It thus becomes abundantly clear that during the first two months of the rebellion, not only was there no general massacre by the rebels, but there was little bloodshed. Indeed the Lords Justices, in their proclamation of February 8th, 1642, assert that the design of a general massacre had failed.
A period of several months elapsed between the end of December, 1641, and the organisation of the rebels under the Confederates. During this period, no doubt, it was that the serious cruelties were committed by the insurgents, for the proceedings of the Confederates were characterised by humanity, and the Supreme Council would not have tolerated murder under any circumstances, or under any provocation. Among the propositions they made to the King in March, 1644, was the following:—“Forasmuch as your Majesty’s Catholic subjects have been taxed with many inhuman cruelties which they never committed, your Majesty’s said supplicants, therefore, for their vindication, and to manifest to all the world to have such heinous offences punished, and the offenders brought to justice, do desire that in the next Parliament all inhuman murthers, breaches of quarter, and inhuman cruelties committed on either side may be questioned in the said Parliament (if your Majesty so think fit), and such as shall appear to be guilty exempted out of the Act of Oblivion and punished according to their deserts.” This principle was embodied in the fifteenth article of the first treaty between the King and the Confederates, signed on the 28th of March, 1646, and in the last treaty signed on the 17th of January, 1648-9.
If we wanted further proof of the scrupulous humanity of the Confederates, the following facts would supply it. The delegates of the Confederates in 1644, in an official communication made to the Marquis of Ormond as representative of the King, declared that one of the results that they most earnestly desired in connection with the removal of their grievances was that when the condition of Catholics and Protestants had been equalised they might all “be united more than ever before,” and neither party “have occasion to envy or oppress the other.” These aspirations were met in the following month by an ordinance made by the Parliament at Westminster, by which the Lords and Commons declared “that no quarter shall be given hereafter to any Irishman or any Papist whatsoever born in Ireland, who shall be taken in hostility against the English Parliament, either upon the sea or within this kingdom or dominion of Wales,” and they followed this barbarous declaration by a decree for carrying it out. In pursuance of this enactment many Irish sailors were brutally murdered, being tied back to back and thrown overboard, and in one instance seventeen Irish soldiers, fighting in the King’s army, when made prisoners, were hanged. Prince Rupert promptly hanged an equal number of his prisoners, at which the English Parliament was greatly shocked, and remonstrated with the Prince, threatening to retaliate, and justifying the butchery of the Irish. Rupert does not appear to have taken any notice of this amazing document, and probably would have hanged or shot a prisoner of English or Scottish blood for every one of Irish blood or the Catholic religion that the Parliamentarians had murdered. But the Confederates were too humane to countenance such atrocities; and they refrained from defiling the records of their assembly by any declaration or ordinance such as that which the pious champions of civil and religious liberty in England, to their eternal infamy, had placed upon their rolls.
What murders were committed at sea under this ordinance never will be known. But Bulstrode Whitelocke, a member of the Long Parliament, under date of May, 1644, records the following significant incident: “At the taking of Carmarthen by Captain Swanley, many Irish rebels were thrown into the sea.” Under date June, 1644, he records that “Captain Swanley was called into the House of Commons and had thanks from them for his good services, and a chain of gold two hundred pounds value.”
It is not to be denied, however, that in the earlier stages of the rebellion murders, and possibly outrages, were committed by the insurgents. It was, of course, necessary that if resistance was offered to the seizure of strongholds or arms, it should be overpowered by force, even to the extent of taking life; and what are described as massacres were probably, in many instances, homicides committed unavoidably in cases of such resistance. But apart from such occurrences, no doubt, lives were taken by the rebels. According to a declaration made under hand and seal by the Rev. John Ker, Dean of Ardagh, given by Nalson, vol. ii., p. 528, Phelim O’Neill, in the course of his trial, at which the Dean was present, said that there were several outrages committed by officers and soldiers, his aiders and abettors in the management of the war, contrary to his intention, which now pressed his conscience very much, and the Dean adds, that he heard several murders and robberies proved at the trial to have been committed by him, and that he had nothing to plead in his defence. This is probably true. It was hardly in human nature, even Irish human nature, to refrain from taking a signal and sanguinary vengeance on those by whom, or for whom, they were oppressed and plundered. Besides, there can, I think, be little doubt but that the massacres began with the butchery, possibly in the beginning of November, 1641, but not later than the beginning of January, 1642, of innocent persons, men, women and children, inhabitants of Island Magee, by the garrison of Carrickfergus; and the murders committed by the rebels in Ulster may not unfairly be attributed in a great measure to reprisals for this horrible carnage. Whatever massacres there were must have been practically confined to Ulster, for there were but few English or Protestants elsewhere, and as the Irish carefully avoided molesting the Scots in Ulster, who were by far the majority of the Ulster population, the numbers slain cannot have been large. There is no doubt, too, but that O’More was strongly opposed to all unnecessary violence, and when we remember that the generals of the Federation, which commenced its session at Kilkenny in October, 1642, were directed by their commission to protect the husbandmen, victuallers, and all other subjects of his Majesty from the extortions, violences, and abuses of the soldiers, we may be pretty sure that little or no blood was unnecessarily shed after the eminent men who led the troops of the Confederation took up their commands.
It is needless to refer to the measures taken by the rebel leaders to check the outburst of pillage which marked the struggle before the Confederation was formed, and to protect the Protestants and the English from molestation. The well-known instance of Bishop Bedell, whose house was the asylum of numerous refugees, and who was himself treated with marked respect while he lived, and buried with all possible honour when he died, is only one example out of many of the conspicuous humanity of the men who were responsible for the insurrection.
But let us look at the reverse of the picture. That the Irish “Papist” was regarded by the English as a creature outside the pale of humanity is evidenced by the ordinance excluding him from quarter already quoted. That the Scotch concurred in this estimate appears from the fact that they adopted this ordinance. That he was to be exterminated was, as Ormond wrote to Clanricarde, “preached as gospel.” That such a gospel was not to be a dead letter appears from documents under the hands of the Lords Justices and Council. “We have hitherto,” they write on the 7th of June, 1642, to the Lords Commissioners for Irish Affairs, “where we came against the rebels, their adherents, aiders, and abettors, proceeded with fire and sword, the soldiers sometimes not sparing the women, and sometimes not children, many women being manifestly very deep in the guilt of this rebellion, and as we are informed, very forward to stir up their husbands, friends and kindred to side therein, and exciting them to cruelty against the English, acting therein and in their spoils even with rage and fury with their own hands.” We have also the directions given by the Lords Justices and Council to Colonel Crawford for his expedition to County Wicklow, and to Colonel Gibson for his expedition to County Kildare. These were to go to these counties and remain there as long as they could find provision for their men, and in their journey to kill, slay, and destroy all rebels; to destroy by fire and sword all their goods, houses, and corn. It is easy to understand how these orders would be interpreted. They meant the extermination of the people by fire and sword, or by famine; for, so long as there was food for the soldiery, the soldiery were to remain; when they left there would be food for no one.
In their despatch to the King in opposition to an accommodation with the rebels, already quoted, the Lords Justices and Council admit the policy of extermination, but only partial extermination, be it observed. “And howsoever it be true,” they write on the 16th of March, 1642-3, “that all the peril and damage we undergo, and all the arms we desired to have used and borne here, is but (by God’s blessing) to bring on a safe and lasting peace, yet we can no way apprehend that it can be done till the sword have abated these rebels in numbers and power, yet not to the utter extirpation of the native which is far from our thoughts (though some to render us the more odious report so of us).”
A characteristic example of the methods of the Lords Justices and their troops is given in their letter of June 7th, 1642, to the Lord Lieutenant, describing the capture of Baldungan Castle, situated twelve miles from Dublin. Colonel Crawford took it by storm, and found therein to the number of 120 rebels, whom immediately his men put to the sword, saving a popish priest, whom Colonel Crawford brought to Dublin, and whom the Provost Marshal hanged. “This sharpness,” they write, “held with them when they maintain castles against us, will doubtless discourage them from presuming to keep castles against us hereafter, when they still find just vengeance thus taken on them for their boldness therein. There was then found in that castle an English gentleman whom the rebels had taken prisoner a few days before, and whom our men now released.”
This despatch would do credit to Cromwell. There is a touch of unconscious irony in the contrast between the treatment of the one English gentleman captured by the rebels, and the 120 rebels captured by the English.