There were cool-headed Irish Catholics at home and abroad who saw the essential weakness of the Confederates’ position. Clanricarde was Walsingham’s grandson. Alone among men of his creed he held the King’s commission, and knew the real interests of the Crown, as well as the impossibility of separating Ireland from England. Among the insurgents were many who had been ‘instruments of foul and horrid acts; there being yet some who do boast and glory in those inhumanities. And if God’s judgment and wrath be not first appeased, it is much to be feared there will be a long expectation of a more settled time.’ The Jesuit O’Hartegan, in daily communication with his countrymen and with the nuncio at Paris, had none of Clanricarde’s scruples, but he had misgivings of his own. The hatred of the heretics would stop at nothing, and the faithful had gone too far to retreat. Men and money were available, but there was no head, no order or discipline; ‘one of our birth-attributes is never to submit ourselves willingly to any of our own nation, to live as companions or equals, and think ourselves as worthy of any command and of superiority as each other of our compatriots.’ Foreigners were always thought much of, even when there were better men at home; and it was necessary to send a stranger to take charge. He should be ‘of long experience, of good learning, and charitably affected for compassionating our infirmities, and it is unquestionable these conditions do concur in an Italian best of all nations.’ Ireland could support 100,000 men, but a head was necessary. To support this army O’Hartegan proposed to seize all Crown revenues and rights; all goods of English, Scotch and Dutch heretics; all goods of Irish heretics such as Ormonde, Kildare, Thomond, Barrymore and Inchiquin; and of Catholic neutrals like Clanricarde and Antrim; all Church lands and all lands confiscated from natives, including the Desmonds. In such a cause, too, the people would readily pay heavy taxes and submit to monopolies. In the absence of a supreme head every commander and nobleman would cut and carve for himself, ‘and every mere Irish pretend his ancestors were illegally dispossessed.’ A nuncio of the highest rank, even the Pope himself, could be made comfortable at Wexford, Waterford, Kilkenny, Clonmel, or Limerick.’[30]
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Sir James Turner’s Memoirs, pp. 26, 28; Spalding’s Memorials; Burton’s History of Scotland, chap. 73; May’s Long Parliament, p. 431; Rushworth, iv. 407, 501; Gardiner’s History of England, x. 70.
[13] Monro’s despatch to Leslie, May 18, printed in Contemporary History of Affairs in Ireland, i. 419; Sir James Turner’s Memoirs, 22; Roger Pike’s narrative in Ulster Archæological Journal, viii. 77; O’Mellan’s narrative in Young’s Old Belfast, p. 211.
[14] An exact Relation of the good service of Sir Frederick Hamilton, 1643, Information of Sir Frederick Hamilton ... to the committee of both kingdoms, 1645. Audley Mervyn’s Relation, 1642. The first of these contains a letter from O’Connor Sligo, who urged Hamilton to capitulate, all Sligo, Mayo, and Leitrim being against him. Hamilton answered: ‘Your loyalty to your King, your faith to your friends, once broke, never more to be trusted by me, but revenged as God shall enable the hands of him who was loving to your loyal predecessors, whose course will contribute to your destruction, for extinguishing the memory of their loyalties. Thus I rest with contempt and scorn to all your base brags. Your scourge, if I can.—F. H.’
[15] Bellings, i. 80, with a plan of the battle; Aphorismical Discovery, i. 31; Carte’s Ormonde; Captain Yarner’s Relation, May 4, 1642. Yarner, who was personally consulted, testifies that Ormonde made all the dispositions himself. He guesses at 500 as the probable number killed; but Bellings says ‘scarce one hundred and no prisoners.’
[16] Bellings’ narrative and documents in Confederation and War, ii. 34, 47, 210. The acts of the ecclesiastical congregation are in English, but the Latin version (probably the original form) is in Spicilegium Ossoriense, i. 262.
[17] State Papers, Ireland, July 22, 1607 (No. 297); Aphorismical Discovery in Contemp. Hist. ed. Gilbert, with the evidence of Henry MacCartan, ib. i. 396, and O’Neill’s letter to Wadding, ib. 476; Colonel O’Neill’s Journal in Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, vol. ii.; Clarendon’s Hist. xii. 108; Clarendon S.P. ii. 144.
[18] Bellings in Confederation and War, and the documents there, i. xxxix.; ii. 67; Carte’s Ormonde; Martin’s Hist. de France, chap. 70.
[19] Bellings, i. 92; Carte’s Ormonde, i. 343; Smith’s Hist. of Cork; A most exact Relation of a Victory, &c., London, October 3, 1642; Digitus Dei, or a miraculous victory, London, September 20. The latter writer notes that Stephenson had ‘an exceeding rich saddle.’ A Journal of the most memorable passage in Ireland, London, October 19, 1642, by an eye-witness, notes that ‘almost all the Lords of Munster were present’—Roche, Muskerry, Ikerrin, Dunboyne, Brittas, Castleconnell, and one of Ormonde’s brothers. As to Ardmore, besides the Journal, see A True Relation of God’s Providence in Munster, which says between seventy and eighty were hanged. The letter quoted in Several Passages, &c., London, September 16, says 116, adding, ‘this is most true.’