derived from the duration of hostilities in Ireland, the parliamentary leaders sought to put an end to the protracted and sanguinary struggle. Scarcely had Clanricard assumed[a] the government, when Grace and Bryan, two Catholic officers, presented themselves to the assembly with a message from Axtel, the governor of Kilkenny, the bearers of a proposal for a treaty of submission. By many the overture was hailed with transport. They maintained that nothing but a general negotiation could put an end to those private treaties which daily thinned their numbers, and exposed the more resolute to inevitable ruin; that the conditions held out were better than they had reason to expect now, infinitely better than they could expect hereafter. Let them put the sincerity of their enemies to the test. If the treaty should succeed, the nation would be saved; if it did not, the failure would unite all true Irishmen in the common cause, who, if they must fall, would not fall unrevenged. There was much force in this reasoning; and it was strengthened by the testimony of officers from several quarters, who represented that, to negotiate with the parliament was the only expedient for the preservation of the people. But Clanricard treated the proposal with contempt. To entertain it was an insult to him, an act of treason against the king; and he was seconded by the eloquence and authority of Castlehaven, who affected to despise the power of the enemy, and attributed his success to their own divisions. Had the assembly known the motives which really actuated these noblemen; that they had been secretly instructed by Charles to continue the contest at every risk, as the best means of enabling him to make head against Cromwell; that this, probably the last opportunity of saving the lives
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Jan. 10.]
and properties of the confederates, was to be sacrificed to the mere chance of gaining a victory for the Scots, their bitter and implacable enemies,[1] many of the calamities which Ireland was yet doomed to suffer would, perhaps, have been averted. But the majority allowed themselves to be persuaded; the motion to negotiate with the parliament was rejected, and the penalties of treason were denounced by the assembly, the sentence of excommunication by the bishops, against all who should conclude any private treaty with the enemy. Limerick and Galway, the two bulwarks of the confederacy, disapproved of this vote, and obstinately refused to admit garrisons within their walls, that they might not be overawed by the military, but remain arbiters of their own fate.
The lord deputy was no sooner relieved from this difficulty, than he found himself entangled in a negotiation of unusual delicacy and perplexity. About the close of the last summer, Ormond had despatched the Lord Taafe to Brussels, with instructions, both in his own name and the name of the supreme council,[2] to solicit the aid of the duke of Lorrain, a prince of the most restless and intriguing disposition, who was accustomed to sell at a high price the services of his army to the neighbouring powers. The duke received him graciously, made him a present of five thousand pounds, and promised an additional aid of men and money, but on condition that he should be declared protector royal of Ireland, with all the rights belonging to that office—rights as undefined as the office itself was hitherto unknown. Taafe hesitated, but was
[Footnote 1: Castlehaven's Memoirs, 116, 119, 120.]
[Footnote 2: Compare the papers in the second part of Clanricard's Memoirs, 17, 18, 27 (folio, London, 1757), with Carte's Ormond, ii. 143.]
encouraged to proceed by the queen mother, the duke of York, and De Vic, the king's resident at Brussels. They argued[a] that, without aid to the Irish, the king must succumb in Scotland; that the duke of Lorrain was the only prince in Europe that could afford them succour; and that whatever might be his secret projects, they could never be so prejudicial to the royal interests as the subjugation of Ireland by the parliament.[1] Taafe, however, took a middle way, and persuaded the duke to send De Henin as his envoy to the supreme council, with powers to conclude the treaty in Ireland.
The assembly had just been dismissed[c] when this envoy arrived. By the people, the clergy, and the nobility, he was received as an angel sent from heaven. The supply of arms and ammunition which he brought, joined to his promise of more efficient succour in a short time, roused them from their despondency, and encouraged them to indulge the hope of making a stand against the pressure of the enemy. Clanricard, left without instructions, knew not how to act. He dared not refuse the aid so highly prized by the
[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 4, 5, 17, 27. Ormond was also of the same opinion. He writes to Taafe that "nothing was done that were to be wished 'undone'"; that the supreme council were the best judges of their own condition; that they had received permission from the king, for their own preservation, "even to receive conditions from the enemy, which must be much more contrary to his interests, than to receive helps from any other to resist them, almost upon any terms."—Clanric. 33, 34. There is in the collection of letters by Carte, one from Ormond to Clanricard written after the battle of Worcester, in which that nobleman says that it will be without scruple his advice, that "fitting ministers be sent to the pope, and apt inducements proposed to him for his interposition, not only with all princes and states". The rest of the letter is lost, or Carte did not choose to publish it; but it is plain from the first part that he thought the only chance for the restoration of the royal authority was in the aid to be obtained from the pope and the Catholic powers.—Carte's Letters, i. 461.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. November.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 31.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Feb. 25.]