the lord lieutenant to assume a bolder tone. He professed[a] himself ready to assert, that both the king and his officers on one part, and the Catholic population on the other, were bound by the provisions of the treaty; but he previously required that the commissioners of trust should condemn the proceedings of the synod at James-town, and join with him in punishing such of its members as should persist in their disobedience. They made proposals to the prelates, and received for answer, that protection and obedience were correlative; and, therefore, since the king had publicly excluded them, under the designation of "bloody rebels," from his protection, they could not understand how any officer acting by his authority could lay claim to their obedience.[1]
This answer convinced Ormond that it was time for him to leave Ireland; but, before his departure, he called a general assembly, and selected the marquess of Clanricard, a Catholic nobleman, to command as his deputy. To Clanricard, whose health was infirm, and whose habits were domestic, nothing could be more unwelcome than such an appointment. Wherever he cast his eyes he was appalled by the prospect before him. He saw three-fourths of Ireland in the possession of a restless and victorious enemy; Connaught and Clare, which alone remained to the royalists, were depopulated by famine and pestilence; and political and religious dissension divided the leaders and their followers, while one party attributed the national disasters to the temerity of the men who presumed to govern under the curse of excommunication; and the other charged their opponents with concealing disloyal and interested views under the mantle of patriotism
[Footnote 1: Ponce, 257-261.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Oct. 23.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Oct. 29.]
and religion. Every prospect of successful resistance was gone; the Shannon, their present protection from the foe, would become fordable in the spring; and then the last asylum of Irish independence must be overrun.[1] Under such discouraging circumstances it required all the authority of Ormond and Castlehaven to induce him to accept an office which opened no prospect of emolument or glory, but promised a plentiful harvest of contradiction, hardship, and danger.
In the assembly which was held[a] at Loughrea, the majority of the members disapproved of the conduct of the synod, but sought rather to heal by conciliation than to perpetuate dissension. Ormond, having written a vindication of his conduct, and received[c] an answer consoling, if not perfectly satisfactory to his feelings, sailed from Galway; but Clanricard obstinately refused to enter on the exercise of his office, till reparation had been made to the royal authority for the insult offered to it by the James-town declaration. He required an acknowledgment, that it was not in the power of any body of men to discharge the people from their obedience to the lord deputy, as long as the royal authority was vested in him; and at length obtained[d] a declaration to that effect, but with a protestation, that by it "the confederates did not waive their right to the faithful observance of the articles of pacification, nor bind themselves to obey every chief governor who might be unduly nominated by the king, during his unfree condition among the Scots."[2]
Aware of the benefit which the royalists in Scotland
[Footnote 1: See Clanricard's State of the Nation, in his Memoirs, part ii. p. 24.]
[Footnote 2: Carte, ii. 137-140. Walsh, App. 75-137. Belling in Poncium, 26.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Nov. 25.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 2.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Dec. 7.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Dec. 24.]