THE ANSWER OF A PERSON of QUALITY To a Scandalous LETTER Lately Printed and Subscribed by P. W. Intituled A Letter desiring a just and merciful Regard of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland given about the end of October 1660. to the then Marquess now Duke of Ormond and the second time L. Lievtenant of that Kingdom DVBLIN Printed by I. C. Anno Dom. 1662. The Answer c. HAving lately seen a Printed Paper the Title whereof is A Letter desiring a just and merciful regard of the Roman Catholicks of Ireland given about the end of October 1660. to the then Marquess now Duke of Ormond and the second time L. Lievtenant of that Kingdom Subscribed by P. W. And finding it in effect whatever the words of it are extremely undutiful to his sacred Majesty very disrespectful to the Duke of Ormond L. Lievtenant of Ireland and most scandalous not onely to the Protestants of Ireland but also to those of the same Religion in his sacred Majesties other Kingdoms I have esteemed my self obliged as a faithful subject to the King as an humble servant to the L. Lievtenant and as a son of the Protestant Church whose Members are as highly as falsly asperst by it to expose in print an Answer to that Letter which before I enter upon I will onely say P. W. professing not a little to be his Graces servant if he meant not this Letter as a respect to his Grace why was it written if he did why was it printed But P. W. despairing to receive from his Grace the effects of his unjust desires for his Countrey-men chose this way to acquaint them 't was not for want of his sollicitation He would let them see since he could not make them beholding to My L. Lievtenant that they were so to him Since I shall often have occasion to name IRISH PAPISTS I have thought fit here once for all to declare That I mean not thereby in all or any part of my Answer any of those Worthy Persons of that Nation and Religion who have still faithfully served the King whose merit I highly respect and the more because it has been preserved from infection even in a very Pest-house nor any of those who having been truly sorrowful for it and in the constancy of their subsequent services to his Majesty have washt themselves clean For I take a perfect delight in any change from bad to good and I heartily wish that every one of them had not so much indangered their being polluted again as interceding and pleading for their guilty Countrey-men does amount unto Having thus made this necessary digression I shall now proceed The parts separate of this Letter are three First a Preface Secondly a Petition Thirdly a Conclusion or concluding Wish P. W. prefaceth First the Fears and Iealousies of those whom he calls the Catholicks of Ireland Secondly His own affection to and confidence in his Grace the Duke of Ormond Fears and Iealousies are no less than must in reason be expected in the Generality of the Irish Papists For though the goodness and indulgence of the best of Kings may make their condition safe yet the conscience of their own guilt will never suffer them to be secure Pretended Fears and Iealousies were the Forerunners if not Causers of Troubles past I hope P. W. intends them not as such for Troubles to come Fear is founded on at least attended with Hatred and if one of the Best of his Majesties Servants one of the chiefest of his Ministers be thus 1. Vniversally 2. Intensly fear'd and therefore 3. hated 4. as P. W. says by his own Countrey-men but let all that P. W. prints stand or fall as this last particular is true or false for his Grace is neither his Countrey-man by birth Religion or any other relation to which that Name is appliable yea 5. by his own Fiduciares as is expressed in the Printed Letter If I say all this be not true why does P. W. say it if it be true what can others expect For if the flame be so in the green Tree what will it be in the dry The Irish Papists in their former and later Apologies for the horridest of Rebellions have not to this very day within any of his Majesties Dominions even pretended publickly any other cause for their Rapines Murthers Massacres and Treasons but what resolves it self into Fears and Ielousies And if their Passions be the same it is to be fear'd their Wills are not alter'd And if their Wills be the same nothing under God can prevent the effects but want of strength Especially considering that 1. in 1641. no such antecedent animosities or hatreds had prepared matters for Fears and Ielousies as by the worst of Rebellions is now become even nationally violent but by the way it seems to me somewhat hard that those which give the rise for the Cause should first cry out in the Effects 2. In 1641. these Fears and Ielousies if really in any were but in a Few but now P. W. confesseth That they have seized upon almost all the Nobility Gentry and others yea the Generality of the Catholicks of Ireland even the constant Believers of passionate Sticklers for and fastest Friends to his Grace the Duke of Ormond and this so intensly that it produceth the loss both of Faith and Hope Here it may well be observed what temper they are of whom P. W. pleads for Ielousies Fears and want of faith are so inseparable from them that those in 1641 were onely said to be derived from his Majesties Enemies but now all such by the mercy of God being blown away they are derived from his Majesties chief Minister of State of this Kingdom and who is made such as P. W. saith and as I most heartily acknowledg by his own great deserts What is it can suppress the Fears and Ielousies of P. W's Countrey-men when his Majesties free Election of a chief Governor and such a one as the Duke of Ormond is cannot do it This acknowledgment of P. W's fully proves that the Irish Papists Fears and Ielousies of the chief Governors of this Kingdom in 1641 were onely taken up by those and not cause given for them by these The plain English is this though his Majesty should from time to time nominate for Lord Lieutenant of this Kingdom the wisest and the faithfullest of his Subjects yet because the King commissionates them or because they are such or both many I wish I could not say most of the Irish Papists will be jealous and fearful of them Concerning P. W's affection to and confidence in his Grace the Duke of Ormond exprest by several instances of free and frequent access to him of his and others reliance on his word of his daily care and trouble to support his esteem and of blaming distrusters as guilty of ignorance of State affairs and the Intrigues obstructing as yet or of inconsideration of those wiser ways though slower than folly or rashness could chalk
they had no ground nay not so much as a colour for it 2. In the year 1646 and after a peace concluded with them they attempted by a Treachery not to be parallel'd by any but themselves to cut off the Lord Lieutenant and Army with him who marched out of Dublin on security and confidence of that peace 3. The same year the Council and Congregation of the confederate Catholicks of Ireland obliged their General Preston by a solemn Oath in these very words viz. To exercize all acts of Hostility against the L. Marquess of Ormond by name and his party and to help advise with counsel and assist in that service the L. General of Vlster employed in the same expedition This Oath is a fruitful Theme to declame upon but I will limit my observations upon it onely to these following particulars 1. Least any should doubt they are his Majesties Subjects least any of themselves should repent the sin of not having been such they swear that they may raise their crimes above pardon to exercize all acts of Hostility against his Majesty in the person of that noble Lord who had then as now the high honor to represent him If killing be an act of hostility they in this Oath swear to kill him if this be not actual Regicide I am sure 't is not their fault that it is not This horrid Oath takes off all disguises and makes their sin as visible as great And if such a Crime be capable of accession it did contract it by the same persons engaging privately about the same time as I have been assur'd by an undeniable Testimony That he would serve the King which he afterwards endeavour'd to excuse onely by saying His Army was not Nuntio-proof By which it appears indisputably whether the Irish Papists are Subjects to the King or to the Pope 2 Instead of repenting and making amends for the late violated peace in the year 1646 they swear to destroy him with whom they had made it 3 This Oath reduc'd the taker of it to a sad Dilemma either to Rebellion or Perjury 4 This Oath evidences that nothing is so powerful with the Irish Papists as to destroy his Majesties Government since the uniting of the Old Irish Papists and the Old English Papists which the Pope himself could not effect the dethroning of his Sacred Majesty has accomplish'd They that could never agree in any thing else agree in this and 't is made the very Bond of their iniquity I will say no more on this subject but that Herod and Pilate could be friends when it was to crucifie Christ. 4. In the year 1647 from Kilkenny Ian. 18. the Popish Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the confederate Catholicks of Ireland employ Commissioners to Rome France and Spain to invite a forreign power into Ireland particularly to Rome their titular Bishop of Ferns and Nicolas Plunket Esq who was Knighted by the Pope for his good service therein and is now one of the confident Advocates for the Irish Papists as defenders of his Majesties Rights and against the Protestants of Ireland as deserters of the Royal Cause these I say were authorized to declare viz. That they raised arms for the freedom of the Catholick Religion which are their own very words in the third Article of those their Instructions In their Remonstrance in the begining of the Rebellion whatever they said necessitated some few discontents to take up arms then they took off the vail and positively said That they raised arms for the freedom of the Catholick Religion Certainly if ever they may be believed to speak true it is when they speak to the POPE and if ever any thing may be believed to be the voice of all the Irish Papists it is when the Popish Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons of the confederate Catholicks speak in one Assembly What is meant by the Freedom of the Catholick Religion has been practically expounded by the Professors of it in Ireland not onely affirmatively that those which are of it should enjoy the publick and undisturbed exercize thereof themselves but negatively to be an exclusion of the publick if not private exercize of the True Religion Many instances I could present the Reader of this but I shall onely set down two The 1. is Dean York a reverend Minister of Gods word during his residence at Gallway was not allowed to pay the last duties of Christian burial to those Protestants which died in that Town but was forced to bury them nay his own children privately in his Garden The 2. is That my L. Duke of Ormond though owned by the Irish Papists to be the Kings L. Lieutenant and consequently representing his Sacred Majesties person was still denied the use of so much as one Church or Chappel wherever the said Papists had the power nay one of the Generals of the Irish PAPISTS now living told my L. Lieutenant at Kilkenny That if the King in person came into Ireland he should not be allowed by them One Church to celebrate his Devotions in to whom his Grace made a return proportionate to the disloyalty of that Declaration and part of that return being prophetical and since fulfilled I shall here insert the words viz. I hope to live to soe all of that mind to be without one Church in Ireland to say Mass in By these two instances it is evident That the direct meaning of those words The Freedom of the Catholick Religion is no other than the total banishing out of this Kingdom the exercize of the Religion established in it by Truth it self and by the good and wholsom Laws of the Land 5. In another part of the third Article of the said Instructions these very words are inserted viz. The cofederate Catholicks do intend that you let his Holiness know their resolution to insist upon such Concessions and Agreements in matters of Religion and for the security thereof as his Holiness shall approve of and be satisfied with This palpably evinceth that the Papists of Ireland being Subjects or Rebels depends wholly upon the Popes pleasure For let his Majesty grant them what he will yet his pretended Holiness's approbation must be the rule by which onely they will be bound And this is made most evident by the words of the nineth Article in the said Instructions which follow in these words viz. In case his Holiness will not be pleased to descend to such Conditions as might be granted in matters of Religion then you are to sollicit for considerable aids whereby to maintain a war and to ascertain and secure the same c. And soon after in the same nineth Article these words follow viz. You are to make application to his Holiness for his being Protector of this Kingdom and by special instance to endeavor his acceptance thereof c. Still the Pope is their King and that he may be so almost in name as well as in power they sollicit him by special instance to accept
Recognition and that their Ruling Power published the Breach thereof to the world as is evident by their Declaration of the twelfth of August 1650. so by many other insolent violations though His Majesties Grace and Mercy hath indulg'd to the particular actings of many Individuals yet in relation to those Articles or an account of any Obligation in Iustice due to them they are not to be regarded Yet his sacred Majesties justice to and tenderness of the said Irish Papists has abundantly appeared not only in his having in person still heard them upon the said Articles of Peace but also in giving them near 2 years time to prove all they pleaded and so long left the Kingdom unsettled that they might be fully heard in all their Allegations nay even by his giving Them a liberty which never yet was given to any even a free sight of the Bill of Settlement which was humbly presented to Him by the Lords Justices and Council pursuant to Poynings Law and a full liberty to make all the objections they could against it which yet they have been so far from acknowledging as an effect of his Royal Care and Indulgence that in all their Answers which I have diligently perused I do not find so much as a bare taking notice of that unpresidented Favour But possibly since by that Indulgence their guilt has been but the more evidenced they untruly consider the consequences of that mercy to be what only was intended in the extending of it and therefore were loth to pay his Majesty thanks for what has but more discover'd their Crimes But yet this is but proportionate to the rest of their proceedings for since they call his sacred Majesties mercy an injustice they may at the same rate decline paying Acknowledgments for his condescentions to them Having thus proved that the Peace was broken by the Irish Papists after it was made I shall now say something to prove that it was DESIGNEDLY broken BEFORE IT WAS MADE If by a previous Ingagement and Oath the Irish Papists confirmed their first confederacie not to be dissolved by the Peace which then they seemingly pursued If they combin'd to make themselves IVDGES of his Majesties Actions and to appeal to themselves upon every Occurrence that they should be inclinable to misinterpret notwithstanding their Protestations of obedience to his Majesties Authority then I conceive the whole peace thereby is on their part made void and null But that they did so is clearly evident and that by an OATH solemnly taken not by private men or a factious party but by all the Prelates Noblemen and Gentlemen that were the Grand Committee upon concluding the said Peace That in case of non-performing of the Articles thereof that is to say If all the particulars therein were not carried on according to their liking they were to continue the Association and Vnion of Confederate Catholicks and to do ALL Acts preservative thereunto In this place it seems to me requisite to let the Reader know what that Vnion and Association of the Confederate Catholicks was which they swear to continue which I shall instane in somce particulars out of their own Originals now remaining on Record In the first Roll they swear in these very words viz. I A. B. do promise protest and swear before God and his Saints and his Angels That I will during my life bear true Faith and Allegiance to my Soveraign Lord Charles by the grace of God King of Great Britain France and Ireland and to his HEIRS and lawful Successors and that I will to my power during my life defend uphold and maintain all his and their IVST PREROGATIVES Estate and Rights the Power and Priviledges of Parliament of this Realm the Fundamental Laws of Ireland and the FREE EXERCISE OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICK FAITH AND RELIGION THROUGHOUT THIS LAND and the Lives just Liberties Possessions Estate and Right of all those that have taken or shall take this Oath and perform the Contents thereof and that I will OBEY and RATIFIE all the ORDERS and the DECREES MADE and TO BE MADE by the Supreme Council of the Confederate Catholicks of this Kingdom concerning the said publick Cause And that I will not SEEK or RECEIVE directly or indirectly ANY PARDON or protection for any Act DONE or TO BE DONE touching the General Cause without the consent of the Major Part of the said Council and that I will not directly or indirectly do any Act or Acts that shall prejudice the said Cause but will to the hazard of my life and estate assist prosecute and MAINTAIN the same Moreover I do further swear That I will not accept of or submit unto ANY PEACE made or to be made with the said Confederate Catholicks without consent and approbation of the General Assembly of the said Confederate Catholicks and for the preservation and strengthning of the Association and Vnion of the Kingdom that upon any peace or accommodation to be made or concluded with the said Confederate Catholicks as aforesaid I will to the uttermost of my power insist upon and maintain the ensuing propositions until a peace as aforesaid be made and the matters to be agreed upon in the Articles of peace be ESTABLISHED and SECURED by PARLIAMENT So help me God and his holy Gospel In this their first Confederacie Oath they swear flat and known contradictions for they swear to bear true Faith and Allegiance to the King and with the same breath they swear they will obey and ratifie all the Orders and Decrees made and to be made by their supreme Council who had then actually cast off the Kings Authority and set up a Government in opposition to his Majesties It had sure been at least enough to swear to obey and ratifie all Orders and Decrees they had made without increasing that guilt by the high accession of swearing to obey and ratifie all to be made by the Supreme Council Herein they show what the POPE is to them in Spirituals their Supreme Council is in Temporals whom they obey with a blinde and implicite Faith They swear also to maintain the Fundamental Laws of this Kingdom and in the same breath they swear to maintain the free exercise of the Roman Catholick Religion which is expresly against Law as it is that any should govern the Kingdom but by his Majesties Authority which they assumed and usurped in all the essentials of it nay not onely the matter of the Oath is against those Laws they swear to maintain but even the taking or imposing of any Oath which by Law is not warranted is a violation of the Laws But they are so far from owning these their Crimes that they swear they will not seek or receive directly or indirectly any pardon or protection for any thing done or to be done touch-this General Cause c. They can be content to seek and receive a Pardon from the POPE for sins to come but they swear they neither will seek or receive directly or indirectly