Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 2 (of 3), 1642-1660

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[166] Letter from Clonmacnoise signed by the four archbishops and seven bishops, including the secretary of the congregation, to the Pope, December 12, 1649, in Spicilegium Ossoriense, i. 327. Ormonde to the King, December 15 and 24, and the answer from Jersey, February 2, 1649-50, in Carte’s Original Letters, ii. 417-425.

[167] Declaration of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for the undeceiving of deluded people, January 1649-50, in Carlyle, ii. 1, and see the strictures on this ‘remarkablest State paper’ in the notes to the 1904 edition and in Gardiner’s Commonwealth, i. 163-166; the Declaration was first printed at Cork and reprinted in London, March 21.

[168] Lady Fanshawe’s Memoirs, p. 53, ed. 1907. Sir Richard Bolton died about a year before the revolt of Cork, after which the Great Seal of Ireland may have been placed irregularly in the hands of Roscommon, who had married Strafford’s sister.

[169] Cromwell to Lenthall, February 15, 1649-50, and to Bradshaw, March 5, in Carlyle; also letters in the Supplement, pp. 54-56. In the articles for the surrender of Fethard (No. 55) it is stipulated that the garrison might retire to ‘any place within his Majesty’s quarters.’ When Cromwell signed this, he either did not notice the draftsman’s expression, or thought it did not matter. For Enniscorthy see Whitelock’s Memorials, p. 437.

[170] Bellings, vii. 129. Several Letters from Ireland, March 18, 1649-50. This tract is reprinted in the Kilkenny Archæological Journal, new series, i. 110, with a contemporary plan of Ballisonan, but the latter must have been drawn to illustrate the capture of the place by Jones in September 1648.

[171] Castlehaven’s Memoirs, pp. 83-86; Cromwell to Lenthall, April 2, 1650, in Carlyle. And see Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, chaps. 24 and 25, and Lord Dillon’s apologetic letter in Contemp. Hist. ii. 373; Clarendon’s History, Ireland, p. 96.

[172] Articles for surrender, March 27, in Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, p. 301. All the letters extant are printed by Carlyle, vol. ii., see especially that of Cromwell to the mayor on March 26. The Aphorismical Discovery, ii. 69, states that the townsmen capitulated behind the governor’s back, and that the garrison were not mentioned in the capitulation, which shows the untrustworthiness of the writer. And see Carte’s Life of Ormonde, ii. 113.

[173] Cromwell’s letter of April 2, in Carlyle, ii. 48, with the notes; Grave’s and Prim’s Hist. of St. Canice’s Cathedral, pp. 74, 138, 296; Letters of Fleming and Lynch in Spicilegium Ossoriense, i. 341, 348; Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, chaps. xxv. and xxvi.

[174] Seven contemporary accounts of this siege, including one from Bates’s Elenchus, are printed in Contemp. Hist. ii. 408-415. See Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, chap. xxviii.; Ireton to Cromwell, July 10, 1651, Milton State Papers, p. 72. Cromwell’s own account is wanting, but the notes to letter 132 in Carlyle may be consulted. In the churchyard of St. Mary’s, very near the breach, is a large stone inscribed NL ET SOCII, and the tradition is that fifty of Cromwell’s soldiers lie beneath.

[175] Authorities as for last paragraph; Aphorismical Discovery, p. 616; Dillingham to Sancroft in Cary’s Memorials of the Civil War, ii. 217. The articles of surrender are printed in Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, p. 341, with the date May 18, but the letter in Whitelock (456) says May 10. Certainty is unattainable, but Cromwell’s battery was probably near the railway station on the slope of Gallows Hill. Since the above was written I have read the account of this siege in Rev. W. S. Burke’s Hist. of Clonmel, 1907, but have not thought it necessary to alter the text.

[176] Broghill’s letter, dated April 16, is printed in Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, p. 324; Borlase’s Irish Rebellion, p. 240; the Brief Chronicle printed in Contemp. Hist. iii. 165, says Roche was ‘condemned to be shot to death by a council of war’; Cox’s Hibernia Anglicana, ii. 16, where the date is erroneously given as May 16.

[177] Cromwell to Hewson, May 22, 1650, in Carlyle, Supplement 61; to John Sadler, December 31, 1649, ib. appendix 17. The latter letter offers Sadler, a master in Chancery in England, 1000l. a year as Chief Justice of Munster. Sadler did not go, but the place was given to a vigorous law reformer, John Cook the regicide.

[178] Broghill’s letter of April 16; Letter among the Clarendon MSS., July 6, o. s., endorsed by Hyde as from ‘J. Barn.’ (perhaps Barnewall).; Carte’s Life of Ormonde, ii.; Gardiner’s Commonwealth, i. 153, 168. It is remarkable that in Hill’s Macdonnells of Antrim nothing is said about the alleged forgery, though the writer can hardly have been ignorant of Carte’s statement. Cromwell’s articles granted to the Protestants, dated April 26, are printed in Contemp. Hist. ii. 393, where the other letters may be found, pp. 401-408, 410, and 411, and see Supplement 58 to Carlyle.

[CHAPTER XXXIII]
ORMONDE’S LAST STRUGGLES, 1650

Hopeless dissensions among Irish Royalists.

Ormonde meets the bishops at Limerick, March.

Limerick excludes Ormonde’s garrison.

The Anglo-Irish Catholics had been drawn into the war against their will in many cases, and in many others only in the hopes of obtaining religious toleration. They were genuine Royalists, though the interests of the sovereign did not always seem to be theirs. But the Celts cared extremely little for the Crown and a great deal for the Church; even more perhaps for the land which they had lost. Rinuccini’s whole influence went to widen the difference between the two sections. The dominant faction among the clergy were quite ready to submit to a foreign protector, and Ormonde’s last struggles were with the bishops. The Clonmacnoise decrees having failed to secure union, he summoned twenty-four prelates along with the Commissioners of Trust to meet him at Limerick, whither he went after finally leaving Kilkenny. They met accordingly on March 8, and five days later presented him with a paper of advice. They suggested that a Privy Council should be appointed consisting of ‘peers and others, natives of this kingdom, at once spiritual and temporal,’ to sit daily with the Lord Lieutenant and determine all weighty affairs. The answer to this was easy: that the appointment of Privy Councillors belonged to the King alone, and that in the actual condition of affairs the Commissioners of Trust were quite Council enough. There were vague charges of preferring Protestants to Catholics, and suggestions made as to the rendering of accounts and the administration of justice, very suitable for peaceful times, but not at all applicable to the desperate state of affairs really existing. Ormonde’s immediate object was to place a garrison in Limerick, and there all was refused to him, Lord Kilmallock, Catholic though he was, being imprisoned by the citizens for quartering part of his own troop within the walls by the Marquis’s orders. Some of the bishops made a faint attempt to reconcile the townsmen; but Ormonde went away to Loughrea on March 18, and the prelates and Commissioners followed him thither next day. It had been represented to him by some of them that all would be right if he would only get rid of Inchiquin; while others told the latter that he, as a chief of the ancient Irish, was the proper person to command, if only he would separate from Ormonde. The two lords compared notes, and easily perceived that the real object in view was to get rid of them both.[179]

A successor to Owen Roe O’Neill.

Bishop Macmahon appointed, April 1.

By the fourth article of his agreement with Owen Roe O’Neill, Ormonde was bound to give the command in Ulster to the person nominated by the nobility and gentry of that province, who assembled for that purpose at Belturbet in March, under the presidency of Eugene Swiney, who had been Bishop of Kilmore since 1628. Antrim, who had already been in communication with Cromwell and was soon to be in alliance with Ireton, was a candidate, and had many supporters among the officers. It was thought that Sir George Monro and his Scots might follow him, though they would dislike an Irish and especially a clerical general. Hugh O’Neill, who would have been by far the fittest man, was absent in Munster; and Daniel O’Neill was practically disqualified by being a Protestant. The other candidates were Sir Phelim O’Neill, who had never shone as a soldier, Owen Roe’s son Henry, General Ferrall, and Bishop Macmahon of Clogher. The bishop professed no great anxiety for the post, but there seems little doubt that he left no stone unturned. These intrigues were successful, and Ormonde signed his commission on April 1. He was, says the ‘British Officer,’ ‘a great politician, but no more a soldier fit to be a general than one of Rome’s cardinals.’

Englishmen turned out of the army.

Before the end of April, Monro surrendered Enniskillen to Coote ‘for 500l. and other trivial things.’ At the beginning of May the Bishop began his active campaign. Toome, at the foot of Lough Neagh, was surprised, and, though it was retaken not long after, this prevented Coote from besieging Charlemont; and the Irish army got between his garrison at Londonderry and that of Venables at Coleraine. A council of war was held at Loughgall in Armagh to decide whether the attack should be on the Belfast district or on Londonderry. According to the ‘British Officer,’ the latter course was taken owing to the secret practices of Sir George Rawdon, who wished to keep the war away from his own country. Macmahon summoned Dungiven, which was defended by Colonel Beresford with about sixty men, to whom he wrote, ‘if you shed one drop of my soldiers’ blood, I will not spare to put man, woman, and child to the sword.’ The place was taken by assault, the soldiers mounting the ramparts by means of short sticks thrust into the sods, and all found in arms were killed, except Beresford himself, who was sent wounded to Charlemont, where he recovered. The women, among whom, according to the ‘British Officer,’ were Lady Coote and Mrs. Beresford, were sent safely to Limavady, which was maintained by the successor of Sir Thomas Phillips. The Bishop hoped that some Scots would join him on Royalist grounds; but he got rid of all Englishmen, and a declaration was published by himself and the Bishop of Down, which was signed by twenty-nine officers, every one of them with Celtic names.[180]

Over-confidence of Bishop Macmahon,

who divides his forces,

and rejects Henry O’Neill’s advice.

Battle of Scariffhollis, June 21.

An old soldier’s comments.

The Bishop of Clogher styled his followers ‘the confident, victorious Catholic army of the North,’ but its career of success was not long. Ballycastle, on the northern shore of Antrim, was taken without resistance, and garrisoned; but it could be of little use, and the army, amounting at this time to about 4000 foot and 400 horse, returned through the mountains. The Foyle was crossed at a little-frequented passage below Lifford, Coote being encamped higher up with a much inferior force. A smart skirmish took place in which the Irish had the best of it, Captains Taylor and Cathcart being killed. If the Bishop had followed up this success, he might have gained a great victory, for Coote had to retire by a narrow causeway through bogs. The Scotch settlers were numerous between Lifford and Londonderry, and agreed to give some provisions to the Bishop’s army; but Coote persuaded them all to retire into Inishowen with their cattle, so that there was little left for the enemy to eat. Macmahon occupied Lifford, which Major Perkins surrendered as soon as he saw Ormonde’s commission, and remained there for a week, when supplies began to run short. He then imprudently weakened his force by sending a large detachment to take the remote castle of Doe on Sheephaven, and smaller ones to forage about the country, so that when he took up a position at Scariffhollis on the Swilly, some two miles above Letterkenny, he had not with him more than 3000 foot and 400 horse. In the meantime, Coote was growing stronger: 1000 foot, under Colonel Fenwick, came to him from Venables at Belfast, and every available man was drawn out of Enniskillen, so that he had a large force by the fatal 21st of June. The principal officers in the Irish army were for adhering to the Fabian tactics of their late chief, his only son among them. Their arguments were sound and based on experience; but we may be sure that the speech put into Henry O’Neill’s mouth is very different from that uttered by him. The report occupies little more than a page, but in it are mentioned by name Mars, Ulysses, Ajax, Antiochus, Hannibal, Fabius Cunctator, Scipio Africanus, Scanderbeg, Spinola, and Maurice of Nassau. The Bishop retorted by actually accusing him of want of courage; and after that there was nothing left but to fight. They were, says Coote, posted on a mountain-side, ‘inaccessible to either horse or foot,’ but descended on the enemy’s appearance into ground ‘which was extreme bad,’ but yet possible to traverse. The infantry on both sides were perhaps nearly equal, but the English had a great superiority in cavalry, so that when the Irish broke after an hour’s hard fighting it was easy to pursue them in all directions. About 3000 were killed, including a large part of the officers, and few unmounted men can have escaped. Sir Phelim O’Neill got away to Charlemont, and the Bishop managed to keep some 200 horse together, with which he fled southwards. All his colours, arms, ammunition, and baggage fell into the victors’ hands. Coote’s casualties of all sorts were under a hundred, and only one officer was killed outright. Colonel Fenwick, who fell at the first fire, afterwards died of his wounds. ‘Now the reader may observe,’ says the British Officer, ‘the sequel of making the Bishop a general that was nothing experienced in that lesson, nor becoming his coat to send men to spill Christian blood; and how that for want of conduct and prudency in martial affairs he lost himself and that army that never got a foil before he led them.’[181]

The Bishop is captured.

and executed.

O’Neill put to death.

One of the Maguires, who knew all the short cuts, hurried off to Enniskillen as soon as he saw the result of the fight, and warned Major John King that the Bishop was coming his way. King got out one hundred fresh horsemen and fell upon the fugitives, who were in no condition to resist. Macmahon’s leg was broken in the scuffle, and he was taken prisoner. During his captivity he made a good impression, bewailing his many shortcomings and foretelling the course of events. King tried to save his life, but he was hanged after some weeks and his head fixed upon one of the gates of Londonderry. The responsibility for this must be shared between Ireton and Coote, but particulars are wanting. ‘I do not know,’ says the historian Lynch, ‘what the Bishop foretold, but I am certain that our nation never experienced worse calamities than she has done since he was taken from our midst.’ Ormonde praised him long afterwards as a truthful man who kept to his agreements. Several officers of rank were put to death by Coote after the battle, some of them, if we accept O’Neill’s Journal, with circumstances of great brutality. Henry O’Neill was among them, who reminded Coote that his father had saved him when he was near having to surrender Londonderry. To this Sir Charles replied that those services had been paid for at the time, and that he owed him nothing. The Irish accounts say that these officers had all been received to quarter and should have been treated as prisoners of war; and it is remarkable that the English accounts say nothing about it, though Ludlow notes that there were few prisoners, ‘being for the most part put to the sword.’ It is never possible to ascertain exactly what happened in a battle, but the probability is that immediate quarter for life given on the field was not supposed to cover acts of treason or rebellion, and all Coote’s victims would have come within those qualifications of the subsequent Act of Settlement which barred pardon for life and estate.[182]

Ormonde is unsupported.

Assembly at Loughrea, April 27.

Ormonde kept out of Limerick,

Ormonde has been blamed by many Irish writers for not supporting the Bishop of Clogher; but he had no army with him and no means of raising one. Inchiquin’s force had disappeared in the manner already described, and Castlehaven could do little with his small following. Meanwhile, the Shannon estuary was at the mercy of the Parliamentary fleet. Kilrush and Tarbert were burned and all country boats destroyed, so that Clare was cut off from the rest of Munster. The possession of Limerick was absolutely necessary to keep up the communications between Connaught and the other provinces, and Limerick was contumacious. To those who criticised him for keeping the few soldiers he had in scattered country quarters instead of concentrating them in important garrisons, the Lord Lieutenant sarcastically answered that the towns themselves were responsible, ‘wherein we cannot yet prevail, nor ever could, till by the enemies’ lying at one end of the town we were, not without articling and conditioning, permitted to put such men as we could then get in at the other end.’ He summoned a general assembly to meet at Loughrea on April 27, enclosing a copy of the young King’s letter, which permitted him to leave Ireland if he could not secure obedience. He had a vessel ready in Galway Bay, but the conciliatory attitude of the assembly, owing to the presence of a lay element, induced him to dismiss her and to stay on in Ireland a little longer. The Archbishop of Tuam and Sir Lucas Dillon went to Limerick with directions to settle matters between the town and Ormonde, who in consequence received a rather halting invitation from the mayor, John Creagh. He came within four miles of Limerick, and agreed to visit the city on condition that he should be received with the respect due to a Lord Lieutenant; that he should have military command within the walls, and that he should be attended by his own guard of fifty horse and one hundred foot, all Roman Catholics and old soldiers of the Confederacy. The mayor would have agreed, but Dominick Fanning and a friar named Wolfe possessed themselves of the keys, collected a number of young men, who had already distinguished themselves by plundering Ormonde’s papers on board a ship, and admitted Colonel Murtagh O’Brien with an Irish regiment consisting largely of recruits. Clanricarde, supported by the Commissioners of Trust, called upon the Bishop of Limerick to excommunicate Fanning and O’Brien; but, of course, this was not done. Ormonde offered to remain in Limerick during the coming siege and take his chance with the rest, provided he was allowed to put in a proper garrison and strengthen the works as he thought fit; but his efforts were all in vain, and Galway was equally determined not to admit Clanricarde.[183]

and Clanricarde out of Galway.

Progress of Ireton.

Tecroghan taken, June 25.

Castlehaven failed to relieve it.

While Ormonde persevered in his hopeless task, Ireton was gradually reducing the few strongholds which held out to the east of the Shannon after Cromwell’s departure. The first to fall was Tecroghan, in the south-west corner of Meath, which capitulated on June 25, only four days after the disaster at Scariffhollis. That strong castle belonged to Sir Luke Fitzgerald, whose daughter married the ill-fated Henry O’Neill, and had been Ormonde’s headquarters when Cromwell came to Drogheda. Reynolds besieged Tecroghan about the middle of May, the garrison being commanded by Sir Robert Talbot, a kinsman of Lady Fitzgerald, under Ormonde’s orders. This appointment displaced Major Luke Maguire, and the everlasting jealousy between the native Irish and the men of the Pale caused great dissension between the partisans of the late and present governor. In order to relieve the place, Clanricarde came to Tyrrell’s Pass with 2000 foot and 700 horse, under Castlehaven’s command. Several miles of bog had to be crossed, and a council of war was disinclined to move; but Castlehaven offered to march with the foot, leaving the cavalry to distract the enemies’ attention, if possible. The latter part of the advance was along a narrow causeway with deep ditches on either side, and the rearguard, under Captain Fox, was ordered to face about and protect the convoy. ‘He turned to his men,’ says Castlehaven, ‘and spake something in Irish that I did not know, and, marching two or three hundred paces in such a fashion that I could not tell whether he intended fighting or running away. At last he did run away, and all his party followed.’ The van marched on into Tecroghan, but without the provisions and ammunition; and Castlehaven with difficulty got back. Fox was tried by court-martial and shot. No further attempt could be made to relieve Tecroghan, which capitulated on honourable terms, the garrison marching out with the honours of war, and protection was given for the property of Lady Fitzgerald and some of her friends. By a special article, half the guns in the castle were to remain with Talbot, provided he took them within eight weeks. Carte says this was not done, and calls it a shameful breach of faith; but it is very likely that the pieces were not claimed within the specified time.[184]

Surrender of Carlow, July 24.

Ireton summoned Carlow on July 2, having already thrown a bridge over the Barrow. Major Bellew, who commanded a garrison of about 200 men, asked for three days’ truce, which were granted, to communicate with the Bishop of Dromore and with Preston at Waterford. Further negotiations then took place, and it seems evident that the news of Scariffhollis had greatly damped the ardour of the defenders. Ireton took the bulk of the army with him to Waterford, leaving Sir Hardress Waller to take Carlow, which capitulated as soon as a tower near the bridge had been battered and carried by assault. The terms were as good as those granted to Tecroghan, and Ireton, says Ludlow, ‘caused them punctually to be executed, as his constant manner was.’[185]

Surrender of Waterford, Aug. 10.

Ireton’s military justice.

Waterford capitulates,

and Duncannon also.

After the fall of Clonmel and the departure of Cromwell, Waterford was almost isolated, though Duncannon was still in Irish hands, and communication by the river could not be altogether prevented. But Ireton had control of all the county of Waterford and of Carrick, where was the lowest bridge over the Suir. It was therefore practically impossible to relieve the city, and a small force encamped at some distance was probably enough to stop the introduction of cattle or other provisions by land. When Carlow was once invested, Ireton could spare a larger force, and he left that place early in July to press the siege of Waterford, having first sent a summons to offer fair terms. The garrison were to march out and surrender their arms within four miles of the town, officers and gentlemen retaining their swords and pistols. Cannon were not to be removed. Private property of all kinds was protected, and two months given to carry it away. Civilians were to be disarmed, but not otherwise interfered with in any way, and the soldiers might go where they pleased on promising not to serve against the Parliament in England or Ireland. No obstacle was placed in the way of taking service under any foreign government. These terms were rejected, and a further summons was sent after the surrender of Carlow. Preston or his son, Sir James, then made a sporting offer to admit Ireton’s infantry and let them do what they could inside the town. There is a good deal of grim humour in the letters exchanged on this subject, Ireton suggesting that ‘old General Preston’ must be dead. Of course, this came to nothing. More importance attaches to the murder of a man named Murphy, who was going out of Waterford into the country with 80l. in his pocket. A major and a cornet were implicated, and Ireton had them both shot. At last, after much correspondence, Sir James Preston and others came out upon safe conduct dated the last of July. The place of meeting was then called New Cross, just outside the town on the south-east side and close to the Suir. It was probably the news of Carlow having fallen that decided Preston to surrender, for Ireton seems not to have been ready for an assault, though he could annoy the town with his artillery. The terms were virtually the same as those offered a month before, and on August 10, says Ireton, ‘there marched out about 700 men, well armed, the townsmen more numerous than before we believed, and the town better fortified in all parts and more difficult to be attempted than our forces conceived, there being many private stores sufficient to have maintained them a long time.’ Duncannon, which it was now evidently useless to defend, capitulated seven days later.[186]

Surrender of Charlemont, Aug. 14.

A desperate defence.

Sir Phelim O’Neill.

Having taken a fortnight’s rest after Scariffhollis, Sir Charles Coote proceeded to besiege the strong fort at Charlemont, which had been in Sir Phelim O’Neill’s hands since the first outbreak in 1641. As Sir Phelim had accepted the peace of 1649 it was reckoned as a royal fortress, and was the last to hold out for the King in Ulster. Venables joined Coote, and a hot fire was kept up with guns and mortars; but it was not till near the middle of August that a practicable breach was made. The garrison made a desperate resistance, assisted by many women, ‘who more appeared like fighting Amazons than civilised Christians.’ The storming-party were assailed not only with shot, but with scalding slops and hot ashes, and were beaten back after two or three hours’ fighting. Venables had a narrow escape, but Coote, who commanded in chief, remained ‘a spectator, smoking of tobacco at distance.’ The total loss of the besiegers was not less than 500 men, but O’Neill’s ammunition was running short, and only thirty men out of 140 were able to bear arms, all the rest being killed or wounded. He went out himself to confer with Coote, while Colonel Audley Mervyn, afterwards Speaker of the House of Commons, and Major King, afterwards Lord Kingston, were sent in as hostages. The garrison marched out with arms and baggage, Sir Phelim having leave to go beyond sea, and Coote undertaking to find him a vessel. Unfortunately for himself, O’Neill remained in Ireland, while Venables returned to Carrickfergus and Coote to Londonderry. A Parliamentary garrison was left in the fort which had been so dearly won.[187]

Meeting of bishops at Jamestown, Aug. 6.

Ormonde rebukes the prelates.

While the strong places of Leinster, Munster, and Ulster were being reduced, Ormonde was struggling to maintain the semblance of royal authority beyond the Shannon. The Loughrea conferences had led to no good result, and the bishops assembled on their own account at Jamestown in Leitrim on August 6. They announced their intentions to Ormonde through the Archbishops of Dublin and Tuam, who reminded him of what he knew only too well—that there was no army and no money, and that the enemy were actually drawing large contributions from Irish Catholics, whose country was in their hands; so that ‘we are in a fair way for losing our sacred religion, the King’s authority, and Ireland.’ They invited the Lord Lieutenant to send a representative to Jamestown, but he answered with perfect truth that this would be useless after what had already happened. ‘Ancient and late experience,’ he said, ‘hath made evident what power those of your function have had to draw the people of this nation to what they thought fit.’ Yet they had been unable or unwilling to give him possession of Limerick, without which successful military operations east of the Shannon were quite impossible. But he wished the Jamestown assembly all success, especially if the object of the prelates was, as they themselves admitted, to clear their own consciences. He had endeavoured to show ‘that the spring of our past losses and approaching ruin arises from disobedience, and it will not be hard to show that the spring of these disobediences arises from the forgeries invented, the calumnies spread against government, and the incitements of the people to rebellion by very many of the clergy.’[188]

The bishops order Ormonde out of Ireland.

His adherents excommunicated.

Another fruitless conference.

Ormonde predicts increased confusion.

The Jamestown congregation met as announced, and after three or four days’ deliberation they despatched Bishop Darcy of Dromore and Charles Kelly, Dean of Tuam, to Ormonde with full powers to explain their views. They had observed with ‘grief and admiration’ that he threw some of the blame upon them, showed to their own satisfaction that they were not in fault, and left it to their emissaries to declare what they believed to be the only possible means of preserving the country. Ormonde prudently required the plenipotentiaries to put their message upon paper; and the result was a peremptory notice to him to quit Ireland forthwith. The writers plainly said that he was of no use there, but that his great position and experience might avail something if he was by the King’s side. In the meantime, he was to leave the viceregal authority in the hands of someone ‘trusty to the nation, and such as the affection and confidence of the people will follow.’ On the day before this message was delivered the assembled prelates had actually excommunicated all who adhered to the Lord Lieutenant, so that there was little sincerity in sending the Bishop of Dromore and his colleague at all. The excommunication, with the declaration prefixed, though dated August 12, was withheld from publication until September 15, so that Ormonde’s answer might be first received. The Commissioners of Trust persuaded him to summon the bishops to another conference at Loughrea on August 26, and he went there himself; but they only sent the Bishops of Cork and Clonfert, with no instructions except to demand an answer to their order for his leaving the kingdom. In giving this, Ormonde pointed out that he had returned to Ireland from a sense of duty, that he had been prepared in April last to make room for a Roman Catholic viceroy, but that many of the prelates themselves had then begged him to stay; and that he waited now because the King’s position in Scotland was hopeful and orders might come which he would be sorry should arrive in his absence. ‘We plainly observe,’ he added, ‘that though the division is great in the nation under our government, yet it will be greater upon our removal; for which in a free conference we should have given such pregnant evidence as we hold not fit this way to declare.’ The best chance of prevailing upon Charles to send supplies was to be able to tell him how obedient and dutiful the people were. A majority of the Commissioners of Trust, all Roman Catholics, wrote in much the same strain, urging that disloyalty on the part of the clergy would reflect upon the nation at large, and could only result in general ruin.[189]

Charles II. repudiates the ‘bloody Irish rebels,’ Aug. 16.

The King’s mother idolatrous.

And Ormonde’s peace exceeding sinful.

Commissions to Cavaliers revoked.

Opinions of Clarendon, Carte, and Walker.

On August 16, four days after the decree of excommunication was passed at Jamestown, an event happened in Scotland which was alone sufficient to destroy all Ormonde’s plans. It is less famous and was less important than the Glamorgan treaty, but it shows that Charles was his father’s son, and he even contrived to better the instruction. At Dunfermline on August 16, he was induced to sign a declaration in which he professed himself ‘deeply humbled and afflicted in spirit before God’ for his father’s sin in opposing the Covenant, ‘and for the idolatry of his mother, the toleration whereof in the King’s house, as it was matter of great stumbling to all the Protestant churches, so could it not but be a high provocation against Him who is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the father upon the children.’ He further declared his conscientious conviction of the ‘exceeding great sinfulness and unlawfulness of that treaty and peace made with the bloody Irish rebels, who treacherously shed the blood of so many of his faithful and loyal subjects in Ireland.’ For the future he would prefer affliction to sin, and employ no one who had not taken the Covenant; and he ‘recalled all commissions given to any such persons.’ The baseness of this declaration can hardly be matched in our history, but George IV. tried to emulate it when he authorised Mr. Fox to inform the House of Commons that he was not married to Mrs. Fitzherbert. Clarendon can only say that Charles was ‘absolutely forced to consent’ and other apologists take the same line, but Carte, with all his royalism, was not deceived by sophistry of this kind. He makes every allowance for Charles’s youth and difficulties, but with the scathing reflection that ‘if a man once gets over his natural magnanimity he is afterwards fit for anything; and having done one mean thing, is capable of doing ten thousand.’[190]

Charles had confirmed the peace.

His apology.

Effect of Charles’s declaration in Ireland.

The Commissioners of Trust support Ormonde.

The articles of the peace had been brought by Lord Byron to the Hague early in March 1649, and Charles had written twice to confirm them, declaring himself ‘extremely well satisfied.’ These letters were found by Carte among Ormonde’s papers, as well as the latter’s acknowledgment, so that their delivery is not doubtful. Charles did not deny the facts, and he sought for the means of neutralising them as much as possible. The emissary chosen was Dr. John King, Dean of Tuam, who had taken refuge in Scotland, and we have his own account of the interview where he received his instructions. ‘The Scots,’ said Charles, ‘have dealt very ill with me, very ill. I understand you are willing to go into Ireland. My Lord of Ormonde is a person that I depend upon more than anyone living. I much fear that I have been forced to do some things which may much prejudice him. You have heard how a declaration was extorted from me, and how I should have been dealt withal, if I had not signed it. Yet what concerns Ireland is no ways binding, for I can do nothing in the affairs of that kingdom without the advice of my council there; nor hath that kingdom any dependence upon this, so that what I have done is nothing.’ It is only fair to say that after Dunbar had been fought he took the opportunity of another trusty messenger to express his gratitude, begging Ormonde not to run any unavoidable personal risk, but to leave Ireland whenever he pleased. He had already advised him that Scotland was not safe, and that he should seek France or Holland. It took Dr. King about two months to get to Ormonde, and he at once undertook ‘through much hazard’ to take the answer back to Scotland. The Dunfermline declaration was already known in Ireland through other channels, and Ormonde at first thought the report was a fabrication circulated by the Scots politicians for their own purposes, but the Dean of Tuam brought a printed copy with him, and there was no longer room for doubt. This was on October 13, and Ormonde at once summoned the Commissioners of Trust to meet him at Ennis on the 23rd, and by their advice convened an assembly to sit at Loughrea on November 15. To the Commissioners he explained in writing that the Dunfermline declaration had been ‘by some undue means obtained from his Majesty’ upon one-sided assertions of the peace being unlawful and without hearing the other parties. For himself he was determined by every means in his power to maintain the validity of the peace as binding the King and all his subjects until the authorised representatives of the Irish nation should have ‘free and safe access unto his Majesty,’ provided always that the Jamestown declaration forbidding obedience to him as Lord Lieutenant should be revoked, that the bishops should acknowledge that they had invaded his Majesty’s prerogative, and that he and the necessary forces under his command should be freely admitted into all garrisons. The Commissioners of Trust accepted the excuses made for Charles, whose declaration they had read with ‘inexpressible grief,’ and for themselves agreed to the Lord Lieutenant’s provisoes. In order to prepare matters for the ‘assembly of the nation,’ they asked and obtained leave to go to Galway, and to confer with the standing committee of bishops there.[191]

A conference at Galway.

The bishops will not have a Protestant governor.

The excommunication maintained.

Six bishops met the Commissioners accordingly, among them being Darcy of Dromore, French of Ferns, who was Ormonde’s bitter enemy, and Lynch of Clonfert, who had protested even against the short delay interposed between the decree of excommunication and its publication. Bellings and his colleagues suggested that the peace and the maintenance of the royal authority were the only means of preserving union, and to this end they asked that the excommunication and declaration should be withdrawn with a promise not to renew them. It was understood by both parties that Clanricarde was Ormonde’s only possible successor, but the bishops could and did argue irresistibly that Charles had withdrawn his own authority ‘and thrown away the nation from his protection as rebels.’ With less wisdom they declared in the baldest way that it was a scandal to have a Protestant governor over Catholics, and that in the abortive agreement between the Pope and Henrietta Maria this had been provided against. They positively refused to annul the excommunication or to promise not to renew it, and they reiterated the complaints of bad administration already so often made against Ormonde. In conclusion they agreed that Clanricarde should govern with the consent of all parties and with ‘the King’s authority from the Lord Lieutenant which he conceives is in him’ until a free and lawful assembly should otherwise order. If such a body decided to treat with the enemy the Church would acquiesce, though she would be the heaviest loser, but they conjured the Catholics of Ireland to imitate the Maccabees, whose fears were greater for the Temple than for their nearest and dearest kinsfolk. The result of this preliminary conference was not very hopeful, but the compromise was accepted by Darcy, who two months before had been authorised to demand that Ormonde should put the viceregal authority into commission, the commissioners being all Roman Catholics nominated by the bishops. This he had of course refused to do, and Clanricarde was the only alternative.[192]

Assembly at Loughrea, Nov. 25.

A Deputy to be appointed. Clanricarde.

Ormonde leaves Ireland.

The assembly began to meet at Loughrea on November 15, but did not constitute themselves until the 25th, when Sir Richard Blake was elected chairman. The lay element from the first asserted itself, and some bishops, who in purely ecclesiastical manifestoes considered themselves bound by the majority, showed a certain amount of independence. On December 7 an agreement was rather unexpectedly arrived at, and probably this was hastened by the fact that Ormonde was on shipboard and might leave Ireland without delegating his authority. First the prelates were induced to say that they had no intention at Jamestown of usurping the royal authority, and no aim but the ‘preservation of the Catholic religion and people.’ The assembled ‘Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Gentry’ then declared their conviction that the royal authority was the best bond of union, and that no body of men in Ireland had any power to impair it. It is to be observed, and no doubt Ormonde did observe, that the deposing power of the Pope is not referred to. They then besought the Lord Lieutenant to leave his authority in some person faithful to his Majesty ‘and acceptable to the nation,’ to whom they promised ready obedience. And they fully acknowledged that the retiring viceroy had risked person and property for the royal cause, and that, even when unsuccessful, he had ‘faithful intentions and hearty affections to advance his Majesty’s interests and service.’ This manifesto reached Ormonde at Gleninagh in Clare, where he had put in before taking his final departure. He wrote to say that he was not fully satisfied, but that he had sent a commission as Deputy to Clanricarde, and he left it to him to get further explanations and to accept or reject the charge according to their tenor. This was his last act in Ireland until after the Restoration and, having refused Ireton’s offer of a pass, he sailed on December 11 in a very fast vessel of twenty-four tons and four guns which the Duke of York had provided for him in Jersey. He was accompanied by Inchiquin, Bellings, Daniel O’Neill, and many officers, and it was three weeks before they reached land at Perros Guirec in Brittany. Forty men in a boat of twenty-four tons in the open Atlantic and in midwinter must have endured very great hardships. Ormonde made his way to Caen, where his wife and children were, and from thence to Paris. A second ship with Sir George Lane and others reached France, and a third with servants and baggage was lost at sea. The distinguished exiles were from the first in the direst distress.[193]