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

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[106] George Leyburn’s Memoirs, 1722; Tichborne’s Letter to his wife, June 8, 1657; Bellings, vii. 15 sqq.

[107] Leyburn’s Memoirs; Digby’s letters in Carte’s Ormonde, vol. iii., appendix.

[108] All the material facts for this paragraph are in Carte’s Ormonde, and Rinuccini’s Embassy, pp. 276-329; Clarendon’s Hist. of the Rebellion, Ireland, p. 39. The garrisons surrendered with Dublin were Drogheda, Naas, Trim, Dundalk, Carlingford, Narrow-water, Newry, Greencastle, Slane.

[109] Letters of Digby and Ormonde in Carte’s Ormonde, iii. 17-23, July.

[110] Clanricarde to Ormonde, January 8, 1646-7, with Ormonde’s answer of same date, in Carte’s Ormonde, iii.; Bellings, vii. 21-27; Rinuccini’s Embassy, June 18 and August 22, 1647; Muskerry to Clanricarde, June 17, ‘from the camp, near Kilmallock,’ in Confederation and War, vii. 203; Glamorgan to the King, March 31, Additional MSS., 28,938, f. 129.

[111] Bellings, vii. 27-32; Culme’s Diary referred to below; Leyburn’s Memoirs.

[112] Bellings, vii. 32, 349; Jones’s account in Rushworth, vii. 779; Rinuccini’s account in Embassy, p. 306; Borlase’s Rebellion; A Diary of Passages, August 1-10, 1647, brought to London on August 18 by Lieut.-Colonel Arthur Culme, who was present, and presented by him to Parliament, to which a list of prisoners is appended, giving the names of 101 commissioned and twenty-five non-commissioned officers, with 241 privates not named. Lord Westmeath is at the head of the list.

[113] Culme’s Diary, ut sup.; Lismore Papers, 2nd series, p. 111; Rushworth, vi. 486, 562, 632 and vii. 787 (Letter of August 12, 1647) Two letters from Lord Inchiquin to the Speaker, May 4 and 10, 1647, ordered to be printed May 18.

[114] Rushworth, vi. 248, 455; Whitelock, March 9, 1646-7; Confederation and War, iv. 19-25; Blencowe’s Sydney Papers, pp. 6, 13, 17; A True and Brief Relation of Lord Lisle’s departure (a letter from Cork), 1647. Monck’s Ulster appointment was made in July 1647.

[115] For the sack of Cashel I have chiefly followed Father Andrew Sall, S.J., who was a native of the place, and who appears from internal evidence to have been at least in the neighbourhood. A translation from his Italian narrative is printed in Murphy’s Cromwell in Ireland, pp. 388-392. The Aphorismical Discovery (i. 182) says thirty priests and friars were killed; Carte says ‘near twenty.’ Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 7; Ludlow’s Memoirs, ed. Firth, i. 85; Lenihan’s Limerick, p. 161.

[116] I have used the very scarce Dublin reprint of the Disputatio Apologetica: the original is, of course, still scarcer. Nearly all that is known of Mahony is in Walsh’s Remonstrance, part ii. sec. 22. The Portuguese decrees are in Contemporary Hist. i. 739; Rinuccini’s Embassy, p. 321.

[117] Rinuccini’s report on O’Neill’s proceedings, 1647, in Embassy, p. 281. For the great and increasing hatred excited by the Ulster troops, ib., 290, 309, 324, 347, 353-4, 357, 359; O’Neill’s Journal, 1647, in Contemporary Hist., iii. 206; Sir H. Tichborne’s Letter to his wife; Sir Maurice Eustace to Ormonde in Confederation and War, vi. 207.

[118] Letters in Rushworth, vii. 916, 947; Inchiquin’s letter to Taaffe is in Meehan’s Confederation of Kilkenny; Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 9; Smith’s Cork; Rinuccini’s official account of battle in Embassy, p. 335, and further particulars at p. 519; Bellings, vii. 34, 350; Inchiquin to Lenthall, November 18, 1647, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, November 30. A Perfect Narrative of the battle of Knocknanuss, by an officer present, 1647; A Mighty Victory in Ireland, November 29, 1647, being a letter from William More written in the field on November 13.

[119] Rinuccini’s Embassy, p. 343; Confederation and War, vi. 208, 232.

[120] The Queen to the King, December 1/11; 1647, in Bruce’s Charles I. in 1646; Rinuccini’s Embassy, pp. 330, 332, 340, 343; Bellings, vii. 36. Instructions for the agents to Rome, France, and Spain in Confederation and War, vi. 223-227. Speech of the agent in Holland, ib. 232.

[121] Letter in Rushworth, vii. 947; ib. 1006, 1029, 1041; Rinuccini’s Embassy, pp. 367, 370; Thurloe, i. 93; Bellings, vii. 36-39.

[122] Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 15. Ormonde’s report on Ireland to the King is ib. iii. appendix No. 565; Rushworth, vii. 795. The Paris negotiations in Confederation and War, vi. 228-232. Bellings, vii. 37.

[CHAPTER XXIX]
INCHIQUIN, RINUCCINI, AND ORMONDE, 1648

Inchiquin and the Parliament.

He is distrusted,

and voted a traitor, April 14, 1648.

Inchiquin’s espousal of the Parliamentary cause had been generally attributed to his disgust at the King’s foolish appointment of Portland to be President of Munster over his head. But the motives of men are, for the most part, mixed, and he may have thought, as was indeed the fact, that he was taking the best course to protect the Protestants of southern Ireland. Ormonde could do little for them, and the masters of the sea could do much. But Parliament was torn by factions, and help was sent to Ireland grudgingly. Having gained two great victories and successfully maintained the three seaports, Inchiquin thought he deserved better treatment. Besides all this, he disliked the Independents and dreaded their growing power. In November 1642 he assured Ormonde that he was no Roundhead; and in August 1645, after Naseby and after his expulsion of the Roman Catholics from Cork and Youghal, he told his brother-in-law, Michael Boyle, that he would waive all dependence on Parliament if he could see safety for the Protestants by any other means. Even before the battle of Knocknanuss he was distrusted in Parliamentary circles, and after it he began to draw towards Ormonde. The Confederacy was evidently on the decline, and there was some chance of a general combination against Owen Roe O’Neill. Purely selfish considerations would probably have confirmed him in his allegiance to the Parliament; for since Cornet Joyce’s raid it was easy to see that the ‘Roundheads’ were going to win. On March 30, after the letter from Inchiquin’s officers had been considered, three members of the House of Commons were appointed to go as commissioners to the Munster army. A fortnight later Major Elsing, one of the officers who refused to follow their general, reported his defection to the House, who thereupon recalled their commissioners, cancelled all Inchiquin’s powers, and voted him a rebel and traitor. Before declaring himself openly he had taken the precaution of bespeaking a welcome in France in case the worst came to the worst. Broghill, his rival in Munster, was also intriguing with Ormonde and the Queen; but in his case it came to nothing. His cousin, Sir W. Fenton, and other officers who refused to declare for the King, had been imprisoned by Inchiquin, and this may have tended to prevent Broghill from joining him.[123]

Inchiquin’s truce with the Confederacy

Rinuccini’s opposition.

The truce condemned by the bishops, April 27.

Inchiquin having declared himself a Royalist, there was nothing to prevent those who had made the Ormonde peace from coming to terms with him also. When the late raid was fresh in his memory, even Rinuccini had seen the necessity of doing something of the kind. Now that Kilkenny and Waterford seemed safe he strenuously opposed any cessation or truce on the ground that it would leave things as before. Inchiquin’s change of front had left him without allies, and this was the time to crush the author of the Cashel massacre. The Supreme Council urged that they were in no condition to maintain a war, and that even if they were it would be bad policy to drive Inchiquin to desperation. The result would be to deliver Cork, Youghal, and Kinsale to the Parliament, who would always grant him fair terms for such valuable possessions. Inchiquin was certainly very anti-Catholic, ‘yet, as we are informed, he suffers our priests to live and mass to be celebrated within his quarters,’ and he would allow tithes to be paid in Tipperary and ‘Cashel and all the churches which were profaned there’ to be restored to their old uses. Michael Jones was making great preparations in Dublin, and the Confederacy would soon have to reckon with him. ‘Your lordship knows by experience,’ they reminded the nuncio, ‘that when the enemy insulted over your lordship at the walls of Waterford, and stood at defiance with us at the gates of Kilkenny, how slow our forces were drawing to a head, when after orders upon orders, ten times at least, issued by us, one on the neck of another, to General Preston, General O’Neill, and the Lord Taaffe, scarce three thousand men could be brought into the city before the enemy retreated.’ But Rinuccini above all things dreaded the return of Ormonde, and persisted in opposing a truce ‘with any of a contrary religion,’ though he was willing to agree to an ‘accommodation, confederacy, or some such like contract,’ based not upon the status quo, but upon a distinct advantage to be gained. He held a meeting of fourteen bishops, who decided that no one could with a safe conscience agree to the truce. There was a minority of six, but, according to the custom on such occasions, they signed with the rest.[124]

Rinuccini goes to the Ulster army.

The truce concluded in his absence, May 20.

Interdict and excommunication follows.

‘The nuncio,’ says Bellings, ‘seeing that no opposition he could give was of force to interrupt the cessation, judging it, perhaps, unfit for him to be present at the publishing of it, left the town in such a manner as might well persuade the people somewhat had been plotted against his person, for, passing through the garden of Mr. Shea’s house, where he lived, and mounting to the town wall by a ladder, he went out at the gate, and thence to the northern army in Leix, where the Ulster creaghts, from the time Owen O’Neill had taken the fort of Maryborough on his advance to the siege of Dublin, had been planted.’ Bishop Macmahon left Kilkenny next day. Some monks had told the nuncio that a plot against his life had been revealed to them under the seal of confession. Somebody may have said this to drive him away, but that there was such a plot is quite incredible, and it may be doubted whether Rinuccini believed it himself. He fled to O’Neill at Maryborough, and when he was gone the truce was quickly concluded. The Council, more for the sake of popularity than because they wished for his presence, made great efforts to induce him to return, but he was irreconcilable, and was destined never to see Kilkenny again. The truce was concluded without his consent on May 20, to last until November 1, upon the basis of each party retaining its own and of a mutual exchange of prisoners. Inchiquin’s quarters were defined as the counties of Cork, Kerry, and Waterford, with the proviso that he should not tax the baronies of Glenaheiry, near Clonmel, and Gaultier, near Waterford, nor the towns of Dingle and Tralee. He undertook not to interfere with the free exercise of religion outside his garrison towns. A week later the nuncio excommunicated all who accepted the truce, and laid an interdict on towns and villages receiving it. Macmahon and four other bishops signed the document, and the penalties of excommunication were declared to be incurred by all who removed or defaced it.[125]

The Supreme Council appeal to Rome.

O’Neill supports the nuncio.

Tyrone’s sword.

Preston and O’Neill at war.

‘The lord nuncio’s excommunications,’ says Bellings, ‘had now by his often thundering of them, grown more cheap.’ A sense of this may have been the reason why he made it as stringent as possible, though he was without books or canonists, and therefore open to criticism in point of form. In the letters written at the time he admits that the result varied very much in different places, but in the narrative composed after he left Ireland he says he ‘knew of no occasion when the censure has better deserved the name of a thunderbolt,’ and that it had at once sent 2000 of Preston’s soldiers over to O’Neill. The paper was publicly posted in Kilkenny, and the Supreme Council at once appealed to Rome. O’Neill and his officers declared unreservedly for the nuncio, professing to believe that Ormonde was really a partisan of the Parliament, and that those who adhered to him were inclined the same way. The Council thereupon revoked his commission as general of Ulster, and advised him and his officers by letter. O’Neill collected these missives and burned them publicly in the presence of Bishop Macmahon and others, and proceeded to increase his forces as fast as possible. Some money brought from Rome by Dean Massari enabled him to do this. The Dean had also brought a sword from Luke Wadding, which was said to have been Tyrone’s, and for which he had a splendid scabbard made at Paris. As a former Pope had sent Tyrone a crown of peacock’s feathers, so this was thought to be a confirmation of the report that Owen O’Neill was designated as king in Mahony’s pamphlet. The sword never came into O’Neill’s hands, and there is no evidence that he had any such ideas, though the nature of his ambition must always be somewhat questionable. Things came to a head about the end of July, when James Preston, the general’s son, besieged Athy, which was held by Shane O’Hagan against the Confederates, and where O’Neill had established a bakery for ammunition-bread. Summoned by O’Hagan to his relief, the northern general came from Longford without meeting much resistance, and passed the flooded Barrow by felling an oak tree across it. Preston drew off at his approach, and he encamped a few days later in Lord Mountgarret’s park at Dunmore with 10,000 foot and 500 horse. His men ate the deer and drank the good ale in the lodge. He made no attempt on the town, about which Preston had collected some troops, and after a stay of five days drew off into Queen’s County, Inchiquin following him with a much inferior force.[126]

Panic at Kilkenny, May-August.

Inchiquin urges Ormonde to return.

While O’Neill’s tents were visible from the walls of Kilkenny there was great confusion inside. Some churches were shut; others, in defiance of the interdict, remained open. A letter was intercepted in which Paul King, guardian of the Franciscans and a special confidant of the nuncio’s, invited the northern general to take possession. The Council imprisoned King and made Peter Walsh guardian. Walsh was employed to draw up queries and answers, which were afterwards signed by Bishop Rothe, against the validity of Rinuccini’s censures. ‘I remember very well,’ writes the learned friar, ‘how (besides others) Richard Bellings, Esq., a leading member and chief secretary of the said Council, came several times from them to my chamber to hasten my despatch, and to tell me of the great danger of delay, being the enemy was in sight and the people so divided.’ He worked for five days and nights consecutively without closing his eyes, and preached in the cathedral at the end of it. A respectable number of divines followed Rothe and Walsh, but it was evident that the Confederacy could not be restored. O’Neill, who alone of the Irish generals had the prestige of victory, openly defied the authority of the Council and adhered to the nuncio. Jones was gradually growing stronger in Dublin, and it was evident that no one except Ormonde could have the weight necessary. Inchiquin had urged him to come as soon as the truce was concluded. ‘Divers of my men,’ he said, ‘have died of hunger, after they had a while lived upon cats and dogs, as many do now. And if, while I am in this condition, the Parliament shipping should arrive according to our expectation, grounded upon good advertisement, with some officers, money, clothes, and victuals, and make tender thereof unto our soldiers, if they will give up the officers they have now, a greater strait than I shall be in cannot be imagined.’[127]

Activity of O’Neill, August-September.

He is generally unsuccessful.

After leaving Kilkenny, O’Neill marched to Borrisoleigh in Tipperary. Here he received an invitation to visit Clare, and went to Killaloe, whence he detached Rory Maguire to surprise Banagher. He then turned back into Tipperary, and sent another detachment to Nenagh, which was taken by storm. From Silvermines he went to Birr, where he heard that Athy was again closely besieged by Preston, and sent a party to relieve it. Inchiquin, in the meantime, recovered Nenagh by undermining the wall, while his men were sheltered with wooden barriers. The garrison surrendered before the mine was fired, and Inchiquin then went to Banagher, where he was joined by Clanricarde and Taaffe. They were so well posted that O’Neill was unable to raise the siege, and retired by Tullamore to the neighbourhood of Belturbet in Cavan. Athlone was already in Clanricarde’s hands, so that the party opposed to Rinuccini had been successful all along the line. O’Neill’s object had been to reach Kerry, which had not been devastated and where there were harbours to receive foreign supplies, and mountains suited to his peculiar tactics. He remained inactive in Ulster for the rest of the year.[128]

O’Neill makes advances to Inchiquin,

and to Michael Jones,

and denounces the Confederates.

O’Neill proclaimed traitor, Sept. 30.

Early in September O’Neill employed Rory O’More, the original plotter of the rebellion, on a mission to Inchiquin. He offered to leave him the whole of Munster without any condition but that of non-interference in the other provinces. Adopting Rinuccini’s view that anything was better than the Supreme Council, he also entered into negotiations with the governor of Dublin. Jones was represented by his brother, the Bishop of Clogher, while Macmahon, who claimed the same see, was hand-and-glove with O’Neill. The General Assembly declared that ‘as Owen Roe and the Bishop of Clogher (Macmahon) mislead those adhering unto them with deep protestations of their loyalty, and desires to advance the Catholic religion, and his Majesty’s interests, and his aversion to Jones and his ways; so of the other side Jones with his Protestant Bishop of Clogher, by the same acts and illusions (while they be practisers with Owen O’Neill) endeavours to persuade his officers and soldiers that he intends to prosecute him as a pestilent blood-sucker, and a sworn enemy to the English nation and Government; and we are informed that when despatches come from Owen O’Neill, and the messengers of Vicar-General Edmond O’Reilly are seen at Dublin, Jones gives out that they are sent from the Council at Kilkenny.’ In his declaration against the truce with Inchiquin O’Neill denounced the Confederates for surrendering all to Ormonde, ‘the great personage whom in their souls they know to be wholly disposed to betray the kingdom to the Parliament.’ It is hard to believe that O’Neill thought any such thing; at all events, he heartily congratulated the great personage on his safe arrival in Ireland. ‘None,’ he said, ‘shall be found in the kingdom more obedient and dutiful to his Majesty, and consequently to your Excellency.’ Ormonde replied that he would have no reason to complain if his actions were agreeable to his professions. In the meantime the Supreme Council had proclaimed O’Neill a traitor, along with Bishop Macmahon, Vicar-General O’Reilly, Dominic Fanning, and others, and had ordered all their adherents to lay down their arms before October 25 on pain of being held traitors likewise.[129]

Ormonde lands at Cork, Sept. 29.

The King’s orders to him.

Ormonde reached Cork harbour on Michaelmas Day. Inchiquin begged him to come, with or without money, but to multiply the real sum by four so as to encourage the soldiers. What he actually brought was thirty pistoles, his slender resources having been expended through various accidents and delays before he left France. He issued an address to the Munster army, declaring that he had come ‘to employ his utmost endeavours for the settlement of the Protestant religion, for defence of the King in his prerogatives, and for maintaining the privileges and freedom of Parliament, as well as the liberty of the subject.’ Independency he would do his best to suppress. He had still all the legal authority of a viceroy, but his special powers to treat with the Irish had been exhausted in 1646. He had fresh powers from the Prince of Wales, but they might be objected to, and the King was applied to for their confirmation. ‘I must command you two things,’ wrote Charles from Newport, ‘first, to obey all my wife’s commands; then, not to obey any commands of mine until I send you word that I am free from restraint. Lastly, be not startled at my great concessions concerning Ireland, for that they will come to nothing.’ Ormonde stayed a few days at Cork, and then went to his own house at Carrick, so as to be near Kilkenny.[130]

Riot at Galway, July.

The archbishop defies the nuncio.

The General Assembly denounce the nuncio’s party,

and welcome Ormonde to Kilkenny.

The mayor of Galway attempted to proclaim the truce, as Kilkenny had done, but Rinuccini opposed him in person, and in the riot which followed some lives were lost. The mob generally sided with the nuncio, and he had the bell of the Carmelites’ church taken down, that order having opposed him. Two priests were posted at the door ‘to keep Catholics from the mass, to the great scandal of Catholic religion in the country, where there are many Protestants that, by good example, might be converted to the Catholic faith.’ Archbishop de Burgo reached the town at this juncture, and demanded the production of the warrant under which Rinuccini acted. ‘I won’t show it,’ said the nuncio. ‘And I won’t obey you,’ replied the archbishop, and ordered the church doors to be forcibly opened by a man who got in through a hole in the roof. The archbishop celebrated mass in spite of the interdict. In order to neutralise the action of the Kilkenny Council, Rinuccini summoned a national synod to meet at Galway on August 15; but Clanricarde, who had the assistance of Inchiquin, surrounded the town and quite prevented any episcopal gathering there. No letters reached the nuncio, and it was with great difficulty that he despatched any. On August 30 he published a declaration, which was signed by six bishops and some other dignitaries, setting forth that adhesion to the truce with Inchiquin was ‘a deadly sin against the law of God and His Church.’ This did not prevent the Assembly from meeting at Kilkenny on September 4, who denounced the malice and irregularity of those who signed the declaration, and pronounced them guilty of the late bloodshed at Galway. A few days later they sent John Roe, provincial of the barefooted Carmelites, to Rome with letters for the Pope. They had fought, they said, for the faith for seven years, and their reward was to have the papal thunders loosened upon their heads by the nuncio. As soon as Ormonde arrived they congratulated him, and announced their willingness to conclude ‘a well-grounded and lasting peace’ with him. Commissioners, of whom Sir Phelim O’Neill was one, were appointed to carry on the negotiations. Early in November Ormonde was invited to Kilkenny, and entered the town with great pomp, the members of the Assembly going out along the road to meet him and conducting him to his own castle. It was just three years since Rinuccini had been received with equal or greater rejoicing.[131]

Antrim tries to thwart Ormonde

Antrim was much disgusted at not being made Lord Lieutenant, and reached Ireland about the same time as Ormonde, with the intention of thwarting him. He was not trusted by the Confederates, and the most important part of the Paris negotiations had been hidden from him. Wexford favoured the nuncio, and Antrim collected about a thousand men there with a view of making a diversion in aid of Owen O’Neill. They consisted of a battalion of Highlanders, under Macdonald of Glengarry, and of levies made among the O’Byrnes and Kavanaghs. They were attacked on the road between Wexford and Arklow by the Confederate forces, and routed by MacThomas and his cavalry. This is what Antrim in his autobiographical memoir calls ‘living privately at Wexford and Waterford.’ He escaped by boat to Arklow, and thence to O’Neill’s garrison at Rebane in Kildare. In the following year he became a pensioner of Cromwell.[132]

The Parliament masters of Ulster.

Monck takes Carrickfergus and Belfast, September.

In the meantime the aspect of affairs in Ulster had changed very much. Coote was governor of Londonderry, but much straitened by the fort of Culmore, which was held by Sir Robert Stewart. Stewart was now a decided Royalist, and his guns commanded the channel of the Foyle so that supplies reached the city with difficulty. Monro still held Carrickfergus and Belfast, while Monck held O’Neill in check from Dundalk and Lisburn. When Monro’s nephew George, who had escaped so narrowly at Benburb, went over to Scotland for the King, he took with him men from most of the Scottish regiments. This was done with his uncle’s connivance, and Monck had strict orders from the Parliament to seize Belfast. During the night of September 12 he arrived accordingly before Carrickfergus with a strong force. The captain of the guard opened the gate, Monro was taken in his bed, and sent over to England. Belfast then surrendered without resistance. The thanks of Parliament, which was in good humour after Preston, were given to Monck, who was voted 500l., and made governor of Belfast and Carrickfergus. A few weeks later, Coote was equally successful, and he also received the thanks of Parliament. Stewart was inveigled into Londonderry to attend a christening, and was seized, along with Audley Mervyn. They were sent over to England, and Culmore fort soon surrendered to Coote, as did Lifford and some other places. With the exception of Charlemont, which the Irish had held since 1641, every fortified place in Ulster was in Parliamentary hands by the end of the year.[133]

Mutiny in Inchiquin’s army.

Ormonde at Cork, November.

The Prince of Wales expected.

While Ormonde was negotiating at Kilkenny, a serious mutiny occurred among the cavalry of Inchiquin’s army. Many of the officers were not Royalists, and many of the men had received no pay. It was true that their wants had been neglected by Parliament; but the Houses had at least the means of becoming prompt paymasters, while Ormonde could only give promises. The proceedings in Ulster showed that the Parliamentary cause was gaining ground. By simultaneously seizing several of the chief officers, by offering an indemnity for the past, and by promising to detain no man against his will, Inchiquin quelled the mutiny; but it was thought desirable that Ormonde should visit Cork, and he left the Assembly sitting at Kilkenny. Richard Fanshawe reached Kinsale at this juncture with letters from the Prince of Wales and power to announce that Rupert was coming with his fleet and supplies. The Duke of York was expected at once, and his elder brother as soon as he had recovered from an attack of smallpox. Ormonde urged the Prince of Wales to come, for his presence was the one thing necessary to restore the confidence of ‘a discouraged rather than disaffected army.’ Money and additional men would be very useful, but Charles himself much more so. Having done what he could in Munster, the Lord Lieutenant returned to Kilkenny within a fortnight as he had promised.[134]

No help from Rome.

Peace concluded, January, 1648-9.

Commissioners of Trust appointed.

Ormonde was ill after his return to Kilkenny, and the discussions about the peace were suspended till December 19; but the Confederates were in no condition to drive a hard bargain. Bishop French and Sir Nicholas Plunket had returned from Rome empty-handed, the Pope alleging troubles in Crete and a possible invasion of Italy by the Turks as reasons for turning a deaf ear to Ireland. The agents were also reminded that no account had been given of the large sum sent over by Massari. The Remonstrance of the army in England became known at Kilkenny about the same time, and it had a very sobering effect. The Assembly receded from its extreme claim in the matter of religion, and on January 17 a peace was concluded which differed but slightly from that made in 1646 and afterwards rejected by Rinuccini’s advice. Everything was referred to a free Parliament to be held in Ireland in six months, or as soon after as possible, and no man was to be molested for any matter of religion in the meantime. The Confederacy was dissolved and the powers of a provisional government were vested in twelve lay notables, of whom three were peers, afterwards known as the ‘Commissioners of Trust.’ The peace was signed at Kilkenny and proclaimed on the same day, and a circular letter was also sent out by nine bishops. These prelates advised their co-religionists to accept the peace loyally. ‘In the present concessions,’ they said, ‘and in the expectation of further gracious favours from his Majesty’s goodness, we have received a good satisfaction for the being and safety of religion; and the substance thereof, as to the concessions for religion, is better than the sound; by the temporal articles lives, liberties, and the estates of men are well provided for ... you fight fiercely against sectaries and rebels for God and Cæsar, and under those banners you may well hope for victories.’[135]

The nuncio loses all credit.

Ormonde on ultramontane politics.

While Ormonde was negotiating at Kilkenny, Rinuccini was in low estate at Galway. ‘For eight months,’ he wrote, ‘I have seen none of my attendants, and am reduced to such a point, that however bad the vessel, the sea is almost safer for me than the land.’ He sent his confessor, Giuseppe Arcamoni, a Theatine, to Rome in order to counterbalance the efforts of the Carmelite Roe. The Confederates had gone so far as to order him out of Ireland to make his defence before the Pope in person, and to forbid him in the meantime to ‘intermeddle directly or indirectly’ in Irish affairs. A duplicate of this letter was sent to the Corporation of Galway, and both original and copy were accompanied by a long statement of charges against the nuncio. The corporation were peremptorily ordered to have no further dealings with the ‘lord archbishop of Fermo.’ He was accused generally of arbitrary and tyrannical conduct, of endeavouring to subvert fundamental laws and to withdraw the people from their allegiance to the Crown, and of plotting to ‘introduce a foreign, arbitrary, and tyrannical government.’ In a paper drawn up about this time Ormonde says, ‘the nuncio is a foreigner, and no subject of his Majesty’s; therefore not at all interested in any agreement between his Majesty and his subjects, and may have aims prejudicial to both, wherefore his satisfaction may be as difficult as unnecessary.’[136]

Rinuccini leaves Ireland, February 1648-9.

Reasons of his failure.

What was thought at Rome.

Rinuccini was completely beaten, though the great bulk of the clergy were with him. He could claim seventeen bishops against eight, and the vast majority of the religious orders, excepting the Jesuits. He had with him the Celtic population, as represented by Owen Roe O’Neill, and the poorer classes generally, who cared much for the Church and very little for the Crown. But the nobility and the legal profession were against him. ‘A few days,’ he wrote, ‘after my arrival in Kilkenny some lawyers inquired from Father Scarampi if I were going to erect a tribunal. When he said yes, they replied that they would not put up with it by any means.... In the public assembly Viscount Muskerry said that the day of my arrival was a fatal one for the country; in short, they have shown in every action that they cannot endure the authority of the Pope; they are even not ashamed to say in private and in print that his succours were mere empty hopes, vanity, and vexation. It may be therefore by the will of God that a people Catholic only in name, and so irreverent towards the Church, should feel the thunderbolt of the Holy See, and draw upon themselves the anger which is the meed of the scorner.’ Rinuccini declared that a nuncio to a heretic viceroy was an absurdity, and prepared to leave the country. With difficulty he succeeded in securing the very San Pietro on board of which he had first come. Plunket and French went to Galway to report the result of their Roman mission, but he did not await their arrival, and it was thought that he feared orders from the Pope incompatible with his late proceedings. He sailed on February 23, crowds of weeping people accompanying him to the ship; the poor were much better Catholics than the lords and lawyers. The demonstration on his arrival had been less than ‘on the completion of his mission to a poor and persecuted minister, and could not be ascribed to the hopes of assistance which they entertained.’ He thought the corrupted nations nearer Rome should ‘journey to a distant clime where the sun is never seen, that they may fully comprehend the due subjection of the faithful to their head.’ In the meantime he sent his confessor to Rome with instructions to press for certain specific measures. The authorities were called upon to suspend Bishop Rothe of Ossory, to summon Archbishop de Burgo to Rome, to call Peter Walsh ‘before the Inquisition or any other tribunal in Rome,’ to summon the chiefs of the recalcitrant Carmelites, and to order Malone, provincial of the Irish Jesuits, out of Ireland. Arcamoni arrived in March, but Rinuccini lingered long in France and in his native Florence, and did not reach Rome till the second week in November. No one there approved of his proceedings in Ireland, and the Pope accused him of rashness. More than two years before he had abstained from making him a cardinal, though urged to do so by Bishop Macmahon.[137]