Provisional Government, 1659.
Position of Ludlow.
The Commissioners appointed by Parliament carried on the civil government for about six months after Henry Cromwell’s resignation, but the really important thing was the attitude of the army. Ludlow and John Jones went over together in July, and on their way to Holyhead heard rumours of a coming rising under Sir George Booth. Soon after their arrival in Ireland one hundred men were sent to reinforce Beaumaris and the neighbouring garrisons. On landing at Ringsend, ‘the guard that had formerly attended Cromwell’ was waiting under Sir Theophilus Jones, and escorted the new commander-in-chief into Dublin. The Commissioners arranged to preside for a month in turn, Ludlow sitting next the chairman when present, and having precedence at other times; in official documents he was styled ‘Excellency.’ He had brought with him a letter of credit for 30,000l., which added weight to his promise of regular pay for the soldiers. As soon as the insurrection broke out in Cheshire he was ordered to send over a thousand foot and five hundred horse; and they were despatched within ten days, under Sankey’s command, two months’ pay having been advanced to them. During the disorderly period which followed they became known as the Irish Brigade.[298]
Ludlow purges the army.
John Jones in command of the army.
Ludlow was determined not to be again kept in Ireland as a kind of exile, and took the precaution of having a clause in his commission allowing him to return when he chose, and to appoint a substitute in his absence. Before taking advantage of this he devoted himself to a reform of the army, for he found ‘divers of the officers guilty of habitual immoralities, many of them accustomed to detain the pay of the private soldiers, and most of them debauched in their principles by the late usurpation of the Cromwells.’ Many of them, especially in Connaught and Clare, had married Irish Papists, and some who professed Protestantism might ‘justly be suspected to continue Papists.’ Many were dismissed, and their places filled as far as possible by men who had been cashiered for adhering to the Parliament as against the Protectorate. In the meantime the Irish Brigade at Derby supported Lambert and those who proposed to make him Major-General. Copies of their petition were sent to Ireland by Sankey, and officers there were invited to concur; but Ludlow assembled as many as he could and persuaded them that England would never submit to be governed by the sword. He then prepared to go to England, and wished to leave the military as well as the civil authority in the hands of the Commissioners; but this they refused to accept. He then appointed Jones, who was one of them, to be his substitute, for he regarded Waller as a time-server, and Sankey had made himself impossible. As a member of Parliament and one of the late King’s judges, Jones might at all events be trusted not to favour Charles Stuart. On reaching Beaumaris Ludlow heard that the Parliament had once more, as Henry Cromwell had foreshadowed, been turned out of doors by the soldiers. Lambert, who was in command, had narrowly escaped the Tower, and was actually deprived of his commission along with Desborough and others. The Act constituting Fleetwood commander-in-chief in Great Britain was repealed, and he became one of a commission of seven along with Ludlow, Monck, and others. Among them was Haselrig, whom Lambert believed to be thirsting for his blood, and he professed to be acting in self-defence.[299]
Monck and Jones, Oct. 1659.
Last acts of the Irish Commissioners.
As soon as Monck heard of what had happened in London he wrote to Ludlow as his fellow-commissioner for the government of the army, declaring that the forces under his immediate command were unanimous for Parliament, and declaring his intention to ‘prosecute this business against ambition and tyranny to the last drops of my blood till they be restored.’ The letter reached Jones in Ireland, and an answer was sent by him. Cornet Henry Monck, the general’s nephew, was in Dublin, and thought the army neutral, until fourteen field-officers signed an address to the army in England, by which he observed that all who inclined to Anabaptism were against the Parliament. The answer sent to Monck was signed by Jones himself and Sir Hardress Waller, Colonel Cooper, governor of Carrickfergus, Colonel Lawrence, governor of Waterford, Colonel Phaire, governor of Cork, Colonel Nicholas Kempson, Ludlow’s brother-in-law, and Dr. Henry Jones. These officers declared that any division of action or opinion in the army would be ‘found in the issue to be nothing else but the opening of a door for the common enemy to come in,’ and the event showed that they were not far wrong. At the same time Monck was informed by his nephew that he would have the support of Sir Charles Coote, Sir Theophilus Jones, and most of the other officers. Sankey, who commanded the Irish Brigade in England, sided with Lambert; but Colonel Redman, who served under him, was already in communication with Charles II. While the action of the army remained uncertain, the Commissioners carried on the civil government, and there were no serious disturbances. Large numbers of the transplanted still refused to stir, and the Tories were troublesome in many places. An order went forth in September to disarm all Irish Papists in Wicklow and to seize their arms and ammunition. There was a particularly active gang of marauders about Castledermot. Some weeks later a seizure was made at the custom-house of Quaker books which denounced the Government as anti-Christian and the ministers established by them as ‘priests, hirelings, and dumb dogs.’ The very last order of Jones and his colleagues appears to have been one for the suppression of the Christmas holidays, as giving rise to debauchery and only calculated to ‘uphold idolatry and superstition derived from the Church of Rome.’[300]
Revolt of the Irish army.