read Perinchief Fol. 17. Line 30. read Consequences Fol. 18. Line 29. read Execrabiles An Account of what the subduing the Rebellion of Ireland begun the 23d of October 1641. hath cost and what Damage the Protestants there have sustained thereby and what Lands have been forfeited and disposed of to Adventurers Souldiers and other English and what to the Irish and now in their possession Abstracted out of the Accounts of Moneys in the Exchequer during such time as any regular Accounts were made up and by probable and rational Estimates for the time in which no Accounts were kept by reason of the general Rebellion and Confusion and out of the Surveys Decrees and Settlements made by his Majesty's Commissioners for executing the Acts of Settlement and Explanation in Ireland   l. s. d. l. s. d. l. s. d. 1. Moneys receiv'd and issued from the 6th of July 1649. to the 1st of November 1656. being 7 years and 4 months according to an Account thereof remaining as a Record in the Auditor-General's Office in Ireland Transmitted out of England in specie 1566848 13 4 3509396 17 0½ 22191258 3 0½ Assessments in Ireland 1309695 14 11½ Rents of forfeited and sequestred Houses Lands Fishings c. 161598 8 7¾ Tythes sequestred 135524 3 2½ Customs and Excise 252474 18 10¾ Preys of Cows Horses and other Goods taken from the Rebels and for other casual Revenue 083258 18      l. s.  Money issued in England towards transporting Armies raising Recruits buying and sending over Provisions of all sorts for the Army and other Moneys issued by Warrant from the then Council or the Committee of the Army in England which was not accounted for in Ireland the Warrants and Accounts being never transmitted thither of which there is a Reference in the account of Record in the Exchequer above-mentioned which is estimated to be as much if not more than the above sum of 3509396 l. 17 s. 0½ d. In that all Cloths Linnen and Woollen Stockings Shooes Boots Horses Saddles Arms Ammunition Tents Bread Cheese and all other eating Provisions were sent from England and the price thereof deducted from the weekly Pay of the Army and not brought to Account and so estimated as above 3509396 17       l.   The Charges of the Armies in the several Provinces of Ireland from the 23d of October 1641. the time the Rebellion broke out to the 6th of July 1649. from whence the Account is stated as above being about 7 years and 9 months when no regular Accounts were or could be kept by reason of the Confusion in which the Kingdom was by the Rebellion there may be by probable Estimate added without any Allowance for Provision of all sorts after the Rate of what was paid the Army after the 6th of July 1649. when Provisions were deducted 3760068        l. s.  The Loss of Rents for 14 years from October 1641. until the year 1655. reckoning the Land but at 12 d. an Acre yearly is 7608264 l. 6 s. and reckoning all the Corporations Houses and Tithes but at a Moiety thereof comes to 11412396 9  Besides the Loss by the Devastation of Houses Orchards Gardens Improvements Houshold-stuff Corn Cattel and the impairing the value of Land unto that time not to be estimated but in reason to be accounted as much as before is computed for all other Charges Losses and Expences if not much more the same extending to the whole Kingdom 2. By the Surveys of Ireland there is in Ireland as forfeited by the Rebellion and belonging to Protestants not forfeited of Plantation-Acres accounting 21 Foot to the Perch and 160 Perches to the Acre in the respective Provinces the quantity of Land hereafter mentioned   a. Acres Leinster  2603520 10868949 Munster  3255874 Ulster  2777875 Connaght  2231680 The which Lands are divided and distributed as by the Surveys and Records of the Court of Claims will appear as followeth  a.  To the Protestants and others that proved their constant good affection including the Bogs Loughs and Mountains in Ireland 6110292 10868949 To Adventurers 396054 2717549 To the Officers and Souldiers 1442839 To the Officers that served his Majesty against the Rebels in Ireland before the year 1649. 278041 To his Royal Highness the Duke of Tork as Regicides Lands 111015 To Protestants on Provisoes by the Acts of Settlement and Explanation 383975 To the Bishops for their Augmentations of which some have possession 118041 Reserved to his Majesty as un-disposed upon the account of Lewis Dyke and Thomas Conyngham being set out on fraudulent Adventures 14006 Left of course Lands un-disposed the Title to the greatest part whereof was doubtful 73578 Restored unto the Irish upon Decrees of Innocency 965270 2041108 Restored to them by special Provisoes in the Acts of Settlement and Explanation 408083 Set out upon their Transplantations of Connaght and Clare over and above what is confirmed to English Protestants who purchased Interests there from the Irish 667755 So that the Irish notwithstanding the Rebellion and their great complaints of losing all their Lands are restored unto and possessed of almost one half of all the Lands formerly accounted forfeited by the Rebellion Besides that the 2717549 Acres granted to the English hath cost as before besides the loss of hundreds of thousands of Men murthered by and killed in subduing the said Rebels the sum of 22191258 l. 3 s. 0½ d. And accounting the said 2717549 Acres to be worth 12 d. per Acre one Acre with the other yearly they will come to 135876 l. 9 s. which for the Purchase thereof at 10 years Purchase comes to 1358764 l. 10 s. After which Rate the Lands granted to the English and Protestants are not the 15th part of what the Money expended in subduing the said Rebellion would have bought and accounting the Devastations and the loss of many thousands of Mens Lives for nothing A REFLECTION Upon the State of IRELAND With occurrent Accidents before the breaking forth of the Rebellion 23d of Octob. 1641. THough we date the Conquest of Ireland from the submission of the Kings and Natives there to Henry the Second 1172. yet on a truer estimate we must conclude that Ireland was never really subjugated to the Crown of England till our Laws became as communicable to the Natives as the English whereby each Party without distinction grew up together into one Nation which was never effectually vouchsafed till after Tir-Oen's last submission at Mellifont to the Lord Mountjoy 1603. by which the minds of the People were broken to the obedience of the Law and after that became so pliable as near fourty years there seemed no material distinction betwixt the Natives and other Inhabitants each concentring in subjection to the Laws making up but one Jury living in mutual amity and friendship till Indulgence so far became a mischief as thence
insequutus est cum multis sequalibus in Lagenia vero se adjunxerant Jacobus Vice-Comes de Baltinglass cum Kavanachiis Briniis aliis Nobilibus illius Provinciae visa est magnis piis Principibus Causa Dei tractari quia pro fide bellum susceptum intellexerunt Copias etiam auxiliares transmiserunt sed propter Delicta seculi irritus fuit Conatus Deo tunc non decernente speratum Bellatoribus effectum tribuere quem in aliud tempus pro alia Generatione aliis Instrumentis modis parandum reservavit atque ita difflatum est Consilium illud dissiluit in partes opus coeptum ipsum infaeliciter dissolutum est neque enim in illa Commotione transire ad refrigerium nostrum voluit Dominus 3. Illa vero Geraldinorum commotione sic praetervecta successit ignis omni late devastans dum flamma ferroque omnia populatur Comes Tyronensis plusquam decennali bello intercipiens hujus Insulae quietem multa visus prospere aggredi multis etiam congressibus victor sed nonnullis victoriis infolescens exercitus tametsi Cohortium antesignari ipse Gubernator Dactor exercitus causam praetulerit honorificam restituendae Religionis nec ullam vellet capitulationem admittere cum Anglis in qua Primario non ageretur De fide Orthodoxa publicè stabilanda per universum regnum quia Tamen via violentia tunc exercita non erat secundum propositum Dei efficax hinc peccatis Hominum irato Numine frustra se exerebant vires Hominum 4. At King James's access to the Crown Waterford Cork and Limerick in Munster Kilkenny and Wexford in Lemster openly oppos'd the King's Title as not being a Catholick but were soon brought into obedience by the Lord Deputy Mountjoy 5. Within four years after the Lord Chichester Deputy Tyrone and O Donnel conspiring with Mac-guire Cormack O Neal O Cahan the Lord Delvin and others design'd a notable Rebellion but were prevented in May 1607. and an Act of Attainder past Anno 11 12 13 Jacobi Cap. 4. 6. The year following Anno scil 1608. Sir Doghertie's War succeeded sharp though short determining in five months encourag'd by the Priests That all who died in that Service went forthwith into Heaven Afterwards the State of Ireland seemed very happy both as to Improvement of Land Plenty and Peace till the year 1634. that Ever Mac-Mahon before mention'd discover'd an intended Plot which by the prudence of the Governour the Lord Wentworth never arriv'd at its design nor afterwards was any thing further suspected till Sir Henry Vane by his Majesties command K. C. 1. gave the Lords Justices the 16th of March notice of a suspected Rebellion of which with its circumstances we have already insisted Though we must say that the result of the former Conspiracies which by the blessedness of the Times prudence of Governours or other accidents were delayed in this Anno sc. 1641. met the accomplishment of them all Yet nothing was here attempted which the bleeding Iphigenia the great Incendiary of that Nation doth not passionately justifie it being in his Divinity and Logick rational That the Irish though not then visibly assaulted might however assume Arms in defence of their Religion and Property both threatned it being writes he a common Doctrine of Divines That it is lawful to prevent an evil that cannot be otherwise avoided than by preventing it nor need the authority of the Prince in that case be required A Doctrine so hellish as none certainly is so besotted but he may easily read therein the ruine of States and Kingdoms excellently answered by the Learned and accurate late Proselyte Dr. Andrew Sal to whom in this point we must refer you And as to matter of Fact bequeath you to the ensuing History clearly evidencing That before the Irish assumed Arms no Instrument was ever thought on much less found against them Formerly indeed it hath been strongly imputed to the State of England that conquering Ireland they did not also endeavour to make them one People holding them Enemies not taking care to settle Civility and a Property amongst them the cause as some thought of frequent Rebellions But though these and some other defects in the Civil Policy some think are inexcusable it may clearly be demonstrated they were not of so large a size as they are mark'd And it may appear by antient Records that the Laws of England were at first communicated to the meer Irish as far as their Barbarism and Cruelties exercis'd on occasions upon the English would well admit But to let these times pass whereof we cannot speak much with any certainty let us now see what fruits we have of all the Royal endeavours of his Gracious Majesty and his two Glorious Predecessors what return for all their Care for all their Charge and for all the English Blood which hath within the compass of the last Age been spilt for purchasing of Peace and introducing of the true Religion and common Civility into Ireland It cannot be denied that since the happy Reign of Queen Elizabeth all the former defects in the Government and Civil Policy have been abundantly supplied and all those Means us'd those Acts perform'd those Designs fully accomplish'd and all things else perfectly brought to pass which in the judgement of all wise Men were conceiv'd would undoubtedly effect the full settlement and reduction of that Kingdom As first The barbarous Customs continually us'd by the Irish have been quite abolished all sorts of People even the most wicked amongst them have been allowed the benefit of the Law and liv'd under the King 's immediate Protection all the Laws of England found useful for that Kingdom have been made currant by Act of Parliament in Ireland many other good Laws enacted and the execution of them hath had free course through all parts of the Kingdom the Courts of Justice have been open and the Judges for the more free distribution of Justice to the People have constantly twice every year gone their Circuits through the several Counties of the whole Land the Church-Government hath been fully setled many preaching Ministers generally plac'd throughout the several Parishes as likewise Free-Schools together with sufficient Maintenance for them have been establisht the Lands belonging to the Natives have been always duely setled according to Law in the Proprietor and what noise soever was rais'd entituling the Crown to Roscommon Mayo Slego Galloway Clare besides some parts of Limerick and Tipperary as one of the Master-pieces of the Earl of Strafford's Service in Ireland nothing was ever effected thereupon though it had cost his Majesty 10000 l. upon the enquiry and had they had patience till the next Sessions of Parliament there was an Act for Limitations pass'd by his Majesty to bar all Titles Claims and Challenges of the Crown before 60 years last past to have cut off all expectations upon the ancient Title and have strengthned by new Grants and Patents all Titles
of their Interest and security Each Party arrived at Oxford near the midst of April the Confederate Agents got thither soonest having less Remora's in their dispatch The Confederates as men who thought themselves possessed of the whole strength and Power of the Kingdom and the Kings condition in England so weak as he would buy their assistance at any rates demanded upon the Matter the total alteration of Government both in Church and State the very form of making and enacting Laws which is the foundation of Government and which had been practis'd ever since the Reign of King H. 7. must be abolished and instead of Liberty or Toleration for the exercise of the Romish Religion they insisted on such Priviledges Immunities and Power as would have amounted at best but to a Toleration of the Protestant Religion and that no longer then they should think fit to consent to it On the other hand the Committee of Parliament as men who too much felt the smart and anguish of their late sufferings undervalued and condemned the Irish as inferior to them in Courage and Conduct and as possessed of much greater Power by the Cessation then they could retain in War very earnestly prest the execution of the Laws in force Reparation for the dammages they had sustain'd disarming the Irish in such manner and to such a degree as it might not be hereafter in their Power to do more mischief and such other Conditions as People who are able to contend are not usually perswaded to submit unto which the Committee at Oxford for Irish Affairs insisted on with powerful Reasons and Arguments In these so different and distant Applications they who were sent as moderate Men from the Council knew not how to behave themselves but enough discovered that they had not the confidence in the Irish as to be willing that they should be so far trusted that the performance of their Duty should depend onely on their Affection and Allegiance But that there should be a greater Restraint upon them then they were inclin'd to submit to otherwise that the Protestant Religion and English Interest would be sooner rooted out by the Peace they proposed then it could be by the War It is very true that the Irish Agents demean'd themselves to his Majesty with great shew of Modesty and Duty they were Men that lack'd neither Art nor Behaviour and confessed that they believ'd that the Demands they were enjoyn'd to insist upon were such as his Majesty could not consent unto and that the present condition of his Affairs was not so well understood by them or by those who sent them before their coming out of Ireland as it now was which if it had been they were confident they should have had such Instructions as would better have complied with their own Desires and his Majesty's Occasions and therefore frankly offer'd to return and use their utmost Endeavours to incline the Confederate Council whose Deputies they were and who then exercised the supream Power over the Confederate Catholicks of that Kingdom to more Moderation and to return their full submission and obedience to his Majesty upon such Conditions as his Goodness would consent unto for their security But how little of this was perform'd you shall find in the sequel of the Story however the King sent his Command the 16th of Feb. 164. to the Marquess of Ormond to continue and renew their Cessation for another year and likewise a Commission under the Great Seal of England to make a full Peace with his Catholick Subjects upon such Conditions he found agreeable to the publick Good and Welfare and might produce such a Peace and Union in that Kingdom as might vindicate his Regal Power and Authority and suppress the Rebels in England and Scotland And so his Majesty dismissed the Catholick Agents with demonstration of much Grace and Confidence with this good Council which he most pathetically poured out to them at their departure That they should not forget the preservation of the Nation and Religion which they professed and were so zealous for in Ireland depended upon the preservation of his just Rights and Authority in England That they saw his Subjects of Scotland contrary to all Obligations had invaded England and joyned with those Rebels against him who without that assistance would have been speedily reduced to their obedience And therefore if his Catholick Subjects of Ireland made haste upon such Conditions as he might then grant without prejudice to himself and which should be amply sufficient for the security of their Fortunes Lives and Exercise of their Religion to assist him whereby he might be enabled by God's Blessing to suppress that Rebellion they might confidently believe he would never forget to whose Merit he owed his Preservation and Restauration and it would then be in his absolute Power to vouchsafe Graces to them to compleat their happiness and which he gave them his Royal Word he would then dispence in such manner as should not leave them disappointed of any of their just and full Expectations But if by insisting on such Particulars as he could not in Conscience consent to and their Consciences obliged them not to ask or on such as though he could himself be content to yield to yet in that Juncture of Time would bring such great damage to him that all the Supplies they could give or send to him could not countervail and might be as beneficially granted to them hereafter when he might better do it they should delay their joyning with him and so look on till the Rebel's Power prevail'd against him in England and Scotland and suppress'd his Party in those Kingdoms it would then be too late for them to give him help and they would quickly find their Strength in Ireland but an imaginary Support for his or their own Interest and that they who with much difficulty had destroyed him would without any considerable Opposition ruine their Interest and root out their Religion with their Nation from all the Dominions which should be subject to their exorbitant Jurisdiction How much of this prov'd a Prophesie their sad Experience knows and the World cannot but take notice of Soon after the Confederate's Agents were dismissed the Protestant's Committee of Parliament who had managed their Scene with much Courage and Integrity drew off with the King's Favour and Promise to do the utmost he could for them In the managing of which Affairs if they had not been very resolute arm'd with much Truth they would certainly have fall'n under many Inconveniencies For besides what they met with at Oxford they had still Correspondence and accordingly acted as they were animated by a Party of the Protestant Committee of the Parliament of Ireland then resident in Dublin who that they might decline the height of what those at Oxford proposed were tempted by an Order of the Council-Board to certifie Whether the 24 Propositions of his Majesty's Protestant Agents of Ireland presented to
every stranger and strangers so received or entertained And We do hereby in his Majesties name and under the pains and punishments here after mentioned command all Aldermen of Wards to transmit all Returns and Certificates made by the Citizens Inhabitants and Residents afore-mentioned to the Major or Recorder of the City of Dublin within twelve hours after receipt thereof or sooner if they conceive any sinister suspition of the persons returned together with the names of such of the said Citizens Inhabitants and Residents as shall not within the time afore limited make such Returns unto them And We do further in his Majesties name and under the pains and punishments hereafter mentioned command the said Major and Recorder of the said City of Dublin and also the Seneschalls or other chief Officers afore-mentioned to cause all Returns and Certificates that shall come to their hands to be delivered to the said James Earl of Ormond and Ossory within twelve hours after receipt thereof or sooner upon suspition as aforesaid together with the names of such Aldermen of Wards Inhabitants and Residents as shall not make such Returns and deliveries of Certificates as aforesaid respectively And if the said Major or Recorder or any Seneschall chief Officer Alderman of any Ward or any Citizen Inhabitant or Resident of or within this City the Suburbs thereof or two miles about the same or any other person or persons whatsoever shall offend contrary to the tenour of this Proclamation in not repairing to their dwellings in keeping any unnecessary retinues in not making any Return or Certificate in making any false or partial Return or Certificate in not returning the names of those who shall not in not making delivery of the said Returns and Certificates to the persons aforesaid in manner and within the times afore limited respectively they and every of them shall respectively incur and suffer such pains of death or such other severe pains and punishments as the said Earl and the Councel of War for the time being shall think fit to inflict and impose and as the danger of the persons and times shall require Given at His Majesties Castle of Dublin the 11. day of Novemb. 1641. Ormond Ossory R. Dillon Cha. Lambert J. Temple Cha. Coote P. Crosbie God save the King APPENDIX V. Fol. 35. A Copy of a Letter directed to the Lord Viceco Cossilough from the Rebels of the County of Longford in Ireland which he presented to the State in their behalf Novemb. 10. 1641. Our very Good Lord OUR Alliance unto your Lordships Ancestors and your self and the Tryal of your and their performance of Trust unto their Friends in their greatest Adversity encourageth us and engageth your Honour to our fruition of your future favours The fixion of our Confidence in you before any other of the Peers and privy Councellors of the Kingdom doubleth this Obligation Your Lordship may therefore be pleased to acquaint the Lords Justices and Councel to be impanted unto his Sacred Majesty with our Grievances and the causes thereof the reading of which we most humbly pray and the manner of it First The Papists in the neighbouring Counties are severely punished and their miseries might serve as Beacons unto us to look unto our own when our Neighbours Houses are on fire And we and other Papists are and ever will be as loyal Subjects as any in the King's Dominions For manifestation whereof we send herein inclosed an Oath solemnly taken by us which as it received indeleble Impression in our hearts shall be sign'd with our hand and seal'd with our Blood Secondly There is an incapacity in the Papists of Honour and the Immunities of true Subjects the royal Marks of distributive Justice and a dis-favour in the Commutative which rais'd Strangers and Foreigners whose valour and vertue was invincble when the old Families of the English and the major part of us the meer Irish did swim in blood to serve the Crown of England and when Offices should call Men of worth Men without worth and merit obtain them Thirdly The Statute of the 2. Eliz of force in this Kingdom against us and they of our Religion doth not a little disanimate us and the rest Fourthly The avoidance of Grants of our Lands and Liberties by Quirks and Quiddities of the Law without reflecting upon the King 's Royal and real Intention for confirming our Estates his Broad Seal being the pawn betwixt his Majesty and his people Fifthly The restraint of purchase in the meer Irish of Lands in the Escheated Counties and the taint and blemish of them and their posterities doth more discontent them than that plantation Rule for they are brought to that Exigent of povertie in these late times that they must be sellers and not buyers of Land And we conceive and humbly offer to your Lordships consideration Principiis obsta that in the beginning of this Commotion Your Lordship as it is hereditary for you will be a Physitian to cure this Disease in us and by our Examples it will doubtless beget the like auspicious success in all other parts of the Kingdom For we are of opinion it is one sickness and one pharmach will suffice Sublatâ causâ tollitur Effectus And it will be recorded that you will do service unto God King and Countrey And for salving every the aforesaid Soars Your Lordship is to be an humble Suitor in our behalf and of the rest of the Papists that out of the abundance of his Majesties Clemency there may be an Act of Oblivion and general pardon without restitution or Account of Goods taken in the time of this Commotion a liberty of our Religion a repeal of all Statutes formerly made to the contrary and not by Proclamation but Parliamentary way A Charter free Denizen in ample manner for meer Irish All which in succeeding Ages will prove an Union in all his Majesties Dominions instead of Division a Comfort in Desolation and a Happiness in perpetuity for an imminent Calamitie And this being granted there will be all things Quae sunt Caesaris Caesari and Quae sunt Dei Deo And it was by the Poet written though he be prophane in other matters yet in this prophetically Divisum Imperium cum Jove Caesar habet All which for this present we leave to your Honourable Care And we will as we ever did and do remain Your very humble and assured ever to be Commanded Hugh mac Gillernow Farrall James Farrall Bryan Farrall Readagh Farrall Edmond mac Cael Farrall John Farrall in Carbuy Garret Farral Lisagh mac Conel Farrall Bryan mac William Farrall John mac Edmund Farrall John Farrall Roger mac Bryne Farrall Barnaby Farrall James mac Trig Farrall his Mark. Morgan mac Carbry Farrall Donnagh mac Carbry Farrall Richard mac Conel Farral William mac James Farrall James Farrall Taghna mac Rory Farrall Cormack mac Rory Farrall Conock mac Bryne Farrall Readagh mac Lisagh Farrall Connor Oge mac Connor Farrall Ed mond mac Connor Farrall
Irish Rebels or conclude any Peace or Cessation with them without the consent and express Command of the King and Parliament of England 4. He will engage himself to the true performance of all these things by Oath or any other means that can be propos'd to a Man of Honour and Conscience Septemb. 26 1646. Ormond Which he frequently insisted on in his Treaty with the Parliaments Commissioners who seem'd not before to be acquainted therewith or thought it expedient upon the Treaty to receive the same from him which however as most important He insisted upon as also to have Directions from His Majestie ere he would deliver up the Hoord or render up the Garrisons in his Power to their hands waving notwithstanding the first Proposition rather than that should be any leâ—t to the Treaty which in conclusion ended in delivering up all to the Parliament Fol. 169. l. 29. in the Irish concluding thereby that there would not be only a loss of the Kingdom but of thousands of Protestants and together with them the Protestant Religion also Fol. 177. l. 41. other Considerations As that the English Interest in Ireland must be preserv'd by the English and not by the Irish. Fol. 184. l. 21. and Eloquence as follows in these words To the Honourable Commissioners from the Parliament of ENGLAND The humble Answer and Petition of the Protestant Clergy of the City of Dublin Humbly shewing THAT whereas we having received from your Honours by Anthony Dopping Esquire a Message consisting of two branches one of Demand Whether the Ministers will officiate in their several Churches not using the Book of Common Prayer The other a Concession to this effect That such as will officiate may use the Directory or such Service as is agreeable to the Word of God but not use the Book of Common Prayer VVe hereto with all meekness and lowliness of minds return this our joint Answer 1. That forasmuch as we see and know that the Protestants of this City for the most part are much grieved in heart for the want of the daily accustomed Service of God in the two Cathedrals and the Parish Churches of this City and for their late being deprived of us and our Ministery which they have long enjoyed VVe are very much troubled and are very sorrowful in our selves for their grief We acknowledg our selves bound to preach the Gospel of Christ unto the People and are so far from a voluntary desertion of our Churches People Ministery and the exercise thereof as that we shall rejoyce in nothing more than that we may finish our course with joy and the Ministry which we have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the grace of God 2. That we have been and still are effectually debarred from our Churches and the exercise of our Ministry by your Honours Injunction and Command bearing date the 24. of June 1647. wherein you require the discontinuance of the Book of Common-Prayer and the receiving of the Directory c. which Injunction lies still upon us with the danger of non-protection in case we disobey the same 3. That we cannot consent with a good conscience to the discontinuance of the Book of Common-Prayer and receiving the Directory in lieu thereof or any other private form of publick Service for the reasons exhibited and alledged in our Answer the 22. of June last whereto we humbly annex these Reasons following amongst others which we debated upon in our mutual conference the 25. of June and on the same day touched some of the Heads of them before your Honours I. VVe all at our Ordination or being made Presbyters have among other things made this solemn Promise before God which we account the same with or little different from an Oath that we would so minister the Doctrine and Sacraments and Discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as this Realm hath received the same II. VVe have often taken the Oath of Supremacy and sworn that the King's Highness is the only supreme Governour of this Realm as well in all spiritual and Ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal and that we shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions c. granted or belonging to the King's Highness his Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Kingdom Now should we receive a Directory printed or any other form without Royal Authority we do not conceive how this can stand with this our Oath III. As the Act of Parliament 2 Eliz. still in force in this Kingdom expresly commands the use of this Book of Common-Prayer so it forbids Common-Prayer or Administration of the Sacraments otherwise or after any other manner or form with any private dispensation whereof we cannot comply we being bound to the obedience thereof not only for fear of penalty but for conscience sake Rom. 13. 5. IV. VVhereas the Book of Common-Prayer is one main part of the Reformation established in the Churches of England and Ireland the laying aside thereof and the receiving of the Directory or any other form would be we conceive considering the present state and circumstances of things a departing in this from the Communion of the Church of England and Ireland V. It is evident that as the Constitution of a Law in any matter Ecclesiastical the order ever observed in the Church since Kings became nursing Fathers thereto was is and ought to be this That it first pass the consultation and determination of a lawful Ecclesiastical Council and then that it receive the sanction and confirmation of the civil Supreme Magistrate for this gives it the formal strength and vigour of a Law outwardly obliging and that gives it materiality and substance and supplies ground sufficient to make it a Law inwardly obliging Christian People to receive it So in the promulgation and execution of that Law concerning a matter Ecclesiastical there was and is this order observed First the supreme civil Magistrate remands and recommends it to the Ecclesiastical Governours and they deliver it to the rest of the Pastors and they to the People So that the immediate actual reception of an Order Ecclesiastical by the Ministers is from the hand of the Bishop or Ordinary And upon this is founded that solemn Promise made before God by every Minister at his Ordination That he will reverently obey his Ordinary and other chief Ministers unto whom the Government and Charge over him is committed following with a glad mind their godly admonitions and submitting himself to their godly judgments Since then in this matter concerning the Book of Common-Prayer all the required premisses were fulfilled and that any other form that for the present we can use wants all of them we cannot without breach of our Promise forementioned and disordered anticipation or neglect of the judgment of our Ordinances receive any such or other form considering the King's Command concerning the only use of the Book of Common-Prayer expressed in the Act of Parliament is still in
Ireland or England 2. That the secular Clergy of Ireland viz. Primates Archbishops Bishops Ordinaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Prebendaries and other Dignitaries Parsons Vicars and all other Pastors of the secular Clergy and their respective Successors shall have and enjoy all and all manner of Jurisdictions Priviledges Immunities in as full and ample manner as the Roman Catholicks secular Clergy had or enjoy'd the same within this Realm at any time during the Reign of the late H. 7. sometimes King of England and Lord of Ireland any Law Declaration of Law Statute Power and Authority whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding 3. That all Laws and Statutes made since the 20th year of King H. 8. whereby any Restraint Penalty Mulct Incapacity or Restriction whatsoever is or may be laid upon any of the Roman Catholicks either of the Clergy or of the Laity for such the said free Exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion within this Kingdom and of their several Functions Jurisdictions and Priviledges may be repeal'd revoked and declared void by one or more Acts of Parliament to be pas'd therein 4. That all Primates Archbishops Bishops Ordinaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Chancellors Treasures Chaunters Provosts Wardens of Collegiate Churches Prebendaries and other Dignitaries Parsons Vicars and other Pastors of the Roman Catholick secular Clergy and their respective Successors shall have hold and enjoy all the Churches and Church-Livings in as large and ample manner as the late Protestant Clergy respectively enjoy'd the same on the first day of October in the year of our Lord 1641. together with all the Profits Emoluments Perquisits Liberties and the Rights to their respective Sees and Churches belonging as well in all Places now in the possession of the Confederate Confederate Catholicks as also in all other places that shall be recovered by the said Confederate Catholicks from the adverse Party within this Kingdom saving to the Roman Catholick Laity their Rights according to the Laws of the Land And that the Supreme Council the legitimate issue of the General Assembly might look with the better face of Authority they fram'd to themselves a Seal bearing the mark of a long Cross on the right side whereof a Crown and a Harp on the left with a Dove above and a flaming Heart below the Cross and round about this Inscription Pro Deo pro Rege Patria Hibernia unanimis with which they seal'd their Credentials to Princes and under that Seal pass'd their principal Acts of Sovereignty Having now modell'd themselves into a separate State confronting his Majesties Royal Government setled in Dublin ordering in their Supreme Council at Kilkenny in the said Province of Leimster all their Affairs Civil and Military through the whole Kingdom As to War they had their Forces under the Conduct of four well experienc'd Generals before mentioned answering the several Provinces of Leimster Munster Connaght and Ulster Giving out Letters of Mart An Example of which together with the Authority they assum'd notwithstanding his Majesties Proclamation of the 1st of January 1641. we shall hear give you at large By the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland TO all Men to whom this Present shall come We the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Realm send Greeting Know ye That we have taken into our serious consideration the great and necessary use we have of Ships of War for the defence of the Coasts of this Realm and advancement and furtherance of Commerce with Foreign Nations and for opposing his Majesties Enemies who daily hinder and annoy his Majesties good Subjects of this Kingdom by Sea and stop all free Trade in this Realm and abroad have therefore constituted and appointed and do hereby ordain constitute and appoint our well-beloved Friend Captain Francis Oliver Native of Flanders having received good testimony of his sufficiency and integrity to be Captain of the Ship called St. Michael the Archangel of burthen 120 Lasts or Tuns or thereabouts hereby giving and granting unto the said Captain full and absolute Power Commission and Authority to furnish the said Ship with all Necessaries fit for Sea and War and with the same to cross the Seas and take hinder and prejudice all such as he shall find or meet of His Majesties Enemies the Enemies of the General Catholick Cause now in hand in this Kingdom their Ships and Goods whatsoever either by Sea or Land by what means soever and the said Shipping or Goods to set to sale and dispose of as lawful Prizes and open Enemies Goods saving unto his Majesty and his lawful Officers and unto all other Person or Persons Bodies Politick and Corporate all Rights Requisites and Duties due or usual answered out of all Prizes And we hereby command all Officers of all our Ports Harbours and Havens within our Jurisdiction throughout this Realm to admit the said Captain Francis Oliver and his Companies Ships and Goods from time to time to pass and repass come and go without molestation or trouble And that all Commanders of Forts and all other Officers of his Majesties loving Subjects to be aiding and assisting unto him in execution and furtherance of the Premisses whatsoever and as often as occasion shall require And lastly we pray all Foreign Princes States and Potentates to defend protect assist and favour the said Captain his Ships and Goods when and as often as he shall come into their respective Coasts and Harbours This our Commission to continue during pleasure Given at Kilkenny the last of December 1642. Was signed Mountgarret Hugo Armachanus Gormanston Johan Episc. Clonfertensis Nic. Plunket Patr. Darcy James Cusack Jeffry Brown And as to Civils they had their Officers of State Justices of Oyer and Terminer and of the Peace with their Courts of Judicature in several kinds and Councils Supreme County Provincial and on occasion National this being as Parliamentary called their General Assembly They had their Negotiations also abroad and from abroad and by Envoys Agents and publick Ministers Extraordinary and Resident they receiv'd the sense of other Princes and return'd their own being also by those Princes treated at home in like manner as if they had been some State absolute or more considerable of which read the Appendix All the subsequent Acts being derived from the Orders establish'd at Kilkenny the 24th of October 1642. By what I have mention'd you may see how the Rebels endeavour'd to get credit abroad and repute at home managing their Concerns with so much subtilty as having them anvil'd in every Covent nothing was omitted to mature their designs or colour what they had now begun with the fairest pretence whilst the State in the interim through the distractions in England daily increasing which gave fresh fuel to the Rebels presumption were so straitned for want of Supplies that the Lords Justices having by all the ways imaginable represented as well to his Majesty as to the Parliament the miserable condition they
should happen which they wished God would avert they should pray and conjure the Romish Clergy of England that that of the Maccabees might be recorded of them to future Ages Erat pro uxoribus filiis pro fratribus cognatis minor solicitudo maximus vero primus pro sanctitate erat timor Templi And this was the Answer delivered to the Commissioners of Trust upon the 5th day of November 1650. at Galway by the Bishops of Killala Ferns Kilmacduogh Clonfert Kilfinara and Dromore after several and long Conferences with the Commissioners of Trust who were Authorised by the Nation unto the Proposals presented by the Commissioners to the Committee of the Congregation the 29th of Octob. 1650. Here we cannot avoid observing by the express words of the Conclusion upon their Reasons in their Conference with the Commissioners that though they seem'd to desire that the Marquis of Clanrickard whose zeal to the Romish Religion and Interest in the Nation was so notorious and confessed that they durst not publickly repine at his known affection and integrity to the King might govern the Nation with the consent of all Parties and that the Kings Authority in the Lord Lieutenant might be left in him yet they declared they meant it should onely be until an Assembly which they well knew by the express terms of the Articles of Peace could be onely lawfully conven'd by the Lord Lieutenant and then that Assembly should judge of the Peoples preservation and to decree and order what should be the best and safest for the defence of the Nation touching the Kings Authority to be kept over them the Peace to be asserted and made good or to renew the Association or any thing else they should find best and most expedient So that they intended no other Honour to the Marquis of Clanrickard than that by his countenance and reputation they might perswade the Lord Lieutenant to leave the Kings Authority behind him and that he should call an Assembly which they would otherwise do themselves which they were sure should be constituted for the most part of such Men as would follow their Dictates by which himself should be divested of that Power and the King deposed from any further Dominion over them when they perswade any foreign Prince to take them into his Protection which practice they quickly set on foot And for the further manifestation of their Affection and Loyalty to the King which they cannot endure should be called yet in question it is observable that these Men who had so often contradicted and controuled the express Acts of every Assembly that had been convened since the beginning of these Troubles and now commanded the People under pain of damnation not to yield any obedience to the King's Authority in his Lieutenant and declared that they could not with the safety of their Consciences consent to the Propositions which he had lately made for the uniting the Nation in defence of the Peace so advantagious to their Liberty and Religion which the Commissioners intrusted by and for the Nation thought so reasonable These Men I say made no scruple of professing and declaring that if an Assembly upon due consideration of their state and condition should find it the best way for their safety and preservation to make an Agreement with the Enemy they would not hinder the People from compounding with them for the safety of their Lives and States Which being seriously considered we cannot sufficiently wonder at the strange stupid resignation of their Understandings who believed or rather at the wonderful contempt of those Understandings which would be perswaded to believe that this Congregation had loyal Purposes toward the King or that they never intended to hinder the Assembly or give Law to the People when they cancell'd all fundamental Laws broke through all Acts of their own Assembly and forbad the People to pay any obedience to the King's Vicegerent who had only the lawful Power of Government over them The more extravagant and unreasonable these Proceedings were of the Congregation and Clergy the more confident many honest and wise Men were that the Assembly of the Nation would regulate and controul that il-limited Power and utterly dis-avow all that they had done and therefore they who were exceedingly offended and enraged against the Congregation were solicitous and importunate with the Lord Lieutenant to call an Assembly And though he had too much experience of the Nature and Temper of the People and of the transcendent Power the Clergy should still have over any Assembly or at least over the People when the Assembly had done what it could to hope for any good effect from it And though he saw he should thereby the more expose his own Honour and which he considered more the Dignity of his Master to new Insolencies yet since he resolved to leave the Kingdom himself and was only un-resolved whether he should leave the King's Authority behind him liable to the same Indignities and Affronts in the Person of the Marquess of Clanrickard which it had been subject to in his own and could have no kind of assurance that it should not but by the Professions and Protestations of an Assembly he did resolve to call one and issued out his Letters for their meeting upon the 15th of November 1650. at Loghreogh where they met accordingly And the Bishops for removing as they said of any Jealousies that any might apprehend of their Proceedings declared and protested That by their Excommunication and Declaration at James-town they had no other aim than the preservation of the Catholick Religion and the People and that they did not purpose to make any visible Usurpation on his Majesty's Authority nor on the Liberty of the People confessing that it did not belong to their Jurisdiction so to do With which Protestation so contrary to what they had done and which in truth they had so often made even at the time they did all things contrary to it the Assembly was satisfied and did not so much as make another Protestation that the Bishops had done what they ought not to do nor exact a Promise from them that they would not do the like in time to come So that the Lord Lieutenant was resolv'd to look no more for satisfaction from them nor expose the King's Authority any further by leaving any Deputy behind him but prepared for his departure When the Assembly understood his Resolution and saw plainly that he was even ready to depart his Goods and many of his Servants being on Ship-board they sent four Members the Lord Dillon Clanrickard c. of their House to him at Kilcogan with an Instrument in writing bearing date from Loghreogh the 7th of December in which they repeated concerning the Excommunication and Declaration what the Bishops had protested in that Assembly and of his Excellency's Letter dated the 16th of November last recommending to them as the chief End for which that Assembly was
you see how it came to pass that Murther is a greater offence and more severely punished in Ireland than in England and by these good Laws that horrid and execrable Crime and Monster of Blood and Murder was chain'd up or at least fetter'd and restrain'd in Ireland until its breaking loose upon us in this last and most barbarous and cruel Rebellion with that inhumane violence and unsatiable thirst of innocent Blood with the savage Butcheries of Men Women and Children without respect either of Age or Sex or Quality as no History or Age can parallel It appears by a Cloud of Witnesses the execrable Cruelties of the Murtherers were not satisfied with the variety of Tortures and cruel Deaths of the living by Striping Starving Burning Strangling Burying alive and by many Exquisite Torments put to death the living so that a present dispatch by death was a great Mercy So cruel are the Mercies of the wicked But their hellish rage and fury stayed not here but also extended it self even unto the Babes unborn ripping them out of their Mothers womb and destroying even those innocent Babes to satiate their savage cruelty Nor staid it here but extended also to the ransacking of the Graves of the Dead dragging the dead Bodies of the Protestants out of their Graves because they might not rest in their Hallowed Ground Nor did yet their execrable malice stay here but became boundless not onely to the devastation and the destruction of the Houses Castles and whole substance of the Protestants and whatsoever tending to Civility but also even to the utter extirpation of the English Nation and Protestant Religion out of this Land of Ireland all which the Murderers for of them I speak acted with that bruitish outrage as though Infidels or rather the wild Beasts of the Wilderness Wolves and Bears and Tigres nay Fiends and Furies had been brought into the Land If any think this Language too harsh let them consider how the holy Ghost ranks and couples the Murderers with Dogs Rev. 22. 15. For without the holy City the heavenly Jerusalem are Dogs and Sorcerers and Whoremongers and Murderers and whosoever loveth and maketh a lye No no Swans language to express either the woful miseries which the Protestants have suffered or the abominable cruelties the Murtherers have committed are here tolerable I have not words to declare how the Murderers in this horrid Rebellion have violated all Laws of God and Man all Faith all Bonds of Charity and Humane Society and how perfidiously they have broken all the Rules and Rights and Laws of War The Laws of War In republica maxime sunt observanda Jura belli By the Law and Rules and Rights of War Quarter warrantably given ought inviolably to be observed it is a Fundamental Law of War That Faith is to be kept with an Enemy Fides cum hoste servanda this hath been observed among the Heathens Infidels have kept this Faith the Turks observed it but by the Popes Dispensation the Christians once broke their Articles with the Turks whereupon the Lord gave a signal Victory to the Turks against the Christians the Story is well known The practice of the Murderers in this Rebellion hath been according to the old Popish Tenent Nulla fides cum Haereticis And so contrary to the Laws of War many Protestants were murdered after Quarter given of which Crime both are said to be guilty But that which exceeds all that can be spoken makes their sin exceeding sinful and their wickedness most abominable is That they began this butchery and cruelty even then when the Protestants were in perfect amity with them and joyned to them not onely in peaceable Neighbourhood but even in those Bonds that they pretend to hold most inviolable viz. Gossiprick Fosterage and such like Ties of Friendship and Alliance When they enjoyed so licentious a freedom of their Romish Superstition and free use of their Mass they had their Titular Arch-bishops for every Province their Titular Bishop with his Dean and Chapter for every Diocess and their Secular Priest for every Parish in the Land besides a monstrous multitude of their Votaries and Regular Clergy They had their Abbots Priors Monks Nuns Jesuits Frieries Monasteries Nunneries Religious Houses and Convents in the principal Towns and Cities of the Land even in this City of Dublin the residence of the State so that Father Harris a Secular Priest of their own published in Print That it was as hard to find what number of Friers were in Dublin as to count how many Frogs there were in the second Plague of Egypt They did not onely exercise all their Superstitious Rites and Ceremonies but also the Papal Jurisdiction as by Law they had Vicars General and kept their Provincial Courts and Consistories and Excommunicated the People delivering them to Satan When they enjoyed the benefit of the same Laws with us nay the end and force of the Law was in some cases abated as to them which was not dispensed withall as to the Protestants The Popish Lawyers were permitted to practice and the Papists admitted to Sue forth their Liberties and Ouster lemains and to bear and execute the Office of Sheriffs Justices of the Peace c. without taking the Oathes of Allegiance or Supremacy which was not permitted to the Protestants And these Popish Lawyers Priests Jesuits and Friers have been the principal Incendiaries and Firebrands of all those horrible Flames which have thus consumed the Land and were the chief Ring-leaders of this horrid Rebellion that the publick Burthens and Charges of the Common-wealth were born more by the Protestants than by them consideration being had to their numbers and quality of Possessors of Inheritance And that of the Subsidy granted in Decimo Car. whereof they raised so great a clamour both in England and Ireland the Protestants paid above one third part of the whole besides the Clergy though neither the Quantity or Quality of Lands of Inheritance then holden of them in the Land did amount to more than a fifth part and besides all this the Protestants had contributed to the charge of their Committees towards the obtaining of Grace in Bounties in sending Commissioners for them and even then when the British and Protestants had improved the Lands of the Irish Papists and enriched their Estates and brought into the Land Husbandry Trades Manufactury Traffick Merchandize c. by which means increase of Wealth grew in the Land to that abundance that the Irish grew not onely Rich but Honourable also they were made Earls Viscounts Lords Baronets Knights c. And when they enjoyed all this and much more if time did permit to declare it then even then without any provocation suddenly to rise up to this heighth of cruelty to murder some hundreds of thousands of these Protestants that lived peaceably and friendly with them and that before they could take Arms in their hands for their defence these things I say makes the sins of Murder Violence
through the World ever equall'd it in the Circumstances that accompanied the Butcheries Massacres Cruelties yea the mercy of the Rebels in that War though in the end fatal to the Irish themselves above any thing that ever befel that Nation so as the greatness of their Sufferings may well testifie the remarkableness of their Crimes sutable to the innocent blood they had barbarously shed and the devastations they had made of a most flourishing and well setled Kingdom APPENDIX I. Fol. 10. Questions wherein the House of Commons humbly desires that the House of the Lords would be pleased to require the Judges to deliver their Resolutions INasmuch as the Subjects of this Kingdom are Free Loyal and Dutiful Subjects to his Most Excellent Majesty their Natural Leige Lord and King and to be governed only by the Common Laws of England and Statutes of force in this Kingdom in the same manner and form as his Majesty's Subjects of the Kingdom are and ought to be governed by the said Common Laws and Statutes of force in that Kingdom which of right the Subjects of this Kingdom do Challenge and make their Protestation to be their Birthright and best Inheritance Yet inasmuch as the unlawful Actions and Proceedings of some of his Majesties Officers and Ministers of Justice of late years Introduced and Practised in this Kingdom did tend to the Infringing and Violation of the Laws Liberties and Freedom of the said Subjects of this Kingdom contrary to his Majesties Royal and Pious intentions Therefore the Knights Citizens and Burgesses in Parliament Assembled not for any doubt or ambiguity which may be conceived or thought of for or concering the Premises nor of the ensuing questions but for manifestation and declaration of a clear Truth and of the said Laws and Statutes already planted and for many Ages past setled in this Kingdom The said Knights Citizens and Burgesses do therefore pray that the House of the Lords may be pleased to command the Judges of this Kingdom forthwith to declare in Writing their Resolutions of and unto the ensuing questions and subscribe to the same 1. Whether the Judges of this Kingdom be a Free People and to be governed only by the Common Laws of England and Statutes of force in this Kingdom 2. Whether the Judges of this Land do take the Oath of Judges And if so Whether under pretext of any Act of State Proclamation Writ Letter or direction under the Great or Privy Seal or Privy Signet or Letter or other Commandment from the Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputy Justice Justices or other Chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom they may hinder stay or delay the Suit of any Subject or his Judgement or Execution thereupon If so in what Cases and whether if they do hinder stay or delay such Suit Judgement or Execution thereupon what punishment do they incurr for their deviation and transgression therein 3. Whether the King's Majesties Privy Councel either with the Chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom or without him or them be a place of Judicature by the Common Laws and wherein Causes between Party and Party for Debts Trespasses Accounts Portions or Title of Lands or any of them and which of them may be heard and determined and of what Civil Causes they have Jurisdiction and by what Law and of what force are their Orders and Decree in such Cases or any of them 4. The like of the Chief Governours alone 5. Whether Grants of Monopolies be warranted by Law and of what and in what Cases and how and where and by whom are the pretended trangressions against such Grants punishable and whether by Fine mutilation of Members Imprisonment Loss and forfeiture of Goods or otherwise and which of them 6. In what Cases the Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputy or other Chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom and Councel may punish by Fine Imprisonment mutilation of Members Pillory or otherwise and whether they may Sentence any to such the same or the like Punishment for infringing the Commands of or concerning any Proclamation of and concerning Monopolies and what Punishment do they incurr that Vote for the same 7. Of what force is an Act of State or Proclamation in this Kingdom to bind the Liberty Goods Possessions or Inheritance of the Natives thereof whether they or any of them can alter the Common Law or the Infringers of them loose their Goods Chattels or Leases or forfeit the same by infringing any such Act of State Proclamation or both what Punishment do the sworn Judges of the Law that are Privy-Councellors incurr that Vote for such Acts and Execution thereof 8. Are the Subjects of this Kingdom subject to Marshal Law and whether any man in time of Peace no Enemy being in the Field with Banners displayed can be sentenced to Death If so by whom and in what Cases If not what Punishment do they incurr that in time of Peace execute Marshal Law 9. Whether voluntary Oaths taken freely before Arbitrators for affirmance or disaffirmance of any thing or for the true performance of any thing be Punishable in the Castle-Chamber or any other Court and why and wherefore 10. Why and by what Law and by what rule of Policy is it that none is admitted to reducement of Fines and other Penalty in the Castle-Chamber or Councel-Table untill he confess the Offence for which he is censured when as revera he might be innocent thereof though suborned Proofs or circumstances might induce a Censure 11. Whether the Judges of the Kings-Bench or any other Judge of Goal-delivery or of any other Court and by what Law do or can deny the Copies of Indictment of Felony or Treason to the Parties accused contrary to the Law 12. What Power have the Barons of the Court of Exchequer to raise the respit of homage arbitrarily to what rate they please to what value they may raise it by what Law they may distinguish between the respit of homage upon the diversity of the true value of the Fees when as Escuage is the same for great and small Fees and are approportionable by Parliament 13. Whether it be Censurable in the Subjects of this Kingdom to repair into England to appeal unto his Majesty for redress of Injuries or for other lawful Actions if so why and in what condition of Persons and by what Law 14. Whether Deans or other Dignitaries of Cathedral Churches be properly and de mero Jure Donative by the King and not Elective or Collative If so why and by what Law and whether the Confirmation of a Dean de facto of the Bishops grant be good and valid in Law or no if not by what Law 15. Whether the issuing of Quo warrantoes out of the Kings-Bench or Exchequer against Bourroughs that antiently and recently sent Burgesses to Parliament to shew cause why they sent Burgesses to the Parliament be legal if not what punishment ought to be inflicted upon those that are or have been the Occasioners Procurers and
thereupon the Court after such retorn made and delivered in open Court shall proceed to examine and determine whether the cause of such Commitment appearing upon the said Retorn be just or legal or not and shall thereupon do what to Justice shall appertain either by delivering bayling or remanding the Prisoner or Prisoners 7. An Act of State or Proclamation in this Kingdom cannot bind the liberty Inheritance possession or goods of the Subjects of the said Kingdom nor alter the Common Law and the Infringers of any such Act or Proclamation ought not to forfeit Lands Leases Goods or Chattels for the infringing of any such Act of State or Proclamation and the Judges of the Law who do vote for such Acts of State or Proclamation are punishable as breakers and violaters of their Oaths of Judges 8. No Subject of this Kingdom ought to be sentenced to death or Executed by Martial Law in time of peace and if any Subject be so sentenced or executed by Martial Law in time of peace the Authors and Actors of any such Sentence or Execution are punishable by the law of the Land for their so doing as doers of their own wrong and contrary to the said law of the Land 9. No Man ought to be punished in the Castle-Chamber or in any other Court for taking a voluntary Oath before Arbitrators for affirmance or disaffirmance of any thing or the true performance of any thing in Civil Causes Nor are the Arbitrators before whom such voluntary Oaths shall be taken punishable 10. By the Laws and Statutes of the Realm no Man is bound or ought to be compelled to acknowledge the offence layed to his charge or the justness of any Censure past against him in the Castle-Chamber or at the Councel-Table nor ought to be detained in Prison or abridged of his liberty or the reducement of his Fine stayed or delayed until he do acknowledg such offence or the justness of such Censure And it is further declared That no such inforced or wrested confession or acknowledgment can or ought to debar or hinder any Subject from his Bill of Reversal or review of any Sentence or Decree past or conceived against him in the Castle-Chamber or in any other Court 11. The Judges of the Kings Bench or Justices of Gaol-delivery or the Judges of any other Court ought not to deny Copies of Indictments of Felony or Treason to the parties indicted 12. The Barons of the Exchequer ought not to raise the respit of Homage above the usual rates appertaining in and by the course and presidents of that Court continued until the year of our Lord God 1637. And the raising thereof since that time was Arbitrary and against the Law And the Barons of the Exchequer ought not to distinguish between the respit of Homage upon any diversity of the true values of the Knight's Fees 13. The Subjects of this Kingdom may lawfully repair into England to repeal to his Majesty for redress of Injuries or for other their lawful occasions And for their so doing ought not to be punished or questioned upon the Statute of 5. of King Richard the second nor by any other Law or Statute of force in this Kingdom eminent Officers or Ministers of State Commanders and Souldiers of his Majesties Army The Judges and Ministers of his Majesties Courts of Justice and of his Highness Revenues and Customes whose attendance is necessary requisite by the Laws and Statutes of the Realm only excepted 14. Deaneries or other Ecclesiastical Dignities of this Realm are not de mero Jure Donative but some are Donative and some Elective and some are Collative according to their respective foundations And the confirmation of the Bishops grants by a Dean de facto having actually stallum in Choro vocem in Capitulo togegether with the Chapter is good in Law 15. The issuing of Quo warrantoes out of the Court of Kings Bench Court of Exchequer or any other Court against Borroughs that antiently or recently sent Burgesses to the Parliament to shew cause why they sent Burgesses to the Parliament and the proceedings thereupon are Coram non Judice illegal and void And the right of sending Burgesses to the Parliament is questionable in Parliament only And the occasioners procurers and Judges in such Quowarrantoes and proceedings are punishable as in Parliament shall be thought consonant to Law and Justice 16. Jurors are the sole Judges of the matter in fact and they ought not for giving their Verdict to be bound over to the Court of Castle-Chamber by the Judge or Judges before whom the Verdict was or shall be given 17. No man ought to be censured in the Castle-Chamber in the mutilation of Members or any other Brand of Infamy otherwise or in other Cases then is expresly limited by the Statutes of this Realm in such cases provided 18. In the Censures of the Castle-Chamber especially regard ought to be had to the words of the great Charter viz. Salvo contenemento c. 19. A Felon who flies the course of Justice and lieth in VVoods Mountains or elsewhere upon his keeping is no Traytor and a Proclamation cannot make him a Traytor 20. The Testimony of convicted or protected Rebels Traytors Felons is no sufficient evidence in Law upon the Trial of any person for his life And the credit of the Testimonie of persons accused or impeached and not convicted of Felony or Treason ought to be left to the Jury who are sole Judges of the truth and validity of the said Testimony 21. The King grants Lands to be held in free and Common Soccage as of a Castle or Mannor by Letters Patents under the great Seal and by the same Letters Patents or by other Letters Patents grants a Fair and Market reserving a yearly Rent or sum without expressing any Tenure as to the said Fair or Market the said Fair or Market is not held by Knights-Service in Capite or otherwise in Capite FITZ GERALD's Edict manifesting the Cause of his Rebellion relating to fol 15. Edictum Illustrissimi Domini Jacobi Geraldini de Justitia ejus Belli quod Hibernia pro fide gerit SI ut bellum aliquod justè geratur tria requiruntur Causa Justa Potestas Legitima Legitimus belli administrandi Modus Haec tria in hoc Bello concurrere jam planum fiet Causa enim hujus belli est dei Gloria Cui externum Sacrificii cultum visibilem Sancti Altaris honorem ab Haereticis impiè ablatum nos restituendum curamus Gloria item Christi Cujus Sacramenta gratiam conferre cum Haeretici blasphemè negent Christi Evangelium ejusdem infirmitatis accusant ob quam lex reprobata fuit Gloria item Ecclesiae Catholicae quam contra Scripturarum veritatem Haeretici aliquot saeculis obscuram mundo ignotam fuisse mentiuntur At in Dei Nomine per Christi Sacramenta sanctificando
other Church Goods pertaing unto their respective Titles with obligations to pay proportionable Rent unto the Souldiers as aforesaid or his payment of their own competent maintenance and lett the Houses Tenements and other Church goods be taken from the Catholicks who heretofore had them as Tenements or otherwise 26. It is committed to the will and disposition of the Ordinary whether and when to enter into the Churches and celebrate Masses therein we command all and every the general Colonels Captains and other Officers of our Catholick Army to whom it appertaineth that they severally punish all transgressors of our aforesaid Command touching Murtherers Maimers Strikers Thieves Robbers and if they fail therein we Command the Parish Priests Curats or Chaplains respectively to declare them interdicted and that they shall be Excommunicated if they cause not due satisfaction to be made unto the Common-wealth and the party offended And this the Parish Priests or Chaplains shall observe under pain of Excommunication of sentence given ipso facto 27. To the end that these Acts Propositions and Ordinances may have more happy success We thought it fitting to have recourse unto God Almighty by Prayers Fastings and Alms We therefore will pray and as far as it is needful do command that every Priest as well Secular as Regular do celebrate one Mass a week and that all Lay-men do fast upon Wednesday Friday and Saturday in one week and thence forward one day a week and upon that Wednesday or Saturday as long as the Ordinary shall please and that they pray heartily unto God for the prosperous success of this our Catholick War for which they shall gain so many days indulgences as every Prelate shall publish in their several Diocesses respectively after the Fast of the aforesaid three days in one Week having first confessed and received the blessed Sacrament and bestowed some Alms to this effect 28. In every Regiment of Souldiers let there be appointed at least two Confessors and one Preacher to be named by the Ordinaries and by the Superiors of the Regulars whose competent maintenance we commend and command to every Colonel in their respective Regiments And to the end that all those Ordinances and Statutes may effectually be put in Execution We will and decree that all Arch-bishops Bishops Apostolical Vicars and Regular Superiours as well here present as absent may be very serious and careful of the Execution of the aforesaid as they tender not to incur displeasure wrath and revenge and herewith we charge their Consciences 29. Moreover VVe pray and require all Noblemen Magistrates and all other Marshal Commanders that with their helps and Secular forces they assist and set forward in Execution the aforesaid Statutes in their several Precincts respectively as often as it shall be needful If in any of the aforesaid Statutes any doubt or difficulty may by chance arise the explication thereof we reserve to the Metropolitans in every Province respectively and to the Bishops in every their Diocesses such of them as are no way contrary to this Cause no other person may presume to expound the aforesaid difficulties Haec dicta acta ordinata statuta subscripta erant nominibus sequentium Praelatorum All those Judgments Sayings Acts and Covenants VVe submit to the Judgment of the See Apostolick Hugo Archiepiscopus Armachanus Thomas Archiepiscopus Casselensis Malachius Archiepiscopus Guamenum David Episcopus Osoren Frater Boetius Episcopus Elphinensis Frater Patricius Episcopus Waterforden Lysmoren Frater Rochus Episcopus Kildaren Johannis Electus Claunfarten Emerus Electus Dunen Conoren Frater Josephus Everard Procurator Archiepiscopi Dublinens Doctor Johannes Creagh Procurator Episcopus Lymeriten David Bourck Willielmus O Connell Procurator Episcopi Imolacen Donatus O Tearnan Procurator Episcopi Laonen Doctor Dionysius Harty Decanus Laonensis Doctor Michael Hacket Vicar gener Waterforden Gulielmus Devocer Vic. gener Fernesen Thomas Roch Vicar Generalis Ossoren Frater Lucas Archer Abbas Sanctae Crucis Frater Anthonius de Rosario Ord. praed Vicar Provincial Robertus Nugent Societat Jesu in Heb. Frater Thadeus Connoldus Ang. pro Provinc Johannes Wareinge Decanus Lymericen Frater Patricius Darcye Guardian Dublin Frater Thomas Strange Guardian Waterford Frater Joseph Lancton Prior Kilkenny Frater Tho. Tearnon Guard de Dundalk Frater Johannes Reyly Guard Kilkenny Frater Boetius Egnanus Guard Buttevant Jordanus Boork Archidiaconus Lymericensis APPENDIX VIII Fol. 98. Orders made and established by the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the rest of the general Assembly for the Kingdom of Ireland met at the City of Kilkenny the 24th day of October Anno Dom. 1642. and in the Eighteenth year of the Reign of our Soveraign Lord the King Charles by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland c. 1. IMprimis That the Roman Catholick Church in Ireland shall and may have and enjoy the Priviledges and Immunities according to the great Charter made and declared within the Realm of England in the ninth year of King H. 3. sometime King of England and the Lord of Ireland and afterwards enacted and confirmed in this Realm of Ireland and that the Common Law of England and all the Statutes of force in this Kingdom which are not against the Catholick Roman Religion on the Liberties of the Natives and other Liberties of this Kingdom shall be observed throughout the whole Kingdom and that all Proceedings in Civil and Criminal Cases shall be according to the said Laws 2. Item That all and every person and persons within this Realm shall bear Faith and true Allegiance unto our Soveraign Lord King Charles by the Grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland His Heirs and Successors and shall uphold and maintain his and their Rights and lawful Prerogatives with the utmost skill and power of such person or persons against all manner of persons whatsoever 3. Item That the Common Laws of England and Ireland and the said Statutes called the great Charter and every Clause Branch and Article thereof and all other Statutes confirming expounding or declaring the same shall be punctually observed within this Kingdom so far forth as the Condition of the present times during these times can by possibilities give way thereunto and after the War is ended the same to be observed without any Limitation or Restriction whatsoever 4. Inasmuch as the City of Dublin is the usual and principal Seat of Justice in this Kingdom where the Parliament and ordinary Courts were held and some other places where principal Councils were sometimes kept and as yet possessed and commanded by the malignant party who are Enemies to God and their King and his Majesties well-affected Subjects The Assembly is necessitated during this VVar in some formalities and circumstances to deviate from the proceedings prescrib'd by the said Laws and Statutes nevertheless retaineth the substance and Essence thereof so far-forth as the endless malice and cruelty of their Enemies the said malignant party doth permit
Oratory is seldom unsuccessful but what the people got by following this thrifty Counsel some have taken the pains to compute and it is found that the Impositions laid and levied upon the people to support Usurpation and Tyrannie in a few bad years came to more than the most chargeable Princes had raised in some Ages to conquer Enemies and Infidels abroad whilest this was employed to make Enemies of Friends and little better than Infidels of Christians at home I confess this Animadversion is not so seasonable now or proper to he applyed to you who in your Liberalities have outgone all Example and prevented even the Kings wishes nor are those Liberalities the less but the more valued by Him that he intends to apply them intirely to the security and improvement of a true Protestant and a right English Interest in this Kingdom There is nothing that declares indeed that constitutes perfect Union and a happy Harmony so much as mutual trusts and confidence and the interchange of gifts and benefits it is so in private Friendship and it is much more so in that good Intelligence which must make a King and His people happy The King has trusted you as far as ever King trusted Subjects and He has given you more than ever any King or Lord of Ireland had to give You have trusted the King with all you had and all you had to pretend to and you have given Him more than he thought of to desire Let it not therefore be apprehended that this Commerce must cease by the Prodigality on both sides as if there were no more to be given or received No my Lords and Gentlemen protection from Forreign Invasion and Rebellion at home the due and uncorrupt administration of Government and of the Laws and under them the advancement and encouragement of Piety and Learning Trade and all sorts of Industry and Improvements are benefits that may to the end of time descend from the Throne to you and yours And a due subjection to that Government and obedience to those Laws and application to that Piety and Learning to that Trade and Industry and to those Improvements may be as lasting Retributions from the People to the Throne I should here end this unusual Exercise but that I am commanded by the King to let you know that as He is abundantly satisfied with those demonstrations of Duty Loyalty and Affection you have given him during the whole time of your sitting so he looks with great Pleasure and Delight upon those Acts of Grace and Bounty that have past from him to you and he commands me to be sure not to forget to assure you upon all Proper Occasions that all his Promises shall be inviolably observed and that he will consent to whatever else may make this Kingdom flourishing and happy whether it shall be the Enacting of new and profitable or the repeal of old unuseful or burthensom Laws To say anything of or from my self in this place may be Presumption but to say nothing to you my Lords and Gentlemen to whom I owe so much must be Ingratitude You have before and since My Arrival been pleased to make many and obliging Expressions of your Approbation of the Kings choice of Me for this Government I have great reason to fear both the King and you consulted your Indulgence to Me more than your judgement of Me. Yet without much Presumption or Vanity I think I may say thus far the King and you may be excusable that He chose and You approved a Person whose Fortune and Family must prosper or decay must Ruine or Subsist by and with this Kingdom This has not perhaps always been the case and it is possible mean Abilities thus stimulated may be more profitable and industrious than greater actuated by less or by contrary Incentives There are upon me all imaginable Obligations to apply all that is in me to the safety and prosperity of this Kingdom Those of duty fidelity and thankfulness to the best and most bountiful Master in the World those of Retribution and Gratitude to you for extraordinary and liberal manifestations of kindness and affection and those self-preservation and Happiness Hence it may be concluded reasonably and naturally that my endeavours will be hearty and faithful and my failings which shall be as few as I can unvoluntarily and therefore the more pardonable You will presently when I am retired be at liberty to adjourn your selves to the time you desired Referrable to fol. 326. A form of Divine Service to be used October 23d appointed by Act of Parliament Anno Regni Car. 2di 14. die 27. Sep. 1662. to be kept and Celebrated as an Anniversary Thanksgiving in this Kingdom of Ireland THe begining of the Service to be according to the Form of the Common-Prayer then proper Psalms as 3. 9. 12. 46. 144. Proper Lessons for the First 2 Chron. 13. or Jer. 30. For the Second Lesson Mat. 9. or Acts 5. or Acts 23. And after the Collect for the Sunday this following Collect. ALmighty God and heavenly Father who out of thy most wise and watchful Providence and tender mercies towards us thine unworthy Servants hast been pleased as at all other times so on this day to prevent the extreme malice michievous imagination and bloody intention of our Enemies by revealing so wonderfully and opportunely their Rebellion and cruel Enterprises plotted against our dread Soveraign Lord the King and the whole State of this Realm for the subversion of this Government and the utter extirpation of the truth of thy Gospel and pure Religion professed amongst us We most humbly praise and magnifie thy glorious name for thine infinite goodness in this our marvellous deliverance We confess it was thy mercy thy mercy alone most merciful Father that we were not consumed And therefore not unto us not unto us O Lord but unto thy name be ascribed all honour and glory in all Churches of the Saints throughout all Generations For thou Lord didest discover unto thy Servants the snares of death thou didst break them and we were delivered Be thou still our mighty Protector and scatter our Enemies that delight in blood infatuate their Councils enfeeble their strength put fear in their hearts and accomplish this thy mercy in our safety and future deliverance And to that end strengthen the hands of our gracious King the Lord Lieutenant the Nobility and Magistrates of the Land with Jugdment Justice and Power to restrain such workers of Iniquity who pretend Religion and practise Rebellion and devout thine Inheritance This Lord we crave at thy merciful hands together with the continuance of thy powerful Protection over our dread Soveraign the whole Church and these Kealms and the speedy Conversion of all our Enemies and that for thy dear Sons sake Jesus Christ our only Mediator and Advocate Amen After the Litany this Prayer for the Second Collect. O Eternal God in whom we live move and have our being and by whom alone
a due obedience Yet after all having attended his Majesty at York and other Places as the Court mov'd for his Dispatch he came in Novem. to Chester in expectation of an easie remove thence into Ireland but falling indispos'd at Chester was commanded back to Oxford about the beginning of Ian. 1642. so as in conclusion he ever going never went His stay was at first resented by the King then the Parliament to evidence the truth he writes a Letter from York to the Earl of Northumberland which by Order of Parliament the 26th of Septemb. 1642. was printed wherein he writes That he besought his Majesty that he might not be staid at Court for that the Affairs of Ireland requir'd his speedy repair thither or at least that some Governour if he were not thought worthy of it should be presently sent into that Kingdom And upon the 21 of Septemb. he appear'd in Parliament informing the Houses That he could never since his first going to his Majesty get his Commission Seal'd till the 18th of Septemb. referring himself to the pleasure of the Houses whether they would dispatch him for Ireland or no. Whereupon the 1st of October following his Case was again debated and it was Voted for the future That the said Earl should not put in execution any Instructions from his Majesty concerning the Affairs in Ireland until such time as they should be made known and approved by them After which many things in his Instructions were debated and it being mov'd the 4th of Novemb. in a Conference of the Houses that he was ready to set forward for that Service he had his Dismiss So as I have said he came to Chester and was remanded back to Oxford the important Affairs of Ireland being in another Channel than as yet they appear'd visibly to run in Though it was a good while after before he had his discharge from that Employment being kept in suspence till others had perfected their Design by which there accrued to him a great Arrear somewhat consider'd in the Act of Settlement though short of what he was prejudic'd thereby Upon the Earl of Straffords quitting Ireland Christopher Wendesford Esq Master of the Rolls the 3d. of April 1640. was sworn Lord Deputy He managed the Government with much Policy advantage to his Majesty and faithfulness to his intimate Friend and Ally the Earl of Strafford adjourning the Parliament in November following somewhat to the dis-satisfaction of the Members who before their Dissolution made shift to form a Remonstrance against the Earl of Strafford which he would have prevented to have been sent for England could he as he endeavour'd have staid the Committee of the Parliament in Ireland from going over the greatest part of which were Papists which the Irish took as a good Omen But he being not able to hinder them they finding conveniences from every Port grew thereupon much discontented and having quick intelligence how affairs were carried against the Earl of Strafford He died the 3d. of December following betwixt whom even from their Youth there had been an especial intimacy nor did it afterwards grow cooler but more strengthned in Judgment After his decease Robert Lord Dillon of Kilkenny-West and Sir William Parsons Knight and Baronet Master of the Court of Wards Decemb. 30. were sworn Lords Justices But it was not long before the Committee of Ireland then at Court so prevail'd as that his Majesty displac'd the Lord Dillon a Person of notable Parts and one by his Son's Marriage with the Earl of Strafford's Sister passionately concern'd in the Earl's Case Yet lest the Execution of his Majesties Graces to his Subjects of Ireland obtain'd by their late Committee's sollicitation should be deferr'd till those who were design'd to succeed the Lord Dillon were in Office his Majesty was pleas'd to direct a Letter dated the 4th of Ianuary in the 16th year of his Reign to his Privy Council of Ireland and Sir William Parsons and Sir Iohn Borlase then design'd Justices to grant amongst other things that his Subsidies there should be reduced to a lesser rate than formerly and that all Letters directed to the Lord Deputy Justices Chief Governour or Governours or to any other Officers or Ministers of that Realm either concerning the publick Affairs or private Interests of any Subject there might be entred into his Signet-Office in England to the end that they might be upon occasion found to take Copies of for the Subjects better information in such publick things as may concern them as also that all Dispatches from Ireland should safely be kept apart that like recourse may be had to them for the better satisfaction of the Subject who shall be concern'd therein And whereas in the former Governour 's time there were endeavours to hinder some Agents of Parliament to have recourse into England his Majesty taking notice That for asmuch as the Committee of the Parliament of Ireland John Bellew Esq and Oliver Cassel with others employ'd thence have repair'd into his Kingdom of England to represent their Grievances He hath manifested his gracious condescensions to them admitting them into his Royal Presence forbidding his Counsellors in Ireland or any other Officers or Ministers of that State to proceed any ways against them or any of them for the same And that his Subjects shall have Copies of Records Certificates Orders of Council Publick Letters or other Entries for the Declaration of their Grievances made In grateful acknowledgment of which the Parliament then sitting the 10th of Febr. 1640. order'd That the said Letter should be forthwith Entr'd amongst the Ordinances and Records of that House So that if there had not been a general defection long anvil'd in the minds of that People the event of so unnatural and horrid a Rebellion as few months after happen'd could not have been the issue of such remarkable Condescensions The 10th of Febr. 1640. his Majesty instituted Sir William Parsons Master of the Court of Wards before mention'd long experienc'd in the Affairs of Ireland and Sir Iohn Borlase Knight Master of the Ordnance Lords Justices One well known to his Majesty by the Eminency of his Imployments abroad and the opinion He had of his integrity and skill in Military Affairs the Discipline of the Army having been ever under his Charge since his arrival there These writes an Honourable Person appli'd themselves with all manner of gentle Lenitives to mollifie the sharp humours rais'd by the rigid passages of the former Government They declar'd themselves against all such proceedings as they found any way varying from the Common Law They gave all due encouragement to the Parliament then sitting endeavouring the reasonable ease and contentment of the People freely assenting to all such Acts as really tended to the Legal Reformation They betook themselves wholly to the advice of the Council and caus'd all matters as well of the Crown as Popular Interests to be handled in his Majesties Courts of Justice no ways admitting
Ja. Ware God save the King An Abreviate of the Articles of Peace concluded by the Marquiss of Ormond Lord Lieutenant of Ireland Commissioner for the King and the Lord Mountgarret President of the Supream Council the Lord Muskery Sir Robert Talbot Dermot O Brian Patrick Darcy Jeffery Brown and John Dillon Esquires Commissioners for the Irish. 1. THat the Professors of the Roman Catholick Religion in the Kingdom of Ireland or any of them be not bound or obliged to take the Oath of Supremacy expressed in the second of Queen Elis. commonly called the Oath of Supremacy 2. That a Parliament may be held on or before the last day of November next and that these Articles agreed on may be transmitted into England according to the usual Form and passed provided that nothing may be passed to the Prejudice of either Protestant or Catholick Party other then such things as upon this Treaty shall be concluded 3. That all Acts made by both or either Houses of Parliament to the Blemish or Prejudice of his Majesties Roman Catholick Subjects since the 7th of August 1641. shall be vacated by Acts of Parliament 4. That no Actions of Law shall be removed before the said Parliament in case it be sooner called then the last of November And that all Impediments which may hinder the Roman Catholicks to sit in the next Parliament shall be remov'd before the Parliament sit 5. That all Debts do Stand in state as they were in the beginning of these Troubles 6. That the Plantation in Connaght Kilkenny Clare Thomond Tipperary Limrick and Wickloe may be revoked by Act of Parliament and their Estates secur'd in the next Sessions 7. That the Natives may erect one or more Inns of Court in or near the City of Dublin they taking an Oath as also one or more Universities to be Govern'd as his Majesty shall appoint as also to have Schools for Education of Youth in the Kingdom 8. That Places of Command of Forts Castles Garrisons Towns and other Places of Importance and all Places of Honour Profit and Trust shall be conferr'd with equal Indifferency upon the Catholicks as his Majesties other Subjects according to their respective Merits and Abilities 9. That 12000 l. Sterling be paid the King yearly for the Court of Wards 10. That no Peer may be capable of more Proxies then two And that no Lords Vote in Parliament unless in 5 years a Lord Baron purchase in Ireland 200 l. per anum a Viscount 400 l. and an Earl 600 l. or lose their Votes till they purchase 11. That the Independency of the Parliament of Ireland on the Kingdom of England shall be decided by Declaration of both Houses agreeable to the Laws of the Kingdom of Ireland 12. That the Council Table shall contain itself within its bounds in handling Matters of State as Patents of Plantations Offices c. and not meddle with matter betwixt Party and Party 13. That all Acts concerning Staple or Native Commodities of this Kingdom shall be repeal'd except Wooll and Woollfels and that the Commissioners the Lord Mountgarret and others named in the 26 Article shall be Authoriz'd under the Great Seal to moderate and ascertain the rates of Merchandize to be exported and imported 14. That no Governor be longer Resident then his Majesty shall find for the good of his People and that they make no purchase other then by Lease for the Provision of their Houses 15. That an Act of Oblivion may be passed without extending to any who will not accept of this Peace 16. That no Governor or any other Prime Minister of State in Ireland shall be Farmers of his Majesties Customs 17. That a Repeal of all Monopolies be passed 18. That Commissioners be appointed to regulate the Court of Castle-Chamber 19. That Acts Prohibiting Plowing by Horse-tails and burning of Oats in the Straw be repealed 20. That Course be taken against the Disobedience of the Cessation and Peace 21. That such Graces as were promised by his Majesty in the Fourth year of his Reign and sued for by a Committee of both Houses of Parliament and not express'd in these Articles may in the next ensuing Parliament be desir'd of his Majesty 22. That Maritine Causes be determin'd here without Appeal into England 23. That the increase of Rents lately rais'd upon the Commission of defective Titles be repeal'd 24. That all Interests of Money due by way of Debt Mortgage or otherwise and not yet satisfi'd since the 23. of Octob. 1641. to pay no more than 5l per Cent. 25. That the Commissioners have power to determine all Cases within their Quarters until the perfection of these Articles by Parliament and raise 10000 Men for his Majesty 26. That the Lord Mountgarret Muskery Sir Dan. O Bryan Sir Lucas Dillon Nich. Plunket Rich. Bealing Philip Mac-Hugh O Relie Terlogh O Neal Thomas Flemming Patrick Darcy Gerald Fennel and Jeffery Brown or any five of them be for the present Commissioners of the Peace Oyer and Terminer and Gaol-Delivery in the present Quarters of the Confederate Catholicks with power of Justice of Peace Oyer and Terminer and Gaol-Delivery as in former times of Peace they have usually had 27. That none of the Roman Catholick Party before there be a Settlement by Parliament Sue Implead or Arrest or be Sued Impleaded or Arrested in any Court other than before the Commissioners or in the several Corporations or other Judicatures within their Quarters 28. That the Confederate Catholicks continue in their Possessions until Settlement by Parliament and to be Commanded by his Majesties Chief Governour with the advice and consent of the Commissioners or any Five of them 29. That all Customs from the perfection of these Articles are to be paid into his Majesties Receipt and to his use as also all Rent due at Easter next till a full Settlement of Parliament 30. That the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol-Delivery shall have power to hear and determine all Offences committed or done or to be committed or done from the 15th day of September 1643. until the first day of the next Parliament Thus the Marquess having perform'd all on his part that could be expected from him and was in his power to do and having receiv'd from other Parts all the assurance he could require there being no other way of engaging the publick Faith of the Nation than that to which they had so formally engaged themselves to him in he intended nothing then but how his Majesty might speedily receive some fruit of that Peace and Accommodation he thence expected by sending assistance to him And to that purpose with advice and upon invitation of several Persons who had great Authority and Power amongst the Confederate Catholicks the Lord Lieutenant took a Journey himself to Kilkenny where he was receiv'd with that Respect and Reverence as was due to his Person and to the Place he held and with such expressions of Triumph and Joy as gave him cause
many other Freedoms and Bounties conveyed to you and your Posterity by those Articles there is a door and that a large one not left but purposely set open to give you entrance by your future Merit to whatsoever of Honour and Advantage you can reasonably wish So that you have in present fruition what may abundantly satisfie and yet there are no bounds set to your hopes but you are rather invited or to use a new phrase but to another and better end you seem to have a Call from Heaven to exercise your Arms and uttermost Fortitude in the Noblest and Justest Cause the World hath seen for let all the Circumstances incident to a great and good Cause be examined and they will be found comprehended in that which you are now warrantably call'd to defend Religion not in the narrow circumscribed definition of it by this or that late found out name but Christian Religion is our Quarrel which certainly is as much and fatally struck at I may say more by the blasphemous License of this Age than ever it was by the rudest Incursions of the most barbarous and avowed Enemy to Christianity the Venerable Laws and Fundamental Constitutions of our Ancestors are trodden under Impious and for the most part Mechanick feet The Sacred Person of our King the Life of those Laws and Head of those Constitutions is under an ignominious Imprisonment and his Life threaten'd to be taken away by the Sacrilegious hands of the basest of the People that owed him obedience and to endear the Quarrel to you the Fountain of all the benefits you have but now acknowledg'd and which you may further hope for by this Peace and your own Merit is endangered to be obstructed by the execrable murther of the worthiest Prince that ever Ruled these Islands In short Hell cannot add any thing to the desperate Mischiefs now openly projected and now judge if a greater and more glorious Field was ever set open to Action and then prepare your selves to enter into it receiving these few advices from him that is throughly Embarqu'd with you in the Adventure First let me recommend to you that to this as unto all holy Actions as certainly this is you will prepare your selves with perfect Charity a Charity that may obliterate what-ever Rancor the long continued War may have contracted in you against any that shall now co-operate with you in so blessed a Work and let his Engagement with you in this whoever he is be as it ought to be a Bond of Unity of Love of Concord stronger than the nearest Tyes of Nature In the next place mark and beware of those who shall go about to renew jealousies in you under what pretence soever and account such as the infernal Ministers imploy'd to promote the black design on foot to subvert Monarchy and to make us all slaves to their own avaritious lusts Away as soon and as much as possible may be with distinction of Nation and Parties which are the fields wherein the seeds of those Rancour-weeds are sown by the great Enemy of our Peace In the last place let us all divest our selves of that preposterous and ridiculous ambition and self-interest which rather leads to our own threatned general ruine than to the enjoyment of advantages unreasonably desired And if at any time you think your selves pinch'd too near the bone by those Taxes and Levies that may be imposed for your defence consider then how vain how foolish a thing it will be to starve a righteous Cause for want of a necessary support to preserve your selves fat and gilded Sacrifices to the rapine of a merciless Enemy And if we come thus well prepared to a Contention so just on our Parts God will bless our Endeavours with success and victory or will crown our Sufferings with honour and patience for what honour will it not be if God hath so determin'd of us to perish with a long glorious Monarchy and who can want patience to suffer with an oppressed Prince But as our Endeavours so let our Prayers be vigorous that he may be delivered from a more unnatural Rebellion than is mention'd by any Story now raised to the highest pitch of Success against him I should now say something to you as to my self in Retribution to the advantagious mention made of me and my Endeavours to the bringing this Settlement to pass But I confess my thoughts were taken up with those much greater Concernments Let it suffice that as I wish to be continued in your good Esteem and Affection so I shall freely adventure upon any hazard and esteem no trouble or difficulty too great to encounter if I may manifest any Zeal to this Cause and discharge some part of the Obligations that are upon me to serve this Kingdom It will not here be necessary to insert the Articles of Peace at large which are publickly known to the World though we shall sum them up in brief It is sufficient that the Lord Lieutenant granted all that was enough in the Judgements of the Romish Catholick Bishops and even of the Bishop of Ferns that Incendiary and still waspish Prelate requisite to a peaceable and secure profession of that Religion with such countenancing of and support to it as from the first planting of it it had never in some respects been possessed of in that Kingdom but was likewise compelled so far to comply with the Fears and Jealousies of divers who by often breaking their Faith and from a greater guilt were apprehensive that all that was promised to them might not be hereafter observed as to divest himself of that full and absolute Power that was inherent in his Office and was never more fit to be exercised than for the carrying that Design in which they seem'd all to agree and to make 12 Commissioners nam'd and chosen by the Assembly to look to the observation and performance of the said Articles until the same should be ratified in a full and peaceable Convention of Parliament joynt sharers with him in his Authority So that he could neither levy Souldiers raise Money or so much as erect Garrisons without the approbation and consent of the major part of those Commissioners the danger and mischief of which limitation and restraint he foresaw enough but found the uniting that People and composing them to an entire confidence in the Peace which could be compassed no other way was so necessary that he could not sacrifice too much to it And then the abilities and the affections of the Commissioners were so well known and approved by him that having most of them in appearance the same good Ends with him he presum'd he should with less difficulty be able to perswade which were the nearest and most natural ways that conduced thereunto The Heads of the Articles of Peace 1648. 1. THat the Roman Catholicks of Ireland have free Exercise of Religion all Penalties taken off not obliged to the Oath of Supremacy to enjoy all
Churches and Church-Livings they have in present possession and the Exercise of Jurisdiction therein 2. That a Parliament be had within 6 months or when after the Roman Catholicks shall desire 3. That all Laws made in the Parliament of England since 1641. in blemish of the Catholicks are at the next Parliament to be vacated 4. All Indictments against any Catholicks since 1641. be vacated 5. All Impediments to be taken away that Catholicks be elected in Parliament 6. All Debts to remain as they were Feb. 8. 1641. notwithstanding any Attainder 7. The Estates of the Knights Gentlemen and Freeholders of Connaght Clare Thomond Limerick and Tipperary be secured by an Act. 8. All Incapacities of the Natives in Ireland be taken away by Act. 9. All Honours Trusts Imployments or such like be conferred as well upon Catholicks as Protestants 10. That the King take 12000 l. per annum in lieu of the Court of Wards 11. No Noblemen to have more Proxies than two in Parliament and all Blanks to be null 12. That the depending of the Parliament of Ireland upon England shall be as both shall agree and stand with the Laws of Ireland 13. That the Council-Table meddle only with Matters of State 14. That all Acts forbidding the Transport of Wooll be null'd by the next Parliament 15. That if any have been wrong'd by Grants from King James or since they may Petition and have Relief in Parliament 16. That divers particular Lords Knights and Gentlemen who have been as they conceiv'd wrong'd shall now be righted 17. That all who had their Estates taken from them in Cork Toughall and Dungarvan have restoration or Rent 18. That in the next Parliament an Act of Oblivion pass to all in Ireland and that adhered to them 19. That no Officer of Eminency in Ireland farm the Customs 20. An Act to pass against Monopolists 21. That the Court of Castle-Chamber be regulated 22. That the Acts for prohibiting plowing with Horses by the Tayls and burning Oats in the Straw be null 23. An Act for taking off the Grievances of the Kingdom 24. That Maritime Causes be determin'd in Ireland 25. That no Rents be rais'd upon the Subjects under pretence of defective Titles 26. That Interest-Money be forgiven from 1641. 27. That all this be acted and be of force till a Parliament agree the same 28. The Commissioners for the Catholicks that treated agree upon such as shall be Commissioners of the Peace and hear all Causes under 10 l. 29. That all Governours of Towns Castles and Places made by the King be with the Approbation of the Catholick Commissioners 30. That none of his Majesty's Rents be paid until a full Settlement in Parliament 31. That the Commissioners of Oyer and Terminer do try Murthers Stealing and all inferiour Trespasses of that nature 32. That hereafter such Differencies as shall arise between Subjects be determin'd by a Court in Ireland not transfer'd to England 33. That the Roman Clergy that behave themselves according to the Agreement be not molested Lastly That his Majesty please to grant what-ever else is necessary for the Roman Catholicks Upon which Peace the Marquess of Ormond the Lord Taaff and that Party engag'd to raise for Munster 4000 Foot and 800 Horse the supream Council and Preston for Leimster 4000 Foot and 800 Horse Inchiquin 3000 Foot and 600 Horse the Lord of Clanrickard for Connaght proportionable to the first In all 15000 Foot and 3000 Horse besides what Owen Roe upon his uniting afterwards might bring in computed to be 5000 Foot and 500 Horse that in the whole a gallanter Army had they been unanimous could scarce have been marshall'd With what Consent and Unity soever this Peace was made by those who had any pretence to Trust or to whom there was the least Deputation of Authority and Power by the Nation yet Owen O Neal with whom the Earl of Antrim joyn'd had the greatest Influence upon the Humours and Inclinations of the old Irish who had given themselves up to the Nuncio and who indeed had a better disciplin'd and consequently a stronger Army at his Command than the Confederates thought he could have gain'd to his Devotion still refused to submit to it So that the Lord Lieutenant as soon as the Peace was concluded was as well to provide against him to remove some Garrisons he held which infested those who obeyed the Acts of the Assembly and to prevent his Incursion as to raise an Army against the Spring to march against the English who were possessed of Dublin and all the Countrey and important Places of that Circuit and who he was sure would be supplied with all assistance of Shipping Men Money Victuals and Ammunition which the Parliament of England who had now murthered their Sovereign and incorporated themselves under the Name and Title of a Common-wealth could send them And he was in a worse condition to prevail against both these by the unhappy Temper and Constitution of the Scots in Ulster who being very numerous and possessed of the strong Towns though in profession they abhorred the Regicides and were not reconcilable to Owen O Neal and his Party were as yet as un-inclined to the Peace made with the Confederates and far from paying an obedience and full submission to the Orders and Government of the Lord Lieutenant maintaining at the same time the Presbyterian Form in their Church and an utter Independency in the State and out of those contradictory Ingredients compounding such a peevish and wayward Affection and Duty to the King as could not be applied to the bearing any part in the great Work the Marquess was incumbent to As soon as he heard of the Murther of the King he proclaim'd our present Sovereign Charles the 2d King of England Scotland France and Ireland at Carrick the 16th of Feb. 1648. And being by a Clause in his late Commission from his Majesty qualified with special Power and Authority to make no distinction in difference of Judgement betwixt any who should subject their Assistance to his Majesty's Service he soon won the Scots to a compliance though under the shackles of their Covenant who immediately us'd the most favourable Arguments they could to win Sir Charles Coot to their Party And to that end from the Congregation of the Presbytery at Belfast the 15th of Feb. 1648. they tempt him by several Representations with their Sence To which the 7th of March ensuing Sir Charles Coot and the Council of War held at London-derry return'd these Reasons for their Dis-agreement First We find no part of God's Word authorizing us being but a Branch of a subordinate Kingdom to declare against the Parliament of England under whom we serve who are the visible Authority of both Kingdoms and against an Army acting by their Power before we receive from themselves a Declaration and Grounds of those Proceedings wherewith they are aspers'd Secondly For the Covenant we have taken on which your Representations seem to
be grounded we cannot find we have sworn to act according to the Principles you now declare For in some things if we admit of your Representation we shall be necessitated to act against what we have sworn unto in the Covenant For The first Article wherein we are bound to a preservation of the present Discipline in Scotland we are in the same Article obliged to a Reformation of the same in England and Ireland according to the Word of God and the Example of the best Reformed Churches which no doubt the Parliament will in due time establish In the interim we are un-satisfied with any Power that acts in this Case without their Direction For what you speak in relation to the King's Person we have yet no certainty out of England concerning that Matter and it is an action of so transcendent degree that till we receive some positive Resolution concerning it from England we ought not to proceed in giving our Sence of it In the 5th Article of the Covenant we are sworn to endeavour the continuing the Kingdoms in Union in which we desire your selves to be Judges if the publishing of your Representations be a probable way to observe the Oath In the 6th Article we are sworn to defend those joyn'd with us in this Covenant and not to suffer our selves directly or indirectly to combine against them Now till we receive a full Declaration of their falling from those Principles of this Covenant how can we with safety to our own Consciences declare a War against them without breaking the Covenant in this Particular In the next place We find some things in your Representations wherein as we conceive you are not rightly informed First In that you say The Parliament hath broken the Covenant in opposing the Presbyterial Government which can no ways appear since the same Government by their appointment is observ'd throughout England and that the Covenant obligeth them to establish the Government no further than is agreeable to God's Word Secondly You say That you have deeply sworn in the first Article to maintain the Church-Government as it is in the Church of Scotland which they have not sworn the part of the Oath for preservation of the Government relating only to the Kingdom of Scotland and the Reformation of Religion to the Kingdoms of England and Ireland Thirdly 'T is affirmed That the Power now governing in England doth labour to establish by Law an universal toleration of all Religions which yet was never done by them Lastly The sad Consequences which will un-avoidably follow if we pursue the Intention of the Representations are these First By declaring such an open War against the Parliament we should deprive our selves of all Succours and Supplies out of England which have been hitherto a great part of our subsistence Secondly The pursuing of such a War will un-avoidably sow such Divisions amongst us who in these Parts are of such different Principles and Practices that we shall soon become instruments of our own ruine Thirdly It will compel us for our own preservation to joyn with the Rebels or desert this Kingdom And lastly It will without any lawful Call engage us in a War against an Army who have under God been the instruments of redeeming England out of thraldom and was not long since acknowledged to have been so instrumental in setling Scotland in the Peace and Quietness it now enjoyeth and this at the Charge of England as the Declaration of the Kingdom of Scotland doth thankfully witness These things therefore being duely weighed we desire you in the fear of God seriously to take this our Answer into your Considerations and to remember on whom the guilt of innocent blood will fall if you inforce a War and to set before your eyes the punishment from Heaven which hath still attended the Endeavours of all who have deserted the Quarrel in this Kingdom to engage against the Parliament of England From visible Judgements we are resolv'd by God's assistance to take so good warning as we will not be guilty of destroying the Cause we have so long labour'd into countenance for your Representations till we be better satisfied in our Consciences though we will not directly or indirectly countenance any Sectaries or Schismaticks who-ever is truely so called contrary to our Solemn League and Covenant but we will to the utmost of our Endeavours continue faithful in the prosecution of the Rebels in this Kingdom and their Abettors wherein we shall not doubt of the Blessing and Protection of the Almighty upon our lawful and just Endeavours And for furtherance hereof we desire in the last place that we should all declare against the Peace last made by the Lord Marquess of Ormond as that which will if not protested against ruine and destroy your Service of this Kingdom against the Rebels Here it 's evident that Sir Charles Coot could by no ways be brought on yet the Peace being settled his Excellency endeavour'd to work over Lieutenant General Jones to his Party to which end his Excellency vouchsafed to write to him many Letters from Thurles the 27. of March 1649. all answer'd without the least compliance on Jones's side He by his Reply the 31. of March 1649. charging the fatal and inhumane Act perpetrated on his Majesty to his Excellency's arrival in Ireland during the Treaty at Carisbrook whereby the sincerity of that Treaty was question'd occasionally writes he producing what thereupon followed so as in conclusion he professed That were there neither King or Parliament he should yet stand firm to his Principles to preserve the English Interest in Ireland that being a Cause alien from what was acted in England Foraign to his Work and Trust which if he should not perform would not easily be expiated by a slender or lean Manifest upon which no more Letters pass'd betwixt them though the Lord Inchequin in June from the Camp at Finglass 1649. renewed the Attempt and was answer'd with the like Resolution and some Reflections on his Lordship About which time Ireland came again to be seriously thought of by the Parliament though hitherto it was in some respects made a Stale for several Designs then on foot Jones was much confided in but it was thought requisite the weight of that Business should lye on other shoulders not his Cromwel therefore about the 28 of March was voted General of Ireland Skippon under the Title of Martial General having refused the Command and these ensuing Votes passed thereupon 1. That such Regiments as should be alloted for the Irish Service should have their Arrears audited stated and Debentors given for their respective Services 2. That visible Security should be given so that any Friend or other being intrusted with a Debentor might receive it at a time prescrib'd by the Parliament 3. That those who go for Ireland should be first satisfied for their Arrears since 1645. 4. That out of the 120000 l. per mensem for England and Ireland
confess they had not power to confer any new Authority on their Faculty of destroying being more prevalent than that of preserving Their second Reason was They feared they should lose the few Churches remaining under his Government as they had lost under him all the Churches in the Cities of Waterford Kilkenny Wexford Ross Clonmel Cashel Featherd Kilmallock and the rest in which they said they agreed with the Maccabees Maximus vero primus pro sanctitate timor erat Templi By whose ill Government those Cities were lost appears by what hath been said before and how well the few that were then left were kept after they had forced the Marquis to depart the Kingdom is well known to the World The third Reason they thought fit was Because the Lord Lieutenant had declared at Cork that he would maintain during his life the Protestant Religion according to the example of the best Reformed Churches which might be the same with the Covenant for ought they knew They said They could not expect from him the defence of the Catholick Religion which was a strange objection against a Protestant Lieutenant of a Protestant King under whose Government they pretended to be desirous to live And whatsoever had been declared by the Lord Lieutenant at Cork in that particular before the conclusion of the Treaty of Peace and Published and Printed the 6th of October 1648. and well known to the Bishops who after the same and notwithstanding that Declaration with all demonstrations of cheerfulness gave their consents to that Peace which they now think fit to break because of that Declaration The fourth Reason was cast in the same mould The scandal over the World to make choice of one of a different Religion especially in Rome where his Holiness expected that a Catholick Governour should be placed over them according to his Agreement or Articles as it was reported with the Queen of England which the Marquis knew to be an aspersion and they said They did fear the scourges of the War and the Plague that had faln so heavy upon them were some evidence of Gods anger for putting Gods Cause and the Churches under such an hand whereas that trust might have been managed in a Catholicks hand under the Kings Authority Which Reason indeed had most ingenuity in it and whensoever they digested their malice and their prejudice in those Personal Reproaches and Calumnies which they knew to be most untrue if they had frankly declared and excepted against him for being a Protestant they had more complied with the dictates and integrities of their hearts And yet it might appear a very unskilful and imprudent suggestion to make the humour of the Court of Rome the Rule of obedience to their Sovereign and to discourse of choosing a Person of what Religion they thought fit to be his Vice-gerent as if they not he were to be consulted in it which would administer much cause of jealousie unto a Protestant King and to his Protestant Subjects if it were not well known to them that some of the Catholick Nobility and Gentry of the Nation were Enemies at least seemingly to those resolutions that unhappy part of the Catholick Bishops did broach and propagate which alone have reduced that Nation to the calamities it then and since underwent The fifth Reason that they should find no favour nor countenance but reproach and disgrace from any Catholick Prince Church or Laity while the Marquis Governed when in truth since that time and that their proceedings have been taken notice of the Catholick Princes have looked upon them as incapable of any succour or countenance and have accordingly left them to the rage of their Persecutors Their other Reasons were more Vulgar and too often before recited exceptions to his Person in respect of the ill success of his Conduct and the prejudice the People had to him in regard of the same And the too considerable Corporations remaining which were Limerick and Galway were at so great distance with the Lord Lieutenant that they were resolved to appear as in their intentions and actions they conceiv'd they were faithful to the Crown and obedient to the Kings Authority if placed in another Person To which suggestions nothing need to be added to what hath been said in this Discourse of the demeanor of those particular Places nor can the observation be avoided That it was the natural practice of this Congregation to use all their industry and artifice to infuse jealousie and sedition into the People and distrust and obstinacy into the Corporations and then to urge that jealousie prejudice and indisposition of the People and Corporations to countenance any thing they thought fit to do or oppose They concluded that the event of War being uncertain if the Nation should be reduced to a condition of agreeing with the Enemy the Lord Lieutenant would not be a fit man to agree for the exercise of their Religion for their Churches Altars or any thing concerning the same And therefore they said That the best way that occurred to them in this pressing exigency for the union of the Nation and keeping them from agreeing with the Enemy was That the Marquis of Clanrickard in whom according to the sense of the Congregation at James-town they desired the Kings Authority should be left that he might Govern the Nation with the consent of all Parties and the Kings Authority be taken away from the Lord Lieutenant until an Assembly And to that end that a free and lawful Assembly might be made to sit to judge upon the Peoples preservation and to decree and order what should be best and safest for the defence of the Nation Touching the Kings Authority to be kept over them and the Peace to be asserted and made good or to renew the Association or any thing else they should find best and most expedient and unto that they would willingly submit for they said they never intended to hinder an Assembly or to give Laws to the People all that they endeavour'd was to defend the Altars and Souls entrusted to them And as they were of opinion that the Soldiers would follow the Marquis of Clanrickard and the People obey him so they would contribute their best endeavours to that effect They further gave assurance that if any free and lawful Assembly upon due consideration of their own state and condition should find it the best way for their own safety and preservation to make an Agreement with the Enemy as they intended never by the grace of God to grant away from them by an Affirmative consent to the Churches and Altars if forced from them they were blameless so would they not hinder the People from compounding with the Enemy for the safety of their Lives and Estates when no way of offence was appearing though upon such an Agreement they saw that they alone should probably be losers of Lives States Churches Altars Immunities and Liberties But in such Contracts with the Enemy if any
unto us in the holy Scriptures and of the other Laws against Murther And herein consider first The Law against Murther in the beginning in the infancy of the World before the Flood a general Deluge over the World The Law against Murther immediately after the Flood The Moral Law of God The Judicial and Political Law of the Jews The Law under the Gospel The Law of England The Law of Ireland Jus Belli the Law of War This same horrid sin of Murther this Devil crept into the World it began in the beginning what can expulse this Devil We find in the holy Scriptures that the Devil was the first Murtherer and Lyar and that he is the Father of Murtherers and Lyars The unbelieving Jews bragged they had Abraham to their Father and yet they sought to kill Christ whereupon our Saviour tells them that they are of their Father the Devil and the lusts of their Father they will do He was a Murtherer from the beginning and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him When he speaketh a Lye he speaketh of his own So that from hence the Lyars and Murtherers take their beginning and from hence these inseparable Twins make and derive their Pedigree and Descent from the Devil viz. He was a Lyar and a Murtherer from the beginning and he is the Father of Lyars and Murtherers The first and eldest of these in the Stock and Progeny was Cain Non sicut Cain qui ex maligno erat occidit fratrem suum propter quid occidit eum quoniam opera ejus maligna erunt fratris autem ejus justa And therefore John saith Not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother and wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous Wo unto them saith he for they have gone in the way of Cain This way of Cain is chalked out unto us in the beginning of the holy Bible Gen. 4. 8. that he talked with his brother Abel and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his Brother and slew him As soon as this innocent Blood was shed upon the Earth the cry thereof ascended up to Heaven And the Lord said to Cain What hast thou done the voice of thy Brothers blood crieth to me from the ground Gen. 4. 10 11. And now thou art accursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy Brothers blood from thy hand When thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the Earth The Learned Divines observe upon the Text that whereas our Translation is The voice of thy Brothers blood crieth unto me the Original is The voice of thy Brothers bloods in the Plural Number for in killing Abel he did not onely kill him but also all that posterity the whole Line that should have descended from Abel and therefore thy Brothers bloods crieth unto me from the ground It is not the single blood as one of the murthered that crieth for vengeance but even the blood of all that Posterity as should have descended from him crieth to Heaven for Vengeance against the Murtherer We find this innocent blood of Abel shed in the begining of the World still in remembrance uttering her voice in the highest strain and crying against Murtherers even to the Worlds end Our Saviour denouncing several woes against the Scribes and Pharisees tells them that they should kill the Prophets that should be sent unto them that on them may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth even from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias whom they slew between the Temple and the Altar By faith Abel offered unto God a more acceptable Sacrifice than Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous God testifying of his gift and by it he being dead yet speaketh And we are come to Jesus the Mediator of the New Testament and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel The blood of righteous Abel is still in remembrance and yet speaking And in the latter end of the Bible Revel 6. 9 10. we find the Souls of them that were slain for the testimony of Jesus under the Altar crying with a loud voyce How long O Lord holy and true dost thou not revenge our blood on them that dwell on earth So that the blood of righteous Abel and all the innocent blood shed on the Earth yet speaketh and still crieth for vengeance and justice against the Murtherers And to conclude the Case of Murther before the Flood we find that one of the main causes which provoked Gods wrath and brought that great destruction of the whole World by Noah's Flood was because the earth was filled with violence Gen. 6. 11 18. And will not that which destroyeth the whole World over-whelm these Nations if they be not purged by Justice The Law against Murther after the Flood Now because the Old World perished through violence God in his new re-establishment of the World provided against violence and for the preventing of Murther ordered this to be one of his first Fundamental Laws Surely the blood of your lives will I require at the hands of every beast will I require it and at the hands of man and at the hands of every mans brother will I require the life of man Ver. 6. Whoso sheddeth mans blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of God made he man The Moral Law of God delivered upon Mount Sinai and written by God himself in Tables of Stone and by his Spirit engraven in every mans heart Thou shalt do no murther Exod. 20. 13. The Judicial Law Next to the Moral Law of God I come to the Judicial and Political Law of the Jews He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death There are several Cases of Murther put and upon every of them the Law is delivered That the Murtherer shall surely be put to death Moreover you shall take no satisfaction for the life of a Murtherer which is guilty of death but he shall surely be put to death Ye shall not pollute your Land wherein you are for blood defileth the Land and the Land cannot be cleansed of blood that is shed therein but by the blood of him that sheddeth it Thine eye shall not pity but life shall go for life Upon these Laws I will onely put a case or two which I conceive may be useful to us upon these points in the discharge of this service The case of Agag King of the Amalekites whose life Saul spared being brought before Samuel the great Judge in Israel And Samuel said unto him As thy sword hath made women childless so shall thy Mother be
childless among women And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal The next case is that of David David writes to Joab by Uriah to set Uriah in the fore-front of the hottest of the Battel and to retire from him that he may be smitten and die Joab did so and so Uriah was slain The Lord by Nathan the Prophet tells David That he had killed Uriah with the sword of the children of Ammon and therefore the Sword shall never depart from his house The case of Joab is remarkable Joab was a kinsman to David and he was Captain of his Hoast he did many great Services and grew old in his Service yet for all this David charges Solomon that he should not let his hoary head go down to the grave in peace because he had shed the blood of war in peace in killing of Abner and Amasa And though Joab flies to the Tabernacle and took hold of the horns of the Altar yet Solomon commands him there to be slain to take way the innocent blood which Joab had shed in killing Abner the son of Ner Captain of the hoast of Israel and Amasa the son of Jether Captain of the hoast of Judah I will onely add Ahab's case Ahab covets Naboth's Vineyard his Wife Jezebel undertakes the business Ahab leaves the matter to her management she writes Letters in Ahab's name feals them with his Seal and so carries the business that Naboth is stoned to death and Ahab takes possession of the Vineyard The Lord sends Elijah the Prophet unto Ahab saying Thus saith the Lord Hast thou killed and also taken possession c. In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood even thine And of Jezebel also saith the Lord The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the walls of Jezreel I have remembred these Cases and Presidents because they may be useful to us in this service That of Agag and Joab to admonish us not to spare Murderers That of Ahab and David to instruct us that the Authors the Contrivers the Counsellors and the Abettors are guilty of the Murther as well as the Actors be their Plots and Devices never so subtilly and secretly carried I come next to the Law under the Gospel Those Laws against Murther are confirmed by our Saviour in the Gospel Matth. 26. 52. Revel 13. 10. He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword Verily I say unto you Till Heaven and Earth pass away one jot or tittle shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled And in Verse 21. approves the Law against Murther and also reproves the narrow and literal Gloss and Exposition of the Pharisees upon it and gives us a larger and more spiritual sense of it viz. that whosoever is angry with his brother without cause is in danger of judgment The Law of England Murther by the Law of England is a Felony of death without benefit of the Clergy or Sanctuary and by the Law it is esteemed so high and grievous a Crime that it is prohibited by many Acts of Parliament to grant any Pardon for Wilful Murder This Law of England answers to that of Deuteronomy Thine eye shall not pity but life shall go for life The Laws of Ireland By the Laws of Ireland Wilful Murther is High Treason which is of a Temporal offence esteemed in Law to be the highest Crime and hath been censur'd with the severest Judgment and Punishment viz. for a man to be drawn upon a Hurdle to the Place of Execution and there to be hanged by the neck to be cut down alive his Intrals and Privy Members to be cut forth of his Body and burnt within his sight his Head to be cut off and his Body to be divided into four Quarters or Parts c. For a man to be drawn upon a Hurdle to the Place of Execution and there his Bowels to be burned It is considerable why and upon what grounds or reasons Murther was made a more horrid and execrable Crime in Ireland than in England and punished with a greater severity viz. both with Torture and with Death the Statute Decimo Hen. 7. in Ireland which enacts it to be so gave the reason of the difference Praying the Commons saith the Law Forasmuch as there have been unusual Murthers of malice prepense used and had in this Land of Ireland c. contrary to the Law of Almighty God without any fear of due punishment in that behalf Therefore the Statute doth enact Wilful Murder to be High Treason That sin was grown universal in Ireland and therefore the punishment must be extraordinary the universality of the crime causeth the increasing of the punishment or the severity thereof Ut metus ad omnes poena ad paucos perveniet But it will admit another Quoere How it came to pass that Malice and Murther was universal in Ireland more than in England I conceive these two Reasons may be given for it as new 1. We have been these many years weltring in blood by the frequent Rebellions in Ireland that have silenced the Laws 2. Their was a main defect in their Irish Laws and Customs viz. their Brehowne Law which the Irish continued amongst themselves and the degenerate English embraced it notwithstanding the introduction of the just and honourable Laws of England Now by their Irish Custome or Brehowne Law Murther was not punished with death but onely by Fines or a pecuniary Mulct which they called an Errick Therefore when Sir William Fitz-Williams being Deputy told Mac-guire That he was to send a Sheriff into Fermanagh being lately before made a County The Sheriff said Mac-Guire shall be welcome but let me know his Errick the price of his Head aforehand that if my People cut it off I may put the Errick upon the County Now for the reformation of these grievous abuses in the Land in the 10th year of King Hen. 7. in the Government of Sir Edward Poinings Knight then Deputy of Ireland there were three good and profitable Statutes made which were called Poinings Acts viz. the Statute of 10 H. 7. cap. 8. for the reviving confirming and putting in execution of the Statute of Kilkenny held before Lionel Duke of Clarence by which Statute at Kilkenny the Brehowne Law was abolished and decreed to be no Law but a lewd Custom The Statute of 10 H. 7. cap. oct by which it was Enacted That if any person took any money or other amends for the death of his Kinsman or Friend then the Law would permit meaning the Law of England the same shall be Felony by this Law the Errick was taken away The Statute of 10 H. 7. cap. vicessimo primo by which Murther is made High Treason in the Actor Provoker and Procurer of it So that by these three Statutes their Brehowne Law and lewd Custom was abolished their Errick taken away and Murther declared to be High Treason And thus
Person who openly shewed himself against the Anabaptists then raging and countenanced the University then in a low Ebb bestowing upon it Bishop Usher's Library composed of the choicest and best picked Books extant carrying himself so as some of the Rigour of his Father was thereby taken off and that disordered Nation brought into the Condition of a flourishing State Yet afterwards when he might have had many to have seconded him he tamely yielded in 1659. the Government to Steel the Parliaments Lord Chancellor and Miles Corbet their Chief Baron of the Exchequer his Brother Richard having surrendred the Protectorship in England very meanly with a submission as he termed it to Providence So that Family expired And the Affairs of England growing every day full of change Ireland understanding what Sir George Booth had nobly attempted in England grew thence early in its dutiful Address to his Majesty And Sir Theophilus Jones further'd by his Reverend Brother Colonel Warren Bridges Thompson Lisle Warder and Temple seized Dublin Castle Sir Charles Coot about the same time preferring an Impeachment of Treason against Ludlow Tomlinson Corbet and John Jones and weighing the Consequences of the present Distempers he together with the Council of the Officers of the Army present at Dublin the 16th of February 1659. made a Memorable Declaration concerning the Re-admission of the Secluded Members about the same time sending Captain Cuffe to attend Colonel Monk into England a General Convention being the 7th of February before Summon'd by the Vigilance and excellent Contrivance and Industry of Doctor Dudley Loftus in which Sir James Barry afterwards Lord Baron of Santry was Chairman Several Affairs of greatest Consequence came there to be considered First the Arrears of the Souldiers they were to be fastned to the Design by their Interest and by the discharge of what was due to them then what was most popular and look'd least to the mark they aim'd at came under consideration in as much as they continued till May 1660. having readily accepted of the Kings Declaration from Breda of the 14th of April 1660. laying hold by their Declaration of the 14th of May of his Condescentions as the fittest expedient to cement the divided Interests in his three Kingdoms which his Majesty in his Printed Declaration for the settlement of Ireland takes especial notice of in these words That our good Subjects the Protestants not Usurpers as the Irish in their Case entitle them in our Kingdom of Ireland have born a very good part in the Blessing of our Restitution and that they were early in their dutiful Addresses unto Us and made the same Professions of a Resolution to return to their Duty and Obedience to Us during the time of Our being beyond the Seas which they have since so eminently made good and put in practice And here I cannot pass over that when the Irish Brigade came to assist Lambert against Sir George Booth now Lord Delameere and were in the North with him at that time advancing to know what General Monk intended they under Redman and Bret first drew back though some of their Officers in their canting mood thought to have wheedled General Monk into a Compliance The Convention gave his Majesty 20000 l. the Duke of York 4000 l. and the Duke of Glocester 2000 l. and in May adjourned to the first of November a standing Committee remaining in the interim And the 18th of December 1660. his Majesty by his Letter approved of this Convention which met again the 22. of January and Sir William Dumvell was appointed Chairman it continued till May 1661. Before they determined they had by a Committee very sensible and gallantly defended at Court the English Interest against the Irish who by reason of the Peace which had been made with them in 1646. and 48. thought they had very much to plead for his Majesties favour when upon the whole it was proved that if any of them were afterwards Loyal the generality disobeyed whatever had been indulged them and the Contract was not to be understood to be made with a Party but the Community of which more in its due place His Majesty was no sooner setled in England but upon both Houses of Parliaments apprehension of the late Rebellion and the Irish flocking at his Return into England he within few days published his sence of that horrible Conspiracy in the ensuing Proclamation By the King A PROCLAMATION Against the Rebels in Ireland C. R. CHarles by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland Defender of the Faith c. To all Our loving Subjects of England and Ireland Greeting We taking notice by the Information of the Lords and Commons now Assembled in Parliament That after the vast expence of Blood and Treasure for the suppressing of the late horrid Rebellion in Ireland begun in October 1641. There are yet many of the Natives of that Our Kingdom deeply guilty of that Rebellion who have of late broke out into new Acts of Force and Violence some Murthering Robbing and Despoiling several of Our English Protestant Subjects there planted and others of them by force Entring upon and Disquieting the Possessions of several Adventurers and Souldiers there to the great and manifest disturbance and hinderance of Our English Plantation And being very sensible of the innocent bloud of so many thousands of Our English Protestant Subjects formerly slain by the hands of those barbarous Rebels and of new mischiefs of the same kind likely to fall out as the sad issue and consequents of so unhappy beginnings Do therefore by the advice of the said Lords and Commons now assembled as well to testifie Our utter abhorring of the said late Rebellion as to prevent the like for the future and for the present establishment of the Peace of that Our Kingdom hold it Our duty to God and the whole Protestant Interest to Command Publish and Declare and do by this Our Proclamation accordingly Command Publish and Declare That all Irish Rebels other than such as by Articles have liberty to reside in these Our Dominions and have not since forfeited the benefit thereof now remaining in or which hereafter shall resort to England or Ireland be forthwith apprehended and proceeded against as Rebels and Traitors according to Law And that the Adventurers and Souldiers and other Our Subjects in Ireland their Heirs Executors Administrators and Assigns who on the first day of January last past were in the Possession of any of the Mannors Castles Houses Lands Tenements or Hereditaments of any the said Irish Rebels shall not be disturbed in such their Possessions until We by the advice of the Lords and Commons now assembled as aforesaid or such Parliament as We shall call in England or Ireland shall take further Order or that they be Legally evicted by due course of Law And all Our Justices of Peace Mayors Sheriffs and other Officers both Civil and Military both in England and Ireland are hereby
required to be aiding and assisting in the execution of this Our Proclamation as often as occasion shall require Given at our Court at Whitehal the first day of June 1660. in the Twelfth Year of Our Reign Afterwards assoon as such matters for so great a Business could be brought about his Majesty the 8th of May summon'd a Parliament at Dublin in which passed the great Act of Settlement after that his Majesty had published the 30th of November 1660. His Gracious Declaration for the settlement of his Kingdom of Ireland and satisfaction of the several Interests of Adventurers and Souldiers and other Subjects there wherein as to the Irish first such are considered as came in upon the Cessation secondly those who honestly and faithfully performed what they promised in the Peace and thirdly such as being beyond Seas cheerfully receiv'd and obeyed his Majesties Commands abroad all which are comprehended in several Articles proceeding from these Heads and the Souldiers and Adventurers by themselves These also who had the Fortune whether through Loyalty or Suspicion that they were not able to bear up against the English Interest to withstand the Nuncio have in the Act of Settlement their Fortunes and themselves secur'd memorable to Posterity who being fewer then those that bowed not their knees to Baal in Israel we cannot but mention it being a Reward for their eminent Sufferings And because the voice of a Parliament next to the delivery of the Law from Mount Sinai ought to impress the greatest Reverence on the heart and affections of the People I shall here present you with the Preamble to the Bill of Settlement in Ireland 1662. which in brief commits that to Posterity no Paint can ever Palliate An Act 14 Carol. 2. WHereas an unnatural Insurrection did break forth against your Majesties Royal Father of ever blessed memory his Crown and Dignity in this your Majesties Kingdom of Ireland upon the 23. of October in the year of our Lord God 1641. and manifest it self by the Murthers and Destruction of many thousands of your said Majesties good and loyal Subjects which afterwards universally spreading and diffusing it self over the whole Kingdom setled into and became a formed and almost National Rebellion of the Irish Papists against your Royal Father of blessed memory his Crown and Dignity to the destruction of the English and Protestants inhabiting in Ireland The which Irish Papists being represented in a General Assembly chosen by themselves and acting by a Council called by them The Supream Council of the Confederate Roman Catholicks of Ireland did first assume usurp and exercise the Power of Life and Death make Peace and War Levy and Coin Money and many other Acts of Soveraign Authority Treating with Foreign Princes and Potentates for their Government and Protection and afterwards acted under a Foreign Authority by all the said ways disowning and rejecting your Royal Fathers and your Majesties undoubted Right to this Kingdom even while they treacherously used his and your Majesties Names in the outward forms of their Proceedings withal impiously seeming by words and shews to swear unto that which by the whole Series of their Deeds they denied And moreover presuming to pretend his late Majesties Sacred Authority even for their worst actions all which they did amongst other their evil Designs to frighten his good Protestant Subjects from their Loyalty to blast his Majesties Honour and to widen the Breach between his said Majesty and his seduced Subjects in England The which Ends by their said wicked Stratagems they did too successfully and mischievously effect Before this Preamble to the Act of Settlement pass'd the Irish by their Agents in England had an unusual Favour of inspecting that Bill and objecting what they thought fit which they did in the presence of the Commissioners sent out of Ireland by the Convention and Lords Justices and Council even before his Majesty his Council and the Committee of Lords for the Affairs of Ireland to that end especially appointed The debate continuing touching this grand Instrument from the 8th of July 1661. till March following in which the Irish most insisted against the Preamble for that it seem'd to involve the whole Nation in the first designing and raising of the late Rebellion in Ireland and in the barbarous Circumstance thereof whereas they would pretend it was onely the act of a few Persons of broken fortunes followed with the rude multitude c. Praying that nothing might be contain'd in that Preamble in Derogation to his Majesties Articles of Peace or the blemish of his Majesties Loyal Catholick Subjects delivering in at the same time their Reasons against previous Reprisals the variances between the Declaration and Act of Settlement and their defence for their Articles of Peace Insisting much upon their Loyalty after the Lord Lieutenants departure the Catholicks unanimously in their Assembly joyning if you dare credit their reports with the Lord Deputy to oppose the Usurpers as the best means to divert the Parliament from preventing the Kings Designs in England and Scotland for which his Majesty as they say return'd them thanks they rejecting then many advantagious offers from Ireton though they were in a low Condition and so continued faithful till the Lord Deputy was driven to the Mountains and they at liberty to compound for themselves many of which went beyond-Sea to serve his Majesty All which they insist on as a great test of their Loyalty whereas it can never be made evident as is alledged that Proposals were made to that Assembly by the Usurpers and refused by them for the enjoyment of their Rights Priviledges and Inheritances alike with others under their Government for indeed such Proposals were never made nor offered to them in their most flourishing Condition but it is confessed such Terms were tendred and refused by them as were agreeable to a conquering Army to give as that of the Usurpers then was and to a broken scattered Party to expect as the other was being then reduced to Bogs and Woods as their best Holts and yet the Terms so offered and rejected by the Assembly together were soon after embraced by all of them divided into Parts on which they submitted and laid down Arms having by their Conditions liberty to transport themselves into Foraign Parts or to stay in the Kingdom And therefore it doth no more consist with their Honour then with Truth to say they were forced by banishment to an opportunity of serving his Majesty beyond-Seas from whence they date their Merits from him which was more then his late Majesty of blessed memory could obtain from them although obliged thereunto by Allegiance and Articles when his Distress and their Power were sublimated to the highest Pitch and his Prerogative lay at the stake as he did often complain of The Commissioners from the Lords Justices and Council besides this produced the Instructions of the Supream Council to their Agents for Rome France Spain offering the Crown to either
Judges of and in such Quo warrantoes 16. By what Law are Jurors that give Verdict according to their Conscience and are the sole Judges of the fact Censured in the Castle Chamber in great Fines and sometimes Pillored with loss of Eares and boared through the Tongue and sometimes marked in the forehead with a hot Iron and other like infamous Punishment 17. By what Law are men Censurable in the Castle-Chamber with the mutilation of Members or any other brand of Infamy and in what Causes and what punishment in each Case there is due without respit of the quality of the Person or Persons 18. Whether in the Censures in the Castle-Chamber regard be to be had to the words of the great Charter viz. Salvo continemento 19. Whether one that steals a Sheep or commits any other Felony and after flieth the Course of Justice or lyeth in Woods or Mountains upon his keeping be a Traitor if not whether a Proclamation can make him so 20. VVhether the Testimony or Evidence of Rebells Traitors protected Thieves or other infamous Persons be good Evidence in Law to be pressed upon the Trials of men for their lives or whether the Judge or Jurors ought to be Judge of the matter in fact 21. By what Law are Faires and Markets to be held in Capite when no other express Tenure is mentioned by his Majesties Letters Patents or Grants of the same Faires and Markets although the Rent or yearly summe be reserved thereout Declarations of the Law made in Parliament upon the Questions propounded to the Judges in a Sessions this present Parliament 1. THE Subjects of this his Majesties Kingdom of Ireland are a free People and to be governed only according to the Common Law of England and Statutes made and established by Parliament in this Kingdom of Ireland and according to the lawful Customs used in the same 2. That Judges in Ireland ought to take the Oath of the Justices or Judges declared and established in several Parliaments of force in this Kingdom and the said Judges or any of them by colour or under pretext of any Act of State or Proclamation or under colour or pretext of any Writ Letter or direction under the Great-Seal Privy-Seal or Privy-Signet from the King 's most Excellent Majesty or by colour or pretext of any Letter or Commandment from the chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom ought not to hinder or delay the Suit of any Subject or his Judgment or Execution thereupon And if any Letters Writs or Commands from his Majesty or any other or for any other cause to the Justices or other deputed to do the law and right according to the usage of the Realm in disturbance of the Law or of the execution of the same or of right to the parties the Justices and others aforesaid ought to proceed and hold their Courts and process where the Pleas and matters be depending before them as if no such Letters Writs or Commandments were come to them And in case any Judge or Judges Justice or Justices be found in default therein he or they so found in default ought to incur and undergo due punishment according to the Law and the former Declarations and Propositions in Parliament in that Case made and of force in this Kingdom or as shall be ordered adjudged or declared in Parliament and the Barons of the Exchequer Justices of Assize and Goal-delivery if they be found in default as aforesaid It is hereby declared that they ought to undergo the punishment aforesaid 3. The Councel-Table of this Realm either with the chief Governour or Governours or without the chief Governour or Governours is no Judicature wherein any Actions real personal popular or mixt or any Suit in the nature of the said Actions or any of them can or ought to be Commenced heard or determined And all proceedings at the Councel-Table in any Suit in the nature of the said Actions are void especially Causes particularly provided for by express Acts of Parliament of force in this Kingdom only excepted 4. The proceedings before the Chief Governour or Governours alone in any Action real personal popular or mixt or in any Suit in the nature of any of the said Actions are voted upon Question coram non Judice and void 5. All grants of Monopolies are contrary to the Laws of this Realm and therefore void And no Subject of the said Realm ought to be fined imprisoned or otherwise punished for exercising or using the lawful liberty of a Subject contrary to such Grants 6. The Lord Lieutenant Lord Deputy or other Chief Governour or Governours and Councel of this Realm or any of them ought not to imprison any of his Majesties Subjects but only in Cases where the Common Laws or Statutes of the Realm do inable and warrant them so to do and they ought not to Fine or to Censure any subject in mutilation of Members standing on the Pillory or other shameful punishment in any Case at the Councel-Table and no Subject ought to be Imprisoned Fined or otherwise punished for infringing any Commands or Proclamations for the support or countenance of Monopolies And if in any Case any person or persons shall be committed by the Command or Warrant of the Chief Governour or Governours and Privy Councel of this Realm or any of them That in any such Case any person or persons so committed or restrained of his or their liberty or suffering imprisonment upon demand or motion made by his or their Councel or other imployed by him or them for that purpose unto the Judges of that Court of King's Bench or Common Pleas in open Court shall without delay upon any pretence whatsoever for the ordinary Fees usually payed for the same have forthwith granted unto him or them a Writ or Writs of habeas Corpus to be directed generally unto all and every Sheriff Gaol-Minister Officer or other person in whose custody the party or parties so committed or restrained shall be at their retorn of the said Writ or VVrits and according to the Command thereof upon due and convenient notice thereof given unto him at the charge of the party or parties who requireth or procureth such VVrit or VVrits and upon security by his or their own Bond or Bonds given to pay the charge of carrying back the Prisoner or Prisoners if he or they shall be remanded by the Court to which he or they shall be brought as in like Case hath been used such charges of bringing up and carrying back the Prisoner or Prisoners to be always ordered by the Court if any difference shall arise thereabouts bring or cause to be brought the bodies of the said party or parties so committed and restrained unto and before the Judges and Justices of the said Court from whence the said VVrit or VVrits shall issue in open Court and shall then likewise Certify the true cause of such his or their detainor or imprisonment and
October either by himself or his Under-tenants or by receiving the Rents Issues or profits thereof shall immediately restore upon demand the said possession to the party or parties so put out with such reasonable damages as the Council-provincial shall think fit And if the party do refuse to restore the said possession as aforesaid upon the Demand of the party so put out his Heirs or Assigns made to the said possessor his Servants and Adherents in the Premisses or publication of this Order in the Parish where such Land lieth that upon his or their denial thereof or default therein he his Heirs and Assigns shall be for ever after debarr'd and secluded from all and every Right Title Interest or Demand which he or they make or pretend to all or any the said Lands Tenements Hereditaments And if after such Denial or Default made the said party his Heirs or Assigns shall not immediately restore the possession of the said Lands Tenements or Hereditaments so gain'd to the party griev'd his Heirs or Assigns That he they or his Adherents in the premises shall be declared and proceeded with as Enemies provided and so it is meant That if any of the parties so put out be declar'd a Neuter or Enemy by the Supream or Provincial-councel then the party who gain'd the possession as aforesaid shall give up the possession to such person or persons as shall be nam'd either by the said Council-provincial or Supream Council to be dispos'd of towards the maintenance of the general Cause upon the pain and penalty aforesaid And as for the Rents and mean profits of the said Lands Tenements and Hereditaments and all kind of Rents and the Goods or Chattels taken or detain'd from any Catholick as aforesaid due satisfaction is to be made for the same to the parties from whom the Rents Goods or Chattles were or shall be detain'd since these troubles begun as the Provincial and County-council shall respectively order 13. Item It is further ordered and established for the removal of evil disorder and enmity and to the end all Men may bend their thoughts and actions to the common Cause that all possessions of Lands and Hereditaments shall continue and remain unto such as have already join'd in this Union as they have been for three years past next before the beginning of these Troubles And that no Title of Lands shall be drawn into any Debate or Question until the next Assembly other than in case of Mortgages Leases and particular Estates de facto determin'd or determinable by Effluxion or other determination thereof 14. Item For the avoiding of National distinction between the Subjects of his Majesties Dominions which this Assembly doth utterly detest and abhor and which ought not to be endured in a well-govern'd Commonwealth It is ordered and established that upon pain of the highest punishment which may be inflicted by Authority of this Assembly that every Roman Catholick as well English Welsh as Scotch who was of that profession before the troubles and who will come and please to reside in this Kingdom and join in the present Union shall be preserv'd and cherish'd in his Life Goods and Estates by the Power Authority and force if need require of all the Catholicks of Ireland as fully and freely as any Native born therein and shall be acquitted and eas'd of one third part in three parts to be divided of publick Charges or Levies rais'd or to be rais'd for the maintenance of this holy VVar. 15. Item And it is further ordered and establish'd that there shall be no distinction or comparison made betwixt old Irish and old and new English or between Septs or Families or between Citizens and Townsmen and Countreymen joyning in union upon pain of the highest punishment that can be inflicted by any of the Councils aforesaid according to the nature and quality of the Offences and Division like to spring thence 16. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that all new Converts born in any of his Majesties Dominions or elsewhere without occasion given by the persons converted to the contrary and joyning in this Cause shall be accounted Catholick Natives to all intents and purposes 17. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that all Artificers Artizans Navigators and Mariners not being Denizens who shall please to reside in this Kingdom shall during their Residence in this Kingdom after such time as they and their Families shall be here setled have and enjoy the free liberty and priviledges of Natives in all respects 18. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that in regard of of the present Estate and condition of this Kingdom if any Catholick or Catholicks are admitted of or permitted to continue in the Inns of Court and to the end the laudable Laws of England may not die amidst the Disasters of these times one Inn of Court shall be erected in such a place of this Kingdom as to the Supream Council shall be thought fit for the training of the Gentry of this Kingdom to the knowledg of these Laws 19. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that no Lord Gentleman or any other person shall raise or keep any Company of Souldiers but such as shall be authoriz'd by the Supream Council Provincial-council or County-council or Magistrate within their own Corporate Towns And that the Statute against Sesse and Coin or Livery be duly put in execution And that no Company or Souldiers whatsoever shall be paid or reliev'd by the Countrey except such as are and shall be inrolled in the Marshal List And none shall be billeted but by the Constable 20. Item It is further ordered and establish'd for the advancement of Learning that in every Province of the Kingdom Free-Schools shall be erected and maintain'd so many and in such places and in such manner and form as by the Metropolitan of the Diocess in their respective Provinces shall be thought fit 21. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that the King's Customs Rents Revenues Arrears and Debts And the Rents Estates and profits of the Lands Hereditaments Goods and Chattels of the Enemies which are or shall be declared by the Provincial or Supream Council or by the General Council to be receiv'd and collected and be dispos'd for his Majesties use and service 22. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that Church-lands and Tithes impropriate in the Catholick-owners before these troubles and joyning in this Cause may be left to them according to their several Estates until the same be disposed of by Parliament they in the interim answering the Rents as accustomed 23. Item It is further ordered and establish'd that in every County there be Collectors and Receivers to be approved in the County-council for the same And that they be accountable to the County-council for the same which County-council shall be accountable to the Provincial-council therein half-yearly and the Provincial-council to the Supream-Council yearly to the end the same may not be conceal'd or
then to accompany the said Commission with our Letters to the said Commissioners wherein We signified to them that although by the said Commission We gave them that power yet We did then let them know that for those who were Chief among the Rebels and Ring-leaders of the rest to disobedience that We adjudged them less worthy of favour then the others whom they had mis-guided And therefore for those principal persons We required them to take care not to be too forward without first consulting this Board in proffering or promising mercy to those unless they the Commissioners saw it of great and unavoidable necessity Which power entrusted by Us with the said Commissioners was then granted in respect of the conjuncture of affaires at that time and to answer the then sudden extremities in the publick service And whereas We have now received information that a long time after the said power entrusted with them and when the State of the Countrey was far different from the Condition wherein it stood at the issuing of the said Commission and after the general Conspiracy was fully discovered and that the Rebels of all degrees and conditions had with hateful and bloody obstinacy declared their purpose to extirp the Brittish throughout the whole Kingdom without hope of reconcilement other then by the strength of his Majesties forces some of the said Commissioners notwithstanding the premonition given them by Our said Letters and without consulting this Board therein have given Protections of late to many of the said Rebels being principal persons and freeholders which Protections are in sundry respects found to be a mighty hindrance to His Majesties service in those parts and tending to His Majesties loss and disadvantage And albeit We are informed that those persons so protected have by their mis-behaviours since the Protections granted to them violated the express or implyed conditions of all Protections which besides the unreasonableness of the granting of them contrary to the intent of Our direction in Our said Letters might justly give cause to have those Rebells immediately faln upon and cut off Yet in regard We who are entrusted here by His Majesty for the Government of this His Kingdom and People are so tender of His Majesties honour as We neither have done nor will do any thing that by any construction can be interpreted a breach of any word given by Us or any other authorized by Us. We think fit before we proceed to the just correction of those Rebels hereby to publish and declare that all the said Protections granted since the first of March last to any person or persons whatsoever in the County of Downe or other Counties above named shall at the end of ten days next after the pubishing of this Proclamation at Down-Patrick or Strangford in the said County of Down or at any other publick place in any of the said Counties respectively stand void and be annulled repealed and revoked And we do hereby accordingly from and after the said ten days revoke repeal make void and annull them and every of them to all intents and purposes as if they had never been granted and do Order that from and after the said ten days they be of no force nor derive any benefit protection or security to any of the parties to whom they were so granted And this Proclamation We require the Sheriff of the County of Downe and the several Sheriffs of the said several Counties respectively to cause to be proclaimed and published at Down-Patrick and Strangford aforesaid and at some publick places in the said several Counties respectively that so all persons whom it may concern may take notice thereof and that hereafter when by the Power and Strength of Hu Majesties Army the said Offenders receive due punishment for their high transgressions they may not have any colour to presend the beast breach of word in this State or any the Ministers thereof Given at His Majesties Castle of Dublin the 19th day of August 1641. La. Dublin Ormond Ossory Cha. Lambert Ad. Loftus J. Temple Tho. Lucas Ja. Ware Rob. Meredith Pope Urban the Eight's Grant of Indulgence to Owen Roe O Neal referrable to Fol. 136. mentioned in Mahony's Disp. Apologet. p. 41. Dilecto filio Eugenio O Nello DIlecte fili Salutem Nullum praetermittere soles occasionem quâ non Majorum tuorum Vestigiis insistens Eximium Zelum propagandae Ecclesiae studium perspectum facis idque luculènter in praesentia praestitisti in Hiberniam proficisci cogitans ut Catholicorum rationibus praesto sis Quam ob rem pergratae Nobis advenerunt Literae quibus Hujusmodi itineris deliberationem declaras rei faelicitèr gerendae principium à caelesti ope auspicatus non minus humilitèr quam religiose Apostolicam benedictionem a Nobis postulas Praeclarum hunc in te ardorem constantiam adversus haereticos verae fidei animum non parum laudamus tuaeque jam pridem pietatis conscii à te expectamus in hac opportunitate strenui atque excelsi roboris documenta quae antehac singularem nominis famam tibi comparârunt Illorum paritèr commendamus Consilium quos tuo excitans exemplo significasti speramus autem fore ut Altissimus tuae causae praesto sit ut Notam faciat in populis Virtutem suam Interim ut confidentius cuncta aggrediamini Nos divinam Clementiam indesinentèr orantes ut adversariorum conatus in nihilum redigat tibi caeterisque Catholicorum rem in praedicto regno Curaturis nostram libentèr impartimur benedictionem Universisqne singulis si verè paenitentes confessi fuerint Sacrâ Communione si fieri possit debitè refecti plenariam suorum peccatorum veniam remissionem atque in Mortis articulo Indulgentiam etiam plenariam elargimur Datum Romae sub Annulo Piscatoris die 8. Octobris 1642. Pontificatûs Nostri Anno 20. APPENDIX X. Fol. 141. By the Lords Justices and Councel Jo. Borlase Hen. Tichborne WHereas We have lately seen a Printed Paper intitled a solemn League and Covenant for reformation and defence of Religion the Honour and happiness of the King and the Peace and safety of the three Kingdoms of England Scotland and Ireland which seems to have been Printed at London on the ninth day of October 1643. And forasmuch as in the said League or Covenant there are divers things contained not only tending to a seditious Combination against His Majesty but also contrary to the municipal Laws of this Kingdom of Ireland and destructive to the Church-Government established by Law in this Kingdom And for that by the Laws of this Kingdom no Oath ought to be tendred to or taken by any person or persons whatsoever in this Kingdom but before a Judge or other person thereunto Lawfully Authorised by His Majesty and for that the said League or Covenant is now endeavoured to be set on foot in this Kingdom without His Majesties Privity Direction or Allowance And in regard it is directly
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 appear Your Suppliants have made choice of Captain William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Knight and Baronet Captain Michael Jones and Mr. Fenton Parsons whom they have employed and authorized as their Agents to manifest the truth thereof in such Particulars as for the present they are furnish'd withal referring the more ample manifestation thereof to the said Captain William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Captain Jones 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 several Provinces of this Your Kingdom VVe therefore Your Majesties most humble loyal and obedient Protestant-Subjects casting down our selves at Your Royal feet and flying to You for succour and redress in these our great Calamities as our most gracious Soveraign Lord and King and next and immediately under Almighty God our Protector and Defence most humbly beseeching Your Sacred Majesty to admit into Your Royal Presence from time to time our said Agents and in Your great VVisdom 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 happiness of Your good Subjects the Protestant Religion may be restored throughout the whole Kingdom to its lustre that the losses of Your Protestant Subjects may be repaired in such manner and measure as Your Majesty in Your Princely VVisdom shall think fit and that this Your Kingdom may be setled as that Your said Protestant Subjects may hereafter live therein under the happy Government of Your Majesty and Your Royal Posterity with comfort and security whereby Your Majesty will render Your self through the whole VVorld a most just and Glorious Defender of the Protestant Religion and draw down a Blessing on all other Your Royal Undertakings for which Your Petitioners will ever pray c. Subscribed by the Earl of Kildare Lord Viscount Montgomery Lord Blany and many others To which they received this Answer by His Majesties Command At Our Court at Oxford the 25th of April 1644. His Majesty being very sensible of the Petitioners Losses and sufferings is ready to hear and relieve them as the Exigencie of his Affairs will permit and wisheth the Petitioners to propose what they think fit in particular for his Majesties Information and the Petitioners Remedy and future Security Edw. Nicholas Upon the reading of the Petition His Majesty was pleased to say That He knew the Contents of the Petition to be Truth APPENDIX XII Fol. 142. The Propositions of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland humbly presented to His Sacred Majesty 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 9th of May 1644. requiring the same 1. Pro. THAT all Acts made against the Professors of the Roman Catholick faith whereby any restraint penalty Mulct or incapacity may be laid upon any Roman Catholicks within the Kingdom of Ireland may be repealed and the said Catholicks to be allowed the freedom of the Roman Catholick Religion Answ. To the first we say that this hath been the pretence of almost all those who have entred into Rebellion in the Kingdom of Ireland at any time since the Reformation of Religion there which was setled by Acts of Parliament above eighty years since and hath wrought good effects ever since for the peace and welfare both of the Church and Kingdom there and of the Church and Kingdom of England and Protestant party throughout all Christendom and so hath been found wholesom and necessary by long experience and the repealing of those Laws will set up Popery again both in Jurisdiction profession and practice as that was before the said Reformation and introduce among other inconveniencies the Supremacy of Rome and take away or much endanger Your Majesties Supream and just Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical Administration 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 repeal thereof any man may seem to be left to chuse his own Religion in that Kingdom which must needs beget great confusion and the abounding of the Roman Clergy 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 Majesties Royal Assent in England in the 17th year of Your Raign touching punishments to be inflicted upon those that shall introduce the Authority of the See of Rome in any Cause whatsoever 2. Pro. That Your Majesty will be pleased to call a free Parliament in the said Kingdom to be held and continued as in the said Remonstrance is expressed and the Statute of the 10th year of King Hen. 7. called Poyning's Acts explaining or enlarging the same be suspended during that Parliament for the speedy settlement of the present Affairs and the repeal thereof be there further considered of Answ. VVhereas their 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 present how dangerous it is to make such insinuation or intimation to your people of that Kingdom touching that Parliament wherein several 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 high nature as we humbly conceive is not properly to be dismissed 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 the Kingdom composed of good loyal and well-affected Subjects to Your Majesty who doubtless will be ready to comply in all things that shall appear to be pious and just for the good of the True Protestant Religion and for Your Majesties service and the good of the Church and State that if this present Parliament should be dissolved it would be a great terrour and discontent to all Your Majesties Protestant Subjects of the Kingdom and may be also a means to force many of Your Majesties Subjects to quit that Kingdom or peradventure to adhere to some other party there in opposition of the Romish Irish Confederates rather than to be liable to their power which effects may prove of most dangerous consequence and we humbly offer to Your Majesties consideration Your own gracious Expression mentioned in the grounds and motives inducing Your Majesty to agree to a
them 6. Pro. That the late Officers taken or found upon feigned or old Titles since the year 1634 to intitle Your Majestie to several Counties in Connaght Thornond the County of Typperary Limrick and Kelkenny and Wicklowe be vacated and taken off the File and the possessors thereof setled and secure 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 that Parliament as was Enacted in the 21. year of his late Majesties Raign in this Kingdom Answ. VVe know not of any Offices found or feigned Titles nor what the Confederates may demand in respect of any graces promised by your Majesty which we intend not nor have any occasion to dispute but do 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 we conceive is of great importance for your Majesties service to be taken into consideration as First with regard of the Statutes made in the present Parliament of England Secondly That necessary increase of your Majesties Revenue decayed by the present Rebellion Thirdly The abolishing the evil Customs of the Irish and preservation of Religion Laws and Government there Fourthly The satisfaction of the Protestant Subjects losses in some measure Fifthly The Arrears of your Majesties Army and other debts contracted for the War and for preservation of that Kingdom to your Majesty Sixthly The bringing in of more Brittish on the Plantation Seventhly The building of some walled-Towns in remote and desolate places for the security of that Kingdom and your Maiesties good Subjects there Eightly The taking of the Natives from their former dependency on their Chieftains who usurped an absolute Power over them to the dimunition of all Regal Power and to the oppression of the inferiors 7. Pro. That all marks of incapacity imposed upon the Natives of that Kingdom 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 Universities Free and Common-Schools Answ. This we conceive concerneth some of the late Plantations and no other part of that Kingdom and that the restriction herein mentioned is found to be of great use especially for the indifferency of Tryals strength of the Government and for Trade and Traffick and we humbly conceive that if other Plantations shall not proceed for the setling and securing of the Kingdom and that if no restraint be made of Popish purchasing or buying of the Protestants out of their former Plantations where they were prudently settled though now cast out of their Estates by the late Rebellion and unable to Plant the same again for want of means and therefore probably upon easy terms will part from 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 Kingdom Touching bearing of Offices we humbly conceive that their now conformity to the Laws and Statutes of that Realm is the only mark of incapacity imposed upon them we humbly conceive that they ought not to expect to be more capable there then the English Natives are here in England in like case for Schools in Ireland there are divers setled in that Kingdom already by the Laws and Statutes of that Realm if any person well affected shall erect and endow any more Schools there at their own charges so that the School-master and Scholars may be governed according to Laws Customs and Orders of England and the rest of Free-Schools here we cannot apprehend any just exception 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 aspersion on the Religion and Laws of the Kingdom which can never be truely happy but in the good unity of both in the true Protestant Religion and in the Laws of England for as for matter of charge such of the Natives that are desirous to breed their Sons for Learning in Divinity can be well content to send them to the Universities of Lovane Doway and other Popish places in forreign Kingdoms and for Civil Law or Physick to Padua and other places which draws great Treasure yearly out of your Majesties Dominions but will send few or none of them to Oxford or Cambrige 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 Kingdom 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 Inns of Court in England are sufficient and the Protestants come thither without grudging and that is a means to civilize them after the English customs to make them familiar and in love with the Language and Nation to preserve Law in the Purity when the Professors of it shall draw from one Original Fountain and see the manner of the Practice of that in the same great Channel where his Majesties Courts of Justice of England do flow most clearly whereas by separation of the Kingdoms in that place of their principal instruction where their foundations in Learning are to be laid a degenerate corruption in Religion and Justice may haply be introduced and spread with much more difficulty to be corrected and restrained afterwards by any Discipline to be used in Ireland or punishment 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 Inns of Court as are proposed should be granted all which we humbly submit to your Majesties most Pious and Prudent consideration and judgment 8. Pro. That the Offices and Places of Command Honour Profit and Trust within that Kngdom be conferred upon Roman Catholicks Natives in equality and indifferency with your Majesties other Subjects Answ. We humbly conceive that the Roman Catholicks Natives of Ireland may have the like Offices and Places as the Roman Catholicks Natives of England here have and not otherwise howbeit we conceive that in the generality they haye not deserved so much by their late Rebellion therefore we see not why they should be endowed with any new or farther capacities or priviledges then they have by the Laws and Statutes now in force in that Kingdom 9. Pro. That the insupportable Oppression
of your Subjects by reason of the Court of Wards and respit of Homage be taken away and certain revenue in Lieu thereof setled upon your Majesty 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 the raising of your Majesties Revenues the preservation of your Majesties Tenures and chiefly the Education of the Gentry in the Protestant Religion and in Civility and Learning and good Manners who otherwise would be brought up in ignorance and barbarism their Estates be ruined by their Kindred and Friends and continue their depending upon their Chieftains and 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 pressed unless it be to prevent the Education of the Lords and Gentry that fall Wards in the Protestant Religion For that part of this Proposition which concerns respit of Homage we humbly conceive that reasonable that some way may be settled for that if that standeth with your Majesties good pleasure without prejudice to your Majesty or your Majesties Protestant Subjects 10. Pro. That no Lord not estated in the Kingdom 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 Kingdom Answ. We humbly conceive that in the year 1641. by the Graces which your Majesty 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 limiting Lords present and attending in the Parliament of Ireland that no one of them should be capable of more Proxies then two and prescribing the Peers of that Kingdom not there resident to purchase fitting proportions of Land in Ireland within five years from the last of July 1641. or else to loose their Votes till they should make such purchases which purchases by reason of the troubles hapning in the Kingdom and which have continued for two years and a half have not peradventure yet been made and therefore your Majesty may now be pleased and may take just occasion to enlarge that time for five years more from the time when that Kingdom may again be settled in a happy firm peace and as to members of the House of Commons the same is most fit as we humbly conceive to be regulated by the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdom 11. Pro. That an Act be passed in the next Parliament declaratory that the Parliament of Ireland is a free Parliament of it self independant of and not subordinate to the Parliament of England and that the Subjects of Ireland are immediately subject to your Majesty as in right of your revenue and that the Members of the said Parliament of Ireland and all other the Subjects of Ireland are independant and no way to be ordered or concluded by the Parliament of England and are only to be ordered and governed within that Kingdom by your Majesty and such Governours as are or shall be there appointed and by the Parliament of that Kingdom according to the Laws of the Land Answ. This Proposition concerns your Majesties High Court 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 an answer thereunto and therefore we humbly desire your Majesties pardon for not answering unto the same 12. Pro. That the assumed Power or Jurisdiction in the Council-Board of determining all manner of Causes be limited to matters of State and all Patents Estates and Grants illegally and extrajudiciously avoided there or elsewhere be left in state as before and the parties grieved their Heirs or Assigns till legal eviction Answ. The Council-Table hath aways excercised Jursdiction in some cases ever since the English Government was setled in that Kingdom and is of long continuance in cases of some Nature as the beginning thereof appeareth not which seemeth to be by prescription and hath always been armed with Power to examin upon Oath as a Court of Justice or in the nature of a Court of Justice in cases of some natures and may be very necessary still in many cases especially for the present till your Majesties Laws may more generally be received in that Kingdom and we conceive that Board is so well limited by printed Instructions in your Majesties Royal Fathers time and by your Majesties Graces in the seventeenth year of your Reign that it needeth for this present little or no regulating at all howbeit they humbly referr that to your Majesties great wisdom and goodness to do therein as to Law and Justice shall appertain 13. Pro. That the Statutes of the 11th 12th and 13th years of Queen Elizabeth concerning the Staple Commodities be repealed referving to his Majesty lawful and just Poundage and a Book of Rates be setled by an indifferent Committy of both Houses for all Comodities Answ. The matter of this Proposition is settled in a fitting and good way by your Majesty already as we conceive amongst the Graces granted by your Majesty to your people of Ireland in the Seventeenth year of your Majesties Reign to which we humbly referr our selves 14. Pro. That insomuch as the long continuance of the chief Governour or Governours of that Kingdom in that place of so great eminency and power hath been a principall occasion that much Tyranny and Oppression hath been used and exercised upon the Subjects of that Kingdom that your Majesty will be pleased to continue such Governours hereafter but for three years and that none once employed therein be appointed for the same again until the expiration of six years next after the end of the first three years and that an Act pass to disanul such Governour or Governours during their Government directly or indirectly in Use Trust or otherwise to make any manner of Purchase or acquisition of any Mannors Lands Tenements or Hereditaments within that Kingdom other then from your Majesties own Heirs and Successors Answ. We humbly conceive that this Proposition tendeth to lay a false and scandalous aspersion on your Majesties gracious Government over Ireland and that it toucheth very high upon your Wisdom Justice and Power and under colour of supposed Corruptions pretended to be in the greatest Officer that Commandeth under your Majesty there if he continue so long in his Government as may well enable him to find out and discover the true State of the Kingdom and the dangerous disposition and designs of the Popish party there to prevent him therein and to turne him out from doing Service before or as soon as he is throughly informed and experienced how to do the same and then to hold him excluded so long
restored to but by the love of his People without the chargeable and many times dangerous assistance of Strangers who are not over-tender nor much distinguishing betwixt the party they come to assist and that they come to subdue when they are made Umpires in such Quarrels for they rarely employ their Auxiliary Treasure and Blood purely out of Generosity and Justice which may in Romance be found the ultimate end of such Assistance but seldom in the truth of History Here it may be observed that if the revolt and deviation of our Nations from their KING and from Monarchy it self was the most unreasonable and prodigious that any Age hath known their voluntary uncompelled Return to both is as much without Example nor indeed could that Return have been so miraculous if the Revolt had not been so prodigious And it may also be worth the observing that as the first most bloody Eruption from Peace to Rebellion took birth in this Kingdom so from hence came the first Overtures to Peace and Submission By and with the Kings deliverance and Restitution our Church is delivered from Contempt Sacriledge and Desolation and restored to a due veneration a competent improving support and to fair beginnings of Decency and Order Our Laws are delivered from corrupt incompetent Interpreters from monstrous unnatural expositions and applications and Justice is restored to the distribution of upright learned lawfully sworn and authorized Judges The noblest Acts of Loyaltie shall now no more receive the judgment due to the foulest Treason due to the unrighteous Judges that pronounced it without Authority in the Persons or Justice in the Sentence High Courts of Justice shall no more usurp that name nor our Benches be crouded or oppressed with the throng and wicked weight of those that ought rather to have stood manacled at the Bar. A happy change to those for whose destruction those extravagant Tribunals were erected and a secure change to all for it hath been often an observed Method in God's never-failing Justice to catch Cruelty and Oppression in those very snares they had prepared for others All Men are delivered from the intanglements of two-edged Oaths from the conflicts raised by them in Mens Brests betwixt Conscience and conveniency betwixt the prostitution of Conscience and the ruine of their Fortunes than which a harder a more Tyrannical choice cannot be obtruded upon Christians For here the election was not Swear thus against your Conscience or you shall have no part in the Civil Government no Office in the Army no Benefice in the Church but Swear thus or you shall have no House to put your Headin no Bread to sustain your selves your Wives and Children To conclude these Observations who is not delivered from some Oppression and restored to some Advantage Even those that shall lose the wages of iniquitie their ill-got possessions shall be delivered from the oppression of a bad and if they have any shall be restored to a good Conscience if they have none they were not in the Kings and I hope will not be in Your care Those that shall be kept out of their ancient Estates the Inheritance of their Fathers through the defect of their Qualifications and by the All-disposing Providence of God who was not pleased to make them active Instruments in this Happy Change are delivered from Tyrannous Confinements causeless Imprisonments and a continual fear of their lives The good Land lies afore them their industry is at Liberty and they are restored to the freedom of Subjects and protection of the Laws If an irish Papist be opprest they shall relieve him if the blood of the meanest of them be shed it shall be strictly enquired after Let this state be compared with that they were in before the King's Restitution and it will be found the greatest loser has got something by it As it is our duty thus thankfully to commemorate these great things done for us so it is our duty to endeavour in our several Stations to improve and secure them to Our selves and Our Posterity And sure the most Natural way to that end is to call to mind and avoid those Errours that brought us into those miseries from which we are redeemed Many are the causes too boldly assigned for the Calamities these Nations so long laboured under But in such Inquisitions the verdict is seldom impartially brought in the Jury are too often the Criminals But I think I may safely say that one and that a fundamental cause was that the late King was maliciously represented to the People I am sure the Freedom Peace Plenty and Happinesses they were told they should enjoy without him proved miserable and fatal delusions Let us mistrust those that shall use the same Arts lest they involve us in the same misery and let us judge of the King's intentions to His People by His Publique Acts of grace and bounty by His mild and easy Government by His desire and endeavours to make His Subjects happy at home and renowned abroad and by the reluctancy of His Nature to just severity when the wickedness or frenzy of the worst Offendors extort it from him That something will be amiss in the Administration of the most perfect Government in this World must be expected but whoever shall think that these things are to be rectified by force upon the Government and that effected proposes to acquiesce and return to Obedience cannot know himself so well as to be sure that Opportunity and success may not suggest more inordinate Appetites to him And there are those alive that know how far further than their first intention the Reformers of our times were led on till the unwarrantable force they had raised grew too strong for their Management flew in their faces and in conclusion acted those villanies that I dare say their Souls abhorred but neither their Policy or Power could restrain VVe have had sad experience and let us be the wiser for it in how short a time in how few days the industry of many years nay of an Age may be destroyed and laid waste when Rage and Rapine are let loose If once Sedition grow too strong for the Law and Rebellion for the Magistrate so that the Law is silenced or the language of it corrupted or invented and the Magistrate removed as burthensom and unnecessary let us remember what variety of misery and mischief is brought upon the people how unsupportable their sufferings are and how Intolerable their fears of suffering they know not what more by whom or how long Let the people remember how many and how chargeable their Masters nay how many and chargeable the changes of their Masters were when once they foolishly affected the misery indeed the impossibility of having none VVhen Misrepresentations had taken place and root in the minds of the people their heart grew narrow and barren towards the King those that soon after rob'd them both perswading them to keep their purses full for them to empty This close