On the 8th April, 1642, the King offered to go to Ireland and take

command of the English garrison against the rebels, but the Parliament,

believing he intended only to bring those troops into England, told him

if he went, it would be looked on as an act of abdication. It can easily

be seen that the rebellion was a great advantage to the Parliament,

since the King could not withdraw his troops from Ireland without giving

support to the story circulated by the Parliament, “that he and his

Popish Queen had authorized the rising.” But, apart from the loss of

popularity suffered by the King, the most important gain to the

Parliament was the power to raise money and troops under the Act of

Confiscation. The subscriptions obtained from the adventurers, or, as we

should now call them, shareholders, were not to be paid into the Royal

Exchequer, but to a Committee composed of Members of the House of

Commons and Adventurers, and these were to appoint the Commander and

Officers, the King being allowed only to sign the Commissions. The lands

of the Irish were not to be set out to the adventurers until Parliament

should declare the war at an end. The King was also deprived of the

power to pardon the insurgents, for the effect of pardons would be to

deprive the adventurers of their security. In this way, the mass of the

Irish proprietors would be forced into rebellion, while for that reason

the King would be prevented from entering into any terms with them,

whereby he might call the English garrison in Ireland to his assistance

in the coming struggle with the Parliament, or receive help from the

insurgents.

In considering the attitude of the Parliament and the English people in

all these matters, it must not be forgotten that they were then about to

be forced into a life and death struggle against an autocracy. They knew

that Strafford had, but a short time before, declared the King’s

Government to be as autocratic in Ireland as that of any absolute

monarch in Europe, and that both he and the King had lively hopes of

bringing about the end of parliamentary government in England. They had

an acute dread that the King’s power in Ireland might be greater than it

really was, and that it would be used to crush their liberties. For this

reason, if for no other, they were more determined than ever to

extinguish the Irish as a nation. We know now that Charles was an

admirer and correspondent of that Alexis Romanoff, who, after swearing

to uphold them, had destroyed such germs of representative Government as

then existed in Russia, and which the Russian people are still vainly

striving to recover. After bearing with the King’s tyranny, vacillation,

and faithlessness through many years, the time was now rapidly

approaching when the conflict between the principles of autocracy and

those of popular government would have to be decided by the sword.

Of the religious intolerance shown by all parties in these dissensions,

it can only be said that men’s minds were yet quite unprepared to

accept, or even understand, anything like toleration, and when opposing

creeds met in open hostilities, both sides were often disgraced by

cruelties that showed they were little influenced by such Christian

principles as they were supposed to hold in common.

The Executive Government in Dublin Castle was, during most of the period

with which we are concerned, in the hands of the Lords Justices in the

absence of Lord Leicester, who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant, but

who, already inclining to the popular side in England, never took up his

office. The Lords Justices were, nominally, Sir William Parsons and Sir

John Borlase. Parsons, from a needy and vulgar adventurer, by the

grasping chicanery then, and long after necessary to the establishment

of a great position in Ireland, had wormed his way into his present

eminence. Sir John Borlase, the Commander of the Ordnance, was an old

soldier, well stricken in years, and practically a nonentity by the side

of his powerful colleague. The English garrison in Ireland, already

largely imbued with Puritan principles, was under the command of the

Earl—afterwards Marquis—of Ormond.

The character of Ormond has been viewed from so many standpoints, that

it is difficult to decide impartially between the extremely different

views given of it. He was originally a Catholic, but taken to England by

the Court of Wards in his youth, had been brought up a Protestant. By

birth, the head of one of the greatest Catholic Anglo-Irish families of

the Pale, amongst whom he had many relatives and connections, he

naturally sympathised with them in their troubles, but he also shared

with them the firm belief that they were not Irish, but merely English

colonists in Ireland. A fervent Royalist, devoted to the King and his

interests, as long as there was any chance of helping him, he was

distrusted by the Lords Justices, especially Parsons, “the guiding

spirit of confiscation and destruction,” to such an extent, that even on

such military expeditions as he undertook against the insurgents by

their orders, he was constantly thwarted, interfered with, and even

recalled when he had gained some success, lest, by his means, the King’s

party should grow too strong for that of the Parliament. He was in a

most difficult position, and it always seemed to me an error to denounce

Ormond as a traitor to the Irish cause. He entered into no engagements

to serve it, though he was disposed, as far as possible, to favour his

kinsmen and dependents of the Pale, but he was, first of all, an English

colonist, a soldier in the King’s service, with no pretensions to any

feeling of Irish nationality, which, as a matter of fact, far from

having displaced the narrower ties of clanship, was even then, only

approaching the throes of birth.

For some years, the Catholic Anglo-Irish proprietors, especially of the

Pale, had been endeavouring, but in vain, to come to some accommodation

with the King, heedless of what might befall their hereditary enemies,

the Old-Irish. They had addressed petitions and remonstrances to

Charles, but these, for the most part, had been suppressed by the Lords

Justices. It would be impossible, in this rapid sketch to trace the

course of these earlier negotiations. The passing of the Acts of

Confiscation were a rude awakening for the Anglo-Irish. They were at

once made to feel that for all their claims to English descent, they

were looked on by those in power in England not as Englishmen, not even

as “merely Englishmen with bad accents,” but purely and simply as Irish

Papists, fomenters and favourers of rebellion and murder, whom it would

be meritorious to exterminate.

They were accordingly forced, though, as they truthfully declared, most

reluctantly, to ally themselves with the Old-Irish. This they did in a

half-hearted way, being, most of them, rather inclined to temporise with

the King through Ormond than to boldly adopt the policy of their allies,

and by securing with their help the command of the country, be in a

position to dictate terms. At a Synod of the Clergy of the Province of

Armagh, in March, 1642, it was decided that an Assembly, representative

of the whole of Ireland, should be convened. In May, a meeting of the

clergy and principal laity took place at Kilkenny, and a Supreme Council

of nine members was chosen as a Provisional Government to arrange the

convention of the General Assembly. When the Lords Justices heard of the

establishment of the Catholic Confederacy, they and the Irish House of

Commons took steps to prohibit all intercourse with Catholics, and the

House resolved that no one refusing the Oaths of Supremacy should be

allowed to sit. The General Assembly of the Confederation held its first

meeting on October 24, and the Rev. Father Meehan, in his _History of

the Confederation of Kilkenny_, draws a glowing picture of the scene in

St. Canice’s, where, for the first time probably since the battle of

Clontarf, the representatives of the Irish nation assembled together for

a common national object. Every county and every borough had chosen its

representatives, and the body thus deputed was practically an Irish

Parliament, though out of respect for the King, not having been summoned

by his writs, it disclaimed that title. Its first business was to elect

a new Supreme Council of twenty-five members. There were also Provincial

and County Councils. The cumbrous procedure adopted, whereby every

member of the Supreme Council had to be consulted in all important

matters, did much to hamper its action, and was productive of delays in

a time when rapid decision was most needful, and this contributed in

some measure to its ultimate failure to effect the objects for which it

was called into being.

Amongst the most important of the first declarations of the Assembly,

was their resolution to maintain the rights and immunities of the

Catholic Church agreeably to the Great Charter. They commanded all

persons to bear faith and allegiance to the King, and to maintain his

just prerogatives, while they denied and renounced the Irish Government

administered in Dublin Castle by “a malignant party to his Highness’s

great disservice and in compliance with their confederates, the

malignant party of England.” The Church was to re-enter on its ancient

rights, all ecclesiastical property was to be vested in the Bishops, but

Abbey lands were not to be restored by the lay possessors, many of whom

were sitting in the Assembly itself. This question of the Abbey lands at

once became a bone of contention between the Religious Orders and some

of the most powerful of the laity, and was a potent factor of the

disunion which followed. The Assembly did not enter into the question of

the ownership of land, beyond refusing to recognise the results of the

insurrection. Land was to be considered the property of those who were

in possession on October 1, 1641. On this point Gardiner says: “The land

policy proclaimed was a policy of land owners, and was unlikely to

conciliate those who had formed the strength of that agrarian revolution

which had well nigh swept the English out of Ulster. It is, however,

impossible to doubt that if the efforts of the Assembly had been crowned

with success, it would have found itself powerless to reinstate the

English and Scottish colonists in the lands which they had recently

lost, and it is not very probable that Catholic Ireland would have

granted to Protestants, a toleration which was denied to Episcopalians

in Presbyterian Scotland, and had lately, when Charles’s authority was

supreme, been denied to Presbyterians in Episcopalian England.” On this

point of Gardiner’s, it may be remarked that where questions of religion

alone were concerned, and apart from temporal considerations, Catholic

Ireland has always shown an example of tolerance even in ages when

tolerance was unknown in countries supposed to be more advanced in

modern civilization.

While the land question threatened to divide the Old-Irish of

Ulster from their co-religionists of the South, the Assembly

deliberately—perhaps because it could not help itself—adopted a

scheme of military commands which from the outset made for

disunion. Owen Roe O’Neill was chosen General for Ulster; Preston

for Leinster; Garret Barry for Munster, and Colonel John Burke for

Connaught, the last with the title of Lieutenant-General, as it

was hoped the Earl of Clanricarde would take the chief command in

that province. No Commander-in-Chief was appointed, and nothing

like concerted action between the various armies was ever

seriously attempted. O’Neill had, moreover, little friendship for

the Supreme Council, and was on bad terms with the Leinster

General, Preston, who was father-in-law of Phelim O’Neill, Owen’s

rival, who had but lately claimed the chieftainship of the

O’Neills on the ground of lawful heirship, while Owen Roe, though

possessing incomparably greater personal merit, was sprung from an

illegitimate branch. Of the continued state of war which existed,

it is impossible to give any detailed account here. It was a

series of skirmishes and petty sieges, in which one side harassed

the other without either gaining a decisive victory. The

Royalists, under Ormond in Leinster, and the other English

General, Murrough O’Brien, Lord Inchiquin in Munster, were in the

greatest distress for want of provisions, pay, and munitions, and

concerted action by the Irish forces under a skilled commander

like Owen Roe, for instance, would soon have forced them to terms,

but no such united effort was made. The Scottish army, which had

landed in Ulster under Leven and Monroe, remained under the

command of the latter, and possessed itself of the greater part of

the province and extended its raids and forages as far as Sligo,

but for the most part afterwards remained inactive, and was only

distinguished by some massacres of the unarmed peasants. Of the

general conduct of the war, Gardiner says: “There was no strategy

on either side, it was an affair of skirmishes and sieges, of

raids over the wide expanse of pasture-land, for the purpose of

sweeping off the herds of cattle which were the main wealth of the

people. Wherever an English force could penetrate, its track was

marked by fire and the gallows. Exasperated at the Ulster murders,

and seeing in every Irishman a murderer or a supporter of

murderers, the English soldiery rarely gave quarter, and, unless

the accounts of their enemies are entirely devoid of truth, when

they did give it, it was often violated. The peasants retaliated

by knocking stray soldiers on the head, and by slaughtering

parties too weak to resist. Yet, whenever ... the Irish forces

were commanded by officers of rank and authority, they were

distinguished for humanity under circumstances of no slight

provocation. The garrisons of fortified posts captured by the

Irish, were uniformly allowed to find their way in safety to a

place of refuge. On the whole, the balance of advantage was on the

Irish side.”

The history from now until the arrival of Rinuccini is almost entirely

that of a long series of tedious negotiations between Ormond, acting for

the King, and the Supreme Council, for a cessation of arms. Ormond had

recently been made a Marquis, and his commission as Commander-in-Chief

of the English troops had been enlarged, so as to leave him independent

of the nominal Lord Lieutenant, the Earl of Leicester. Parsons still

remained Lord Justice, and the King, did not venture to interfere with

him. Leicester had got as far as Chester on his way to Ireland, but

Charles, foreseeing that he would side with Parsons and make him still

more powerful, summoned him to Oxford, this being practically the recall

of his commission as Lord Lieutenant. The English interest in Ireland

therefore remained in the hands of the Lords Justices, nominally

acknowledging the King, but in reality, devoted to the Parliament and

the policy of confiscation, and in those of the Marquis of Ormond,

entirely devoted to the King, but with some sympathy for the Catholic

nobility and gentry, especially those of the Pale, as he saw they had

been driven through despair at the threatened confiscation, to join the

Old-Irish in their uprising.

Reynolds and Goodwin had been sent over by the Parliament with £20,000,

to attempt to win over the English garrison. The King, when he heard of

their presence at the sittings of the Privy Council, denounced them as

rebels, and severely reprimanded the Lords Justices. Soon after, he sent

warrants for the arrest of Reynolds and Goodwin, but they had fled to

England.

Charles, by this time at his wits’ end for forces to check the growing

strength of the insurrection in England, had turned his thoughts to

Ireland, and determined to enter into negotiations with the Confederates

for a cessation so as to enable him to withdraw the English garrison

from Ireland. He had proposed to make Ormond Lord Lieutenant, but left

it to him to accept or decline the office. Ormond, however, advised him

“to delay the sending him an authority to take that charge upon him,”

and proceeded to the treaty with the Confederates as Commander-in-Chief

of the Forces. Amongst the reasons other than the King’s wish, which

influenced Ormond in seeking a cessation, were the almost complete

exhaustion of supplies of money and food for his troops. The £20,000

brought by Reynolds and Goodwin were spent, having for only a short time

barely sufficed, as Carte pithily puts it, “to give soldiers twelve

pence a week to keep them from drinking water.” Though Ormond had

defeated Preston at Ross, he had no provisions to enable him to keep the

field, and was at once obliged to return to Dublin with a starving army

clamouring for food and pay. The Lords Justices besought the English

Parliament to send money, but the Parliament wanted all the money they

could lay hands on, including that subscribed by the Adventurers for the

Irish War for their own war against the King, so that it may be truly

said that the liberties of the English people were literally paid for by

the spoliation of the Old-Irish and Anglo-Irish proprietors.

In January, 1643, Charles issued a commission to Ormond, Clanricarde,

and others, to treat with the Catholic leaders, and this step was, of

course, at once resented by the Lords Justices. The officers of the

English garrison made some protest, but weary of waiting for supplies,

which the English Parliament was unable to send, Ormond succeeded in

getting them to place their hopes in the King’s power to satisfy their

complaints. The King’s Commissioners and those of the Confederation met

at Trim on St. Patrick’s Day, 1643, and the latter presented their

Remonstrance of Grievances. In that document they described the

disabilities they were under on account of their faith, the exclusion of

their sons from University education and public employment, the tricks

and chicaneries of the Puritan officials striving to make fortunes out

of their unhappy position, Parsons being the worst of these; the boast

of Parsons and others, that Catholics would be forced to change their

faith, and the intention of the English Parliament to pass Acts for the

extirpation of the Catholic religion in the Three Kingdoms. It denounced

the misconduct of the Lords Justices, their dependence on the English

Parliament, the Confiscation Acts passed at their instigation, which had

forced the Anglo-Irish to take up arms in self-defence. It declared the

Irish Parliament completely independent of that of England, and that the

latter had no right to legislate for Ireland. That the Irish Parliament

had sunk under the Lords Justices to be a mere section of their own

partisans, where the majority of the members of the House dare not

appear. The document concluded by praying for a Free Parliament, in

which all matters affecting Ireland might be discussed irrespective of

Poynings’ Act, and that no Catholic should be, on any account, excluded

from sitting and voting. If these favours were granted to them, the

Confederates were ready to send an army of 10,000 men to England to

defend the King’s prerogative.

Against this remonstrance, the Lords Justices sent a strongly-worded

protest to the King against his entering into any treaty with the Irish.

They recalled the events of the first rebellion; the Irish did not

really care for their religion, but were so ungrateful for the care the

English had taken of them as to massacre 150,000 men, women and children

of that nation.

“Astounding as this statement was,” says Gardiner, “there was one point

in the argument of the Lords Justices which had been passed over

entirely by the Irish Commissioners. If the Irish, after all that had

passed, were suffered to consolidate their power, would they allow the

English to live on an equality with themselves?... Cynicism, however,

has seldom gone further than the cool anticipation of slaughter which

followed. They remember, say the writers, ‘that in the best of former

times the Irish did so exceed in number, as that the Governors never

cared or durst fully execute the laws for true reformation for fear of

disturbance, having some hope always by civil and fair entreaty to win

them to a civil and peaceable life; so if peace should now be granted

them before the sword or famine have so abated them in number as that in

a reasonable time, English colonies might overtop them.’ ‘No peace,’ the

Lords Justices repeated, ‘could be safe or lasting till the sword have

abated these rebels in number and power.’”

Ormond, while considering the proposals of the Confederates as totally

inadmissible, condemned the representations of the Lords Justices as

tending to countenance a scheme of extirpation iniquitous in the

attempt, and impossible to be executed.

Charles was desirous of coming to terms with the Catholics without

giving them any real power, so that he might strengthen his army in

England. Though the manner in which even the rumour of an Irish Catholic

army was received in England showed how dangerous it was for Charles

even to think of it, still, by entering into negotiations he might gain

time in Ireland, and be enabled to withdraw the English garrison—at any

rate, temporarily. He first dismissed Parsons, and appointed Sir Henry

Tichborne Lord Justice in his place, while Borlase, too old and

inefficient to be of consequence, was allowed to remain. The King next

authorized Ormond to treat for a cessation of arms for a year, and

privately wrote to him to bring over the Irish garrison to Chester as

soon as the cessation was agreed on.

The cessation was not, however, so speedily arranged as the King

desired, and the Confederates were not so anxious to see Charles enter

London in triumph as to forego the interests of religion and country.

The earlier negotiations were broken off on Ormond’s refusal of the free

Parliament asked for in the Remonstrance of Grievances. Nevertheless,

delay was favourable to the Confederates, and their power was still

extending over the country. In June, 1643, Ormond, conscious of his

desperate military position, “and,” as Gardiner thinks, “perhaps willing

to establish beyond dispute, the necessity of coming to terms with the

insurgents, told the Lords Justices that he was ready to break off the

negotiations if they could find any possible way of maintaining the

troops.” They were unable to help him in any way, and Ormond set out

once more, this time with the reluctant consent of the Castle

Government, to attempt to come to terms with the Confederates, but after

nearly three weeks of fruitless effort, he resolved to attack Preston

once more. Preston wisely avoided a battle, and Ormond’s army in a

starving condition, was obliged to retreat to Dublin.

Ormond and the Lords Justices had now no alternative but a cessation,

and knowing that the King was willing to treat for a free Parliament, he

prepared to resume negotiations. Some of the irreconcilables of the

Privy Council bitterly opposed any cessation, but on the King’s order,

Parsons, Sir John Temple, and others, were arrested as traitors to the

King for having sided with “my rebels of England.”

Amongst the Confederates, the nobility and gentry of Norman or English

extraction were willing to accept such terms as would restore to the

Catholic Church its former jurisdiction, and would give them, through

Parliament, the control of the Government and the assistance of the

King’s troops against the Puritan army under Monroe. They foolishly

believed that if the King “gained the victory over his enemies in

England (he) would have either the will or the power to support in

England the system which found favour at Kilkenny.”

The Old-Irish, especially of Ulster, and the clergy took a more accurate

view of the situation, and were against any cessation, as it would only

give time for the enemy to regain strength, and for disunion to spread

in their own ranks. In these opinions they were strongly supported by

Father Scarampi, who had recently arrived as Papal Legate. His views are

embodied in a document drawn up by those of the Old-Irish most in his

confidence, which is worth quoting at some length, as it is the whole

case of the national party as distinguished from those who thought more

of the King’s and the English interest, than that of their country. “We

should undoubtedly,” they say, “carry on our work to establish the

Catholic Faith, the authority of Parliament, and the security of our

country by arms and intrepidity, not by cessations and indolence. For

this there are the following reasons: That peace will ever be made

between the King and the Parliament is improbable, nor would it be to

our advantage, for if they combined, we should be necessitated to

surrender. It is likely, however, that before long one side will become

powerful enough to dictate to the other. If the Parliament prevail—which

God forbid—all Ireland will fall under their arbitrary power; the swords

of the Puritans will be at our throats, and we shall lose everything

except our faith. Should the King triumph, we may expect much from his

goodness and kindness, and much from the Queen’s intercession. It is

uncertain, however, what laws or terms may be imposed on us in such

circumstances. The King, should he succeed by the aid of the

Protestants, would be in a manner engaged to them. They, as usual, would

oppose freedom of religion in Ireland, and insist on the punishment of

our ‘rebellion,’ as they style it, to enable them to seize our

properties and occupy our estates. It would probably be thought a

sufficient concession to the Queen to allow us to return to the

miserable position in which we were before the war. On the other hand,

if we now adopt proper measures, the party eventually triumphing in

England will find us in arms, well provided, with increased territories,

and stronger in foreign succours. Thus they would not so readily invade

us, or swallow us up, so as to leave us without the free exercise of our

faith, or some share in the administration of the kingdom.”

“It was the banner of Irish nationality,” says Gardiner, “which was here

unfolded, and those who upheld it were at least not afraid to look in

the face the stern fact that no English party would willingly tolerate

the organisation of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, or the

organisation of a purely Irish Government. If the opportunity of

England’s divisions was to be seized to any profit, Ireland must become

a nation strong enough to hold its own. To gain for itself the sentiment

of patriotism, to cherish, in defiance of all assailants, its own

traditions and its own beliefs, would be worthy many a struggle and many

a defeat, if only, through suffering, it might be attained.”

The national party were not strong enough in the Assembly or the Council

to successfully oppose the cessation; Ormond was permitted to resume

negotiations, and the Articles for a Cessation for a year were signed on

September 15, 1643. A narrow district on the East Coast, another round

Cork, and such fortresses as were held by the Royal troops, were to

remain in the hands of the English Commanders. All the rest of Ireland,

outside Ulster, was in the power of the Confederates. If Monroe’s troops

accepted the Cessation, they were to share its advantages; if not,

Ormond’s army was to remain neutral, whilst the whole force of the

Confederates was to march against them, and the King was even to be

asked to allow Ormond to co-operate.

On these conditions, the Supreme Council agreed to pay £800 to relieve

the garrison of Naas and £30,000 in money or beeves for the use of the

regiments withdrawn to England in support of the King. The Confederates

were also to send Commissioners to Oxford to discuss with Charles the

terms of a permanent peace.

Such in brief was the Cessation, and from its very articles which prove

the Confederation not only masters of almost the whole of Ireland, but

so well provided with money and supplies as to be able to come

substantially to the assistance of the King, we can estimate their folly

in voluntarily throwing away a position they were never able to regain.

Ormond’s diplomacy had triumphed. He had prepared the ground for the

future sowing of dissensions in their ranks. He could now look forward

to helping the King with the Irish garrison whose cause with this

addition might triumph, and before the time expired, they could be back

in Ireland flushed with victory, replenished in every way, and easily

able to overcome the disunited insurgents. The Confederates had gained

nothing, but had placed themselves in danger of losing all. An Irish

writer declares “that the Puritans in Dublin did swear that if the Irish

did hold out for one month more all the Parliamentarians would have

deserted Leinster.... The enemy had no commander of any repute but

Ormond, Tichborne, Hume and Monk, while the Irish had O’Neill’s

victorious army ... ranging at pleasure in the counties of Meath and

Dublin and Castlehaven taking the garrisons whereunto he marched, the

enemy not daring to relieve any for fear of the Ulster (O’Neill’s) army.

All the Irish got by this bargain was the release of a few prisoners.”

It is necessary only to allude to the attempt made by Randal McDonnell,

Earl of Antrim, to raise by his own efforts 10,000 Irish soldiers for

the service of the King, as it had no effect on the course of events.

In March, 1644, the Confederates’ Commissioners arrived at Oxford to

treat with Charles for a permanent peace. Amongst the first conditions

submitted, they required that no standing army should be maintained in

Ireland, that all offices should be vacated whereby any titles to lands

were found for the Crown since the first year of Elizabeth, that all

attainders since that period and all grants and leases from the Crown

should be revised in a free Parliament in which they would form the

large majority. These conditions were found to be inadmissible by the

King, as practically meaning the extinction of his authority in Ireland,

and it is difficult to see how they could have been put before any

English King, and especially one in the difficult position of Charles,

with any hope of success. They accordingly modified their demands, and

now asked for the freedom of their religion, the repeal of the penal

laws which prevented them from holding public appointments, a free

Parliament, and the repeal of Poynings’ Law during its session, the

annulling of all Acts of the Irish Parliament since the prorogation of

7th August, 1641, to which they imputed the subsequent troubles, the

vacating of all outlawries and attainders against Catholics since that

date and of all offices found for the King’s title to lands since the

year 1634. They also demanded the establishment of an Inn of Court and

Catholic Colleges, a free and indifferent appointment of all Irish

natives without exception to places in the public service, that an Act

should be passed formally declaring the independency of their Parliament

on that of England. If these conditions were accepted by the King, they

were ready to send 10,000 men to his assistance, as well as money and

supplies. Though unwilling to agree to most, if not all, of these

conditions, Charles accepted the memorial for consideration as the basis

of a future treaty.

Agents were also nominated at the desire of the King to represent the

Irish Privy Council and the Protestant Royalists. These, headed by

Archbishop Usher, set out for Oxford, but before they could arrive, Sir

Charles Coote headed a Commission sent by the extreme Puritan party in

Ireland, and hastened to the King with a memorial praying that he “would

abate his quit rents and encourage and enable Protestants to re-plant

the Kingdom, and cause a good walled town to be built in every county

for their security, no Papist being allowed to dwell therein.” That he

should “continue the penal laws and dissolve forthwith the assumed power

of the Confederates, and banish all Popish priests out of Ireland, and

that no Popish recusant should be allowed to sit or vote in Parliament.”

Archbishop Usher protested against the intolerant demands of these

fanatics, but he desired that all the penal laws should be enforced and

all Papists disarmed. The King vainly represented to them how useless it

was to expect the Confederates, superior in power, and possessed of more

than three-fourths of the Kingdom, to resign themselves disarmed to the

mercy of those whom they have provoked by their resistance. Even in time

of peace, he said, the penal laws were too odious to be strictly

executed. It was, therefore, plain that no treaty with the Confederates

could be made “on the terms proposed by the Protestants, and it was

scarcely less evident that the most violent of this party,” in the

interests of the English Parliament, “laboured to obstruct a treaty upon

any terms whatever.”

However, Charles was keenly aware of his own necessities, and seeing

that of the three Irish parties, that of the Confederates alone had the

means to help him if they could be won over, treated their agents with

particular attention, and as Leland says somewhat disparagingly,

“answered their propositions with that courtesy and condescension which

he had been taught by his misfortunes.” He was willing to refer the

great difficulty of the independence of the Irish Parliament to be

temporarily decided by both Parliaments. He agreed to pass an Act for

removing the incapacity of Catholics to purchase lands and hold public

offices, and to allow them places of education. Instead of reversing

Acts of Parliament and attainders, he proposed to grant a general

pardon, and to assent to such an Act of Oblivion as should be

recommended by the Lord Lieutenant and Council. He was willing to summon

a new Parliament in Ireland, but without the suspension of Poynings’

Act. With regard to the penal laws, he contended that as they had never

been rigorously enforced, so his recusant subjects, in returning to

their duty, should have no cause of complaint that they were treated

with less moderation than in the two last reigns.

Though the negotiations were interrupted, the agents of the

Confederation were conciliated by these declarations of the King, and

said they confessed that, placed as he was, he could not well make

further concessions at present, and hoped that when their General

Assembly was aware of his situation they would modify their demands,

though they themselves had no authority to recede from them. The King

dismissed them with an admonition that would have had some weight from a

man of firmer and more trustworthy character, but even as he was, his

words were in a sense prophetic. He advised them to bear in mind his

circumstances and their own, “that the existence of their nation and

religion depended on the preservation of his just rights and authority

in England, that if his Catholic subjects of Ireland would consent to

such conditions as he could safely grant and they accept, with security

to their lives, fortunes, and religion, and hasten to enable him to

suppress his enemies it would then be in his power to vouchsafe such

grace to them as should complete their happiness, and which he gave them

his royal word he would “then dispense in such a manner as should not

leave them disappointed of their just and full expectations. But if, by

insisting on particulars which he could not in conscience grant, nor

they in conscience necessarily demand, and such as though he might

concede, yet, at present, would bring that damage on him which all their

supplies could not countervail ... if they should thus delay their

succours until the power of the rebels had prevailed in England and

Scotland then they would quickly find their power in Ireland but an

imaginary support for his interest or their own; and that they (the

English rebels) who with difficulty had destroyed him, would without

opposition root out their nation and religion.” The Confederate

Commissioners returned to Kilkenny, and Ormond was empowered by the King

to treat with the Supreme Council on the basis of the amended memorial.

Meanwhile the war dragged on between the Confederates and the Scots and

other adherents of the Parliament who refused the truce, while Ormond’s

garrisons remained neutral. In the South, Lords Inchiquin and Broghill

continued ravaging the country and capturing posts from the

Confederates. They expelled the Catholic inhabitants of Cork, Youghal,

and Kinsale, and wrote to the King asking him to proclaim the

Confederates as rebels “and that they were resolved to die a thousand

deaths rather than consent to any peace with them.” Supported now by the

Parliament which sent a fleet into the Shannon, and disappointed at the

King’s refusal to make him Lord President of Munster, Inchiquin soon

after openly joined the Parliamentarians, and adopting a canting style,

declared that “he was acting for the Gospel, and that if he died for it

he should be held as a perfect martyr.”

The negotiations for the peace with the Confederates were resumed by

Ormond in September, 1644, but it was soon evident that even if the

political articles could be rendered acceptable to both parties, the

religious ones promised to upset everything. The Irish demanded not only

the repeal of all laws that hindered their freedom of worship, but those

against appeals to Rome, and the portion of the Act of Praemunire

against Papal jurisdiction. Though Charles would agree that the penal

laws should not be enforced, he still would not consent to their repeal,

and was absolutely resolved not to alter the Acts of Appeals and

Praemunire. In this resolution he was strengthened by the action of the

Ormondist faction in the General Assembly headed by Lord Muskerry and

Geoffrey Browne. These declared privately to Ormond that they would

accept the King’s terms on sufficient guarantee being given that the

lives and properties of the Irish would be safe. They would not press

for the repeal of the penal laws which they thought would fall into

abeyance when Charles was restored to power. The King now yielded

somewhat and ordered Ormond to promise that the penal laws should be

suspended as soon as peace was made, and that if restored to his rights

by Irish aid, they should be absolutely repealed, “but all those against

appeals to Rome and Praemunire must stand.”

Ormond, feeling the difficulty of his position as a Protestant native of

Ireland with many connections amongst the gentry of the Pale, and,

perhaps, also, through a belief that the King would conduct the

negotiations without him, wrote offering to send his resignation, but

Charles would not hear of it, and urged him to complete the treaty.

While so many estimates have been formed of Ormond’s conduct and

capacity at this juncture by Irish partisans, it may be useful to quote

an English opinion. Gardiner, reviewing his conduct in these

transactions says: “Of all living men Ormond was perhaps the least

fitted to conduct that negotiation even to the temporary sense of which

it was alone capable. His virtues and his defects alike stood in his

way. He was too loyal to throw off his shoulders the load which Charles

had placed upon them, but he was at the same time so completely wanting

in initiative power that he never thought—as Strafford under similar

circumstances would assuredly have thought—of suggesting a policy of his

own, or even of criticising adversely the one imposed on him by his

master. Yet it ought to have been evident to Ormond that an Irish army

was not to be gained by haggling over the privileges to be accorded to

the true Irish Parliament, and the true Irish Church.” Even if the

10,000 men had been really forthcoming, they would have been of little

avail unless those Irishmen were heartily engaged in the King’s cause.

Before the Oxford negotiations were broken off Charles had had an

opportunity of winning their confidence. The English Parliament urged

Monroe to break the Cessation and sent him a commission as

Commander-in-Chief of all the English as well as the Scottish forces in

Ulster. He complied with their orders, seized Belfast, and defeated

Castlehaven’s army sent against him by the Supreme Council, who offered

to place all their forces under Ormond’s command if he would unite with

them against the Scots. Ormond refused to do so without the King’s

positive order, and at that time, Charles withheld. No doubt he was

afraid to take a step which would have cost him most of his army in

England; “But what,” says Gardiner, “is to be thought of a policy which

based itself on the co-operation of an Irish army in England when it was

impossible to grant to the Irish the co-operation of an English army in

Ireland?”

The King was apparently also sensible that some other intermediary than

Ormond would be needed to bring about the only end he had in view—the

strengthening of his army by any means against the Parliament. He soon

found, or, rather, had ready to his hand, one far more likely than

Ormond to come to speedy terms with the Confederate Catholics, and we

accordingly approach the consideration of a series of transactions in

which the King’s conduct has provided a fertile theme for discussion

Whatever may be thought of his mode of conducting these negotiations,

there is no doubt that nothing in his whole career injured him so much

in English opinion or contributed more certainly to his tragic end.

When the Irish agents were at Oxford Charles had already been discussing

his chances of Irish aid with Lord Herbert of Raglan, the Catholic son

of the Marquis of Worcester. He and his father had generously placed

their great wealth at the disposal of the King who had but lately

acknowledged having received no less than £250,000 from them. He now

conferred on Lord Herbert the title of Earl of Glamorgan by warrant, but

in order to keep the whole transaction private, though the warrant was

presented at the Signet Office, no steps were taken to render it valid

by patent. Glamorgan offered—and his offer was eagerly accepted by the

King—to induce the Confederates to enter into a private treaty for

bringing over the 10,000 men on terms more liberal than Ormond was

authorized to grant, he was also to bring 6,000 from Wales, and as many

as he could get from Lorraine and the Low Countries to Lynn in Norfolk,

where the Parliament’s Commander was ready to betray his post.

Glamorgan, sanguine of success, was to be the Commander-in-Chief of the

whole of this Catholic army. He chiefly relied on the Pope and other

Catholic princes whom he expected to eagerly support a scheme from which

the Church was to reap many advantages. The Commission to Glamorgan was

issued without the Great Seal, but he soon overcame that difficulty. Any

seal was good enough to show to Irish Confederates and foreign courts,

and it is believed that he and Endymion Porter cut off a genuine seal

from some other document. Charles, completely won over by the assurances

of Glamorgan that he would soon be furnished with the means of

overcoming all his difficulties, was ready to confer the highest

honours. He offered the hand of the Princess Elizabeth to Glamorgan’s

eldest son, and conferred on Glamorgan the higher title of Duke of

Somerset, though in the case of this title also, the legal formalities

were for the present avoided. Though Charles so highly appreciated

Glamorgan’s enthusiasm, he apparently did not credit him with much

discretion. In writing to Ormond that Glamorgan was about to visit

Ireland on his own private affairs, he added, “His honesty or affection

to my service will not deceive you, but I will not answer for his

judgment.”

Ormond was fully aware of the King’s resolve to conclude peace with the

Confederates on Muskerry’s conditions, and it was for this reason he had

tried to shift the responsibility for complying with them to some one

directly from England. Charles, as we have seen, refused to accept his

resignation, but he now sent Glamorgan to persuade those of the

Confederates who were opposed to peace on Muskerry’s terms, and to

assure them that the penal laws, though unrepealed, would never be

enforced. Charles desired that Glamorgan should be guided in everything

by the advice of Ormond, but so desperately resolved was he on getting

help from the Confederates, that he actually gave “the feather-brained

Glamorgan a commission to succeed Ormond as Lord Lieutenant in the event

of the death or misconduct of the latter; in other words, in the event

of his persisting in his refusal to carry out the negotiation on the

lines indicated by his last instructions.” At the same time it is

evident that Charles did not think there was any likelihood of Ormond

being replaced by Glamorgan, and that he counted rather on their working

heartily together. “You may engage your estate, interest and credit,” he

instructed Glamorgan, “that we will most readily and punctually perform

any our promises to the Irish, and as it is necessary to conclude a

peace suddenly, whatsoever shall be consented unto by our Lieutenant the

Marquis or Ormond, we will die a thousand deaths rather than disannul or

break it; and if upon necessity anything to be condescended unto, and

yet the Lord Marquis not willing to be seen therein or not fit for us

publicly to own, do you endeavour to supply the same.” Taken in

conjunction with the instructions to Ormond, it is plain that Glamorgan

was to act with him, but with powers to give the Confederates those

assurances which Ormond as a Protestant Royalist might not feel himself

free to give, that the penal laws would be suspended until peace was

declared and repealed as soon as Charles’s restoration to power would

make it safe for him to do so.

On January 6, 1645, Charles issued a Commission under the Great Seal to

Glamorgan to levy troops not only in Ireland but on the Continent, and

this was followed on the 12th by a letter to him in which the King said,

“So great is the confidence we repose in you, as that whatsoever you

shall perform, as warranted under our signature, pocket signet, or

private mark, or even by word of mouth, without further ceremony, we do

on the word of a King and a Christian, promise to make good to all

intents and purposes as effectually as if your authority from us had

been under the Great Seal of England, with this advantage that we shall

esteem ourselves the more obliged to you for your gallantry in not

standing upon such nice terms to do us service, which we shall, God

willing, reward.... Proceed, therefore, cheerfully, speedily, and

boldly, and for your doing so this shall be your sufficient warrant.”

These commissions and instructions of Charles can only be viewed as the

words of a desperate gambler willing to promise anything that would

provide him with another stake to hazard in the game. He was not,

however, dependent only on Glamorgan for Irish and Continental

assistance. His Queen, Henrietta Maria, had escaped to France, and was

actively engaged in procuring troops. She had been kindly welcomed by

the Queen-Regent, Anne of Austria, but the Prime Minister, Mazarin,

looked on her coldly. France, exhausted by her long but victorious

struggle with the Emperor for those Rhine Provinces she was again

destined to lose, was not in a position to make any effort from

sentimental motives to help Charles. Mazarin had also no interest in

seeing those troubles ended which prevented England from interfering

with his designs on the Continent. He therefore received favourably

Father O’Hartigan, the Confederate agent at Paris. His plans were such

as to lead to the practically complete independence of Ireland. Mazarin,

however, would not help unless everything was done in the name of

Charles, and with the approval of the Queen of England. O’Hartigan was

soon able to report that he had her support. A joint committee of

English and Irish Catholics had been formed in Paris and had resolved

that the Catholic Church should be first established in Ireland as a

step to its establishment in England. By this resolution it was hoped to

obtain considerable help in money from the Pope and other Catholic

princes, but it was not so much of the interests of the Church in

England O’Hartigan was thinking, as of Irish independence. Sir Kenelm

Digby was to go to Rome to solicit the help of the Pope. O’Hartigan,

writing privately to the Supreme Council at Kilkenny, recommended that

after the enemy had been expelled from Ireland, the long talked of Irish

army might be despatched to England to replace Charles on the throne.

There was another scheme in which the Duke of Lorraine was to play the

leading part. He had been deprived of his Duchy by Richelieu, and as a

Catholic prince of the Empire, had fought against France. Mazarin was

anxious to give his energies some other outlet, and told the Queen that

if the Duke could be induced to lead his troops into England, money

would not be wanting. The Duke engaged to enter England with 10,000 men,

and the Prince of Orange was asked to supply the ships to carry them, as

well as 5,000 the Queen was assured would be raised in France.

These projects—for they were never more than projects—show why Glamorgan

had a commission to raise troops abroad as Charles placed no faith in

O’Hartigan. O’Hartigan’s letter, in which he expressed his real hopes,

had been captured by a Parliamentary cruiser and sent to Ormond. Charles

therefore warned the Queen that O’Hartigan was a knave, and in a letter

to Ormond mentioned that the Prince of Orange had consented to supply

the ships for the continental troops. He urged Ormond to conclude peace,

and said that he would consider the Irish army a good bargain even if he

had to consent to Poynings’ Law being suspended, and to Ormond’s joining

the Confederates against the Scots; he would make no further concession

regarding the penal laws than he had already promised. A month later,

when his position in England had become still more critical, he wrote

“If the suspension of Poynings’ Act for such Bills as shall be agreed on

between you there, and the present taking away of the penal laws against

Papists by a law will do it I shall not think it a bad bargain, so that

freely and vigorously they engage themselves in my assistance against my

rebels in England and Scotland.” But even now Ormond was to make a

better bargain if possible, and not to mention these greater powers

except in the last extremity.

Even if Ormond were as willing as the King to make these concessions, he

had to carry on his negotiations with the help of a Privy Council that

would not be likely to view them favourably. For this reason the King

decided that Glamorgan should now start for Ireland with powers not only

as commander, but to enable him to treat with the Confederates “not

indeed without Ormond’s knowledge, but in substitution for him if it

proved to be necessary.” Charles gave Ormond a further commission with

full powers to treat with the Confederates in such matters as had to be

agreed to “wherein our Lieutenant cannot so well be seen in, as not fit

for us at present public to own.” He urged him to proceed with all

secrecy, and promised on the word of a King and a Christian, to ratify

whatever Glamorgan should grant to the Confederates, “they having by

their supplies testified their zeal to our service.”

In the meantime the King’s cause had grown much weaker, and it was

doubtful even if the Irish army could be landed in England, or, if

landed, whether it could be of any help. Not only was Charles severely

defeated at Naseby, but his private papers were captured at Sherburne,

and his instructions to Ormond made known to the Parliament. Glamorgan

on his arrival in Ireland found that a new factor had been introduced

into the negotiations by the General Assembly’s adoption of the demand

of the Catholic clergy that they should be confirmed in the possession

of the churches actually in the hands of the Confederates with the

property appertaining thereto as well as all derelict churches. The

Confederate Commissioners had been instructed to yield nothing on this

point, and as Charles refused to concede anything more than he had done

already, and as Ormond concealed his powers with regard to the penal

laws, the treaty again broke down. Glamorgan seeing that he could do

nothing with Ormond, accompanied the disappointed Confederate

Commissioners to Kilkenny, where he privately resumed the negotiations,

and acting on the very loosely-worded and wide instructions given him by

Charles on March 12, he concluded a secret treaty with the Confederates.

By this instrument, which comprised what were called the Religious

Articles, and which was signed on August 25, 1645, he agreed on behalf

of the King to the free and public exercise of the Catholic religion.

This, though set forth more definitely than Ormond would probably have

agreed to, may be looked on as not exceeding the terms Ormond was

authorized to grant. But in two other clauses Glamorgan’s treaty was far

in advance of anything Ormond would grant or to which indeed Charles had

consented, unless we regard the secret commission as empowering

Glamorgan to promise anything as long as he could get the troops Charles

so sorely needed. Glamorgan agreed that all churches fallen into the

hands of the Catholics since the rising in Ulster, and the derelict

churches “other than such as are now actually enjoyed by his ‘Majesty’s

Protestant subjects,’ were to remain in their possession.” Next, he

agreed that the Catholics were to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the

Protestant clergy, and their own clergy were not to be “molested for the

exercise of their jurisdiction over their respective Catholic flocks in

matters spiritual and ecclesiastical.” This naturally left open the

question of appeals to Rome, since there must be some authority over the

clergy to decide what were civil and what were spiritual cases, and it

was scarcely likely that the Confederates could consent to its being

vested in the King.

Charles had not heard of the question of the churches before Glamorgan

started, but when he did he wrote to him on July 31, and said he would

consent only to the Catholics building chapels for themselves, and

absolutely refused to allow them to retain any of the churches.

It seems probable that the King was sincere when he declared that he

would look on the giving up of the churches as the abandonment of his

religion, and that Glamorgan, eager to obtain the 10,000 men from the

Confederates, had exceeded his instructions, but hoped to have his fault

overlooked by Charles in view of the great assistance the Irish soldiers

would be to his cause. At the same time, Gardiner, who has discussed

this question very freely in his _History of the Great Civil War_, and

in a special article in the _English Historical Review_, does not make

sufficient allowance for the shifty vacillating character of Charles,

and it is quite permissible to assume that when he gave his general

instructions in such vague terms to Glamorgan, he contemplated the

possibility of having to disavow any action he might take under them,

while, if such action were not questioned by his enemies, he was quite

ready to profit by it. It would, however, seem that Glamorgan knew he

was acting in a way the King would very likely not agree to; for when he

signed the treaty he handed the Confederates another document called a

_defeasance_, in which he declared that he did not intend to bind the

King to consent to anything “other than he himself shall please, after

he hath received these ten thousand men being a pledge and testimony” of

the loyalty of his Irish Catholic subjects. This document was not to be

disclosed to Charles until Glamorgan had done all in his power to induce

him to agree to the religious articles.

On this point Gardiner says, “It was hardly within the bounds of

possibility that Glamorgan’s action should prove beneficial either to

his master or to the Irish people; but he was surely right in thinking

that if a military alliance was to be formed with the Confederates it

could only be by the acceptance of their own terms. It was childish to

expect the hearty co-operation of the Irish if their Church was to be

maintained in the position of a merely tolerated sect, the organisation

of which was in constant danger of a sudden application of the Statutes

of Appeal and Præmunire; and if the ecclesiastical lands and buildings

set apart for religious use by their ancestors, and now recovered after

a deprivation of less than a century, were to be forcibly torn from

them, and restored to the professors of an alien creed, from whom they

had nothing but persecution to expect.”

The Supreme Council of the Confederates at once proceeded to test the

new alliance they thought they had formed, and on August 29, asked

Ormond to join his forces with theirs against the Scots under Monroe in

Ulster, but Ormond gave no reply though pressed by Glamorgan, who

assured him that the Confederates would now send the 10,000 men to

England, and would resume the treaty for the political articles with

Ormond. Glamorgan begged Ormond to grant as much as possible and let the

Confederates appeal to the King for the rest. Ormond was, of course,

kept in the dark as to the secret treaty for the religious articles by

which the Confederates had been persuaded that they would get all they

wanted from Charles, so that they were willing to accept such instalment

as Ormond would offer.

The Confederates accordingly once more sent Commissioners to Dublin, and

the discussion with Ormond continued for another two months, but Ormond

refused absolutely to exceed his instructions or to yield anything in

matters of religion. On November 20, a few days after Rinuccini arrived

there, Glamorgan went to Kilkenny. He found the Supreme Council agreed

that if Ormond persisted in refusing the terms they demanded as to

religion, the political treaty should be published by itself whilst the

religious articles should be kept secret until ratified by Charles. They

also promised that the 10,000 men should be sent without waiting for the

King’s ratification, but Glamorgan was to swear not to employ them in

the King’s service until the religious articles were agreed to, and if

refused, he was to either compel his consent by force of arms or bring

the whole force back to Ireland.

We are now able to take up in its proper order the consideration of

Rinuccini’s mission. In the winter of 1644 the Confederates had sent

their Secretary Bellings to solicit help in money from the Pope and

other Catholic princes. He was favourably received by the new Pontiff

Innocent X, and was greatly surprised at hearing that the Pope would

send a nuncio who would act directly in his name and report to him

concerning the position of Irish parties. In the first instance the Pope

selected Luigi Omodei, but as he being a Milanese was a Spanish subject,

and his employment might give offence to France, and as the Pope wished

to be perfectly impartial between France and Spain, he selected Giovanni

Battista Rinuccini, Archbishop of Fermo, who, as a subject of the Duke

of Tuscany, could be regarded as neutral. Bellings, in after years, when

his thoughts were perhaps embittered by disappointment, said it was a

job to please the Duke of Tuscany. Rinuccini was born in 1592, a member

of a noble Florentine family, and at the time we speak of was in his

forty-third year. His father was Camillo Rinuccini, and his mother

Virginia, daughter of Pier Antonio Bandini, sister of Cardinal Ottavio

Bandini. He was educated first by the Jesuits in Rome and afterwards

went to the University of Bologna in his eighteenth year. Then he

studied law at Perugia, and took his doctor’s degree at Pisa, and

distinguished himself so remarkably that he was elected a member of the

Cruscan Academy though only in his twenty-first year. His first

appointments by the Roman Court were those of Chamberlain to Gregory XV,

and Secretary to the Congregation of Rites. When Urban VIII became Pope

he continued his advancement, and made him Civil Lieutenant to the

Cardinal Vicar, and soon after Archbishop of Fermo in 1625. At Fermo

Rinuccini seems to have found his most suitable sphere of work, for he

proved in all respects an excellent Archbishop, and was so loved by the

people and felt so true an interest in them that he declined the

metropolitan See of Florence in his native Duchy in 1631. In a religious

sense he appears to have been an eminently holy and good man, though

perhaps more than ordinarily imbued with the intolerant opinions of the

age he lived in. He had, moreover, but small knowledge of the ways of

men who live wholly in the world, and was absolutely ignorant of the

feelings of people in political matters who had always possessed

representative government of which he, as an Italian brought up amongst

the despotic courts of the Peninsula, had no experience. The Pope, it

must be remembered, was then a great temporal prince, and his government

was as despotic in practice as any in Europe. He, too, appears to have

shared the belief of Rinuccini, that it was only necessary to gain over

the Sovereign of a country, and that no regard need be paid to its other

inhabitants, heedless of the fact that where free institutions exist, a

king who is disliked or distrusted by his subjects soon ceases to have

any authority whatever. England was then leading the way in that

struggle for popular liberty which was to continue in revolutions and

bloodshed until our own time; but on the Continent at that epoch the

great mass of any population simply did not count in political matters.

To this ignorance and inexperience of Rinuccini’s of the feelings of men

like the Irish who had lived under representative institutions however

limited, and were striving to regain and extend them, must be attributed

much of his failure in dealing with Irishmen of various parties. He was

too autocratic in his methods, and being a man of resolute and

inflexible character, determined to bend others to his will utterly

regardless that such a course might cause him to lose many whom it was

his interest to conciliate. He had, moreover, an exaggerated sense of

his own dignity, and a fondness for details of etiquette, dress, and

ceremonial, which, though to some extent natural to one brought up in

the most ceremonious court of a ceremonious period, was carried by him

to a point bordering on the ridiculous. It must be said of him, however,

that though he had the ecclesiastical patronage of Ireland in his hands

for some years, his appointments were made in the interest of the

Church, and no charge of favouritism can be made against him. His object

was the restoration of the Church in Ireland “in its full splendour,”

and with this before him he did not pause to consider local feelings or

local experience of the difficulties in his way in an age and in

circumstances when such an enterprise could only be considered Quixotic.

From these characteristics it may be inferred how well fitted he was to

strike the final blows that broke up the newly-formed union of the Irish

nation.

For a hundred years the Catholic Church had been conducting the

counter-Reformation, and had already recovered the allegiance of a great

part of Europe. To Innocent X it appeared that the time was ripe for

restoring his spiritual authority in England. The Catholics there were

still a numerous and wealthy body and comprised amongst their leaders

many of the most ancient and most highly placed of the nobility, and

would afford a solid foundation for such a reconstruction. The difficult

position in which the King was placed seemed to render him a peculiarly

suitable object for overtures, and if he could be restored chiefly by

the aid of the Catholics and the Pope it was hoped that the Church might

gain great advantages if not complete re-establishment. We find in the

secret instructions given by Innocent to Rinuccini that these

expectations are clearly expressed, and show, moreover, how badly

informed the Pope was as to the true state of feeling regarding the

Catholic Church in England. In the concluding paragraph the Pope says:

“In fine, this rebellion in England has already caused so many divisions

in religion and so many disputes amongst the Protestants themselves,

that all who have some belief in a future life are beginning to waver,

and would become Catholics if they were not restrained by the fear of

losing their property and temporal comforts. If, then, by means of this

Catholic army, you can obtain from His Majesty the revocation of the

penal laws against the Catholics, the abolition of the proposed Oath of

Fidelity and freedom in religion, that is that the Catholics be able to

hold all appointments in the Kingdom and in Parliament like his other

subjects, we may hope in a few years for the conversion of the whole

Kingdom—a most important step towards the eradication of heresy from the

whole North, and without which the Irish can never hope to enjoy in

peace the conditions granted in favour of the true faith in Ireland.”

The Catholic army here referred to was to consist chiefly of the troops

who had for the past three years formed the subject of negotiation

between Charles and the Confederates. It is well to bear in mind the

Pope’s instructions with regard to this army as showing that both in his

eyes and in Rinuccini’s, the Irish were to be merely the convenient

instruments of the greater design. He says: “To ensure success in these

negotiations two points remain to be well considered; first, that the

requisite conditions be well weighed so that the services we hope from

this Catholic army be efficacious; the second, to facilitate by every

means the agreement between the King and the Irish.” The first of these

conditions may be reduced to the following articles:—

“1. That the Irish army shall never agree to land in England with

less than ten or twelve thousand effective men, that they may be

able to defend themselves without danger of being cut to pieces by

the English who serve under the King.

“2. That two sea ports be placed in their hands to disembark their

troops in England, and that those places be under the command of

persons in their confidence.

“3. That the generals of the army and all the officers ... besides

the governors of the said places be appointed by the Irish.

“4, 5. The fourth and fifth articles are unimportant and need not be

quoted.

“6. That permission and authority from the King be accorded to the

English Catholics to form themselves into a body of cavalry

proportionate in strength to join them when and where appointed by

the Irish general to serve in his army and under his command....

“7. That the Catholic general of this cavalry be a person whom the

Irish can entirely trust, and must, therefore, be first accepted by

their own general.”

That the political freedom of the Irish people, the independence of

their Parliament, the right of Catholics to sit therein, in fact the

political articles which the Confederates had demanded and which Charles

was willing to concede were altogether a secondary consideration in the

eyes of the Pope is evident from the following:—

“To facilitate the agreement between the King and the Irish, that

articles must be so framed that nothing essential to the full

establishment of the Catholic religion in Ireland be omitted;

matters of less moment may be remitted, in particular those tending

to changes in the Political Government, as they would, without any

doubt, retard the agreement.” This passage illustrates the

inexperience of the Pope of the power of a people with free

institutions, and that he had yet to learn that a people politically

free may follow any religion they please. It was scarcely likely

that the Catholics, possessing, as they inevitably would, a large

majority in the Irish Parliament, would long submit to the

disabilities under which they laboured in religious matters.

As to any aspirations for the complete independence of Ireland, the

Pope promptly threw cold water on them. In his letter of June 3,

1645, before Rinuccini left Paris, the Cardinal Secretary writes:

“Nor is he (the Pope) too well pleased with the rumours which are

spread by some Irish Catholics, that they desire to throw off their

allegiance to the King because he has not chosen to grant the

concessions they demand; and his Holiness would also desire that

they should speak with greater moderation of the articles of peace.

And, further, he wishes them to understand that he desires to see

them continue obedient to the royal power, hoping, however, that

from the King himself and from the protection of the Queen, they may

gain all they desire. To this end your Excellency’s persuasions and

warnings must be directed; His Holiness rests securely on your

prudence, whenever you can convey news to him of the Irish, whether

it be of rebellion or refusal of submission to the King, and that

you will warn your followers in this matter.”

It cannot, however, be doubted that the Pope was entirely within his

rights as head of the Catholic Church in endeavouring to promote its

extension and well-being, and, however ill-chosen the time and

circumstances, that this was his only object is plain from the following

passage in the same letter, as well as from his more formal

instructions: “Your Excellency is aware that the intentions of His

Holiness respecting the affairs of Ireland do not go beyond the limits

of pure benefit to the Catholic religion, and that your mission never

had, and has no other aims than to procure its free exercise, to restore

ecclesiastical discipline, and to reform the habits of the Catholics

relaxed by a long course of free living. In all that touches on the

civil government your instructions have been so framed as by no

possibility to excite the jealousy of either the King or Queen of

England; nor does the Holy Father work to any other purpose in spirit,

since he concerns himself solely in the propagation of the Catholic

religion without a single thought of prejudicing the temporal power of

anyone whatsoever.”

Unfortunately for the good intentions of the Pope, he was, by attempting

to seize this imaginary opportunity for an extension of his spiritual

authority, taking the most certain course to further prejudice the

already shaky temporal dominion of Charles I.

Rinuccini left Rome towards the end of March, 1645, and reached Genoa on

April 15. He was received with much honour by the Doge and Senate, and

writes to the Pope evidently with great pleasure of the ceremonies that

took place and the honours paid to him. “I was escorted from my house by

a cortège of almost all the nobility.... At the foot of the stairs four

Procurators met me, placed me in the midst of them, and conducted me to

the presence chamber, where the Doge waited. He descended four steps

from the raised part of the room ... and conducted me to the canopy on

his left hand, but to a seat a little lower than his own.”

Having left Genoa he proceeded by Marseilles and Avignon to Paris, where

he arrived towards the end of May, and was cordially received by the

Queen Regent, Anne of Austria, for whom he had a Golden Rose sent by the

Pope. This Rose was the subject of much correspondence, as there seems

to have been some doubt as to whether the Queen would receive it with

sufficient gratitude. He seems to have at once constituted himself an

extra Nuncio at Paris and entered on a lengthy correspondence on French

and Spanish affairs without the knowledge of the resident Nuncio. He has

been accused by Bellings and others of not wanting to go to Ireland, and

of intriguing to replace the Nuncio then at Paris. Mazarin evidently

suspected or accused him of some such design, for we find that though

Rinuccini’s letter is missing, the Private Secretary’s reply points out

that “no one can answer Cardinal Mazarin with greater force than Your

Excellency when he complains that His Holiness sent you to France, not

merely on your way to Ireland, but that you should adroitly contrive to

establish yourself as Nuncio in Paris,” and supplies him with the

reasons to be advanced in refutation of this charge. Some grounds were

doubtless given for Mazarin’s suspicions through the Pope as he

afterwards explained having inadvertently omitted to give Rinuccini

letters for the Nuncio at Paris.

Rinuccini had also been favourably received and encouraged by Gaston

Duke of Orleans, and by Condé, but nothing practical resulted from the

politeness of these princes. Mazarin, from whom he hoped considerable

help in money and ships, was very cautious, and his influence over the

Queen Regent was very great. The news of Naseby had completely damped

any ardour there may have been for the Irish cause as a means of keeping

England weak. Rinuccini found that the Queen Henrietta Maria of England

would not receive him publicly as Nuncio, because it was contrary to law

in England, and through fear of the harm it might do her husband in the

eyes of his Protestant subjects. He is much concerned about this, and

whether he should go to a private audience and if there uncover his

head. The Pope taking a larger and more sensible view of the matter

tells him:—“However, if the Queen either for fear of injuring the King

her husband, or for any private reason, does not think it well to

receive you at a public or private audience, His Holiness does not wish

her Majesty to have any trouble about the matter, since he will be

satisfied with any resolutions of a Queen so pious and so zealous for

the Catholic faith. I am, however, to add that should your Excellency

not be disposed to accept private audience, that you may not put in

doubt the prerogative of the Nuncio to appear covered before all queens

(even if in France at similar audiences a Nuncio does not appear

covered) still we do not see how any doubt can rest on the prerogative

whilst at all public audiences the right to be covered is established.”

With Secretary Bellings the Nuncio was on very friendly terms, but

perhaps because he was desirous to keep him with him so that he should

not reach Ireland first as he considered that Bellings would put the

interests of Charles I before those of the Pope. Scarampi, the Papal

Legate in Ireland, writing at this time says that if peace were

concluded between the English royalists and the Catholic Confederation

without Rinuccini’s consent, it would be fatal to the Church’s

interests.

Rinuccini prolonged his stay at Paris over three months. He had some

excuse for this delay, since in his letter of 3rd July, 1645, the Pope

says:—“A fortnight ago your Excellency was told if by chance the Queen

of France should give you any motive for remaining in that country, Your

Excellency might, under some pretext, prolong your stay in that country;

but since His Holiness sees that this has not happened ... he has

resolved that Your Excellency shall proceed on your journey in the

manner first arranged.” However, this hint was lost on Rinuccini, who

was evidently in no hurry to exchange Paris even for Kilkenny. It is

true he had, or at any rate made, many excuses on the score of

difficulty in finding shipping. However, the Pope became impatient, and

there is a marked change of tone in the succeeding letters. 14th

August—“Let Your Excellency go on your way rejoicing with the blessing

of the Holy Father upon you.” 21st—“Your Excellency will hasten your

going to Ireland; every day’s delay may produce the worst effects.”

28th—“If you have not already done so, you must set out.” 11th

September—“We await with much anxiety news of your Excellency’s arrival

in Ireland.” 18th September—“The displeasure of His Holiness increases

at your Excellency’s delay in your departure for Ireland, and he laments

to see that all the negotiations, missions and provisions which Your

Excellency has continued to introduce, tend still more to retard it. He

commands, therefore, that Your Excellency with all promptitude, shall

set out at once for that island, that you do not delay in any part of

France in expectation of letters or information from Spinola, whom you

have sent on before, much less wait until the frigates which were to be

provided by Invernizzi in Flanders to accompany you shall be put in

order.... The General Assembly, if they had known of Your Excellency’s

presence, would not perhaps have dissolved without coming to some

conclusion, and God knows from what they have lately done, if Your

Excellency be not there, whether they many not precipitately form some

revolution as little beneficial to the Catholic religion as to its free

exercise.” This seemed to have its due effect, for the Pope’s next

letter found Rinuccini in Ireland. It is an important document as

setting forth the view that must necessarily be taken by any person of

sound judgment of Charles’s negotiation through Glamorgan. The Pope

refers to a letter received from the Legate in Ireland describing the

powers possessed by Glamorgan and the conclusion of the secret treaty,

and goes on to say, “Father Scarampi having become aware of this

agreement, he remonstrated by letter not only with the Bishops, but also

with the Council ... on the small foundation they had in any

negotiations with the Earl, whilst the mandates which he had produced

were subscribed by the King and his secretary only, signed with the

small seal, and in consequence deprived of the necessary authority, the

King having no power in himself to dispose of the political affairs of

these kingdoms. The whole foundation of the negotiation, therefore,

rested on the Earl, which being made by another, could not bind the King

if he did not choose to be bound; moreover, being a convention made with

the Bishops, it would scandalise the world to see that in the published

articles of peace no mention was made of the Church, of ecclesiastical

property, or of the authority and jurisdiction of the Bishops, which all

remained at the mercy of the King, should he not wish to make peace or

observe it; and inasmuch as the Catholic laity when satisfied with the

articles which had reference to themselves, would not care to make a

stand for others however important, in which their own interest was not

involved, would have abandoned them. Although these reasons appeared

very strong to the Council and the Bishops ... yet they had remitted the

whole affair to the Earl, had declared themselves satisfied on their

part with his proposals on ecclesiastical matters, and consented to the

publication of the treaty of peace.... His Holiness commands me to say

that if by letter from Father Scarampi or from others to be relied on,

you are convinced that the peace between the Catholics of Ireland and

the King of England is established with the articles and in the manner

described, he will be content that you do not prosecute your journey to

Ireland, and that you shall wait for further orders from His Holiness;

but if the intelligence your Excellency receives does not convey the

assurance that the peace is certainly concluded, then you will at once

pursue your journey. But should the peace be established with these same

articles and in the manner described, then His Holiness desires that

neither Your Excellency nor Father Scarampi shall do anything to express

approval or disapproval, but remain, so to say, entirely passive.”

It is a curious thing that notwithstanding the Pope’s clear view of the

powerlessness of Charles’s position, he should have been willing to

treat with him at all.

Rinuccini writing from Limerick on October 25, gives an exciting account

of his voyage. He sailed from the island of St. Martin or Isle de Ré, on

Monday the 18th, and the wind being favourable, expected to reach

Waterford on Thursday. On Thursday, however, there was a fog, and owing

to its being full moon, the sea was so rough that it was thought better

to keep out to sea. In the grey of the morning on Friday they saw a

large vessel in full sail and a small frigate giving them chase. These

were commanded by Plunket, an Irishman, who, having joined the

Parliament, had been ordered to watch the approaches to Ireland. The

Irishmen with the Nuncio and Secretary Bellings in particular, knowing

the fate awaiting them if captured, immediately armed, resolved to

resist to the last. The Nuncio was ill in bed, the sea being no

respecter of persons, “my illness greatly aggravated, and already for

two whole days without any attendance whatever from my servants, as they

were prostrated by sea-sickness, and as little able to hear as to obey

any order.” Nevertheless, he felt his courage rise to a higher pitch

than ever before, and prepared in his own heart to give up life and

liberty in whatever way God should dispose of him, even if it seemed to

him necessary that he and those in his care should be carried captives

to London. However, his fortitude was not put to this test, for the

chase ended at nightfall. He attributes their escape to a miracle

obtained for him by St. Peter, whose image formed the figurehead of the

ship; but Father Meehan sententiously remarks, “that he must have

subsequently learned that the escape of his pursuers was still more

wonderful, for Plunket’s cooking galley having caught fire, and being

alarmed for his magazine, he was obliged to shorten sail and thus suffer

the San Pietro to escape.” The chase had driven them a long way to the

west and they had some difficulty in making the land, but they succeeded

next day in reaching Kenmare Bay, where they landed on the 21st of

October, 1645. His first lodging was in a shepherd’s hut, and he

remained there two days “not so much to repose after our trial as to

return thanks for our safety.”

Before leaving Paris he drew upon the Pope for 15,000 dollars; Cardinal

Antonio Barberius gave him 10,000, and Mazarin 25,000, altogether

50,000. 20,000 were spent for arms and munitions, and these were now

landed. The rest of the money was brought in specie. From Kenmare he

started for Limerick with an escort furnished by the Supreme Council and

the surrounding gentry. “On his journey he was much pleased at the fine

appearance, hardihood, and activity of the men and the beauty and

modesty of the women. He was amazed at the fecundity of the latter.

There were married couples, he reported with astonishment, which were

blessed with no fewer than thirty children still living, whilst he had

been told families of fifteen and twenty were quite common.” He was

hospitably received at Ardtully Castle by Donough M’Carthy and his wife,

a sister of Lord Muskerry and niece of the Marquis of Ormond. At Macroom

Castle he was received by the Lady Helena Butler, sister to Ormond and

wife of Muskerry, who was then in Dublin. These names are mentioned to

show incidentally the close connection between Ormond and the Anglo and

Old Irish proprietors. At Dromsecane he was met by Richard Butler,

Ormond’s brother, a member of the Supreme Council, at the head of two

troops of horse, thence by Clonmeen and Kilmallock to Limerick.

Limerick, hitherto neutral, had been persuaded by Scarampi to join the

Confederation, and the Nuncio was received with full honours by the

clergy, corporation, and the garrison. On November 12th he halted within

three miles of Kilkenny, and received a deputation of welcome from the

Council. Next day he entered his litter surrounded by a vast concourse

of people and set out for the city. He left the litter on approaching

the gate, and donning the Pontifical hat and cape mounted a richly

caparisoned horse. A canopy was held over him by leading citizens, bare

headed in spite of the rain which fell in torrents. At the Market Cross,

a beautiful structure erected in 1400 and destroyed in 1771 during the

oppression of the penal laws, he halted, and listened to a Latin

oration, and then on to the cathedral of St. Canice, where he was

received by the Bishop of Ossory. Here from the high altar he bestowed

the Pontifical Benediction and the _Te Deum_ was intoned by all present.

Having rested for two days he visited Lord Mountgarret and the Supreme

Council who then occupied the ancient castle of the Ormonds. “At the

head of the hall was seated Lord Mountgarret, President of the Council,

who rose as I approached, but received me without moving at all from his

place.” Rinuccini concludes his complaint to the Pope by saying that the

reception was arranged by Bellings as one acquainted with Italian

etiquette. The Pope replied that a hint should be conveyed to

Mountgarret in the shape of an account of the Nuncio’s reception by the

Doge of Genoa, who advanced four steps to meet him. Possibly Mountgarret

knew it already, but thought the representative of the Irish nation

should not condescend so much as the head of a small Italian Republic.

The Nuncio addressed the President and Council in Latin, and assured

them that the object of his visit was to assist the King as well as

procure for the people of Ireland the free and public exercise of their

religion and the restoration of the churches and church property. The

Council made a grateful acknowledgment in an address to the Pope.

Muskerry and the other Confederate agents were still in Dublin and did

not return to Kilkenny until the day after the Nuncio arrived. They

found that the old Irish had resolved to rely entirely on the Nuncio,

and the Pope, and such other Catholic princes on the Continent as might

be induced to help them. The two parties in the Confederation grew daily

more estranged, and henceforth were called “Ormondists” and

“Nuncioists.” Rinuccini had no trouble in persuading the Old Irish to

stand by him. They believed that notwithstanding his protests, he came

to form a grand Pontifical army, and that they could rely on the Pope

and through him on all Catholic princes for support and aid in throwing

off the yoke of England completely. The Nuncio’s comparison of the

intelligence of the two parties is not very flattering to the Old Irish.

“Nature even,” he says, “seems to widen the breach of difference of

character and qualities, the new party being for the most part of low

stature, quick-witted and of subtle understanding, while the old are

tall, simple-minded, unrefined in their manner of living, generally slow

of comprehension, and quite unskilled in negotiation.” And yet it was

these simple-minded men whom Rinuccini encouraged in breaking up the

Confederacy and in setting aside those whom from his own account by

their greater knowledge of affairs, and especially of England, were more

likely to justly estimate the chances for and against the success of the

Nuncio’s projects. Well has it been remarked of Rinuccini that “With

hazy notions as to the meaning or strength of party divisions in

Ireland, he made little allowance for local conditions in pursuing his

aim of securing the full predominance of the Roman Catholic religion.”

Glamorgan was courteously received by the Nuncio, who, taking him and

his credentials at once at their proper value, distrusted him and his

power to induce the King to ratify the religious articles. Glamorgan, on

the contrary, thought the Nuncio would throw no obstacles in the way of

either treaty, and wrote to the Lord Lieutenant that the political

treaty would be signed in a day or two. “I am morally certain,” he adds,

“a total assent from the Nuncio shall be declared to the propositions

for peace, and in the very way your Lordship prescribes.”

Rinuccini finding the Council on the point of coming to terms with

Ormond for the political articles, while the religious ones were to be

reserved under the secret treaty for the King’s acceptance, protested

against the action of the Council. He then set to work to gain control

of Glamorgan, who became as wax in his hands, and promised on behalf of

the King that even if Ormond accepted the political treaty, it should

not be published until Charles had confirmed his own secret treaty of

August 25th, and that he would demand their ratification as soon as he

landed with the Irish army in England. Rinuccini further induced him to

make what was practically a second treaty, by which the King was to bind

himself to never again appoint a Protestant Lord Lieutenant, that he

would admit the Catholic Bishops to sit in the Irish House of Peers,

pass an Act for a Catholic University, and grant the Catholics the

churches and ecclesiastical revenues, not only those re-captured by the

Confederates before the date on which Ormond’s treaty was signed, but

all those taken after that signature and up to the confirmation of the

religious articles by the King. Glamorgan, eager to lead 10,000 Irishmen

to the help of the King, was ready to promise anything, and as Chester,

the only port at which they could now be landed, was threatened by the

Parliamentarians, the Supreme Council agreed to allow him take an

advanced guard of 3,000 men there at once. But Glamorgan could not do so

until he had Ormond’s consent to his appointment as commander of this

force, and to the arrangement with Rinuccini by which the political

treaty was not to be published until the religious articles, of which

Ormond knew nothing as yet, had been ratified. To obtain Ormond’s

consent Glamorgan set out for Dublin on the 24th December. On the 26th

he was summoned before Ormond and the Privy Council on the demand of

Lord Digby. On October 17th the Catholic Archbishop of Tuam had been

killed at the siege of Sligo. On his body was found a copy of

Glamorgan’s treaty, which was at once sent by the Scots to London and

was thence forwarded to Ormond. Ormond at once saw that this revelation

of the King’s duplicity would be fatal to his cause with the English

people, and making a desperate effort to save the credit of Charles, had

Glamorgan arrested on a charge of treason in exceeding his instructions.

Charles took Digby’s advice and brazenly denied his instructions to

Glamorgan, and declared his “amazement that any man’s folly and

presumption should carry him to such a degree of abusing our trust.” The

comedy was sustained by Glamorgan’s declaration that he had made the

concessions on his own initiative through excess of zeal, and that what

he had done was in no way binding on the King. Charles, moreover,

disavowed Glamorgan in a letter to the Parliament, “That the Earl of

Glamorgan having made offer unto him to raise forces in the Kingdom of

Ireland, and to conduct them to England for his Majesty’s service, had a

commission to that purpose and to that purpose only. That he had no

commission at all to treat of anything else without the privity and

directions of the Lord Lieutenant, much less to capitulate anything

concerning religion or any propriety (_i.e._ property) belonging either

to church or laity.”

Of this disavowal Gardiner says, “It can be no matter of surprise that

Charles should have acknowledged what he could not help acknowledging,

and should have sought to cast a discreet veil over that which could not

be concealed. His really unpardonable fault was that after engaging on

such a negotiation with the Irish Catholics he should now have announced

his ‘resolution of leaving the managing of the business of Ireland

wholly to the Houses, and to make no peace there but with their

consent.’ What sort of peace the Houses would establish in Ireland he

knew full well. Rinuccini had looked into his heart and estimated his

motives to more purpose than Glamorgan.”

Nevertheless, in spite of the perspicuity with which Rinuccini had

examined the stuffing of this Stuart puppet he had urged the Supreme

Council to hold out for conditions which he should have known very well

Charles had no more chance of being able to grant than if he were an

inhabitant of another planet.

The Confederates had demanded the release of Glamorgan who had himself

made strong representations to Ormond that his imprisonment was a great

disservice to the King. He was released on bail and returned to Kilkenny

where he pressed the Council to complete the political treaty with

Ormond on which all parties were agreed, and to give him at once the

3,000 men for the relief of Chester. On the 29th September he wrote to

Ormond that the Council was only awaiting the meeting of the General

Assembly to be empowered to conclude the peace, and that the men were

ready to sail when the treaty was signed.

It is difficult to believe that Rinuccini could have had any real belief

in the King’s powers or those of anyone acting in his name; but whatever

the amount of his faith in the dwindling royal authority, it had at last

received a rude shock, and he accordingly passed into an opposite phase

of distrust. He now thought that Glamorgan by acting as agent between

Ormond and the Council had played him false, and that his whole object

had been merely to get the Irish regiments into England, leaving the

Irish to content themselves with the political articles. He endeavoured,

therefore, to prevent any agreement between Ormond and the Confederates,

the more so that he had received a copy of the Pope’s treaty with the

Queen, in which she had agreed to much more than anything Ormond or even

Glamorgan would have conceded. Sir Kenelm Digby had signed with the Pope

on behalf of the Queen a treaty by which the entire liberty of Catholic

worship and a completely independent Parliament were to be granted to

Ireland. Dublin and other towns garrisoned by the King’s troops were to

be handed over to Irish or English Catholics, while the forces under

Ormond were to join the Confederates against the Scots and English

Parliamentarians. As regards England the King was to concede everything

required by the Pope’s instructions to Rinuccini already quoted, and to

revoke all laws placing the Catholics in an inferior position to the

Protestants. This was to be confirmed by the next Parliament, and

meanwhile the Supreme Council was to send into England 12,000 infantry

under an Irish commander, and these were to be supported by 2,500 or

3,000 English Catholic cavalry. The Pope was to send 100,000 crowns,

about £36,000, on ratification of the treaty by the King, a similar

amount on the landing of the Irish in England, and the same payment

annually for two years if required.

Rinuccini therefore protested against any treaty with Ormond until it

should be known whether the Queen’s treaty was accepted by the King.

“Preposterous as these terms were,” says Gardiner, “Rinuccini was, from

his point of view, perfectly right in adopting them.” It is, however for

adopting such a point of view at all that Rinuccini is to be blamed. How

could he possibly place reliance on the desperate promises of a poor

fugitive wife eager to save her husband by any means when he had been

unable to trust her husband when his power was not so reduced as it had

since become! Glamorgan, now completely in the hands of Rinuccini, wrote

to Ormond urging him to accept the Queen’s treaty, and referring to the

expenses he had in equipping the troops which would come to £100,000. He

says “How cold shall I find Catholics bent to this service if the Pope

be irritated I humbly submit to your Excellency’s better judgment? And

here I am constrained ... absolutely to profess not to be capable to do

the King that service which he expects at my hands unless the Nuncio be

civilly complied with and carried along with us in our proceedings.”

This was an extraordinary letter to a man who if anything was

anti-Papal. Ormond replied that he did not know what was meant by the

advantageous peace to be obtained of the King by the Queen’s entreaties.

“My lord,” he continued, “my affections and interest are so tied to his

Majesty’s cause that it were madness in me to disgust any man that hath

power and inclination to relieve him in the sad condition he is in; and,

therefore your lordship may securely go on in the ways you have proposed

to yourself to serve the King without fear of interruption from me, or

so much as inquiring the means you work by. My commission is to treat

with his Majesty’s Confederate Catholic subjects here for a peace upon

conditions of honour and assistance to him and of advantage to them;

which accordingly, I shall pursue to the best of my skill, but shall not

venture upon any new negotiation foreign to the powers I have received.”

Glamorgan thereupon delivered himself up entirely to the Nuncio and

wrote a long Latin oath by which he swore him unlimited obedience. An

agreement was drawn up between the Nuncio and Glamorgan on the one hand

and the Council on the other, by which the cessation with Ormond was to

be extended to May 1, 1646, the extension being for the purpose of

allowing the Nuncio to obtain the originals of the Queen’s treaty, as

the Council had refused to support the new demands on the King merely

from the copy. Rinuccini agreed that if he could not produce the

original within the time he would be contented with whatever terms

Glamorgan might get from Charles.

In view of this temporary agreement between the Nuncio and the Supreme

Council, it seemed as if the troops could now start for Chester. On

February 24, 1646, Glamorgan wrote to Ormond that not 3,000 but 6,000

men would be sent, and that he was going to Waterford to hasten the

shipping. On March 8 bad news arrived. Chester had surrendered to

Brereton and the port was closed against Charles’s Irish army. Still

more ominous things happened at home, for a Parliamentary fleet had

sailed up the Shannon and seized Bunratty Castle, thus showing that the

Parliament felt itself so sure of overcoming the King it was at last in

a position to commence active measures in Ireland. The Supreme Council

wrote to Ormond that unless he would join forces with them they would

neither make peace at Dublin nor send an army to England. Still they

could not abandon the negotiation with the Lieutenant of a King who had

not the power, and probably not the will, to fulfil the engagements made

in his name. They now proposed to Ormond that the conclusion of peace

should be postponed to the middle of June, so that Glamorgan should get

ships together to carry the army to some port in Wales. In the meantime

Glamorgan would send his brother to get a confirmation of his own treaty

as to the religious articles from the King. If these were accepted, and

if Ormond would agree to join forces with them against the Scots and

Puritans, the Council would give him £3,000 for the pay of his troops.

On these terms Ormond signed on 28th March the peace on the

understanding that it was to be kept secret until the 1st May. The

articles which related to the civil government included some much-needed

reforms, especially the admission of Catholics and Protestants to office

on equal terms. Religious matters were postponed pending Charles’s

answer. The Confederates agreed to send the 10,000 men, of whom 6,000

were to start on 1st April, and the remainder on 1st May. Ormond gave

them a written promise that if the Confederates were attacked before the

latter date he would join them against their assailants. It was too

late. Like Chester, South Wales had now been occupied by the Parliament,

Cornwall as well, and there was not a foot of English ground on which

the army could land with any chance of maintaining itself. Officers and

men refused to leave Ireland. Charles himself wrote that “the foot was

to be kept back, as it would be lost if it should now attempt to land,

we having no horse nor ports in our power to secure them.”

In May Rinuccini went to Limerick to support the Confederate army

besieging Bunratty, and took credit for having, as he says, “adroitly

prevented” the despatch of 10,000 Irish infantry to Charles. It was not

much to boast of, helping the destruction of the man on whose

continuance of power both he and the Pope were relying for the

attainment of their religious aims. The original cessation of arms, when

the still united Confederates could have made themselves masters of the

whole country and treated with King or Parliament was a fatal error; but

having decided to back the King and prevent the rise of the power that

was destined to destroy them both, they should have helped him quickly.

By insisting on conditions which would only tend to make him more

unpopular in England, they had wasted valuable time and allowed their

intended ally to be weakened and their common enemy to gain strength.

The only merit Rinuccini had was that his delays prevented a useless

waste of Irish lives; but it is evident that was not in his thoughts

when pressing for the acceptance of the Queen’s treaty, as had that been

accepted he would have consented, would have been bound by the Pope’s

instructions to consent to the despatch of the troops. Charles, to do

him justice, was the only one to warn the Irish against starting on

account of the danger and uselessness of such a proceeding.

It has been necessary to enter into such a detailed account of these

important negotiations that space does not admit of more than a brief

reference to the chief events during the remainder of Rinuccini’s

mission.

He now set himself to work to annul the lately concluded peace, and

found a strong supporter in Owen Roe O’Neill, who with his followers

persisted in the belief that the Pope would help the Irish to shake off

the yoke of England. While we must sympathise with O’Neill’s

true-hearted and enthusiastic patriotism, we must remember the Pope’s

positive instructions to Rinuccini on that point. Rinuccini, moreover,

warned O’Neill against nourishing such hopes, and expressed his

annoyance at his calling his force the “Pontifical Army.” At the same

time the Nuncio was only too glad to make use of O’Neill to overthrow

the Confederation. After Owen Roe’s brilliant victory over the Scots at

Benburb, on the 5th June, Rinuccini supplied him with funds and

accompanied him to the siege of Bunratty, which surrendered in July.

Ormond’s peace was proclaimed in Dublin on 30th July and at Kilkenny,

but Rinuccini and the majority of the clergy procured its rejection at

Limerick, Clonmel, Waterford, and other places. The Nuncio held a

convocation of some of the clergy at Waterford, and on 12th August

declared that the Confederate Catholics supporting the peace were

perjured for having failed to obtain for the Church first of all such

terms as they had sworn to obtain by their Oath of Confederation. He

also issued an interdict against the places that had accepted it,

ordered their churches to be closed, and the sacraments refused to the

inhabitants. This exercise of his powers cost him a severe snub from

Rome. The Cardinal Secretary wrote: “Moreover, having seen a printed

paper, in which the authors and supporters of the peace between Ireland

and the Marquis of Ormond are pronounced to be perjurers and a protest

which the Ecclesiastical Congregation has made in these precise [Latin]

words, ‘For these and other reasons moved only by our conscience and

having only God before our eyes, that it may be known to all and

singular both in Ireland and abroad, we have not given and should not

give our consent to any such peace unless according to our oath it

contains conditions for Religion, for King, and for Country, etc., etc.’

And this paper is subscribed first by your Excellency and then by the

Archbishops, Bishops, and ecclesiastics of Ireland. It appears to His

Holiness and to us that in this your Excellency has departed from your

instructions, because it never was intended to maintain the Irish as

rebels against the King, but simply to assist them in obtaining the

assurance of the free exercise of the Catholic religion in Ireland....

From the specimen which I have taken from this printed document, in

which occurs the Latin words I have quoted, your Excellency will be able

to regulate your conduct on such other occasions as may present

themselves, and thus observe the tenor of your instructions.”

All the same Rinuccini returned to Kilkenny in triumph, imprisoned most

of the Supreme Council, and formed another entirely subservient to him,

of which he constituted himself the President. He next excommunicated

all adherents of the peace, though eight of the Bishops, including his

own nominee De Burgo, Archbishop of Tuam, and the Jesuits and

Carmelites, in fact all the regular clergy except the Dominicans and

Capuchins, held the censures to be invalid, and appealed against them to

Rome.

A plot was now formed for the escape of Charles from the Scots to

Rinuccini and the clerical party and the joint armies of O’Neill and

Preston, who were now reconciled by the Nuncio, marched to besiege

Dublin.

Rinuccini must now have not only a Supreme Council but a Lord Lieutenant

of his own. Glamorgan when first he arrived had brought a document

sealed with the King’s private signet appointing him Lord Lieutenant in

the event of Ormond’s death or misconduct, and Glamorgan now qualified

himself for the office of Viceroy by swearing complete submission to the

Nuncio. He would do no act without his approval, and would be ready to

resign his office at any time into Rinuccini’s hands. Rinuccini thought

the opportunity of installing him would soon occur.

Ormond’s position was indeed now desperate. The defences of Dublin were

dilapidated, and he had neither provisions nor ammunition. The King had

been surrendered to the Parliament by the Scots, his cause was hopeless,

and Parliamentary cruisers swarmed on the Irish coasts. Ormond

accordingly, having been always in the English interest, appealed to the

Parliament for help, and offered to surrender to them. Meanwhile O’Neill

and Preston quarrelled outright, and on a false alarm that Parliamentary

troops had arrived, the siege was raised. O’Neill and the Nuncio retired

to Kilkenny, while Preston remained and commenced still another

negotiation with Ormond. The Parliament had refused Ormond’s conditions

of surrender, and he was now willing to make a treaty which should unite

the English Royalists with the moderate Catholic party on the basis of

toleration under the King’s authority against Rinuccini on the one hand,

and the Puritans on the other. Rinuccini threatened Preston with

excommunication, and Preston who had boasted of being “excommunication

proof,” hastened to Kilkenny. Ormond then put an end to his anomalous

position by surrendering Dublin to the agents of the Parliament on July

28, 1647, and joined the other Royalist refugees in France.

Rinuccini’s supremacy in the Council did not remain long undisputed. The

moderate party were crushed only temporarily. On the meeting of the

General Assembly the old Council were released from prison, and the feud

between the two parties was more furious than ever, swords being drawn

in the council chamber. The Parliamentary commander of Dublin, Michael

Jones, marched to the relief of Trim and defeated Preston with a loss of

five thousand men and all his guns and baggage. In the South, Inchiquin,

at present for the Parliament, had taken Cahir, and attacked Cashel,

which he burnt, shooting hundreds of the inhabitants and twenty priests

who had crowded into the cathedral, and when attacked in his turn by the

Munster army under Lord Taaffe at Knockanos, the Confederate forces were

completely routed and their camp and artillery captured.

And now the whole scene became still more confusing, all parties

seeming to change into new and kaleidoscopic combinations. Inchiquin

who thought he had not been rewarded sufficiently by the Parliament,

and having after all more sympathy with Irish than English

proprietors, made overtures to Preston. Ormond was approached in Paris

and a coalition was formed against the Parliament between the moderate

Confederates and the Royalists. Rinuccini issuing excommunication

against all who countenanced this arrangement, fled to O’Neill’s camp

at Maryborough. Preston and O’Neill joined forces and there was civil

war between the Confederates. Jones, who suspected many of his own

troops of loyalty to Charles, was delighted at this, and so bitter was

the hatred between the clerical party and the moderate Catholics that

O’Neill and the Nuncio actually went so far as to treat with the

Puritan commander for help against their co-religionists at Kilkenny.

In October, Monnerie the French agent thought Rinuccini about to fly

from Ireland. “Your Eminence,” he wrote to Mazarin, “knows the

Nuncio’s inclinations”—doubtless his desire to be in Paris—“and I will

merely say that now he receives as many curses from the people as he

formerly did plaudits.” In September Glamorgan, now Marquis of

Worcester, sailed from Galway to France, and the Nuncio’s troubles

were increased by the appearance in October of O’Mahony’s _Apologetic

Discussion_ of his conduct. The Nuncio had the book condemned by the

magistrates. He returned to Kilkenny only to hear of the defeat at

Knockanos. Rinuccini found he had now but little authority, “being

now,” says Bellings, “better known, and his excommunications by his

often thundering of them grown more cheap.” He retired in disgust to

Waterford in January, 1648. Inchiquin took Carrick-on-Suir for the

Parliament in February, but declared for the King in April, and

endeavoured to come to terms with the Confederates on the basis of the

_Status quo ante_, until Ormond should return. Rinuccini, and in this

case he was perfectly right, refused to treat with such a

blood-stained traitor to every party, but the Supreme Council fearing

the growing strength of the English Parliament, in spite of the

Nuncio’s protests and threats, made a truce with Inchiquin. Rinuccini

at Kilkenny and supported by a majority of the Bishops, then

excommunicated all who adhered to the truce, and put the terms

concerned under an interdict. The Council appealed to Rome. Rinuccini

escaped by night from Kilkenny to O’Neill’s army at Maryborough and

thence to Athlone and Galway, where he convened a National Synod,

while the clergy opposed to him at Kilkenny declared his censures null

and void. The Jesuits, Barefooted or Discalced Carmelites and

cathedral clergy were opposed to him, while he was supported by the

Franciscans and Dominicans. He bitterly complained of the conduct of

the Jesuits, and charged them and their Provincial, Malone, with the

greater share of the blame for the loss of Ireland. He even went so

far as to declare the Irish people were Catholics only in name. In his

instruction to Father Arcamoni, who was to represent him in the appeal

to Rome, he says, “It may be, therefore, by the will of God that a

people Catholic only in name and so irreverent towards the Church

should feel the thunderbolt of the Holy See and draw down upon

themselves the anger which is the meed of the scorner.”

Ormond landed at Cork on Michaelmas Day, 1648, and on the 16th of

January, 1648-9 concluded a peace with the Supreme Council,

consolidating the Royalist interests in Ireland. The Council finally

renounced Rinuccini at the beginning of the negotiations, and ordered

him to “intermeddle not in any of the affairs of this kingdom.” The

Carmelites of Galway having resisted the interdict by which their church

was closed, Rinuccini ordered their bell to be pulled down. John De

Burgo, a nominee of Rinuccini to the Archbishopric of Tuam, supported

the Carmelites, and demanded the Nuncio’s warrant. “_Ego non ostendam_,”

said Rinuccini; “_Et ego non obediam_,” retorted De Burgo. The Nuncio

was blockaded in Galway by the Catholics Clanricarde acting with the new

Royalist Confederation, he being determined that no Synod should be held

in Galway in support of the censures. Rinuccini, who had kept a frigate

ready, seeing how useless it was to remain longer where he had worn out

his welcome, sailed for Havre on 23rd February, 1648-9. He did not

proceed to Rome until November. His agents had been supporting his cause

against Father Rowe, Provincial of the Carmelites, on the part of the

Supreme Council. Rinuccini was received with all the usual honours by

the Pope; but Innocent is said to have reproached him in private with

rash conduct. In March, 1650, the Pope granted power to certain Bishops

to absolve those who had fallen under the Nuncio’s censures, but a

general absolution was refused, as it would seem to make the Pope decide

that the censures were unjust. Rinuccini was warmly welcomed on his

return to Fermo, where he died of apoplexy in 1653.

We have now followed as far as possible within the limits allowed us the

history of this most distracting period, and before concluding it may be

well to glance back and survey its most distinctive features.

We have seen how the rising of the dispossessed clansmen in the North

furnished a pretext for the confiscation of practically the whole of

Ireland, irrespective of its share in the rebellion, and how the

Parliament was thus enabled to raise money for an invasion to extinguish

the Irish nation and put the Subscribers in possession of their

security. The Parliament diverted these funds to carrying on its own war

against the King. The Confiscation Acts united the hitherto discordant

Anglo-Irish and Old-Irish elements in a great national movement for

common defence against further religious persecution and further

spoliation by a wealthy and powerful neighbouring, but not neighbourly,

people. While they acted loyally together they had extended their

authority throughout the greater part of the country, and were so near a

complete conquest that the English power was brought so low that its

representatives were reluctantly compelled to sue for a cessation. A

section of the Anglo-Irish Confederates imagining themselves still

English, looking only towards England, and never dreaming that a day

might come when they with the poet Spenser’s grandsons would be forced

to transplant to Connaught as Irish Papists, urged the granting of a

truce, and though the Old Irish protested against this throwing away of

their advantages, they respected the Oath of Confederation too much to

make any violent opposition. By granting the truce, by negotiating at

all, the Confederates committed the fatal error from which their future

ruin followed. It is all very well to blame Ormond, but he was only

doing his duty to his sovereign and his party; the Irish had beaten him

to his knees, and their trusted representatives should have kept him

there until their position in Ireland at any rate was secured. Had they,

disdaining Ormond’s overtures, relentlessly pursued the war to an

entirely successful issue—and that they could have done so is evident

from O’Neill’s brilliant victory over Monroe at Benburb when their

strength was almost exhausted—they would have been in a position to

treat with King or Parliament; and, moreover, that Continental

assistance they vainly sought when through the Cessation their stability

had become doubtful, would not have been withheld. The Parliamentarians

in their struggle with the King showed better judgment. When their early

efforts for an accommodation with him failed, they destroyed him and

came to terms with his son. The Confederates should have avoided all

treaties until they were in a position to treat on their own terms with

either King or Parliament. On the whole, it might have been better had

they been in a position to treat with the latter; but whichever

prevailed, Ireland, even without foreign help, but with the prestige of

an armed and united nation like the Scots, would have been able to enter

into a confederation of the three Kingdoms on honourable conditions,

instead of being dragged in, gagged and bound, the victim of violence,

fraud, and corruption unsurpassed in the history of nations. The

Confederates, however, failed to take the tide of victory when it

served, and wasted their time in a series of futile negotiations with a

man who certainly had not the power, even if he had the will, to grant

them what they haggled for. There is nothing more sad in all Irish

History than to read that when Cromwell with a comparatively small army

had subjugated Ireland in a few months, 40,000 Irish “swordsmen” took

service in foreign countries. They had missed their chance.

Three things, says an Arab proverb, cannot be recalled: “The sped arrow,

The spoken word, The lost opportunity.”

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Bibliography

The following works have been freely availed of in preparation of the

foregoing paper:—

Gardiner: Hist. Great Civil War, 1642-1649. London, 1893.

Prendergast: The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland. 2nd edition. Dublin,

1875.

Carte: The Life of James, Duke of Ormond. Oxford, 1851.

An Inquiry into the Share which King Charles I. had in the transactions

of the Earl of Glamorgan, in which Mr. Carte’s imperfect account of that

affair and his use of the MS. Memoirs of the Pope’s Nuncio Rinuccini are

impartially considered, 1747. Brit. Museum, under Rinuccini.

Haverty: Hist. Ireland. Dublin, 1859.

Leland: Hist. Ireland. Dublin, 1814.

Walpole: A Short Hist. Kingdom of Ireland. London, 1885.

Gilbert, Sir J. T.: Contemporary Hist. Affairs in Ireland, 1641-1652.

Dublin, Irish Archæological Society, 1879.

Gilbert, Sir J. T.: Hist. Irish Confederation. Dublin, 1882.

The Aphorismal Discovery of Treasonable Faction. Ed. Gilbert.

Meehan: The Confederation of Kilkenny. Dublin, 1882.

Aizzi: Nunziatura in Irlanda di Monsignor G. B. Rinuccini, negli anni

1645-1649. Firenze, 1844.

Hutton: The Embassy in Ireland, etc. (Translation of foregoing). Dublin,

1873.

Dublin: BROWNE & NOLAN, LTD., Printers.

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● Transcriber’s note:

○ Missing or obscured punctuation was corrected.

○ Unpaired quotation marks were left as in the original text.

○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.

○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only

when a predominant form was found in this book.