Lord Muskerry acquitted.
His speech after trial.
Lord Muskerry was not one of the first conspirators, but he joined the movement soon after it had spread to Munster. After the surrender of Ross Castle he went to Spain, but he had been a determined opponent of Rinuccini, and he found the clergy so hostile that his life was not safe. At Lisbon his reception was little better, and he gave up his plan of raising troops for the Peninsula, returned to Cork, and threw himself upon the mercy of Parliament. This was in February 1653, and he remained a prisoner in Dublin until his trial in December. In the meantime Lady Ormonde had arrived there, and naturally interested herself in his behalf. If Carte was rightly informed, Lowther did what he could by privately informing her of the line which the prosecution would take, and so enabling the prisoner to be prepared for his defence at all points. He was not tried for treason, but as accessory to the murder of Mrs. Hussey and others in 1642; and this resulted in an acquittal. There was another charge for the murder of William Deane and others, also in 1642, and it was held that the prosecutors had proved the facts, but that the prisoner had no real share in what was done, and was in any case protected by the Ross articles. It was, moreover, shown that he often acted a humane and merciful part. A separate count, for the murder of Roger Skinner, also resulted in an acquittal. Muskerry was not finally discharged for some months, and this delay may have been caused by the discovery that a printed copy of the Ross articles produced on the trial differed from the original which had been retained by Ludlow. He was charged in May 1654 with the murder of a man and woman unknown, but there was a verdict of ‘Not Guilty.’ Muskerry’s speech after his acquittal on the Hussey and Deane charges has been preserved. He admitted that he had had a fair trial, and that if there had been any leaning it was in his favour. ‘I met,’ he said, ‘many crosses in Spain and Portugal. I could get no rest till I came hither, and the crosses I met here are much affliction to me; but when I consider that in this court I come clear out of that blackness of blood by being so sifted, it is more to me than my estate. I can live without my estate, but not without my credit.’ He raised men for the Venetian service, and went later to Poland, and regained most of his property after the Restoration.[251]
Primate O’Reilly found guilty.
O’Reilly pardoned.
Another remarkable case was that of Edmund O’Reilly, then or later vicar-general of Dublin and afterwards Primate, for the murder of John Joyce and others at Wicklow in December 1642. They appear to have been burned in Wicklow Castle in cold blood. Most of the evidence was hearsay, and does not perhaps amount to much more than that O’Reilly made rather light of what had been done. Luke Byrne, indeed, swore that in a conversation when Joyce was mentioned O’Reilly had advised him to kill all the English about him, and had afterwards excommunicated him for favouring them. The prisoner answered that this Byrne was his enemy, and that he had excommunicated him for living in adultery. Perhaps the strongest point against O’Reilly was made by Peter Wickham, who had been High Sheriff of Wicklow, and who stated that Edward Byrne was put off the jury because he, as foreman, was prepared to say that Joyce and the rest were murdered. Edward Byrne himself corroborated this. On the other hand, a witness bearing the English name of Pemberton swore that O’Reilly had done many acts of kindness and preserved many English lives, including those of five Protestant clergymen. These cases were all a good deal later than Joyce’s murder, and it is not improbable that, while favouring the rebellion at first, he became afterwards disgusted at the outrages that attended it. He was found guilty, but received a pardon. Peter Walsh, who was bitterly opposed to O’Reilly, speaks of him as rather a good-natured and merciful man, but adds that he escaped owing to ‘his former services to the Parliament, especially that of betraying the royal camp at Rathmines to Jones.’ He was certainly engaged in secret negotiations between Jones and Owen Roe O’Neill in 1648, and it may well be that there was no wish to deal hardly with him. Walsh says he was under protection within the Parliament’s lines, and in that unsafe position was rash enough to appear in Dublin as a witness for the prosecution in a criminal trial. He was recognised and named by a person in court, who called upon the judge to arrest him as priest and vicar-general and chief author of seizing and burning in cessation time the black castle of Wicklow, and consequently too of murdering all those within it. ‘Now whether this accusation was in itself true or false I know not.’[252]
Trial of Lord Mayo, who is shot.
Sir Theodore Bourke, third Viscount Mayo, submitted on July 14, 1652, and was one of the seven who signed on behalf of a large number. Those guilty of robbery or murder during the first year of the war were excluded from any benefit by the articles. Lord Mayo was tried at Galway as accessory to the Shrule massacre by a commission consisting of Sir Charles Coote and ten others. He was undoubtedly present at the murders, and he rode away without fighting for the victims, who were supposed to be under his protection; but there was evidence to show that he did make some effort to save them, and that he fled only to secure his own life. Four of the commissioners were for an acquittal, but he was condemned by a majority and shot.[253]
Cost of the war.
The city of London.