Part 33 (1/2)

[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if a free parliament in Scotland should think it fitting” afterwards ”to break it, but on condition that it should not be published till he had acquainted Ormond and his friends, secured them, and been instructed how with honour and justice he might break it in regard of the breach on their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.]