Where the blackness of ruin is seen from afar,
And the gloom of their desolate aspect recalls
The blackest of Broghill’s achievements in war.”
CHAPTER VII
Ormond’s Treacherous Surrender of Dublin—Ireland’s Choice of Two Evils
ORMOND would seem to have been the evil genius of the Irish nation at this period of its history. He was suspected by the Confederates and distrusted by the Parliamentarians. The former, convinced that he meant to betray Dublin, which was poorly fortified, to the latter, ordered O’Neill and Preston to unite their forces and take it from Ormond. Preston, who was, to all appearance, more of a royalist Palesman than an Irishman, threw obstacles in the way of the intended assault, and proposed to parley with Ormond before assuming the aggressive. Owing to this dilatoriness, and because of a false alarm, the combined Irish forces retired from before the city without accomplishing anything. There was mutual distrust between the unwilling allies, and, as usual, Ireland was the sufferer. Preston’s jealousy of O’Neill amounted to a frenzy, and, before an accommodation could be arrived at, Ormond surrendered the city to the Parliamentary forces, under General Jones, and fled to France, where, unaccountably, considering his suspicious conduct, he was favorably received. After a year’s absence, he returned to Ireland, and, finding the royal cause desperate, concluded a peace between the king’s supporters, the Confederates, and the National party, headed by Owen O’Neill. This treaty was, virtually, a revival of that submitted by Glamorgan, and fully recognized, when all too late, the justice of the Catholic claims to liberty of conscience. Had the original instrument been adopted, Charles could have held Ireland against the Parliament. But his days were now numbered, and he died on the scaffold, in front of his own palace of Whitehall, on January 30, 1649.
The Royalist party at once recognized his heir as Charles II. They were reinforced by many Parliamentarian Protestants who were shocked and horrified by the decapitation of the king; and so Old Irish and New Irish, Confederates and Ormondists, made common cause against the Parliament, which was defended in Dublin by the redoubtable General Jones, and in Derry by the ferocious younger Coote. Even the sanguinary Inchiquin again became a Royalist and captured several towns of strength and importance from his recent allies. Ormond massed his army and, aided by Major-General Purcell, made an attempt to storm Dublin. But Michael Jones made a night sortie from the city and scattered Ormond and Purcell and their followers to the winds of heaven. The Irish generals mutually blamed each other and there was much bitter crimination and recrimination, but all this could not remedy the disaster that incapacity and over-confidence had brought about. Owen O’Neill kept his army, which fronted Coote, near Derry, intact, but lost his best friend when the impetuous Nuncio, who had spared neither denunciation nor excommunication in dealing with the trimming Anglo-Catholic leaders, disgusted with the whole wretched business, suddenly departed for the port of Galway and sailed in his own ship for Rome. Had this good man had to deal with leaders like Owen O’Neill, faithful, sensible, and unselfish, Ireland would have been an independent nation ere he returned to the Eternal City. His retirement placed O’Neill and the “Old Irish” in great perplexity as regarded a military policy. Ormond, the treacherous, was, nominally at least, commander-in-chief of the royal army, and his trusted lieutenants, Preston and Inchiquin, were O’Neill’s bitter foes.
Under such disadvantages, we are not surprised to learn that O’Neill adopted a policy of his own, at once bold and original. He temporized with the Parliamentarians, and actually entered into a three months’ truce with General George Monck, who had succeeded to the unlucky Monroe’s command in the North. The distrust and hatred of Ormond, whose military power waned immediately after his crushing defeat by General Jones, already mentioned, were so great that both Galway and Limerick refused to admit his garrisons. He and his wretched ally, Inchiquin, became utterly discredited with the Old Irish party, and soon fled the kingdom their infamies had cursed. Ormond returned to England after the Restoration and was one of Charles II’s intimates. It can hardly be wondered at, therefore, that, to use McGee’s language, “the singular spectacle was exhibited of Monck forwarding supplies to O’Neill to be used against Ormond and Inchiquin, and O’Neill coming to the rescue of Coote and raising for him the siege of Derry.” It was unfortunate that all of the Parliamentary generals were not possessed of the chivalric qualities of Monck and that hard fortune again compelled Owen Roe to draw the sword for the cause of the ingrate Stuarts. As for the Anglo-Irish, whether of the Church of Rome or the Church of England, they clung to the fortunes, or rather the misfortunes, of Charles II as faithfully and vehemently as to those of his infatuated father. This was all the more noteworthy, as the younger Charles had even less to recommend him to public estimation than his sire. He lived to be a disgrace to even the throne of England, which has been filled too often by monarchs of degraded and dissolute character. The second Charles of England was destitute of every virtue, except physical courage. He had, in a high degree, that superficial good nature which distinguished his race, but he was a libertine, an ingrate, and a despicable time-server. But Ireland did not learn these truths about his character until long after the period of his checkered career here dealt with. It must be borne in mind, however, that in the middle of the seventeenth century the divinity which is alleged to hedge a king was much more apparent to the masses of the people than it is in our own generation, when the microscopic eye of an educated public opinion is turned upon the throne and detects the slightest flaw, in the “fierce light” which beats upon it. The Old Irish party cared little for Charles, but when it came to a choice between him and Cromwell, there was nothing left them but to throw their swords into the scale for the youthful monarch, who was not nearly as “merry” then as he became in after days, when he quite forgot the friends of his adversity.