Part 25 (1/2)
While the question was yet in debate, an event happened to hasten the departure of Charles from the Hague. Dr. Dorislaus, a native of Holland, but formerly a professor of Gresham College, and recently employed to draw the charge against the king, arrived as envoy from the parliament to the States.[a] That very evening, while he sat at supper in the inn, six gentlemen with drawn swords entered the room, dragged him from his chair, and murdered him on the floor.[2] Though the a.s.sa.s.sins were suffered to escape, it was soon known that they were Scotsmen, most of them followers of Montrose; and Charles, antic.i.p.ating the demand of justice from the English parliament, gave his final answer to the commissioners, that he was, and always had been, ready to provide for the security of their religion, the union between the kingdoms, and the internal peace and prosperity of Scotland; but that their other demands were irreconcilable with his conscience, his liberty, and his honour.[b] They
[Footnote 1: Clar. iii. 287-292. Baillie, ii. 333. Carte, Letters, i.
238-263. In addition to the covenant, the commissioners required the banishment of Montrose, from which they were induced to recede, and the limitation of the king's followers to one hundred persons.--Carte, Letters, i. 264, 265, 266, 268, 271.]
[Footnote 2: Clarendon, iii. 293. Whitelock, 401. Journals, May 10. The parliament settled two hundred pounds per annum on the son, and gave five hundred pounds to each of the daughters of Dorislaus.--Ib. May 16. Two hundred and fifty pounds was given towards his funeral.--Council Book, May 11.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. May 3.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. May 19.]
acknowledged that he was their king; it was, therefore, their duty to obey, maintain, and defend him; and the performance of this duty he should expect from the committee of estates, the a.s.sembly of the kirk, and the whole nation of Scotland. They departed with this unsatisfactory answer; and Charles, leaving the United Provinces, hastened to St. Germain in France, to visit the queen his mother, with the intention of repairing, after a short stay, to the army of the royalists in Ireland.[1]
That the reader may understand the state of Ireland, he must look back to the period when the despair or patriotism of Ormond surrendered to the parliament the capital of that kingdom.[a] The nuncio, Rinuccini, had then seated himself in the chair of the president of the supreme council at Kilkenny; but his administration was soon marked by disasters, which enabled his rivals to undermine and subvert his authority.[b] The Catholic army of Leinster, under Preston, was defeated on Dungan Hill by Jones, the governor of Dublin, and that of Munster, under the Viscount Taafe, at Clontarf, by the Lord Inchiquin.[2][c] To Rinuccini
[Footnote 1: Balfour, iii. 405; and the Proceedings of the Commissioners of the Church and Kingdoms of Scotland with his Majestie at the Hague.
Edinburgh, printed by Evan Tyler, 1649.]
[Footnote 2: Rushworth, 833, 916. In the battle of Dungan Hill, at the first charge the Commander of the Irish cavalry was slain: his men immediately fled; the infantry repelled several charges, and retired into a bog, where they offered to capitulate. Colonel Flower said he had no authority to grant quarter, but at the same time ordered his men to stand to their arms, and preserved the lives of the earl of Westmeath, Lieutenant-General Bryne, and several officers and soldiers who repaired to his colours. ”In the mean time the Scotch colonel Tichburn, and Colonel Moor, of Bankhall's regiments, without mercy put the rest to the sword.”
They amounted to between three and four thousand men.--Belling's History of the late Warre in Ireland, MS. ii. 95. I mention this instance to show that Cromwell did not introduce the practice of ma.s.sacre. He followed his predecessors, whose avowed object it was to exterminate the natives.]]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1649. July.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1649. August 2.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1649. Nov. 13.]
himself these misfortunes appeared as benefits, for he distrusted Preston and Taafe on account of their attachment to Ormond; and their depression served to exalt his friend and protector, Owen Roe O'Neil, the leader of the men of Ulster. But from such beginnings the nation at large antic.i.p.ated a succession of similar calamities; his adversaries obtained a majority in the general a.s.sembly; and the nuncio, after a declaration that he advanced no claim to temporal authority, prudently avoided a forced abdication, by offering to resign his office.[a] A new council, consisting, in equal number, of men chosen out of the two parties, was appointed; and the marquess of Antrim, the Lord Muskerry, and Geoffrey Brown, were despatched to the queen mother, and her son Charles, to solicit a.s.sistance in money and arms, and to request that the prince would either come and reside in Ireland, or appoint a Catholic lieutenant in his place.[b] Antrim hoped to obtain this high office for himself; but his colleagues were instructed to oppose his pretensions and to acquiesce in the re-appointment of the marquess of Ormond.[1]
During the absence of these envoys, the Lord Inchiquin unexpectedly declared, with his army, in favour of the king against the parliament, and instantly proposed an armistice to the confederate Catholics, as friends to the royal cause. By some the overture was indignantly rejected. Inchiquin, they said, had been their most bitter enemy; he had made it his delight to shed the blood of Irishmen, and to pollute and destroy their altars.
Besides, what pledge could be
[Footnote 1: Philopater Irenaeus, 50-60. Castlehaven, Memoirs, 83.]
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1648. Jan. 4]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1648. Feb. 27]
given for the fidelity of a man who, by repeatedly changing sides, had already shown that he would always accommodate his conscience to his interest? It were better to march against him now that he was without allies; and, when he should be subdued, Jones with the parliamentary army would necessarily fall. To this reasoning it was replied, that the expedition would require time and money; that provision for the free exercise of religion might be made in the articles; and that, at a moment when the Catholics solicited a reconciliation with the king, they could not in honour destroy those who drew the sword in his favour. In defiance of the remonstrances made by Rinuccini and eight of the bishops, the treaty proceeded;[a] and the nuncio believing, or pretending to believe, that he was a prisoner in Kilkenny, escaped in the night over the wall of the city, and was received at Maryborough with open arms by his friend O'Neil.[b] The council of the Catholics agreed to the armistice, and sought by repeated messages to remove the objections of the nuncio.[c] But zeal or resentment urged him to exceed his powers.[d] He condemned the treaty, excommunicated its abettors, and placed under an interdict the towns in which it should be admitted. But his spiritual weapons were of little avail. The council, with fourteen bishops, appealed from his censures; the forces under Taafe, Clanricard, and Preston, sent back his messengers;[e] and, on the departure of O'Neil, he repaired to the town of Galway, where he was sure of the support of the people, though in opposition to the sense of the mayor and the merchants. As a last effort, he summoned a national synod at Galway;[f]
but the council protested against it; Clanricard surrounded the town with his army; and
[Sidenote a: A.D. 1648. April 27.]
[Sidenote b: A.D. 1648. May 9.]
[Sidenote c: A.D. 1648. May 22.]
[Sidenote d: A.D. 1648. May 27.]
[Sidenote e: A.D. 1648. May 31.]
[Sidenote f: A.D. 1648. Sept. 1.]
the inhabitants, opening the gates, made their submission.[1]
War was now openly declared between the two parties. On the one hand, Jones in Dublin, and Monk in Ulster, concluded truces with O'Neil, that he might be in a better condition to oppose the common enemy; on the other, Inchiquin joined with Preston to support the authority of the council against O'Neil. Inroads were reciprocally made; towns were taken and retaken; and large armies were repeatedly brought in face of each other.
The council, however, began to a.s.sume a bolder tone:[a] they proclaimed O'Neil a rebel and traitor; and, on the tardy arrival of Ormond with the commission of lord-lieutenant, sent to Rinuccini himself an order to quit the kingdom,[b] with the information that they had accused him to the pope of certain high crimes and misdemeanors.[2]