Command given to Ormonde.
Most of the men Roman Catholics.
The Irish army is kept up after Newburn.
No one saw possible danger more clearly than Strafford, but his political position forced him into courses which in his cooler moments he knew to be desperate. To enlist no Scots was an obvious precaution, but there were other dangers not less real though more remote. The Irish, he told the King, might do good service, for they hated the Scots and their religion; ‘yet it is not safe to train them up more than needs must in the military way, which, the present occasion past, might arm their old affections to do us more mischief, and put new and dangerous thoughts into them after they are returned home (as of necessity they must) without further employment or provision than what they had of their own before.’ Nevertheless, his first and much safer plan of a Protestant army was forgotten, and he proceeded to impress large numbers of Irish Roman Catholics. The dreaded result followed, but before that time he had perished on the scaffold, and the evil that he had done lived after him. The command of the new army was given to Ormonde, the enrolment and preliminary drill being left to St. Leger with the title of Sergeant-Major-General. The commissioners for raising the subsidies were entrusted with the levy, and officers were appointed at once. The old army consisted entirely, or almost entirely, of Protestants, and one thousand men, drafted proportionally from each company, became the nucleus of the new force. Carte would have us believe that in consequence of these veterans ‘being invested with authority or in a state of superiority over the rest of the new army, had it absolutely in their power; and it was of little or no consequence what religion the other private sentinels which composed it professed.’ This might have held good if the army had been kept together with regular pay and under a stable Government. But it was the day of disbandment that Strafford feared, and it was the disbanded soldiers who made the greatest difficulty when the struggle between King and Parliament had almost paralysed the Irish Government. The bulk of the men who were raised to put down the Scotch Covenanters were Irish Roman Catholics, and would be sure to take sides against England when occasion offered. Even the officers were to some extent open to the same objection. In the regiment raised by Colonel John Butler in Leinster Rory Maguire and Arthur Fox, both well-known in the subsequent rebellion, had companies. Theobald Taaffe was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment raised by Coote in Connaught, and Sir John Netterville had a company in that levied by Bruce in Connaught, and there were many Roman Catholics among the junior officers. The headquarters staff were all English Protestants, but their influence ceased with disbandment. There were many delays, but the whole force was at Carrickfergus by the middle of July, and a month later St. Leger was able to say that no prince in Christendom had a better or more orderly army. The rout at Newburn took place a few days later, and after the treaty of Ripon there could be no real chance of using the Irish army against the Scots. They were, however, kept together, and when the Long Parliament met in November this was not unnaturally regarded as a threatening cloud.[252]
The Irish army disbanded.
One regiment goes to France.
Those engaged for Spain are stopped.
Sir B. Rudyard’s speech.
Strafford was beheaded on May 12, 1641. Four days before Charles ordered Ormonde to disband the new army, adding that to prevent disturbance he had licensed certain officers to transport 8000 foot ‘for the service of any prince or state at amity with us.’ These officers were Colonels James Dillon, Theobald Taaffe, John and Garret Barry, Richard Plunket, John Butler, John Bermingham, George Porter, and Christopher Bellings. Of these the first seven at least were afterwards active confederates. Bellings alone sought to secure a regiment for the French service, and, as became one who worked for Richelieu, he lost no time, but slipped away ‘very quietly’ with a thousand picked men before the end of June, in spite of the efforts of priests and friars. Lieutenant Flower, who understood Irish, heard a priest tell the soldiers at Drogheda that they ought to stay, though they got only bread and water. Flower said the King allowed them to go, to which he answered that the King was but one man. The other colonels, having to deal with Spain, were of course late, and did not appear until Bellings had gone. Then, yielding to parliamentary pressure on both sides of the channel, Charles changed his mind in August and would only give leave to the two Barrys, Porter, and Taaffe to transport a thousand men each. In the end no shipping could be had, for the English House of Commons passed a resolution against the transportation of soldiers by merchants from any port in the King’s dominions. The Spaniards had no ships of their own, and so the men remained in Ireland. Colonel John Barry did manage to embark some 400 men, but his vessel never left the Liffey. There can be no doubt that the disbanded soldiers were more dangerous in Ireland than they would have been in Spain, but it is unnecessary to suppose that the parliamentary leaders had any wish to make mischief in this way. Rudyard probably expressed the ideas of the majority when he objected to strengthen France by recruiting her armies, or Spain in order to enable her to crush Portugal. ‘It was never fit,’ he said, ‘to suffer the Irish to be promiscuously made soldiers abroad, because it may make them abler to trouble the State when they come home. Their intelligence and practice with the princes whom they shall serve may prove dangerous to that kingdom of Ireland.’ He thought work could be found for them as harvesters in England.[253]
The disbandment quietly effected, May 1641.