The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Accession of King George the Fifth Part 33

[Footnote 1: Ponce, Vindiciae Eversae, 236-257. Clarendon, viii. 151, 154, 156. Hibernia Dominicana, 691. Carte, ii. 118, 120, 123.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. August 10.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. August 11.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. August 12.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. August 31.]

[Sidenote e: A.D. 1650. Sept. 2.]

their fears and predictions accomplished. The king had p.r.o.nounced them a race of "b.l.o.o.d.y rebels;" he had disowned them for his subjects, he had anulled the articles of pacification, and had declared[a] to the whole world that he would exterminate their religion. In this excited temper of mind, the committee appointed by the bishops published both the declaration and the excommunication. A single night intervened; their pa.s.sions had leisure to cool; they repented[b] of their precipitancy; and, by the advice of the prelates in the town of Galway, they published a third paper, suspending the effect of the other two.

Ormond's first expedient was to p.r.o.nounce the Dunfermling declaration a forgery; for the king from Breda, previously to his voyage to Scotland, had solemnly a.s.sured him that he would never, for any earthly consideration, violate the pacification. A second message[c] informed him that it was genuine, but ought to be considered of no force, as far as it concerned Ireland, because it had been issued without the advice of the Irish privy council.[1] This communication encouraged

[Footnote 1: Carte's letters, i. 391. Charles's counsellors at Breda had instilled into him principles which he seems afterwards to have cherished through life: "that honour and conscience were bugbears, and that the king ought to govern himself rather by the rules of prudence and necessity."--Ibid. Nicholas to Ormond, 435. At first Charles agreed to find some way "how he might with honour and justice break the peace with the Irish, if a free parliament in Scotland should think it fitting" afterwards "to break it, but on condition that it should not be published till he had acquainted Ormond and his friends, secured them, and been instructed how with honour and justice he might break it in regard of the breach on their part" (p. 396, 397). Yet a little before he had resolutely declared that no consideration should induce him to violate the same peace (p. 374, 379).

On his application afterwards for aid to the pope, he excused it, saying, "fuisse vim manifestam: jam enim statuerant Scoti presbyterani personam suam parliamento Anglicano tradere, si illam declarationem ab ipsis factam non approba.s.set." Ex originali penes me.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Sept. 15.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Sept. 16.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Oct. 15.]

the lord lieutenant to a.s.sume a bolder tone. He professed[a] himself ready to a.s.sert, that both the king and his officers on one part, and the Catholic population on the other, were bound by the provisions of the treaty; but he previously required that the commissioners of trust should condemn the proceedings of the synod at James-town, and join with him in punis.h.i.+ng such of its members as should persist in their disobedience. They made proposals[b] to the prelates, and received for answer, that protection and obedience were correlative; and, therefore, since the king had publicly excluded them, under the designation of "b.l.o.o.d.y rebels," from his protection, they could not understand how any officer acting by his authority could lay claim to their obedience.[1]

This answer convinced Ormond that it was time for him to leave Ireland; but, before his departure, he called a general a.s.sembly, and selected the marquess of Clanricard, a Catholic n.o.bleman, to command as his deputy.

To Clanricard, whose health was infirm, and whose habits were domestic, nothing could be more unwelcome than such an appointment. Wherever he cast his eyes he was appalled by the prospect before him. He saw three-fourths of Ireland in the possession of a restless and victorious enemy; Connaught and Clare, which alone remained to the royalists, were depopulated by famine and pestilence; and political and religious dissension divided the leaders and their followers, while one party attributed the national disasters to the temerity of the men who presumed to govern under the curse of excommunication; and the other charged their opponents with concealing disloyal and interested views under the mantle of patriotism

[Footnote 1: Ponce, 257-261.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Oct. 23.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Oct. 29.]

and religion. Every prospect of successful resistance was gone; the Shannon, their present protection from the foe, would become fordable in the spring; and then the last asylum of Irish independence must be overrun.[1] Under such discouraging circ.u.mstances it required all the authority of Ormond and Castlehaven to induce him to accept an office which opened no prospect of emolument or glory, but promised a plentiful harvest of contradiction, hards.h.i.+p, and danger.

In the a.s.sembly which was held[a] at Loughrea, the majority of the members disapproved of the conduct of the synod, but sought rather to heal by conciliation than to perpetuate dissension. Ormond, having written[b] a vindication of his conduct, and received[c] an answer consoling, if not perfectly satisfactory to his feelings, sailed from Galway; but Clanricard obstinately refused to enter on the exercise of his office, till reparation had been made to the royal authority for the insult offered to it by the James-town declaration. He required an acknowledgment, that it was not in the power of any body of men to discharge the people from their obedience to the lord deputy, as long as the royal authority was vested in him; and at length obtained[d] a declaration to that effect, but with a protestation, that by it "the confederates did not waive their right to the faithful observance of the articles of pacification, nor bind themselves to obey every chief governor who might be unduly nominated by the king, during his unfree condition among the Scots."[2]

Aware of the benefit which the royalists in Scotland

[Footnote 1: See Clanricard's State of the Nation, in his Memoirs, part ii.

p. 24.]

[Footnote 2: Carte, ii. 137-140. Walsh, App. 75-137. Belling in Poncium, 26.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. Nov. 25.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 2.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1650. Dec. 7.]

[Sidenote d: A.D. 1650. Dec. 24.]

derived from the duration of hostilities in Ireland, the parliamentary leaders sought to put an end to the protracted and sanguinary struggle.

Scarcely had Clanricard a.s.sumed[a] the government, when Grace and Bryan, two Catholic officers, presented themselves to the a.s.sembly with a message from Axtel, the governor of Kilkenny, the bearers of a proposal for a treaty of submission. By many the overture was hailed with transport. They maintained that nothing but a general negotiation could put an end to those private treaties which daily thinned their numbers, and exposed the more resolute to inevitable ruin; that the conditions held out were better than they had reason to expect _now_, infinitely better than they could expect hereafter. Let them put the sincerity of their enemies to the test. If the treaty should succeed, the nation would be saved; if it did not, the failure would unite all true Irishmen in the common cause, who, if they must fall, would not fall unrevenged. There was much force in this reasoning; and it was strengthened by the testimony of officers from several quarters, who represented that, to negotiate with the parliament was the only expedient for the preservation of the people. But Clanricard treated the proposal with contempt. To entertain it was an insult to him, an act of treason against the king; and he was seconded by the eloquence and authority of Castlehaven, who affected to despise the power of the enemy, and attributed his success to their own divisions. Had the a.s.sembly known the motives which really actuated these n.o.blemen; that they had been secretly instructed by Charles to continue the contest at every risk, as the best means of enabling him to make head against Cromwell; that this, probably the last opportunity of saving the lives

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. Jan. 10.]

and properties of the confederates, was to be sacrificed to the mere chance of gaining a victory for the Scots, their bitter and implacable enemies,[1]

many of the calamities which Ireland was yet doomed to suffer would, perhaps, have been averted. But the majority allowed themselves to be persuaded; the motion to negotiate with the parliament was rejected, and the penalties of treason were denounced by the a.s.sembly, the sentence of excommunication by the bishops, against all who should conclude any private treaty with the enemy. Limerick and Galway, the two bulwarks of the confederacy, disapproved of this vote, and obstinately refused to admit garrisons within their walls, that they might not be overawed by the military, but remain arbiters of their own fate.

The lord deputy was no sooner relieved from this difficulty, than he found himself entangled in a negotiation of unusual delicacy and perplexity.

About the close of the last summer, Ormond had despatched the Lord Taafe to Brussels, with instructions, both in his own name and the name of the supreme council,[2] to solicit the aid of the duke of Lorrain, a prince of the most restless and intriguing disposition, who was accustomed to sell at a high price the services of his army to the neighbouring powers. The duke received him graciously, made him a present of five thousand pounds, and promised an additional aid of men and money, but on condition that he should be declared protector royal of Ireland, with all the rights belonging to that office--rights as undefined as the office itself was. .h.i.therto unknown. Taafe hesitated, but was

[Footnote 1: Castlehaven's Memoirs, 116, 119, 120.]

[Footnote 2: Compare the papers in the second part of Clanricard's Memoirs, 17, 18, 27 (folio, London, 1757), with Carte's Ormond, ii. 143.]

encouraged to proceed by the queen mother, the duke of York, and De Vic, the king's resident at Brussels. They argued[a] that, without aid to the Irish, the king must succ.u.mb in Scotland; that the duke of Lorrain was the only prince in Europe that could afford them succour; and that whatever might be his secret projects, they could never be so prejudicial to the royal interests as the subjugation of Ireland by the parliament.[1] Taafe, however, took a middle way, and persuaded[b] the duke to send De Henin as his envoy to the supreme council, with powers to conclude the treaty in Ireland.

The a.s.sembly had just been dismissed[c] when this envoy arrived. By the people, the clergy, and the n.o.bility, he was received as an angel sent from heaven. The supply of arms and ammunition which he brought, joined to his promise of more efficient succour in a short time, roused them from their despondency, and encouraged them to indulge the hope of making a stand against the pressure of the enemy. Clanricard, left without instructions, knew not how to act. He dared not refuse the aid so highly prized by the

[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 4, 5, 17, 27. Ormond was also of the same opinion.

He writes to Taafe that "nothing was done that were to be wished 'undone'"; that the supreme council were the best judges of their own condition; that they had received permission from the king, for their own preservation, "even to receive conditions from the enemy, which must be much more contrary to his interests, than to receive helps from any other to resist them, almost upon any terms."--Clanric. 33, 34. There is in the collection of letters by Carte, one from Ormond to Clanricard written after the battle of Worcester, in which that n.o.bleman says that it will be without scruple his advice, that "fitting ministers be sent to the pope, and apt inducements proposed to him for his interposition, not only with all princes and states". The rest of the letter is lost, or Carte did not choose to publish it; but it is plain from the first part that he thought the only chance for the restoration of the royal authority was in the aid to be obtained from the pope and the Catholic powers.--Carte's Letters, i.

461.]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1650. November.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1650. Dec. 31.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. Feb. 25.]

people; he dared not accede to demands so prejudicial to the king's authority. But if the t.i.tle of protector royal sounded ungratefully in his ears, it was heard with very different feelings by the confederates, who had reason to conclude that, if the contest between Cromwell and the Scots should terminate in favour of the latter, the Irish Catholics would still have need of a protector to preserve their religion from the exterminating fanaticism of the kirk. Clanricard, was, however, inexorable, and his resolution finally triumphed over the eagerness of his countrymen and the obstinacy of the envoy. From the latter he obtained[a] an additional sum of fifteen thousand pounds, on the easy condition of naming agents to conduct the negotiation at Brussels, according to such instructions as they should receive from the queen dowager, the duke of York, and the duke of Ormond.

The lord deputy rejoiced that he had s.h.i.+fted the burthen from his shoulders. De Henin was satisfied, because he knew the secret sentiments of those to whose judgment the point in question had been referred.[1]

Taafe, having received his instructions in Paris (but verbal, not written instructions, as Clanricard had required), joined[b] his colleagues, Sir Nicholas Plunket, and Geoffrey Brown, in Brussels, and, after a long but ineffectual struggle, subscribed to the demands of the duke of Lorrain.[2]

That prince, by the treaty, engaged[c] to furnish for the protection of Ireland, all such supplies of arms, money, ammunition, s.h.i.+pping, and provisions, as the necessity of the case might require; and in return the agents, in the name of the

[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 1-16.]

[Footnote 2: Id. 31, 58. It is certain from Clanricard's papers that the treaty was not concluded till after the return of Taafe from Paris (p.

58).]

[Sidenote a: A.D. 1651. March 27.]

[Sidenote b: A.D. 1651. July 11.]

[Sidenote c: A.D. 1651. July 27.]

people and kingdom of Ireland, conferred on him, his heirs and successors, the t.i.tle of protector royal, together with the chief civil authority and the command of the forces, but under the obligation of restoring both, on the payment of his expenses, to Charles Stuart, the rightful sovereign.[1]

There cannot be a doubt that each party sought to overreach the other.

Clanricard was surprised that he heard nothing from his agents, nothing from the queen or the duke of Ormond. After a silence of several months, a copy of the treaty[a] arrived. He read it with indignation; he a.s.serted[b]

that the envoys had transgressed their instructions; he threatened to declare them traitors by proclamation. But Charles had now arrived in Paris after the defeat at Worcester, and was made acquainted[c] with the whole intrigue. He praised the loyalty of the deputy, but sought to mitigate his displeasure against the three agents, exhorted him to receive them again into his confidence, and advised him to employ their services, as if the treaty had never existed. To the duke of Lorrain he despatched[d] the earl of Norwich, to object to the articles which bore most on the royal authority, and to re-commence the negotiation.[2] But the unsuccessful termination of the Scottish war taught that prince to look upon the project as hopeless; while he hesitated, the court of Brussels obtained proofs that he was intriguing with the French minister; and, to the surprise of Europe, he was suddenly arrested in Brussels, and conducted a prisoner to Toledo in Spain.[3]

Clanricard, hostile as he was to the pretensions of the duke of Lorrain, had availed himself of the money

[Footnote 1: Clanricard, 34.]

[Footnote 2: Id. 36-41, 47, 50-54, 58. Also Ponce, 111-124.]