Ormonde on ultramontane politics.
While Ormonde was negotiating at Kilkenny, Rinuccini was in low estate at Galway. ‘For eight months,’ he wrote, ‘I have seen none of my attendants, and am reduced to such a point, that however bad the vessel, the sea is almost safer for me than the land.’ He sent his confessor, Giuseppe Arcamoni, a Theatine, to Rome in order to counterbalance the efforts of the Carmelite Roe. The Confederates had gone so far as to order him out of Ireland to make his defence before the Pope in person, and to forbid him in the meantime to ‘intermeddle directly or indirectly’ in Irish affairs. A duplicate of this letter was sent to the Corporation of Galway, and both original and copy were accompanied by a long statement of charges against the nuncio. The corporation were peremptorily ordered to have no further dealings with the ‘lord archbishop of Fermo.’ He was accused generally of arbitrary and tyrannical conduct, of endeavouring to subvert fundamental laws and to withdraw the people from their allegiance to the Crown, and of plotting to ‘introduce a foreign, arbitrary, and tyrannical government.’ In a paper drawn up about this time Ormonde says, ‘the nuncio is a foreigner, and no subject of his Majesty’s; therefore not at all interested in any agreement between his Majesty and his subjects, and may have aims prejudicial to both, wherefore his satisfaction may be as difficult as unnecessary.’[136]
Rinuccini leaves Ireland, February 1648-9.
Reasons of his failure.
What was thought at Rome.
Rinuccini was completely beaten, though the great bulk of the clergy were with him. He could claim seventeen bishops against eight, and the vast majority of the religious orders, excepting the Jesuits. He had with him the Celtic population, as represented by Owen Roe O’Neill, and the poorer classes generally, who cared much for the Church and very little for the Crown. But the nobility and the legal profession were against him. ‘A few days,’ he wrote, ‘after my arrival in Kilkenny some lawyers inquired from Father Scarampi if I were going to erect a tribunal. When he said yes, they replied that they would not put up with it by any means.... In the public assembly Viscount Muskerry said that the day of my arrival was a fatal one for the country; in short, they have shown in every action that they cannot endure the authority of the Pope; they are even not ashamed to say in private and in print that his succours were mere empty hopes, vanity, and vexation. It may be therefore by the will of God that a people Catholic only in name, and so irreverent towards the Church, should feel the thunderbolt of the Holy See, and draw upon themselves the anger which is the meed of the scorner.’ Rinuccini declared that a nuncio to a heretic viceroy was an absurdity, and prepared to leave the country. With difficulty he succeeded in securing the very San Pietro on board of which he had first come. Plunket and French went to Galway to report the result of their Roman mission, but he did not await their arrival, and it was thought that he feared orders from the Pope incompatible with his late proceedings. He sailed on February 23, crowds of weeping people accompanying him to the ship; the poor were much better Catholics than the lords and lawyers. The demonstration on his arrival had been less than ‘on the completion of his mission to a poor and persecuted minister, and could not be ascribed to the hopes of assistance which they entertained.’ He thought the corrupted nations nearer Rome should ‘journey to a distant clime where the sun is never seen, that they may fully comprehend the due subjection of the faithful to their head.’ In the meantime he sent his confessor to Rome with instructions to press for certain specific measures. The authorities were called upon to suspend Bishop Rothe of Ossory, to summon Archbishop de Burgo to Rome, to call Peter Walsh ‘before the Inquisition or any other tribunal in Rome,’ to summon the chiefs of the recalcitrant Carmelites, and to order Malone, provincial of the Irish Jesuits, out of Ireland. Arcamoni arrived in March, but Rinuccini lingered long in France and in his native Florence, and did not reach Rome till the second week in November. No one there approved of his proceedings in Ireland, and the Pope accused him of rashness. More than two years before he had abstained from making him a cardinal, though urged to do so by Bishop Macmahon.[137]
FOOTNOTES:
[123] Bellings, vii. 37; Rushworth, vii. 1060; Carte’s Ormonde, ii. 24-31.
[124] Bellings, vii. 37-58, where the documents are all given. The episcopal declaration is dated April 27. Rinuccini’s Embassy, pp. 380-391. The printed declaration and protestation of Lord Inchiquin and his officers, dated May 6, 1648, attributes their action to the fact that the Independents had denied them supplies.
[125] Rinuccini’s Embassy, p. 393. The articles with Inchiquin in Confederation and War, vi. 235; the Excommunication in Aphorismical Discovery, i. 194; Bellings, vii. 69.