King and kingdome which every day you doe while you keepe this distance with the Catholicke party in giving the Scots time to come to a head and the Round heads leasure to bring their secret plots to effect and this by taking advantage of your weakenesse in spreading themselves all over the kingdome witnesse the revolte of the Lord of Insiqum and of the Forte of Doncanon which you have lost unlesse we deeme them politicke alarums and subtle inventions to fraight and worke on the Confederates to accept the easier conditions now of peace from you It is likewise apprehended on very good grounds that the City and Castle of Dublin by the daily growing insolencies and infections of the Round-heads in the said City may be in danger to be lost and as I may boldly say is daily a loosing It is easie to fall from a protestant to a puritant and from the King to the Parliament It is their ordinary practise to come and goe daily a victory or two does it but the Catholickes cannot with such facility fall from their Religion because the differences are essentiall and points of faith nor from their obedience to his Majesty because it is apparent there is no such affection in them to the puritans but rather an innated antipathy So as to such extremes there 's no feare of fall Now if you deeme us so weake for the Scots and parliamentaries in this kingdome certainely you are much more But say you you may joyne with the Scots yes to forsake the King you may and so doe your best to secure this kingdome for the Parliament and Scots And had not the Catholicke Army beene now in the Field and in the way it is very probable you had not escaped so scot-free as you have done And if wee prosper not in this expedition for which you had neede to pray but that they shall chance to over-run us then I beleeve you will finde they will not content themselves with the North alone but will resolve to venture for a greater and better share of the kingdome I see no reason but you may feare your portion You say you may safely joyne with the Scots to hold out the longer with them because you conceive them the stronger and us the weaker why should not you aswell apprehend that we may joyne with some other forainer or submit to such whose severall Agents now in the kingdome perhaps wayte an opportunity in that kinde and have their eares open ready to snatch up such a motion Doe not you thinke but the Scots and Parliament of England will be glad to accept of us and our offers which we make to his Majesty and will permit us freely to enjoy the benefit of our conditions so we concuire with them in suppressing Monarchy which is the faire white whereat their warres doe levell But say you you know there is no such sympathy betwixt us that were from the frieing pan into the fire and therefore you are confident we will not be so mad however it behooveth you in commonpolicy to be cautious how you exasperate a whole Nation and force them to fly for safety to forein protection whereto doubtlesse the late cruell plots and practises of Sir VVilliam Parsons Sir Adam Lofius and other vipers of the state had driven this Nation had it not beene immoveable from its loyaltie to his Majesty wheron you would faine it seemes force a breach by hindering his Majesties gracious favours from us to make way for your holy brothers the parliamentaries to enter and possesse the kingdome But if you keepe the gap too long open beware our neighbours enter not before your brethren for Ireland is a faire and fryant morsell and your Spaniards Italians and French have lushious teeth which if they once fixe in it I feare all the Pincers or Hammers in England will not draw or drive them out You aske us will we loose the kingdome and our selves No but endevour to save both and if wee may not a faire death is better then a specious bondage slavery or servitude Meluis est enim nobis moriin bello quam videre mala gentis nostrae If therefore you will tye the Kings hands so fast as he may not grant us the freedome of Christians we must be compell'd to endevour to cut the bands to reinfranchise his Majesty and disinthrall our selves how weake soever you would fayne perswade us to be Quare 5. What if my Lord Lieutenant will publish his Commission and will issue forth Proclamations of mercy and pardon with restitution of estates and all assurances of life liberty and tolleration of Religion and thereby withdraw and divide all your party and so pusle and weaken you that you will be glad of any conditions and such as his excellency will be pleased to propund Resp. No doubt this was invented as a mayne Engine to crush and bring our party and whole Nation to division and so to desolation I confesse this Commission and Proclamation may perhaps worke on the most necessitous weake and discontented people within the verge and quarters of Dublin whom extreame necessity may force to goe any whither for reliefe but that have not you to give them for you have neyther meate nor money to spare within your quarters nor strength enough to gaine it from ours You must come thirty miles now from Dublin to get any Corne or Cattle if you take not from one another and so starve your selves Your parties of Horse that used to make their incursions for prey into the remoter Counties are broken and dispersed and what service may they be able to performe going so farre from their quarters specially now that our Confederates are growen farre stronger then ever you or they have beene both in Horse and Armes so as little or no reliefe are you to expect by pillage and what small store remaynes within your owne quarters will hardly maintayne your great Townes Garisons for any considerable time Consider well your owne present state condition weakenesse and necessities and you cannot with sans judgement imagine that any of our party will flye unto you whilest they have the most part of the kingdome of their owne side plentifully able to relieve them without adventuring their lives to goe a pillaging with you against their country friends and conscience specially seeing there be other wayes to maintayne them to wit by putting the meaner sort into pay of the Armies and the said banished Nobility and Gently into places and Offices of Military and Civill imployment as is resolved by the late Assembly held at Kilkenny And what people doe you thinke to draw and devide from us Those of the English-Pale all destroyed and made inconsiderable by your massacres cruelties for having withstood the shocke while Amunition Armes and Commanders were a comming who must be now rather a burden then a helpe to you and no great losse to us for what concernes their power in the condition they now
the Catholicke Subjects of England and Ireland relinquish Henry the VIII when he forsooke his owne and their Religion why did not he loose his Crowne when he lost his faith Why might not the Romish subjects of France fall off from the late French King and his Father when they gave tolleration of Religion and liberty to build Churches and Synagogues to the Huguenotes Why lost not they therefore their Crownes But to come neerer home did not our dread Soveraigne King Charles condescend unto such propositions of the Scots as stood not with their loyalty to demand nor in his power to grant to omit all other witnesse the abrogation of Episcopacie or unmitering of Bishops who be the first of the three states of every Christian and Catholicke kingdome as appeares by severall his Majesties declarations yet extant This his Majesty did onely to content that Nation and save that Crowne albeit the former followed not heavens grant the later may for they must have aliquid amplius to wit Kings un-Crowned and Monarchy pull'd downe how ever his Majesties protestant party in England Ireland or Scotland fell not therefore from him neyther is he therefore discrowned and yet must both follow if he give content to the Irish in your opinions or his Royall assent to their propositions albeit they containe nothing but what may modestly suite with their fidelity to propound and justly with his Majestie power and expediently with his gracious benignity to grant that which hath beene their owne for ten or twelve ages consequent and what they enjoyed in quiet possession ever since the Conquest during the happy Raigne of fifteene or sixteene Kings his Majesties predecessors before Henry the VIII and since then violently wrested from them by tyrannie oppression and surreptitious Lawes fraudulently introduced by the bloud-sucking ministers of this subordinate governement Moreover what concernes it the protestant Subjects of England and Scotland whether we have content or not How are they any way impeached or improved thereby or how therein interessed What loose they by our liberty or gaine they by our restraint Can not they goe to Church though wee goe to Masse the broad Sea is betwixt us we will be no eye-sore to them If it be for their brethren here we seeke not the abrogation of their Religion or abreviation of their lawfull freedome or ought else derogating to their honour securitie or peaceable cohabitation as appeares by our propositions now in Print to the eye of the world As for his Majesties protestant party protestant party here in Ireland not to undervalue them they are no way considerable For over all Munster Vlster and Connaght such as for a while did seemingly proclayme themselves for the King doe now absolutely disclayme in him and declare themselves for the Parliament and consequently his enemies so as his Majesty hath no protestant party here but onely in Leynster and that but in a destroyed nooke thereof to wit in the Counties of Dublin and Louth and a part of Kildare and Meath for Doncanon is fallen off in all which they cannot make up one thousand five hundred protestants fighting men where among these shall hardly cull out two hundred I might well say two score heads well squared to the Kings rule the rest as also all the protestant inhabitants of Dublin and their other Townes farre much more then the most part have their heads so Round as they cannot hold rouling to the Parliament when the least occasion is offered As for their hearts they are from the beginning in the bosome of their pure brethren in VVestminster-hall and their heeles are all as nimble and ready to dance a scottish-jigge and a parliamentall revolta to Essex hornepipe if execution were as easie as thought is free and wishes facil all which is manifest by their Common-prayers publicke discourses and Commerce and slocking to the Parliament Ships whensoever they hover over our coastes and thus are they all affected and infected from head to foote save a very few of the prime whereof some being strangers can make no other party then their houshold servants other some though by birth or descent Natives and bigge in bloud and calling and in precedent times vast in possessions and powerfull in command yet now as the winde blowes they beare but low and fagge sayles and can make no more way then the meanest vassals by reason their numerous allyes friends and followers are all Roman Catholickes and consequently adhering to the Confederats with whom not being united their power is as poore as that of the Alyens So as the premisses maturely pondered his Majesties protestant party disioyned from the Catholicke is no way here considerable Will you then upon the onely reason of an ungrounded Antipathy in Religion advise his Majesty to discontent a whole Nation for complying soly with the wilfull malice of so fractious frayle and feeble a party as that of the protestants I say in Ireland for those of England they cannot alleage rationably any reason for opposing our peace save also a meere hatred to our profession which is the reason of fiends who because their selves are in bale cannot brooke others should be in blisse or their hearts are forsooth purified and their heads sphearified and so in the behalfe and behoofe of their pure brothers they cunningly intend by this opposition to weaken his Majesty by fomenting a continuall difference twixt him and his Catholicke Subjects of Ireland whose party they know to be so powerfull both at home and abroad as were matters fairely composed content given them they might strongly assist to quench the fiery fury of the Parliament and reinthrone his Majesty as now de facto they begin to doe in Scotland by a small succour of two thousand Irish sent thither to joyne with the Kings party there whereby it appeares how highly an union betwixt his Majesties Catholicke and protestant Subjects in his three kingdomes conduceth for the quelling and quayling of his enemies and reestablishing of his Royall person in his full power prerogatives and glorie For if a poore ayde of two thousand men onely can so much prevayle what may a large contribution of a hundred thousand pounds in Coine or more and ten thousand men yea twenty thirty it neede be I have beene over fuse I confesse in my answer to this Quaere because it is the objection most frequently and fervently obtruded Quaere 4. Will you loose the kingdome by going to a new warre againe will you utterly undoe it and your selves by a new breach You are not able for the Scots or my Lord of Insiquin and the Parliament party that is in the kingdome much lesse for my Lord Lieutenant and his party whom you will force to joyne with the Scots and parliament and so hold but with the longest and â—…st Resp. I answer these arguments of weaknesse mâ—… bee retorted on your selves Will you that pretend so much loyaltie and zeale to serve his Majesty loose the
stand in though before they were for so many the most considerable part of the whole kingdome Their Common sort are all for the most part murdered and starved and such of the Nobility and Gentry as are remayning will not for their estates whereof they can make little benefit hazard the losse of their persons in your service to be exposed to all dangers for a poore lively-hood only to be drawen out of prey and pillage seeing you cannot otherwise maintayne them of any place of honour trust command or benefit by your old crooked rules they are incapable at least so are they sure to be made and in fine if you be masters let them not doubt to be slaves if not utterly extirpated with the rest of their country-men your opposits for the ancient spleene you beare to their Religion and Nation and unquenchable thirst to their estates how ever now in your neede you make use of their endeavours and services Can you then with reason imagine that their reason is so faire blinded as not to foresee this Doe you thinke they will be so effeminat as for a sufferance which cannot long continue they will expose themselves to be the perpetuall object of their countries wrath the abject of all Christian Nations yea and the obloquy of all the world to advance your heathenish designes by enduring all present and future miseries by fighting against their friends allyes themselves and their consciences by assisting to extirpat their owne Nation and Religion which hath now above foure-score yeares withstood so many furious assaults of your tyrannous pressures and persecutions and betray their lives liberties and estates to a never ending slavery and infamy being still exposed to your new pretended attaynders and corruptions of bloud which no pseudo-parliament of yours can wash away nor may their grievances be thereby redressed but by a free and legall parliament such as they shall never have by your consents though you did promise sweare vow protest and proclayme a restitution of all freedome and favour Your words and Proclamations so often violated both before and since the warres and your wonted faithlesse proceedings confirmes them in this beliefe The violence of the storme is over-blowen they hope and I am confident they are resolved to beare out with their fellow-vassals rather then strike themselves aground under your Lee But suppose your proclamations brought in a considerable party as I cannot beleeve they will you will make but a perpetuall Warre in regard the rest of the kingdome is so possessed and swayed by the Catholicke Bishops and Clergy that in case no reasonable accommodation be made or content herein be given the kingdome will be so imbroyled and rent that his Majesty will not be able to draw any assistance thereout to support his Crowne hee will loose all his owne revenue and our ayde of men and monyes which are under favour far transcending any his Majesty may expect from his protestant party here if any such he hath and more to be regarded then the bare walles and empty carcasses of Churches whereto for the most part no protestants save onely the Ministers with their wives did ever resort in regard the flocke were all of the Catholicke fold and all the labours endevours and persecutions being frustrat which since the suppression were imployed to propagate the protestant Religion in this kingdome or fasten it on the body thereof though the Court of wardes hath wrought on a few degenerate members and devided them from God and their Countrey I will not say from their King but I pray it may not so prove But let it now be considered whether the protestant or Catholicke party here is most powerfull and can bring the King most men and money and if it be not as necessary or more to give the Catholickes content as the protestants His Majesty we are confident is graciously inclined towards us as appeares by his severall favourable declarations made in our behalfes before some persons of worth and credit now in this kingdome ready to testifie so much To conclude can those of the Pale or any other to whom griping misery or raging jelousie of being vilipended by certayne unnaturall and ungratefull patriots may suggest a thought of deviding or withdrawing themselves from our party be of so slavish an humour as to joyne with you when they shall reflect and call to minde how their immediat predecessors and some of themselves perhaps yet living by whose power and prowesse in the late precedent warre you kept your footing in the kingdome were by you rewarded disregarded and abused Was it not the usuall taunt of the late Lord Strafford and all his fawning Sycophants in their private Colioquies to those of the Pale that they were the most refractory men of the whole kingdome that it was more necessary yea for their crooked ends they should be Planted and supplanted then any other thereof that his Majesty would never be absolute Soveraigne whilest there lived a Papist therein These the like were the ordinary Cabbinet discourses of the state in generall whereinto sometimes in publick their malice would burst forth and where plantations might not reach defective Titles should extend Many Officers and Gentlemen who had done very good service in the said Warre and lost their bloud and limbs therein for which they had Annuall pensions conferred on them were soone after deprived of their said pensions for onely having refused to take the Oath of Supremacie or Allegeance in such forme as protestants use some whereof I have seene without hands which they left at Kinsale in defence of the Crowne of England for which they remayned also without thankes without pension for only being faithfull to God and their owne soules Many of the ancient Irish who stucke steadfastly to the Queenes quarrell and lost therein their lives had their estates planted with as little justice favour or reason as those who endevoured to take the Crowne of her head and kingdome out of her hands I knew my selfe a certaine Gentleman who being questioned before the state for matter of Recusancy as you terme it answered it was not demanded of me the day of Kinsale what Religion I was of it is true replyed an ungratefull states-man I confesse you did good service that day but you doe now as the Cow that gives much milke and spils it after with a kicke of her heele and this kicke forsooth was no other then kicking in spirit at their foresaid execrable Oathes and being a Roman Catholicke Who then reflecting on your Tyranny injustice malice ingratitude faithlesse promises and undeserved persecutions will be so stupid or craven harted as on your brittle proclamations to adhere to you put their heads like Asses againe into the halter Did not Tyrone and Tyre-conell come in and submit on faire conditions Yet had not their heeles saved their heads the former had beene tripped up and the later chopped off and so may all heads be which will
Too much phlebotomy drives the body into a consumption If the flames shall once againe burst forth and the Sword be reunsheated betwixt us without doubt nothing shall ever quench the one or put up the other but the utter eradication and abolition of you and your Religion or us and ours and whether no man but he that 's God and man can tell Can any then so farre deviate from the roade of reason as to take their way where they are certayne to bee way laid or in eminent danger of the losse of their purses and persons while they may confidently walke other secure paths Who can be so unwise as to lay the foundation of so waighty a structure as is that of their Religion lives and fortunes on floating sands while they may have firme and solid grounds to build on I know not what will and rage may doe but well what wit and reason should doe Let every man therefore I say wipe off from the eye of his heart all Nationall animosities all over-weening conceits of proper might all unnaturall antypathies all jealous distrusts and every atom of any other passion which may offuscat the visive powers from discerning what may most conduce to the recovery of our infirme Countrey whereunto I wish each undividuall would put his helping head heart and hand without morosity This is better policy then to keepe all in suspense forsooth to avoyd the blame of concluding any thing and to spin out time to see for whom the triumph will turne or which way the game will goe eyther for the King or Parliament so to runne with the good successe and to beate on the winners hand or upon a shuffling up of the game and an accommodation to betray this Nation and take all advantages against it as may well be collected and feared out of these long suspitious treaties and frequent Cessations But the great God of heaven and protector of the Innocent who hath hitherto frustrated the grand plot of our adversaries intended for the extirpation of our Nation and Religion by stirring up a warre in England to divert their fiendly fury revenge the spilling of so much Innocent bloud as hath beene here unhumanly shed may and doubtlesse will convert their present machinations on themselves The Foxe is oft taken by his too much cunning and wilynesse when one good plaine way of leaping into the Tree still saves the Cat Did not the state here cause all the Corne in the Pale to be destroyed and burned the poore labouring men to be murdered and so tillage to be almost quite banished thereby to starve the Inhabitants which without doubt had famished themselves were it not for the Cessation in September 1643. Via plana via sana T' is to be feared that these winding wyles and halting policies may betray and loose his Majesty all his protestant party so ready to slip after good successe whilest the parliament shall winne more stedfast footing in North-VVales over against our Coasts Harbours whereby they may prevent the timely transportation of our ayde It is dangerous to let a disease runne too farre and a patient to worke and trust too much to the strength of his nature least all helps of Physicke come too late You say it is good to beare the Scots and other Round-heads in hand till you be assured of the Confederates You hover then in your resolutions of adhering to his Majesty and you falter in your fidelity seeing you hold correspondence with his professed enemies and oppose and reject those who you know in your Consciences whereto I appeale are his Majesties best and truest Subjects though they may not yeeld to such conditions of peace as you would put on them without perpetuall slavery infamy and danger of being one day massacred You presume top much on the friendship and allyance some of your great ones have amongst us which you are best beware how you squise and wier-drawe too farre least you force us to forget all relations of bloud and tyes of friendship whereto Religion and Countrey must be preferred Vnnaturall suits and quarrels prove still the most dangerous and least capable of reconciliation Let not any thinke to rayse or endeere themselves to his Majesty by extraordinary services in forcing the harder conditions on their Countrey for they shall thereby lose his Majesty more hearts then gayne heads and hands for his assistance while you presse too much their persons and Consciences and grate too deeply on their estates and purses they having ever beene and still are too free and willing of themselves to supply his Majesties necessities to support his glory and prerogatives and advance his service though I may with a sigh say they have beene evermore most unfortunat in sharing any part of the thankes of all their benevolous actions and large contributions from time to time which the Governors of this kingdome did still snatch and arrogat to themselves by magnifying their owne endevours and labours interposed betweene the King and his people as lately did the Lord of Strafford who engrossed all the honour and thankes of our profuse Subsidies and ingenuous willingnesse to his Majesties service to himselfe which may be a sufficient precaution to us and his fall from the stage by over-acting his part a lively president to all others for eviting such a Tragicall end which is commonly the Epilogue of all politicke playes Let therfore all such as act those eminent partes of Kings or Princes on the Theater of the Common-weale enter into themselves and consider that albeit they personat Princes yet they are none but fellow-players of the Globe or Fortune and consequently both they and their posterity subject to such inconveniences and pressures as they by overmuch affectation of applause or other falter shall have drawen on the rest of the company So as when the play is done those momentall glorious Kings may perhaps for ever after be driven to act the Clowne exull or pilgrim aswell as the meanest of their companions which God avert from all well meaning servitures whose sincere intentions and radiant Candour will in fine I hope shine thorough the the thick est of these Egyptiacall cloudes which hang over our Hemisphere and disperse all malignant vapours and vipers which will vanish thoroughout the Kingdome like false apparitions or specters upon a true vnion understanding betweene the King and his people wherto may propitious heauen say Amen FINIS Quaer. 1. Respons Add. Add. Add. Add. Add. VVhat followes are the words of an approved English Author Hetherto the foresaid Author