which great Powers of the World the Crown of England was so happy and wise in former times as to hold and guide the Ballance and finding by your frequent and as I could not but conceive Cordial Expressions against the Pope of Rome's Usurping Authority in these Dominions over and against his Majesty and Kingdoms to such a degree that you spared not like a right Ancient Peer of this Realm often to say That if the Pope himself should Attack any of his Majesties Dominions you would be one of the first to labour his Destruction I was deservedly much delighted in your Lordships Converse which having been often honoured with both by your Letters when in Foreign parts and your favourable Society here at home I was instrumental as your Lordship well knows to prevail with the Parliament to set a mark of great Honour on your Lordship by a special recommendation and intercession to his Majesty for a regard to and reparation of the Breaches time and misfortune had made upon so Ancient and Honourable a Family And looking upon your Lordship as a Peer of most noble Principles and free of the worst part of Bigotry I could not but lament your leaving the Parliament and still wish your return During our said Converse being ingaged in the History of Ireland to which I was the more inclined by an interest therein for several Generations my Great Grandfather Sir John Perrot having been Deputy thereof governing the same with great Wisdom and Success my Grandfather Annesley having been Commander at Sea in Queen Elizabeths time and one of the Undertakers for Land in Munster after the Earl of Desmond's Rebellion my Father the Lord Baron of Mountnorris and Viscount of Valentia of whom I have very often heard your Lordship speak with great Honour and as your worthy Friend having faithfully served King James and King Charles the First near Forty years in that Kingdom in Offices and Imployments of high Trust and I my self being a Native of the City of Dublin a diligent Observer of the Troubles there wherein I had some share and having both Honours and Lands descended to me in that Realm and knowing that your Lordship had heretofore a great part in the Action there and taking notice that no Memorials I had yet seen did give a full account of your Lordship whom as my own Friend and my Fathers Friend I was willing to do right to in History as far as I could ever highly esteeming the Bravery of your Actions and Wisdom of your Conduct as far as I had Cognizance thereof though I bemoaned the unhappy circumstances of your engaging under a Power usurping over your own Prince and incroaching Royal Power which I find you cannot digest either the Pope or Duke of Lorraine should have done I discoursed with your Lordship many of the most important Designs Actions and Traverses of Fortune in Ireland since the fatal 23 of October 1641 and finding by your full Relations with a perfect memory thereof that you were able to give help to History therein I moved your Lordship to which you friendly consented that at leasure hours you would reduce to writing what you could remember with as exact reference to Time and Order as you could recollect of Passages and Exploits there and that I might by your favour be possessed thereof And I wish things had rested there little expecting a formal Relation in print and much less so introduced before I had the perusal of it for I must now acquaint your Lordship that I did not after what I have above related save now and then to your self inquire after your Memoires promised me till by a Letter of the 16th of this moneth from a hand I respect I had notice he had seen them and my Censure thereon was desired they seeming to him after 28 years silence to cast a Calumny on the Government then and as he suspects with no good intention though he refers that to my Opinion knowing as he is pleased to say none to appeal to but me Your Lordship sees now how you are ingaged for want of commanding my Service before the Printers and I am confident the heat of a Battle would be less formidable to you then the Paper warre you must expect to be assaulted with wherein if I be necessitated to have the least hand your Lordship may be assured it shall be en Gentilhome en amy and chiefly with an aim to convince your Lordship of that which hath obscured the Glory of your Adventures and Exploits or Undertakings in that unfortunate Kingdom and therefore I forbear giving any Opinion to my Friend till I have vented my thoughts to your Lordship which I shall now take the liberty to do Upon serious perusal of your Book I find your Lordships Story of two parts The First till the Cessation of Arms concluded by the Rebels Commissioners at Seginstowne with the Marquess of Ormond Sept. 15 1643 all which time your Lordship was wholly of the Rebels Party and under their Pay and Command which I wish your Lordship had not thought fit for the Press though there were some Acts of Souldierly bravery in it The Second Part From that time till your Lordship finding the ill state of Affairs in Ireland was dispatched by the then Lord Deputy Clanrickord to set out the same to the King in France from whence though your Lordship procured a Letter from his Majesty to the Lord Deputy and sent the same by a safe Messenger yet you returned not again but ingaged in the Service of the Prince of Conde My Lord I am loath now to make my Remarques upon this Second Part because your Lordships acting therein at times under the Confederate
Irish their Commission and under his Majesties Authority at other times and sometimes under both It will be fitter at present for me to be silent therein than to attempt the unblending such a mixture and seperate your Acts of Allegiance from those of Opposition to the King which I must always blame you for or to condemn you intirely when some things your Lordship did were by full Authority though very fatal to the English Protestant interest in that Kingdom and no ways advantageous to his Majesty or his Affairs But the First Part of your Story which takes up three Sections of your Memoirs I cannot let pass unanimadverted and corrected without condemning the generation of the just suffering Blemish and Calumny to lie upon his Majesty and Government both in England and Ireland and leaving your Lordship in a mistake of having done well when I hope I shall evince that you did very ill unless the galantry of a Souldier can expiate for all that was amiss For this end I must take notice to your Lordship that all I find you urge to satisfie your own Conscience or to vindicate your Honour and Integrity to the World in this your ingaging your self amongst the Irish is to this effect Your Lordship saith That at the first eruption of the Rebellion which you seem to tye to the North but was universal you acquainted the Lords Justices with your willingness to serve the King against the Rebels as your Ancestors had formerly done in Ireland but they replying that your Religion was an Obstacle there being then a Parliament in that Kingdom sitting you were resolved to see the event sending your Brother to your House at Madingstowne in the County of Kildare to secure and defend it in case there were any rising in those parts Sometime after the Parliament being dissolved but you do not mention that you attended your duty in Parliament when it was sitting and declaring against the Rebels your Lordship desired a Pass from the Justices to go to England but they refusing you acquainted them with the condition of your Estate and desired a supply of Money till you could apply to the Parliament of England for a Pass to bring you over which they denyed You press'd them then to direct you what course you should steer to which they replied Go home and make fair weather You took this advice and being come my Lord of Antrim and my Lady Dutchess of Buckingham both Papists and after that deeply ingaged in the Rebellion soon followed whether by concert with your Lordship is not said and you were very well pleased with so good company But in a short time the Irish came and drove away great part of your Stock which you recovered by a party sent out with your Brother who brought with him two or three of the chiefest Conductors of that Rabble This inraged the Irish so much as you conceived your Brother was not safe there and therefore sent him to Dublin to attend the Justices Orders and assure them of your readiness to return on a call they sending a Convoy which they promised to do as Occasion required But your Lordship hearing that you were indicted of High Treason and hereupon your Brother addressing to the Lords Justices again to let them know that they had not kept their words with him in suffering this clandestine proceeding against you as your Brothers Letter calls it you went to Dublin and addressed your self to my Lord of Ormond as your Brother did in your behalf to the Lords Justices and Council to acquaint them with your coming and upon your appearance before them they ordered you to come the day following at which time without calling you in they committed you to Mr. Woodcock 's House one of the Sheriffs of Dublin Your Brother seeing as he calls it this rigorous usage towards you and being refused a Pass for himself to go for England he got away to the King at York and petitioned him that you might be sent for over to be tryed here by your Peers But his Majesties Answer was That he had left all the Affairs of Ireland to the Parliament upon which he petitioned the Parliament to the same effect their Answer was that they could do nothing without the King After this your Brother saith he was continually serving his Majesty in England Your Lordship once more placeth your self at Madenstowne whither you had at first retired by advice of the Lords Justices and continued there some Five or six moneths after in peace and quietness but your Lordship doth not mention that other neighbouring places possessed by the English did so or what in diligence your Lordship had with or gave to the State But proceed to say That in the mean while Parties were sent out by the Justices from Dublin and the Towns adjacent to kill and destroy the Rebels and the like was done through all parts of the Kingdom But your Lordship adds the Officers and Souldiers did not take care enough to distinguish between the Rebels and Subjects but killed in many places promiscuously on which partly and partly on other provocations that proceeded and some too that followed the whole Nation finding themselves concerned took to Arms for their own defence and particularly the Lords of the Pale did so who yet at the same time desired the Justices to send their Petition to the King which was refused And for their further discouragement Sir John Read his Majesties sworn Servant a stranger to the Countrey uningaged and an Eye-witness of their proceedings then upon his Journey to England prevailed with by them to carry their Remonstrance to his Majesty and to beg his Pardon for what they had done coming to Dublin and not concealing his Message was put to the Rack for his good will The said Lords having tryed this and other ways to acquaint the King with their Grievances and all failing an open War broke forth generally throughout the Kingdom Your Lordship next takes notice of your accidental entertaining my Lord of Ormond at Dinner immediately after the Battle of Killrush which you were a Spectator of being in sight of your House but that some who came with him turned this another way and publishing through the Army that it was a mighty Feast for my Lord Mount Garret and the Rebels this through the English Quarters past for currant And you believe it was much the cause of this under-hand villainous proceedings as you call it against you fore-mentioned Your Lordship proceeds to tells us That after Twenty Weeks that you had remained in Prison you were ordered to be removed to the Castle of Dublin which startled you and brought to your thoughts the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford who confiding in his Innocency lost his Head you concluded then that Innocency was a scurvey plea in an angry time besides your Lordship looked upon the Justices and most of the Council to be of the Parliaments Perswasion wherefore you resolved to attempt
accidents as might happen in full peace and when the course of Justice is free But your Lordship saith that on this partly and partly on other occasions that preceded and some too that followed but you enumerate none the whole Nation finding themselves concerned took Arms for their own defence and partlcularly the Lords of the Pale did so who yet at the same time desired the Justices to send their Petition to the King which was refused This being the chief ground by which your Lordship would justifie the most formed and dangerous Conspiracy and Rebellion that ever was in that Kingdom since the Crown of Englands first Title thereunto which your Lordship being a Peer of England should have distinguished from a just and a lawful War but do not I must observe to your Lordship that its an ill way to acquaint the King with their pretended Grievances La main a lespe they should have done that if they had any before their treacherous and bloody Massacres and open Rebellion but indeed they had none to offer but what was the just return of their own black Actions for your Lordship knows as I have said before that by Committees of both Houses of Parliament in Ireland whereof most were Papists they had just before their Rebellion returned loaden with such Graces and Condescentions of Favour from the Crown as had been sufficient meeting with the least ingenuity gratitude and humanity to have made wavering Persons good Subjects but the Lord Macguires and others Confessions manifested that they had laid their Design of Treason too deep to retreat easily when they had once struck the stroak till finding their error not from remorse but from sense of danger imminent which must inevitably follow unless they could subdue England too At the first they made a loud cry of Grievances and at length bid fair as they had made Ireland a field of Blood and Desolation to disturb England also Concerning the further discouragement the Rebels received by Sir John Reads treatment and what that was and upon what grounds though I have all the passages thereof by me and will by no means allow of Racking any Man as being contrary to the Law of England yet I must observe that it was a very jealous time after so many thousands slaughtered barbarously in cold blood the Rebellion increasing every day too great a curiosity arising to know the bottom of the design that remedies proportionable might be applied and Sir John Read being one of the Kings Servants and a designing Papist being there so unseasonably without being able to give a good account of himself or business and going away Agent for the Rebels in Arms without leave of the State might make them exceed the strict bounds of Law in his Examination Your Lordship in the next place taking notice that you had tryed this and other ways to acquaint the King with your Grievances which I have shewed before were none and all failing an open War broke forth generally throughout the Kingdom this being a meer colour and pretence your Lordship unfortunately puts the effect before the pretended cause for by what you had said before and what the truth of the cause is the horrid Rebellion for it never merited the name of a War was universal before they so much as alleadged any Grievance Your next Memoire is of your entertaining my Lord of Ormond at Dinner after the Battle of Kilrush which you were a Spectator of and that some who came with him turned it another way publishing through the Army that it was a Feast for my Lord Mountgarret and the Rebels which through the English Quarters past for currant Here your Lordship by your own shewing intimates that though you were a Spectator from your own House of a Battle wherein the Crown lay at stake and had formerly discovered you had force enough to recover your Cat el taken away by the Rebels and apprehend some of their Leaders which you call Rogues yet though a Peer of both Kingdoms you would be no Actor though the Kings General was at your Gate doubting it seems the event of Battle but the success rendring my Lord of Ormond Victorious you set before him that Dinner which you had not strength to keep from him And indeed it was generally then held by the English that if the Rebels had gained the day your Lordship would more frankly have bid the Lord Mountgarret their General and a Butler also welcome to that Dinner than you did my Lord of Ormond and this is what passeth rant in this particular to this day which you believe was much the cause of that villainous proceeding as you call it fore-mentioned whereas it seems you were so far from being ill dealt with in the least that my Lord of Ormond your Guest though he might have justified his carrying you Prisoner with him to Dublin who would not assist him in Fight as your Tenure required left you as some think by a blameable omission Master of your own House and without the least damage done you though much happened after to the Kingdom by your liberty of which you were for some time restrained in the Sheriffs hands and after ordered to be removed to the Castle of Dublin which you say startled you and it brought to your thoughts the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford c. whereupon you made an escape probably in the manner related But here your Lordship not distinguishing times and I not having Papers by me am so doubtful of an intermixture of Affairs to your advantage that I must reserve the unfolding thereof to another tfme when I shall be able exactly to shew you the times of your Lordships appearing and joyning with the Rebels and of the proceeding against the Earl of Strafford and how they preceded on the other I shall only for the present observe how that great personage though more innocent than your Lordship could pretend to never sled his Tryal well knowing that would have fixed more guilt upon him in construction of Law than could be proved against him and judged it more honourable to hazard the losing of his Head than his Innocency Your Lordships Wisdom took a contrary course and concluding that Innocency was a scurvy plea in an angry time as in deed it is in any times where it is so thin laid that gross guilt appears under it you find it safer to arraign the state than to abide a Tryal and accordingly taxing them for passion and partiality and to be of the Parliaments perswasion when your Lordship would have had them and the whole Kingdom of yours and by what means time hath manifested you resolved to attempt an escape and save your self in the Irish Quarters which your Lordship did to the Mountains of Wicklow where being come you cared little for the Justices Is it possible if your Lordship had thought your self innocent that you would seek safety or count your self safe among the most enormously
taking the contrary part and his Lordship escaping soon after the Rebellion to Dublin only with the Kings Troop which he Commanded and some Servants that attended him The Earl of Leicester Lord Lieutenant as he was upon his Journey for Ireland was discharged that Imployment to make way for the Marquess of Ormond to succeed him who had an unlimitted Commission sent him sole to examine the pretended Grievances of the Irish and for making a Cessation with the Rebels which he did and was after made Lord Lieutenant and concluded the two first Peaces before-mentioned I have heard Sir Philip Percival a very worthy Person and of a fair Estate being asked why he would by his Certificates of Defect of Stores give countenance and furtherance to a Cessation which he knew could only advantage the Rebels and be ruinous to the English Answer The Stores were really wasted upon unprofitable fruitless Marches and then his Certificates being required he durst not as an Officer refuse them though he was aware of the use would be made of them To shew your Lordship how the Cessation operated laying aside at present the question of the warrantableness on necessity thereof and that the two first Peaces were against Law and several Acts of Parliament in both Kingdoms and upon that and other accounts the validity thereof I must take another opportunity when I may discourse things more fully with your Lordship I can now only briefly tell your Lordship that all the Proceedings of the Rebels in Arms and all their Demands were Treason That the English and Protestants had the Laws on their side which the Irish by combination and force did break and designed wholly to subvert That the Irish tollerated no Protestants in their Quarters though that Religion were the only legal Establishment but seized and forfeited all their Estates whilst the Protestants afforded the measure and benefit of the Laws to the Irish and Papists even to those who had been in Rebellion whensoever they came in or submitted It is not then to be wondred at that the chief and most of the English Nobility in Ireland and the generality of English Scotch and Irish Protestants of all qualities and degrees sooner or later opposed both the Cessation and Peaces as destructive to them and derogatory to the Crown in which number we find the Earls of Kildare Thomond Cork Barrimore Drogheda Donnagall Claubrasill Mount Alexander c. The Viscounts of Valentia Conoway Ranelagh Kinnelmeky Shannon c. Barons or Lords Elsmond Juchequin Blaney Broghill c. But it were endless to name all and of no use to your Lordship who know this as well as I. By this it appears how ungratefully the Irish did requite the Marquess of Ormond for his unwillingness that the whole Irish Nation should ruin themselves by their persisting in Rebellion And now whether it was their vain confidence to carry the day or what else occasioned it they lost the opportunity of deliverance which the Marquess of Ormond being related to so many of them by Blood and Alliance had compassionately designed for them though with great hardship and damage to the English And whatever grounds the Marquess of Ormond had for the Cessation and Peaces by which he could have got nothing but would have incurred manifest loss which it chiefly concerns himself to vouch that in the eye of the World he may stand clear as a true English Man and faithful Subject It is apparent that now by the Forfeiture and Punishment of the Irish his Lordship and Family are the greatest gainers of the Kingdom and have added to their Inheritances vast scopes of Land and a Revenue three times greater than what his Paternal Estate was before the Rebellion and most of his increase is out of their Estates who adheared to the Peaces or served under his Majesties Ensigns abroad which shews that whatsoever of Compassion or Natural Affection or otherwise might incline him to make those Peaces he is in Judgment and Conscience against them and so hath since appeared and hath advantage by their laying aside The like may be said of the Duke of York the Earl of Arlington Lord Lanesborough and others who have great Estates of the Irish freely given them upon the same foundation So that 't is to be hoped whether the Bills already come over to confirm the forfeited Rebels Estates to English and Protestants will do the work or no That his Grace or whosoever shall succeed him in the Lieutenancy will in time transmit such Bills as shall do that work effectually and unite and strengthen his Majesties Protestant Subjects to oppose and break the further Designs of that Rebellious Generation which they will never keep free from so long as they acknowledge and obey a Forreign Head I shall make no reflection at this time upon the Peace called Glamorgan's Peace but what your Lordship gives occasion for by mentioning it viz. That it was the most destructive of all to the English and Protestants but suited best with the Confederate Design of establishing the Romish Idolatry which your Lordship in your Oath of Association engaged as deep in as any excepting the first foundation laid in Blood a fit basis for a Faction only supported by Fraud and Cruelty One passage in your Lordships Memoires I cannot but take notice of for your Honour as an English Man That when the Marques of Ormond in his extremity between the Nuncio party and the Parliament of England asked your Lordship with which of his Enemies he should treat You answered That you were confident he had resolved that before there being no question in the case when it was no question with your Lordship I wonder how it came to be one with his Lordship but the success of your Council was happy and founded upon solid grounds of Reason Your Lordship sees I can but glance at particulars in this Letter and being by so noble a Pens ingaging in justification of a Quarrel which casts reflection upon all that took contrary part to the Irish of which number I was one contrary to my first intention upon the matter necessitated in vindication of as just a cause as ever was managed under the Sun to hasten out the last part of the general History of Ireland first Wherein I shall so impartially make relation beyond all possibility of contradiction that I doubt not your Lordship will reflect with remorse upon what you have done and written wherein I differ from you and the World will know exactly the truth of that sad story I shall in the mean time only as in an abstract ser these things before you and upon the whole matter in answer to your Lordships specious justification and for your present mortification let you know that by Judgment of the King and his Privy Councils and Parliaments in both Kingdoms You are involved in the guilt of Treason and under forfeiture of all you have and as a friend yet advise you to get his
Majesties Pardon if the Acts of Parliaments have not precluded you for it s more than I know if all your Lordships active Services in Ireland be not yet liable to the utmost penalties and Severities of the Law So far are they from being fit to be offered as entertainment to his Majesty by an Epistle Dedicatory as your Lordship hath done I find your Lordship in several places reflects upon those who broke the first Peace and call it unparallell'd breach of Faith punished by heavy Judgments from Heaven and yet this was the Confederates own Act. But as if the breach of the Oath of Allegiance by the Irish and their treacherous and bloody defection from the Crown of England were a Peccadillo your Lordship hardly takes notice of it but repines at the forfeiture of Estates grounded thereupon though God and Man agreed in that Vengeance and Punishment And let this Rebellion be compared to all before it there will not appear since the English Title to Ireland so just and clear grounds of forfeiture and extirpating a Nation as have done upon this but the King hath mingled Mercy with Justice and though by a Providence from Heaven to the English the Marquesses of Ormond and Clanrickard his Majestles chief Governors incouraged the Irish to keep up a War against the English wherein they were so much hardened to their ruin that they were at length intirely subdued without condition to any save for life and left to be as miserable as they had made others in all other respects yet multitudes of them have been restored and must yet own their Lives and Estates to the Clemency of the King and the mildness of the English Government which they had cast off and put themselves under a Forreign Yoke which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear The Wisdom of God thus punishing one sin of theirs with another till they are scarce a People and the English and Protestant interest never more flourishing in that Kingdom Insomuch that it would be now the greatest folly imaginable in the Government of England and Ireland ever to suffer the Papists to grow capable of raising such a Rebellion again which they will certainly do when able Bigottery and sottish Ignorance both of Priests and People in Religion being the growing root of mischief there Upon the whole since the Cobweb excuses your Lordship hath made cannot cover the Blood that hath been shed or bring quiet to the Consciences of any that had hand therein and since your Lordship so well knows the Temper and Constitution of the Irish by your long continuance and interest among them I cannot but yet hope and therefore do with the most friendly adjurations beseech your Lordship herein that the zeal which you yet seem to have for the King his Laws and the English Government will incline you to let him know the truth you cannot be ignorant of that they are a Nation never to be trusted till reformed that so his Majesty and his English Subjects may run no more hazards of suffering by confidence in them or regard to their Crocodile Tears and groundless Complaints by which they have deceived the English in all times And that by your Repentance imitating your Ghostly Father Peter Walsh his Advice to his Countrey Men for Repentance and change of Principles your Lordship may give another instance to the World that Allegiance and the Religion you profess may dwell in the same Breast then which nothing can more conduce to divert the Irish from future Attempts of Rebellion My Lord I find many Queries fit to be made on your Memoires and many other particulars a Redire therein but you will perhaps think I have done too much already I shall therefore reserve these to another opportunity and here close in the wonted manner with the assurance of my being saving in the Irish Confederacy and Matter of Religion My Lord Your Lordships Affectionate Friend and Servant Postscript THis Letter was written as appears in August 1680 presently after the Earl of CASTLE-HAVEN had Published his Memoires with a Dedication only to the King but since his Lordships Receipt of this Letter he was it seems convinced of the necessity of writing the Epistle to the Reader in Condemnation of the Irish Rebellion which his Lordship hath since caused to be Printed with the said Memoires FINIS