The Duke’s objects.
Mission of Bishop French.
Abortive dealings with Ormonde.
At the beginning of 1646 the Duke proposed to send 10,000 men into England to help Charles I., but the plan was frustrated, if it was ever meant seriously, by the unwillingness of France and Holland to allow the embarkation in their respective territories. Interference in England would have had sentimental motives mainly, but Charles had other reasons for looking to Ireland. He was a bigamist, having children by a second wife during the lifetime of the first, and he was not of a rank to imitate Henry VIII. His object was to dissolve the first union and to legitimate the second, and assistance given to the Irish Catholics might gain him favour at Rome. The Irish officers in his service would naturally push him in the same direction, and the Irish clergy assembled at Clonmacnoise in December 1649 deputed Nicholas French, bishop of Ferns, and William Burke, provincial of the Dominicans, to ask the Duke’s help. French carried a secret commission signed by some bishops and others under their control, and without any regard to the viceroy. The strength of England had not yet been exerted, and the clergy fancied that Ireland could break off with some foreign help. Many regretted that they had not supported Rinuccini better. Patrick Rochfort, recorder of Wexford, a partisan of the nuncio, went to Jersey about the same time to open communications with Charles II., but he had no authority from anyone holding power in Ireland. His main object seems to have been to intrigue for Ormonde’s removal from the Irish Government. The Duke of Lorraine’s first idea was to deal with Ormonde as the King of England’s unquestioned representative, and he sent over Colonel Oliver Synnott nominally to recruit soldiers in Ireland as of old under Ormonde’s authority, but also with letters relating to the more important negotiations. Rochfort followed Charles to Breda, and proposed to give Duncannon Fort to the Duke of Lorraine as security for an advance of 24,000l. This negotiation was carried pretty far, but nothing actually came of it, and Duncannon was in Ireton’s hands in the following August. Rochfort and Synnott reached Ireland in May, declaring that they had thrown overboard their most secret and important despatches for fear of their capture by a pursuing frigate. There seemed probability enough in their story to induce Ormonde to treat with them, and he gave a commission to Lord Taaffe, Lord Athenry, and Geoffrey Browne to negotiate on his behalf. Galway was now the object instead of Duncannon, but there was mutual distrust between Ormonde and Synnott, and they came to no agreement.[199]
Taaffe’s mission to Charles II.
Mazarin and De Retz.
An exile at Paris.
While Synnott’s business hung fire, Ormonde sent Lord Taaffe to the King, and he sailed from Galway Bay on the last day of June, after the arrival of Charles in Scotland. The Duke of York, who was the next best authority, gave him a letter of credence to the Duke of Lorraine at Brussels. Taaffe, whom Carte rightly calls ‘a bold and forward undertaker,’ went first to Paris, which he found hard to leave, as Rinuccini had done before him, and as so many others have done since. Mazarin was much more anxious to keep on good terms with the Parliament than to promote an Irish crusade. Moreover, his enemy De Retz was, by Hyde’s account, the best friend Charles had in France, and he certainly gave him sound advice when he said that the profession of Catholicism, however desirable for his soul’s good, would prevent him from regaining his kingdom. De Retz had befriended the Queen when he found her at the Louvre, a few days before her husband’s death, without funds or credit, and obliged to keep the future Duchess of Orleans in bed for lack of a fire. The coadjutor attributes this destitution to Mazarin, and exaggerated his own services, but it appears from later researches that the Queen’s or Jermyn’s extravagance had much to do with it. The Duke of Lorraine had hesitated about embarking on an Irish adventure without knowing the King of England’s views, but it was thought impossible to send a Catholic emissary to Scotland, and Henrietta Maria wrote twice to that effect, advising the Duke to place the fullest confidence in Taaffe. Later on she had not so good opinion of him, for without consulting her he tried to negotiate a betrothal between the Duke of York and the Duke of Lorraine’s infant daughter. After lingering six weeks in the French capital, Taaffe did not reach Brussels till the end of November, nearly five months after his departure from Ireland. Want of means may have been one cause of delay, for he says: ‘I was like to starve at Paris, though every person saluted me with “votre très humble serviteur jusqu’à la mort!”’ It became clear to him that nothing could be expected either from France or Spain, but there was some chance from Lorraine.[200]
A Lorraine envoy to Ireland