a Pardon for nay not so much as a Protection from his Majesty for sins past without the consent of their Supreme Council This is a fine bearing Faith and Allegiance to the King this is a good upholding and maintaining the Fundamental Laws of the Kingdom They swear too that these Acts of highest Rebellion they will to the hazard of their Lives and Estates assist prosecute and maintain But they proceed further for they swear not to accept of or submit to ANY PEACE made or to be made without the consent and approbation of the General Assembly of the said Catholicks ANY PEACE that is let the Conditions be never so good let the Person that grants them be the King Himself they will not accept of it they will not submit unto it without c. If the King would so far forget those signal Crimes which made them need his Pardon and Protection and would not so much as name them but make a Peace with them as if they had never done any offence yet they swear that not one of them shall accept of or submit to such a Peace but as is before expressed nay to show how perfect a ROMISH Confederacie it is if any Individual should be struck with the horrour of his Crimes he cannot fly to the Kings Mercy for Pardon or Protection without Perjury And to inveagle such as had not then been polluted with those sins they swear to protect all such as shall enter into their guilt and thereby in consequence threaten to ruine such as shall not This is admirable bearing true Faith and Allegiance to the King and maintaining the Laws of the Kingdom But this is not all for they further swear in these words viz. For the preservation and strengthening of the Vnion of the Kingdom upon any peace to be made or concluded with the said confederate Catholicks as aforesaid They will to the uttermost of their Power insist upon and maintain the ensuing Propositions until a peace as aforesaid be made and the matters to be agreed upon in the Articles of peace be established and secured by Parliament The first Proposition to which this Oath relates and to which it is annexed is expressed in these words viz. That the Roman Catholicks both Clergy and Laity in their several capacities have the free and publick exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion and Function throughout the Kingdom in as full lustre and splendor as it was in the Reign of King Henry the Seventh or other Catholick King his Predecessours Kings of England and Lords of Ireland or in England That is to say That none should be admitted to live in Ireland but Papists for none or very few but such were in the Reign of those Kings in Ireland The second Proposition mentioned follows in these words viz. That the secular Clergy of Ireland viz. Primates Archbishops Ordinaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Prebendaries and all other Dignitaries Parsons Vicars and all persons of the secular Clergy and their respective successours shall have and enjoy all and all manner of Iurisdictions Priviledges and Immunities in as full and ample manner as the Roman Catholicks secular Clergy had or enjoyed the same within this Realm at any time during the Reign of the late King Henry the Seventh sometime King of England and Lord of Ireland any Law Declaration of Law Statute Power or Authority whatever to the contrary notwithstanding That is to say Their Wills must be the Law and since they think fit to set up POPERY in Ireland and to banish the true Religion out of it it is but requisite they should take the maintenance from the Legal and give it to the Titular Clergy And least we should doubt this to be the true meaning of the second Proposal they clearly explain it in the fourth which follows in these words viz. That the Primates Archbishops Bishops Ordinaries Deans Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Chancelours Treasurers 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 enjoy all the Churches and Church-Livings in as large and ample manner as the LATE PROTESTANT CLERGY respectively enjoyed the same on the first day of October in the year of our Lord 1641. together with all the profits emoluments perquisites liberties and the rights of their respective Sees and Churches belonging as well in places now in possession of the Confederate Catholicks as also in all other places that shall be recovered by the said Confederate Catholicks from the adverse Party within the Kingdom SAVING to the said Roman Catholick Laity their Rights according to the Laws of the Land That is to say Our Clergy shall have All therefore yours can have nothing this is a perfect Fifth-Monarchy Principle for here Dominion is onely founded in pretended Grace none being to have the benefit of the Laws of the Land but the Papists Nay his Sacred Majesty because a PROTESTANT is as such denied any one of those Rights which the meanest of the Irish Rebels because a PAPIST is to enjoy as such and lest their words for it should not be taken they confirm it with an OATH The Legal and Orthodox Clergy of Ireland may see in this what goodly Provision had been made for them and their respective Successours if this pious Roman Catholick Confederacy had succeeded But least this their first Oath of Confederacie might be thought a thing they were surprized into in the first heat and fury of the Rebellion and least the takers of it should forget what the Imposers of it would have them believe they were bound unto by it some time after premeditately and in cool blood they caus'd it a second time to be taken in terminis and subscribed with a preamble to it the close whereof runs in these Words viz. And for that it is requisite that there should be an unanimous consent and real union between all the Catholicks of this Realm to maintain the premises and strengthen them against their adversaries it is thought fit by them that they and whosoever shall adhere unto their party as a Confederate should for their better assurance of their adhering fidelity and constancy to the publick Cause take the ensuing Oath viz. I A. B. c. In the begining of the said Preamble they give the priority and precedency of place to the Defence of their own Estates and Liberties to that of the defence of his Majesties Regal Power Prerogatives Honour State and Rights That is to say They will mind themselves before the King which they fully explain in the third Oath of their Union and Confederacie which after their rejection of the Peace concluded with them by his Majesties Authority they entered into took and subscribed and which follows in these words viz. I do swear and protest that I will adhere to the present Vnion of the Confederate Roman Catholicks that REJECTED THE PEACE lately agreed
the Confederates were expelled out of Ireland must be denied their Rights even when a peace is concluded Nay possibly those Peers might not be considered as estated Lords whose Estates the said Confederates had possest themselves of so that by the Acts of the Rebellion they were to lose their Lands and by the Desires of the Rebels to lose their Votes And perhaps if Protestant Peers which the Rebellion had forc'd into England would have returned into Ireland to vote in this intended Parliament they might had this Instruction took place been denied to vote in Person as well as by Proxy on account that they were not estated persons by reason their Lands were then in the possession of the Rebels who had taken good care that the Peace should not oblige nor be accepted by the confederate Catholicks till all the Articles of it were established secured by Parliament The Confederates rest not here but to make all things surer the 44th Instruction is set down in these words viz. That such as shall be recommended by the supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks shall be by his Majesty called by Writ to sit in the Vpper House In the 23d Instruction before mentioned they attempt to hinder the constitution of the House of Peers to be as by Law and Custom it ought to be and in this 44th Instruction they attempt to constitute it as it ought not to be In the foregoing Instruction they endeavor to stop the true Fountain of Honour and in this Instruction they would make themselves to be the Fountain of Honour Nor does this Instruction run with the introductive words of the former viz. You are to be Suitors or humble Suitors to his Majesty but positively set down as if what they demanded were rather a Right then a Favour neither do they limit their recommendation of such as are to be called to sit in the Upper House to such onely as were his Majesties Subjects or his Rebels but indefinitely viz. all that shall be recommended by the Supreme Council of the confederate Catholicks so that the forming of the House of Peers the great and inseparable Right and Prerogative of the Crown they not onely desire to WREST from the King but also they desire to VEST IT IN THEMSELVES Nor do they stop there but by this Instruction had it been granted they would have had the power to have constituted the House of Lords OF FORRAIGNERS and doubtless amongst those his HOLINESS's NUNTIO then amongst them would scarcely have been forgotten Thus far the Catholick Confederacie had well provided for the composition of the House of Commons and the House of Peers as far as concern'd the Temporal Lords Now I shall let the Reader see that their care was no less in providing that the House of Peers should be as well constituted for the Spiritual Lords which they manifest in their 25th Instruction which follows in these very words viz. You are to be Suitors to his Majesty that the Writs of summons be issued to the ARCHBISHOPS AND BISHOPS WITHIN OVR QVARTERS and they to have PLACE AND VOTE in Parliament This is a Request INDEED here is not onely a taking away of the Right of the Protestant Archbishops and Bishops but a giving of it to the Papists Nay would not this have been if granted an owning that the POPE by his Consecration had the Right to send Peers into the House of Lords if not to create them But since they were sworn by their Confederacy to have the free and publick exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion and Function throughout this Kingdom in its full lustre and splendor as it was in the Reign of King Henry the seventh or any other Catholick King his Predecessor Kings of England and Lords of Ireland 't is no wonder they take the surest Ways to reach that End But yet the wisdom of the Kings of England and their experience of the Irish Papists has been such that had all these Instructions been granted to them yet they could not have reach'd their Design which the said Papists well knew and therefore to throw down ALL Impediments in their 21th Instruction which follows in these very words they further desire viz. You are to be Suitors to his Majesty That upon the first sitting of the next Parliament That an Act may be transmitted for the suspension of POYNINGS HIS ACT intituled An Act that no Parliament shall be holden in this Land until the Acts be certified into England and all other Acts inlarging or explaining the same And that it be afterwards left to the consideration of the Parliament whether the same shall be ALL TOGETHER REPEALED or continued In these Instructions the Confederates show a Catholick Care of the Roman Catholick Cause They were not contented to attempt by force and open Rebellion to wrest this Kingdom from the Crown of England but having failed thereof in that way they endeavour to effect it in this first they will have a PAPIST chief Governour and that to use their own words the Commissioners must not onely INSIST UPON but must IN NO SORT RECEDE FROM Then they must have a Parliament and that not onely to be constituted against the Kings undoubted prerogative the known and ancient Laws of the Land and Priviledges and Rights of both Houses but also must be compos'd according to the desires and inventions of the Irish Papists and because by Poynings's Act no Bill or Bills could be transmitted into England till first they had past the chief Governour or Governours and privy Council of this Kingdom and then were certified to his Majesty and privy Council in England by the said chief Governor or Governors and privy Council to be good and expedient for this Kingdom and then were not to pass in Parliament here but as approved of by his Majesty and Council in England and remitted hither under the Great Seal of England whereby the Crown of England was wisely secured that nothing should be enacted here to the prejudice of it The said Irish Papists desire that in their said next Parliament Poynings's Act might be suspended and all other Acts enlarging and explaining the same and then that it may be left to the consideration of the Parliament SO CONSTITUTED whether the same shall be ALTOGETHER REPEALED or continued that is to say That the LAMB be put into the Claws of the WOLF and then leave it to the consideration of the Wolf whether or no he would devour him If it should be said That the fore-mentioned Instructions were onely the Confederates desires to his Majesty I onely desire to know whether they made those desires with an intention to have them denyed or granted If the first it was ridiculous if the last it was rebellious But by all this it undeniably appears If the providence of God and His Sacred Majesties Wisdom and Care had not disappointed the boundless designes of the said Irish Papists not onely the Protestant Religion and the Professors of
THE ANSWER OF A PERSON of QUALITY To a Scandalous LETTER Lately Printed and Subscribed by P. W. Intituled A Letter desiring a just and merciful Regard of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland given about the end of October 1660. to the then Marquess now Duke of Ormond and the second time L. Lievtenant of that Kingdom DVBLIN Printed by I. C. Anno Dom. 1662. The Answer c. HAving lately seen a Printed Paper the Title whereof is A Letter desiring a just and merciful regard of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland given about the end of October 1660. to the then Marquess now Duke of Ormond and the second time L. Lievtenant of that Kingdom Subscribed by P. W. And finding it in effect whatever the words of it are extremely undutiful to his sacred Majesty very disrespectful to the Duke of Ormond L. Lievtenant of Ireland and most scandalous not onely to the Protestants of Ireland but also to those of the same Religion in his sacred Majesties other Kingdoms I have esteemed my self obliged as a faithful subject to the King as an humble servant to the L. Lievtenant and as a son of the Protestant Church whose Members are as highly as falsly asperst by it to expose in print an Answer to that Letter which before I enter upon I will onely say P. W. professing not a little to be his Graces servant if he meant not this Letter as a respect to his Grace why was it written if he did why was it printed But P. W. despairing to receive from his Grace the effects of his unjust desires for his Countrey-men chose this way to acquaint them 't was not for want of his sollicitation He would let them see since he could not make them beholding to My L. Lievtenant that they were so to him Since I shall often have occasion to name IRISH PAPISTS I have thought fit here once for all to declare That I mean not thereby in all or any part of my Answer any of those Worthy Persons of that Nation and Religion who have still faithfully served the King whose merit I highly respect and the more because it has been preserved from infection even in a very Pest-house nor any of those who having been truly sorrowful for it and in the constancy of their subsequent services to his Majesty have washt themselves clean For I take a perfect delight in any change from bad to good and I heartily wish that every one of them had not so much indangered their being polluted again as interceding and pleading for their guilty Countrey-men does amount unto Having thus made this necessary digression I shall now proceed The parts separate of this Letter are three First a Preface Secondly a Petition Thirdly a Conclusion or concluding Wish P. W. prefaceth First the Fears and Iealousies of those whom he calls the Catholicks of Ireland Secondly His own affection to and confidence in his Grace the Duke of Ormond Fears and Iealousies are no less than must in reason be expected in the Generality of the Irish Papists For though the goodness and indulgence of the best of Kings may make their condition safe yet the conscience of their own guilt will never suffer them to be secure Pretended Fears and Iealousies were the Forerunners if not Causers of Troubles past I hope P. W. intends them not as such for Troubles to come Fear is founded on at least attended with Hatred and if one of the Best of his Majesties Servants one of the chiefest of his Ministers be thus 1. Vniversally 2. Intensly fear'd and therefore 3. hated 4. as P. W. says by his own Countrey-men but let all that P. W. prints stand or fall as this last particular is true or false for his Grace is neither his Countrey-man by birth Religion or any other relation to which that Name is appliable yea 5. by his own Fiduciares as is expressed in the Printed Letter If I say all this be not true why does P. W. say it if it be true what can others expect For if the flame be so in the green Tree what will it be in the dry The Irish Papists in their former and later Apologies for the horridest of Rebellions have not to this very day within any of his Majesties Dominions even pretended publickly any other cause for their Rapines Murthers Massacres and Treasons but what resolves it self into Fears and Ielousies And if their Passions be the same it is to be fear'd their Wills are not alter'd And if their Wills be the same nothing under God can prevent the effects but want of strength Especially considering that 1. in 1641. no such antecedent animosities or hatreds had prepared matters for Fears and Ielousies as by the worst of Rebellions is now become even nationally violent but by the way it seems to me somewhat hard that those which give the rise for the Cause should first cry out in the Effects 2. In 1641. these Fears and Ielousies if really in any were but in a Few but now P. W. confesseth That they have seized upon almost all the Nobility Gentry and others yea the Generality of the Catholicks of Ireland even the constant Believers of passionate Sticklers for and fastest Friends to his Grace the Duke of Ormond and this so intensly that it produceth the loss both of Faith and Hope Here it may well be observed what temper they are of whom P. W. pleads for Ielousies Fears and want of faith are so inseparable from them that those in 1641 were onely said to be derived from his Majesties Enemies but now all such by the mercy of God being blown away they are derived from his Majesties chief Minister of State of this Kingdom and who is made such as P. W. saith and as I most heartily acknowledg by his own great deserts What is it can suppress the Fears and Ielousies of P. W's Countrey-men when his Majesties free Election of a chief Governor and such a one as the Duke of Ormond is cannot do it This acknowledgment of P. W's fully proves that the Irish Papists Fears and Ielousies of the chief Governors of this Kingdom in 1641 were onely taken up by those and not cause given for them by these The plain English is this though his Majesty should from time to time nominate for Lord Lieutenant of this Kingdom the wisest and the faithfullest of his Subjects yet because the King commissionates them or because they are such or both many I wish I could not say most of the Irish Papists will be jealous and fearful of them Concerning P. W's affection to and confidence in his Grace the Duke of Ormond exprest by several instances of free and frequent access to him of his and others reliance on his word of his daily care and trouble to support his esteem and of blaming distrusters as guilty of ignorance of State affairs and the Intrigues obstructing as yet or of inconsideration of those wiser ways though slower than folly or rashness could chalk
they had no ground nay not so much as a colour for it 2. In the year 1646 and after a peace concluded with them they attempted by a Treachery not to be parallel'd by any but themselves to cut off the Lord Lieutenant and Army with him who marched out of Dublin on security and confidence of that peace 3. The same year the Council and Congregation of the confederate Catholicks of Ireland obliged their General Preston by a solemn Oath in these very words viz. To exercize all acts of Hostility against the L. Marquess of Ormond by name and his party and to help advise with counsel and assist in that service the L. General of Vlster employed in the same expedition This Oath is a fruitful Theme to declame upon but I will limit my observations upon it onely to these following particulars 1. Least any should doubt they are his Majesties Subjects least any of themselves should repent the sin of not having been such they swear that they may raise their crimes above pardon to exercize all acts of Hostility against his Majesty in the person of that noble Lord who had then as now the high honor to represent him If killing be an act of hostility they in this Oath swear to kill him if this be not actual Regicide I am sure 't is not their fault that it is not This horrid Oath takes off all disguises and makes their sin as visible as great And if such a Crime be capable of accession it did contract it by the same persons engaging privately about the same time as I have been assur'd by an undeniable Testimony That he would serve the King which he afterwards endeavour'd to excuse onely by saying His Army was not Nuntio-proof By which it appears indisputably whether the Irish Papists are Subjects to the King or to the Pope 2 Instead of repenting and making amends for the late violated peace in the year 1646 they swear to destroy him with whom they had made it 3 This Oath reduc'd the taker of it to a sad Dilemma either to Rebellion or Perjury 4 This Oath evidences that nothing is so powerful with the Irish Papists as to destroy his Majesties Government since the uniting of the Old Irish Papists and the Old English Papists which the Pope himself could not effect the dethroning of his Sacred Majesty has accomplish'd They that could never agree in any thing else agree in this and 't is made the very Bond of their iniquity I will say no more on this subject but that Herod and Pilate could be friends when it was to crucifie Christ. 4. In the year 1647 from Kilkenny Ian. 18. the Popish Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the confederate Catholicks of Ireland employ Commissioners to Rome France and Spain to invite a forreign power into Ireland particularly to Rome their titular Bishop of Ferns and Nicolas Plunket Esq who was Knighted by the Pope for his good service therein and is now one of the confident Advocates for the Irish Papists as defenders of his Majesties Rights and against the Protestants of Ireland as deserters of the Royal Cause these I say were authorized to declare viz. That they raised arms for the freedom of the Catholick Religion which are their own very words in the third Article of those their Instructions In their Remonstrance in the begining of the Rebellion whatever they said necessitated some few discontents to take up arms then they took off the vail and positively said That they raised arms for the freedom of the Catholick Religion Certainly if ever they may be believed to speak true it is when they speak to the POPE and if ever any thing may be believed to be the voice of all the Irish Papists it is when the Popish Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the confederate Catholicks speak in one Assembly What is meant by the Freedom of the Catholick Religion has been practically expounded by the Professors of it in Ireland not onely affirmatively that those which are of it should enjoy the publick and undisturbed exercize thereof themselves but negatively to be an exclusion of the publick if not private exercize of the True Religion Many instances I could present the Reader of this but I shall onely set down two The 1. is Dean York a reverend Minister of Gods word during his residence at Gallway was not allowed to pay the last duties of Christian burial to those Protestants which died in that Town but was forced to bury them nay his own children privately in his Garden The 2. is That my L. Duke of Ormond though owned by the Irish Papists to be the Kings L. Lieutenant and consequently representing his Sacred Majesties person was still denied the use of so much as one Church or Chappel wherever the said Papists had the power nay one of the Generals of the Irish PAPISTS now living told my L. Lieutenant at Kilkenny That if the King in person came into Ireland he should not be allowed by them One Church to celebrate his Devotions in to whom his Grace made a return proportionate to the disloyalty of that Declaration and part of that return being prophetical and since fulfilled I shall here insert the words viz. I hope to live to soe all of that mind to be without one Church in Ireland to say Mass in By these two instances it is evident That the direct meaning of those words The Freedom of the Catholick Religion is no other than the total banishing out of this Kingdom the exercize of the Religion established in it by Truth it self and by the good and wholsom Laws of the Land 5. In another part of the third Article of the said Instructions these very words are inserted viz. The cofederate Catholicks do intend that you let his Holiness know their resolution to insist upon such Concessions and Agreements in matters of Religion and for the security thereof as his Holiness shall approve of and be satisfied with This palpably evinceth that the Papists of Ireland being Subjects or Rebels depends wholly upon the Popes pleasure For let his Majesty grant them what he will yet his pretended Holiness's approbation must be the rule by which onely they will be bound And this is made most evident by the words of the nineth Article in the said Instructions which follow in these words viz. In case his Holiness will not be pleased to descend to such Conditions as might be granted in matters of Religion then you are to sollicit for considerable aids whereby to maintain a war and to ascertain and secure the same c. And soon after in the same nineth Article these words follow viz. You are to make application to his Holiness for his being Protector of this Kingdom and by special instance to endeavor his acceptance thereof c. Still the Pope is their King and that he may be so almost in name as well as in power they sollicit him by special instance to accept
Recognition and that their Ruling Power published the Breach thereof to the world as is evident by their Declaration of the twelfth of August 1650. so by many other insolent violations though His Majesties Grace and Mercy hath indulg'd to the particular actings of many Individuals yet in relation to those Articles or an account of any Obligation in Iustice due to them they are not to be regarded Yet his sacred Majesties justice to and tenderness of the said Irish Papists has abundantly appeared not only in his having in person still heard them upon the said Articles of Peace but also in giving them near 2 years time to prove all they pleaded and so long left the Kingdom unsettled that they might be fully heard in all their Allegations nay even by his giving Them a liberty which never yet was given to any even a free sight of the Bill of Settlement which was humbly presented to Him by the Lords Justices and Council pursuant to Poynings Law and a full liberty to make all the objections they could against it which yet they have been so far from acknowledging as an effect of his Royal Care and Indulgence that in all their Answers which I have diligently perused I do not find so much as a bare taking notice of that unpresidented Favour But possibly since by that Indulgence their guilt has been but the more evidenced they untruly consider the consequences of that mercy to be what only was intended in the extending of it and therefore were loth to pay his Majesty thanks for what has but more discover'd their Crimes But yet this is but proportionate to the rest of their proceedings for since they call his sacred Majesties mercy an injustice they may at the same rate decline paying Acknowledgments for his condescentions to them Having thus proved that the Peace was broken by the Irish Papists after it was made I shall now say something to prove that it was DESIGNEDLY broken BEFORE IT WAS MADE If by a previous Ingagement and Oath the Irish Papists confirmed their first confederacie not to be dissolved by the Peace which then they seemingly pursued If they combin'd to make themselves IVDGES of his Majesties Actions and to appeal to themselves upon every Occurrence that they should be inclinable to misinterpret notwithstanding their Protestations of obedience to his Majesties Authority then I conceive the whole peace thereby is on their part made void and null But that they did so is clearly evident and that by an OATH solemnly taken not by private men or a factious party but by all the Prelates Noblemen and Gentlemen that were the Grand Committee upon concluding the said Peace That in case of non-performing of the Articles thereof that is to say If all the particulars therein were not carried on according to their liking they were to continue the Association and Vnion of Confederate Catholicks and to do ALL Acts preservative thereunto In this place it seems to me requisite to let the Reader know what that Vnion and Association of the Confederate Catholicks was which they swear to continue which I shall instane in somce particulars out of their own Originals now remaining on Record In the first Roll they swear in these very words viz. I A. B. do promise protest and swear before God and his Saints and his Angels That I will during my life bear true Faith and Allegiance to my Soveraign Lord Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland and to his HEIRS and lawful Successors and that I will to my power during my life defend uphold and maintain all his and their IVST PREROGATIVES Estate and Rights the Power and Priviledges of Parliament of this Realm the Fundamental Laws of Ireland and the FREE EXERCISE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICK FAITH AND RELIGION THROUGHOUT THIS LAND and the Lives just Liberties Possessions Estate and Right of all those that have taken or shall take this Oath and perform the Contents thereof and that I will OBEY and RATIFIE all the ORDERS and the DECREES MADE and TO BE MADE by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom concerning the said publick Cause And that I will not SEEK or RECEIVE directly or indirectly ANY PARDON or protection for any Act DONE or TO BE DONE touching the General Cause without the consent of the Major Part of the said Council and that I will not directly or indirectly do any Act or Acts that shall prejudice the said Cause but will to the hazard of my life and estate assist prosecute and MAINTAIN the same Moreover I do further swear That I will not accept of or submit unto ANY PEACE made or to be made with the said Confederate Catholicks without consent and approbation of the General Assembly of the said Confederate Catholicks and for the preservation and strengthning of the Association and Vnion of the Kingdom that upon any peace or accommodation to be made or concluded with the said Confederate Catholicks as aforesaid I will to the uttermost of my power insist upon and maintain the ensuing propositions until a peace as aforesaid be made and the matters to be agreed upon in the Articles of peace be ESTABLISHED and SECURED by PARLIAMENT So help me God and his holy Gospel In this their first Confederacie Oath they swear flat and known contradictions for they swear to bear true Faith and Allegiance to the King and with the same breath they swear they will obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by their supreme Council who had then actually cast off the Kings Authority and set up a Government in opposition to his Majesties It had sure been at least enough to swear to obey and ratifie all Orders and Decrees they had made without increasing that guilt by the high accession of swearing to obey and ratifie all to be made by the Supreme Council Herein they show what the POPE is to them in Spirituals their Supreme Council is in Temporals whom they obey with a blinde and implicite Faith They swear also to maintain the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom and in the same breath they swear to maintain the free exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion which is expresly against Law as it is that any should govern the Kingdom but by his Majesties Authority which they assumed and usurped in all the essentials of it nay not onely the matter of the Oath is against those Laws they swear to maintain but even the taking or imposing of any Oath which by Law is not warranted is a violation of the Laws But they are so far from owning these their Crimes that they swear they will not seek or receive directly or indirectly any pardon or protection for any thing done or to be done touch-this General Cause c. They can be content to seek and receive a Pardon from the POPE for sins to come but they swear they neither will seek or receive directly or indirectly
given the said Agents for getting the Lord Deputy or other chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom to be A ROMAN CATHOLICK In this the Reader may evidently find though when the Irish Papists make Addresses to the Lord of Ormond they are so discreet as to name Him for the person before whom the Parliament shall be holden yet when they may write what he is not to see they absolutely leave Him out and desire that the Parliament may be holden before a chief Governour that is a Roman Catholick with this addition viz. AND IN NO SORT TO RECEDE FROM THIS INSTRUCTION The second Particular which the said Congregation of the Clergy desire may be added to the Instructions to be given to their Agents then designed to be sent to the Queen and Prince then in France and which they are to INSIST UPON and IN NO SORT to recede from is express'd in these very words viz. 2 d. Instruction That the particular Articles or Concessions to be obtained for Religion may be published together with the Temporal Articles and that until both be published together THE PEACE MAY NOT OBLIGE NOR BE ACCEPTED BY THE CONFEDERATE ROMAN CATHOLICKS And that the QUEEN NOR PRINCE come not to this Kingdom till the Peace be published as aforesaid and accepted by the Nation By this it undoubtedly appears that no peace would be accepted of by the Irish Papists but such a one as even by the Royal Assent was to give them the whole Kingdom in Fact and Power if not in name Nor was the QUEEN and PRINCE his now Majesty so much as to come into Ireland till Ireland was in effect given away to the Crown Although this Paper intituled The sense of the Congregation of the Clergy have many Particulars as full of Disloyalty and Rebellion as those I have already mentioned yet I shall set down no more but the seventh Paragraph which they desire may be past into an Instruction which follows in these words viz. That if a PROTECTOR must be chosen for the Nation it may be his HOLINESS And that the Nation may not by choosing Spain or France for Protector be necessitated to make the other of them not chosen their Enemy abroad and thereby rend the Kingdom at home into division This in my opinion evinceth that as bad as the Papist Clergy in Ireland were yet the Original design of choosing a PROTECTOR was the Act of the LAY PAPISTS but indeed when a forraign Protector was resolved upon the Popish Clergy as became true Sons of the Romish Church were singly for the Popes having the Protectorship and fortifie that their desire with a very material and politick consideration if not threatning viz. That unless it were so it might rend the Kingdom into Divisions But I desire the Reader woul observe that rending of the Kingdom would not have proceeded from the casting off of his Majesties Authority but from the PAPAL FRENCH AND SPANISH FACTIONS who would have contended for the Soveraignty of this Kingdom But not so much as the least word mentioned that the Kingdom would have been rent by the resistance of any party in his Majesties behalf Though three forraign Powers would have found Friends to have countenanced their respective designes yet his Majesties lawful Right could not find any numerous Assertors of it Having thus done with the Paper intituled The sense of the Congregation I shall now proceed to acquaint the Reader with the residue of those Instructions which will let him plainly see how they projected that Parliament should be constituted which was to establish and secure the Articles of Peace insisted on One of which I have already particularized and now shall proceed to the rest The 24th Instruction is set down in these words viz. You are to be Suitors to his Majesty that all Indictments Out-Lawries Attainders and other Acts made published or done in the Courts of Dublin or elsewhere in this Kingdom or the Kingdom of England in prejudice of the said Catholicks or any of them since the seventh day of August 1641. shall be before he sitting of the Parliament here taken off the file and vacated and so declared by his Majesties publick Proclamation This is a good preparation for composing a fit Parliament for the ends of the Confederate Catholicks Before they did any thing for the King they press the King would by a Proclamation vacat the legal proceedings of the Court of Justice They desire to be put in a capacity to act new crimes by a forgiveness of the old The 11th Instruction runs in these words viz. You are to be humble Suitors to his Majesty That such as are already employed or appoynted or that shall now be appoynted to execute the Office of Sheriff by our party in the several Counties of the Kingdom shall stand and the said Offices to be conferred upon them by Letters Patents Though the Sheriffs of Ireland are pricked by the chief Governour or Governours of this Kingdom yet they will themselves name those Sheriffs that thereby they might be in a condition to be sure the respective Knights of the Shires for their intended Parliament should be Roman Catholick Confederacie-Men The close of the 26 Instruction is in these words You are to procure that no new Corporations shall send Burgesses to Parliament without the allowance of Parliament first had The 13th Instruction runs in these words viz. You are desire that such Corporations as anciently sent Burgesses to the Parliament be now admitted notwithstanding that by the power of some late Governours they were of later days debar'd of this priviledge By these three Instructions the Reader may see how well they would have constituted the House of Commons for the Catholick Confederacie first Sheriffs who are to be Judges of the Elections of the Knights of the Shires they would nominate and have his Majesty commissionate by Letters Patents Secondly some old Burroughs who had scarce an Inhabitant in them and who therefore for several preceding Parliaments had no Writs sent unto them to make Elections they desire now may send Burgesses to their intended Parliament And Burroughs who are by the Kings Charter to send Burgesses to Parliament and who are numerously planted with Protestants were to send none to serve for them in Parliament Thus far the Confederates had well provided for themselves in the constitution of the House of Commons now I shall let the Reader see that their care was no less in the constitution of the House of Lords For the 23 Instruction is in these words viz. That no Lord not estated in this Kingdom or estated in this Kingdom and not resident here shall have vote in the said Parliament of this Realm by PROXY or OTHERWISE The King is the Fountain of Honour but here the Confederate Catholicks will stop the Stream of it as they think sit voting by Proxy which is the undoubted Right of the Peers they will not admit and those Peers who by the Rebellion of
it in Ireland had been LOST but also this Kingdom had been LOST to the Crown of England for the said Irish Papists were to have held what they then rebelliously possest till their Articles of Peace had been establish'd and secured by Parliament and if they could have had a Parliament such as they designed all the Kingdom would in effect have been theirs by Authority of Parliament so that either way they had secured themselves as much as their CONFEDERATED WISDOMS could project But since the most essential parts of the Articles of Peace were to be finally obliging but as they were to be confirm'd by Act of Parliament in the next Parliament which should be assembled after the perfecting the said Articles let P. W. remember this present Parliament is the first that has been call'd together in Ireland since the conclusion of the Peace and let him see in the GREAT BILL OF SETTLEMENT how far the Parliament thinks fit to put their sanction to those Articles If P. W. should say This is not such a Parliament as his Countrymen intended at and before the making of those Articles I shall joyn with him in his saying thereof and shall onely add That GOD AND HIS SACRED MAJESTY be praised it is not such a Parliament I must desire the Readers excuse for these digressionâ— which I thought necessary that he might the better know even out of the Originals of the Papers of the Irish Papists what kinde of Parliament that was by which they had designed to establish and secure the Articles of their Peace as also what that Association and Vnion of the Confederate Roman Catholicks is which their Grand Committee swore to continue and to return unto upon the concluding of the Peace in 1648. in case they themselves judged the Articles thereof at any time unobserved unto them I wish the said Irish Papists think not themselves TO THIS DAY bound by it nay I wish they do not think it INDISSOLVEABLE This horrid Oath of the Grand Committee before-mentioned is now so undeniable though it was then manag'd in the dark and carried on with all possible secreeie that it was by all their Titular Bishops in their published Excommunications against the Lord Lieutenant interpreted and insisted on as a most CONSCIENTIOVS engagement to invite all their Nation to a disobedience of his Majesties Authority whereby they have not onely argued themselves guilty of the greatest unworthiness and treachery men could possibly be faulty in they have not onely forfeited all that Grace and Favour which could be intended them by that Peace and invalidated all the Articles of it but they have likewise continu'd to themselves the guilt of their Rebellion and Confederacie to this present DAY and lie obnoxious to the utmost penalty of the Law for the same unless his Majesties Mercy be greater then their Crimes and consequently P. W's causeless curses and threatnings are not to be feared Those Threatnings respect MEN The Irish Papists The Judicious Protestants Those Threatnings respect GOD. First P. W. tells us that the hearts of the Irish Papists would by such proceedings be estranged from his Majesty The sense whereof is that the Irish will follow the King for nought but the LOAVES nay it had been happy for Ireland if the very Loaves themselves would have prevented their hearts from being estranged but 't is morally impossible while such a National and Religional distinction continues The experience of the last Rebellion if no other proof thereof had been evinceth the estrangedness of the Irish Papists to be such that the Interest in them of the greatest Nobleman in Ireland when for the Crown is not so considerable as a popish priests against it Wherefore the estrangedness P. W. mentions must still be expected but with this difference That the BEAST if pamper'd will Kick if kept low OBEY Secondly P. W. fore-tells that the Iudicious Protestants will on such proceedings be perpeturlly jealous notwithstanding any Declaration from Breda or Acts from Westminster Though P. W. may be a true Seer of the estranged hearts of the Irish papists yet I dare charge him to be a false Prophet concerning judicious protestants for though they duly value his Majesties Declarations and Acts of Grace as signal Expresses of his Goodness yet their confidence rests on the inward principle in his Majesties Brest whereto without such Expresses or Articling or capitulating for such as the Irish papists did they freely submitted and are more confirm'd by their late experience to continue in that duty But if in P. W's judgement the ungrounded apprehension of any violation or breach of promise may estrange the hearts of the Irish papists from his Majesty whom they are bound in conscience to love honour and obey notwithstanding miscarriages in Government and if the like apprehensions may cause jealousies in judicious protestants notwithstanding Declarations and Acts of Parliament let it not seem strange or hard at least to P. W. and his Countrymen if a continued Series of Covenant-Breaches Rapines Murthers Massacres Crueltys Perfidies Treasons and Rebellions exercised by the Irish papists against the Crown and protestant Religion raise jealousies in the hearts of all judicious Protestants Or if his Majesty be pleas'd on these accompts in his great Iustice Wisdom and Goodnsss to restrain them from further ruining others first and then themselves The Crown hath often lost by Credulity what it hath got by Valour it hath lost by pretence of Peace what it had gain'd in open War The Kings interest in France was thus lost the GOD of peace prevent the like in Ireland The consequence threatned in respect of God are dreadful judgements such as P. W. confesseth to have bin wonderfully inflicted on the Irish Nation for their breach of the peace in 1646. and such as were inflicted on Sauls house for his breach with the Gibeonites I see the best Wits have not always the best Memories else P. W. would have remembred the breach made by his Nation in 1641. and since 1648. as well as in 1646. for those doubtless were as criminal as this but possibly he thinks it was more sin for his Country-men to violate what they oblig'd themselves to as a FREE STATE then what they were oblig'd to do as SUBJECTS and therefore thinks their sins in 1646. were greater then in 1641. But if all were pardoned by the peace made in 1648. why does he remember the Judgements for the breaches in 1646 if he thinks all were not why does he not remember the breaches made in 1641. and at least attribute some of those Judgements to that breach But I had almost forgot what perhaps P. W. may plead in answer to my Objection and that is no less then the POPE's BULL of indulgence and pardon published in Latin in Ireland and thus carefully for so much of it as follows translated into English URBANUS OCTAVUS Ad futuram rei memoriam Having taken into our serious consideration the great Zeal of the