Uncertainty as to number executed.
Sir Phelim O’Neill.
It was considered murder to kill persons not in arms or who had been received to quarter, and this was the general principle on which prosecutions were based. The record is imperfect, but Cox estimated that not above two hundred died by the hands of the common executioner, though many murderers had perished by the sword or by disease. Hearsay evidence was probably admitted to an extent which would not be dreamed of in our days, but trials were carefully conducted, and there were a great many acquittals. Of the original insurgents surviving, by far the most important were Sir Phelim O’Neill, who had lurked in Tyrone since the surrender of Charlemont, where his wife remained. Early in 1653 he ventured, with a view of communicating with her, to take up his abode in an old house on an island in Roghan Lough, near Coalisland, accompanied by Tirlogh Groom O’Quin and a score of soldiers. His messenger was a follower named O’Hugh, who was under protection at Charlemont, and Lord Caulfield’s attention was thus roused. The little lake was surrounded and boats were launched upon it, and the island, which was very near the shore, was quite indefensible even against musketry. Sir Phelim surrendered, and was taken to Carrickfergus, where he was very civilly treated by Venables, who had found him a gallant enemy. He was sent off to Dublin and tried there upon the last day of February, his companions, with the exception of O’Quin, being released.[248]
Sir Phelim is found guilty.
The case of Lord Caulfield.
O’Neill was sentenced to death for high treason and for four murders proved against him, according to the judge’s notes. That he had levied war against the King is obvious, and the question is not worth discussing. He was not accused of murdering any one with his own hand, but as an accessory before the fact or by giving orders to the actual assassins. In the case of Lord Caulfield the fragments of evidence which we possess do not make the facts absolutely clear. The original capture was treacherous in the highest degree, and the murder was committed by Sir Phelim’s foster-brother. The young lord had been over five months O’Neill’s prisoner at or near Charlemont, and according to one witness he directed the escort to take him to Cloughoughter, in Cavan. Sir Phelim’s own house at Kinard was the first halting-place, and there the deed was done, fifteen or sixteen of Caulfield’s Scotch and English dependants being slaughtered at the same time. O’Neill was not present, but he had used very suspicious language shortly before, and the assassin was allowed to escape in his gaoler’s company, and was not caught. Of three warders, one who was an Irishman was not punished, while the other two, being English and Scotch, were duly hanged by Sir Phelim’s orders. The gaoler was restored to his post at Armagh. In all the cases much of the evidence is hearsay; but the murders charged, with many others, were committed within a few miles of Charlemont, and Sir Phelim, who commanded in chief, never punished anybody. Michael Harrison swore that in December 1641 he heard O’Neill say, ‘with great ostentation, that he would never leave off the work he had begun until mass should be sung or said in every church in Ireland, and that a Protestant should not live in Ireland, be he of what nation he would.’[249]
Execution of Sir Phelim O’Neill.
The alleged royal commission.
Sham commissions were shown.
O’Neill was hanged, drawn, and quartered, one quarter being impaled at Lisburn, which he had burned; another at Dundalk, which he had taken; a third at Drogheda, which he had vainly besieged; and a fourth, with the head, at Dublin, which he had plotted to surprise. Tirlogh Groom O’Quin, who was captured with him and who had been his close associate in the early days of the rebellion, was executed later, and his head set upon the west gate of Carrickfergus. There has been much discussion as to the exact relation of Sir Phelim and the other original conspirators to Charles I., and the declaration of Dean Ker in 1681 was long accepted as evidence. Attempts have been made to set aside Ker’s statement, on the ground that he wanted to be a bishop, that he spoke twenty-eight years after the fact, and that it was impossible that things which happened in open court should have remained doubtful for so long. It is certain that he never became a bishop, and there is nothing to prove that he wished to be one. By his own showing he had often mentioned the matter to his friend or patron, Lord Lanesborough, who at last persuaded him to write it down. There is never anything extraordinary in London being ignorant of what happens in Dublin; and after the Restoration no one had any interest in recalling the proceedings of the Cromwellian High Court there. The late King’s position as a saint and martyr was then undisputed, and the Church of England was not on her defence. A more important difficulty is that the Dean says he heard Michael Harrison, who only saved his life by acting as secretary to Sir Phelim, confess in open court that he attached the Great Seal to a sham commission, and that O’Neill, when pressed by the judges, answered ‘that no man could blame him to promote that cause he had so far engaged in.’ In his sworn deposition Harrison says Sir Phelim had often spoken of a commission from the King, but he had never been able to get a sight of it, though it was generally believed to exist. It seems certain that a sham commission of some sort was shown not only in Ulster but in Munster; and there is no difficulty about believing that O’Neill should not have wished to die with a lie in his mouth, or that hopes of mercy should have been held out to him if he would implicate Charles. If the commission were forged, it matters little whether the seal was that of England or Scotland; either would do to exhibit at a distance. We know from the judge’s notes that O’Neill was believed to have altered a genuine document, and that a copy was produced in court. It is not impossible that Harrison may have been employed to affix a seal to some instrument which he had not been allowed to read. The memory of Charles I. has much to bear, but he could not have given a commission authorising a general insurrection. He had been angling for Roman Catholic help before the outbreak of the rebellion, and many may have been persuaded that they were doing his will by rising against the Lords Justices; but it is not at all likely that any of the leaders were of this opinion.[250]