Plunket sent to England for trial.
Ormonde thought that the evidence against Plunket was strong enough if uncontradicted to justify his being sent for trial. But it is not easy to reconcile the statements of liars, and the Westminster Grand Jury ignored the Bill. The foreman, who was a zealous Protestant, told Burnet that the witnesses evidently contradicted each other, and when we consider their characters it is hard to see how they could be believed under any circumstances. John MacMoyer and Hugh Duffy were Franciscans of bad reputation—who consorted with the Tories and were suspended by the Archbishop. Edmund Murphy, the parish priest of Killevy, was also implicated in the prevailing brigandage, and the respect due to him may be measured by his sworn admission that it was indifferent to him whether he was a Protestant or a Priest. Another witness was Henry O’Neill, who was hanged at Mullingar for robbery a few months later, having fully confessed his perjuries, which were chiefly instigated by John MacLane, a suspended priest, who had also been one of the witnesses and was then in prison on a charge of robbery. Henry O’Neill’s son Neill also appeared against the Archbishop. Other witnesses were Florence Wyer, related to MacMoyer; Owen Murphy, who did not pretend to know anything; John Moyer, who retailed gossip gathered in Italy and Spain; and one Hanlet or Hanlon, who did much the same. These nine men, carefully selected out of a host of informers, swore away Plunket’s life with the entire approval of three judges and of a deluded public.[127]
A true bill found.
Nature of the evidence.
The witnesses having been better drilled, a True Bill for High Treason was eventually found, and on May 3 the Archbishop was arraigned at the bar of the King’s Bench. He was told that the abortive proceedings in Ireland had not led to a trial, and that he might therefore be legally tried in England for treason committed beyond channel. There were precedents for this, and it is only necessary to mention the case of Lord Maguire in 1645. Plunket then asked time to get his evidence from Ireland, and the trial was fixed for June 8, five weeks off. This seems a liberal interval, but in reality it was wholly insufficient, for the Archbishop had hardly any money and expeditious travelling was expensive. Moreover, the officials in Ireland would not give copies of necessary records without an actual order of the Court. ‘The servants,’ he said, ‘that I sent hence and took shipping for Ireland were two days at sea and came back again, and from thence were forced to go to Holyhead and from Holyhead, in going to Dublin, they were thirteen or fourteen days, the winds were so contrary, and then my servants went about to go into the counties of Armagh and Derry.’ Even willing witnesses, being Roman Catholics, were afraid to start without passports. The prisoner only asked for an adjournment till the 21st, when he was satisfied to be tried whether they had arrived or not. Some of them had got as far as Coventry on the day of the trial, but he was told that he had already had an extraordinary allowance of time and that the fears and hesitations of Irish witnesses were beyond the control of the Court. The keynote was struck by Sawyer the Attorney-General: ‘May it please your Lordship and you gentlemen of the Jury, the character this gentleman bears as Primate under a foreign and usurped jurisdiction will be a great inducement to you to give credit to that evidence we shall produce before you.’ Wyer was the first witness, and he showed that Plunket received money and exercised jurisdiction among the clergy, but failed to connect him, except through the loosest hearsay, with any plot. There had been intrigues with France in 1667 following upon the disappointment of the Irish after the Act of Settlement, and there was an attempt to make out that the conspiracy had gone on ever since and that the Archbishop was at the head of it, the object being to further a French descent at Carlingford. In Wyer’s evidence, and in that of other witnesses, papers were frequently referred to, and MacMoyer produced two, of which one purported to be a translation from a copy made at Capranica, near Rome, five years before, but which the Archbishop said was an absolute forgery. The other was a copy in Plunket’s own hand of statutes, as they were called, concerning clerical contributions from Ireland to Rome. Both documents were confessedly stolen out of a packet addressed to the Secretary of Propaganda, and the original had been altered by interpolating a figure. Edmund Murphy, who took credit for being one of the first discoverers of the plot, but was now an unwilling witness, tried to avoid repeating what he had sworn before the Grand Jury, and said he had forgotten it. He hesitated and prevaricated, though pressed by the Court, and in the end he was committed. When the evidence for the Crown was concluded, a person in Court, whose name is not given, handed Plunket a slip of paper with the names of three persons who had received subpœnas. David Fitzgerald, who might have helped him if he had had the courage to appear, did not answer his name, nor did Eustace Comyn, whose ‘mad narrative,’ as Ormonde called it, was an important element in the mass of hearsay and falsehood. The third was Paul Gormar, who said he had never heard anything against Plunket, and believed he had done more good than harm in Ireland.[128]
Unfairness of the trial.
Execution of Plunket.
According to the barbarous practice of the age Plunket was not allowed counsel, and had to fight his battle alone before hostile judges, against Sawyer, Jeffreys, Finch, and Maynard. His witnesses did not arrive in time. He did not deny that he had exercised the jurisdiction of a popish Primate to the full, but as to the French invasion it was ‘all plain Romance—I never had any communication with any French minister, cardinal, nor other.’ As to his plan for having 70,000 men to welcome the French at Carlingford, a glance at the map of Ireland would show that it was a most unsuitable place for a descent. He might be convicted of a præmunire under the Act of Elizabeth, but as to treason he was quite innocent, ‘as you will hear in time, and my character you may receive from my Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Archbishop Boyle), my Lord Berkeley, my Lord Essex, and the Duke of Ormonde.’ According to Pemberton there could not be a greater crime against God than trying to propagate the religion of Rome, that, he said, ‘was the bottom of your treason.’ The chief justice prided himself on the eminent fairness of a trial in which he had constantly leaned against the prisoner. He had had five weeks to prepare his case, and it was no concern of the Court if that time was insufficient or if a priest educated abroad was ignorant of the formalities necessary to obtain copies of records. On the scaffold at Tyburn Plunket repeated his protestations of innocence. He was executed on the same day as Fitzharris. The credulity of the public was, however, nearly exhausted.[129]
Character of the witnesses.
Ormonde’s estimate of the evidence.