people; he dared not accede to demands so prejudicial to the king's authority. But if the title of protector royal sounded ungratefully in his ears, it was heard with very different feelings by the confederates, who had reason to conclude that, if the contest between Cromwell and the Scots should terminate in favour of the latter, the Irish Catholics would still have need of a protector to preserve their religion from the exterminating fanaticism of the kirk. Clanricard, was, however, inexorable, and his resolution finally triumphed over the eagerness of his countrymen and the obstinacy of the envoy. From the latter he obtained[a] an additional sum of fifteen thousand pounds, on the easy condition of naming agents to conduct the negotiation at Brussels, according to such instructions as they should receive from the queen dowager, the duke of York, and the duke of Ormond. The lord deputy rejoiced that he had shifted the burthen from his shoulders. De Henin was satisfied, because he knew the secret sentiments of those to whose judgment the point in question had been referred.[1]
Taafe, having received his instructions in Paris (but verbal, not written instructions, as Clanricard had required), joined his colleagues, Sir Nicholas Plunket, and Geoffrey Brown, in Brussels, and, after a long but ineffectual struggle, subscribed to the demands of the duke of Lorrain.[2] That prince, by the treaty, engaged[c] to furnish for the protection of Ireland, all such supplies of arms, money, ammunition, shipping, and provisions, as the necessity of the case might require; and in return the agents, in the name of the
[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 1-16.]
[Footnote 2: Id. 31, 58. It is certain from Clanricard's papers that the treaty was not concluded till after the return of Taafe from Paris (p. 58).]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. March 27.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. July 11.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. July 27.]
people and kingdom of Ireland, conferred on him, his heirs and successors, the title of protector royal, together with the chief civil authority and the command of the forces, but under the obligation of restoring both, on the payment of his expenses, to Charles Stuart, the rightful sovereign.[1] There cannot be a doubt that each party sought to overreach the other.
Clanricard was surprised that he heard nothing from his agents, nothing from the queen or the duke of Ormond. After a silence of several months, a copy of the treaty[a] arrived. He read it with indignation; he asserted that the envoys had transgressed their instructions; he threatened to declare them traitors by proclamation. But Charles had now arrived in Paris after the defeat at Worcester, and was made acquainted[c] with the whole intrigue. He praised the loyalty of the deputy, but sought to mitigate his displeasure against the three agents, exhorted him to receive them again into his confidence, and advised him to employ their services, as if the treaty had never existed. To the duke of Lorrain he despatched[d] the earl of Norwich, to object to the articles which bore most on the royal authority, and to re-commence the negotiation.[2] But the unsuccessful termination of the Scottish war taught that prince to look upon the project as hopeless; while he hesitated, the court of Brussels obtained proofs that he was intriguing with the French minister; and, to the surprise of Europe, he was suddenly arrested in Brussels, and conducted a prisoner to Toledo in Spain.[3]
Clanricard, hostile as he was to the pretensions of the duke of Lorrain, had availed himself of the money
[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 34.]
[Footnote 2: Id. 36-41, 47, 50-54, 58. Also Ponce, 111-124.]