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with this constrained order, so disrespectfully sent them, to forbear all further proceedings in it.

CHAP. IV.

Lord Digby arrives in Dublin, and causes the

confederates to be proclaimed.

peace with the

BUT that visible alacrity, with which the lord lieutenant and council obeyed this inhibiting order, was suddenly damped, by. the arrival of lord Digby in Ireland, on the 4th of the following month; who, upon hearing of it, and of their prompt compliance with it, wrote to his excellency," "that having received, by an express, the knowledge of his majesty's condition, and of his positive pleasure in the weightiest of his affairs, and particularly those of the kingdom of Ireland, he was commanded to signify the same, as secretary of state to his excellency. "Your excellency therefore," proceeds he, "is to take notice, that his majesty, having upon most positive engagements of the Scots, both unto himself and the crown of France, by the French agent residing with the Scots, received assurances from them in three points, namely, that they would not endeavor to force his conscience; that they would give a sure retreat among them to all his faithful servants, and adherents; and

1 Carte's Orm. vol. iii. fol. 480.

* Lord Digby in his delaration to the Irish privy council on this occasion, says, "that his majesty had redoubled his positive orders to the marquis of Ormond, both immediately before his coming from Oxford and since his being at Newcastle (from whence that prohibiting order of the 11th of June is dated), for the immediate perfecting of the peace in Ireland according to the articles agreed on, upon his dispensation with the condition also of the confederate Roman catholics of Ireland sending the men undertaken for them.”—Id. ib. fol. 491. Notwithstanding which Ormond confesses, in his and the council's answer to this letter of the 11th of June, 1646, that he might for some time at least, have not complied with it; for there he says, "he, the lieutenant, had a special direction from his majesty, sent him soon after his entrance into the government, that if any directions were brought him from his majesty, for doing any thing which he should find might beget inconvenience to his service, that he should, in such case humbly represent it to his majesty, and in the interim forbear to execute such his directions."-Id. ib. fol. 485.

lastly, that they would endeavor, by treaty, or by force, to restore him to, and establish him in his just rights; put himself voluntarily into their hands: but since, he hath found them so far from performing any part of their engagement, that they have used him, according to his majesty's own expression, barbarously; and have made him, from the time of his last said dispatch, which was the 2d of June, a prisoner of the strictest kind; having not only chaced from him the only person that accompanied him thither, but also set forth a proclamation of death against any who had served him during these troubles, that should presume to come among them; insomuch, that his majesty declares, that he hath no possibility left him, either of receiving any knowledge of his own affairs, but as his enemies shall represent them, or any advices from his faithful servants; much less to express his pleasure to them, in any way but what they shall force from him. And that, having with much skill and difficulty, obtained that secret means of expressing, in short, his sad condition, and his will and pleasure thereupon, the queen and prince, and all his faithful servants were to understand that, as the last free direction they were to receive from him; and that they should, in all things, pursue, and cause to be pursued steadily, those orders, that he had given before this time of his unfree condition: and that, in all things wherein he had not given directions, while he judged himself free, the prince his son should give, from time to time, such orders as should be judged best for the advantage of his crown and interests, without being diverted from it by any thing, that in his present restraint might be either surreptitiously or violently got from him. That particularly, for the business of Ireland, he had while he was free, redoubled unto his excellency such positive orders, for the conclusion of the peace, upon the terms expressed to him by his excellency, since the mutual signing of the articles, that he was confident it would be proclaimed, before his lordship could be back in Ireland."

CHAP. V.

Lord Digby insists on the proclaiming of the peace.

ON the 28th of July, 1646, to satisfy the council on this occasion, lord Digby drew up and signed a declaration, wherein after repeating what has been mentioned in the above letter, concerning his majesty's having redoubled his positive orders to the marquis of Ormond to perfect the peace with the confederates, and his own expectation, that it would, therefore, have actually been proclaimed before his arrival in Ireland; he added, that'" finding, instead thereof, a stop set upon the same, by occasion of a letter dated from Newcastle the 11th of June, supersigned Charles Rex, and attested Lanerick; and knowing by his majesty's free expression of his will and pleasure, and of his resolutions and designs in the whole state of his affairs, how contrary to his free judgment and will the same letter of the 11th of June is, and how destructive to all the foundations laid by his majesty for the recovery of his own, his crown's and pos terity's rights, whether by way of a good accommodation or of war, any obedience to the said letter in putting a stop to the peace of this kingdom, expected by his majesty, would be; I do, according to my duty, and as secretary of state, upon cer. tain knowledge of his majesty's resolution, and as I will answer it with my life,

"Declare unto his excellency the lord lieutenant and council of his majesty's kingdom of Ireland, that the said letter of the 11th of June, is either a surreptitious letter, or a forced one from his majesty; procured by some false information of the state of his affairs, and most contrary to what I know to be his free resolution and unconstrained will and pleasure. And I do

Carte's Orm. vol. iii. fol. 491.

Lord Digby, afterwards earl of Bristol, was secretary of state to Charles II. and privy-counsellor at the time of the interregnum. He was a zealous protestant, and wrote several pieces of controversy against the church of Rome; to which, however, he after the restoration became a sincere convert; having forfeited all his employments on that'account. He was a man of such fine parts, that Dr. Swift in one of his letters, styles him the "protope of Lord Bolingbroke."-See Grainger's Biographical History, vol iii, p. 23.

further declare with the same solemnity and engagement of my life, that if the peace of Ireland shall not be presently concluded, the hinderers of it are the occasion of subverting and destroying the main foundation resolved and laid by his majesty, for the recovery of his own, his crown, and posterity's rights, as aforesaid, whether by way of accommodation or war; for the preventing of which irreparable mischief, if there should be the least danger thereof by the scruples of any, I will freely take the whole matter upon myself, to answer to his majesty, as his secretary of state, with my life for this declaration of his will. And I do offer myself to be detained as a prisoner, where the lord lieutenant shall appoint, until such time as his majesty shall be at liberty to express freely and publicly unto the marquis of Ormond (after private letters received from the marquis of Ormond and myself) his unconstrained will: and then, if his majesty shall not justify me to have declared it faithfully, I submit myself to suffer death. And I desire, that this declaration of mine be entered in the council-book, for my justifica. tion, that I have discharged my duty, in case the mischiefs here set down, shall be occasioned by deferring the peace of this kingdom, upon the aforesaid letter of the 11th of June. In witness whereof, I have hereto set my hand, July 28th, 1646.

DIGBY."*

This declaration was accordingly registered in the council, book; and upon the same day a proclamation was published ratifying and confirming the articles of the peace; and enjoin ing all persons to observe and pay due obedience to it.

1 Cart. Orm. vol. i,

+ "George lord Digby was appointed by the English commons one of the managers of the charge against the earl of Strafford, who, when that earl excepted to the evidence of the earl of Cork at his trial, because he was his enemy, replied, that if that objection should be of any weight with the court, Strafford had found out a certain way to secure himself from any farther prosecution. Yet (adds my author) this man, who then spoke with so much vigor against him, soon after altered his language, and made a speech in the house in his favor, which he caused to be printed, and also surreptitiously withdrew a paper from the committee, containing the principal evidence against the said earl. The parliament resenting this preva❤ rication, ordered his speech to be burnt by the hands of the common hang, man."-Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 14,

CHAP. VI.

Owen O'Nial and the Nuncio reject the peace.

THE marquis of Ormond seemed not more unwilling to have the peace proclaimed, after it was agreed to, than desirous of an occasion to dissolve it, after it was proclaimed. Unhappily for both sides, such an occasion soon presented itself. The peace had been generally received by the confede rate nobility and gentry, and by the greatest and best part of their clergy, conformable in that respect, to the established clergy of Ireland; who, in a remonstrance to the lord lieutenant on that occasion, signed by two archbishops, nine bishops, and seventy-seven clergymen, "did most heartily acknowledge, that by his excellency's very great pains and labor, he had, at last, concluded a most necessary peace; which they humbly conceived to be the only means to continue the blessings of religion and loyalty among them; and to be the only hopeful way to reduce the kingdom wholely to his majesty's obedience."*

But the Nuncio Renuccini, and general Owen O'Nial, absolutely refused to submit it; the former, because there was no provision made for the free exercise of the catholic religion;† without which the confederates were engaged by their oath of association, never to conclude a peace; and the latter, on the same account, as well as that no stipulation was made for restoring him, and his numerous followers to their forfeited estates in Ulster. The Nuncio alleged besides, that the commissioners who had concluded the peace, did not, according

1 Bor. Hist. of the Irish Rebel.

Yet Carte does not scruple to say, "that the protestants shewed tha greatest aversion to that peace."-Life of Ormond, vol. ii. fol. 10.

Yet," the pope himself (says Dr. Leland) had declared, that a connivance was all that could at present be reasonably demanded,”—Hist. of Irel. vol. iii. p. 277.

" Over and above those demands which concerned religion, to which they seemed to adhere with more than ordinary zeal, and thereby drew a dependency of the clergy to them, they insisted upon the restitution of the great estates in Ulster, which was not in the power of the crown to make." Borl, Hist. of the Irish Rebel. fol. 313. Clarendon,

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