of their affaires and humbly to beseech relief and redresse therein the said Lieutenant Colonel though your Majesties servant and imployed in publike trust in which case the Law of Nations affords safety and protection was without regard to either not only stopped from proceeding in his imployment but also tortured on the racke at Dublin 10 The Lord-president of Munster by direction of the said Lords-Iustices that province being quiet with his accomplices burnt preyed and put to death Men Women and children without making any difference of quality condition age or sex in severall parts of that province The Catholicks Nobles and Gentlemen there mistrusted and threatned and others of inferior quality trusted and furnished with Armes and Ammunition The province of Connaght was used in the like measure whereupon most of the considerable Catholicks in both the said provinces were inforced without Arms or ammunition to looke after safety and to that end to stand on their defence still expecting your Maiesties pleasure and alwayes ready to obey your commands Now the plot of the said ministers of State and their adherents being very ripe applications were incessantly by them made to the malignant party in England to deprive this people of all hopes of your Majesties justice or mercy and to plant a perpetuall enmity between the English and Scottish Nation and your subjects of this kingdom 11 That whereas this your Maiesties kingdom of Ireland in all successions of ages since the raign of King Henry the second sometimes King of England Lord of Ireland had a Parliament of their own composed of Lords and Commons in the same manner and forme qualified with equall liberties powers priviledges and immunities with the Parliament of England and only dependant of the King and Crown of England and Ireland and for all that time no prevalent Record or authentick president can be found that any Statute made in England could or did bind this kingdom before the same were here established by Parliament yet upon untrue suggestions and informations given of your subiects of Ireland an act of Parliament intituled An Act for the speedy and effectuall reducing of the Rebells in his Maiesties kingdom of Ireland to their due obedience to his Maiesty and the Crown of England and another Act intituled An Act for adding unto explaining the said former Act was procured to be enacted in the said Parliament of England in the 18. yeare of your Maiesties raign by which Acts and other proclamations your Maiesties subiects unsummoned unheard were declared Rebels and two Millions and a halfe of Acres arrable meadow and profitable pasture within this kingdom were sold to undertakers for certain sums of money and the Edifices Loghes Woods Bogs wastes and their appurtenances were thereby mentioned to be granted and past gratis which Acts the said Catholicks doe conceive to have been forced upon your Maiesty and although voyd and uniust in themselves to all purposes yet continue matters of evill consequence and extreame preiudice to your Maiesty and totally destructive to this Nation The scope seeming to ayme at Rebels only and at the disposition of a certain quantity of Land but in effect and substance all the Lands in the kingdom by the words of the said Acts may be distributed in whose possession soever they were without respect to age condition or quality and all your Maiesties Tenures and the greatest part of your Maiesties standing Revenue in this kingdom taken away and by the said Act if it were of force all power of pardoning and of granting those Lands is taken from your Maiesty a president that no age can instance the like against this Act the said Catholicks do protest as an Act against the fundamentall Laws of this kingdom and as an Act destructive to your Maiesties right and prerogatives by colour whereof most of the forces sent hither to infest this kingdom by Sea and Land disavowed any authority form your Maiesty but doe depend upon the Parliament of England 12 All strangers and such as were not inhabitants of the city of Dublin being commanded by the said Lord-Iustices in and since the said Moneth of November 1641. to depart the said city were no sooner departed then they were by the direction of the said Lords-Iustices pillaged abroad their goods seized upon and confiscated in Dublin and they desiring to returne under the protection and safety of the state before their appearance in any action were denyed the same and divers other persons of ranke and quality by the said Lords-Iustices imployed in publick service and others keeping close within their doores without annoying any man or siding then with any of the said Catholicks in Arms and others in severall parts of the kingdom living under and having the protection and safety of the state were sooner pillaged their houses burnt themselves their Tenants and servants killed and destroyed then any other by directions from the said Lords-Iustices and by the like direction when any Commander in cheif of the Army promised or gave quarter or protection the same was in all Cases violated and many persons of quality who obtained the same were ruined before others Others that came into Dublin voluntarily and that could not be justly suspected of any crime if Irishmen or Catholicks by the like direction were imprisoned in Dublin robbed and pillaged abroad and brought to their tryall for their lives The city of Dublin and Cork and the ancient Corporate Townes of Drogheda Yeoghell and Kinsale who voluntarily received garrisons in your Majesties name and the adjacent countries who relieved them were worse used and now live in worse condition than the Israelites did in Aegipt So that it will be made appeare that more murthers breaches of publick faith and quarter more destruction and desolation more cruelly not fit to be named were committed in Ireland by the direction and advice of the said Lords-Justices and their party of the said Counsell in lesse then eighteen Moneths then can pe paraleld to have been done by any Christian people 13 The said Lord-Justices and their adherents have against the fundamentall Lawes of the Land procured the sitting of both houses of Parliament for severall Sessions nine parts of ten of the naturall and genuine Members thereof being absent it standing not with their safety to come under their power and made up a considerable number in the house of Commons of Clerks Souldiers Serving-men and others not legally or not chosen at all or returned and having no manner of estate within the kingdom in which sitting sundry Orders were conceived and dismisse obtained of persons before impeached of Treason in full Parliament and passed or might have passed some Acts against Law and to the prejudice of your Majesty and this whole Nation and during these troubles Tearmes were kept and your Majesties Court of chief place and other Courts sate at Dublin to no other end or purpose but by false and illegall Iudgements Outlawries and other Capitall proceedings to
truth First as to their vaunt of 1300 yeares unalterable profession of the now Romish Religion It is most apparent in the learned Treatises of the Lord Archbishop of Armagh and otherwaies that for above 600 yeares within the said time of 1300 yeares the Religion professed by the Clergie and people of Ireland was more agreeable to the true Protestant Religion now by law established and by publique Authoritie maintained in that Kingdom then unto that Roman Catholike Religion as they call it which they doe now professe the free exercise whereof throughout that Kingdome they by their confederacie and oath of Association are to maintain and doe now by force authorize And for most of the time after the said 600 years the Religion professed in that Kingdome was far otherwise then now it is professed and practifed by these Confederates and some of their Ancestors for the Councell of Trent which ended about the yeare 1563. brought Articles of Faith into the Church farre different from the former Catholique faith And this new Religion of Popery is the Romish Religion which they call Catholike and is now professed by them And this is the great Antiquity of these Romanists present profession which they fay they and their Ancestors have so long unalterably professed though that also in so large an extent is utterly untrue for besides what is declared in the Statute lawes in Ireland enacted in the Reigne of King Henry the 8. and Queene Elizabeth expressing the detestation of those Paliaments against the Popes usurped authority in that Kingdome his wresting of Gods holy word and Testament to his worldly and carnall affection and entangling and troubling the jurisdiction and Regall power and much unquieting the people making that unlawfull which by Gods Word is lawfull and many such like expressions in severall Statutes which shewes the genius of the people of Ireland at that time It is cleere that since the Reformation in the latter end of the Reigne of King Henry the 8 in all the time of King Edward the 6. and Queen Elizabeth the Natives of that Kingdome Ancestors to these Confederates howsoever perhaps in mind popishly affected according to the ignorance of those times did generally without scruple resort to the Protestant Ceurches in all places where any Protestant Clergie could reside untill about the 13. yeare of Queene Elizabeth that the Bull of Pius Quintus was sent into Ireland And then began some persons of note to stand at distance But after that they did also generally come to Church both in Townes and Country till about the 30 yeare of Queen Elizabeth that the Spaniards wracked upon that Coast dispersed themselves into the Townes and severall other parts and left generally many evill impressions which caused some more wilfulnesse in Recusancie yet after that most of the Natives of Ireland all the residue of Queen Elizabeths Reigne for then there were few new English and most of the Reigne of King James partly by faire inducements and partly by the weake impulsives of the Statute of 2. Eliz. did still for the most part till of late yeares come to Church which is all that Your Majesties Government and Your Laws there do enjoyn them generally unto not offering to enforce the Conscience with torture death or otherwise as the Romanists doe Neither were they so unalterable in their supposed Catholique profession but that of late yeares severall of them even of noted pregnancie in the Doctrinal part did for a Majoraltie in a City or to save a pension in some times or some other imployment in others forsake their Masse for that season to come to Church Sir Philonty O Neal makes it more plain in his Letters of triumph to his holy Confessor that his purpose was conquest and not defence of Religion his Majesties Prerogative or their Liberties there being none there that offered any offence to either of them and for Liberty in their profession they had little or no restraint Vid. the epistle of Paul Harris Priest to P. Vrban the 8. in his booke intituled Fratres sobrii estoie An 1634. It is as hard to find what numbers of Friars be in Dublin as to count how many frogs therewere in the 2d plague of Egypt for they had by the patience of the Governours their titular Archbishops Bishops Vicar generall and provinciall Consistories Ecclesiasticall Deanes Abbots Priors Moncks Nunnes Iesuites Priests and Friers without number all officers proper to that Hierarchy and free use of Masse aswell in Townes as Country they not so much as in truth doubting or fearing any violent cruelty of the English knowing their nature and disposition as they did so as feare of being massacred for their Catholique Religion was not their motive for taking Armes as they fraudulently pretend It is utterly untrue that ever since the Statute of second Elizabeth the Catholiques of that Kingdome were debarred from places of honour and trust in Church or Common wealth for after that Statute many Noblemen of the old English were made Councellours who were bred in the ignorance of those times though afterwards they came to Church And after that Statute tenne severall Iudges of that Birth and education possessed successively all the prime Places of all the Benches of the Law and likewise all the Inferior Iudges of those Benches were of the same birth and education though afterwards most of them came to Church and the officers in Courts of Iustice and otherwayes were exercised by men of like condition the Malignity of Popery being in those times not discerned to be so perillous as of later times the Spanish Armado in 88 Tyrones Rebellion the Powder Treason this present Insurrection and many other treacherous and mischievous machinations and plots have discovered it to be T is true that about the 29. yeare of the Reigne of Queen Elizabeth upon the death of Sir John Plunket Chiefe Iustice of the Kings Bench Sir Robert Gardner was sent out of England who was the first English Iudge sent into that Kingdome in many yeares before And after upon the death of some of the rest a little before the end of the Raigne of the same Queen three more were sent thither and so from thenceforth as the rest dyed others were sent thither And how the reformation of the Kingdome and Your Majesties services were advanced before the comming of those English Iudges the Stories and Records doe shew And for the Natives of that Kingdome such as would conforme and come to Church were freely admitted to be Counsellors Iudges and Officers as many of them were and yet are Besides for matter of trust many of the Lords and prime Gentry of the old English though reputed Catholiques were throughout that Queenes time made Commanders of men in her Army and very many made chiefe Commanders in severall Counties and of the forces in those Countries All which time that Kingdome was kept almost in continuall garboyle and as well then as ever since her decease the Noblemen
in that Kingdome for the encrease of Your Majesties revenues towards the defraying of Your Majesties necessary chage of that Kingdome the satisfying in some measure the arreares of Your Army in Ireland especially those who have laid great sums of money out of their owne purses and deeply engaged themselves for money and provisions to keepe themselves their holds and Souldiers under their commands in the necessary defence of Your Majesties rights and lawes and for the encouragement of others in like times and cases which may happen who otherwise will be totally ruined by their great engagements which we humbly submit to Your Majesties consideration And likewise that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased in the said plantations to erect and build some walled Townes in the said Kingdome of Ireland and endow and furnish them with necessary and sufficient meanes of legall and just government and defence for the better security of Your Majesties lawes and rights more especially the Protestant Religion in time of danger 11. That for the better satisfaction of Justice and Your Majesties honour and for the future security of the said Kingdome and Your Maiesties protestant subiects there exemplary punishment may be inflicted upon such of the principall offenders as have had their hands in the shedding of innocent blood or had to doe with the first plot or conspiracy or since that time have done any notorious murthers 12. That Your Maiesties Townes forts and places of strength destroyed by the said confederates since the said rebellion may be by them and at their charge reedified and delivered up into Your Maiesties hands to be duly put into the government under Your Maiesty and Your lawes of good protestants and that all strengths and fortifications made and set up by the said confederates since the said rebellion may be slighted and thrown down or else delivered up and disposed of for Protestant government as aforesaid 13. That Your Maiesties Protestant subiects may be restored to the quiet and peaceable possession of all their Castles Houses mannors lands Tenements hereditaments and leases as they had the same before and at the time of the breaking forth of this rebellion and from whence without due processe and Judgement in law they have since then been put out and kept 14. That Your Maiesties said Protestant subiects may also be restored to or satisfied for all their monies plate Jewells houshold Stuffe Goods or Chattells whatsoever which during the Rebellion have been delivered to any person or persons of of the confederates in trust to be kept and preserved which are yet detained from them without colour of law or Justice 15. That the establishment and maintenance of a compleat protestant Army and sufficient protestant Souldiers and forces for the time to come in Ireland be speedly taken into Your Majesties Prudent Just and Gracious confideration and such a course laid down and continued therein according to the rules of good government that Your Majesties rights and lawes and the protestant Religion and Peace of that Kingdome be no more endangered by the like Rebellion in time to come 16. That whereas it appeareth in print that the said confederates amongst other things aime at the repeale of Poynings Act thereby to open an easie and ready way for the passing of Acts of Parliament in Ireland without having them first well considered of in England which may produce many dangerous consequences both to that Kingdome and to Your Majesties other Dominions Your Majesty would be pleased to recent and reject all propositions tending to introduce so great a Diminution of Your royall and necessary power for the conservation of Your royall estate and protection of Your good protestant subjects both there and elsewhere 17. That Your Majesty out of Your abundant grace and favour to Your Protestant subjects of Ireland will be pleased to consider effectually of assuring them that if your Majesty shall thinke fit for the furtherance of your service to grant to the said confederates an Act of oblivion that your Majesty will not allow of discharge or release any actions suites debts or interests whereby your Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland may be barred or deprived or any of their party in respect of any wrongs done unto them or any of their ancestors or predecessors in and concerning their lands goods or estates since the contriving or breaking forth of the said rebellion 18. That some fit course may be considered of to prevent the filling or overlaying the Commons house of Parliament in Ireland with popish recusants and unlesse some course shall by due meanes be settled the popish faction may at some time or other get such an over-ruling power in that house as may endanger both your Majesties rights and royall prerogatives and the Protestants of that Kingdome And that provision may be made that none shall Vote or sit in any Parliament there but such as shall first take the Oaths of Supremacy and Alleageance 19. That the proofs and manifestation of the Truth of the severall matters contained in the Petition of your Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland and the collections made to disprove the scandalous aspersions cast on your Majesties gracious government and on your good and loyall protestant subjects by the confederates may be duly examined and discussed The seventh of May Sir William St Leger came from His Majesties Army to Oxford and being with the protestant Agents told them That that party of the Army that came out of Munster in Ireland were much discontented to heare that the protestant Agents received no better countenance and that he had told the Lord Digby so much and that the Lord Digby on discourse with the said Sir William said That The greatest favour he could doe the Protestants Agents was to call them mad men that he might not call them roundheads for that the said Agents had proposed mad propositions and wished him to prevaile with some of the Agents to come to him that he might confer with them which the said Agents did not the L. Digbies expressions then and before so little encouraging them thereunto The same day there was a report in Oxford grounded upon a letter that came out of Ireland signifying that it went for currant newes in Dublin that the Irish Agents were dispatched at Court and that they staid to procure the protestants pardons This being told to the L. Digby by the said Sir William St Leger his Lordship answered That the Protestant Agents had raised that report of purpose to cast an aspersion upon the King The eighth of May the Protestant Agents waited on Mr. Secretary Nicholas desiring to know what resolution was taken upon their second propositions who told them That the Lords sate not that day according to their appointment And the said Agents heard by others that some of the Lords desired to avoid sitting in counsell when the businesse of Ireland was debated The ninth of May the protestant Agents were commanded to wait at the
The False and Scandalous REMONSTRANCE OF The Inhumane and Bloody Rebells of Ireland DELIVERED To the Earl of St. Albans and Clanrickard the Earl of Roscomon Sir Maurice Eustace Knight and other His Majesties Commissioners at Trim the 17. of March 1642. to be presented to His Majesty by the Name of The Remonstrance of Grievances presented to His Majestie in the behalf of the Catholicks of IRELAND Printed at Waterford nine Moneths after by Tho Bourk Printer to the Confederate-Catholicks and untill then concealed from His Majesties good Protestant Subjects Together with an ANSWER thereunto on the behalf of the Protestants of Ireland Also a true Narration of all the Passages concerning the Petition of the Protestants of IRELAND presented to His Majesty at Oxford the 18. of April 1644. With the Reasons inducing the said Protestants to Petition The Proceedings and Successes thereof in Ireland and afterwards in England untill the Protestant Agents were dismissed by His Majesty 30. Maii 1644. Collected in obedience to the Order and Command of the Honorable House of Commons of England For the manifestation of the Truth and Vindication of the Protestants August 27. 1644. IT is this day Ordered by the Committee of the House of Commons in Parliament concerning Printing That the Books intituled An Answer presented to His Majestie at Oxford unto the false and scandalous Remonstrance of the Inhumane and Bloody Rebells of Ireland Together with A Narration of the proceedings at Oxon be forthwith printed and published JOHN WHITE London Printed for Edw. Husbands in the Middle-Temple 1644. A Remonstrance of Grievances Presented to his most Excellent Majestie in the behalfe of the Catholicks of IRELAND To the Kings most Excellent Majestie MOst gratious Soveraigne We your Majesties most dutifull and loyall subjects the Catholicks of your Highnesse kingdom of Ireland being necessitated to take armes for the preservation of our Religion the maintenance of your Majesties rights and prerogatives the naturall and just defence of our lives and estates and the liberties of our country have often since the beginning of these troubles attempted to present our humble complaint unto your Royall view but were frustrated of our hopes therein by the power and vigilancy of our adversaries the now Lords-Iustices and other ministers of State in this kingdome who by the assistance of the malignant party in England now in Arms against your Royall person with lesse difficulty to attaine the bad ends they proposed to themselves of extirpating our Religion and Nation hither to debarred us of any accesse to your Majesties justice which occasioned the effusion of much innocent bloud and other mischiefes in this your kingdom that otherwise might well be prevented And whereas of late notice was sent unto us of a Commission granted by your Majesty to the right honorable the Lord Marques of Ormond and others authorizing them to heare what we shall say or propound and the same to transmit unto your Majesty in writing which your Majesties gracious and princely favour we find to be accompanied with these words viz. Albeit we do extreamly detest the odious rebellion which the recusants of Ireland have without ground or colour raised against us our Crown and dignity which words we do in all humility conceive to have proceeded from the misrepresentations of our adversaries and therfore do protest we have been therein maliciously traduced to your Majesty having never entertained any rebellious thought against your Majesty your Crown or dignitie but alwayes have been and ever will continue your Majesties most faithfull and loyall subjects and do most humbly beseech your Majesty so to owne and avow us and as such we present unto your Majesty these ensuing grievances and causes of the present distempers 1 In primis the Catholicks of this kingdom whom no reward could invite no persecution inforce to forsake that Religion professed by them and their ancestors for thirteen hundred yeares or thereabouts are since the second year of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth made incapable of places of honor or trust in Church or Common-wealth their Nobles become contemptible their Gentry debarred from learning in Vniversities or publick Schooles within this kingdome their younger brothers put by all manner of imployment in their native country and necessitated eyther to live in ignorance and contempt at home or to their great discomfort and impoverishment of the land to seek education and fortune abroad misfortunes made incident to the said Catholicks of Ireland only their numbers quality and loyalty considered of all the Nations in Christendome 2 Secondly that by this incapacity which in respect of their Religion was imposed upon the said Catholicks men of mean condition quality for the most part were in this kingdom imployed in places of greatest honor and trust who being to begin a fortune built it of the Ruines of the Catholick Natives at all times lying open to be discountenanced and wrought upon and who because they would seem to be carfull of the government did from time to time suggest fals malicious matters against them the said Catholicks to render them suspected odious in England from which ungrounded informations their many other ill Offices these mischeifs have befallen the Catholicks of Ireland First the oppositions given to all the graces and favors of your Maiesty or your late Royall Father promised or intended to the Natives of this Kingdom Secondly the procuring of false inquisitions upon fained Titles of their estates against many hundred yeares possession and no travers or petition of Right admitted thereunto and Iurors denying to find such Offices were censured even to their publicke infamy and ruine of their estates the finding thereof being against their consciences and cleere evidences and nothing must stand against such offices taken of great and considerable parts of the Kingdom but Letters-patents under the great Seale And if Letters-patents were produced as in most cases they were none must bee allowed valid nor yet sought to be legally avoyded So that of late times by the underhand working of Sir William Parsons now one of your Lords-Iustices here and the arbitrary illegall power of the two impeached Iudges in Parliament and others drawne by their advice and counsell one hundred and fifty Letters-patents were avoyded in one morning which course continued untill all the Patents of the Kingdom to a few were by them and their associates declared voyd such was the care those ministers had of your Maiesties great Seale being the publick faith of the Kingdom this way of service in shew only pretended for your Maiesty proved to your disservice and the immoderate and too timely advancement of the said ministers of state and their adherents and too neere the utter mine of the said Catholicks 3. That whereas your Majesties late Royall Father King James having a princely and fatherly care of this Kingdom was graciously pleased to grant severall large and beneficiall Commissions under the great Seal of England and severall instructions
Letters under his privie Signet for the passing and securing of the estates of his subjects here by Letters Patents under the great Seal and Letters Patents accordingly were thereof passed fines payed old rents increased and new rents reserved to the Crown And the said late King was further graciously pleased at severall times to send divers honorable persons of integrity knowledge and experience to examine the grievances of this kingdom and to settle and establish a course for redresse thereof And whereas your Majesty was graciously pleased in the fourth yeare of your raign to vouchsafe a favourable hearing to the grievances presented unto you by agents from this kingdom and thereupon did grant many graces and favours unto your subjects thereof for security of their estates and redresses or remove off those heavy pressures under which they have long groaned which acts of Iustice and grace extended to this people by your Majesty and your said Royall Father did afford them great content yet such was and is yet the immortall hatred of some of the said Ministers of Sate and especially of the said Sir William Parsons the said impeached Iudges and their adherents to any welfare and happinesse of this Nation and their ambition to make themselves still greater and richer by the totall ruine and extirpation of this people that under pretence of your Majesties service the publike faith involved in those grants was violated and the grace and goodnesse intended by two glorious Kings successively to a faithfull people made unprofitable 4 The illegall arbitrary and unlawfull proceedings of the said Sir William-Parsons and of the said impeached Iudges and their adherents and instruments in the Court of Wards and the many willfull erroneous decrees and Iudgements of that Court by which the heires of Catholick Noblemen and other Catholicks were most cruelly and tyranically dealt withall destroyed in their estates and bred in dissolution and ignorance their Parents debts unsatisfied their Sisters and younger brothers left wholy unprovided for the Ancient and appearing Tenures of Mesne Lords unregarded estates valued in Law and made for valuable considerations avoyded against Law and the whole Land filled up with the frequent swarmes of Escheators Feodaries Pursevants and others by authority of that Court. 5 The said Catholicks notwithstanding the heavy pressures before mentioned and other grievances in part represented to your Majesty by the late Committees of both houses of Parliament of this kingdom whereunto they humbly desire that relation be had and redresse obtayned therein did readily and without reluctation or repyning contribute to all the Subsidies Loanes and other extraordinary grants made to your Majesty in this kingdom since the begining of your Raign amounting unto well neer on Million of pounds over and above your Majesties Revenue both certain and casuall And although the said Catholicks were in Parliament and otherwise the most forward in granting the said sums and did bear nine parts of ten in the payments thereof yet such was the power of their adversaries and the advantage they gained by the opportunity of their continuall addresses to your Majesty to increase their reputation in getting in of those Moneys and their authority in the distribution thereof to your Majesties great disservice that they assumed to themselves to be procurers thereof and represented the said Catholicks as obstinate and refractary 6 The Army raised for your Majesties service here at the great charge of the kingdom was disbanded by the pressing importunity of the malignant party in England not giving way that your Majesty should take advice therein with the Parliament here alleadging the said Army was Popish and therefore not to be trusted And although the world could witnesse the unwarrantable and unexempled invasion made by the malignant party of the Parliament in England upon your Majesties Honour Rights Prerogatives and principall Flower of your Crown And that the said Sir William Parsons Sir Adam Loftus Knight your Majesties Vice-Treasurer of this kingdom and other their adherents did declare that an Army of ten Thousand Scots was to arrive in this kingdom to force the said Catholicks to change their Religion And that Ireland could never doe well without a Rebellion to the end the remain of the Natives thereof might be extirpated and wagers were laid at generall Assizes and publike meetings by some of them then and now imployed in places of great profit and trust in this kingdom that within one year no Catholick should be left in Ireland that they saw the ancient and unquestionable priviledges of the Parliament of Ireland unjustly and against Law incroached upon by the orders Acts and proceedings of both houses of Parliament in England in sending for and questioning to and in that Parliament the Members of the Parliament of this kingdom sitting the Parliament here And that by speeches and orders Printed by the authority of both houses in England it was declared that Ireland was bound by the Statutes made in England if named which is contrary to known truth and the Laws here setled for four hundred yeares and upwards And that the said Catholicks were throughly informed of the protestation made by both houses of Parliament of England against Catholicks and their intentions to traduce Laws for the extirpation of Catholick Religion in the three kingdoms and that they had certain notice of the cruell and bloudy execution of priests there only for being priests and that your Majesties mercy and power could not prevail with them to save the life of one condemned priest and that the Catholicks of England being of their own flesh and bloud must suffer or depart the Land and consequently others not of so neer a relation to them if bound by their Statutes and within their power These motives although very strong and powerfull to produce apprehensions and feares in the said Catholicks did not prevail with them to take defensive Armes much lesse offensive they still expecting that your Majesty in your high wisdom might be able in a short time to apply seasonable cures apt remedies unto those evils and innovations 7 That the Committees of the Lords and Commons of this Kingdome having attended your Majesty for the space of nine Moneths your Majesty was graciously pleased notwithstanding your then weighty and urgent affaires in England and Scotland to receive and very often with great patience to heare their grievances and many debates thereof at large during which debates the said Lords-Iustices and some of your privy Counsell of this Kingdom and their adherents by their malicious and untrue informations conveyed to some Ministers of state in England who since are declared of the malignant party and by the continuall solicitation of others of the said privy Counsell gone to England of purpose to crosse and give impediment unto the justice and grace your Majesty was inclined to afford to your subjects of this Realm did as much as in them lay hinder the obtaining of any redresse for the said grievances and
Armes This the Earle sent to the Lords Iustices the 23th of the same moneth which was long after the Irish Army was beaten from Drogheda and that your Majesties Army was fully Master of the field in all parts of the Pale And then the Lords Iustices and Councell thought not fit of themselves to harken unto it but forth with certified the same to the then Lord Lieutenant desiring your Maiesties directions therein And for their further proceeding on the 23th of March 1642. the Lord Montgarret sent to the Earle of Ormond then Lientenant Generall of your MaiesTies Army a paper of the grievances aswell concerning things done in England as Ireland and desired it might be shewed to the Lords Iustices and Councell that redresse might be given which lay not in their Lordships powers yet this also they sent to the then Lord Lieutenant to be shewed to your Maiestie About August one thousand six hundred forty and two the Remonstrants sent to the said Lieutenant Generall of your Maiesties Army a Petition directed to your Maiestie which his Lordship presented to the Lords Iustices who forthwith sent it away to your Maiesties principall Secretary and since then no other complaint hath beene heard of except that Remonstrance and except some particular motions hereafter mennoned By all which it fully appeares the Lords Iustices and Councell did no way frustrate any of their attempts to complaine to your Maiestie For the sense these Remonstrants seeme now to have of the late effusion of innocent bloud there T is well if they now beginne to be sensible of the effusion of the innocent bloud whereof indeed themselves only are guilty which will more plainely appeare by distinguishing the times which they causelesly confound Your Maiesties subiects being in full peace and trusting only to the protection of your Maiesties lawes these confederates and their bloudy instruments did in many parts of the Kingdome suddenly and treacherously assault and glut their long contealed malice in cruelly murthering by sundry kinde of tormenting deaths some hundred thousands of your Maiesties harmelesse Protestant subiects and dispoiling both them and all the rest of all their esTates and substance as is too manifest to the world nothing limiting their outragious aymes but professEd to all extirpation of all Brittish and Protestants All which time neither your Maiesties Governours nor your surprized subiects were able to make any considerable resistance And when afterwards your Maiesties forces out of England enabled your subiects to stand upon their defence and by your Maiesties Princely direction and authority to take due vengeance on their unparraleld wickednesse no man no not the confederates in their owne consciences can iustly charge your Maiesties Governours or protestant Subiects with bloud undeservedly shed in that necessitated way of their own defence and iust punishment of those former heynous acts But the confederates ought to bewayle the bloud of your Maiesties officers and servants fighting in your iust quarrell as an addition of waight to their former guilt Vid. Proclamation Octob. 3. 1641. Whereas on the other side aswell your Maiestie by your Princely Proclamation under your royall signature and privy Signer commanded them to lay downe Armes Vid. Proclamation 1 Novēa 1641. with intent doubtlesse to have mercy on them in a fit measure And your Maiesties Governours there partly by Proclamations promising in your Maiesties name mercy to all that should desist from force as hereafter is set downe And partly by imploying unto them a committee of Parliament there whom they scornefully reiected by tearing aswell the Committees Letters sent to them from Drogheda as the order of Parliament therewith sent And at another time by sending unto them certaine of their owne Clergy to treate and perswade with them whom they abused And partly by letters and faire messages moving them to cease and stay violence by appointing the Lord Moore and others to treate with them By appointing Sir Richard Barnwell and Patrick Barnwell to treate and perswade with them Did their utmost to induce them to returne to due obedience To come and submit their discontents to your Maties known Clemency and stop the issue of bloud which they so willfully had opened enraged And which gives further evidence of your Maties servants subjects peaceable inclination Your Majesties Iustices and Counsell did in the beginning of this Rebellion give severall Commissions to Lords and prime Gentrie of the Natives in the Pale and all the adjacent Counties authorising them to gather the Forces of the Countrey and to governe and command them for preservation of the Subjects in peace authorizing them in those Commissions to parley with Rebels protect and promise mercy to all that would returne to obedience so much confidence had the Lords Iustices in those old English and did desire to make them assured of their trust As the Lord Gormanston in Meath Lord Montgarret in Kilkenny Nicholas Barnwell in Dublin Walter Bagwell in Catherlagh Lord of Lowth in Lowth Sir Thomas Nugent in Westmeath Sir Robert Talbot in Wickloe Sir Iames Dillon in Longford and severall others as well in Munster as Conaught All which Commissions so issued even to so many of of the Remonstrants themselves were issued after the 23 of October and before the last of November 1641. In all which time or afterwards if they pleased they might have staid the spreading of the Rebellion if promise of mercy could have done it besides severall Commissions of Martiall Law to the Natives in each County But they contrary to all hope not only forbare to protect or reduce any but they soone after joyned with the Northerne and other Rebels to the confusion of the State and Government and destruction and banishment almost of all British and Protestants and as for those few Roman Catholicks who stood firme in loyaltie in those unseasonable times they have been embraced and used with that love and affection by your Majesties Governours and Protestant subjects which the Protestant subjects formerly shewed to them and as the Protestants have been As to their undutifull Challenge to your Majesties Princely and deeply merited expressions in your gracious Commission to your said Lieutenant Generall of your Army granted in compassion to these Remonstrants Your Majesties loyall subjects cannot observe their presumption without griefe of heart but doe in all humilitie leave the same to Your Majesties most discerning judgement Your Majesties Protestant subjects doe not beleeve nor ever could observe that any of Your Governours or Protestant subjects there have either directly or collaterally in adverse affection towards the Confederates advertised against or otherwise represented those Confederates to Your sacred Majestie then the truth urged and their bounden duty to Your Majestie and your service pressed them to doe To the first Article Artic. 1. It runneth upon generalls and is in substance generally untrue yet in further dutifull care to give Your Majestie satisfaction Instances herein are humbly offered to maintaine the
alia expressio _____ aut aliqua alia exquisita forma ad hoc servanda foret illorum tenorum praesentibus pro sufficienter expressis ac formam in illis traditam pro servata habentes hac vice specialiter nominatim et expresse ad effectum praesentium derogamus Caeterisque contrarijs quibuscunque Vt autem praesentes nostrae quam ad singula loca deferri non possunt ad omnium noti facilius deveniant volumus et earundem praesentium transumptis vel exemplis etiam impressis manu alicujus notarij publici subscriptis et sigillo alicujus personâ in dignitate Ecclesiastica constitutae munitis eadem prorsus adhibeatur fides quae adhiberetur praesentibus si forent exhibitae vel ostensae Datum Romae apud Sanctum Petrum 25 Maij 1643 Pontificatus nostri Anno vigessimo M. A. Maraldus It is Translated into English thus Vrbanus Octavus c. AD FUTURAM REI MEMORIAM HAving taken into Our serious consideration the great zeal of the Irish towards the propagating of the Catholick faith and the pietie of the Catholick warriors in the severall armyes of that Kingdome which was for that singular fervency in the trus worship of God and notable care had formerly in the like case by the inhabitants thereof for the maintenance and preservation of the same Orthodox Faith called of old the land of Saints and having got certain notice how in imitation of their godly and worthy Ancestors they endeavour by force of armes to deliver their thralled nation from the oppressions and grievous injuries of the Hereticks wherewith this long time it hath been afflicted and heavily burthened and gallantly do what in them lyeth to extirpate and totally root out those workers of iniquity who in the Kingdome of Ireland had infected and alwayes striven to infect the masse of Catholick purity with the pestiferous leaven of their hereticall contagion We therefore being willing to cherish them with the gift of those spirituall graces whereof by God we are ordained the only disposers on earth by the mercy of the same Almighty God trusting in the authority of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and by vertue of that power of binding and loosing of souls which God was pleased without our deserving to conferre upon us To all and every one of the faithfull Christians in the foresaid Kingdome of Ireland now and for the time militating against the Hereticks and other enemies of the Catholick Faith they being truly and sincerely penitent after confession and the spirituall refreshing of themselves with the sacred communion of the body and blood of Christ Do grant a full and plenary Induigence and absolute remission for all their finnes and such as in the Holy time of Iubilée is usuall to be granted to those that devoutly visit a certain number of priviledged Churches within and without the walls of our City of Rome by the tenor of which present letters for once only and no more we freely bestow the favour of this absolution upon all and every one of them and withall destring heartily all the faithfull in Christ now in armes as aforesaid to be partakers of this most precious treasure To all and every one of these foresaid faithfull Christians we grant licence and give power to choose into themselves for this effect any fit Confessor whither a secular Priest or a Regular of some Order as likewise any other selected Person approved of by the Ordinary of the place who after a diligent hearing of their confessions shall have power to liverate and absolve them from excommunication suspension and all other Ecclesiasticall sentences and censures by whom soever or for what cause soever pronounced or inflicted upon them as also from all sinnes trespasses transgressions crimes and delinquencies how haynous and Atrocious soever they be not omitting those very enormities in the most peculiar cases which by any whatsoever former constitutions of Ours or of our Predecessor Popes then which we will have these to be no lesse valued in every point were designed to be reserved to the Ordinary or to the Apostolick Sea from all which the Confessor shall hereby have power granted him to absolve the foresaid Catholicks at the barre of conscience and in that sense only And furthermore we give them power to exchange what vow or vows soever they were formerly astricted to those of religion and chastity excepted into any other pious and good work or works imposed or to be imposed on them and every one of them to performe in all the foresaid cases by a wholesome penance according to the mind and will of the Confessor Therefore by the tenour of these present Letters and by the vertue of that Holy strict obedience wherein all Christians are bound unto Us we charge and command all and every one of the reverend Brethren Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticall Prelats and whatsoever Ordinaries of places now residing in Ireland together with all Vicars substitutes and officials under them or these failing We command all such to whom in those places the care of souls is incumbent that as soon as they shall have received the copies of these Our Letters they shall forthwith without any stop or delay publish them and cause them to be published thoroughout all their Churches Diocesses Provinces Countrys Cities Townes Lands Villages and places whatsoever Nevertheles we do not intend by these present Letters where any publick or secret irregularity is made known or any defection apostasie incapacity or inhability in any manner of way contracted to dispense therewith or grant to any other any power or faculty of dispensation rehabilitation or restoring the Delinquent to his former condition though but at the barre of conscience neither can nor should these our present Letters availe or be stedable to those who by us and the Apostolick Sea or by any Prelate or Ecclesiastick Iudge have been excommunicated suspended interdicted or declared and publiquely denounced to have justly incurred the sentences and censures of the Church till first they have satisfied and agreed with the parties therein concerned notwithstanding all other Constitutions and Apostolicall Ordinations whereby uevertherlesss the faculty of Absolution in these as well as other expressed cases is so reserved to his Holinesse the Pope for the time being that no kind of Iubilée nor power of granting such indulgences can in any sort availe unlesse expresse mention be made of the fault or faults in particular and the whole tenour of them fully deduced by an individuall relation from word to word and not by generall clauses importing the same thing this or some other exquisite form of the like nature being carefully observed we in that case especially expressely and namely by the effect of these presents do totally abolish and remit them all and every one of them their offences notwithstanding any thing to the contrary Now that these principall Letters of ours which cannot be conveniently brought to every place may the sooner come
them to introduce law for the extirpation of Catholique Religion in the three Kingdomes at any time before these Remonstrants openly entred into this actuall Rebellion and bloudy assacination though those Remonstrants draw it in amongst their provocations to take up Armes Neither indeed did those Remonstrants feare any violence or sharpe prosecution from their quiet Neighbours the Protestants in Ireland there having been very great and as now appeares very dangerous patience used towards the Remonstrants aswell by Governours as all Officers and Protestants who would have beene glad to live among them in peace if the Remonstrants could have endured their company Lastly whereas they seeme grieved That the Parliament of England encroached against law and unjustly upon the Priviledges of Parliament in Ireland in sending for and questioning too and in the English Parliament the members of that Parliament They do wel now to expresse sence of it amongst the rest of their pretexts for their wicked acts But when Protestant members of this Parliament against whom that pretended encroachment most extended were sent for they imploring the aid of the Parliament of Ireland to defend them and their priviledges were not holpen therin by the Commons house but were answered by a leading Member of the Cōmons house now a Remonstrant that the House should do well not to take notice thereof least any variance should arise betweene the two Parliaments so unwilling they were to assist the Protestants or maintaine that right which now they so stoutly challenge though a good while afterwards both Houses tooke occasion to write to their Committee in England to sollicite concerning that particular And so little feare had they then of any pernicious purposes in that Parliament against them though they now make mention of that Parliaments unwarrantable invasion since made on your Majesties Rights and Prerogatives as a pretence for their wicked and abominable actions long before that begun In the seventh Article Those Remonstrants doe justly acknowledge your Majesties grace and Princely patience in hearing their grievances 7. Article which would have wrought upon any loyall or dutifull heart to returne love and obedience to so gracious a Soveraigne and at least neighbour-like demeanour towards your Majesties faithfull Subjects the Brittish and Protestants which how they performed their then immediately ensuing acts doe demonstrate But in this Article also they continue their untrue and malicious calumniations against your Majestie in your Governours and Officers who did never give any of them just cause of offence It cannot appeare that the Lords Justices and Counsell did give any untrue Information against them or the Committees of that Parliament neither is it true that any such thing was done for that they know the Counsell of whom the Lords Justices then were gave all the furtherance they could to the going of that Committee Hoping that what your Majestie should be pleased to grant might redound to the common benefit of your people Neither did any Privie Counsellours goe into England of purpose to crosse or give impediment to your Majesties Justice and graces But it is true that the late Lord Dillon afterwards Earle of Roscomon and Sir Adam Loftus your Majesties Vice-Treasurer were about that time sent for by your Majestie upon the motion of your Parliament of England as it seemed to testifie in the cause moved in that Parliament against the Earle of Strafford And if in their attendance there their advice or knowledge concerning any thing there propounded or handled by the Committee were required by your Majestie doubtlesse those Counsellours did faithfully discharge the duty of good servants to your Majestie and true wel-wishers to that Kingdome being both Natives thereof and members of that Parliament Neither did your Majesties Justices and Counsell transmit unto your Majestie or any of the State of England any misconstructions or misrepresentations of the proceedings and actions of that Parliament but rather it may justly be beleeved that those Remonstrants doe worke upon their owne evill imaginations in this as in the former Articles they have presumed to avouch severall knowne untruths Nay the Lords Justices were so farce from any such malevolence to that Parliament or any Members thereof as when they received your Majesties Commission dated the sourth of Ianuary 1640. authorizing them to continue prorogue or determine the Parliamnent as they thought fit They in confidence that the intent of all the Members of the Parliament was for the generall good of the Kingdome and your Majesties service did willingly continue it and gave all countenance and assistance to it which well appeares by a motion made by a noble Peere in the Lords House That the Lords Justices had alwayes chearfully received their requests and Messages and were ready to comply with them desiring it might be entred to the end it might remaine to posteritie It is also conceived that when your Majestie had given direction that all Letters from thence should be kept apart to the end the Committee might have recourse unto them if any such misrepresentations could have appeared to them they would have instanced the same in this Remonstrance and not have offered to your Majestie suppositions for certainties And touching the Parliament of Irelands power of Judicature in matters Capitall there was nothing written from thence concerning that matter untill your Majestie being advertized of the impeachment of the Lord Chancellour and others in the Lords House required the Lords Justices to search and certifie whether any presidents might be found there for such a proceeding Your Majestie then also graciously declaring that as your Majestie intended not to prejudice the Rights of the Lords House so your Majestie did expect that they should nto introduce any new president for that cause Thereupon the Lords Justices having searched and demanded of the two Houses of Parliament if any such presidents they could shew none were produced which the Lords Justices certified backe to your Majesties principall Secretarie as in duty they ought And it is beleeved that those Remonstrants would not now more earnestly presse for that power in Judicature then heretofore was done were it not by the exercise or terrour thereof if their partie could have prevailed to rid themselves of your Majesties English Judges and Officers whom they cannot endure to beare rule amongst them though they clearly saw the Kingdome prospered above any former times under their great labour and travell It is most untrue that your Majesties Protestant officers or subjects did envy the good union betweene the two Houses But the truth is they did labour to cherish and confirme it by their uttermost skill and industry And if your Majesties servants or your Protestant subjects did happen to oppose those Remonstrants in any their undutifull motions and projects either concerning Religion or your Majesties Protestant Clergie or concerning the derogation of your Majesties Prerogatives Rites and authories or malicious practise against your Majesties Officers Those Remonstrants did and now
from the Lords Justices Notification to be given to the Countrey of your Majesties goodnesse and bounty intended and shewed to the people which might have tended to their great satisfaction Whereas the Lords Justices never denyed them any such thing But De facto did forthwith write to all the Ports in the Kingdome with briefes of those graces concerning matters of Customes which that season most required Commanding the Officers punctually to obey those his Majesties directions They also published Proclamations for the sending away of Wooll and what Customes was to be paid for the same And sent severall Letters to all the Ports of the Kingdome to publish the same And sent warrants for free entries of all Tobacco brought in or to be brought in at all the Ports and what Custome to be paid They gave order for drawing a Bill for repeale of the preamble of the Act of Subsidies They also desired Sir Iames Montgomerie and Sir William Cole two of the Committee then returned if they could overtake the Assises in the Counties of Vlster to give publicke notice to all the undertakers what your Majestie had graciously granted and intended to them which they undertook to doe They had formerly sent over the Bill for the generall pardon which was all that for that short time could be done specially the Terme and the next Session being so neere aswell for passing the Acts then newly come over as upon deliberate consultation in the meane time to prepare for an orderly execution and publication of the rest of those graces Most of the rest of the graces being to be executed there in Dublin and in the Courts The Committee also and the few others of the Members of the House remaining then in Dublin being very urgent to goe to their houses which they suddenly did But it appeared soone after that those Remonstrants and their party had other intentions and determined to be their owne carvers aswell of your Majesties Rents and Subsidies then in the Collectors hands as of all the goods substance and estates of your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects which intenon they within a few dayes after fully put in practise As to the prodigious tale mentioned in the eight Article of dangerous 8. Article and pernitious Petitions to the Parliament in England pretended to be contrived by the foure persons named in this Article and signed by many thousands of a malignant party which Petitions they say were made knowne at Assizes and other publicke places containing as they pretend matters destructive to the Catholiques their Religion lives and estates This allegation exceeds all the rest in malice and untruth and certainly if ever there were such a Petition as there was not it is wonderfull being signed as they say it was by many thousands that to this houre no Copy thereof can be shewed by any But these Remonstrants care not what detractions how untrue and improbable soever they print or publish against those they hate for the truth is those foure persons never contrived or advised joyntly or severally and such Petitions or indeed any Petitions to that Parliament But to open this Trojane Hourse the truth is That about the thirteenth of August 1641. The Lords Justices and Counsell having intelligence out of the County of Tyrone that a Petition to the Parliament of England framed as it after appeared by some Protestants in Dublin was carried up and downe in those parts to gather hands their Lordship 's not knowing what it was and doubting it might be some such thing that might breed distemper in those Inhabitants Did by their Letter dated the said thirteenth of the same August pray and require the Lord Bishop of Clogher to take that Petition and carry it to the Justices of Assize then in the Countrey and to wish them to proceed thereupon as they should thinke fit according to law And after the Assizes ended to send it up to the Lords Justices and Counsell All which was done and the Petition then sent up and ever since remaines in the hands of the Clerkes of the Counsell Now lately in the yeare 1643. it was discovered to the Commissioners for Ecclesiasticicall causes That one Partington of Dublin had a Petition framed in the name of severall Inhabitants in and about the Citie of Dublin and some few parishes within the Diocesse of Laughlyn whereupon he being cited and examined produced the draught of that Petition which upon view appeared to be the same in substance with that which remaineth in the Clearke of the Counsells hands which Petition contained no matter destructive to the said Catholiques their Religion lives or estates but doth rather lay accusations of some disorders and remissnes in the Protestant Clergie as appeares by the Copie of the said Petition which followeth in these words To the Honourable the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament assembled in England The humble Petition of severall the Protestants inhabiting and now residing in and about the City of Dublin and in some few Parishes within the Diocesse of Laughlin and Fearnes in the Realme of Ireland In all humblenesse sheweth THat whereas the Protestant Religion was generally received in the said Realme of Ireland in the beginning of the raigne of our late Soveraigne Lady Queene Elizabeth of famous memorie as by severall good Lawes and Statutes then made and established by Parliament for restoring the Crowne to the Antient Iurisdiction over the estate Ecclesiasticall and Spirituall for abolishing all Forraigne power and authoritie out of the said Realme and for uniformity of Prayer and administration of the Sacraments within the said Kingdome may appeare By which Lawes all Ecclesiasticall persons and Officers Iudges Iustices Mayors and temporall Officers are enjoyned to take the Oath of Supremacie and all persons mhatsoever required on Sundayes and Holidayes to repaire to Church upon the severall paynes therein limited and expressed And whereas ever since the making of the said Statutes it hath beene the care of our dread Soveraigne the constant Defender of the Faith and his most noble Predecessors tohave his people governed according to those and other the laudable Lawes of England and Ireland And whereas both the Protestants Clergie and Laitie have heretofore contributed to his Majesties occasions towards the free Gifts of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and likewise by an other gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds more during the Government of the Lord Viscount Fauckland as largely as the Papists and after in or about the next ensuing Government of Lords Iustices to the Gift of forty thousand ounds and the Protestant Laytie likewise contributed to the six intire Subsidies in the tenth yeare of his Majesties reigne which Subsidies in the Collection amounted to two hundred and fiftie thousand pounds besides the eight intire Subsidies of foure shillings in the pound granted to his Majestie the same yeare by the Protestant Clergie In all which payments as in all other publike charges
remisenesse in the Protestant Clergie the said Partington was dismissed in that Court upon hearing therof neither were the Lords Justices and Counsell or any of the parties being of the Counsell mentioned in this Article acquainted with the framing of the said Petition And whether the Petition was delivered to the Parliament in England or no was not knowne there only the said Partington saith that that Petition was about the 22. of October 1641. presented by him to the Parliament in England which could not be a motive to this Rebellion which began that very same day at night neither did any thing ever ensue thereof What Sir Iohn Clotworthie did or expressed in that Commons House against Catholiques was not knowne to the Protestants of Ireland nor is it materiall neither is it beleeved that any thing was there moved plotted or contrived against those Remonstrants or that that Parliament resolved any such destructive course against them till they had declared themselves in the late horrid Rebellion and massacred robbed and spoyled your Majesties peaceable and conformable Brittish and Protestant Subjects But the Remonstrants doe practise by confounding of times to gaine some cover for their inhumane perpetrations For their other fearfull speculation of the deplorable and desperate condition they were in by the above mentioned Statute of 2. Eliz. which they seeme to wonder at as a thing lately found amongst the Records there but never executed in that Princesse time nor discovered till most of that Parliament were dead By the danger of which Statute they say no Catholique in that Kingdome could enjoy his estate life or liberty if executed To this it is to be answered that severall Statutes were enacted in that second yeare of that glorious Queene And which State it is that those Remonstrants do to much tremble at is not here understood But it is beleeved that those Remonstrants pretend to find themselves so much greived with the first Chapter of those Statutes first for that it was made principally to repeale the Statutes made by Queene Mary wherein that Queene repealed all Lawes made by King H. 8. against usurped forraigne power iurisdiction and authority and to sett up some other authorities and judicatures in the Church the mischeifs and inconvenience whereof are in that Statute of secundo declared whereunto is to be added that the continuance of such a forraigne power in matters Ecclesiasticall would utterly banish all Protestant Subjects out of that Kingdom and leave your Majestie few good Subjects there for that the Popish party being dissolved from their iust dependancy on your Majesties authority in matters Ecclesiasticall which in true consideration concernes the halfe of your Majesties Royall Soveraigne will apply themselves for all matters of spirituall cognizance to the Pope in whose power it may be to discharge them from alleigeance in civill causes as he hath often done to other Princes which he will not spare to doe for his advantage and to keepe on foot his old claymes And in the second place to restore to the Crowne the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction which of right belongeth thereunto And to authorize apt Ministers for ordering and dispensation thereof for the better eschewing those mischeifes both to Prince and people and to revive certaine Acts repealed by Queene Mary And for the penall part thereof against such as shall maintayne and defend the authority preheminence power or jurisdiction spirituall or Ecclesiasticall of any forraigne Prince Prelate Person State or Potentate It is to be answered That that Statute is not introductive or maketh any new cryme for that offence was formerly Treason by the law for the first offence But that Statute mittigateth the severity of punishment and maketh it not Treason till the third offence committed after the second conviction and attaynder and giveth a great releife to the offendors touching the time of prosecution so that the Subjects terror is lesse then it was before The residue of that law appointeth what manner of persons shal be fit for promotion in the Church or imployment under your Majestie in civill affaires and how Liveries shall be sued by your Majesties Tennants the restriction whereof is in your Majesties hands to moderate at your gracious pleasure wherein they have of late had good experience of your princely clemency And have little cause so to exclaime against your Majesties Lawes as destructive to their lives estates and Liberties If those Remonstrants do so startle at the second Chapter of that Session It may well be said here is a great noise of danger but little hurt done and concerning these two Statutes they were no such concealed things for they were printed amongst all the Statutes of the Kingdome then printed about the 16 yeare of Queene Elizabeth when few of those Parliament men were dead and they were put in execution severally soone after the Statutes were made and long before that Queene died as appeares by the Records extant Only for the second Chapter it may be said that it was not so frequently put in execution for certaine yeares after the Statute made because all men for the most part in that Kingdome when there were any intervalls of peace did come to Church though many of them went to Masse also Recusancy was little then heard of or in many yeares after as is before declared But when Recusancy began over boldly to looke the Government in the face and that not only but many euill effects of Popery began to be dangerous to the safety of the Kings Majesties good people and government Then that Statute was at severall times put inexecution yet without danger to any mans life or estate neither is there any thing in that Statute that may threaten any mans life or estate the most binding part of that Statute being but to settle and maintaine the booke of Common prayer and other Orders Ornaments and Ceremonies in the Church and Churchmen and requires all subjects aswell Protestants as Papists to come to Church every Sonday and Holy day having not lawful cause of absence upon paine to forfeit 9d for every such daies absence And that limmited to an indictment to be found at the next Sessions or Assizes after the offence committed unlesse men would wilfully abuse themselves aswell towards God as the authorized Church and government In which cases other penalties are appointed not reaching to life In which Statute also are other favourable clauses for the ease of the people farre from provoking those Remonstrants to enter into the late hatefull conspiracy against your Majesty your Lawes and iust prerogatives or to commit such outragious cruelties upon your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects as they have done The same Lawes being now in force here in England and much more sharpe against Papists and these Lawes in Ireland have now bin in force above fourescore yeares yet no man ever lost his life or estate upon either of these Lawes nor Liberty for any long time yet do those Remonstrants from this
third in Leinster about Dublin and those parts when the Castle and Citie of Dublin was preserved there was a generall change in all former Counsells yet afterwards the said Garrett Barry and all his men went into Rebellion and so did most of the souldiers and officers of the other two Regiments Besides on the twenty third day of October one thousand six hundred forty one The Rebells in Vlster when they spoiled and murthered the English said with one voyce that Dublin was taken Also are to bee remembred the severall Antecedents to this Rebellion aswell in print as in words uttered by Romish Clergie men and some Laicks that within three yeares a generall Rebellion should be in Ireland mentioned in the printed Deposition of Doctor Iones And in the moneth of October before the execution of this Plott It was consulted in a great Assembly in the Countie of Westmeath at or neere Multifernam consisting as well of the prime Popish Clergie as of the lay Gentrie what should bee done with the Brittish and Protestants whether to murther and kill them all or to kill some and spoile and banish the rest or only to spoyle pillage and banish all And how your Majestie should be limmited in your Revenewes Rights and Authorities as more at large appeares in the said Doctors examination The like Discoveries of the generall Combination appeares in the Digest framed and collected by the Commissioners for examining the spoyles and murthers committed upon the Protestants by the Rebells tendered there by Master Watson and others of those Commissioners and sent over to your Majesties principall Secretarie It appeares also by examinations sent up by the late Lord President of Munster in the beginning of this Rebellion that about the twenty three of October 1641. the taking of the Castle of Dublin and other your Majesties Forts in Vlster c. was then muttered in that Province for a while after in shew quiet And the like in Connaught though at that time neither of those had heard any thing of the discovery from Dublin nor many dayes after By all which is somewhat plaine That the Conspiracy was generall and that the three Provinces stood not so cleare and quiet in November as in this Article is insinuated The Remonstrants being carefull to leave nothing unobjected that malice or Art can invent doe suggest that the Lords Justices and their adherents who those were is not yet knowne well knowing that many powerfull members of the Parliament in England stood in opposition to your Majestie made their principall addresses to them full fraught with calumnies against those Catholiques First it is conceived that there was no such opposition given to your Majestie as in the Article is mentioned when this Rebellion began your Majesty being then in Scotland bestowing your Grace and Royall presence on your Subjects there Neither at that time was any difference heard there betweene your Majesty and your Parliament in England save what concerned the Earle of Strafford whom the Remonstrants most violently prosecuted Secondly the Lords Justices and Counsell did first addresse their advertisement of this Rebellion not to the Parliament of England as the Remonstrants pretend but to your Majestie on the twentie five of October 1641. And to your Majesties then Lievtenant of that Kingdome to whom all addresses thence were to bee made by your Majesties Order A Copie of which Letters to the Lord Lievtenant they then sent to your Majesty and by the answer of that dispatch they were advertised that your Majesty had sent to the Parliament of England concerning that affaire and that your Majesty doubted not of their speedy resolution for releife of your Majesties faithfull Subjects The next dispatch sent away by the Lords Justices and Counsell into England or Scotland was on the fift of November 1641 at which time they directed letters to the Lords of your Majesties privy Counsell in England and considering that your Majesty was then in Scotland and that it then became of absolute necessity to invoke all the powers that might stand with your Majesties honour and good pleasure from whom any deliverance could come to assist for preservation of your Majesties Crowne and Kingdome They then also and not before directed letters to the speakers of both houses of Parliament in England referring the particulars to the Lords of the Counsells letters and moving for succours and then also they sent a dispatch to your Majesty into Scotland and enclosed therein copies of their severall letters to the Lords of the Counsell and both the Speakers and then also signified by their letters to the Lords of the Counfell that they had so written to both the Speakers And touching the denying of Armes to the Catholiques and arming the Malignant party who in the Remonstrants esteeme are all your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects in Ireland though there never appeared any Malignity in them in the least degree either to your Majesty or your government or to these pretended Catholiques quatenus Catholiques True it is that many Roman Catholiques aswell as Protestants were armed by the Lords Justices and Counsell when they were listed into your Majesties Army to defend your Majesties Kingdome rights and government against those confederate Catholiques in the beginning of this Rebellion whose plot and designe was to surprise your Majesties Castle of Dublin and your Monition and stores there and all the rest of your Forts and stores in that Kingdome to extirpate all your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects by death or exile and further as is before mentioned Note there were but â—00 armes in the store It is true also that the Lord Justices and Counsell did deliver Armes and Ammunition as farre as they could possible spare aswell to the Roman Catholiques as Protestant Subjects for defence of their houses in severall parts and in great numbers They did also deliver to the five Counties of the Pale Armes and Ammuniton for 1700 men for defence of those Countryes although your Majesty was no way bound to furnish them with armes for their owne defence and some of those armes upon notice of the defection of those trusted with them were recovered and brought backe and the rest soone after imployed by the confederats to fight against your Majestie and your Armyes And for the Cotholiques in the City of Dublin of whose ancient fidelity in the beginning of this Rebellion the Lords Justices and Counsell were fully perswaded they were not disarmed till most of the Catholiques of the Pale declared themselves in open Rebellion against your Majestie which the Lords Justices and Counsell finding and considering that those Inhabitants of Dublin were for the most part allied matched with the gentry and considerable Inhabitants of the Pale That some of them sent daily intelligence to the Rebels sent them provisions of victualls and otherwayes and sundry of them of good substance went to the Rebels with their goods That great numbers of the Popish prentizes servants and
themselves Rebels and of the Conspiracy They blocked him up in the Castle of Athlone by the helpe of the Conspirators of Westmeath They burnt his Towne of Roscomon and the Bishops Towne of Elphin and many other English mens habitations They surprized severall Castles of the Earle of Clonrickards in the County of Galway notwithstanding that on their surmise that they doubted they should not have the benefit of the graces his Lordship wrote to your Majestie and received assurance in their behalfes of the same which he published together with severall other Declarations of your Majesties And so the Lord President continued in Athlone till your Majesties Lieutenant Generall of your Army carryed downe 2000. foot and some Troopes of horse by all which appeares that neither the Lords Justices and Councell nor the Lord President nor any other in that Province did any thing to provoke them much lesse to put them to defence till they had murthered robbed and spoyled all the Brittish and Protestants and committed all other Rebellious and hostile Acts that lay within their lust or power To the eleventh Article IT is confessed that Parliaments have beene held in Ireland very many yeares often for the benefit of the King Art 11. and the good people of the Kingdome But how long Parliaments have beene held there or whether with equall liberties powers and immunities with the Parliament of England and how farre lawes made in England may bind in Ireland will best appeare in the Records Rowles and Authentick Presidents of both Kingdomes and will be fittest for the dispute and judgement of such learned in the Law and other Antiquities as your Majestie in your high wisedome shall appoint thereunto Neither is it true that untrue suggestions and informations out of Ireland moved the Parliament of England to make such Lawes as in this Article are mentioned neither can it be conceived the words or intent of those Acts if they have force in Ireland doe ayme at or can reach unto any the lands or possessions of any your Majesties good Subjects in that Kingdome but onely to the lands and rights of those that have most disloyally lifted up themselves against their most gracious Soveraigne Lord their lawfull and naturall King and committed the most detestable treasons against your person Crown and Dignity and the most sanguinolent outragious and abominable Acts upon the persons and estates of your Majesties obedient peaceable and innocent Subjects so farre as possibly they could that ever were read or heard of without provocation or the least motive neither can those Acts in any respects be the occasion or grounds of those hideous perpetrations Those Acts in their first conception being derived onely from fearefull rebellion raised by the Confederates and long after the horrible Acts of that rebellion by your Majestie and your Parliament advised of and considered in England as the most speedy and effectuall way to raise meanes for the releefe of the remnant of your Majesties miserable despoyled Subjects ready every day to be swallowed up by the deluge of that universall rebellion and to maintaine some being in your Majesties just Soveraingty rights and interest in that Kingdome wholly despised and troden under foot by the Confederates as before appeares Neither can it be beleeved that your Majestie was inforced thereunto it being your owne cause and the cause of your beloved and ever loving people And if any losse should thereon happen to your Majestie which is not beleeved yet would your Majestie be largely recompenced in setling those lands except where your Majesty shall find cause to shew mercy in the hands of a peaceable and faithfull people who will not repine or be slow to straine themselves every way to your Majesties profit and honour who will be willingly taught that rebellion is Treason and so hate and abhorre it and who will for ever free your Majestie and your posterity from those dangers travels and expences which have in many ages lien heavy upon the Kings and Kingdome of England by meanes of the undutifull behaviour and strange seducements of many of the Inhabitants of that Kingdome of Ireland and for which your Majesties gracious and pious provision for your Majesties good people both your Kingdomes will now and in all succeeding ages blesse and pray for your sacred Majestie and your Royall posterity and for ever acknowledge your Majesties rare piety and Princely goodnesse Neither is there any truth in that malicious traducement that your Majesties forces in Ireland disavowed any authority from your Majestie all their authority and command being intirely derived from your Majestie and your immediate Ministers and they wholly disclaiming any other service the contrary whereof could never be heard out of the mouthes of any of them To the twelfth Article IT is true that the Lords Justices and Councell in just and lawfull grounds Artic. 12. and for great and weighty reasons of State for common safety published severall Proclamations as shall here appeare but not with wicked intent or evill event as in this Article is with malice insinuated On the 23 of October 1641. when the houre approached which was designed for surprizing your Majesties Castle of Dublin great numbers of strangers were observed to come to towne in great parties severall wayes who not finding admittance at the gates stayed in the Suburbs and fields and there grew numerous to the terrour of the Inhabitants Insomuch as the Magistrates of the City came to the Councell board with much feare and astonishment declaring that those mighty numbers in the fields and Suburbs still increasing did threaten high present danger in respect whereof and considering the great numbers of desperate and loose persons who were the night before and that morning stolne into the City and Suburbs from severall parts of the Kingdome who were secretly harbored amongst the Papist Inhabitants the Lords Justices and Councell first caused as many of them so harboured in town as could be readily found to be apprehended and secondly sought for the rest considering also that in so sudden and great a distemper and confusion something of extraordinary was of necessity to bee done for terrour to disperse those multitudes so to rid the Town of them and to resettle in some degree the mindes of the terrifyed and distracted inhabitants which the Lords Justices and Councell did chuse rather to do the same by some sharpe Proclamation then by falling upon them by violence which must needs have increased the tumult and therefore the Lords Justices and Councell did then instantly publish a Proclamation in your Majesties Name Commanding all persons not dwellers in the City or Suburbs to depart within one houre after publishing by Proclamation and that upon paine of death This Proclamation did not so much as intend or aime at any known Inhabitants of the Pale or Countries adjacent or any of known credit or good subsistence neither did any such qualified persons then take the least ill apprehension
disorderly pillagings lighted somtimes aswell on the British and Protestants and some Romane Catholique Inhabitants of the City and Suburbs as upon the open Rebells As to the Cities and Townes of Dublin Drogheda and the rest which were kept by your Majesties Garisons It is true they indured the trouble of unruly Souldiers much against the hearts of the Lords Justices and Councell but all their miseries and the miseries of all other good men happened by occasion onely of the hatefull Conspiracy and violent Rebellion of the Confederates because they were under the English Government The Confederates did use them worse then the Egyptians did the Israelites for they tooke away but the Straw whereas these Confederates besides the Innocent blood they have spilt did not onely actually rob and spoile of their substance them aswell Papists of the Cities as Protestants in the Country where they were able but also which was worse having gotten into their hands by way of trust very great quantities of their substance partly in fore-knowledge of this Rebellion and partly to answer their barbarous lavish expences they by their Rebellion deprived them of it all to the utter ruine of many of them they not so much as since the Cessation yeelding them any reliefe in their similate Councells and judicatories though free Commerce granted And lastly as to the murthers breaches of publike faith and quarter destruction and desolation in eighteen moneths which by computation must be after the Conspiracy and actuall Rebellion fully discovered and your Majesties Armies sent over The assertion is most false and scandalous in all the parts thereof For whatsoever killing or destruction was then executed on the Confederates and their Complices having their Swords in their hands in a most disloyall and irreligious action was done in naturall defence and in a course of just Warre as a necessary chastisement from a Gracious and Religious Prince upon the unnaturalnesse of unfaithfull Rebells After the Siege of Drogheda the old English of the Pale being forced into Vlster they did vaunt that they had killed more English and Protestants in Fingall then were killed in many other Counties raging in all extremity against the Lives Persons and Estates of your innocent and obedient Subjects neither did all that killing and destruction amount to the tenth part of the murthers and destructions in neere foure moneths before committed upon your Majesties Loyall and innocent Subjects and that by sudden surprisall in open peace and cold blood when they were no way able to make resistance as is too apparent But nothing could relish with the Confederates as favouring of equity except the Lords Justices and Councell would in base feare have treacherously delivered up to them your Majesties Prerogatives Rights and Soveraignty their owne lives for their substance and estates they had before violently torne from them and the lives of all the remaining wretched British and Protestants the lives of many thousands of the same kind of men and the whole substance of them and the rest being not sufficient to satiate the malice of the Confederates against their lives their thirst after their estates and their hatred to the Protestant Religion British Nation and English Government And the indisposition of the Lords Justices to shed blood appeared in that above sixty persons who amongst many hundreds came to surprize Dublin were on the 23 of October 1641. apprehended none suffered death fave one of Fermanagh who as the Lord Magwire confessed was privy to the Plot and many like instances there are of their great tendernesse in that point In the thirteenth Article THese confederates do further shew Art 13. that one main foundation of their Rebellion is their hatred of all Law and good order They cannot indure that the Parliament should sit which is your Majesties highest favour to your people for the common good Or that the Courts of Justice should sit according to the ancient and laudable Laws of the Kingdom by the benefit whereof they had for so many yeeres undeniably prospered and advanced into that happy estate which none of their ancestors ever saw in that Kingdome many of them innobled and all of them inriched as doth well appeare in the Statute 11 Jacobi Cap. 1. But of all things it is and will bee for ever admirable that they should challenge interest in the fundamentall Laws which they have laboured by all their power and policy to pluck up by the rootes And with a high hand have executed all manner of violations of those Laws both against Prince and people as doth well appeare in the forementioned Collections truely made and by a publique Declaration of both Houses of Parliament made the 17 of November 1641. That they should call themselves naturall and genuine members of the Parliament which is an Assembly of Peace and Order they having rent asunder and cast from them all the bonds of humane society peace and order and that they should complaine of want of safety to come under that power which they so wilfully renounced having under it had full fruition of the happiest protection and being that ever they or any of their Ancestors injoyed whereof under God nothing could have deprived them but their own inordinate rage and appetite Can they imagine it reasonable that because they will bee Rebels without cause or provocation therefore your Majesty and your good people must neither have Parliament nor Courts of Justice to sustaine and comfort them will nothing satisfie them but an intire concurrence of all your Majesties people in their confusions And whereas they affect to vilify the members of the Parliament doubtlesse they cannot but know that the Peeres are the same they were when they were thought worthy to sit with them And for the Commons they are for the most part the same that sate with them while they could bee capable of so honourable a trust and were as active and able in the Service of your Majesty and Commonwealth as any of them much more faithfull And for such of these confederates as the wholesome Laws of the Land have cast out for their treasons and breach of Faith both to God and man there are by due order and election substituted in their places men of Estate for the most part but all honest and legall men They speake much in some of their Printes of the Power and Priviledge of Parliament Yet now because their offences have made them unsit for such trust they spurn at that Power and cannot indure it in those faithfull men whom the fundamentall Laws have appointed unto it Certainly it is wonderfull that those confederates should imagine that by the highest treasons murthers robberies faith-breakings betraying their peaceable Neighbours and Friends and utterly spoyling the whole British Nation and Protestants in that Kingdome of their whole Estates they should gain priviledge to speak evill of all manner of Authority and to bee thought the onely good Governours of the Commonwealth miserably distracted by
their and and our joynt Agents did desire of your Majesty And we continuing amongst them in all love and amity without distrust your Petitioners and others who laboured to oppose those damnable designes and practices have been driven from their dwellings estates and fortunes their houses and Churches burnt and demolished all monuments of civility utterly defaced your Majesties Forts and places of strength throwne downe and the Common and Statute lawes of this your Kingdome utterly confounded by taking upon themselves the exercise of all manner of authorities and jurisdictions Ecclesiasticall and Civill both by Land and Sea proper and peculiar to your sacred Majesty being your just Prerogatives and the Royall flowers of your Imperiall Diadem to the disherison of your Crowne and your royall Revenues brought to nothing and the Protestant Clergy with their revenues and support for the present destroyed This your Kingdom in all parts formerly inhabited with Brittish Protestants now depopulated of them and many thousands of your Protestant subjects most barbarously used stripped naked tortured famished hanged buried alive drowned and otherwise by all barbarous cruell sorts of death murthered such as yet remaine of them are reduced to that extremity that very few of them have wherewith all to maintain a being and all of them so terrifyed and afflicted with those barbarous and inhumane cruelties the true report whereof being now spread abroad into the Christian world you Suppliants conceive feares that your Majesties Brittish subjects will be discouraged from comming againe to inhabite this Kingdome and the remnant of the Brittish left here will be forced to depart All this being done by the conspiracy of the Papists who did publiquely declare the utter extirpation of the Protestant Religion and all the Brittish professors thereof out of this your Majesties Kingdom And to the end it may the better in some measure appeare your Suppliants have made choice of Captaine Mr. William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Knight and Baronet Captaine Michael Iones and Mr. Fenton Parsons whom they have imployed and authorised as their Agents to manifest the truth thereof in such particulars as for the present they are furnished withall referring the more ample manifestation thereof to the said Captaine Mr. William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Captaine Iones and Fenton Parsons or any three or more of them and such other Agents as shall with all convenient speed be sent as occasion shall require to attend your Majesty from your Protestant Subjects of the severall Provinces of this your Kingdome We therefore your Majesties most humble loyall and obedient Protestant subjects casting downe our selves at your Royall feet and flying to you for succour and redresse in these our great calamities as our most gracious Soveraigne Lord and King and next and immediately under Almighty God our protector and defence most humbly beseeching your sacred Majesty to admit into your Royall presence from time to time our said Agents and in your great wisdome to take into your Princely care and consideration the distressed estate and humble desires of your said Subjects so that to the glory of God your Majesties honour and the happinesse of your good Subjects the Protestant Religion may be restored throughout the whole Kingdome to its lustre That the losses of your Protestant subjects may be repayred in such manner and measure as your Majesty in your Princely wisdome shall thinke fit and that this your Kingdome may be so setled as that your said Protestant Subjects may heareafter live therein under the happy government of your Majesty and your Royall posterity with comfort and security Whereby your Majesty will render your selfe throughout the whole world a most just and glorious Defender of the Protestant Religion and draw downe a blessing on all other your Royall undertakings For which your Petitioners will ever pray c. Subscribed by the Earle of Kildare the Lord Viscount Montgomery the Lord Blany and many others At the Court at Oxford the 25 of April 1644. HIs Majesty being very sensible of the Petitioners losses and sufferings is ready to heare and relieve them as the exigencie of His affaires will permit and wisheth the Petitioners to propose what they thinke fit in particular for His Majesties information and the Petitioners remedy and future security Edw. Nicholas And His Majesty looking upon the petition and the names of the subscribers commanded the same to be read and after the reading thereof His Majesty was pleased to expresse himselfe that he knew the contents of the Petition to be truth and that the same could not be denyed and required the Protestant agents to reduce the generals of the Petition into particulars And His Majesty then further said to the said Agents That the Agents for the Irish tooke it upon their salvation unto him that the Conspiracy in Ireland at first was not generall and that the English pale of Ireland were forced into Rebellion by His Governours of Ireland and that if his Parliament of England had permitted Him to have gone into Ireland when He desired He doubted not but He should soon have suppressed that Rebellion His Majesty having directed the Protestant Agents by His answer on the said petition to represent what they should thinke fit in particular for His Majesties information and the petitioners remedy and future security the said Agents likewise taking into consideration a scandalous and most false Remonstrance of the Irish rebels presented to His Majesties Commissioners at Trymme in Ireland the 27 of March 1642. which afterwards was printed at Waterford by Thomas Bourke printer to the Confederate Roman Catholiques of Ireland whereunto he affixed His Majesties Armes many of which bookes were published and dispersed by the rebels not onely in Ireland but at Oxford and other parts of this Kingdome and in forraigne parts of purpose to asperse the late government there and His Majesties good and faithfull Protestant subjects and to put a shew of reason upon the barbarous and inhumane cruelties which the said Rebels had acted on the Protestants of Ireland unprovoked in time of full peace The Protestant Agents for vindication of the late government and of the Protestants of Ireland and for the satisfaction of all good people conceived themselves bound in duty to God and His Majesty to present to His Majesty some collections of knowne truths in answer to the said Remonstrance of the Rebels of Ireland Which Remonstrance and the copy of the said Collections in answer thereunto were presented to His Majesty together with their first propositions in the behalfe of the Protestants of Ireland which first propositions follow in haec verba The humble Propositions of your Majesties Protestant Agents of Ireland in pursuance of the humble Petition of your Majesties Protestant Subjects aswell Commanders of your Majesties Army there as others presented to your Majesty the 18 day of Aprill 1644. and answered by your Majestie the 25 of the same 1. WE most humbly desire the establishment of the true
Councell board which they did and His Majesty being present told them That they were sent over by his Protestant subjects to move him in their behalfe and desired to know in what condition the Protestants were to defend themselves in case a peace should not be concluded which was answered by the Protestant Agents That they humbly conceived they were imployed first to make proofe of the effect of the protestants petition and disprove the scandalous aspersions which the Rebells had cast on His Majesties government and the protestants of Ireland The King said that needed not for to what purpose is it to prove the Sun shines this day when we all see it The Agents said they found not His Majesty satisfyed but that the five severall Counties called the English Pale were forced into Rebellion by his governours To which His Majesty answered That that was but an assertion of the Irish Then the King againe defired to know in what condition the protestants were in to defend themselves in case he should not make a peace with the Irish The said Agents desired some time to make an answer to that Question but His Maiesty answered That he thought they had come prepared to declare the whole condition of that Kingdome And further asked whether they would have Peace or no. To which it was answered by the Agents That peace was the thing they had been bred up in and that they were not against peace so it might stand with His Majesties honour and safety of his protestant subjects in their Religion Lives Liberties and Fortunes Then the Lord Digby told His Majesty That they desired Peace The Duke of Richmond and the Earle of Linsie replied it is true the Agents have expressed that they are not against Peace so that it may be with honour to His Majesty and safety to His Majesties Protestant Subjects of Ireland Then the King said he had rather they should have their Throates cut by Warre then that they should suffer by a Peace of His making And that hee would take a care that the Protestants of Ireland should be preserved His Majesty told the said Agents that they should have a Copy of the Propositions of the Irish and wished them to make an answer to them And the said Agents being wished to withdraw and being sent for in againe His Majesty told them That for the cleering of the matter he must tell them two things the first was That he could not relieve his Protestant subjects in Ireland either with Men Money Armes Ammunition or Victuals And secondly That he could not allow them to joyne with the new Scots or any others that had taken the Covenant with them And on the same day about one of the clocke the Protestant Agents received a copy of the Rebels high and destructive propositions from Secretary Nicholas who wisht them from His Majesty to put in their answers thereunto within two daies On which the Agents desired two daies longer which was granted And on the 13 of May 1644. at the Councell-board the King Prince and Duke of Yorke with many of the Lords there sitting the Protestant Agents presented unto His Majesty their answers to the Rebels propositions both which hereafter follow in haec verba The Propositions of the Roman Catholiques of Ireland humbly presented to His sacred Majestie in pursuance of their Remonstrance of grievances and to be annexed to the said Remonstrance Together with the humble Answer of the Agents for the Protestants of Ireland to the said Propositions made in pursuance of your Majesties directions of the ninth of May 1644. requiring the same 1. Proposition THat all acts made against the Professors of the Roman Catholique Faith whereby any restraint penalty mulct or incapacity may be laid upon any Roman Catholique within the Kingdome of Ireland may be repealed and the said Catholiques to be allowed the freedome of the Roman Catholiqus Religion Answer To the first We say that this hath been the pretence of almost all those who have entered into rebellion in the Kingdome of Ireland at any time since the Reformation of Religion there which was setled by Acts of Parliament above 80 yeeres since and hath wrought good effects ever since for the peace and welfare both of the Church and Kingdome there and of the Church and Kingdome of England and Protestant party throughout all Christendome and so hath been found wholsome and necessary by long experience And the repealing of those Laws will set up Popery againe both in jurisdiction profession and practice as it was before the Reformation and introduce amongst other inconveniences the Supremacy of Rome and take away or much endanger your Majesties supreame and just authority in causes Ecclesiasticall a diminution of honour and power not to be endured the said Acts extending as well to seditious sectaries as to popish recusants so as by the repeale thereof every man may seeme to be left to choose his owne Religion in that Kingdome which must needs beget great confusion and the abounding of the Roman Clergy there hath been one of the greatest occasions of this late rebellion Besides it is humbly desired that your Majesty will be pleased to take into your gracious consideration a clause in the Act of Parliament passed by your Majestis Royall assent in England in the seventeenth yeere of your Reigne touching punishment to be inflicted upon those that shall introduce the authority of the See of Rome in any case whatsoever 2. Proposition That your Majesty will be pleased to call a free Parliament in the said Kingdome to be held and continued as in the Remonstrance is expressed And the Statute of the tenth yeere of King H 7. called Poynings Act and all Acts explaining or enlarging the same be suspended during that Parliament for the speedy settlement of the present affaires and the repeale thereof to be there further considered of Answer Whereas they desire to have a free Parliament called reflecteth by secret and cunning implication upon your Majesties present Parliament in Ireland as if it were not a free Parliament we humbly beseech your Majesty to resent how dangerous it is to make such insinuation or intimation to your people of that Kingdome touching that Parliament wherein severall Acts of Parliament have already past the validity whereof may be endangered if the Parliament should not be approved as a free Parliament and it is a point of so high nature as we humbly conceive it not properly to be discussed but in Parliament and your Majesties said Parliament now sitting is a free Parliament in law holden before a person of honour and fortune in that Kingdome composed of good loyall and well affected subjects to your Majesty who doubtlesse will be ready to comply in all things that shall appeare to be pious and just for the good of the true Protestant religion and for your Majesties service and the good of that Church and State That if this present Parliament should be dissolved it would
call by the name of publique uses to be in equall degree to the debts owing by the Rebels and by them all forfeited and many of them by Law duely levyed which is a most unequall and unjust thing and the said Proposition cannot nor doth make offer to have the popish Confederates cut off from the debts due to them which they have justly forfeited but onely for a colour of consideration to have the Protestants lose such debts justly due to them as have been unjustly taken from them who have done no act at all to forfeit them 6. Proposition That the late Offices taken or found upon feigned or old titles since the yeere 1634. to entitle your Majestie to severall Countreys in Connaught Thomond and in the Counties of Typperarie Limrick Kilkenny and Wickloe be vacated and taken off the file and the possessors setled and secured in their ancient estates by Act of Parliament And that the like Act of limitation of your Majesties titles for the security of the estates of your Subjects in that Kingdom be passed in the said Parliament as was enacted in the 21 yeere of His late Majesties Raigne in this Kingdom Ans Wee know not of any Offices found on feigned Titles nor what the Confederates may demand in respect of any graces promised by your Majestie which we intend not nor have any occasion to dispute but wee humbly conceive that all those who have committed Treason in the late Rebellion subsequent to your Majesties promise of those graces have thereby forfeited the benefit thereof together with the Lands to which the said graces might else have related and so their whole estates are now justly fallen to your Majesty by their Rebellion which wee conceive is of great importance for your Majesties service to be taken into consideration As first with regard to the Statutes made in the present Parliament of England Secondly by the necessary encrease of your Revenue decayed by the present Rebellion Thirdly the abolishing of the evill customes of the Irish and preservation of Religion Laws and Government there Fourthly the satisfaction of your Protestant Subjects losses in some measure Fiftly the Arrers of your Majesties Army and other debts contracted for that warre and for preservation of that Kingdome to your Majestie Sixtly the bringing in of more Brittish upon the Plantations Seventhly the building of some walled Towns in remote and desolate places for the security of that Kingdome and your good Subjects there Eightly the taking of the Natives from their former dependencie on their Chieftains who usurped an absolute power over them to the diminution of your Regall Power and to the oppression of the Inferiours 7. Propos That all marks of incapacity imposed upon the Natives of that Kingdome to purchase or acquire Lands Leases Offices or Hereditaments be taken away by act of Parliament and the same to extend to the securing of Purchases Leases or Grants already made And that for the education of Youth an Act be passed in the next Parliament for the erecting of one or more Inns of Court Vniversities Frée and Common Schools Ans This we conceive concerneth some of the late Plantations and no other part of that Kingdome and that the restriction herein mentioned is found to bee of great use especially for the indifferencie of Trialls strength of the Government and for Trade and Traffique And we humbly conceive that if other Plantations shall not proceed for the setling and securing of that Kingdome and that no restraint be made of Papists buying or purchasing of the Protestants out of their former Plantations where they were prudently setled though now cast out of their estates by the late Rebellion and unable to Plant the same again for want of meanes and therefore probably upon easie termes will part with their estates to the Confederates that those Plantations will be destroyed to the great prejudice of your Majesties service and endangering of the safety of that Kingdome Touching bearing of Offices wee humbly conceive that their non-conformity to the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome is the onely mark of incapacity imposed upon them and wee humbly conceive that they ought not to expect to bee more capable there then the English Natives are here in England in like case For Schooles in Ireland there are divers setled in all parts of that Kingdome already by the Laws and Statutes of that Realme And if any person well affected shall erect and endow any more Schooles there at their own charges so that the School-master and schollers may be governed according to the Laws Customs and orders of England and the best of Free-schools here wee cannot apprehend any just exceptions thereunto But touching Universities and Inns of Court we humbly conceive that this part of the Proposition savoureth of some desire to become Independant upon England or to make a separation in the Religion and Laws of the Kingdome which can never bee truely happie but in the good unitie of both in the true Protestant Religion and in the Laws of England For as for matter of charge such of the Natives as are desirous to breed their sonnes for learning in Divinity can bee well contented to send them to the Universitie of Lovain Doway and other Popish places in Forraign Kingdomes And for Civill-law or Physick to Padua and other places which draws a great treasure yearly out of your Majesties Dominions but will send few or none of them to Oxford or Cambridge where they might as cheaply be bred up and become as learned which course we conceive is holden out of their pride and disaffection towards this Kingdome and the true Religion here professed And for the Laws of the Land which are for the Common-law agreeable to England and so for the greatest part of the Statutes the Innes of Court in England are sufficient and the Protestants came thither without grudging And it is a means to civilize them after the English Customes to make them familiar and in love with the Language and Nation to preserve the Law in the purity when the Professours of it shall draw from one originall fountain and see the manner of the practise of it in the same great Channells where his Majesties Courts of Justice of England do flow most clearly whereas by separation of the Kingdoms in the places of their principall instruction when their foundations in learning are to be laid a degenerate corruption in Religion and Justice may happily be introduced and spread with much more difficulty to be corrected and restrained afterwards by any discipline to be used in Ireland or punishments there to be inflicted for departing from the true grounds of things which are best preserved in unity when they grow out of the same root then if such Universities and Innes of Court as are proposed should be granted All which we humbly submit to your Majesties most pious and prudent confideration and judgement 8. Propos That the Offices and places of Command Honour Profit
and Trust within that Kingdome be conferred upon Romane Catholiques Natives in equallity and indifferencis with your Majesties other Subjects Answ We humbly conceive that the Romane Catholique Natives in Ireland may have the like Offices and Places as the Romane Catholiques Natives of England here have and not otherwise Howbeit we conceive that in the generallity they have not deserved so much by their late Rebellion Therefore wee see not why they should be endowed with any new or further Capacities or Priviledges then they have by the Laws and Statutes now in force in that Kingdome 9. Propos That the insupportable oppression of your Subjects by reason of the Court of Wards and respit of homage be taken away and a certain Revenew in lieu thereof fetled upon your Majestie without diminution of your Majesties profits Answ We know of no oppression by reason of the Court of Wards and we humbly conceive that the Court of Wards is of great use for theraising of your Majesties Revenews the preservation of your Majesties Tenures and chiefly the education of the Gentry in the Protestant Religion and in civility of learning and good manners who otherwise would be brought up in ignorance and barbarisme their estates be ruined by their kindred and friends and continue their dependencie on the chief Lords to the great prejudice of your Majesties service and Protestant Subjects And there being no colour of exception to your Majesties just Title to Wardships we know not why the taking away of your Court concerning the same should be so pressed unlesse it bee to prevent the education of the Lords and Gentry that fall Wards in the Protestant Religion For that part of this Proposition which concerneth respit of Homage we humbly conceive it reasonable that some way may be setled for that if it stand with your Majesties good pleasure without prejudice to your Majestie or your Protestant Subjects 10. Propos That no Lord not estated in that Kingdome or estated and not resident shall have Vote in the said Parliament by proxie or otherwise and none admitted to the House of Commons but such as shall be estated and resident within the Kingdome Answ Wee humbly conceive that in the year 1641. by the graces which your Majestie then granted to your Subjects of Ireland the matter of this Proposition was in a fair way regulated by your utter abolishing of blank Proxies and limitting Lords present and attending in the Parliament of Ireland that no one of them should bee capable of more Proxies then two and prescribing the Peers of that Kingdome not there resident to purchase fitting proportions of Land in Ireland within five years from the last of July 1641. or else to lose their Votes till they should make such purchases which purchases by reason of the troubles happening in that Kingdome and which have continued for two years and a half have not peradventure yet been made And therefore your Majestie may now bee pleased and may take just occasion to enlarge the time for five years from the time when that Kingdome may again bee setled in a happy and firme peace And as to Members of the House of Commons the same is most fit as wee humbly conceive to be regulated by the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome 11. Propos That an Act bée passed in the next Parliament declaratory that the Parliament of Ireland is a frée Parliament of it self independent of and not subordinate to the Parliament of England And that the Subjects of Ireland are immediatly subject to your Majesty as in right of your Crown And that the Members of the said Parliament of Ireland and all other the Subjects of Ireland are independent and no way to bée ordered or concluded by the Parliament of England and are onely to bée ordered and governed within that Kingdome by your Majestie and such Governors as are or shall be there appointed and by the Parliament of that Kingdome according to the Laws of the Land Answ This Proposition concerns your Majesties high Courts of Parliament both of England and Ireland and is beyond our abilities who are not acquainted with the Records and Presidents of this nature to give any answer unto and therefore we humbly desire your Majesties pardon for not answering unto the same 12. Propos That the assumed power of jurisdiction in the Councell boatd of determining of all manner of Causes be limitted to matters of State and all Pattents Estates and Grants illegally and extrajudicially avoyded there or elsewhere bée left in state as before and the parties grieved their heirs or assignes till legall eviction Answ The Councell-Table hath alwaies exercised jurisdiction in some cases ever since the English Government was setled in that Kingdome and is of so long continuance in cases of some natures as the beginning thereof appeareth not which seemeth to be by prescription and hath always been armed with power to examine upon Oath as a Court of Justice or in nature of a Court of Justice in Cases of some natures and may bee very necessary still in many Cases especially for the present till your Majesties Lawes may more generally bee received in that Kingdome And we conceive that Board is so well limitted by Printed Instructions in your Majesties Royall Fathers time and by your Majesties graces in the 17. year of your Reign that it needeth for the present little or no further Regulating at all howbeit they humbly refer it to your Majesties great wisdome and goodnesse to do therein as to Law and Justice shall appertaine Propos 13. That the Statute of the 11.12 and 13. yéer of Quéen Elizabeth concerning Staple commodities be repealed reserving to his Majesty lawfull and just poundage and a book of Rates to be setled by an indifferent Committée of both Houses for all Commodities Answ The matter of this Proposition is setled in a fitting and good way by your Majestie already as we conceive amongst the graces granted by your Majesty to your people of Ireland in the 17 year of your Majesties Reign to which we humbly refer our selves Propos 14. That in as much as the long continuance of the chief Governour or Governours of that Kingdome in that place of so great eminency and power hath béen a principall occasion that much Tyranny and oppression hath béen exercised upon the Subjects of that Kingdome That your Majestie will be pleased to continue such Governours hereafter but for thrée years And that none once imployed therein be appointed for the same again until the expiration of six years next after the end of the said thrée yéers And that an Act passe to dis-inhable such Governour or Governours during their Government directly or indirectly in Vse Trust or other wise to make any manner of purchase or Acquisition of any Manners Lands Tenements or Hereditaments within that Kingdome other then from your Majesty your heirs or successors Ans We humbly conceive that this Proposition tendeth to lay a fals and scandalous
aspersion upon your Majesties gracious government over Ireland and that it trencheth very high upon your Wisdome Justice and Power and under colour of supposed corruptions pretended to be in the greatest Officer that Commandeth under your Majestie there if he continue so long in his government as may well enable him to finde out and discover the true state of that Kingdome and the dangerous dispositions and designes of the Popish party there to prevent him therein and to turn him out from doing service before or assoon as he is throughly informed and experienced how to do the same and then to hold him excluded so long that in all likelihood he shall not live to come to that place the second time which we humbly conceive will be a great discouragement to any person of honour and fortune to serve your Majesty in that high trust And for their purchasing Lands in that Kingdome your Majesty may be pleased to leave them to the Lawes and punish them severely if they commit any offence or exercise any oppressions under colour of purchasing of any lands or estates whatsoever Prop. 15. That an Act may be passed in the next Parliament for the raising and setling of Trained Bands within the severall Counties of that Kingdome aswell to prevent forraign invasions as to render them the more serviceable and ready for your Majesties occasions as cause shall require Answ The having of Trained bands in Ireland for the present cannot under favour be for your Majesties service or the safety of that Kingdome for that the Protestants by the sad effects of the late Rebellion are so much destroyed that the said Bands must consist in effect altogether of the confederate Catholiques and to continue them in Armes stored with Ammunition and made ready for service by mustering and often Trayning will prove under colour of advancing your Majesties service against forraign invasion a meet guard and power of Popish Forces alwayes in readinesse to protect the Popish confederates and by force and Armes according to their late oathes and Protestations to execute all their cruell designs for extirpation of the Protestant Religion and English Government both which they mortally hate howsoever in cunning they dissemble it and to prevent the setling an Army of good Protestants without which your Majesties good Subject cannot live securely there Propos 16. That an Act of Oblivion be passed in the next frée Parliament to extend to all your Majesties said Catholique Subjects and their adherents for all manner of offences Capitall Criminall and Personall and the said Act to extend to all Goods and Chattels Customes Measne Profits Prizes Arrears of Rents taken received or incurred since these troubles Answ We humbly pray that the Laws of force be taken into consideration and do humbly conceive that your Majesty in honour and Justice may forbear to discharge or release any Actions Suits Debts or Interests whereby your Majesties Protestant Subjects who have committed no offence against your Majestie or your Laws should be barred or deprived of any of their Legall remedies or just demands which by any of your Majesties Laws and Statutes they may have against the Popish confederates who are the onely delinquents or any of their party for or in respect of any wrongs done unto them or any of their Ancestors or Predecessours in or concerning their Lands Goods or Estates since the contriving or breaking forth of Rebellion The said confederates having without provocation shed so much innocent blood and acted so many cruelties as cannot be parallel'd in any story And we conceive it to be high presumption in them upon so weak grounds to propound an Act of Oblivion in such generall termes some of the confederates having been contrivers or Actors of such cruell Murthers and other Acts of Inhumanity as cry to God and your Sacred Majesty for Justice and they having of your Majesties Revenues Customes Subsidies and other rights of your Crown in their hands or destroyed by them to the value of 200000. l. and more Propos 17. Forasmuch as your Majesties said Catholique Subjects have béen taxed with many Inhumane cruelties which they never committed Your Majesties said suppliants therefore for their vindication and to manifest to all the world their desire to have such hainous offences punished and the Offenders brought to Austice Do desire that in next the Parliament all notorious murthers breaches of Quarter and Inhumane cruelties committed of either side may be questioned in the said Parliament if your Majesty so think fit And such as shall appear to be guilty to be excepted out of the said Act of Oblivion and punished according to their deserts Forasmuch Dread Soveraign as the ways of our addresse unto your Majesty for apt remedies unto our grievances were hither to debarred us but now at length through your benign grace and favour laid open We do humbly present these in pursuance of the said Remonstrance which granted your said subjects are ready to contribute the 10000. Men as in their Remonstrance is specified towards the suppressing of the unnaturall Rebellion now in this Kingdome and will further expose their lives and fortunes to serve your Majestie as occasion shall require Answer We conceive this Proposition is made but for a flourish and if the confederates be so desirous to try their innocency as they pretend they need not stay for another Parliament in Ireland but submit to that which is now in being which is an equall and just Parliament as in some of our reasons touching that point is expressed And the offering to draw it to a new Parliament is in effect to desire that they may be their own Judges for as that Kingdome is now imbroiled and wasted the chief delinquents or their confederates will be so prevalent a faction in the next Parliament that they will be able and doubtlesse will clear all the Popish party how guilty soever and condemn the Protestants how Innocent soever These Answers to the High and unexpected demands of the confederate Rebels we have framed in humble obedience to your Majesties directions but being very sensible as of the weight and great importance of the businesse so also of our own weaknesse and want of time and well knowing that some of your Majesties Privy Councellours Judges and Officers of that Kingdome are now in Town sent for over and here attending by your Majesties command who by their long observation and experience of the affairs and state of Ireland are better able to give your Majesty more full and satisfactory answers touching the premisses then we can and conceiving that the Collections in answere to the said confederates Remonstrance which we humbly presented to your Majesty the 29. of the last Moneth of April may in many things give your Majestie more light then these our Answers do or can We humbly beseech your Majestie that the said Privy Councellours Judges and Officers as occasion shall require may be called upon and heard to give your