The nuncio, says Bellings, entered Kilkenny, ‘very incognito in his single litter without guards or attendance, and the council and congregation dropped in one after another without pomp or ceremony.’ The tide had turned, and the odium which so often attaches to authority in Ireland, especially when it fails to make itself feared, was borne by the clerical party. Rinuccini, yielding very unwillingly to Nicholas Plunket and fearing lest the mob should do it without his leave, allowed the old council to be liberated, and devoted his attention to the elections for the next general assembly. All over the country the clergy administered oaths to candidates binding them to reject the peace. Absolution for other sins was denied to those who refuse to take such an oath, and O’Neill’s soldiers were everywhere called in to enforce the clerical decrees. The vacant places in the Ulster returns were filled up from the creaghts or nomad herdsmen whom Owen Roe had planted in the Queen’s County—‘nay,’ says Bellings, ‘with such an overcharge of supernumeraries, as for some boroughs three have been returned and actually voted.’ When the session began, the verification of these returns proved to be impossible, and after much wrangling the assembled members turned as they were to other business, ‘and all formalities, how necessary soever, were quite omitted.’ In the meantime Preston had again gone over to the nuncio. On December 10 Walter Bagenal wrote by his orders to Ormonde, pressing him to advance at once so as to join forces against the northern army, all the nobility and gentry being ready to support him. ‘If you fail or delay,’ Bagenal concluded, ‘you ruin us all and yourself in us.’ On the same day that this was written, Preston made his submission to the nuncio, who had threatened excommunication. Ormonde advanced to the neighbourhood of Gowran, which was to be the place of meeting. He found reason to believe that there was another plot to cut him off. A letter from Preston to Clanricarde was brought to him at Grangebeg in which the general said that ‘his officers not being excommunication-proof, were fallen from him to the nuncio’s party.’ On first receiving this Clanricarde had so far forgotten his usual serenity as to call Preston traitor. It was followed by a similar letter to Ormonde, and by an abject declaration of obedience to the nuncio’s commands. Ormonde professed to believe that the letter, which was printed and circulated, was ‘a forgery, as also the reports raised that some of your army are gathered in a body at Castle Dermot, with intent to intercept my return, or destroy the remainder of my quarters.’ He withdrew into Westmeath and Longford, where there was still some country undevastated by O’Neill, and where he maintained good discipline among his men. Dublin was relieved for a short time without distressing the country, and the Westmeath gentry actually scraped together a voluntary contribution of 1000l. At Kells an attack was made upon some of Ormonde’s men by a party of O’Neill’s soldiers. Ormonde says two officers were barbarously murdered. Bellings admits that a very bad impression was made, but O’Neill was hardly a party to the negotiations. After conferring with the Lord Lieutenant, Clanricarde went to Kilkenny in the vain hope that he might to some extent counteract the nuncio and induce the assembly to embrace moderate ideas. Ormonde soon found it necessary to reopen communications with the English Parliament.[104]
Discord at Kilkenny.
A clerical majority.
The things that are Cæsar’s.
Mazarin supports the peace,
but it is rejected publicly, Feb. 2, 1646-7.
The Confederate assembly met at Kilkenny on January 10, ‘with all those signs,’ said Rinuccini, ‘of discord and intrigues which generally reign in such meetings.’ The tempers of the old council had not been improved by imprisonment, while the clergy, knowing that they had a majority, were in no conciliatory mood. Bellings admits that former assemblies had been turbulent ‘and loud in their ayes and noes, yet now it was grown clean another thing.’ Edmond Dempsy, Bishop of Leighlin, who was a famous preacher, and had probably a good voice, sat upon a lofty bench which recalls the revolutionary Mountain. He had only to wave his hat to raise a storm, the mass of members, ‘like a set of organ-pipes, as senseless and louder, depending for their squeaking, or being still, on the hand of another.’ After a few days the turmoil partially subsided, and then the nuncio demanded an audience. He was received with the same ceremony as at first, and proceeded to justify his assumption of dictatorial power. He declared in plain terms that the ecclesiastical authority was superior to the temporal, ‘and that ignorance of the true source of power had ruined the neighbouring kingdom.’ Above all things he urged the assembly to reject the peace with Ormonde, and to take a fresh oath adverse to it. A letter was read from Dumoulin, the French agent, who had positive orders from his government to press for confirmation of the peace, but this had no effect, though a letter from Mazarin had been previously received urging them to merit help from France by re-establishing the King of England. A remarkable speech of Walter Bagenal’s has been preserved by Bellings, in which he urged them to remember how strong England was and how certainly they would be overwhelmed if they did not support the King. Ormonde sent Lord Taaffe and Colonel John Barry to represent him at Kilkenny, but the clericals would listen to nothing, and it soon became evident that the peace would be rejected publicly. This was done after three weeks’ wrangling, but by no means unanimously, and Scarampi started at once to carry the news to Rome. It was found necessary at the same time to declare that the commissioners and others who had a hand in the peace had ‘faithfully and sincerely carried and demeaned themselves in their said negotiation pursuant and according to the trust reposed in them, and given thereof a due acceptable account to this assembly.’ This important matter being settled, a new and stringent oath of association was taken by which all bound themselves to make no peace without the consent of the General Assembly. One of the conditions precedent was that the Roman Catholic clergy should enjoy all churches and church property in as ample a manner as the Protestants enjoyed them on October 1, 1641, in all places which the Confederates should at any time possess ‘saving the rights of Roman Catholic laymen according to the laws of this kingdom.’ The law, in other words, was to protect Roman Catholics, but not Protestants. All this referred to the secular clergy only, for the question of abbey-lands was too dangerous to touch. To avoid the appearance of an open breach with the Lord Lieutenant, Dr. Fennell and Geoffrey Baron, who had just returned from France, were deputed to see him. Their proposals for a sort of offensive and defensive alliance with Ormonde came to nothing, but successive truces were patched up until April 10.[105]
FOOTNOTES:
[82] Embassy in Ireland, November and December, 1645, pp. 98, 103, 554, 569. Correspondence between Glamorgan and Ormonde in Confederation and War, v. 197-200; 208-210. It appears from Dumoulin’s letters to Mazarin that Leyburn was at Limerick in April 1645, ib. 314, 325.
[83] Lord Lieutenant and Council to Secretary Nicholas, January 5, 1645-6, printed in appendix to Carte’s Ormonde and in Confederation and War, v. 234. Interrogatories, etc., ib. 211-222. Digby’s letter to Nicholas, January 4, 1645-6, was one of those which Fairfax rescued from the sea at Padstow, Husband, p. 816.