Ireland under the Stuarts and During the Interregnum, Vol. 3 (of 3), 1660-1690

by Richard Bagwell

FOOTNOTES:

[100] Arlington to Essex, January 6, 1671-2, Stowe MSS., vol. cc. Orrery to Essex, February 3, ib. Burnet’s Own Times, i. 396, 476. The King to Berkeley, April 30, 1672, State Papers, Domestic.

[101] Essex to Arlington, August 24, 1672, Essex Papers. The King to Essex, August 31, ib.

[102] The rules under the 82nd clause of the Act of Explanation are printed in Irish Statutes, iii. 205 sqq., under 25 Car. II. The slight difference in the case of Drogheda seems to arise from the fact that rules had been made for that town by Ossory in 1668, see Essex’s letter of August 17 and D’Alton’s Hist. of Drogheda, i. 191. Essex to Arlington, January 20, 1672-3, and July 19, Essex Papers. Proceedings in the English Privy Council reported by Southwell, ib. July 26. The King to Essex, November 5, 1672, and January 14, 1672-3, State Papers, Domestic.

[103] Essex and Boyle to Arlington, September 21, 1672, State Papers, Domestic. Essex to Arlington and to the King, July 22, 1673, Essex Papers to W. Harbord, ib. March 21, 1673-4; to Danby, February 10, 1674-5, ib. Totty carried his grievances to London, and on June 15, 1675, Essex described him to Coventry as the ‘principal incendiary in Dublin, a trooper many years in Cromwell’s army, wretchedly poor and has patched himself up by presents and otherwise out of collections from several corporations of the city, to encourage and promote these broils.’—Essex Letters, p. 345.

[104] Andrew Marvell’s letter of August 9, 1667, Works, ii. 392. In his Last Instructions to a Painter, 1667, he says Castlemaine was growing old, but she was then only twenty-six. Essex’s three letters to Shaftesbury, March 8, April 12, and May 3, 1673, are printed in full in Christie’s Life, appx. iv. Warrant for the grant, February 26, 1672-3, State Papers, Domestic. Godolphin to Essex, July 16, 1674, Essex Papers, vol. i. H. Coventry cautiously resisted a grant to Nell Gwyn, Essex Papers, ed. Pike, 145.

[105] Essex to Arlington, September 17, 1672, State Papers, Domestic. Berkeley to Arlington, July 10, 1673, ib. The King to Essex, January 13, 1674-5, ib. Orrery to Essex, August 16, 1672, Essex Papers; Essex to Arlington, August 27, ib. And for Orrery’s case, see Liber Munerum Publicorum, Part ii. 185. He tried to keep an annual allowance of 66l. for house-hire after the Munster Presidency was abolished, but Essex had it stopped, State Papers, Domestic, 1675, pp. 502, 558.

[106] Grey’s Debates, ii. 118-129, 132, March 17 and 18, 1672-3. For the Clonmel riot see Ford to Arlington, November 25, 1672, and Essex to same, February 18, 1672-3, State Papers, Domestic.

[107] The text of the address is in Grey’s Debates, ii. 159, March 29, 1673.

[108] Letters to Williamson, ed. Christie, July 4, 1673. Letter from the Privy Council ordering compliance with the Commons’ address, September 26, 1673, State Papers, Domestic. Essex to Capel, October 13, Essex Papers; to Arlington, October 28, ib.; to Ormonde, November 14, ib.; to W. Harbord, January 25, 1673-4, ib. Ormonde to Essex, December 9, ib. The proclamations of October 27 and November 8, 1673, and April 27, 1674, are in State Papers, Domestic, with the King’s letter of March 31. Brady’s Episcopal Succession, ii. 120.

[109] Essex to Ormonde, February 3, March 10, July 8, September 3, 1673-4, Stowe MSS., vol. ccxiv.; September 12, ib. vol. ccxvi.; March 6, 1676-7, ib. vol. ccxvii. Ormonde to Essex, April 20, 1677, ib. vol. ccxi. Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 443, 446. Writing to Ranelagh on June 1, 1675, Essex notes ‘what an interest remains of a great man who commanded here many years, by reason of the absolute power he had of gratifying multitudes of people.’—Essex Letters, p. 299.

[110] Sir George Rawdon’s letters from 1673 to 1675 in State Papers, Domestic. Sir Henry Ingoldsby to Lord O’Brien, ib., January 26, 1673-4 Proclamation of March 2 and December 14, 1674, June 10 and July 7, 1675, ib. Letters during the same period in Essex Papers, pp. 117, 148, 177, 264; proposals from Kerry priests, ib., p. 306.

[111] Essex to the King, to Danby, and to Coventry, May 22, 1675, Essex Letters.

[112] Ranelagh’s patent was dated August 4, 1671. Essex to Danby, March 11, 1676; to the King, September 8; and to Ormonde and Orrery, September 12, Stowe MSS., vol. ccxvi.; to Orrery, January 30, ib. vol. ccxvii. Howard’s Hist. of the Exchequer, i. 89. Macaulay’s History, chaps. iii. and xi. Petty’s Treatise on Taxes, chap. xv. 11.

[113] W. Harbord to Essex, April 4, 1674, Essex Papers. Conway to Essex, ib. p. 221. Essex to H. Coventry, May 22, 1675, Essex Letters, much more outspoken than those of the same date to Charles and Danby. Lord Lieutenant and Council to Williamson, March 2, 1676-7, Stowe MSS., vol. ccxvii. The contest between Ormonde and Ranelagh is given in Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 451-463, including the scene at the Privy Council in November 1675, and Ormonde’s written defence after Ranelagh had given particulars on March 1, 1675-6, also his memoir for the King in 1675, ib. appx. no. 92. After reading Ormonde’s statement Essex wrote to him on May 23, 1676, that he was right, Stowe MSS., vol. ccxvi. Ormonde to Essex, July 2, ib., vol. ccx. Burnet’s Own Times, i. 398, and Airy’s note. See the article on Ranelagh in Dictionary of National Biography. Henry Sidney’s Diary.

[114] Longford to Essex, August 26, 1676, Stowe MSS., vol. ccx. H. Coventry to Essex, July 5, 1676, ib., January 9 and April 20, 1677, ib. vol. ccxi. Sir H. Capel to Essex, April 16, 1677, ib. Clarke’s Life of James II., i. 507. Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 463-466. Writing to Essex at the moment of his recall Ormonde says, there have been and will be great pains taken to stir up bad blood between them, but that he will always be truly his friend, April 20, 1677, Stowe MSS., vol. ccxi.

[115] Orrery to Essex, December 15 and 29, 1676, Stowe MSS., vol. ccx. Bishop of Killala to Essex, January 22, February 14, March 28, 1677, ib. vol. ccxi. Primate Margetson to Essex, August 26, 1676, ib. vol. ccx. Massereene to same, October 31, ib.

[116] A. Wood’s Life and Times, ed. Clark, ii. 385. Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 465-469. Essex to Ormonde, April 28, 1677, Stowe MSS., vol. ccxvii. Ormonde to Fell, June 16, and to Essex, August 4, Ormonde Papers, N.S.

[CHAPTER XLVII]
GOVERNMENT OF ORMONDE, 1677-1685

Revenue abuses.

On his return to Ireland Ormonde was at once involved in revenue difficulties. Ranelagh was allowed to collect arrears long after his contract had expired, and the Lord Lieutenant had the worst opinion of Sir James Shaen, who was the chief man among the new farmers. Indeed it was amply proved that great abuses are inseparable from a system of farming, and that a complete change would have to be made. The farmers, said Petty, ‘have done all that knaves and fools and that sharks and beggars could do.’ He was himself named as one, but Ranelagh and Shaen managed to keep him out, and he had endless trouble with them. The system indeed was essentially bad. The army was too weak, but small as it was the pay was always in arrear. Ormonde saw his way to increasing the revenue gradually, and was anxious to increase the army too, but not until accounts could be balanced. He proposed to hold a Parliament and obtain twelve subsidies amounting to 180,000l. payable in three years. But the farmers of the revenue objected to this on the ground that the additional burden on the taxpayer would make it impossible for them to fulfil their contracts. The King, Coventry wrote, ‘is much more desirous of a revenue than subsidies, and would have your chief application be to improve that to 300,000l. a year, and he hath commanded me to tell your Grace you may assure them it shall all be spent in the kingdom and none sent over hither.’[117]

A Parliament contemplated.

Unceasing scramble for land.

Proposed remedial legislation.

In June 1678 it was decided that there should be a Parliament before Christmas, and the heads of sundry bills were sent over. The work of the Land Settlement was incomplete, and there was much property without a clear title and liable to be seized under one pretence or another. Borrowing an expression from Temple, Essex, who also desired to hold a Parliament, declared that the lands of Ireland had been ‘a mere scramble,’ that the minds of all men were consequently disturbed, English settlers frightened away, and the application of capital prevented. The King was fully aware of this, but he added to the confusion by making grants of concealed lands to importunate suitors. Things were particularly bad in Connaught and Clare, where the transplantation had made titles even more uncertain than elsewhere. Charles was induced to withdraw some of his piratical letters, but the courtiers were not much discouraged in their endeavours to obtain Irish estates without paying for them. Ormonde now had a Bill prepared to put an end to this state of things, but there was great opposition to it on the ground that it would confirm intruders who had entered on lands to which they had no right. It was proposed to have a commission lasting five years for the confirmation of titles, but it was feared that this would expose all alike to the danger of having to take out new patents. A Bill of Oblivion was also under consideration, by which malicious prosecution would be prevented for offences of very old date, but it was not likely that this would pass easily in a legislature where the Adventurers and soldiers commanded a majority. Old arrears of taxation were also to be wiped out. It was further proposed to modify the intolerable burden of the hearth-money, the collectors having power to seize the poor cabin-holder’s bed and the pot in which he boiled his potatoes. The loss of revenue was to be made up by increased licensing and excise duties. But all these plans were destined to come to nothing, for on September 28 Oates and Tonge appeared before the Privy Council.[118]

The Popish Plot.

Alarmist measures.

According to the first informers Ormonde was to be murdered as well as the King. The Protestants were to be massacred as in 1641, and Ireland taken charge of by a papal nuncio with the assistance of Louis XIV. A little later the extreme Protestants were denouncing the Lord Lieutenant as favourable to the plot. He hardly knew what to make of the news, and even Coventry was puzzled for a time. Orders of the most stringent kind were soon sent from England, and there was nothing to do but to obey them. The English Government were assured not only that Ormonde was to be killed through Peter Talbot’s contrivance, but that the nuncio had been already sent, and also 40,000 black bills to arm the Irish. Ormonde was at Kilkenny when he received Southwell’s letter with a report of the first day’s proceedings at the English Privy Council. ‘I have the honour,’ he said, ‘to be singly named with the King. Who may come in after I know not, but sure His Majesty was to be better attended than by me alone.... I hope I shall rather go alone than in the company they designed me; though it be the best in the world.’ On his return to Dublin he found Archbishop Talbot already in close custody. ‘Peter Walsh,’ he wrote, ‘is able to say something of Peter Talbot’s threats against my life, but I would not have him called to testify anything without his own free consent.’ Officers and soldiers were recalled to quarters, and the oath of supremacy ordered to be strictly enforced. Popish residents for twelve months in garrison towns were not disturbed, but strict rules were made against fresh ones coming in, and in the cases of Drogheda, Cork, Wexford, Limerick, Waterford, Youghal, and Galway, fairs and markets were to be held outside the walls. Roman Catholics were forbidden to keep arms without licence, and their dignitaries as well as all Jesuits and regulars were ordered to leave the kingdom. As usual in former cases, the latter order was very imperfectly obeyed, and three months later a reward was offered for apprehension of the most important ecclesiastics—ten pounds for a bishop or Jesuit, and five pounds for any of the others.[119]

Ormonde accused of favouring the Papists.

William Ryan, superior of the Jesuits, was apprehended, but there was nothing material against him and he was put on board a ship bound for foreign parts. Orders came from England to arrest Lord Mountgarret, but he was bedridden, and that was considered to be imprisonment enough. His son Richard, a foolish young man with a sensible wife, was arrested and so was Colonel Richard Talbot, but the latter was allowed to go abroad as his health suffered from confinement. No evidence of any plot was discovered, but anonymous letters were scattered about the streets of Dublin professing to give information of a conspiracy against Ormonde’s life, and a reward of 200l. was offered by proclamation for a full discovery. In the meantime he was accused in London of treating the Protestants badly, and Anglesey in his character of candid friend carefully related all that he heard. One charge was that the Lord Lieutenant had given twenty-one days to the Papists for the surrender of their arms, thus warning them to hide all weapons, ‘whereas in 1663 the poor English were searched by surprises and their arms taken away and not restored to this day.’ To this the answer was easy, that the Roman Catholics, being fifteen to one, could not be quickly disarmed, and that firearms concealed in damp cellars would soon be very harmless. As to the plot of 1663, it was the work of persons who were Protestants only in so far that they did not call themselves Papists, but who were as ready to upset governments and murder kings as any disciple of Suarez. He was accused of neglecting the safety of Dublin and of keeping the powder carelessly in a dangerous place, but he showed that the garrison was sufficient, that the magazine was where he found it, and that there was no other available building. As to having Papist soldiers in Ireland, they were sent there by the King, who had recalled them from the French service, and he wished them away ‘but not in France lest we should have them here too soon again.’ The last article of accusation mentioned by Anglesey was that Lord Mayor Ward was a dull fool, but to this the Lord Lieutenant had a full answer: ‘He had wit enough to get to be rich and an alderman, and I think by those steps men get to be Lord Mayors. If I could have foreseen the plot I would have interposed for an abler politician.’ Anglesey made great professions of friendship, but neither Ormonde nor Ossory trusted him.[120]

Ormonde and Orrery.

Students of Irish history have to guard themselves against seeing things too exclusively through Ormonde’s eyes. He looms so large, compared with other Irish or Anglo-Irishmen of his day, that there is some danger of being unjust to others. But Burnet was not an admirer of his, yet he stigmatises Anglesey and Orrery, his chief critics, as ‘two men of a very indifferent reputation.’ Anglesey indeed, he says, was very corrupt, ‘stuck at nothing and was ashamed of nothing.’ His letter, mentioned above, was no doubt mainly founded on Orrery’s information. The ex-president, whom Ossory called the ‘Charlatan of Munster,’ was a persistent alarmist who posed as the champion of the Irish Protestants and thought the Lord Lieutenant altogether too favourable to the Roman Catholics. A French invasion was, in his view, a thing to be daily expected, and the preparations to oppose it were quite insufficient. He was still major-general in his own province and wished to be at the head of a great Protestant militia, about the embodiment of which he thought the Lord Lieutenant too inactive. There does not seem to have been any idea of a French descent on Ireland, and after the conclusion of the peace of Nimeguen there could be no real danger. But Orrery continued to complain of inadequate military arrangements, and to lament that the Irish Government were blind to the Irish ramifications of the plot. He was not satisfied with warning statesmen in England, but circulated his complaints among courtiers and private members of Parliament, thus aggravating the general atmosphere of suspicion and panic. Ossory complained to the King, who merely said that he knew Orrery for a rogue and that he would ever continue so. No French soldiers came, and no attack on Protestants was made until Charles II. and Ormonde were both dead and until the latter’s policy had been completely reversed. Ormonde tried to end the controversy with his critic by one full letter, but gave it up in despair, ‘his lordship being impossible to be satisfied and of inexhaustible invention.’ After Orrery’s death in October 1679, his sister, Lady Ranelagh, continued to make mischief in Munster, but she was ‘not so inventive.’[121]

Shaftesbury attacks Ormonde.

Shaftesbury used the plot for all it was worth. As to Ireland, he said, ‘I am credibly informed that the papists have their arms restored, and the Protestants are not, many of them, yet recovered from being the suspected party. The sea-towns, as well as the inland, are full of papists. That kingdom cannot long continue in the English hands if some better care is not taken of it.’ That this was a reflection on Ormonde no candid reader will deny. And the speech as spoken may have been a good deal stronger than the version published by Shaftesbury. But he afterwards declared that his real object was to attack Lauderdale, and that much more was said about Scotland. Ossory, however, who was an old antagonist, took up the cudgels in what Achitophel’s apologists call a violent manner. His answer was at once printed in Holland, and William of Orange admired it greatly. Ossory was wrong in saying that Shaftesbury advised the stop of the Exchequer, but he said nothing against it, and he was Lord Chancellor at the time. The most faithful of biographers could not deny the delenda est Carthago speech. But Ossory’s language, though in the main justified by facts, was not opportune, and both Arlington and Southwell advised his father to write in an apologetic or at least pacific strain. He did so, very much against the grain, congratulating Shaftesbury upon becoming President of the Council. He regretted Ossory’s speech, but could not be ‘much offended at the mistake or transport of a near relation, who might imagine I was glanced at, in which of all things in the world he knew I was most tender in, and valued myself most upon, and I take the liberty to believe that supposing the case your own, your lordship would have the same indulgence for a son of yours.’ This was all, he told Southwell, he could ‘obtain of himself to say.’ Shaftesbury took no notice of the letter, but he received it, and Christie found the original among his papers nearly two hundred years later.[122]

Intrigues about the viceroyalty.

Sir William Temple’s attempt to bridle the House of Commons with a Privy Council of thirty is well known. It was to consist half of official and half of independent members, and there was to be no cabinet. The landed property of this body of magnates would nearly equal that held by the Lower House in the aggregate. Barillon saw at once that the plan would not work. The new Council was too large for an executive and could not have the authority of a legislative body. Having with great difficulty been induced to admit Halifax, the King, much to Temple’s disgust, brought in Shaftesbury and made him President. The result was that a cabinet was almost immediately formed consisting of Temple himself, Sunderland, Secretary of State; Essex, First Lord of the Treasury; and Halifax, who was soon afterwards made an Earl. Shaftesbury was surrounded by another little knot of advanced exclusionists, and intrigue was the order of the day. It was again reported that Halifax would be Lord Lieutenant. He refused the offer, though some of his friends thought that he had been appointed. Essex, on the contrary, was most anxious to return to Ireland, both the emoluments and the position being to his taste. He kept up an interest in the country by supporting Sir James Shaen and the revenue farmers who gave Ormonde so much trouble and prevented him from having leave to hold a Parliament. In the following year his designs on the viceroyalty were clearly visible. ‘My Lord,’ said Shaftesbury, ‘if you will come in to us never trouble yourself, we will make you Lieutenant of Ireland.’ Temple calls these shameless words, but they had no direct result. It does not appear that the King had any idea of superseding Ormonde.[123]

‘The Plot’ in Ireland.

No evidence bearing upon Oates’ plot had been discovered in Ireland, but Shaftesbury did not neglect that fertile field. There was a scheme to remodel the Irish Government without Ormonde, his place being filled by Orrery, Conway, or Granard. That cowardly villain, Lord Howard of Escrick, was thought of for Chancellor, and the Council was to be filled with the most extreme men of the Protestant party. But the King would have nothing to say to this precious plan, and it came to naught. Under orders from England, Ormonde sought for witnesses, but their stories did not fit in with those that had been told in London. The first Irish case of any importance was that of Richard, Earl of Tyrone, whose professed Protestantism was perhaps naturally doubted, since he became a Roman Catholic at the beginning of the next reign. He declared, however, that he was ready to sacrifice himself for the Protestant religion in which he had brought up his two sons. He had committed one Hubert Bourke, an attorney, for an assault upon a smith named MacDaniel, and Bourke, being a man of bad character, was unable to get bail. While in Waterford gaol he made charges against Tyrone, who was summoned to Dublin and examined by the Council. Nothing of importance appeared, but the Earl was indicted at Waterford Assizes, in August 1679, for conspiring to bring in the French. The Grand Jury ignored the bill, and Bourke’s evidence of treasonable talks was not believed. A further indictment in the following March had the same fate, Chief Justice Keating presiding on both occasions. Another informer, a Limerick gentleman named David Fitzgerald, made similar charges against Lord Brittas and others, whom he accused of a comprehensive scheme to massacre the Protestants and bring in the French. Some of the accused were bailed for want of evidence, and in other cases bills were ignored by the Limerick Grand Jury. Oates’ patrons in Parliament found it necessary to take other measures, and the hatching of an Irish plot was entrusted to a sub-committee consisting of Shaftesbury, Essex, Burlington, and Falconberg. A Mr. Hetherington, apparently a person of some education, acted as agent and stage-manager for Shaftesbury.[124]

Abortive charges of treason.

Tyrone was married to Anglesey’s daughter, and an attempt was made to implicate the latter, but it was too absurd to have any success. He was himself confined for some time in the Gatehouse, and the Lords declared themselves fully satisfied that there was and long had been ‘a horrid and treasonable plot and conspiracy, contrived and carried on by those of the Popish religion in Ireland for massacring the English, and subverting the Protestant religion, and the ancient established government of that kingdom.’ They desired the concurrence of the Commons, about which there was no difficulty, but Capel, Hampden, and Russell were determined to involve James, and it was added to the Lords’ vote ‘that the Duke of York’s being a Papist, and the expectation of his coming to the Crown, hath given the greatest countenance and concurrence thereto as well as to the horrid Popish Plot in this kingdom of England.’ According to the Maguire precedent Tyrone could be tried as a commoner in England, but the House preferred to resolve unanimously that he should be impeached of high treason. The charge came to nothing, for Parliament was dissolved a few days later. For the same reasons the proceedings against Thomas Sheridan were dropped, and he played an important part in Ireland during the next reign. He was a son of Dennis Sheridan, who befriended Bedell and others in 1641, his brother was Dean of Down and became a bishop next year. Being imprisoned by the House of Commons on vague and almost unintelligible charges, he sued out his Habeas Corpus, and when other judges shirked the task Baron Weston had the courage to grant it. The impeachment of Weston had also been voted for something he said at the Kingston Assizes. Sheridan told the House that he had defended the Protestant faith against the Jesuits and against friars of every order, that he had communicated yearly since he was seventeen, and that he had taken the oath of supremacy eleven times.[125]

Spies and false witnesses.

Oliver Plunket accused.

To expose once more the perjuries of Oates and his imitators is but to slay the slain. Charles never believed in the plot, but he took no steps to check the panic, and there was a golden time for spies and informers. On returning from Kilkenny in October 1679, Ormonde found Archbishop Talbot a close prisoner in Dublin Castle. He had been long living openly and unmolested in his brother Richard’s house. Archbishop Plunket had been quiet in his province since the departure of Essex, but came to Dublin in November 1679 to attend the deathbed of his relative, the aged Bishop of Meath. A few days later he was arrested by a party to whom Hetherington acted as guide. For a few weeks his imprisonment was close, but there was nothing against him, and the rule was soon relaxed. He was a prisoner only because he had not left Ireland under the late proclamation, but a case of high treason was gradually trumped up. The witnesses were instructed in London, and Ormonde, rejecting their application for a postponement, had the venue laid at Dundalk, where both they and the prisoner were known. The result was that no evidence was offered and no Bill found. This was in July, and the case was then adjourned to Dublin, where the witnesses were in less danger of being arrested as thieves and Tories. The Archbishop petitioned that he might be tried by a Louth jury, for even a jury of Protestants who knew him and his accusers were not to be feared. Before this point was finally settled, orders came that he should be sent to London for trial, and he was lodged in Newgate before the end of October 1680. Neither Ormonde nor his son Arran thought the witnesses deserving of credit, but the latter foresaw that they would be believed in England and that the Archbishop’s fate was certain.[126]

Plunket sent to England for trial.

Ormonde thought that the evidence against Plunket was strong enough if uncontradicted to justify his being sent for trial. But it is not easy to reconcile the statements of liars, and the Westminster Grand Jury ignored the Bill. The foreman, who was a zealous Protestant, told Burnet that the witnesses evidently contradicted each other, and when we consider their characters it is hard to see how they could be believed under any circumstances. John MacMoyer and Hugh Duffy were Franciscans of bad reputation—who consorted with the Tories and were suspended by the Archbishop. Edmund Murphy, the parish priest of Killevy, was also implicated in the prevailing brigandage, and the respect due to him may be measured by his sworn admission that it was indifferent to him whether he was a Protestant or a Priest. Another witness was Henry O’Neill, who was hanged at Mullingar for robbery a few months later, having fully confessed his perjuries, which were chiefly instigated by John MacLane, a suspended priest, who had also been one of the witnesses and was then in prison on a charge of robbery. Henry O’Neill’s son Neill also appeared against the Archbishop. Other witnesses were Florence Wyer, related to MacMoyer; Owen Murphy, who did not pretend to know anything; John Moyer, who retailed gossip gathered in Italy and Spain; and one Hanlet or Hanlon, who did much the same. These nine men, carefully selected out of a host of informers, swore away Plunket’s life with the entire approval of three judges and of a deluded public.[127]

A true bill found.

Nature of the evidence.

The witnesses having been better drilled, a True Bill for High Treason was eventually found, and on May 3 the Archbishop was arraigned at the bar of the King’s Bench. He was told that the abortive proceedings in Ireland had not led to a trial, and that he might therefore be legally tried in England for treason committed beyond channel. There were precedents for this, and it is only necessary to mention the case of Lord Maguire in 1645. Plunket then asked time to get his evidence from Ireland, and the trial was fixed for June 8, five weeks off. This seems a liberal interval, but in reality it was wholly insufficient, for the Archbishop had hardly any money and expeditious travelling was expensive. Moreover, the officials in Ireland would not give copies of necessary records without an actual order of the Court. ‘The servants,’ he said, ‘that I sent hence and took shipping for Ireland were two days at sea and came back again, and from thence were forced to go to Holyhead and from Holyhead, in going to Dublin, they were thirteen or fourteen days, the winds were so contrary, and then my servants went about to go into the counties of Armagh and Derry.’ Even willing witnesses, being Roman Catholics, were afraid to start without passports. The prisoner only asked for an adjournment till the 21st, when he was satisfied to be tried whether they had arrived or not. Some of them had got as far as Coventry on the day of the trial, but he was told that he had already had an extraordinary allowance of time and that the fears and hesitations of Irish witnesses were beyond the control of the Court. The keynote was struck by Sawyer the Attorney-General: ‘May it please your Lordship and you gentlemen of the Jury, the character this gentleman bears as Primate under a foreign and usurped jurisdiction will be a great inducement to you to give credit to that evidence we shall produce before you.’ Wyer was the first witness, and he showed that Plunket received money and exercised jurisdiction among the clergy, but failed to connect him, except through the loosest hearsay, with any plot. There had been intrigues with France in 1667 following upon the disappointment of the Irish after the Act of Settlement, and there was an attempt to make out that the conspiracy had gone on ever since and that the Archbishop was at the head of it, the object being to further a French descent at Carlingford. In Wyer’s evidence, and in that of other witnesses, papers were frequently referred to, and MacMoyer produced two, of which one purported to be a translation from a copy made at Capranica, near Rome, five years before, but which the Archbishop said was an absolute forgery. The other was a copy in Plunket’s own hand of statutes, as they were called, concerning clerical contributions from Ireland to Rome. Both documents were confessedly stolen out of a packet addressed to the Secretary of Propaganda, and the original had been altered by interpolating a figure. Edmund Murphy, who took credit for being one of the first discoverers of the plot, but was now an unwilling witness, tried to avoid repeating what he had sworn before the Grand Jury, and said he had forgotten it. He hesitated and prevaricated, though pressed by the Court, and in the end he was committed. When the evidence for the Crown was concluded, a person in Court, whose name is not given, handed Plunket a slip of paper with the names of three persons who had received subpœnas. David Fitzgerald, who might have helped him if he had had the courage to appear, did not answer his name, nor did Eustace Comyn, whose ‘mad narrative,’ as Ormonde called it, was an important element in the mass of hearsay and falsehood. The third was Paul Gormar, who said he had never heard anything against Plunket, and believed he had done more good than harm in Ireland.[128]

Unfairness of the trial.

Execution of Plunket.

According to the barbarous practice of the age Plunket was not allowed counsel, and had to fight his battle alone before hostile judges, against Sawyer, Jeffreys, Finch, and Maynard. His witnesses did not arrive in time. He did not deny that he had exercised the jurisdiction of a popish Primate to the full, but as to the French invasion it was ‘all plain Romance—I never had any communication with any French minister, cardinal, nor other.’ As to his plan for having 70,000 men to welcome the French at Carlingford, a glance at the map of Ireland would show that it was a most unsuitable place for a descent. He might be convicted of a præmunire under the Act of Elizabeth, but as to treason he was quite innocent, ‘as you will hear in time, and my character you may receive from my Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Archbishop Boyle), my Lord Berkeley, my Lord Essex, and the Duke of Ormonde.’ According to Pemberton there could not be a greater crime against God than trying to propagate the religion of Rome, that, he said, ‘was the bottom of your treason.’ The chief justice prided himself on the eminent fairness of a trial in which he had constantly leaned against the prisoner. He had had five weeks to prepare his case, and it was no concern of the Court if that time was insufficient or if a priest educated abroad was ignorant of the formalities necessary to obtain copies of records. On the scaffold at Tyburn Plunket repeated his protestations of innocence. He was executed on the same day as Fitzharris. The credulity of the public was, however, nearly exhausted.[129]

Character of the witnesses.

Ormonde’s estimate of the evidence.

According to what Echard believed to be unquestionable authority, Essex told the King that the charges against Plunket could not be true, and that Charles said the Earl might have saved him by saying as much at the trial, but that he himself dared not pardon him. Burnet seems to admit the royal plea as to Coleman because ‘the tide went so high.’ But two and a half years later it had much subsided, and there was little to be afraid of after the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament. At the time of Plunket’s trial Hetherington, who had contrived his arrest, was in prison for seditious speeches. A cloud of Irish witnesses continued to obscure the truth, and the weapon which Shaftesbury had sharpened was soon turned against him. David Fitzgerald shifted with the tide, and from being an informer became conspicuous against the plot, and declared his intention to ‘break Shaftesbury’s knot.’ He said he could get forty Irishmen for 40l. to swear whatever he wished, and that Hetherington and the other witnesses were all rogues, thieves, gaolbreakers, and turbulent persons. Soon after the judicial murder of Plunket Ormonde began an action of scandalum magnatum against Hetherington, who was bailed by Richard Rumbold, the Rye House conspirator. The evidence at the trial was strong and the defence weak, so that a substantial Surrey jury found a verdict without leaving the Court. The damages were assessed at 10,000l., though Ormonde had only asked for 1000l., and Hetherington went to prison in default of payment. Shaftesbury had already died in exile, and the Irish witnesses were no longer paid or countenanced. Ormonde had long before said they were all perjurers who ‘went out of Ireland with bad English and worse clothes and returned well bred gentlemen, well caronated, periwigged and clothed. Brogues and leather straps are converted to fashionable shoes and glittering buckles, which next to the zeal tories, thieves, and friars have for the Protestant religion, is a main inducement to bring in a shoal of informers.... The worst is they are so miserably poor that we are fain to give them some allowance; and they find it more honourable and safe to be the King’s evidence than a cowstealer, though that be their natural profession.[130]

Castlehaven’s Memoirs.

Anglesey answers him.

In 1680, about the time of Sir Miles Stapleton’s acquittal at York, but before the trial of Lord Stafford, Castlehaven contributed to the general confusion by publishing his memoirs. As a Roman Catholic royalist with a good personal record for courage and honourable conduct, he had not been molested, but his little book gave great offence to those who were interested in the parliamentary settlement of Ireland. Anglesey lost no time in answering Castlehaven, whom he calls ‘an enemy as keen as generous,’ condemning the whole conduct of the late war and asserting that the ‘Irish did the English more hurt and advantaged themselves more by the cessation and two first peaces than ever they did or could do by force after the first massacre.’ This was to reflect on Charles I., who had ordered the truce of 1643 and the peace of 1646, and upon Charles II., who had confirmed the peace of 1649. As to the Irish, they were all guilty of treason and liable to forfeiture, their grievances being dismissed as ‘crocodile tears and groundless complaints.’ Ormonde, whose relations were all Roman Catholics, had helped them, but was himself a great gainer by the confiscations, and so were Arlington and the Duke of York. The King did not at first take the trouble to read Anglesey’s pamphlet, but he let it be known that he thought an answer was required. Ormonde hesitated about a printed controversy with ‘a man I have seen detected in public of misinformation and mean artifices for sordid sums and yet never blush at the matter, but appear the next day as brisk and confident as his favourite Thornhill, when convicted of forgery in an open full court.’ A year later, after the Oxford dissolution, he saw less reason for caution, and published a letter in which he says he had at first supposed Anglesey’s production to be that of a suborned libeller. It was reported that his opponent was writing a regular history, and he was ready to help him with documents contradicting his endless misstatements. As for the present instalment he supposed it would be allowed to die after it had ‘performed its duty in coffee-houses.’ Anglesey printed and circulated an answer, asking for particulars and threatening revelations, especially as to Ormonde’s peaces with the Irish. He employed Edmund Borlase to write a second answer to Castlehaven, condemning the peaces and reflecting on Ormonde’s conduct throughout the Civil Wars.[131]

Anglesey is turned out of office.

When Ormonde returned to London in May he found the controversy raised by Anglesey raging, and a general expectation that his antagonist should be fully answered, if not by him, at least by an inspired writer. By this time the King had Anglesey’s pamphlet at his fingers’ ends, talked of it to all about him, and fully justified Ormonde’s conduct as to the first truce and two subsequent peaces with the Irish. In his application to the King and Council Ormonde said he had been in constant intercourse with his assailant for twenty years without hearing of the accusations now made, which were evidently timed to suit the prevailing atmosphere of suspicion. Anglesey’s knowledge of Ireland could not be denied, and ‘his pretended candour and impartiality’ might make people believe him. The accuser now became the accused, and he was carried before the Council in a fit of gout. Finding little disposition to favour him, he boldly denied their authority to try a peer for pretended libelling, and demanded an impartial jury. Charles’s answer was to deprive him of the Privy Seal and give it to Halifax, whose services against the Exclusion Bill were thus in some degree rewarded.[132]

Irish outlaws. Redmond O’Hanlon.

Brigandage in one form or other had annoyed all governors for centuries. As the tribal system yielded gradually and grudgingly before English law, there was never any lack of discontented men who would fight but who would not work. The ‘swordsmen’ whom Chichester strove to employ in foreign wars became ‘tories’ later, and after that ‘rapparees,’ when the older title had been assigned to an English party. The most famous leader of these outlaws was Redmond O’Hanlon, an educated gentleman who had lost his property through the operation of the Acts of Settlement and Explanation. He had been abroad, and his exploits were chronicled in France as those of Count Hanlon. For many years he kept great part of Ulster in terror, many murders being charged against him. He sometimes retired to Connaught, and even ventured upon raids in the south. His chief place of abode was in the mountains to the north of Dundalk. From the ranks of the Tories came many of the witnesses for the plot, and spies retained for one purpose could often be used for another. At the end of 1680 there was a reward of 200l. for Redmond’s head and 100l. for his brother Loughlin’s. Redmond’s bitter enemy was Edmund Murphy of Killevy, who had to pay him regular tribute, and it may be that he put Ormonde on the scent. The Lord Lieutenant gave a special commission to Lieutenant William Lucas, who by a judicious use of threats and money procured the death of Redmond in the following April and of Loughlin a little later. Sir Francis Brewster, when reporting the death of Redmond O’Hanlon, had to go back to the fifteenth century for a parallel—‘considering the circumstances he lay under and the time he continued, he did in my opinion things more to be admired [that is, wondered at] than Scanderbeg himself.’[133]

Southern Tories. Richard Power.

The destruction of the O’Hanlons did not put an end to Ulster brigandage, and Captain Hamilton, who was indefatigable against the outlaws, earned the title of Tory Will. In Leinster the O’Brennans, who had lost most of their land in Strafford’s time, were the most troublesome, and in Munster Richard Power was the chief offender. Hugh Anderton, one of Ormonde’s chaplains, was attacked while reading the burial service in his own parish of Kilmallock, and he died of his wounds. There were riots in Tipperary, and the O’Brennans were bold enough to enter and rob Kilkenny Castle which the Lords Justices had omitted to watch. Primate Boyle said ‘Power is an absolute ubiquitous, and tarries in no place long enough to be discovered and taken. He is sometimes in the county of Waterford and sometimes in Kilkenny, and immediately after we hear of his pranks in the county of Limerick and in Kerry and Cork.’ At last a spy earned the fifty guineas which was his share of the price placed upon Power’s head. He was surrounded by soldiers in a house near Charleville and made a desperate resistance. As he refused quarter, the officer in command ordered the building to be set on fire. Power yielded rather than be burned to death. He was brought out badly wounded, and hanged at Clonmel three weeks later, ‘dying very magnanimously by the help of three bottles of sack, which he took that morning for his morning’s draught.’[134]

Renewed attack on the Settlement.

A Court of Grace established,

which effects very little.

Ormonde was in England from the end of April 1682 until August 1684, leaving his son Arran as Deputy, who did very well but without rivalling his much lamented brother. There were two quiet years in Ireland, but for the trouble given by the Tories. Yet sufferers by the Act of Settlement had not been silenced, and it was thought possible at Court to make peace by confirming the titles of men in possession on payment of fines, out of which some compensation might be given to those who had just claims but for whom there was no available land. Ormonde’s brother-in-law, Colonel John Fitzpatrick, who was one of the more fortunate Recusants, favoured the new plan, and a commission was issued in March 1684 to the Chief Governor, the Chancellor, the heads of the Treasury, and several of the judges, under which a Court of Grace was established. It did not sit until June, and was then occupied by disputes about fees which were to be reduced to the detriment of existing officials. The terms of the Commission were so wide that all patents had to pass that way. Richard Talbot was no doubt favourable, for he was at this time urging his co-religionists to moderation. Fitzpatrick had already been under the lash of the House of Commons, and the Court of Grace was evidently disliked by the extreme Protestant party, who were against anything tending to modify the operation of the Act of Explanation. It was believed that some of the fees were to go to the Duchess of Portsmouth. Anglesey attacked the Commission violently as soon as its provisions were known and before he had seen the text. He said it would only enrich lawyers and officials, who were too well off already, and the wrongdoers, who had for years been holding lands to which they had no title. The Court of Grace had not time to do much, for the Commission expired with Charles II., and three weeks after his death it was known that it would not be renewed. Talbot, who then became Earl of Tyrconnel, no doubt saw his way to something much more drastic.[135]

In spite of commercial restraints Ireland had prospered under Charles II. The revenue doubled in twenty years. At first money had to be sent from England, but later there was a surplus, which the King promised should be spent in the country. Yet it was often not so spent, though the soldiers’ pay might be in arrear. Charles’s leniency towards Ranelagh may be explained by His Majesty having received money without accounting for it publicly. The system of farming was at last condemned after much unseemly wrangling between Ranelagh and Sir James Shaen, which some well-informed people thought a sham. The former had been Vice-Treasurer since 1674, and was dismissed in 1682, but in spite of his huge defalcations he was well compensated for loss of office. The collection of the taxes was handed over to Revenue Commissioners, with Lord Longford, a skilled financier, at their head.[136]

Last days of Charles II.

The policy of the next reign foreshadowed.

Recall of Ormonde.

In May 1682 Ormonde reached London, and the Duke of York finally came back from Scotland. From that until the end of the reign the heir-presumptive exerted a great though not always a paramount influence. The Rye House plot and other events connected with it had nothing to say to Ireland, so that when Ormonde returned to his government in August 1684 he had no reason to expect any change, and he left Halifax and Rochester to struggle for supremacy. Before the month was out the former had succeeded in driving his rival from the Treasury and seeing him ‘kicked upstairs’ to the presidency of the Council. Rochester hardly attempted to hide his vexation in writing to Ormonde: ‘The King hath given me a great deal of ease and a great deal of honour.’ In the meantime, James was planning the new policy for Ireland which he was so soon and so unexpectedly enabled to carry out. The first thing was to separate the command of the army from the Lord Lieutenancy. Ormonde could hardly be deprived of privileges which he had always enjoyed, and the scheme was kept secret until his back was turned. Sunderland proposed to get rid of Rochester by sending him to Ireland; and Richard Talbot was above all things anxious to have Roman Catholic officers appointed. The King was induced to write a letter saying that it was absolutely necessary for his service to make great changes in Ireland, both civil and military. This would involve parting with some office-holders whom Ormonde had appointed. Rochester had, therefore, been chosen to succeed him whose ability was not doubtful and who would be agreeable to him on account of near connection by marriage. He might choose his own way of surrendering office, and live either in England or Ireland. If he preferred the latter, Charles would see that proper respect was paid him, and would in any event treat him with unabated confidence. It was Ormonde’s principle to honour and obey the King, but in writing to his intimate friend Southwell he confessed to being out of countenance, though at his age he was not sorry to be relieved. And when he heard that the restrictions on his successor were so great as to deny him power to appoint a single subaltern, then he admitted it would have been very hard for him to fill the place, though duty would not let him ‘refuse to serve the King upon any terms or in any station. From this difficulty, I thank God and the King, I am delivered.’[137]

Death of Charles II.

Rochester was not destined to cross St. George’s Channel on this occasion. Charles II. died on February 6, 1685. Within six weeks Halifax lost the Privy Seal, though he had been the chief instrument in securing James’s succession, and Rochester became Lord Treasurer. Sunderland, who had voted for the Exclusion Bill and whose intrigues reached everywhere, remained a Secretary of State. A few days later the Chancellor-archbishop Boyle and Lord Granard were made Lords Justices by patent to take effect as soon as it suited Ormonde’s convenience to swear them in. This was done on March 20, and by the end of the month he was in London, having been met on the road by an unprecedented number of coaches. St. James’s Square was crowded with people who had no coaches, but who showed their admiration of his character by their shouts. In the month following the late King’s death there had been more robberies in Ireland than during a whole year before, the Tories expecting that there would be no circuits and perhaps pardons at the coronation.[138]