Letters under his privie Signet for the passing and securing of the estates of his subjects here by Letters Patents under the great Seal and Letters Patents accordingly were thereof passed fines payed old rents increased and new rents reserved to the Crown And the said late King was further graciously pleased at severall times to send divers honorable persons of integrity knowledge and experience to examine the grievances of this kingdom and to settle and establish a course for redresse thereof And whereas your Majesty was graciously pleased in the fourth yeare of your raign to vouchsafe a favourable hearing to the grievances presented unto you by agents from this kingdom and thereupon did grant many graces and favours unto your subjects thereof for security of their estates and redresses or remove off those heavy pressures under which they have long groaned which acts of Iustice and grace extended to this people by your Majesty and your said Royall Father did afford them great content yet such was and is yet the immortall hatred of some of the said Ministers of Sate and especially of the said Sir William Parsons the said impeached Iudges and their adherents to any welfare and happinesse of this Nation and their ambition to make themselves still greater and richer by the totall ruine and extirpation of this people that under pretence of your Majesties service the publike faith involved in those grants was violated and the grace and goodnesse intended by two glorious Kings successively to a faithfull people made unprofitable 4 The illegall arbitrary and unlawfull proceedings of the said Sir William-Parsons and of the said impeached Iudges and their adherents and instruments in the Court of Wards and the many willfull erroneous decrees and Iudgements of that Court by which the heires of Catholick Noblemen and other Catholicks were most cruelly and tyranically dealt withall destroyed in their estates and bred in dissolution and ignorance their Parents debts unsatisfied their Sisters and younger brothers left wholy unprovided for the Ancient and appearing Tenures of Mesne Lords unregarded estates valued in Law and made for valuable considerations avoyded against Law and the whole Land filled up with the frequent swarmes of Escheators Feodaries Pursevants and others by authority of that Court. 5 The said Catholicks notwithstanding the heavy pressures before mentioned and other grievances in part represented to your Majesty by the late Committees of both houses of Parliament of this kingdom whereunto they humbly desire that relation be had and redresse obtayned therein did readily and without reluctation or repyning contribute to all the Subsidies Loanes and other extraordinary grants made to your Majesty in this kingdom since the begining of your Raign amounting unto well neer on Million of pounds over and above your Majesties Revenue both certain and casuall And although the said Catholicks were in Parliament and otherwise the most forward in granting the said sums and did bear nine parts of ten in the payments thereof yet such was the power of their adversaries and the advantage they gained by the opportunity of their continuall addresses to your Majesty to increase their reputation in getting in of those Moneys and their authority in the distribution thereof to your Majesties great disservice that they assumed to themselves to be procurers thereof and represented the said Catholicks as obstinate and refractary 6 The Army raised for your Majesties service here at the great charge of the kingdom was disbanded by the pressing importunity of the malignant party in England not giving way that your Majesty should take advice therein with the Parliament here alleadging the said Army was Popish and therefore not to be trusted And although the world could witnesse the unwarrantable and unexempled invasion made by the malignant party of the Parliament in England upon your Majesties Honour Rights Prerogatives and principall Flower of your Crown And that the said Sir William Parsons Sir Adam Loftus Knight your Majesties Vice-Treasurer of this kingdom and other their adherents did declare that an Army of ten Thousand Scots was to arrive in this kingdom to force the said Catholicks to change their Religion And that Ireland could never doe well without a Rebellion to the end the remain of the Natives thereof might be extirpated and wagers were laid at generall Assizes and publike meetings by some of them then and now imployed in places of great profit and trust in this kingdom that within one year no Catholick should be left in Ireland that they saw the ancient and unquestionable priviledges of the Parliament of Ireland unjustly and against Law incroached upon by the orders Acts and proceedings of both houses of Parliament in England in sending for and questioning to and in that Parliament the Members of the Parliament of this kingdom sitting the Parliament here And that by speeches and orders Printed by the authority of both houses in England it was declared that Ireland was bound by the Statutes made in England if named which is contrary to known truth and the Laws here setled for four hundred yeares and upwards And that the said Catholicks were throughly informed of the protestation made by both houses of Parliament of England against Catholicks and their intentions to traduce Laws for the extirpation of Catholick Religion in the three kingdoms and that they had certain notice of the cruell and bloudy execution of priests there only for being priests and that your Majesties mercy and power could not prevail with them to save the life of one condemned priest and that the Catholicks of England being of their own flesh and bloud must suffer or depart the Land and consequently others not of so neer a relation to them if bound by their Statutes and within their power These motives although very strong and powerfull to produce apprehensions and feares in the said Catholicks did not prevail with them to take defensive Armes much lesse offensive they still expecting that your Majesty in your high wisdom might be able in a short time to apply seasonable cures apt remedies unto those evils and innovations 7 That the Committees of the Lords and Commons of this Kingdome having attended your Majesty for the space of nine Moneths your Majesty was graciously pleased notwithstanding your then weighty and urgent affaires in England and Scotland to receive and very often with great patience to heare their grievances and many debates thereof at large during which debates the said Lords-Iustices and some of your privy Counsell of this Kingdom and their adherents by their malicious and untrue informations conveyed to some Ministers of state in England who since are declared of the malignant party and by the continuall solicitation of others of the said privy Counsell gone to England of purpose to crosse and give impediment unto the justice and grace your Majesty was inclined to afford to your subjects of this Realm did as much as in them lay hinder the obtaining of any redresse for the said grievances and
be adjudged and put in possession without any Office or Inquisition to be had 18. That your Majesties protestant Subjects may be restbred to the quiet possession of all their Castles Houses Mannors Lands Tenements and Hereditaments and Leases and to the quiet possession of the rents thereof as they had the same before and at the time of the breaking forth of this rebellion and from whence without due processe and judgement of Law they have since then been put or kept cut and may be answered of and for all the meane profits of the same in the interim and for all the time untill they shall be so restored 19. That your Majesties said protestant subjects may also be restored to all their Moneys Plate Jewels Houshouldstuffe Goods and Chattels whatsoever which without due processe or judgement in Law have by the said Confederates been taken or detained from them since the contriving of the said rebellion which may be gained in kind or the full value thereof if the same may not be had in kind and the like restitution to be made for all such things which during the said time have been delivered any person or persons of the said Confederates in trust to be kept or preserved but are by colour thereof still withholden 20. That the establishment and maintenance of a competent Protestant Army and sufficient Protestant souldiers and forces for the time to come be speedily taken into your Majesties prudent just and gracious consideration and such a course laid down and continued according to the tules of good government that your Majesties rights and Laws the Protestant religion and peace of that Kingdome be no more endangered by the like rebellions in time to come 21. That whereas it appeareth in print that the said Confederates amongst other things ayme at the repeale of Poynings Law thereby to open an easie and ready way for the passing of acts of Parliament in Ireland without having them first well confidered of in England which may produce many dangerous consequences both to that Kingdome and to your Majesties other Dominions your Majesty would be pleased to recent and reject all propositions tending to introduce so great a diminution of your Royall and necessary power for the confirmation of your Royall estate and protection of your good protestant Subjects both there and elsewhere 22. That your Majesty out of your grace and favour to your Protestant subjects of Ireland would be pleased to consider effectually of assuring them that you will not give order for or allow of the transmitting into Ireland any act of generall Oblivion release or discharge of Actions or Suits whereby your Majesties said Protestant Subjects there may be barred or deprived of their legall remedies which by your Majesties Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome they may have against the said Confederates or any of them or any of their party for or in respect of any wrongs done unto them or any of their ancestors or predecessors in or concerning their lives liberties persons lands goods or estates since the contriving or breaking forth of the said rebellion 23. That some fit course may be considered of to prevent the filling or overlaying of the Commons house of Parliament in Ireland with popish Recusants being ill affected members and that provision be duely made that none shall vote or sit therein but such as shall first take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance 24. That the proofes and manifestations of the truth of the severall matters contained in the Petition of your Majesties Protestant subjects of Ireland lately presented to your Majesty may be duely examined discussed and in that respect the finall conclusion of things respited for a convenient time their Agents being ready to attend with their proofes in that behalfe as your Majesty shall appoint Which Remonstrance Answer and Propositions His Majesty received from the said Agents the 27 of Aprill 1644. and the same delivered to Master Secretary Nicholas and then the said Agents desired him to move his Majesty that nothing might be concluded with the Irish Agents untill the said protestant Agents were fully heard and that they might have a Copy of the Propositions of the Irish The next day after Master Secretary Nicholas told them that his Majesty had referred the protestants petition their answer to the rebells Remonstrance and their propositions to the Committee for Irish affaires The 29th of April the protestant Agents were told by one of the Committee for the Irish affaires at Oxford that such of the Committee who were at the reading of the Answer to the Rebells Remonstrance and the Propositions of the protestant Agent said That those Propositions were drawne by the close Committee of London and that they wondered that His Majesty would receive so mutinous a Petition The same day the Protestant Agents being informed by divers persons of quality that the rebells Agents were upon dispatch they waited on the Lord Cottington chiefe of the Committee and desired his Lordship to be a meanes that they might have a Copy of the Rebells Propositions to His Majesty his Lordship seemed a stranger to the businesse and said he knew not any Propositions the Rebells had made and said further that he conceived they meant the Irish Remonstance whereunto they answered that the same was long since printed and that they were not strangers thereunto To which his Lordship replyed that if any such Propositions were made it were fit the same should be made knowne unto them but that he knew of none such Notwithstanding the said Lord Cottington was present at the Committee appointed by His Majesty for Irish affaires the 19 of April when the said Propositions from the Rebells of Ireland were read and by his Lordship and the rest on inviolable secrecy delivered unto Sir William Stewart and Sir Gerard Lowther Sir Philip Percivall and Mr. Justice Donuelland who were sent for out of Ireland and appointed by His Majesty to advise with him upon the Treaty and who received command from their Lordships not to communicate the said Propositions to any body which Injunction of secrecy was a great prejudice to the Protestant cause that those persons being persons of ability and integrity should be restrained from a free communication of all occurrences concerning that affaire with the said Protestant Agents and both they and the Agents were thereby prevented of satisfying severall persons that on false grounds and misinformation of the Rebells and their party who tooke liberty to discourse of the reasonablenesse of the Rebells desires and of the motives inducing the same were deluded with an opinion of the moderatnesse of the Rebells propositions and other their proceedings The same day the Protestant Agents being much troubled with the said Lord Cottingtons answer repaired unto Sir William Stewart Sir Gerard Lowther Sir Philip Percivall and Justice Donuellan and unto Sir George Radcliffe and Sir William Sambach who were added to them for that affaire and acquainted them that they were attending
high and unreasonable in their propositions they must expect nothing but War To which the Agents answered that they were ill furnished for a War but had rather undergoe the hazard of a War then consent to a dishonorable and destructive peace and they further answered that they should betray the trust reposed in them by the Protestants of Ireland if they did admit of any further alterations of the said propositions then as is hereafter mentioned which the said Agents were resolved upon no terms to doe Then Sir George Radcliffe said that he was sure that if the said Agents would fall three parts of foure of the said Propositions that the fourth part would not be consented unto And afterwards Sir George Radclieffe seeing he could no way further prevaile with the said Agents to alter their propositions told them that they were sent over by the Protestants of Ireland to preserve them ☞ and unlesse the said Agents consented to a peace His Majesty being in no condition to send them any reliefe the Irish upon their Agents returne home would destroy the remnant of the Protestants of Ireland and therfore desired the said Agents to consider of some way to secure them To which it was answered by the Protestant Agents that there were five more he yet to come to the end of the Cessation within which time meanes might be found for their reliefe and that it were better that the Protestants should quit Ireland for a time then consent to a destructive peace Then Sir George asked how they could get the Protestants from thence To which it was answered by one of them that His Majesty might make stay of the Irish Agents in England untill the protestants were brought out of Ireland Sir George Radcliff replied that be had rather advise the King to lose that Kingdom then that he should violate his word with the Irish Agents who were come to Treate with His Majesty and had his Majesties promise for their safe returne And the said Sir George said further ☞ that if the Irish had not good conditions it was not likely that they would forbeare Armes untill the end of the time limited by the Articles of Cessation The next day the Protestant Agents delivered the aforesaid propositions unto Secretary Nicholas to be presented to his Majesty or to the Lords of the Committee which he thought fittest which propositions follow in haec verba The humble Propositions of Your Majesties Protestant Agents of Ireland in pursuance of the humble Petition of Your Majesties Protestant subjects aswell Commanders of Your Majesties Army there as others presented to Your Majesty the 18. day of April 1644. and answered by Your Majesty the 25 of the same 1. WE most humbly desire the establishment of the true Protestant Religion in Ireland according to the Lawes and Statutes in the said Kingdome now in force 2. That popery and popish recusants may be suppressed according to the lawes and statutes established in Ireland 3. That the Parliament now sitting in Ireland may be continued for the better setlement of that Kingdome for if that Parliament should be dissolved there would be few or no protestant freeholders found in that Kingdome they being either killed or banished by this rebellion to elect or chuse any of Your Majesties protestant subjects to sit in Parliament hereafter which by consequence may be destructive to Your Majesties rights and prerogatives and protestant subjects in their lives liberties and fortunes 4. That all such lawyers who refuse to take the Oathes of supremacy and alleageance may be suppressed and restrained from practise in that Kingdom the rather because the lawyers in England doe not here practise untill they take the Oath of supremacy And it hath beene found by wofull experience that the advice of the popish lawyers to the people of Ireland hath been a great cause of their continued disobedience 5. That there may be a present absolute suppression and dissolution of all the assumed arbitrary and tyrannicall power which the said confederate Roman Catholiques as they call themselves exercise over Your Majesties subjects both in causes Ecclesiasticall and Temporall 6. That all the Armet and Ammunition of the said confederates may be brought into Your Majesties hands when any conclusion shall be made 7. That Your Majesties protestant subjects ruined and destoyed by the said confederates may be repaired for their great losses out of the estates of the said confederates not formerly by any Act of Parliament in England otherwise disposed of in such manner and measure as Your Majesty in Your high Wisdome shall think fit whereby they may the better be enabled to reinhabit and defend the said Kingdome of Ireland 8. That the said confederates may rebuild the severall Plantation Houses and Castles destroyed by them in Ireland in as good state as they were at the breaking out of the rebellion which Your Majesties protestant subjects have beene bound by their severall patents to build and maintaine for Your Majesties service or otherwise that Your Majesty will discharge Your said protestant subjects of that Covenant or condition in their severall patents and that an Act be passed in this present Parliament to that purpose And whereas severall Castles and Houses were surrendered upon Quarter upon Articles under their hands with solemne Oathes or otherwise to preserve the said Castles and houses from being defaced or demolished That the said confederates who have so Articled with any of Your Majesties protestant subjects may rebuild the said Castles or Houses in as good state as they were at the time of surrendring up of the same upon Articles as aforesaid or such a considerable fine may be levied out of the Estates of the said confederates as may rebuild the said Houses as Your Majesty in your high Wisdome shall think fit 9. That the great arrears of rent due to Your Majesty out of the Estates of Your Majesties protestant subjects at and since Michaelmas 1641. may be paid unto Your Majesty by the said confederates who have either received the said Rents to the uses of he confederates or destroyed the same by disabling Your Majesties protestant subjects to pay the same and have also destroyed all or the most part of all other rents or meanes of support belonging to Your said protestant subjects or that Your said protestant subjects may be discharged of all such arrerages of rents to Your Majesty And that Your Majesty will be further graciously pleased to give an abatement of the great yearly rents payable from Your protestant subjects for some reasonable time as in Your Majesties high wisdome shall be thought fit for their encouragement and enablement to replant that Your Kingdome in respect the said lands for the most part depopulated by the said confederates will not be worth Your Majesties rents for a long time 10. That Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to take into Your Majesties hands so much of the confederates estates as are necessary to be planted
Councell board which they did and His Majesty being present told them That they were sent over by his Protestant subjects to move him in their behalfe and desired to know in what condition the Protestants were to defend themselves in case a peace should not be concluded which was answered by the Protestant Agents That they humbly conceived they were imployed first to make proofe of the effect of the protestants petition and disprove the scandalous aspersions which the Rebells had cast on His Majesties government and the protestants of Ireland The King said that needed not for to what purpose is it to prove the Sun shines this day when we all see it The Agents said they found not His Majesty satisfyed but that the five severall Counties called the English Pale were forced into Rebellion by his governours To which His Majesty answered That that was but an assertion of the Irish Then the King againe defired to know in what condition the protestants were in to defend themselves in case he should not make a peace with the Irish The said Agents desired some time to make an answer to that Question but His Maiesty answered That he thought they had come prepared to declare the whole condition of that Kingdome And further asked whether they would have Peace or no. To which it was answered by the Agents That peace was the thing they had been bred up in and that they were not against peace so it might stand with His Majesties honour and safety of his protestant subjects in their Religion Lives Liberties and Fortunes Then the Lord Digby told His Majesty That they desired Peace The Duke of Richmond and the Earle of Linsie replied it is true the Agents have expressed that they are not against Peace so that it may be with honour to His Majesty and safety to His Majesties Protestant Subjects of Ireland Then the King said he had rather they should have their Throates cut by Warre then that they should suffer by a Peace of His making And that hee would take a care that the Protestants of Ireland should be preserved His Majesty told the said Agents that they should have a Copy of the Propositions of the Irish and wished them to make an answer to them And the said Agents being wished to withdraw and being sent for in againe His Majesty told them That for the cleering of the matter he must tell them two things the first was That he could not relieve his Protestant subjects in Ireland either with Men Money Armes Ammunition or Victuals And secondly That he could not allow them to joyne with the new Scots or any others that had taken the Covenant with them And on the same day about one of the clocke the Protestant Agents received a copy of the Rebels high and destructive propositions from Secretary Nicholas who wisht them from His Majesty to put in their answers thereunto within two daies On which the Agents desired two daies longer which was granted And on the 13 of May 1644. at the Councell-board the King Prince and Duke of Yorke with many of the Lords there sitting the Protestant Agents presented unto His Majesty their answers to the Rebels propositions both which hereafter follow in haec verba The Propositions of the Roman Catholiques of Ireland humbly presented to His sacred Majestie in pursuance of their Remonstrance of grievances and to be annexed to the said Remonstrance Together with the humble Answer of the Agents for the Protestants of Ireland to the said Propositions made in pursuance of your Majesties directions of the ninth of May 1644. requiring the same 1. Proposition THat all acts made against the Professors of the Roman Catholique Faith whereby any restraint penalty mulct or incapacity may be laid upon any Roman Catholique within the Kingdome of Ireland may be repealed and the said Catholiques to be allowed the freedome of the Roman Catholiqus Religion Answer To the first We say that this hath been the pretence of almost all those who have entered into rebellion in the Kingdome of Ireland at any time since the Reformation of Religion there which was setled by Acts of Parliament above 80 yeeres since and hath wrought good effects ever since for the peace and welfare both of the Church and Kingdome there and of the Church and Kingdome of England and Protestant party throughout all Christendome and so hath been found wholsome and necessary by long experience And the repealing of those Laws will set up Popery againe both in jurisdiction profession and practice as it was before the Reformation and introduce amongst other inconveniences the Supremacy of Rome and take away or much endanger your Majesties supreame and just authority in causes Ecclesiasticall a diminution of honour and power not to be endured the said Acts extending as well to seditious sectaries as to popish recusants so as by the repeale thereof every man may seeme to be left to choose his owne Religion in that Kingdome which must needs beget great confusion and the abounding of the Roman Clergy there hath been one of the greatest occasions of this late rebellion Besides it is humbly desired that your Majesty will be pleased to take into your gracious consideration a clause in the Act of Parliament passed by your Majestis Royall assent in England in the seventeenth yeere of your Reigne touching punishment to be inflicted upon those that shall introduce the authority of the See of Rome in any case whatsoever 2. Proposition That your Majesty will be pleased to call a free Parliament in the said Kingdome to be held and continued as in the Remonstrance is expressed And the Statute of the tenth yeere of King H 7. called Poynings Act and all Acts explaining or enlarging the same be suspended during that Parliament for the speedy settlement of the present affaires and the repeale thereof to be there further considered of Answer Whereas they desire to have a free Parliament called reflecteth by secret and cunning implication upon your Majesties present Parliament in Ireland as if it were not a free Parliament we humbly beseech your Majesty to resent how dangerous it is to make such insinuation or intimation to your people of that Kingdome touching that Parliament wherein severall Acts of Parliament have already past the validity whereof may be endangered if the Parliament should not be approved as a free Parliament and it is a point of so high nature as we humbly conceive it not properly to be discussed but in Parliament and your Majesties said Parliament now sitting is a free Parliament in law holden before a person of honour and fortune in that Kingdome composed of good loyall and well affected subjects to your Majesty who doubtlesse will be ready to comply in all things that shall appeare to be pious and just for the good of the true Protestant religion and for your Majesties service and the good of that Church and State That if this present Parliament should be dissolved it would
not prevayling therein with your Majesty as they expected have by their Letters and instruments labored with many leading Members of the Parliament there to give stop and interruption thereunto and likewise transmitted unto your Majesty and some of the state of England sundry misconstructions and misrepresentations of the proceedings and actions of your Parliament of this your Kingdom and thereby endeavoured to possesse your Majesty of an evill opinion thereof and that the said Parliament had no power of Iudicature in Capitall causes which is an essentiall part of Parliament thereby ayming at the impunity of some of them and others who were then impeached of high Treason and at the destruction of this Parliament But the said Lords-Iustices and privy counsell observing that no art or practise of theirs could be powerfull to withdraw your Majesties grace and good intentions from this people and that the redresse granted of some principall grievances was to be passed as Acts in Parliament The said Lords Iustices and their adherents with the height of malice envying the good union long before setled and continued between the Members of the house of Commons and their good correspondency with the Lords left nothing unattempted which might raise discord and disunion in the said house and by some of themselves and some instruments of theirs in the said Commons house private meetings of great numbers of the said house were appointed of purpose to raise distinction of Nation and Religion by meanes whereof a faction was made there which tended much to the disquiet of the house and disturbance of your Majesties and the publicke service And after certaine knowledge that the said Committees were by the waterside in England with sundry important and beneficiall Bills and other graces to be passed as Acts in that Parliament of purpose to prevent the same the said faction by the practise of the said Lords-Iustices and some of the said privy Counsell and their adherents in tumultuous and disorderly manner on the seventh of August 1641. and on severall dayes before cryed for an adjournment of the house and being over-voted by the voyces of the more moderate part the said Lords-Iustices and their adherents told severall honorable Peeres that if they did not adjourne the Lords house on that day being Saturday that they would themselves prorogue or adjourne the Parliament on the next Monday following by meanes whereof and of great numbers of proxies of Noblemen not estated nor at any time resident in this Kingdom which is destructive to the liberty and freedome of Parliament here the Lords house was on the said seventh day of August adjourned and the house of Commons by occasion thereof and of the faction aforesaid adjourned soone after by which meanes those Bills and graces according your Majesties intention and the great expectation and the longing desires of your people could not then passe as Acts of Parliament Within a few dayes after this fatall and inforced adjournment the said Committees arrived at Dublin with their dispatch from your Majesty and presented the same to the said Lords-Iustices and Councell expressing a right sense of the said adjournment and besought their Lordships for the satisfaction of the people to require short heads of that part of the dispatch wherein your Majesty did appeare in the best manner unto your people might be suddainly conveyed unto all the parts of the Kingdom attested by the said Lords-Iustices to prevent dispayre or misunderstanding this was promised to be done and an instrument drawn and presented unto them for this purpose and yet as it seemes desiring rather to adde fuell to the fire of the subjects discontent than quench the same they did forbeare to give any notice thereof to the people 8 After this certain dangerous and pernicious petitions contrived by the advice and Counsell of the said Sir William Parsons Sir Adam Loftus Sir Iohn Clotworthy knights Arthur Hill Esquier and sundry others of the malignant party and signed by many thousands of the malignant party in the City of Dublin in the province of Vlster and in sundry other parts in this kingdom directed to the Commons house in England were at publick Assizes and other publick places ' made known and read to many persons of quality in this kingdom which petitions contayned matters destructive to the said Catholicks their Religion lives and estates and were the more to be feared by reason of the active power of the said Sir Iohn Clotworthy in the Commons house in England in opposition to your Majesty and his barbarous and inhumane expressions in that house against Catholick Religion and the professors thereof Soon after an order conceived in the Commons house of England that no man should bow unto the name of IESVS at the sacred sound whereof all knees should bend came to the knowledge of the said Catholicks and that the said malignant party did contrive and plot to extinguish their Religion and Nation hence it did arise that some of the said Catholicks begun to consider the deplorable and desperate condition they were in by a Statute Law here found among the records of this kingdom of the second yeare of the raigne of the late Queen Elizabeth but never executed in her time nor discovered till most of the Members of that Parliament were dead no Catholick of this kingdom could injoy his life estate or libertie if the said statute were executed whereunto no impediment remained but your Majesties prerogative and power which were indeavoured to be clipped or taken away as is before rehearsed then the plot of destruction by any Army out of Scotland and another of the malignant party in England must be executed the feares of those twofold destructions and their ardent desire to maintain that just prerogative which might encounter and remove it did necessitate some Catholicks in the North about the two and twentieth of October 1641. to take Armes in maintenance of their Religion your Maiesties rights and the preservation of life estate and liberty and immediately thereupon tooke a solemne Oath and sent severall Declarations to the Lords-Iustices and Counsell to that effect and humbly desired they might be heard in Parliament unto the determination whereof they were ready to submit themselves and their demands which Declarations being received were slighted by the said Lords-Iustices who with the swaying part of the said Counsell and by the advice of the said two impeached Iudges glad of any occasion to put off the Parliament which by the former adjournment was to meet soon after caused a Proclamation to be published on the three and twentieth of the said Moneth of October 1641. therein accusing all the Catholicks of Ireland of disloyalty and therby declaring that the Parliament was prorogued untill the six and twentieth of February following within a few dayes after the said three and twentieth day of October 1641. many Lords and other persons of rank and quality made their humble addresse to the Lords-Iustices and counsel made
truth First as to their vaunt of 1300 yeares unalterable profession of the now Romish Religion It is most apparent in the learned Treatises of the Lord Archbishop of Armagh and otherwaies that for above 600 yeares within the said time of 1300 yeares the Religion professed by the Clergie and people of Ireland was more agreeable to the true Protestant Religion now by law established and by publique Authoritie maintained in that Kingdom then unto that Roman Catholike Religion as they call it which they doe now professe the free exercise whereof throughout that Kingdome they by their confederacie and oath of Association are to maintain and doe now by force authorize And for most of the time after the said 600 years the Religion professed in that Kingdome was far otherwise then now it is professed and practifed by these Confederates and some of their Ancestors for the Councell of Trent which ended about the yeare 1563. brought Articles of Faith into the Church farre different from the former Catholique faith And this new Religion of Popery is the Romish Religion which they call Catholike and is now professed by them And this is the great Antiquity of these Romanists present profession which they fay they and their Ancestors have so long unalterably professed though that also in so large an extent is utterly untrue for besides what is declared in the Statute lawes in Ireland enacted in the Reigne of King Henry the 8. and Queene Elizabeth expressing the detestation of those Paliaments against the Popes usurped authority in that Kingdome his wresting of Gods holy word and Testament to his worldly and carnall affection and entangling and troubling the jurisdiction and Regall power and much unquieting the people making that unlawfull which by Gods Word is lawfull and many such like expressions in severall Statutes which shewes the genius of the people of Ireland at that time It is cleere that since the Reformation in the latter end of the Reigne of King Henry the 8 in all the time of King Edward the 6. and Queen Elizabeth the Natives of that Kingdome Ancestors to these Confederates howsoever perhaps in mind popishly affected according to the ignorance of those times did generally without scruple resort to the Protestant Ceurches in all places where any Protestant Clergie could reside untill about the 13. yeare of Queene Elizabeth that the Bull of Pius Quintus was sent into Ireland And then began some persons of note to stand at distance But after that they did also generally come to Church both in Townes and Country till about the 30 yeare of Queen Elizabeth that the Spaniards wracked upon that Coast dispersed themselves into the Townes and severall other parts and left generally many evill impressions which caused some more wilfulnesse in Recusancie yet after that most of the Natives of Ireland all the residue of Queen Elizabeths Reigne for then there were few new English and most of the Reigne of King James partly by faire inducements and partly by the weake impulsives of the Statute of 2. Eliz. did still for the most part till of late yeares come to Church which is all that Your Majesties Government and Your Laws there do enjoyn them generally unto not offering to enforce the Conscience with torture death or otherwise as the Romanists doe Neither were they so unalterable in their supposed Catholique profession but that of late yeares severall of them even of noted pregnancie in the Doctrinal part did for a Majoraltie in a City or to save a pension in some times or some other imployment in others forsake their Masse for that season to come to Church Sir Philonty O Neal makes it more plain in his Letters of triumph to his holy Confessor that his purpose was conquest and not defence of Religion his Majesties Prerogative or their Liberties there being none there that offered any offence to either of them and for Liberty in their profession they had little or no restraint Vid. the epistle of Paul Harris Priest to P. Vrban the 8. in his booke intituled Fratres sobrii estoie An 1634. It is as hard to find what numbers of Friars be in Dublin as to count how many frogs therewere in the 2d plague of Egypt for they had by the patience of the Governours their titular Archbishops Bishops Vicar generall and provinciall Consistories Ecclesiasticall Deanes Abbots Priors Moncks Nunnes Iesuites Priests and Friers without number all officers proper to that Hierarchy and free use of Masse aswell in Townes as Country they not so much as in truth doubting or fearing any violent cruelty of the English knowing their nature and disposition as they did so as feare of being massacred for their Catholique Religion was not their motive for taking Armes as they fraudulently pretend It is utterly untrue that ever since the Statute of second Elizabeth the Catholiques of that Kingdome were debarred from places of honour and trust in Church or Common wealth for after that Statute many Noblemen of the old English were made Councellours who were bred in the ignorance of those times though afterwards they came to Church And after that Statute tenne severall Iudges of that Birth and education possessed successively all the prime Places of all the Benches of the Law and likewise all the Inferior Iudges of those Benches were of the same birth and education though afterwards most of them came to Church and the officers in Courts of Iustice and otherwayes were exercised by men of like condition the Malignity of Popery being in those times not discerned to be so perillous as of later times the Spanish Armado in 88 Tyrones Rebellion the Powder Treason this present Insurrection and many other treacherous and mischievous machinations and plots have discovered it to be T is true that about the 29. yeare of the Reigne of Queen Elizabeth upon the death of Sir John Plunket Chiefe Iustice of the Kings Bench Sir Robert Gardner was sent out of England who was the first English Iudge sent into that Kingdome in many yeares before And after upon the death of some of the rest a little before the end of the Raigne of the same Queen three more were sent thither and so from thenceforth as the rest dyed others were sent thither And how the reformation of the Kingdome and Your Majesties services were advanced before the comming of those English Iudges the Stories and Records doe shew And for the Natives of that Kingdome such as would conforme and come to Church were freely admitted to be Counsellors Iudges and Officers as many of them were and yet are Besides for matter of trust many of the Lords and prime Gentry of the old English though reputed Catholiques were throughout that Queenes time made Commanders of men in her Army and very many made chiefe Commanders in severall Counties and of the forces in those Countries All which time that Kingdome was kept almost in continuall garboyle and as well then as ever since her decease the Noblemen
from the Lords Justices Notification to be given to the Countrey of your Majesties goodnesse and bounty intended and shewed to the people which might have tended to their great satisfaction Whereas the Lords Justices never denyed them any such thing But De facto did forthwith write to all the Ports in the Kingdome with briefes of those graces concerning matters of Customes which that season most required Commanding the Officers punctually to obey those his Majesties directions They also published Proclamations for the sending away of Wooll and what Customes was to be paid for the same And sent severall Letters to all the Ports of the Kingdome to publish the same And sent warrants for free entries of all Tobacco brought in or to be brought in at all the Ports and what Custome to be paid They gave order for drawing a Bill for repeale of the preamble of the Act of Subsidies They also desired Sir Iames Montgomerie and Sir William Cole two of the Committee then returned if they could overtake the Assises in the Counties of Vlster to give publicke notice to all the undertakers what your Majestie had graciously granted and intended to them which they undertook to doe They had formerly sent over the Bill for the generall pardon which was all that for that short time could be done specially the Terme and the next Session being so neere aswell for passing the Acts then newly come over as upon deliberate consultation in the meane time to prepare for an orderly execution and publication of the rest of those graces Most of the rest of the graces being to be executed there in Dublin and in the Courts The Committee also and the few others of the Members of the House remaining then in Dublin being very urgent to goe to their houses which they suddenly did But it appeared soone after that those Remonstrants and their party had other intentions and determined to be their owne carvers aswell of your Majesties Rents and Subsidies then in the Collectors hands as of all the goods substance and estates of your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects which intenon they within a few dayes after fully put in practise As to the prodigious tale mentioned in the eight Article of dangerous 8. Article and pernitious Petitions to the Parliament in England pretended to be contrived by the foure persons named in this Article and signed by many thousands of a malignant party which Petitions they say were made knowne at Assizes and other publicke places containing as they pretend matters destructive to the Catholiques their Religion lives and estates This allegation exceeds all the rest in malice and untruth and certainly if ever there were such a Petition as there was not it is wonderfull being signed as they say it was by many thousands that to this houre no Copy thereof can be shewed by any But these Remonstrants care not what detractions how untrue and improbable soever they print or publish against those they hate for the truth is those foure persons never contrived or advised joyntly or severally and such Petitions or indeed any Petitions to that Parliament But to open this Trojane Hourse the truth is That about the thirteenth of August 1641. The Lords Justices and Counsell having intelligence out of the County of Tyrone that a Petition to the Parliament of England framed as it after appeared by some Protestants in Dublin was carried up and downe in those parts to gather hands their Lordship 's not knowing what it was and doubting it might be some such thing that might breed distemper in those Inhabitants Did by their Letter dated the said thirteenth of the same August pray and require the Lord Bishop of Clogher to take that Petition and carry it to the Justices of Assize then in the Countrey and to wish them to proceed thereupon as they should thinke fit according to law And after the Assizes ended to send it up to the Lords Justices and Counsell All which was done and the Petition then sent up and ever since remaines in the hands of the Clerkes of the Counsell Now lately in the yeare 1643. it was discovered to the Commissioners for Ecclesiasticicall causes That one Partington of Dublin had a Petition framed in the name of severall Inhabitants in and about the Citie of Dublin and some few parishes within the Diocesse of Laughlyn whereupon he being cited and examined produced the draught of that Petition which upon view appeared to be the same in substance with that which remaineth in the Clearke of the Counsells hands which Petition contained no matter destructive to the said Catholiques their Religion lives or estates but doth rather lay accusations of some disorders and remissnes in the Protestant Clergie as appeares by the Copie of the said Petition which followeth in these words To the Honourable the Knights Citizens and Burgesses of the Commons House of Parliament assembled in England The humble Petition of severall the Protestants inhabiting and now residing in and about the City of Dublin and in some few Parishes within the Diocesse of Laughlin and Fearnes in the Realme of Ireland In all humblenesse sheweth THat whereas the Protestant Religion was generally received in the said Realme of Ireland in the beginning of the raigne of our late Soveraigne Lady Queene Elizabeth of famous memorie as by severall good Lawes and Statutes then made and established by Parliament for restoring the Crowne to the Antient Iurisdiction over the estate Ecclesiasticall and Spirituall for abolishing all Forraigne power and authoritie out of the said Realme and for uniformity of Prayer and administration of the Sacraments within the said Kingdome may appeare By which Lawes all Ecclesiasticall persons and Officers Iudges Iustices Mayors and temporall Officers are enjoyned to take the Oath of Supremacie and all persons mhatsoever required on Sundayes and Holidayes to repaire to Church upon the severall paynes therein limited and expressed And whereas ever since the making of the said Statutes it hath beene the care of our dread Soveraigne the constant Defender of the Faith and his most noble Predecessors tohave his people governed according to those and other the laudable Lawes of England and Ireland And whereas both the Protestants Clergie and Laitie have heretofore contributed to his Majesties occasions towards the free Gifts of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds and likewise by an other gift of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds more during the Government of the Lord Viscount Fauckland as largely as the Papists and after in or about the next ensuing Government of Lords Iustices to the Gift of forty thousand ounds and the Protestant Laytie likewise contributed to the six intire Subsidies in the tenth yeare of his Majesties reigne which Subsidies in the Collection amounted to two hundred and fiftie thousand pounds besides the eight intire Subsidies of foure shillings in the pound granted to his Majestie the same yeare by the Protestant Clergie In all which payments as in all other publike charges
the Popish Clergie contribute nothing notwithstanding that they have their duties from all the people duly payd them with great summes of moneys left unto them by the death of such as are Papists and by their doctrines of penance and Purgatorie and such like grow farre richer then the Protestant Clergie Yet so it is may it please your honours That after the payment of the said summes of One hundred and fifty thousand pounds and one hundred and twenty thousand pounds the popish partie only was advanced by stay of Execution of the aforesaid Lawes contrary to his Majesties pious intention as your supplicants verily beleeve And whereas in the Government of the said Lords Iustices when the Iudges of Assize in their severall Circuits twice had put the said Lawes in execution against the Papists and thereby brought multitudes to Church who were glad of that occasion to bee freed from the intollerable exactions of the popish Clergie even then about the time of payment of the said forty thousand pounds the said proceedings against the Papists were againe stopped since which time during the Government of the late Lord Lievtenant notwithstanding the said Subsidies both of the Clergie and Laitie Poperie hath beene countenanced farre more then the Protestant Religion they having libertie in the said Citie and in all other parts of the Kingdome to Marry Burie Baptize Communicate after their owne wayes professe their orders we are their severall habits meet in great numbers exercise all manner of Forraigne jurisdiction and Superstitious Ceremonies wthout giving any accompt for the same they having divers Fryaries and Masse-houses that were formerly suppressed by precedent Governours restored to the pretended owners which with other publike Masse-houses newly erected and furnished with Images and Altars are imloyed in the exercise of popish Religion both in the Citie and Countrey And likewise by their Titulary Bishops Dignitaries and numbers of parish priests farr exceeding the number of the Protestant Clergie with many thousands of Iesuites and Fryers the Emiscaries of Rome that swarme through all parts of the Citie and Kingdome especially since the late Proclamation of England against the Papists they have not only impoverished the Kingdome but amongst other their pernicious Doctrines that there is no salvation but in Communion with the Church of Rome and subjection to the Bishop of Rome have so seduced the people and insnared their consciences That no Papist that is made Iustice of Peace Mayor Sheriffe or other Officer will take the Oath of Supremacie And yet they are in all parts of the Kingdome admitted to the said Offices without any such Oath administred unto them and thereby the principall meanes provided for the execution of the said Lawes is taken away And your Supplicants likewise shew that the flourishing estate of the true Protestant Religion hath not beene ecclipsed by the popish Clergie only but by reason that in most parts of the said Kingdome there is many Parishes that have no Minister to read Service others that have no Preaching Minister others that have such Preachers as are very scandalous in their lives and many of the Clergie that suffer their Wives and Children to goe to Masse Besides in most places there is no sufficient maintenance for the Ministrie Yea and some of the Protestant Clergie advance to places of Dignitie in the Church instead of opposing Popery have brought divers popish superstitions into the Protestant Churches Turning Communion Tables into Altars bowing before them worshipping towards the East exhorting the people to confesse their sinnes to a Priest as a matter necessary to salvation with other such like Innovations for which there is no low nor Connon and alsouncharitably if not cruelly prosecuted divers of the Protestants both Clergy and Laity in the high Commission and other Ecclesiasticall Courts and Iudicatures for pretended non-conformity thereby causing some religious Ministers and people to flye the Kingdome others to take the Oath Ex officio against Law and equitie committed others to close prison who refused put downe Lectures discouraged some that kept them or that preached on Sundayes in the Afternoone So that betwixt the Popish faction and those of the Protestant Clergie ill affected as aforesaid being both incouraged under the late Government many Protestants have beene seduced some to popery others to superstitious practices and many others discouraged and full of feares of a change in Religion and not a few unstable in Religion become Newters or Atheists while the Papists thoronout the said Citie and Kingdome have and still doe not in corners only but publikely flocke to and from Masse as ordinarily openly securely and in as great yea greater numbers in some places by fourty to one then others goe to and from the Protestant Churches to the great dishonour of Almightie GOD the derogation of his Majesties Lawes and Authoritie the danger of those poore soules that are either seduced to or hardned in Idolatrie whereby it may appeare that the Papists in all things have bad that freedome for the time past that the Protestants could not obtaine And for the future the Protestants have just cause of feares that the Papists of the said Kingdome though in themselves peaceable yet by the instigation of their Clergie with the multitudes of discontented Iesuites Priests Fryers and others That since the said Proclamation came to them out of England are now more then ever labouring to advance their owne partie depresse the Protestants and hinder Reformation In tender consideration of the Premisses and to the end of the Lawes enacted against Poperie may for the time to come be duly executed throughout the said City and Kingdome the Popish Clergie banished the Masse houses seized or abolished the poore seduced people reformed and all unlawfull designes of the Papists against the Protestants prevented And to the end that all non-preaching and scandalous Ministers in the Protestant Church may be cast out all Innovations suppressed a speedy course taken for time to come that every parish may have an able and painfull Ministrie with meanes sufficient provided for their maintenance that such of the Clergie as are orthodox painfull and unblameable in life may be encouraged and preserved from contempt That all uncharitable prosecution of the Protestants as aforesaid may be stayed And the causes of all the aforesaid evils so searched into that they may for ever be prevented throughout the said Citie and Kingdome May it please this Honourable House for the glory of GOD the honour of our dread Soveraigne and welfare of the said Citie and Kingdome to take the Premisses and every circumstance thereof into consideration So that the poore Kingdome of Ireland may be made partakers of a blessed Reformation with the Kingdome of England by such meanes and in such manner as this honourable House and happy Assembly shall conceive to be most meete And your Supplicants will ever pray c. Copia vera Exem per Jo. Pue No. public Re. And of some disorders and
and the other wilde fiction of 10000 Scots then not so much as thought on to come thither but long after agreed on after your Majesty under your owne royall signature had appointed and authorised severall persons of quality to be Collonels to prosecute Rebells and sent upon necessity to preserve your Majesties Crowne and Kingdome against those confederats most unnaturall and horrid attempts take the boldnesse to avow the Acts of the Northerne Rebels on the 23 of October 1641 as necessitated thereto for preservation of their Lives Liberties and Estates for maintenance of their religion and for your Majesties rights which none there except themselves ever moved or offered to oppose or impeach which Northerne rising is by Declaration made by many of themselves in Parliament in November 1641 and by their advice printed professed and published to be a traiterous and rebellious taking up of Armes against your Majesty they then seeming to detest and abhorre their abhominable and inhumaine actions of murthers and other outrages therein specified therein also protesting to maintaine the rights of your Majesties Crowne and Government against the said Rebels whom they then acknowledged to be Rebels and to fight against your Majesties Rights and Government and whom now they palliate with the attribute of discontented Gentlemen Neither was that Declaration enforced from the Parliament as they suggest but by due course passed as well appeares by the passages thereof appearing in the bookes And in further presumption those Remonstrants affirme that those Northerne Traitors did send Declarations to the Lords Justices and Counsell humbly desiring to be heard in Parliament which is most untrue there never comming any Declaration or other motion from any of them to the Lords Justices and Counsell other then a presumptuous proposition from those of Cavan which their Lordships answered and certified to the then Lord Leivtenant as is before mentioned Neither is it to be wondred at that these consederats passe over so slightly the cruell murders and massacres acted upon your Majesties Protestant Subjects in Vlster and else where in time of full peace your Majesties Protestant Subjects not being in any posture of defence by reason of the suddennesse of their surprise considering the little defence the confederats are able to make against those knowne massacres And as to the Proclamation on the 23 of October 1641 published by the Lords Justices and Counsell to make knowne the preservation of your Majesties Castle and City of Dublin and to publish the discovery of the conspiracy of some evill affected Irish Papists wherein all good Subjects are admonished to take comfort to stand one their defence and preserve the peace There is in that Proclamation no mention at all of any Prorogation and whereas afterwards divers of the pale and other old English petitioned the Lords Justices and Counsell taking offence at the words Irish Papists wherein there being no distinction they might doubt themselves involved The Lords Justices and Counsell being tender least they in whose fidelity their Lordships then rested confident should take umbrage at any their expressions did by their printed Declaration dated the 29 of the same October publish and proclaime That by the words Irish Papists they intended the meere old Irish in the Province of Vlster and none of the old English of the Pale or other parts True it is that on the 27 of October 1641. The Lords Justices by advice of the Counsell and for the necessity of the time many members of those houses being then in Rebellion and many slayne or hanged by the Rebels and some imprisoned and some beseiged in their houses by them did proclaime a prorogation of the Parliament from the dayes of the former adjournment in November 1641 till the 24 of February following yet that Proclamation not to stand for a prorogation as conceived not fully warranted by Law but was done in those dangerous times to prevent concourse at Dublin to preserve the members of the houses from danger of travaile and to the end they shall not be drawne from defence of the Country In which Proclamation there is no word of Irish Papists or of the Catholiques of Ireland or of the Rebellion raised for which prorogation the Lords Justices received your Majesties expresse command because your Majesty desired the Lord Leivtenant should be then there And the Lords Justices act was therein approved by your Majesty as concurring with the advice of your Counsell And to shew that it was not intended for the full prorogation when afterwards before the day of the former adjournement some of the houses came to the Lords Justices and Counsell and seeming to doubt of the legality of that manner of prorogation desired that the houses might meete and for clearing of all doubts might fit on the 9 day of November and adjourne to the 16 day of that November and at the 16 day of November might sit for a day or two to make some publike Declaration of their loyalties and that a shorter time for their next meeting then the 24 of February aforesaid might be appointed The Lords Justices and Counsell-freely-yeilded unto them in all their requests and on the 17 day of Nouember towards night the Parliament was prorogued in the houses but till the 11 of Ianuary after though your Majesties warrant was till the end of February It is most untrue that the Lords Justices and Counsell limmited them that no Acts of grace or other thing for the peoples quiet and satisfaction should passe For the houses during those two daies did make and publish the Declaration above mentioned and some other ordinance for the provision security and comfort of the Country as farre as might be But they neither did nor could then at the very beginning of of the rebellion move or offer to passe any acts of grace The Lords iustices by his Mjesties directions did make knowne to the Parliament that his Maiesty would not depart frō any his former favours promised to them for setling their estares to such as should remain faithfull and loyall or were denyed the same many of their intentions being fixed as soone after appeared to come by their end another way which proceedings of the Lords Justices and Counsell in that businesse doth appeare by Proclamation then published by the Lords Justices and Counsell with the privity of the houses And as to their being invironed with a great number of armed men in their accesse and recesse to and from the house with their matches lighted and Muskets presented even to the breasts of the members of both houses First they should tell that those guards were put into your Majesties Castle where before none were except the ordinary retinue of a few warders under the Constables Command for guard and preservation of the said Castle against the said confederats wicked plots and conspiracies then discovered And that those guards did but stand in their Armes in the Castle yard meerely as in observance to that eminent assembly
Kingdome of Ireland By His MAjESTIES Command Edward Nicholas After the receipt of which letter the Protestant Petitions proceeded and the 26 of Ianuary made choise of Sir Charles Coote Knight and Baronet and Captaine William Parsons to be added over and above the foure persons formerly nominated for agents and presented their names unto the L. Marquesse of Ormond then L. Lieutenant of Ireland to be transmitted to his Majesty Soone after viz on the 17 day of Febuary 1643 the said Petition of the Protestants was read in the Commons house of the Parliament of Ireland yet continuing who declared their concurrences therein and that the same day the Parliament was prorogued to a further time Shortly after the Protestant Petitioners humbly moved the Lord Lieutenant and Councell for a recommendation to His Majesty both of the cause and persons of their Agents And they were answered by the said Lord Lieutenant and Councell that by His Majesties letter of the sixth of November the Agents were to have fittting Instructions concerning their grievances and their desires mentioned in the petition of the Protestants unto His Majesty and therefore they were required by the Lords of the Councell to shew their Instructions without which they could not recommend the Agents or their cause Thereupon the 4th of March the Protestant Petitioners tendred a Copy of their Instructions for their Agents to the L. Lieutenant and Councell which followeth in haec verba Instructions for the Agents who are to attend His most Sacred Majesty on the behalfe of His Majesties Protestant Subjects of Ireland FIrst most humbly to represent unto His Sacred Majesty the Remonstrance or Petition of his truly obedient and loyall subjects the Protestants of this His Kingdome of Ireland intituled To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The humble petition of divers of Your Majesties Protestant subjects in Your Kingdome of Ireland aswell Commanders of Your Majesties Army here as others whose names are subscribed in the behalfe of themselves and others Your protestant subjects in this Your Kingdome and to manifest by all good wayes and meanes the truths thereof in every particular and to solicite the obteyning the humble desires therein requested and to refell and disprove the untruthes of the scandalous aspersions laid by the confederate Roman Catholiques c. of Ireland upon the most gracious Governments of Our most royall late Soveraignes Queene Elizabeth and King James of ever blessed memory and also of our most Gracious and dread Soveraigne King CHARLES and also the extreame falsehoods by the said confederate Roman Catholiques published and imposed upon His Majesties said protestant subjects of this Realme 2. And also to offer unto His Majesties royall and most tender confideration the barbarous usage inhumanity cruell tortures and bloudy murthers committed done upon His Majesties protestant subjects in the severall parts of the Kingdome without provocation and that commonly after quarter given passes promises and oaths for security or safe convoy especially in that glorious plantation of King James of ever blessed memory in the province of Vlster which terrible effusion of innocent blood cryeth to Almighty God and his sacred Majesty for Justice 3. In like manner to present unto his sacred Majesty the true and entire faith and alleageance of his Majesties protestant subjects of this Kingdome unto his royall person Crowne and Dignity their cheerefull and constant acknowledgement of his Supremacy in all causes and over all persons their universall obedience to all his Lawes and gracious government and their continued desires and endevours even to the uttermost hazard of their lives and fortunes for the preservation of all his rights and just prerogatives and to present to his Majesty in what estate and condition the Kingdoms was in at the time of the breaking out of this horrid Rebellion 4. And most humbly to desire the preservation and establishmant of the true protestant Religion in this Realme and the suppression of popery according to the lawes and statutes to that end established 5. Most humbly to desire His sacred Majesty that the great losses of his protestant subjects now utterly ruined by the Rebellion of the said confederate Roman Catholiques c. may be repaired in such manner and measure as his highnesse in his Princely wisdom shall think fit whereby his Majesties said protestant subjects may be enabled to subsist and re-inhabit in the said Kingdom 6. Most humbly to present to his Sacred Majesty all other things that may conduce to the glory of God to the advancement of the true Protestant Religion according to the Lawes the honour and profit of His Majesty the just prerogatives of his Crown the preservation of the Lawes and just Liberties of the subject the securing of this Kingdome to his Majesty and his royall posterity and future safety to His Majesties protestant subjects in their Religion Lives and Fortunes that they may no longer nor hereafter be liable to such and the like evills and destructions on them committed as they have now suffered from those who sell upon them spilt their blood and destroyed their estates unprovoked and even when they lived together in full peace 7. And for avoyding mistakes that you present or propound nothing to his Majesty but what shall be first well debated amongst your selves and maturely considered of and agreed upon in writing by the major part of you and subscribed with your hands 8. That from time to time you give an accompt of your proceedings unto those who are here appointed to negotiate this affaire 9. Which said Instructions being read the protestant petitioners were required to withdraw who after debate had on the Instructions at the Councell board were called in againe and exceptions were taken to the 1 2 3 4 6. Articles of the instructions and they were told by the Lords of the Councell that they could nor would not recommend them as the Instructions were now drawne and while the third Article of the Instructions remained In respect that they knew that there were many protestants in the Province of Vlster in Ireland that were not obedient to His Majesties Laws and the Lord Chancellor moved that these words in the second Article aforementioned might be omitted out of the Instructions viz. commonly committed after quarter given passes promises and oathes for security of fase convoy especially in that glorious plantation of King James of ever blessed memory in the Province of Vlster which effusion of innocent bloud cryeth to Almighty God and his sacred Majesty for justice And the Lord Lieutenant and Councell further gave the Protestant petitioners the particulars in writing which they would have added and omitted in the said Instructions otherwise they would not recommend the protestant Agents nor the Cause to His Majesty By reason whereof the Protestant petitioners were necessitated to the alteration of their Iustructions as hereafter followeth In the second Article of the first Instruction quarter given is lest out In the former part of the third
Protestant Religion in Ireland according to the Laws and Statutes in the said Kingdome now in force 2. That the Popish titular Archbishops Bishops Jesuits Friers and Priests and all others of the Roman Clergy be banished out of Ireland because they have been the stirrers up of all rebellions and while they continue there there can be no hope of safety for your Maiesties Protestant Subjects And that all the Laws and Statutes established in that Kingdome against propery and popish Recusants may continue of force and be put in due execution 3. That restitution may be made of all our Churches and Church-rights and revenues and all our Churches and Chappels re-edified and put in as good estate as they were at the breaking out of the rebellion and as they ought to be at the charge of the confederate Roman Catholiques as they call themselves who have been the occasion of the destruction of the said Churches and possessed themselves of the profits and revenues thereof 4. That the Parliament now sitting in Ireland may be continued there for the better settlement of the Kingdome And that all persons duely indicted in the said Kingdome of Treason Felony or other heynous crimes may be duely and legally proceeded against out-lawed tryed and adjudged according to Law And that all persons lawfully convicted and attainted or to be convicted and attainted for the same may receive due punishment accordingly 5. That no man may take upon him or execute the Office of a Major or Magistrate in any Corporation or the Office of a Sheriffe or Justice of peace in any City or County in the said Kingdom untill he have first taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance 6. That all popish Lawyers who refuse to take the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance may be suppressed and restrained from practice in that Kingdome the rather because the Lawyers in England doe not here practice untill they take the Oath of Supremacy and it hath been found by wofull experience that the advice of popish Lawyers to the people of Ireland hath been a great cause of their continued disobedience 7. That there may be a present absolute suppression and dissolution of all the assumed arbitrary and tyrannicall power which the said confederates exercise over your Majesties subjects both in causes Ecclesiasticall and Temporall 8. That all the Armes and Ammunition of the said Confederates be speedily brought in to your Majesties stores 9. That your Majesties protestant Subjects ruined and destroyed by the said Confederates may be repaired for their great losses out of the estates of the said Confederates not formerly by any Acts of this present Parliament in England otherwise disposed of whereby they may the better be enabled to reinhabit and defend the said Kingdome of Ireland 10. That the said Confederates may rebuild the severall plantation houses and castles destroyed by them in Ireland in at good state as they we eat the breaking out of the rebellion which your Majesties protestant subjects slave beene bound by their severall Patents to build and maintaine for your Majesties service 11. That the great arreares of rent due to your Majesty out of the estates of your Majesties protestant subjects at and since Michaealmas 1641 may be paid unto your Majesty by such of the said Confederates who have 〈…〉 the said rents to the uses of the said Confederates or dessroyed the same by disabling your Majesties protestant subjects to pay the same and have also destroyed all or the most part of all other rents or meanes of support belonging to your said protestant subjects And that your said protestant Subjects may be discharged of all such arreares of rents to your Majesty 12. That the said Confederates may give satisfaction to the Army for the great arreares due unto them since the rebellion and that 〈◊〉 Communcers as have raised forces at their owne charges and laid forth great famines of money out of their owne purses and engaged themselves for money and provisions to keepe themselves their holds and souldiers under their commands in the due and necessary defence of your Majesties right and Laws may be in due sort satisfied to the encouragement of others in like times and cases which may happen 13. That touching such parts of the said Confederates estates as being forfeited for their Treasons are come or shall duely come into your Majesties hands and possession by that Title your Majesty after due satisfaction first made to such as claime by former acts of Parliament would be pleased to take the same into your own hands and possession and for the necessary encrease of your Majesties revenue and better security of your said Kingdome of Ireland and protestant Subjects living under your gracious government thereto plant the same with Brittish and Protestants upon reasonable and honourable tearmes 14. That one good walled Town may be built and kept repaired in every County of the said Kingdome of Ireland and endowed and furnished with necessary and sufficient meanes of legall and just government and defence for the better security of your Majesties Lawes and rights more especially the true Protestant Religion in times of danger In any of which Townes no papist may be permitted to dwell or inhabit 15. That for the better satisfaction of justice and your Majesties honour and for the future security of the said Kingdome and your Majesties Protestant subjects there exemplary punishment according to Law may be inflicted upon such as have there traiterously leavyed warre and taken up Armes against your Majestles protestant Subjects and Laws and therein against your Majesty especially upon such as have had their hands in the shedding of innocent blood or had to doe with the first plot or conspiracy or since that time have done any notorious murder or overt act of Treason 16. That all your Majesties Townes Forts and places of strength destroyed by the said Confederates since the said rebellion may be by them and at their charges re-edified and delivered up into your Majesties hands to be duely put into the government under your Majesty and your Laws of good Protestants and that all strengths and fortifications made and set up by the said Confederate since the said rebellion may be slighted and throwne down or else delivered up and disposed of for Protestant government and security as aforesaid 17. That according to the presidents of former times in cases of generall rebellions in Ireland the attainders which have been duely had by Outlary for Treason done in this rebellion may be established and confirmed by act of Parliament to be in due forme of Law transmitted and passed in Ireland and that such Traitors as for want of Protestant and indifferent Jurors to indict them in the proper County are not yet indicted nor convicted or attainted by Outlary or otherwise may upon due proofe of their offences be by like act of Parliament convicted and attainted and all such offenders forfeit their estates as to Law appertaineth and your Majesty to
in that Kingdome for the encrease of Your Majesties revenues towards the defraying of Your Majesties necessary chage of that Kingdome the satisfying in some measure the arreares of Your Army in Ireland especially those who have laid great sums of money out of their owne purses and deeply engaged themselves for money and provisions to keepe themselves their holds and Souldiers under their commands in the necessary defence of Your Majesties rights and lawes and for the encouragement of others in like times and cases which may happen who otherwise will be totally ruined by their great engagements which we humbly submit to Your Majesties consideration And likewise that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased in the said plantations to erect and build some walled Townes in the said Kingdome of Ireland and endow and furnish them with necessary and sufficient meanes of legall and just government and defence for the better security of Your Majesties lawes and rights more especially the Protestant Religion in time of danger 11. That for the better satisfaction of Justice and Your Majesties honour and for the future security of the said Kingdome and Your Maiesties protestant subiects there exemplary punishment may be inflicted upon such of the principall offenders as have had their hands in the shedding of innocent blood or had to doe with the first plot or conspiracy or since that time have done any notorious murthers 12. That Your Maiesties Townes forts and places of strength destroyed by the said confederates since the said rebellion may be by them and at their charge reedified and delivered up into Your Maiesties hands to be duly put into the government under Your Maiesty and Your lawes of good protestants and that all strengths and fortifications made and set up by the said confederates since the said rebellion may be slighted and thrown down or else delivered up and disposed of for Protestant government as aforesaid 13. That Your Maiesties Protestant subiects may be restored to the quiet and peaceable possession of all their Castles Houses mannors lands Tenements hereditaments and leases as they had the same before and at the time of the breaking forth of this rebellion and from whence without due processe and Judgement in law they have since then been put out and kept 14. That Your Maiesties said Protestant subiects may also be restored to or satisfied for all their monies plate Jewells houshold Stuffe Goods or Chattells whatsoever which during the Rebellion have been delivered to any person or persons of of the confederates in trust to be kept and preserved which are yet detained from them without colour of law or Justice 15. That the establishment and maintenance of a compleat protestant Army and sufficient protestant Souldiers and forces for the time to come in Ireland be speedly taken into Your Majesties Prudent Just and Gracious confideration and such a course laid down and continued therein according to the rules of good government that Your Majesties rights and lawes and the protestant Religion and Peace of that Kingdome be no more endangered by the like Rebellion in time to come 16. That whereas it appeareth in print that the said confederates amongst other things aime at the repeale of Poynings Act thereby to open an easie and ready way for the passing of Acts of Parliament in Ireland without having them first well considered of in England which may produce many dangerous consequences both to that Kingdome and to Your Majesties other Dominions Your Majesty would be pleased to recent and reject all propositions tending to introduce so great a Diminution of Your royall and necessary power for the conservation of Your royall estate and protection of Your good protestant subjects both there and elsewhere 17. That Your Majesty out of Your abundant grace and favour to Your Protestant subjects of Ireland will be pleased to consider effectually of assuring them that if your Majesty shall thinke fit for the furtherance of your service to grant to the said confederates an Act of oblivion that your Majesty will not allow of discharge or release any actions suites debts or interests whereby your Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland may be barred or deprived or any of their party in respect of any wrongs done unto them or any of their ancestors or predecessors in and concerning their lands goods or estates since the contriving or breaking forth of the said rebellion 18. That some fit course may be considered of to prevent the filling or overlaying the Commons house of Parliament in Ireland with popish recusants and unlesse some course shall by due meanes be settled the popish faction may at some time or other get such an over-ruling power in that house as may endanger both your Majesties rights and royall prerogatives and the Protestants of that Kingdome And that provision may be made that none shall Vote or sit in any Parliament there but such as shall first take the Oaths of Supremacy and Alleageance 19. That the proofs and manifestation of the Truth of the severall matters contained in the Petition of your Majesties protestant subjects of Ireland and the collections made to disprove the scandalous aspersions cast on your Majesties gracious government and on your good and loyall protestant subjects by the confederates may be duly examined and discussed The seventh of May Sir William St Leger came from His Majesties Army to Oxford and being with the protestant Agents told them That that party of the Army that came out of Munster in Ireland were much discontented to heare that the protestant Agents received no better countenance and that he had told the Lord Digby so much and that the Lord Digby on discourse with the said Sir William said That The greatest favour he could doe the Protestants Agents was to call them mad men that he might not call them roundheads for that the said Agents had proposed mad propositions and wished him to prevaile with some of the Agents to come to him that he might confer with them which the said Agents did not the L. Digbies expressions then and before so little encouraging them thereunto The same day there was a report in Oxford grounded upon a letter that came out of Ireland signifying that it went for currant newes in Dublin that the Irish Agents were dispatched at Court and that they staid to procure the protestants pardons This being told to the L. Digby by the said Sir William St Leger his Lordship answered That the Protestant Agents had raised that report of purpose to cast an aspersion upon the King The eighth of May the Protestant Agents waited on Mr. Secretary Nicholas desiring to know what resolution was taken upon their second propositions who told them That the Lords sate not that day according to their appointment And the said Agents heard by others that some of the Lords desired to avoid sitting in counsell when the businesse of Ireland was debated The ninth of May the protestant Agents were commanded to wait at the
call by the name of publique uses to be in equall degree to the debts owing by the Rebels and by them all forfeited and many of them by Law duely levyed which is a most unequall and unjust thing and the said Proposition cannot nor doth make offer to have the popish Confederates cut off from the debts due to them which they have justly forfeited but onely for a colour of consideration to have the Protestants lose such debts justly due to them as have been unjustly taken from them who have done no act at all to forfeit them 6. Proposition That the late Offices taken or found upon feigned or old titles since the yeere 1634. to entitle your Majestie to severall Countreys in Connaught Thomond and in the Counties of Typperarie Limrick Kilkenny and Wickloe be vacated and taken off the file and the possessors setled and secured in their ancient estates by Act of Parliament And that the like Act of limitation of your Majesties titles for the security of the estates of your Subjects in that Kingdom be passed in the said Parliament as was enacted in the 21 yeere of His late Majesties Raigne in this Kingdom Ans Wee know not of any Offices found on feigned Titles nor what the Confederates may demand in respect of any graces promised by your Majestie which we intend not nor have any occasion to dispute but wee humbly conceive that all those who have committed Treason in the late Rebellion subsequent to your Majesties promise of those graces have thereby forfeited the benefit thereof together with the Lands to which the said graces might else have related and so their whole estates are now justly fallen to your Majesty by their Rebellion which wee conceive is of great importance for your Majesties service to be taken into consideration As first with regard to the Statutes made in the present Parliament of England Secondly by the necessary encrease of your Revenue decayed by the present Rebellion Thirdly the abolishing of the evill customes of the Irish and preservation of Religion Laws and Government there Fourthly the satisfaction of your Protestant Subjects losses in some measure Fiftly the Arrers of your Majesties Army and other debts contracted for that warre and for preservation of that Kingdome to your Majestie Sixtly the bringing in of more Brittish upon the Plantations Seventhly the building of some walled Towns in remote and desolate places for the security of that Kingdome and your good Subjects there Eightly the taking of the Natives from their former dependencie on their Chieftains who usurped an absolute power over them to the diminution of your Regall Power and to the oppression of the Inferiours 7. Propos That all marks of incapacity imposed upon the Natives of that Kingdome to purchase or acquire Lands Leases Offices or Hereditaments be taken away by act of Parliament and the same to extend to the securing of Purchases Leases or Grants already made And that for the education of Youth an Act be passed in the next Parliament for the erecting of one or more Inns of Court Vniversities Frée and Common Schools Ans This we conceive concerneth some of the late Plantations and no other part of that Kingdome and that the restriction herein mentioned is found to bee of great use especially for the indifferencie of Trialls strength of the Government and for Trade and Traffique And we humbly conceive that if other Plantations shall not proceed for the setling and securing of that Kingdome and that no restraint be made of Papists buying or purchasing of the Protestants out of their former Plantations where they were prudently setled though now cast out of their estates by the late Rebellion and unable to Plant the same again for want of meanes and therefore probably upon easie termes will part with their estates to the Confederates that those Plantations will be destroyed to the great prejudice of your Majesties service and endangering of the safety of that Kingdome Touching bearing of Offices wee humbly conceive that their non-conformity to the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome is the onely mark of incapacity imposed upon them and wee humbly conceive that they ought not to expect to bee more capable there then the English Natives are here in England in like case For Schooles in Ireland there are divers setled in all parts of that Kingdome already by the Laws and Statutes of that Realme And if any person well affected shall erect and endow any more Schooles there at their own charges so that the School-master and schollers may be governed according to the Laws Customs and orders of England and the best of Free-schools here wee cannot apprehend any just exceptions thereunto But touching Universities and Inns of Court we humbly conceive that this part of the Proposition savoureth of some desire to become Independant upon England or to make a separation in the Religion and Laws of the Kingdome which can never bee truely happie but in the good unitie of both in the true Protestant Religion and in the Laws of England For as for matter of charge such of the Natives as are desirous to breed their sonnes for learning in Divinity can bee well contented to send them to the Universitie of Lovain Doway and other Popish places in Forraign Kingdomes And for civill-Civill-law or Physick to Padua and other places which draws a great treasure yearly out of your Majesties Dominions but will send few or none of them to Oxford or Cambridge where they might as cheaply be bred up and become as learned which course we conceive is holden out of their pride and disaffection towards this Kingdome and the true Religion here professed And for the Laws of the Land which are for the Common-law agreeable to England and so for the greatest part of the Statutes the Innes of Court in England are sufficient and the Protestants came thither without grudging And it is a means to civilize them after the English Customes to make them familiar and in love with the Language and Nation to preserve the Law in the purity when the Professours of it shall draw from one originall fountain and see the manner of the practise of it in the same great Channells where his Majesties Courts of Justice of England do flow most clearly whereas by separation of the Kingdoms in the places of their principall instruction when their foundations in learning are to be laid a degenerate corruption in Religion and Justice may happily be introduced and spread with much more difficulty to be corrected and restrained afterwards by any discipline to be used in Ireland or punishments there to be inflicted for departing from the true grounds of things which are best preserved in unity when they grow out of the same root then if such Universities and Innes of Court as are proposed should be granted All which we humbly submit to your Majesties most pious and prudent confideration and judgement 8. Propos That the Offices and places of Command Honour Profit
The False and Scandalous REMONSTRANCE OF The Inhumane and Bloody Rebells of Ireland DELIVERED To the Earl of St. Albans and Clanrickard the Earl of Roscomon Sir Maurice Eustace Knight and other His Majesties Commissioners at Trim the 17. of March 1642. to be presented to His Majesty by the Name of The Remonstrance of Grievances presented to His Majestie in the behalf of the Catholicks of IRELAND Printed at Waterford nine Moneths after by Tho Bourk Printer to the Confederate-Catholicks and untill then concealed from His Majesties good Protestant Subjects Together with an ANSWER thereunto on the behalf of the Protestants of Ireland Also a true Narration of all the Passages concerning the Petition of the Protestants of IRELAND presented to His Majesty at Oxford the 18. of April 1644. With the Reasons inducing the said Protestants to Petition The Proceedings and Successes thereof in Ireland and afterwards in England untill the Protestant Agents were dismissed by His Majesty 30. Maii 1644. Collected in obedience to the Order and Command of the Honorable House of Commons of England For the manifestation of the Truth and Vindication of the Protestants August 27. 1644. IT is this day Ordered by the Committee of the House of Commons in Parliament concerning Printing That the Books intituled An Answer presented to His Majestie at Oxford unto the false and scandalous Remonstrance of the Inhumane and Bloody Rebells of Ireland Together with A Narration of the proceedings at Oxon be forthwith printed and published JOHN WHITE London Printed for Edw. Husbands in the Middle-Temple 1644. A Remonstrance of Grievances Presented to his most Excellent Majestie in the behalfe of the Catholicks of IRELAND To the Kings most Excellent Majestie MOst gratious Soveraigne We your Majesties most dutifull and loyall subjects the Catholicks of your Highnesse kingdom of Ireland being necessitated to take armes for the preservation of our Religion the maintenance of your Majesties rights and prerogatives the naturall and just defence of our lives and estates and the liberties of our country have often since the beginning of these troubles attempted to present our humble complaint unto your Royall view but were frustrated of our hopes therein by the power and vigilancy of our adversaries the now Lords-Iustices and other ministers of State in this kingdome who by the assistance of the malignant party in England now in Arms against your Royall person with lesse difficulty to attaine the bad ends they proposed to themselves of extirpating our Religion and Nation hither to debarred us of any accesse to your Majesties justice which occasioned the effusion of much innocent bloud and other mischiefes in this your kingdom that otherwise might well be prevented And whereas of late notice was sent unto us of a Commission granted by your Majesty to the right honorable the Lord Marques of Ormond and others authorizing them to heare what we shall say or propound and the same to transmit unto your Majesty in writing which your Majesties gracious and princely favour we find to be accompanied with these words viz. Albeit we do extreamly detest the odious rebellion which the recusants of Ireland have without ground or colour raised against us our Crown and dignity which words we do in all humility conceive to have proceeded from the misrepresentations of our adversaries and therfore do protest we have been therein maliciously traduced to your Majesty having never entertained any rebellious thought against your Majesty your Crown or dignitie but alwayes have been and ever will continue your Majesties most faithfull and loyall subjects and do most humbly beseech your Majesty so to owne and avow us and as such we present unto your Majesty these ensuing grievances and causes of the present distempers 1 In primis the Catholicks of this kingdom whom no reward could invite no persecution inforce to forsake that Religion professed by them and their ancestors for thirteen hundred yeares or thereabouts are since the second year of the raigne of Queen Elizabeth made incapable of places of honor or trust in Church or Common-wealth their Nobles become contemptible their Gentry debarred from learning in Vniversities or publick Schooles within this kingdome their younger brothers put by all manner of imployment in their native country and necessitated eyther to live in ignorance and contempt at home or to their great discomfort and impoverishment of the land to seek education and fortune abroad misfortunes made incident to the said Catholicks of Ireland only their numbers quality and loyalty considered of all the Nations in Christendome 2 Secondly that by this incapacity which in respect of their Religion was imposed upon the said Catholicks men of mean condition quality for the most part were in this kingdom imployed in places of greatest honor and trust who being to begin a fortune built it of the Ruines of the Catholick Natives at all times lying open to be discountenanced and wrought upon and who because they would seem to be carfull of the government did from time to time suggest fals malicious matters against them the said Catholicks to render them suspected odious in England from which ungrounded informations their many other ill Offices these mischeifs have befallen the Catholicks of Ireland First the oppositions given to all the graces and favors of your Maiesty or your late Royall Father promised or intended to the Natives of this Kingdom Secondly the procuring of false inquisitions upon fained Titles of their estates against many hundred yeares possession and no travers or petition of Right admitted thereunto and Iurors denying to find such Offices were censured even to their publicke infamy and ruine of their estates the finding thereof being against their consciences and cleere evidences and nothing must stand against such offices taken of great and considerable parts of the Kingdom but Letters-patents under the great Seale And if Letters-patents were produced as in most cases they were none must bee allowed valid nor yet sought to be legally avoyded So that of late times by the underhand working of Sir William Parsons now one of your Lords-Iustices here and the arbitrary illegall power of the two impeached Iudges in Parliament and others drawne by their advice and counsell one hundred and fifty Letters-patents were avoyded in one morning which course continued untill all the Patents of the Kingdom to a few were by them and their associates declared voyd such was the care those ministers had of your Maiesties great Seale being the publick faith of the Kingdom this way of service in shew only pretended for your Maiesty proved to your disservice and the immoderate and too timely advancement of the said ministers of state and their adherents and too neere the utter mine of the said Catholicks 3. That whereas your Majesties late Royall Father King James having a princely and fatherly care of this Kingdom was graciously pleased to grant severall large and beneficiall Commissions under the great Seal of England and severall instructions
attaynt many thousands of your Majesties most faithfull subiects of this kingdom they being never summoned nor having notice of those proceedings and Sheriffs made of obscure mean persons by the like practise appointed of purpose and poore Artificers common souldiers and mecanicall servants returned Iurors to passe upon the lives and estates of those who came in upon protection and publick faith 14 Therefore the said Catholicks in the behalfe of themselves and of the whole kingdom of Ireland Do protest and declare against the said proceedings in the nature of Parliaments and in the other Courts aforesaid and every of them as being heynous crimes against Law destructive to the Parliaments and your Majesties prerogatives and authority and to the rights and just liberties of your most faithfull subjects Forasmuch Dread Soveraign as the speedy application of apt remedies unto these grievances and heavy pressures will tend to the settlement and improvement of your Majesties revenue the prevention of further effusion of bloud the preservation of this kingdom from desolation and the content and satisfaction of your said subjects who in manifestation of their duty and zeale to your Majesties service will be most willing and ready to imploy 10000. men under the conduct of wel-experienced Commanders in defence of your Royall rights and prerogatives They therefore most humbly beseech your Majesty That you will vouchsafe gracious answers to these their humble and just complaints And for the establishment of your people in a lasting peace and security The said Catholicks do most humbly pray that your Majesty may be further graciously pleased to call a free Parliament in this kingdom in such convenient time as your Majesty in your high wisdome shall think fit and the urgencie of the present affaires of the said kingdom doth require and that the said Parliaments be held in an indifferent place summoned by and continued before some person or persons of honour and fortune of approved faith to your Majesty and acceptable to your people here and to be timely placed by your Majesty in this government which is most necessary for the advancement of your service and present condition of the kingdom in which Parliament the said Catholicks doe humbly pray these and other their grievances may be redressed and that in the said Parliament a statute made in this kingdom in the 10. yeare of K. Henry the 7. commonly called Poynings Act and all acts explayning or inlarging the same be by a particular Act suspended during that Parliament as it hath been already done in the 11. yeare of Q. Eliz. upon occasions of far lesse moment then now do offer themselves And that your Majesty with the advise of the said Parliament will be pleased to take a course for the repealing or further continuance of the said Statutes as may best conduce to the advancement of your service here and peace of this your Realme and that no matter wherof Complaint is made in this Remonstrance may debarre Catholicks or give interruption to their free votes or sitting in the said Parliament And as in duty bound they will ever pray for your Majesties long and prosperous Raign over them FINIS THis Remonstrance was delivered by the Lord Viscount Gormonstown Sir Lucas Dillon Knight Sir Robert Talbot Baronet and John Walsh Esquire thereunto authorised by the Confederate Catholicks of Ireland to His Majesties Commissioners at the Town of Trim in the County of Meath on the 17. of March 1642. to be presented to His most Excellent Majestie Printed at Waterford by Thomas Bourke Printer to the Confederate Catholicks of IRELAND Anno Dom. 1643. To the Kings most excellent Majestie YOur Majesties most loyall and obedient Protestant Subjects of Ireland groaning under the heavy pressures of the confederate Romane Catholiques of Ireland who to adde to all their other injuries have printed a booke intituled A Remonstrance delivered by the Lord Viscount Gormanstowne and others authorised by the said confederate Catholiques to Your Majesties Commissioners at Trym the 17. of March 1642. which came not to the knowledge of Your Majesties Protestant Subjects of Ireland till of late wherein they have endeavored by confounding of times and by other subtile conveyances to put a shew of reason upon their wicked and unnaturall acts We therefore beseech Your most sacred Majestie to cast your eye upon the ensuing Collection of some passages and unknown truths wherein will appeare part of the grievances of Your Majesties said Protestant subjects and part of the many untruths and scandalous aspersions by the said Remonstrants cast upon Your Majesties gracious government and upon Your said Protestant subjects And although these Collections in some measure answer the Remonstrance and come attired in round and plaine expressions as the wofull case requireth the just vindication of Your Majesties gracious government pressing also that all vizards and palliations be laid aside yet it is humbly prayed that nothing herein may be construed as to proceed of malice or desire of aggravation against any person therein concerned how intollerable soever the projects and actions of many of them have been or to be contrived to avert foreclose or shorten Your Majesties grace or clemencie which Your Majestie shall extend to any of them in Your Majesties abundant indulgence as a Princely parent to your people and may stand with Your Majesties honour and soveraignty and the peace and future security of Your Majesties Kingdome and good people of Ireland First to the Preface THat the Remonstrants were no way necessitated to take Armes for the preservation of their Religion for which long time before their taking arms they were not troubled nor so much as questioned having also in their actions varied from the rules of all Christiā Religion nor for maintenance of your Maties rights prerogatives there being no opponents in the kingdom of Ireland in that matter except the Remōstrants themselves who knew that Governours and Officers there have with all zeale and constancy from time to time maintained and with extreame hazard of their lives to maintaine the same and that none in the said Kingdome hath offered to oppose or diminish them save what these Remonstrants have done by laying aspersions on your Majesty in your Goverement and striving to abridge both your profit and Authority under that popular and specious pretence of grievances which is one of their maine ends in all their unruly actions and now having possessed themselves almost of all your Majesties Revenues both certaine and casuall and also of the estates of your Protestant Subjects doe undutifully assume unto themselves and exercise a Papall Iurisdiction in that Church and a tyrannicall power in that Common-wealth as well by sea as by land a presumption never adventured upon in any former rebellious times and which can be nothing but a ground-plot of insurrections hereafter They publish new Lawes for Government erect new Courts and Tribunalls of all kind of Iudicature they ordaine Magistrates Iudges and Officers of all
and other Natives of fit capacitie and breeding have been trusted and imployed in all Commissions from the Courts or otherwise in all matters as well concerning the King as other subjects in equall degree with Protestants the Gentry also from time to time even till this Rebellion were appointed Sheriffes Iustices of the Peace high Constables Marshalls upon occasion and all other Officers in the Country that the Law appoints They were also allowed chiefe Officers and Iudges in Corporations and other Liberties and Franchises their sonnes also admitted Clarkes in the Courts and other under Officers which are graces and favours rarely allowed to the pretended Catholiques in England though Natives of this Kingdome so as very few of that Kingdome have been observed to seeke fortunes in other Countries except some that doe passe into this Kingdome for their preferment and except such as do voluntarily travell beyond Seas to the warres and to become Clergy-mer and some students in the Arts as natives of England doe the same their Lawyers also to our deare experience notwithstanding different in Religion are and have been admitted to the Bar and all other practice as Protestants are by which they grow popular and in short time farre richer and greater purchasers then the Protestant Lawyers or Iudges now imployed can doe in many yeares a favour not allowed to like natives here in England which hath been an extreame mischief to that Kingdome of Ireland as hereafter shall appeare many of the prime Gentry have by suite to Your Majesty and Your most blessed Father been advanced to honour of severall degrees have been dignified with titles of Baronets and Knights and for preferment in the Church It is apparant that after the Statute of Secundo many of that Nation were then continued Bishops and other Dignitaries and many newly created upon the yeelding to the externe part of the Reformation though it is to be remembred what is declared of some of them by Statute in that Kingdome enacted in the eleaventh yeare of Queene Elizabeth Cha. 6. In which is this expression viz. Where the right honourable sir Henry Sidney Knight of the honourable Order now Lord Deputy of Ireland hath in his late progressE into Munster and Connaught found amongst other experiences the great abuse of the Clergy therein admitting of unworthy Personages to Ecclesiasticall dignities which hath neither lawfulnesse of Birth Learning English habit or English Language but discended of unchast and unmarried Abbots Priors Deanes Chaunters and such like getting into the said digniries either with force symony friendship or other corrupt meanes to the great overthrow of Gods Holy Church and the evill example of all honest Congregations Be it therefore c. Yet they were continued during their lives howsoever afterwards none were admitted to those places but such as were knowne Protestants and therein the Natives of that Kingdome being so conditioned were freely entertained and many of them so dignified as they are at this day it being not thought fit to put that charge into the hands of Recusants because it hath been since observed as it is now clearely manifest that they are in that Kingdome of Ireland the Seeds-men and wombe of all the distempers and miser able sufferings of the now deplorable Common-wealth which is by many of considerable quality now lamentably acknowledged neither indeed are the Recusants capable of that charge by the Lawes of the Land and if they take offence at those Laws supplications not Murthers Rebellions and depredations were a proper way to sue for the repeale of them but the Nobles that they are become contemptible is a strange affirmation they have been graced by Your Majesty and Your Governours from time to time with all the respects of Honour and Priviledge that is any way due to them and in no lesse measure then the Protestants have been besides it is well knowne that since the Protestant subjects Brittish and others became their neighbours and Tenants and inhabited their now desolate estates the Rents and Revenues of those Lords were so raised as they were brought into a condition to livel ike Noblemen in a civill Common-wealth which they were not before able to doe nor it is beleeved will ever be againe if some as perillously credulous as the Protestant Subiects now ruined have been do not make such adventures as they have done to their cost Lastly where those confederates doe boldly and untruely affirme that their Gentry were debarred from Learning in Universities and publique Schooles first their children though themselves and their Parents Papists were freely admitted into all publique Schooles as well of Your Maiesties foundation as other waies without question of Religion wherein they attained to the knowledge of the Latine and the Greeke Tongues and full introduction into the Arts and all other humane learning And for Universities they know there is but one only Colledge in Ireland founded by Queene Elizabeth and endowed by Your Maiesties most blessed Father for the education of the youth of that Kingdome That Colledge is of smal capacity yet can it not be instanced that any the son of a noble man or Gentleman were refused to be admitted thereunto if they would conforme to the Lawes of the Land and Statutes of that Society neither are they there pressed with the Law till they come to be Graduates and it is well knowne that as well from that University as Innes of Court here in England very many of them have gained learning and knowledge which in many of them now is imployed to the extream annoyance and harme of Your Maiesty and Your Kingdome and though they were not so freely admitted into those Societies and in Corporations because they would not conforme to the Lawes of the Land and Charters Orders and Customes of that society yet many of those lived there and here with greater freedome from those Lawes then the Natives of England of the Popish Religion did in England and yet it is humbly conceived that if their numbers quality and loyalty be rightly weighed and considered there will not be found any good cause or found reasons why the Native Papists of Ireland should have more freedome in Ireland then the Native Papists of England have in England and whereas they so needlesly presse for the free admittance into the Schoole of the Kingdome as they have clearely received that freedome as is above mentioned which also well appeares in the men of this age educated sarre beyond all former times so they should have laid their challenge with all hample acknowledgment and thankefulnesse to Your sacred Majesty and the famous ProresTant Princes preceding Your Muesty and Your English Government For first in the 28th yeare of King Henry the 8th it was enacted that every incumbent should keepe a Schoole in his Parish to teach English Secondly Queene Elizabeth by a Statute in the 12th yeare of her Reigne ordained that there should be a Free Schoole kept in every Diocesse of that Kingdome to
time But it is now plainly seene that the secret reason why those Remonstrants so distasted and in Parliament laboured against the disbanding of that Army was because by their disbanding they saw themselves like to be disappointed of such a helpe and of those Armes with a more fall hand to execute their bloody designe upon your Majesties Brittish and Protestant Subjects which it seemes was consented unto by many of these Remonstrants members of both houses in the May session of Parliament before as was declared by Hugh Mac Mahon upon his examination Those Remonstrants well knowing that the greatest part of that Army aswell the common souldier as many of the Commanders were ready to be imployed by them in that exploit as since more fully appeared And that this their confederacy seems to be begun at that time or before doth somewhat more appeare in that at the next Session in Iune and July when that Army was disbanded and that your Majesty for good reasons had commanded by your severall warrants that they should be sent over sea to serve other Princes in amity with your Majesty those Remonstrants tooke great paynes to frame reasons to stay them which by their meanes the Lords Justices were then pressed to transmit to your Majesty And that they were unwilling to supply those Princes whose aide they so undutifully soone afterwards sollicited against your Majesty and your Majesties true Subjects and servants not that they beleived the kingdome could not well spare those men being then loose and noe way setled but that they intended shortly to make an other use of them to the utter destruction of your Majesties good Subjects as lamentable experience now evinceth besides it was then made knowne to the Lords Justices and Councell That the Priests and Jesuits diswaded the Colonels Captains and Souldiers all they could from going over which was on the same grounds to open which secret a little further It must be also remembred that in that Session upon a pretence that some of the Lord Straffords servants had placed powder under the Parliament House with purpose to blow them all up which was a meere fiction They moved the house to send certain Committees of Lords to the Lords Justices wherein the lord Magwier a chief conspirator as himselfe confessed was a most busie man to require search for the powder which they curiously performed and veiwed every corner on purpose to see what Armes were brought in that being a place where Arms had been in former times kept though the Officers of the Ordnance assured them that noe powder had been laide there for some yeares before neither was there any at that time And when they had seene what there was they adventured and drew the other Lords of that Committee then and now good Subjects to renew their motion to the Lords Justices to be admitted to see the stores of powder and armes placed in other parts in and about the Castle to whom the Lords Justices then answered that those were the Kings precious Iewels not to be without speciall cause shewed and so refused them whereat they seemed discontented as being left in uncertainty in what state your Majesties stores stood which they desired much to know especially whether the powder Armes were all there where they lay that if they were not come in they might find them elsewhere or if there then by the intended surprize to be sure of them and to know where on the suddaine to find them As for that strange Chimera of bringing a 10000 Scots into that Kingdome to force the Catholiques thereof to change their Religion and that Ireland would never be well without a Rebellion to the end the Natives might be extirpated It is little marvile that those Remonstrants in whose braines exterpation of Brittish and Protestants did so much runne which they to their uttermost power soone after executed had their hearts full of Rebellion which they wickedly practised soone after could easily fancy such thoughts in other men as one colour of excuse amongst others for their own evill intents But that those persons named in this Article should declare or advise such an act to the disturbance of that blessed peace in setling whereof they have beene principall actouts and in that Kingdome where their whole subsistance is and where their children are matched to Natives knowing also as they doe that such an action cannot be without great meanes and authority to support it it is incredible neither can they conceive that it will gaine more credit with any intelligent man then the tale of wagers mentioned in this Article the true particular whereof is That at an Assizes at Wexford a little before the Rebellion certaine Papists and Protestants being at the Sheriffs table at dinner a Protestant and a Papist had some conference about Religion The Protestant at last wished the Papist to come to Church as most of them had done formerly whereto the Papist answered he would never go to Church the Protestant said I wil give you 5 l. you shal give me 50. l. for it if you come not to Church before this time Twelve-Moneth he well knowing that the Papist would not come to Church whereat the Papist seeming startled was very earnest to understand the secret of that wager which at last the Protestant discovered and so it proved a merriment to the whole table as is well knowne to the Remonstrants And these are some of the grounds whereon these Remonstrants pretend to found their bloody Massacre which soone after ensued to the destruction of your Majesties Brittish and Protestant subjects What the Parliament in England protested or intended concerning the Catholiques in Ireland The Protestants in Ireland were not much moved with the rumours thereof being strangers thereunto and presumed those Remonstrants were better setled in the assurance of your Majesties Protestant subjects love to them and your Majesties gracious favours and care shewed to their security It is true that some Prints have been seene here seeming to averr that Lawes made in England will bind in Ireland if Ireland named This is a power that may equally concerne your Majesties Protestant subjects as those confederates But it being a matter yet farre from determination might have been thought more fit to be disputed in peaceable and civill Assemblies then canvased by Armes in open hostilitie against your Majestie and your obedient Subjects and the resolution written in the blood of so many thousand innocent Protestants unable to resist and that by treacherous surprize without the least notice of force intended especially seeing therein they say truly and that in all respects only truly hitherto in their Remonstrance that your Majesties high wisedome was able to apply seasonable cures to any such evils or innovations neither can it be beleeved that those Remonstrants or Catholiques of Ireland as they call themselves could be truly informed of any Protestation made by both Houses of Parliament in England or an intention in
Article these words are left out viz. in like manner to present unto His sacred Majesty the true and entire faith and allegiance of His Majesties Protestant subjects of this Kingdome unto His Royall Person Crowne and Dignity their cheerfull and constant acknowledgement of His supremacy in all causes and over all persons their universall obedience to all His Laws and gracious Government and their continued desires and endeavour even to the uttermost hazzard of their lives and fortunes for the preservation of all His Rights and just Prerogatives In the fourth is added in Doctrine and Discipline In the sixth is added and Statutes in this Kingdome established and now of force And about the same time the Lord-lieutenant sent for the Protestant Agents and declared unto them that it would be for their better reception at Court that they should prepare their severall Companies under their commands to goe into England to serve His Maiesty Sir Charles Cootes excepted whose command lay in another Province And soone after Captaine Parsons Troope was casheered because they refused to goe into England Captaine Bridgeway and Sir Francis Hamiltons Companies notwithstanding divers of them refused to goe and that the Lord-lieutenant on his first motion promised not to impose that on them and that Captaine Bridgeway and Sir Francis Hamilton were desirous that their Companies might remaine there for their suture hopes of settlement there were ordered to goe with their Lieutenants which was very prejudiciall to the said Agents and souldiers most of the Souldiers being Lessees or under Farmers unto them and persons who expected satisfacton from the rebels for their losses and injuries sustained by them which course was the cause as Major Iones another of the said Agents declared that he declined the said imployment After which Captaine Ridgeway and Sir Francis Hamilton were imployed to the Lord Lieutenant and desired his Lordship that Sir Charles Coote and Captaine Wil. Parsons who were chosen and added as Agents by the Protestants might have liberty to goe along with them into England They received answer from his Lordship that he would acquaint the Board therewith The eighteenth of March the Protestant Petitioners petitioned the Lord-lieutenant and Councell for licence for Sir Charles Coote and Capt. Parsons to repaire into England to joyne with their other Agents in the behalfe of the Protestants in regard the petition limited the negotiation thereof to three or more of them and that Major Iones had formerly declined the Agency and that Mr. Fenton Parsons then at London was not acquainted with the choice of him made therefore it was doubtfull whether he could attend the same or no. Which request being denied by the Lords did very much discourage the Protestants untill they were revived by the arrivall of His Majesties Letter of the 27 of February 1643. which came to Dublin the 29 of March 1644. signifying his Majesties pleasure in approbation of Sir Charles Coote and Captaine William Parsons for their comming into England which followeth in haec verba CHARLES REX RIght trusty and right entirely beloved Cousin and Counsellor Right trusty and right wel-beloved Cousins and Counsellors and trusty and wel-beloved Councellors We greet you well We are very well pleased to observe in your Letter to Secretary Nicholas of the third of this moneth how dutifully the Earl of Kildare and the rest of our good Protestant subjects in Ireland acknowledged before you the confidence We gave them of Our Grace and Favour which We hope they will give Us cause more particularly to make good to every of them as occasion shall be offered And whereas they have further proposed the addition of Sir Charles Coote and Captaine William Parsons to those Gentlemen designed to attend Us We are well contented to give way to that addition and that you licence them accordingly to come over hither to attend Us with the rest for which these Our Letters shall be your sufficient Warrant Given at our Court at Oxford the twenty seventh of February 1643. To Our right trusty and entirely beloved Cousin and Councellor James Marquesse of O mond Our Lieutenant-Generall and generall Governour of Our Kingdom of Ireland and to the rest of Our Councell there By His Majesties command EDW. NICHOLAS whereupon the said Agents received Letters which were delivered them as Letters of recommendation from the Lord Lieutenant and Councell to Mr. Secretary Nicholas but what was the effect of the said Letters or of former Letters delivered to those agents formerly appointed neither the Protestant petitioners nor their Agents did ever know being refused to be communicated to the said Agents though they earnestly desired the same On the second of April 1644. the Protestant Agents tooke shipping at Dublin and on the seventeenth of April came to Oxford and that day they delivered to Mr. Secretary Nicholas the said Letters from the Lord Lieutenant and Councell formerly mentioned and desired him to let them know what time he thought fittest for the said Agents to waite upon His Majesty to present unto Him the petition from the Protestants of Ireland who appointed them the next day at nine of the clocke in the Garden at Christ-church in Oxford and then they were by him presented to His Majesty where after kissing His Majesties hands they presented unto Him the said petition to which afterwards they received an answer which petition and answer follow in haec verba To the Kings most Excellent Majesty The humble Petition of divers of your Majesties Protestant Subjects in your Kingdome of Ireland as well Commanders of your Majesties Army here as others whose names are subscribed in the behalfe of themselves and other your Protestant Subjects in this your Kingdome Sheweth THat this your Highnesse Kingdome reduced with the vast expence of Treasure and much effusion of Brittish blood to the obedience of the Imperiall Crowne of England hath beene by the Princely care of your Royall progenitors especially of Queen Elizabeth and of your Royall father of ever blessed memory and your sacred Majesty in many parts happily planted great sums of money disbursed in buildings and improvements Churches edified and endowed and frequented with multitudes of good Protestants and your Customes and Revenues raised to great yeerely summes by the industry of your Protestant subjects especially and great summes of money by way of Subsidies and Contributions cheerfully paid unto your Majesty by your said Subjects In which happinesse this your Kingdome hath flourished in a long continued peace and under your Highnesse most glorious and happy government untill that by the present generall conspiracy and rebellion raised out of detestation of your blessed government and for rooting out of the Protestant religion and so for the dispossessing of your Majesty of this your said Kingdome without the least occasion offered by your Majesty or your Protestant subjects And notwithstanding that your Majesty immediately before had enlarged beyond president your Royall favour and bounty to them in granting all that
their and and our joynt Agents did desire of your Majesty And we continuing amongst them in all love and amity without distrust your Petitioners and others who laboured to oppose those damnable designes and practices have been driven from their dwellings estates and fortunes their houses and Churches burnt and demolished all monuments of civility utterly defaced your Majesties Forts and places of strength throwne downe and the Common and Statute lawes of this your Kingdome utterly confounded by taking upon themselves the exercise of all manner of authorities and jurisdictions Ecclesiasticall and Civill both by Land and Sea proper and peculiar to your sacred Majesty being your just Prerogatives and the Royall flowers of your Imperiall Diadem to the disherison of your Crowne and your royall Revenues brought to nothing and the Protestant Clergy with their revenues and support for the present destroyed This your Kingdom in all parts formerly inhabited with Brittish Protestants now depopulated of them and many thousands of your Protestant subjects most barbarously used stripped naked tortured famished hanged buried alive drowned and otherwise by all barbarous cruell sorts of death murthered such as yet remaine of them are reduced to that extremity that very few of them have wherewith all to maintain a being and all of them so terrifyed and afflicted with those barbarous and inhumane cruelties the true report whereof being now spread abroad into the Christian world you Suppliants conceive feares that your Majesties Brittish subjects will be discouraged from comming againe to inhabite this Kingdome and the remnant of the Brittish left here will be forced to depart All this being done by the conspiracy of the Papists who did publiquely declare the utter extirpation of the Protestant Religion and all the Brittish professors thereof out of this your Majesties Kingdom And to the end it may the better in some measure appeare your Suppliants have made choice of Captaine Mr. William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Knight and Baronet Captaine Michael Iones and Mr. Fenton Parsons whom they have imployed and authorised as their Agents to manifest the truth thereof in such particulars as for the present they are furnished withall referring the more ample manifestation thereof to the said Captaine Mr. William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Captaine Iones and Fenton Parsons or any three or more of them and such other Agents as shall with all convenient speed be sent as occasion shall require to attend your Majesty from your Protestant Subjects of the severall Provinces of this your Kingdome We therefore your Majesties most humble loyall and obedient Protestant subjects casting downe our selves at your Royall feet and flying to you for succour and redresse in these our great calamities as our most gracious Soveraigne Lord and King and next and immediately under Almighty God our protector and defence most humbly beseeching your sacred Majesty to admit into your Royall presence from time to time our said Agents and in your great wisdome to take into your Princely care and consideration the distressed estate and humble desires of your said Subjects so that to the glory of God your Majesties honour and the happinesse of your good Subjects the Protestant Religion may be restored throughout the whole Kingdome to its lustre That the losses of your Protestant subjects may be repayred in such manner and measure as your Majesty in your Princely wisdome shall thinke fit and that this your Kingdome may be so setled as that your said Protestant Subjects may heareafter live therein under the happy government of your Majesty and your Royall posterity with comfort and security Whereby your Majesty will render your selfe throughout the whole world a most just and glorious Defender of the Protestant Religion and draw downe a blessing on all other your Royall undertakings For which your Petitioners will ever pray c. Subscribed by the Earle of Kildare the Lord Viscount Montgomery the Lord Blany and many others At the Court at Oxford the 25 of April 1644. HIs Majesty being very sensible of the Petitioners losses and sufferings is ready to heare and relieve them as the exigencie of His affaires will permit and wisheth the Petitioners to propose what they thinke fit in particular for His Majesties information and the Petitioners remedy and future security Edw. Nicholas And His Majesty looking upon the petition and the names of the subscribers commanded the same to be read and after the reading thereof His Majesty was pleased to expresse himselfe that he knew the contents of the Petition to be truth and that the same could not be denyed and required the Protestant agents to reduce the generals of the Petition into particulars And His Majesty then further said to the said Agents That the Agents for the Irish tooke it upon their salvation unto him that the Conspiracy in Ireland at first was not generall and that the English pale of Ireland were forced into Rebellion by His Governours of Ireland and that if his Parliament of England had permitted Him to have gone into Ireland when He desired He doubted not but He should soon have suppressed that Rebellion His Majesty having directed the Protestant Agents by His answer on the said petition to represent what they should thinke fit in particular for His Majesties information and the petitioners remedy and future security the said Agents likewise taking into consideration a scandalous and most false Remonstrance of the Irish rebels presented to His Majesties Commissioners at Trymme in Ireland the 27 of March 1642. which afterwards was printed at Waterford by Thomas Bourke printer to the Confederate Roman Catholiques of Ireland whereunto he affixed His Majesties Armes many of which bookes were published and dispersed by the rebels not onely in Ireland but at Oxford and other parts of this Kingdome and in forraigne parts of purpose to asperse the late government there and His Majesties good and faithfull Protestant subjects and to put a shew of reason upon the barbarous and inhumane cruelties which the said Rebels had acted on the Protestants of Ireland unprovoked in time of full peace The Protestant Agents for vindication of the late government and of the Protestants of Ireland and for the satisfaction of all good people conceived themselves bound in duty to God and His Majesty to present to His Majesty some collections of knowne truths in answer to the said Remonstrance of the Rebels of Ireland Which Remonstrance and the copy of the said Collections in answer thereunto were presented to His Majesty together with their first propositions in the behalfe of the Protestants of Ireland which first propositions follow in haec verba The humble Propositions of your Majesties Protestant Agents of Ireland in pursuance of the humble Petition of your Majesties Protestant Subjects aswell Commanders of your Majesties Army there as others presented to your Majesty the 18 day of Aprill 1644. and answered by your Majestie the 25 of the same 1. WE most humbly desire the establishment of the true
aspersion upon your Majesties gracious government over Ireland and that it trencheth very high upon your Wisdome Justice and Power and under colour of supposed corruptions pretended to be in the greatest Officer that Commandeth under your Majestie there if he continue so long in his government as may well enable him to finde out and discover the true state of that Kingdome and the dangerous dispositions and designes of the Popish party there to prevent him therein and to turn him out from doing service before or assoon as he is throughly informed and experienced how to do the same and then to hold him excluded so long that in all likelihood he shall not live to come to that place the second time which we humbly conceive will be a great discouragement to any person of honour and fortune to serve your Majesty in that high trust And for their purchasing Lands in that Kingdome your Majesty may be pleased to leave them to the Lawes and punish them severely if they commit any offence or exercise any oppressions under colour of purchasing of any lands or estates whatsoever Prop. 15. That an Act may be passed in the next Parliament for the raising and setling of Trained Bands within the severall Counties of that Kingdome aswell to prevent forraign invasions as to render them the more serviceable and ready for your Majesties occasions as cause shall require Answ The having of Trained bands in Ireland for the present cannot under favour be for your Majesties service or the safety of that Kingdome for that the Protestants by the sad effects of the late Rebellion are so much destroyed that the said Bands must consist in effect altogether of the confederate Catholiques and to continue them in Armes stored with Ammunition and made ready for service by mustering and often Trayning will prove under colour of advancing your Majesties service against forraign invasion a meet guard and power of Popish Forces alwayes in readinesse to protect the Popish confederates and by force and Armes according to their late oathes and Protestations to execute all their cruell designs for extirpation of the Protestant Religion and English Government both which they mortally hate howsoever in cunning they dissemble it and to prevent the setling an Army of good Protestants without which your Majesties good Subject cannot live securely there Propos 16. That an Act of Oblivion be passed in the next frée Parliament to extend to all your Majesties said Catholique Subjects and their adherents for all manner of offences Capitall Criminall and Personall and the said Act to extend to all Goods and Chattels Customes Measne Profits Prizes Arrears of Rents taken received or incurred since these troubles Answ We humbly pray that the Laws of force be taken into consideration and do humbly conceive that your Majesty in honour and Justice may forbear to discharge or release any Actions Suits Debts or Interests whereby your Majesties Protestant Subjects who have committed no offence against your Majestie or your Laws should be barred or deprived of any of their Legall remedies or just demands which by any of your Majesties Laws and Statutes they may have against the Popish confederates who are the onely delinquents or any of their party for or in respect of any wrongs done unto them or any of their Ancestors or Predecessours in or concerning their Lands Goods or Estates since the contriving or breaking forth of Rebellion The said confederates having without provocation shed so much innocent blood and acted so many cruelties as cannot be parallel'd in any story And we conceive it to be high presumption in them upon so weak grounds to propound an Act of Oblivion in such generall termes some of the confederates having been contrivers or Actors of such cruell Murthers and other Acts of Inhumanity as cry to God and your Sacred Majesty for Justice and they having of your Majesties Revenues Customes Subsidies and other rights of your Crown in their hands or destroyed by them to the value of 200000. l. and more Propos 17. Forasmuch as your Majesties said Catholique Subjects have béen taxed with many Inhumane cruelties which they never committed Your Majesties said suppliants therefore for their vindication and to manifest to all the world their desire to have such hainous offences punished and the Offenders brought to Austice Do desire that in next the Parliament all notorious murthers breaches of Quarter and Inhumane cruelties committed of either side may be questioned in the said Parliament if your Majesty so think fit And such as shall appear to be guilty to be excepted out of the said Act of Oblivion and punished according to their deserts Forasmuch Dread Soveraign as the ways of our addresse unto your Majesty for apt remedies unto our grievances were hither to debarred us but now at length through your benign grace and favour laid open We do humbly present these in pursuance of the said Remonstrance which granted your said subjects are ready to contribute the 10000. Men as in their Remonstrance is specified towards the suppressing of the unnaturall Rebellion now in this Kingdome and will further expose their lives and fortunes to serve your Majestie as occasion shall require Answer We conceive this Proposition is made but for a flourish and if the confederates be so desirous to try their innocency as they pretend they need not stay for another Parliament in Ireland but submit to that which is now in being which is an equall and just Parliament as in some of our reasons touching that point is expressed And the offering to draw it to a new Parliament is in effect to desire that they may be their own Judges for as that Kingdome is now imbroiled and wasted the chief delinquents or their confederates will be so prevalent a faction in the next Parliament that they will be able and doubtlesse will clear all the Popish party how guilty soever and condemn the Protestants how Innocent soever These Answers to the High and unexpected demands of the confederate Rebels we have framed in humble obedience to your Majesties directions but being very sensible as of the weight and great importance of the businesse so also of our own weaknesse and want of time and well knowing that some of your Majesties Privy Councellours Judges and Officers of that Kingdome are now in Town sent for over and here attending by your Majesties command who by their long observation and experience of the affairs and state of Ireland are better able to give your Majesty more full and satisfactory answers touching the premisses then we can and conceiving that the Collections in answere to the said confederates Remonstrance which we humbly presented to your Majesty the 29. of the last Moneth of April may in many things give your Majestie more light then these our Answers do or can We humbly beseech your Majestie that the said Privy Councellours Judges and Officers as occasion shall require may be called upon and heard to give your