The Tories.
Costigan.
Costello.
Nangle.
Ossory was not destined to have the happiness of putting down the Tories. There had always been many in Ireland who were willing to fight, but not to work, and Chichester had much trouble with them. When the Civil War came to an end Cromwell encouraged their emigration, and at the Restoration the dispossessed Irish, many of whom had followed the King’s fortunes abroad, expected to be restored also. Crowds of priests and friars came to Ireland, and their meetings caused alarmist reports about an intended rising. Orrery generally put the worst construction upon such facts as came to his knowledge, and there were certainly some outrages, but Ormonde thought the Cromwellian soldiers and sectaries much the most dangerous, and the Castle plot showed that he was right. Later on, as it became evident that Adventurers and soldiers would keep a good deal of what they had got, the disappointed Irish gathered here and there in bands, and leaders were not wanting. John Costigan, with several followers, long haunted the woods and bogs on both sides of Slieve Bloom, but seems to have been taken at last through an informer, who thus purchased his own pardon. Many others were taken or slain by like means, but in the case of Dudley Costello, Lord Kingston, the President of Connaught, found it ‘more difficult than he believed to make one Irishman betray another.’ Costello was the heir to estates in Mayo from which he was driven during the Civil War. He distinguished himself in Flanders as a captain in the Duke of York’s Irish regiment, and was named in the Act of Settlement as one of the 232 ‘Ensignmen’ who were restorable, but not until reprisal had been made to the Adventurers and soldiers in possession. There was not land enough to satisfy both interests, and Costello’s hopes were destroyed by the Act of Explanation. In the summer of 1666 he was joined by Cornet Edward Nangle, another Connaught malcontent, and the two entered Ulster with a considerable party. They spent much of their time drinking whisky and quarrelling among themselves, but there were always plenty of sympathisers to give the alarm, and the Governor of Charlemont had to be satisfied with driving them back into their own province, where they wandered about as proclaimed traitors. Englishmen’s dwellings were burned, while the Irish were spared. Nangle was soon killed in an attempt to storm Lord Aungier’s house at Longford, but the band was not broken up. Thomas Viscount Dillon, who had been restored to his estate in the same district, warned his tenants against sheltering Costello, who had been his companion-in-arms, but offered to intercede for him if he would come under his protection. Ormonde’s rule was to give no pardon for nothing, and if Costello expected mercy, he would have to bring some fellow-outlaw to justice, ‘especially one Hill and one Plunket, who lately committed great outrages in the north and are come into Connaught.’ Costello preferred ordering all Lord Dillon’s Mayo tenants to leave their farms. This warning was given in August, and on a late November night Costello with thirty men burned Mr. Ormsby’s house at Castlemore, ‘having entered by means of a turf stack placed against the outside of the bawn.’ All the native population sympathised with him, but the soldiers kept up a hot pursuit. Like the great Sicilian brigand in our own times, he never slept within two miles of the spot where he supped, nor lay two nights running in the same place. But he could always get a party together when the soldiers’ backs were turned, and he burned seven or eight villages within three weeks of the Castlemore exploit. Ormonde retaliated by quartering troops on the Irish inhabitants and ordering the apprehension of the ‘Popish titulary clergy residing in those parts so infested by the Tories,’ who had already been warned by the Lord President that they would be held responsible for their flocks. At last one evening at the beginning of March, Costello, driven to desperation or made rash by impunity, met Captain Theobald Dillon in the open field and was shot dead at the first fire. He had about forty men with him, who all escaped in the darkness. His head was sent to Dublin and stuck upon St. James’s Gate with the face towards Connaught. Nangle’s had been mouldering there for several months. But other Tories carried on the war in many different districts, and informers were deterred from earning blood-money by threats, which were sometimes acted on, of having their tongues cut out. The banditti were no doubt a grievous burden to the people, and in one case, as a noted outlaw stooped to enter a boat in Connaught, the ferryman cut off his head with a hatchet. ‘This honest Charon,’ wrote Williamson’s correspondent, ‘was an Irishman as well as the Tory,’ and refused the reward, saying that the honour of the action was enough.[82]
Ossory and Robartes, 1669.
Neither Orrery or Buckingham having been chosen to succeed him, Ormonde had no real cause of complaint. He doubtless knew that Robartes would never be popular, and charged his son not only to yield him the respect due to his position, but to let it be known that he would not be a friend to any who acted otherwise. These directions were strictly followed. As the time drew near for the new Lord Lieutenant’s arrival, Ossory refused to enter on any fresh business, and made careful arrangements for his reception by the Lord Mayor, the Guards, and the Militia. The Duchess of Ormonde wrote on behalf of Lady Robartes, who knew scarcely anybody in Ireland, and whom she found a very virtuous and worthy person. The Lord Lieutenant landed at Howth on September 18, and was entertained by Lord Howth, many of the officials attending him with a written programme of reception ceremonies. Robartes would have none of it, and made his way without ceremony to the castle. Three troops of cavalry met him on the road, and a miscellaneous collection of people on horseback and in carriages attended him to the bridge, where he was welcomed by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen with a congratulatory speech, to which he replied civilly but briefly. He found Ossory in the Council Chamber, and received the sword from him, the departing Deputy saying that he expected much good through his successor’s great abilities, and heartily wishing him a prosperous reign. No one could have been more considerate, but the Dublin people showed in their own way that they were not pleased at the change. Lord and Lady Ossory were treated with rather more respect than ever, and when they left on different days for Kilkenny, were escorted by seventy or eighty coaches, most of them with six horses, carrying peers, bishops, and Privy Councillors. It was rather hard on a plain man of business like Robartes to have to follow this gracious and popular couple.[83]
Policy of Robartes.
Resignation of Robartes.