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

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[279] Fleetwood to Thurloe, December 15, 1654, Thurloe, iii. 23.

[280] Taylor to Harrison, December 17, 1655 (wrongly placed among papers of 1654) in Thurloe, iii. 29; ib. iv. 260, 327; Clarke Papers, iii. 60; Ludlow, i. 406 sqq., with Mr. Firth’s notes for Ludlow’s proceedings. Fleetwood writes on January 3, 1654-5, ‘Here hath been some papers called mementoes spread up and down the army by that gentleman, who, I had hoped, my friendship would have prevented any such attempt,’ Thurloe, iii. 70.

[281] Correspondence between H. Cromwell and Thurloe from September 11, 1655, till January 22 following, in Thurloe, iv. 23, 40, 75, 198, 443. See Gardiner’s Commonwealth, iii. 452.

[282] Minutes of Irish Council, January 22, 1654-5 and March 27, Irish R.O. A/60. Rev. John Grace’s report, July 5, 1669, in Spicilegium Ossoriense, i. 484 (Latin). See Gardiner’s Commonwealth, chaps. 40 and 44. A shipload was sent to St. Christophers from Kinsale, Robert Southwell to H. Cromwell, March 6, 1656-7, Lansdowne MSS., 821.

[283] Clarke Papers, iii. 49, 52; Rev. Thomas Harrison (Independent) to Thurloe, October 17, 1655, Thurloe, iv. 90; Vincent Gookin to the Protector (written in London), ib. November 22, 1656; Stubbs, Hist. of the University of Dublin, p. 90. Winter with two elders and forty-one other parishioners signed a letter to the Protector praising Henry warmly for his charity and justice and his countenance ‘to all that fear God though of different judgments,’ Milton State Papers, p. 137, June 3, 1656; Rev. R. Easthorp to H. Cromwell, June 11, 1657, Lansdowne MSS., p. 822.

[284] Ludlow, i. 360, 402, 415; Thurloe, iii. 70, 136, 710, 715, 744; iv. 73.

[285] Oliver Cromwell to Fleetwood, June 22, 1655, Carlyle, ii. 451; to Henry Cromwell, November 21, ib. 479; Henry Cromwell to Thurloe, September 19, 1655 (as to ‘Colonel Hewson with his three Anabaptist sons’), Thurloe, iv. 327; December 26, ib. 348; February 6 and April 2, 1655-6 (as to military Quakers), ib. 508, 672; and H. Ingoldsby’s letter from Limerick, March 29, 1657, Lansdowne MSS., p. 822; Thurloe to Henry Cromwell, January 1, ib. 573; Henry Cromwell to Thurloe (as to John Jones), March 12 and April 2, 1655-6, ib. 606, 672; same to same (for the field officers who resigned), December 3, 1666, ib. 670.

[286] The Act for convicting Popish Recusants, reciting the form of oath, in Scobell, ii. 443; Henry Cromwell to Thurloe, September 23, 1657, Thurloe, vi. 527; Dr. Henry Jones to same, September 30, ib. 539.

[287] Dr. Worth’s letter, October 31, 1656, Clarke Papers, iii. 77; H. Cromwell’s letters of November 5 and November 17, Thurloe, v. 558, 570, and Col. Moore’s to him, November 2, ib. 571. For the Royalist plots referred to, ib. 348, 422, 443.

[288] Scobell, ii. 424, 491; Henry Cromwell’s letters in vols. vi. and vii. of Thurloe, particularly that to the Protector of December 2, 1657, vi. 649; to Fleetwood, April 14, 1658, vii. 71; and to Thurloe, May 5, ib. 144. Broghill to Thurloe, December 11, 1657, ib. vi. 670. On April 27, 1658, Fleetwood wrote, ‘If we can get you 30,000l. by borrowing, it will be the most,’ ib. vii. 100.

[289] Henry Cromwell to Thurloe, March 24 and 31, 1658, and May 26 and June 23; Thurloe’s answer, July 13, Thurloe, vii. 21, 39, 145, 198, 269.

[290] Henry Cromwell’s letter (with the proclamation), in Thurloe, vii. 384, 425, 453; Steele, ib. 388; Broghill (from Mallow), ib. 399; Fauconberg, ib. 406, 413, 437, 450; Colonel T. Cooper, ib. 425; Liber Munerum Publicorum, vol. i. part ii. 8; Clarke Papers, iii. 166.

[291] Thurloe to H. Cromwell, November 23, 1658, Thurloe, vii. 528; three letters of Broghill’s, December 18 to January 24, ib. 573, 597, 600; Fauconberg’s letter, ib. 528; List of members in Parliamentary Hist. xxi. 262. It does not appear that Petty was returned for any place in Ireland, as stated in his Life, p. 79. Gookin’s opposition to Broghill was unsuccessful, Neal’s Hist. of the Puritans, iv. 182.

[292] Burton’s Diary, iv. 237-242; Broghill to Thurloe, January 24, 1658-9, in Thurloe, and Neal’s History of the Puritans, iv. 183.

[293] Wood’s Fasti Oxonienses, vol. iv. in Bliss’s edition, 119, 148, 156; Burton’s Diary, iv. 244 sqq.; Hist. of Down Survey, p. 292.

[294] Burton’s Diary, iv. 244, 470; Hist. of Down Survey, 290-300, where Petty gives Sankey’s speech ‘as near as the memory of such as were present can recollect.’ H. Cromwell to Thurloe, April 11, 1659, ‘he has curiously deluded me these four years if he be a knave,’ and another letter to Fleetwood in June, Thurloe, vii. 651, 684. Sankey’s speech with some amusing comments may be also read in Petty’s Reflections on some persons and things in Ireland.

[295] Henry Cromwell to Richard, May 23, 1659, and to Fleetwood next day, Thurloe, vii. 674; Broghill to Thurloe, April 29, ib. 665; Old Parliamentary Hist., xxi. 372 sqq.; Ludlow, ii. 177 sqq.

[296] H. Cromwell to the Speaker, June 15, 1659, Thurloe, vii. 683, and to Fleetwood, ib. 685; Clarendon State Papers, iii. 500; Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion, xvi. 16; Ludlow, ii. Clarendon states in a letter that Henry Cromwell had at one time actually determined to declare for the King, ‘but that wretched fellow had no courage,’ to Ormonde, October 25, 1659, in Carte’s Original Letters, ii. 242.

[297] H. Cromwell to Thurloe, September 23, 1657, Thurloe, vi. 527; March 27, 1657-8, ib. 39; June 30, ib. 218; to Fleetwood, June 1659, ib. 684. Writing both to Thurloe and Broghill on April 7, 1658, he mentions that Inchiquin’s son came to him without any pass after three weeks’ stay among his father’s friends in Munster: ‘I will be as civil as I may be to him, and to all men else,’ ib. vii. 55, 57.

[CHAPTER XXXIX]
THE RESTORATION

Provisional Government, 1659.

Position of Ludlow.

The Commissioners appointed by Parliament carried on the civil government for about six months after Henry Cromwell’s resignation, but the really important thing was the attitude of the army. Ludlow and John Jones went over together in July, and on their way to Holyhead heard rumours of a coming rising under Sir George Booth. Soon after their arrival in Ireland one hundred men were sent to reinforce Beaumaris and the neighbouring garrisons. On landing at Ringsend, ‘the guard that had formerly attended Cromwell’ was waiting under Sir Theophilus Jones, and escorted the new commander-in-chief into Dublin. The Commissioners arranged to preside for a month in turn, Ludlow sitting next the chairman when present, and having precedence at other times; in official documents he was styled ‘Excellency.’ He had brought with him a letter of credit for 30,000l., which added weight to his promise of regular pay for the soldiers. As soon as the insurrection broke out in Cheshire he was ordered to send over a thousand foot and five hundred horse; and they were despatched within ten days, under Sankey’s command, two months’ pay having been advanced to them. During the disorderly period which followed they became known as the Irish Brigade.[298]

Ludlow purges the army.

John Jones in command of the army.

Ludlow was determined not to be again kept in Ireland as a kind of exile, and took the precaution of having a clause in his commission allowing him to return when he chose, and to appoint a substitute in his absence. Before taking advantage of this he devoted himself to a reform of the army, for he found ‘divers of the officers guilty of habitual immoralities, many of them accustomed to detain the pay of the private soldiers, and most of them debauched in their principles by the late usurpation of the Cromwells.’ Many of them, especially in Connaught and Clare, had married Irish Papists, and some who professed Protestantism might ‘justly be suspected to continue Papists.’ Many were dismissed, and their places filled as far as possible by men who had been cashiered for adhering to the Parliament as against the Protectorate. In the meantime the Irish Brigade at Derby supported Lambert and those who proposed to make him Major-General. Copies of their petition were sent to Ireland by Sankey, and officers there were invited to concur; but Ludlow assembled as many as he could and persuaded them that England would never submit to be governed by the sword. He then prepared to go to England, and wished to leave the military as well as the civil authority in the hands of the Commissioners; but this they refused to accept. He then appointed Jones, who was one of them, to be his substitute, for he regarded Waller as a time-server, and Sankey had made himself impossible. As a member of Parliament and one of the late King’s judges, Jones might at all events be trusted not to favour Charles Stuart. On reaching Beaumaris Ludlow heard that the Parliament had once more, as Henry Cromwell had foreshadowed, been turned out of doors by the soldiers. Lambert, who was in command, had narrowly escaped the Tower, and was actually deprived of his commission along with Desborough and others. The Act constituting Fleetwood commander-in-chief in Great Britain was repealed, and he became one of a commission of seven along with Ludlow, Monck, and others. Among them was Haselrig, whom Lambert believed to be thirsting for his blood, and he professed to be acting in self-defence.[299]

Monck and Jones, Oct. 1659.

Last acts of the Irish Commissioners.

As soon as Monck heard of what had happened in London he wrote to Ludlow as his fellow-commissioner for the government of the army, declaring that the forces under his immediate command were unanimous for Parliament, and declaring his intention to ‘prosecute this business against ambition and tyranny to the last drops of my blood till they be restored.’ The letter reached Jones in Ireland, and an answer was sent by him. Cornet Henry Monck, the general’s nephew, was in Dublin, and thought the army neutral, until fourteen field-officers signed an address to the army in England, by which he observed that all who inclined to Anabaptism were against the Parliament. The answer sent to Monck was signed by Jones himself and Sir Hardress Waller, Colonel Cooper, governor of Carrickfergus, Colonel Lawrence, governor of Waterford, Colonel Phaire, governor of Cork, Colonel Nicholas Kempson, Ludlow’s brother-in-law, and Dr. Henry Jones. These officers declared that any division of action or opinion in the army would be ‘found in the issue to be nothing else but the opening of a door for the common enemy to come in,’ and the event showed that they were not far wrong. At the same time Monck was informed by his nephew that he would have the support of Sir Charles Coote, Sir Theophilus Jones, and most of the other officers. Sankey, who commanded the Irish Brigade in England, sided with Lambert; but Colonel Redman, who served under him, was already in communication with Charles II. While the action of the army remained uncertain, the Commissioners carried on the civil government, and there were no serious disturbances. Large numbers of the transplanted still refused to stir, and the Tories were troublesome in many places. An order went forth in September to disarm all Irish Papists in Wicklow and to seize their arms and ammunition. There was a particularly active gang of marauders about Castledermot. Some weeks later a seizure was made at the custom-house of Quaker books which denounced the Government as anti-Christian and the ministers established by them as ‘priests, hirelings, and dumb dogs.’ The very last order of Jones and his colleagues appears to have been one for the suppression of the Christmas holidays, as giving rise to debauchery and only calculated to ‘uphold idolatry and superstition derived from the Church of Rome.’[300]

Revolt of the Irish army.

The Commissioners imprisoned

The order against Christmas was made on December 9, and four days later the whole face of affairs was changed. Sir Theophilus Jones and some other officers determined, after Lambert had dismissed the Parliament, to free themselves from subjection to the Wallingford House party. They began by petitioning John Jones as commander-in-chief to call a general council of officers to consider the situation, Sir Hardress Waller as the next in rank undertaking to take the lead in the matter. Jones dared not refuse such a request altogether, but the malcontents intercepted a letter from Fleetwood from which they understood that the opportunity would be taken to arrest them. There were but five companies of foot and three troops of horse in Dublin whose fidelity Jones had little reason to doubt. But Captain Bond persuaded his own company to seize the Castle gates and make prisoners of Jones, Corbet, and Tomlinson. A declaration in favour of the Parliament was cried through the streets next morning and generally approved of. The officers who had laid the plot were thus in the possession of the only magazine, which had just been replenished with five hundred barrels of powder, and no resistance could be attempted. The other garrisons were quickly mastered, Coote securing Galway, while Broghill held Youghal, Bandon and Kinsale. The garrisons of Cork, Limerick, Waterford, and Athlone took the same course; and the submission of Londonderry settled the question in Ulster. Colonel Cooper, the governor of Carrickfergus, who might have given trouble in the northern province, died in his chair within a week. The officers in Dublin at once informed Monck of what had been done; the news was also sent to London and Portsmouth, while Coote and Broghill were urged to come to Dublin. Sir Hardress Waller acquiesced, though he had signed the answer to Monck, and became for the moment commander-in-chief. The Irish Brigade in England declared for the Parliament on December 21, and Sankey was arrested by Monck, who was welcomed by Redman at the head of the troops when he came to Leicester.[301]

Monck gains over Coote and Broghill.

Sir Theophilus Jones had six troops of horse ready to go to Monck’s assistance, but Lambert’s star waned so fast that they were not wanted. Whitelock saw that a restoration was inevitable, and nearly persuaded Fleetwood to seize the Tower, communicate with the King, and get credit for what he could not prevent. But Desborough and others reminded him that he was bound to Lambert, who was at Newcastle, and he refused to stir without consulting him. ‘Then,’ said Whitelock, ‘you will ruin yourself and your friends.’ ‘I cannot help it,’ was the answer; and that exactly represents Fleetwood’s attitude. On December 26 the Rump without his aid retook possession of their House amidst the acclamations of the very soldiers who had kept them out of it. The news reached Monck at Coldstream four or five days later, and on January 1 he crossed the Tweed, Lambert being deserted by his army. From Durham he sent Sir Joseph Douglas to gain over Coote, and he was also in communication with Broghill; but by this time both were in Dublin, and fully committed to the cause of the Parliament.[302]

Ludlow goes to Ireland, December.

But is not allowed to land.

Ludlow at Duncannon, January.

Ludlow was a genuine Republican, and his great object was to prevent a restoration of the monarchy. ‘It was,’ he says, ‘my judgment, that if either the Parliament or the army should entirely prevail one against the other in this juncture, it would hazard the ruin of both.’ The Parliament alone could provide regular sustenance for the army which was necessary for its own protection, and it was by establishing a balance that Charles Stuart might be kept out. With these ideas, and with some hopes of furthering them through his position at the head of the Irish army, he set out for Dublin as soon as the restoration of the Parliament was practically arranged. He could not but agree with the decision of the officers in Ireland to co-operate for that purpose with the generals at Portsmouth, with Monck, and with Vice-Admiral Lawson, but he distrusted Sir Theophilus Jones, Colonel Bridges, and others who had supported the protectorate; and Coote’s attitude was evidently suspicious. Ludlow embarked upon the Oxford frigate, and anchored off his own house at Monkstown on the last of December, but did not venture to land until he knew what was going on. Before he appeared upon the coast, Coote and the others had resolved not to admit him as commander-in-chief without fresh orders from Parliament. Ludlow sent a letter to Waller and his colleagues, offering to help in the good work, but they answered that his appearance was very unacceptable, that they did not believe he was true to the Parliament, and that they would not resign their power without direct orders from that body. They also hinted very plainly that they were quite ready to arrest Ludlow if so directed. Captain Lucas, who brought the letter, suggested that he should go to the council of officers and adjust all differences by personal intercourse; but he answered that he knew their principles much too well to trust himself in their hands, adding that their attachment to the Parliament was feigned, and their real design ‘to destroy both them and their friends, and to bring in the son of the late King.’ Cavalry were sent to prevent him from landing, and he was not allowed to get water or provisions. Seeing that nothing could be done, Ludlow sent letters to London by the ordinary packet, along with some which he had intercepted, and after three days’ waiting, sailed to Duncannon, Corbet having taken refuge in his ship. They were received with joy by Captain Skinner, whom Ludlow had appointed governor; but Waterford was as hostile as Dublin had been, and he was not allowed even to ship provisions which he had paid for. Attempts were also made to alienate the garrison of the fort by representing him as a deserter from the Parliament, and cattle intended for their relief were driven off by cavalry under Colonel Edmund Temple. A few days later Duncannon was blockaded by a sufficient force under Colonel Thomas Scot, the regicide’s son; but some provisions were introduced in the meantime.[303]

Impeachment of Ludlow and the Commissioners.

Ludlow leaves Ireland.

As he endeavoured to keep terms with the Wallingford House party, it was possible to represent Ludlow as an enemy or lukewarm friend to the Parliament. Why, it was asked, had he left London two days before its restoration? His commission, to be of any value under the circumstances, should be dated after that event, whereas he depended on what had been done before the late interval of military violence. In a letter written during that enforced recess he had addressed John Jones as ‘Dear friend,’ and expressed a fear that the Long Parliament would be ‘very high, in case they should be brought in without conditions.’ Two or three days after Ludlow’s arrival at Duncannon, the victorious party in Dublin sent over articles of impeachment against him, Jones, Corbet, and Tomlinson, which were read in the House on January 19. The powers of the accused were at once suspended, and they were summoned to attend, Ludlow being specially ordered to surrender Duncannon to Coote and Jones. The fort was beset in the meantime, and before the decision of Parliament was known Captain Skinner complained that the soldiers outside insulted the garrison with expressions in use only among the worst kind of Cavaliers, such as ‘God damn them!’ and ‘Go to your prayers!’ Some called for the Parliament of 1641, some for that of 1647, and some complained that it was reduced to a ‘rump, fag-end, or limb.’ There had been earlier orders for Ludlow and the three Commissioners to go over and give an account of the state of Ireland, and Monck, whose suggestions at the moment had almost the weight of commands, pressed for their recall and for the appointment of Coote, Broghill, and three others. Ludlow sailed from Duncannon in obedience to the first summons, heard of the impeachment on his way to London, and took his seat in Parliament along with Corbet on January 30. Tomlinson was a prisoner in Dublin Castle, and John Jones at Athlone.[304]

A new Provisional Government, January 1659-60.

A general convention.

Coote and Broghill approach Charles II.

Declaration of Munster officers, February.

Broghill, Coote, and Major William Bury were appointed Commissioners for the government of Ireland in January, and by the end of the month the officers in Dublin had a pretty good understanding with Monck; but they probably forced his hand by summoning a convention to meet on February 7. The places represented were as in Strafford’s time, but no doubt care was taken that the assembly should be entirely Protestant. Sir James Barry, afterwards Lord Santry, was chosen Speaker, and William Temple sat for the county of Carlow. The Council of State ordered the convention to dissolve, but this they refused, while repudiating any idea of separation from England. Sir Hardress Waller had hitherto gone with the rest; but it became evident that Royalism was winning, and he had sat regularly as one of the late King’s judges, and signed his death-warrant. He made himself master of the Castle, and it was believed that he intended to seize Coote and other leaders who had declared in print for a free Parliament and the readmission of all the secluded members. The convention had the power of the purse, and the soldiers in the Castle, who were probably tired of barrack-revolutions and deferred pay, surrendered Waller and the few officers who supported him. Coote sent Sir Arthur Forbes, a noted Royalist who had been with Montrose, to Brussels with an offer of his services, and Charles gladly accepted them, offering an earldom and other benefits, and proposing to join him, ‘except it be more necessary that I go for England.’ Broghill sent his brother Francis, afterwards Lord Shannon, about the same time; and, if we are to believe his not very trustworthy biographer, Charles was on the point of starting for Ireland by way of Calais when he heard that things were going so well in England as to make the journey unnecessary. What is more certain is that Broghill was at Cork three days after Waller’s attempt, and there, at the head of the Munster officers, signed a declaration in favour of a full and free Parliament, and of readmitting the members ousted by Pride’s Purge. All men, they said, were tired of anarchy and of authorities constantly changing, and for the moment there was no safety but in restoring the Long Parliament to its unpurged condition. ‘If the excluded members be readmitted, they must be either the greater or the lesser number in the House; if the lesser, where is the danger of their admission? If the greater, where is the justice of their exclusion? For then it will appear that the minor number keeps out the major.’ Whatever may have been Broghill’s secret negotiations, he kept up a correspondence with Thurloe long after Monck had come to Whitehall, and repudiated the idea of bringing in the King as late as April 24. Even on May 8, when Charles was proclaimed in London, he still talked of preserving ‘the just rights we contended for so successfully in the war,’ very truly observing that if no conditions were made before the then inevitable restoration, it would be next to impossible to make any afterwards.[305]

Charles II. proclaimed in Dublin, May 14.

Coote and Broghill Lords Justices.

According to his biographer and chaplain, Broghill was the moving spirit, and Coote acted under his influence; but this is extremely doubtful. Broghill loved tortuous ways, and was perhaps anxious to leave himself a loophole in any case. Foreseeing the importance of the Convention Parliament in England, he was most anxious to be in it, and, having married a Howard, he found a seat at Arundel. Coote and his friends were ready to declare themselves before decisive steps were taken in London, but it was felt that the restored King might be embarrassed by premature action, and means were taken to delay proceedings. Charles II. was not proclaimed in Dublin till May 14, and on the 25th Broghill was sent with Coote and others to attend the King. Whatever those in all the secrets may have thought, Coote was at first much better received by the Royalists generally, who looked upon his colleague and rival as a trimmer. Three days later the Irish Convention adjourned till November. Monck was appointed Lord Lieutenant and Lord Roberts Deputy; but neither of them came over, and at the end of the year Sir Maurice Eustace, who had been made Lord Chancellor, was appointed Lord Justice, with Coote and Broghill as colleagues. The two soldiers were treated as of equal importance, the one being made Earl of Orrery on September 5, and the other Earl of Mountrath on the following day.[306]