The swordsmen sent abroad.
Great numbers take foreign service.
Their ill-treatment in Spain.
Better received in France.
Clarendon’s reflection.
Chichester strove to get the swordsmen of Ulster into the Swedish service, where they might help the Protestant cause almost without knowing it. After the disbanding of Strafford’s army the English Parliament had very naturally, but very unwisely, prevented the men from going to Spain, thus aggravating, if not actually causing, the outbreak in 1641. Cromwell profited by experience, and saw that even in the service of the Catholic king the survivors of the Irish war would be much less dangerous than in their own country. At the beginning of 1653 the Commissioners reported that 13,000 had already gone, but that there were still left ‘many desperate rogues who know not how to live but by robbing and stealing out of bogs and fastnesses.’ By July the number had risen to 27,000. There were, says Petty, who was in Ireland at the time and whose estimate is rather under that of his friend Gookin, ‘transported of them into Spain, Flanders, France, 34,000 soldiers; and of boys, women, priests, &c., no less than 6000 more,’ of whom not half had returned in 1672. The Spanish Government broke all their promises and treated the Irish officers and soldiers very badly, so that whole regiments passed over from time to time into the service of France. In both services the dissensions which had been so fatal in Ireland continued between Celts and Anglo-Irish and between Ormondists and Nuncionists. Hyde, who knew Spain and had suffered many things there, excuses the desertions in Catalonia, which were stimulated by Inchiquin, and the ill-conduct of the Irish at Bordeaux, which caused the loss of that city, by the extreme ill-usage which they had received from the Spanish authorities. There were many needy Irish officers in London who were glad to contract with Cardenas for the transport of men. Philip found money enough to make this remunerative, but when the Irish were once landed in his country no further trouble was taken. ‘The soldiers, who were crowded more together into one ship than was fit for so long voyages, had contracted many diseases, and many were dead and thrown overboard. As soon as they came upon the coast the officers made haste to land, how far soever from the place at which they stood bound to deliver their men; by which in those places which could make resistance they were not suffered to land, and in others no provision was made for their reception on march; but very great numbers were starved or knocked in the head by the country people.’ All this, Clarendon adds, ‘manifested how loose the government was.’ Mazarin managed much better. The passage to France was shorter, and he took care that there should be no want of shipping and better accommodation on landing, so that at least 20,000 Irishmen came into the French service, though from old associations they would have preferred that of Spain. And the historian notes that Cromwell had been able to send abroad 40,000 men who would have been enough to drive him out of England; while the King’s Lieutenant, notwithstanding all the promises, obligations, and contracts which the Confederate Roman Catholics had made to and with him, could not draw together a body of 5000 men.[246]
Arrival of Fleetwood, Sept. 1653.
A High Court established.
Trials at Kilkenny, Clonmel, and Cork.
On June 8 Fleetwood married Ireton’s widow, and on July 10 his father-in-law made him commander-in-chief in Ireland. In the following month he was appointed by Parliament a commissioner for the civil government along with the regicides Ludlow, Corbet, and Jones, and John Weaver, the member for Stamford. Fleetwood was in Ireland by the beginning of September, but there was not much left for a general to do except to superintend the reduction of the army. The dregs of the war had to be dealt with first, but the Commissioners were given great powers in the domain of law and justice, and their first care was for the punishment of those to whom murder could be brought home. Doctor Jones had already received orders to collect evidence. A High Court was erected in Dublin under Chief Justice Lowther, who issued commissions to find and examine witnesses in the country. Local courts were also established, the first of which, consisting of Justices Donnellan and Cook and Commissary-General Reynolds, sat on October 4 at Kilkenny in the room where the Supreme Council had been used to meet. Notwithstanding the difficulty of getting evidence eleven years after the first outbreak, sixteen persons were found guilty at Kilkenny, six at Clonmel, and thirty-two at Cork; and we are told that most of these were very considerable men, heads of septs or otherwise important. The High Court in Dublin did not sit until January.[247]