few miles from Parsonstown. O'Brien of Inchiquin, Prince—as
he styled himself—of Thomond, no longer contented with his
principality of Clare, had thrown a bridge across the Shannon
five miles above Limerick, and was thus enabled to enter
Munster at his pleasure and spread his authority towards the
south; while the M'Carties and O'Sullivans, in Cork and Kerry,
were only not dangerous to the Earls of Desmond, because the
Desmonds were more Irish than themselves, and were accepted as
their natural chiefs. In Tipperary and Kilkenny only the
Celtic reaction was held in check. The Earls of Ormond,
although they were obliged themselves to live as Irish
chieftains, and to govern by the Irish law, yet … remained
true to their allegiance, and maintained the English authority
as far as their power extended. … Wexford, Wicklow, and the
mountains of Dublin, were occupied by the Highland tribes of
O'Bryne and O'Toole, who, in their wild glens and dangerous
gorges, defied attempts to conquer them, and who were able, at
all times, issuing down out of the passes of the hills, to cut
off communication with the pale. Thus the Butlers had no means
of reaching Dublin except through the county of Kildare, the
home of their hereditary rivals and foes. This is a general
account of the situation of the various parties in Ireland at
the beginning of the 16th century. I have spoken only of the
leading families. … 'There be sixty counties, called
regions, in Ireland,' says the report of 1515, 'inhabited with
the king's Irish enemies.'"
J. A. Froude,
History of England,
chapter 8 (volume 2).
See, also,
PALE, THE ENGLISH.
IRELAND: A. D. 1535-1553.
The reconquest under Henry VIII. and
the fall of the Geraldines.
The political pacification and the religious alienation.
"To Henry VIII. the policy which had been pursued by his
father was utterly hateful. His purpose was to rule in Ireland
as thoroughly and effectively as he ruled in England. … The
Geraldines, who had been suffered under the preceding reign to
govern Ireland in the name of the Crown, were quick to
discover that the Crown would no longer stoop to be their
tool. They resolved to frighten England again into a
conviction of its helplessness; and the rising of Lord Thomas
Fitzgerald followed the usual fashion of Irish revolts. A
murder of the Archbishop of Dublin, a capture of the city, a
repulse before its castle, a harrying of the Pale, ended in a
sudden disappearance of the rebels among the bogs and forests
of the border on the advance of the English forces. …
Unluckily for the Geraldines, Henry had resolved to take
Ireland seriously in hand, and he had Cromwell [Sir Thomas] to
execute his will. Skeffington, the new Lord Deputy, brought
with him a train of artillery, which worked a startling change
in the political aspect of the island. The castles which had
hitherto sheltered rebellion were battered into ruins. … Not
only was the power of the great Norman house which had towered
over Ireland utterly broken, but only a single boy was left to
preserve its name. With the fall of the Geraldines Ireland
felt itself in a master's grasp. … In seven years, partly
through the vigour of Skeffington's successor, Lord Leonard
Grey, and still more through the resolute will of Henry and
Cromwell, the power of the Crown, which had been limited to
the walls of Dublin, was acknowledged over the length and
breadth of Ireland. … Chieftain after chieftain was won over
to the acceptance of the indenture which guaranteed him in the
possession of his lands, and left his authority over his
tribesmen untouched, on conditions of a pledge of loyalty, of
abstinence from illegal wars and exactions on his
fellow-subjects, and of rendering a fixed tribute and service
in war-time to the Crown. … [This] firm and conciliatory
policy must in the end have won, but for the fatal blunder
which plunged Ireland into religions strife at the moment when
her civil strife seemed about to come to an end. … In
Ireland the spirit of the Reformation never existed among the
people at all. They accepted the legislative measures passed
in the English Parliament without any dream of theological
consequences, or of any change in the doctrine or ceremonies
of the Church. … The mission of Archbishop Browne 'for the
plucking-down of idols and extinguishing of idolatry' was the
first step in the long effort of the English Government to
force a new faith on a people who to a man clung passionately
to their old religion. Browne's attempts at 'tuning the
pulpits' were met by a sullen and significant opposition. …
Protestantism had failed to wrest a single Irishman from his
older convictions, but it succeeded in uniting all Ireland
against the Crown. … The population within the Pale and
without it became one, 'not as the Irish nation,' it has been
acutely said, 'but as Catholics.' A new sense of national
identity was found in the identity of religion."
J. R. Green,
Short History of the English People,
chapter 7, section 8.
ALSO IN:
R. Bagwell,
Ireland Under the Tudors,
volume 1, chapters 9-15.
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapter 30.
{1763}
IRELAND: A. D. 1559-1603.
The wars of Shane O'Neil and Hugh O'Neil, Earls of Tyrone.
The League of the Geraldines and the Ulster Confederacy.
"The Reformation begun under Henry VIII. was carried out with
pitiless determination under Edward VI., and was met by the
Catholics with unflinching opposition. Under Mary there was a
period of respite, but the strife was renewed with greater
fierceness in the succeeding reign. As authentic Irish history
begins with St. Patrick, so with Elizabeth modern Irish
history may be said to begin. … At her accession, Elizabeth
was too much occupied with foreign complications to pay much
heed to Ireland. Trouble first began in a conflict between the
feudal laws and the old Irish law of Tanistry. Con O'Neil,
Earl of Tyrone, had taken his title from Henry VIII., subject
to the English law of succession; but when Con died, the clan
O'Neil, disregarding the English principle of hereditary
succession, chose Shane O'Neil, an illegitimate son of Con,
and the hero of his Sept, to be The O'Neil. Shane O'Neil at
once put himself forward as the champion of Irish liberty, the
supporter of the Irish right to rule themselves in their own
way and pay no heed to England. Under the pretence of
governing the country, Elizabeth overran it with a soldiery
who, as even Mr. Froude acknowledges, lived almost universally
on plunder, and were little better than bandits. The time was
an appropriate one for a champion of Irish rights. Shane
O'Neil boldly stood out as sovereign of Ulster, and pitted
himself against Elizabeth. … Shane fought bravely against
his fate, but he was defeated [A. D. 1567], put to flight, and
murdered by his enemies, the Scots of Antrim, in whose
strongholds he madly sought refuge. His head was struck off,
and sent to adorn the walls of Dublin Castle. His lands were
declared forfeit, and his vassals, vassals of the Crown.
English soldiers of fortune were given grants from Shane's
escheated territory, but when they attempted to settle they
were killed by the O'Neils. Others came in their place, under
Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, and did their best to simplify
the process of colonization by exterminating the O'Neils, men,
women, and children, wherever they could be got at. After two
years of struggle Essex was compelled to abandon his
settlement. But other colonizers were not disheartened. Some
West of England gentlemen, under Peter Carew, seized on Cork,
Limerick and Kerry, and sought to hold them by extirpating the
obnoxious natives. Against these English inroads the great
Geraldine League was formed. In the reign of Mary, that boy of
twelve whom Henry VIII. had not been able to include in the
general doom of his house had been allowed to return to
Ireland, and to resume his ancestral honours, Once more the
Geraldines were a great and powerful family in Ireland."
Defeated in their first rising, "the Geraldines and their
companion chiefs got encouragement in Rome and pledges from
Spain, and they rose again under the Earl of Desmond and Sir
James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald. At first they had some
successes, They had many wrongs to avenge. … Sir Francis
Cosby, the Queen's representative in Leix and Offaly, had
conceived and executed the idea of preventing any further
possible rising of the chiefs in those districts by summoning
them and their kinsmen to a great banquet in the fort of
Mullaghmast, and there massacring them all. Out of 400 guests,
only one man, a Lalor, escaped from that feast of blood. …
With such memories in their minds, the tribes rose in all
directions to the Desmond call. … Elizabeth sent over more
troops to Ireland under the new Lord Deputy, Sir William
Pelham, who had with him as ally Ormonde, the head of the
house of Butler, hereditary foes of the Geraldines, and easily
induced to act against them. Pelham and Ormonde cut their way
over Munster, reducing the province by unexampled ferocity.
Ormonde boasted that he had put to death nearly 6,000
disaffected persons. Just at this moment some of the chiefs of
the Pale rose, and rose too late. They gained one victory over
Lord Grey de Wilton in the pass of Glenmalure [August, 1580].
… Grey immediately abandoned the Pale to the insurgents, and
turned to Smerwick [A. D. 1580], where some 800 Spanish and
Italian soldiers had just landed, too late to be of any
service to the rebellion, and had occupied the dismantled
fort. It was at once blockaded by sea and by land. In Grey's
army Sir Walter Raleigh and Edmund Spenser both held commands.
Smerwick surrendered at discretion, and the prisoners were
killed by Raleigh and his men in cold blood. Flushed by this
success, Grey returned to the Pale and carried all before him.
The Geraldines were disheartened, and were defeated wherever
they made a stand. … Munster was so vigorously laid waste
that Mr. Froude declares that 'the lowing of a cow or the
sound of a ploughboy's whistle was not to be heard from
Valentia to the Rock of Cashel.' Holinshed declares the
traveller would not meet any man, woman, or child, saving in
towns or cities, and would not see any beast; and Spenser
gives a melancholy picture of the misery of the inhabitants,
'as that any stony heart would rue the same.' … The next
step was to confiscate the estates of the rebellious
chieftains. … The estates of Desmond and some 140 of his
followers came to the Crown. The land was then distributed at
the cheapest rate in large tracts to English nobles and
gentlemen adventurers, who were pledged to colonize it with
English labourers and tradesmen. But of these labourers and
tradesmen not many came over, and those who did soon returned,
tired of struggling for their foothold with the dispossessed
Irish." During all this Geraldine or Desmond rebellion Ulster
had remained quiet; but in 1594 it began to show signs of
disturbance. "Hugh O'Neil, the grandson of that Con O'Neil
whom Henry VIII. had made Earl of Tyrone, had been brought up
at the English court, and confirmed in the lordship of Tyrone
by the English Government. In the brilliant court of Elizabeth
the young Irish chief was distinguished for his gifts of mind
and body. When he came of age he was allowed to return to
Ireland to his earldom. Once within his own country, he
assumed his ancestral title of The O'Neil, and revived all the
customs of independent Irish chieftains. For long enough he
took no part in any plots or movements against the Crown; but
many things, the ties of friendship and of love, combined to
drive him into rebellion.
{1764}
… Tyrone in the end consented to give the powerful support
of his name and his arms to a skilfully planned confederation
of the tribes. On all sides the Irish chiefs entered into the
insurrection. O'Neil was certainly the most formidable Irish
leader the English had yet encountered. … Victory followed
victory [that of the Yellow Ford, 1598, being the most
important]. In a little while all Ireland, with the exception
of Dublin and a few garrison towns, was in the hands of the
rebels. Essex, and the largest army ever sent to Ireland,
crossed the Channel to cope with him; but Essex made no
serious move, and after an interview with Tyrone, in which he
promised more than he could perform, he returned to England to
his death. His place was taken by Lord Mountjoy, who, for all
his love of angling and of Elizabethan 'play-books,' was a
stronger man. Tyrone met him, was defeated [at Kinsale, 1601].
From that hour the rebellion was over. … At last Tyrone was
compelled to come to terms. He surrendered his estates,
renounced all claim to the title of The O'Neil, abjured
alliance with all foreign powers, and promised to introduce
English laws and customs into Tyrone. In return he received a
free pardon and a re-grant of his title and lands by letters
patent. Rory O'Donnell, Red Hugh's brother, also submitted,
and was allowed to retain the title of Earl of Tyrconnel.
Elizabeth was already dead, and the son of Mary Stuart [James
I.] was King of England when these terms were made; but they
were not destined to do much good."
J. H. McCarthy,
Outline of Irish History,
chapter 4.
ALSO IN:
T. D. McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 8, chapters 3-11 (volumes 1-2).
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapters 32-35.
R. Bagwell,
Ireland under the Tudors,
volume 2.
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 4, chapters 1-5 (volume 2).
IRELAND: A. D. 1607-1611.
The flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster.
"With the submission of the Earl of Tyrone terminated the
struggle between the Tudor princes and the native Celtic
tribes. No chieftain henceforward claimed to rule his district
in independence of the Crown of England. The Celtic land
tenure, the Brehon laws, the language, customs, and traditions
of the defeated race were doomed to gradual yet certain
extinction. … Before Elizabeth was laid in the grave, the
object for which during so many years she had striven was thus
at length accomplished; … but between the wars of the Tudors
and the civil government of the Stuarts, still remain (the
intermediate link, as it were, between the two) the fall of
the able man who had created and so long conducted an almost
national resistance, and the colonisation by English settlers
of his demesnes and the adjoining parts of Ulster."
A. G. Richey,
Short History of the Irish People,
chapter 20.
"Lord Bacon, with whom ideas grew plentifully, had a
suggestion at the service of the new king as profitable as the
'princelie policie' which he taught his predecessor. He was of
opinion that a great settlement of English husbandmen in
Ireland, able to guard as well as to till the land, would help
to secure the interest of the Crown. Till this was done
Ireland was not effectually reduced, as Sir Edward Coke
afterwards declared, 'for there was ever a back-door in the
north.' The only question was where to plant them. O'Neill and
Tyrconnell had proved dangerous adversaries; they possessed a
fertile territory, and as their 'loose order of inheritance'
had been duly changed into 'an orderly succession,' they were
quite ripe for confiscation. But they had been ostentatiously
received into favour at the close of the late war, and some
decent pretence for destroying them so soon was indispensable.
It was found in a letter conveniently dropped in the precincts
of Dublin Castle, disclosing a new conspiracy. Of a conspiracy
there was not then, and has not been since discovered, any
evidence worth recording. The letter was probably forged,
according to the practise of the times; but where so noble a
booty was to be distributed by the Crown, one can conceive how
ill-timed and disloyal any doubt of their treason would have
appeared at the Court of James, or of the Lord Deputy. They
were proclaimed traitors, and fled to the Continent to solicit
aid from the Catholic Powers. Without delay James and his
counsellors set to work. The King applied to the City of
London to take up the lands of the wild Irish. They were well
watered, he assured them, plentifully supplied with fuel, with
good store of all the necessaries for man's sustenance; and
moreover yielded timber, hides, tallow, canvas, and cordage
for the purposes of commerce. The Companies of Skinners,
Fishmongers, Haberdashers, Vintners and the like thereupon
became Absentee Proprietors, and have guzzled Irish rents in
city feasts and holiday excursions to Ireland from that day to
this. Six counties in Ulster were confiscated, and not merely
the chiefs, but the entire population dispossessed. The
fruitful plains of Armagh, the deep pastoral glens that lie
between the sheltering hills of Donegal, the undulating meadow
lands stretching by the noble lakes and rivers of Fermanagh,
passed from the race which had possessed them since before the
redemption of mankind. … The alluvial lands were given to
English courtiers whom the Scotch king found it necessary to
placate, and to Scotch partisans whom he dared not reward in
England. The peasants driven out of the tribal lands to burrow
in the hills or bogs were not treated according to any law
known among civilised men. Under Celtic tenure the treason of
the chief, if he committed treason, affected them no more than
the offences of a tenant for life affect a remainder man in
our modern practice. Under the feudal system they were
innocent feudatories who would pass with the forfeited land to
the Crown, with all their personal rights undisturbed. The
method of settlement is stated with commendable simplicity by
the latest historian. The 'plantators' got all the land worth
their having; what was not worth their having—the barren
mountains and trackless morass, which after two centuries
still in many cases yield no human food—were left to those
who in the language of an Act of Parliament of the period were
'natives of the realm of Irish blood, being descended from
those who did inherit and possess the land.' Lest the
frugality of the Celts should enable them to peacefully regain
some of their possessions, it was strictly conditioned that no
plantator or servitor should alienate his portion, or any part
thereof, to the mere Irish. The confiscated territory amounted
to two millions of acres. 'Of these a million and a half' says
Mr. Froude, 'bog, forest, and mountain were restored to the
Irish. The half million acres of fertile land were settled
with families of Scottish and English Protestants.' It was in
this manner that the famous Plantation of Ulster was founded."
Sir C. G. Duffy,
Bird's-Eye View of Irish History, revised edition,
pages 74-78
(or book 1, chapter 4, of "Young Ireland").
{1765}
"The City of London had taken in hand the settlement of Derry,
which was now to be rebuilt under the name of Londonderry, and
to give its name to the county in which it stood, and which
had hitherto been known as the county of Coleraine."
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England, 1603-1642,
chapter 10 (volume 1).
ALSO IN:
T. D'Arcy McGee,
Popular History of Ireland,
book 9, chapter 1 (volume 2).
J. Harrison,
The Scot in Ulster,
chapter 3.
C. P. Meehan,
Fate and Fortunes of Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone,
and Rory O'Donel, Earl of Tyrconnel.
IRELAND: A. D. 1625.
The Graces of Charles I.
On the accession of Charles I., "one more effort was made by
the Irish gentry to persuade, or rather to bribe, the
Government to allow them to remain undisturbed in the
possession of their property. They offered to raise by
voluntary assessment the large sum of £120,000 in three annual
instalments of £40,000, on condition of obtaining certain
Graces from the King. These Graces, the Irish analogue of the
Petition of Rights, were of the most moderate and equitable
description. The most important were that undisturbed
possession of sixty years should secure a landed proprietor
from all older claims on the part of the Crown, that the
inhabitants of Connaught should be secured from litigation by
the enrolment of their patents, and that Popish recusants
should be permitted, without taking the Oath of Supremacy, to
sue for livery of their estates in the Court of Arches, and to
practise in the courts of law. The terms were accepted. The
promise of the King was given. The Graces were transmitted by
way of instruction to the Lord Deputy and Council, and the
Government also engaged, as a further security to all
proprietors, that their estates should be formally confirmed
to them and to their heirs by the next Parliament which should
be held in Ireland. The sequel forms one of the most shameful
passages in the history of English government of Ireland. In
distinct violation of the King's solemn promise, after the
subsidies that were made on the faith of that promise had been
duly obtained, without provocation or pretext or excuse,
Wentworth, who now presided with stern despotism over the
government of Ireland, announced the withdrawal of the two
principal articles of the Graces, the limitation of Crown
claims by a possession of sixty years and the legalisation of
the Connaught titles."
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 6 (volume 2).
IRELAND: A. D. 1633-1639.
Wentworth's system of "Thorough."
In the summer of 1633, Thomas Wentworth, afterwards Earl of
Strafford, was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. "It was
during his tenure of office as viceroy that he attempted to
establish absolutism in Ireland, in order that, by the thereby
enhanced power of the monarchy, he might be enabled to turn
the scale in favour of a despotic government in England. And,
never at a loss in the choice of his expedients, he contended
for his scheme with an energy and a recklessness
characteristic of the man. In the prosecution of his ends, he
treated some of the most influential English noblemen resident
in Ireland with the utmost indignity, simply with the object
of intimidating them, at the outset, from any further
opposition. One of them, Lord Mountnorris, was even condemned
to death on a charge of sedition and mutiny, merely for having
made use of a disrespectful expression with reference to the
lord-lieutenant, the representative of the sovereign. …
Every longing of the Irish Protestant Church for independence
was suppressed by Wentworth. According to his views, supreme
authority in Church matters belonged absolutely and
unconditionally to the king. He, therefore, abolished, in
1634, the 'Irish Articles,' which granted some concessions to
Puritanism, and which had been introduced by Archbishop Usher
in the reign of James I., and, at the same time, he united the
Irish Established Church indissolubly with that of England.
But above all things he considered it to be his duty to
increase the army, which had hitherto been in a disorganised
condition, and to put it in a state of complete efficiency; in
order to do this, however, it was of the first importance to
augment the revenue of the Crown, and in pursuance of this
object he disdained no means. He extorted large sums of money
from the Catholics by reminding them that, in case their
contributions were too niggardly, there still existed laws
against the Papists which could easily be put into operation
again. The City of London Company, which some years before had
effected the colonization of Londonderry, was suddenly called
to account for not having fulfilled the stipulations contained
in its charter, and condemned to pay a fine of £70,000. In the
same spirit he conceived the idea of obtaining additions to
the royal exchequer by a fresh settlement of Connaught; and,
accordingly, he induced the Government, regardless of the
engagements made some years previously at the granting of the
'graces,' to re-assert the claims it had formerly advanced to
the possession of this province. And now, as in the worst days
of James I., there again prevailed the old system of
investigation into the validity of the titles by which the
landed gentry of Connaught held their estates. Such persons as
were practised in disinterring these unregistered titles were
looked upon with favour, and as a means of inciting to more
vigorous efforts, a premium of 20 per cent. on the receipts
realized during the first year by the confiscation of property
thus imperfectly registered was guaranteed to the presidents
of the commission. With a cynical frankness, Wentworth
declared that no money was ever so judiciously expended as
this, for now the people entered into the business with as
much ardour and assiduity as if it were their own private
concern. … The collective titles of the province of
Connaught were at the unlimited disposal of the
lord-lieutenant; and, although, notwithstanding this result,
he, at the last moment, recoiled from the final act, and
shrank from ejecting the present owners, and re-settling the
province, it was not from any conscientious scruples that he
refrained from taking this last decisive step: to the man
whose motto was 'Thorough,' such scruples were unknown. …
Practical considerations alone … induced Wentworth to pause
in the path upon which he had entered.
{1766}
Just at that time the Crown was engaged in a contest with
Puritanism in Scotland, while, in England, the attempts of
Charles to make his rule absolute had produced a state of
public feeling which was in the highest degree critical. …
In view of these considerations, therefore, Strafford
postponed the colonization of the western province to a more
favourable season. While we turn with just abhorrence from the
contemplation of the reckless and despotic acts of this
remarkable man, we must not, on the other hand, fail to
acknowledge that his administration has features which present
a brighter aspect. … In the exercise of a certain
toleration, dictated, it is true, only by policy, he declined
to meddle directly in the religious affairs of the Catholics.
His greatest merit, however, consists in having advanced the
material well-being of the country. He took a lively interest
in agriculture and cattle-rearing, and by causing the rude and
antiquated methods of husbandry which prevailed among the
Irish agriculturalists to be superseded by more modern
appliances, he contributed very materially to the advancement
of this branch of industry. He also largely encouraged
navigation, in consequence of which the number of Irish ships
increased from year to year; and although it can not be denied
that he endeavoured to suppress the trade in woollen cloth,
from an apprehension that it might come into dangerous
competition with English manufactures, he, nevertheless,
sought to compensate the Irish in other ways, and the
development of the Irish linen industry in the north was
essentially his work. … The Irish revenue annually
increased, and the customs returns alone were trebled during
the administration of Lord Strafford. He was, accordingly, in
a position to place at the disposal of his royal master a
standing army of 9,000 men. … It was, therefore, no idle
boast, but a statement in strict accordance with the truth,
which he made when writing to Archbishop Laud on 16th
December, 1634: 'I can now say that the king is here as truly
absolute as any sovereign in the world can be.'"
R. Hassencamp,
History of Ireland,
chapter 3.
"Of all the suggesters of the infamous counsels of Charles,
Laud and Wentworth were the most sincere:—Laud, from the
intense faith with which he looked forward to the possible
supremacy of the ecclesiastical power, and to which he was
bent upon going, 'thorough', through every
obstacle;—Wentworth, from that strong sense, with which birth
and education had perverted his genius, of the superior
excellence of despotic rule. … The letters which passed
between them partook of a more intimate character, in respect
of the avowal of ulterior designs, than either of them,
probably, chose to avow elsewhere. … Laud had to regret his
position in England, contrasted with that of the Irish deputy.
'My lord,' he writes to Wentworth, speaking of the general
affairs of church and state, 'to speak freely, you may easily
promise more in either kind than I can perform: for, as for
the church, it is so bound up in the forms of the common law,
that it is not possible for me, or for any man, to do that
good which he would, or is bound to do. … And for the state,
indeed, my lord, I am for Thorough; but I see that both thick
and thin stays somebody, where I conceive it should not; and
it is impossible for me to go thorough alone.' … Every new
act of despotism which struck terror into Ireland shot comfort
to the heart of Laud. 'As for my marginal note,' exclaims the
archbishop, 'I see you deciphered it well, and I see you make
use of it too,—do so still; thorow and thorow. Oh that I were
where I might go so too I but I am shackled between delays and
uncertainties. You have a great deal of honour here for your
proceedings. Go on a God's name!' And on Wentworth went,
stopping at no gratuitous quarrel that had the slightest
chance of pleasing the archbishop, even to the demolishing the
family tomb of the earl of Cork,—since his grace, among his
select ecclesiastical researches, had discovered that the spot
occupied by my lord of Cork's family monuments, was precisely
that spot upon which the communion-table, to answer the
purposes of heaven, ought to stand!"
R. Browning,
Thomas Wentworth (Eminent British Statesmen, volume 2,
published under the name of John Forster).
ALSO IN:
S. R. Gardiner,
The First Two Stuarts and the Puritan Revolution,
chapter 5, section 4.
S. R. Gardiner,
History of England,
chapter 76 (volume 8) and
chapter 90 (volume 9).
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
volume 2, book 3, chapter 1.
T. Wright,
History of Ireland,
book 4, chapters 22-24.
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 5, chapter 1.
IRELAND: A. D. 1641.
The Catholic rising and alleged Massacres of Protestants.
"The government which Strafford had established in Ireland
fell with him, the office of viceroy was entrusted to some of
the judges, and shorn of the powers which gave it authority
over the whole country. The Irish army, which had been formed
with so much difficulty, and maintained in spite of so much
opposition, was disbanded without any attention being
vouchsafed to the King's wish that it should be allowed to
enter the Spanish service. … Under the influence of events
in England, government based on prerogative, and on its
connexion with the English hierarchy, as it had existed in
Ireland since Elizabeth's time, fell to the ground. This
revolution however might entail important results. The Irish
people was Catholic: while the Protestant settlers were split
into two hostile factions, and thereby the highest authority
in the land, which bore a really Protestant character, was
systematically weakened and almost destroyed, the thought of
ridding themselves of it altogether was sure to arise in the
nation. The steed, never completely broken in, felt itself
suddenly free from the tight rein which hitherto it had
unwillingly obeyed. … It was the common object of all
Catholics, alike of Anglo-Saxon and of Celtic origin, to
restore to the Catholic Church the possession of the goods and
houses that had been taken from her, and above all to put an
end to the colonies established since James I. in which
Puritan tendencies prevailed. The Catholics of the old
settlements were as eager for this as the natives. The idea
originated in a couple of chiefs of old Irish extraction,
Roger O'More and Lord Macguire, who had been involved in
Tyrone's ruin, but were connected by marriage with several
English families. The first man whom O'More won over was Lord
Mayo, the most powerful magnate of old English descent in
Connaught, of the house of De Burgh. … The best military
leader in the confederacy, Colonel Plunkett, was a Catholic of
old English origin. … Among the natives the most notable
personage was Phelim O'Neil, who, after having been long in
England, and learning Protestantism there, on his return to
Ireland went back to the old faith and the old customs: he was
reckoned the rightful heir of Tyrone, and possessed unbounded
popular influence.
{1767}
The plan for which the Catholics of both Irish and English
extraction now united was a very far-reaching one. It involved
making the Catholic religion altogether dominant in Ireland:
even of the old nobility none but the Catholics were to be
tolerated: all the lands that had been seized for the new
settlements were to be given back to the previous possessors
or their heirs. In each district a distinguished family was to
be answerable for order, and to maintain an armed force for
the purpose. They would not revolt from the King, but still
would leave him no real share in the government. Two lords
justices, both Catholic, one of Irish, the other of old
English family, were to be at the head of the government. …
The preparations were made in profound silence: a man could
travel across the country without perceiving any stir or
uneasiness. But on the appointed day, October 23, the day of
St. Ignatius, the insurrection everywhere broke out." Dublin
was saved, by a disclosure of the plot to the government, on
the evening of the 22d, by a Protestant Irishman who had
gained knowledge of it. "Several other places also held out,
as Londonderry and Carrickfergus, and afforded places to which
the Protestants might fly. But no one can paint the rage and
cruelty which was vented, far and wide over the land, upon the
unarmed and defenceless. Many thousands perished: their
corpses filled the land and served as food for the kites. …
Religious abhorrence entered into a dreadful league with the
fury of national hatred. The motives of the Sicilian Vespers
and of the night of St. Bartholomew were united. Sir Phelim,
who at once was proclaimed Lord and Master in Ulster, with the
title of the native princes, as Tyrone had been, and who in
his proclamations assumed the tone of a sovereign, was not at
all the man to check these cruelties. … With all this
letting loose of ancient barbarism there was still some
holding back. The Scottish settlements were spared, although
they were the most hated of all, for fear of incurring the
hostility of the Scottish as well as of the English nation.
Immediately there was a rising in the five counties of the old
English Pale: the gentry of Louth, under the leadership of the
sheriff, took the side of the rebels. The younger men of Meath
assembled on the Boyne, and commenced hostilities against the
Protestants: so completely had their religious sympathies
prevailed over their patriotism."
L. Von Ranke,
History of England, 17th Century,
book 8, chapter 7 (volume 2).
"Some reference to the notorious story of the massacre of 1641
is required, not because the account of it is true and is a
part of history, nor because it is false and needs refutation,
but because it is a State fiction, a falsehood with a purpose,
and as such deserves mention as much as the levying of troops
or the passing of laws. The record of the period is not the
history of a massacre, but of the deliberate invention of a
massacre. … No word of massacre had been heard of in the
first State document that referred to the so-called rebellion.
The Catholic lords of the Pale would never have united their
names and fortunes with those of murderers. … The royalists
again and again urged in their treaties with their opponents
that an investigation of the cruelties committed on both sides
should be made, and the proposal was always absolutely
refused."
W. A. O'Conor,
History of the Irish People,
book 3, chapter 1, section 5 (volume 2).
"There were few places of strength in Ulster which had not
fallen by the end of the first week into the hands of the
insurgents. Sir Phelim O'Neill already found himself at the
head of some 30,000 men, as yet of course undisciplined, and
but few of them efficiently armed; and it is not to be
expected that such an irregular multitude, with wild passions
let loose, and so many wrongs and insults to be avenged, could
have been engaged in scenes of war, even so long, without
committing some deeds of blood which the laws of regular
warfare would not sanction. … Life was taken in some few
instances where the act deserved the name of murder; but the
cases of this nature, on the Irish side, at the commencement
of the rebellion, were isolated ones; and nothing can be more
unjust and false than to describe the outbreak of this war as
a 'massacre'."
M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
chapter 37.
"This [Sir Wm. Petty's] estimate of 37,000 Protestants
supposed to have been murdered makes no allowance for those
who escaped to England and Scotland, and never returned to
Ireland. It seems to me more likely that about 27,000
Protestants were murdered by the sword, gun, rope, drowning,
&c., in the first three or four years of the rebellion. The
evidence of the depositions, after deducting all doubtful
exaggerations, leaves little doubt that the number so
destroyed could hardly have been less than 25,000 at all
events. But the truth is that no accurate estimate is
possible. After the Portnaw massacre the Protestants,
especially the Scotch, took an awful vengeance on their
enemies. Henceforward one side vied in cruelty with the
other."
M. Hickson,
Ireland in the 17th Century,
introduction, page 163.
ALSO IN:
T. Carte,
Life of James, Duke of Ormond,
book 3 (chapters 1-2).
W. E. H. Lecky,
History of England, 18th Century,
chapter 6 (volume 2).
T. Leland,
History of Ireland,
book 5, chapters 3-4 (volume 3).
IRELAND: A. D. 1643.
The king makes Peace with the rebels.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1643 (JUNE-SEPTEMBER).
IRELAND: A. D. 1645.
King Charles' treaty with the Catholics.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1645 (JUNE-DECEMBER).
IRELAND: A. D. 1646-1649.
The Rebels become Royalists.
"The truce [offered by King Charles to the rebels in 1643]
appears to have been well observed by each party, and resulted
in a treaty of peace which was signed in July, 1646, by which
the Roman Catholics obtained every demand which they put
forward. This peace was nevertheless at once broken, and
Ormond (who had been appointed Lord Lieutenant in January,
1643) was closely besieged in Dublin by a force, headed by
Cardinal Rinuccini, the Papal Nuncio, who had assumed the
command of the Irish Catholics. Finding himself in so
dangerous a position, Ormond, by express direction from the
king, offered his submission to the English Parliament, to
whom he surrendered Dublin, Drogheda, Dundalk, and such other
garrisons as remained in his hands. This transaction was
completed on the 25th of July, 1647, when Colonel Jones took
command of Dublin for the Parliament, and was made by them
Commander-in-Chief in Ireland; his total force however
amounted to but 5,000 men. The war now continued with varying
success, the commanders for the Parliament being, in addition
to Jones, Monk in Ulster and Lord Inchiquin in Munster;
{1768}
The latter in 1648 joined Ormond, who in September, upon the
invitation of the Catholics, returned to Ireland, the Papal
Nuncio having been driven from the country by his own party,
who were alienated from him by his folly and insolence. At the
end of 1648 there were therefore two parties in Ireland; the
Parliamentary, which had been the English, holding Dublin and
a few garrisons, and the Catholics, who, formerly rebels, were
now held as Royalists, and whose new leader Ormond, on the
death of Charles I., proclaimed the Prince of Wales, on the
16th of February, 1649, at Carrick, as King of England,
Scotland, France, and Ireland. The English Parliament now at
last resolved to put an end to disorder in Ireland, and with
this object, in March, 1649, appointed Cromwell to the supreme
command." Before Cromwell arrived in Ireland, however, the
Irish Royalists had reduced every garrisoned place except
Dublin and Londonderry, defeating Monk, who held Dundalk, but
being defeated (August 2) by Jones when they laid siege to the
capital. Though fought at the gates of Dublin, this was called
the battle of Rathmines, Ormond retreated with a loss of 4,000
killed and 2,500 prisoners.
N. L. Walford,
Parliamentary Generals of the Great Civil War,
chapter 7.
ALSO IN:
T. Carte,
Life of James Duke of Ormond,
books 4-5 (volume 3).
D. Murphy,
Cromwell in Ireland,
chapters 1-3.
IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.
Cromwell's campaign.
The slaughter at Drogheda and Wexford.
'When Cromwell arrived in Ireland at the head of 12,000 men,
he found almost the whole country under the power of the
Royalists (August 15th). A Parliamentary garrison in Dublin
itself had only escaped a siege by surprising the enemy on the
banks of the Liffey (August 2nd). The general first marched
against Drogheda, then called Droghdagh or Tredah, and
summoned the garrison to surrender; Sir Arthur Ashton, the
governor, refused; he had 3,000 of the choicest troops of the
confederates and enough provisions to enable him to hold out
till winter should compel the enemy to raise the siege. But
within twenty-four hours the English batteries had made a
breach in the wall, Oliver, after twice seeing his soldiers
beaten off, led them on in person and carried the breach. A
terrible massacre followed. 'Being in the heat of action I
forbade them,' Cromwell wrote in his despatch to the
Parliament, 'to spare any that were in arms in the town; and I
think that night they put to the sword about 2,000 men.' Of
these, one-half probably fell in the streets; the other half
Cromwell describes as having been slain at early dawn in St.
Peter's Church. This he looks upon as a judgment for their
previous proceedings there. 'It is remarkable,' he writes,
'that these people at first set up the mass in some places of
the town that had been monasteries; but afterwards grew so
insolent that, the last Lord's day before the storm, the
Protestants were thrust out of the great church called St.
Peter's, and they had public mass there; and in this very
place near 1,000 of them were put to the sword, fleeing
thither for safety. I believe all the friars were knocked on
the head promiscuously but two.' … Royalist accounts assert
that many hundreds of women and children were slain in St.
Peter's Church: It is, of course, possible that some of the
townspeople, fleeing thither for safety, lost their lives in
the general massacre of the garrison. There is, however, no
trustworthy witness for any lives being taken except those of
soldiers and friars. Cromwell did not sanction the killing of
any but those with arms in their hands, though he seems to
have approved of the fate of the friars. The fanatical zeal of
his letter, and the fact that he takes the full credit, or
discredit, for the slaughter of the garrison; makes it
improbable that he concealed anything; and this substantiated
by his subsequent declaration, in which he gives this
challenge:—'Give us an instance of one man, since my coming
into Ireland, not in arms, massacred, destroyed, or banished,
concerning the massacre or the destruction of whom justice
hath not been done, or endeavoured to be done.' With the
enemy's troops Cromwell carried out the determined mode of
warfare which he began at Drogheda. They were mostly scattered
over the country, occupied in garrison duty. Before whatever
town he came he demanded immediate surrender, or threatened to
refuse quarter. Town after town opened its gates to this grim
summons. Wexford, which refused to surrender, was stormed, and
the whole garrison, 2,000 in number, put to the sword (October
11th). … In other respects, while Cromwell's rigour and
determination saved bloodshed in the end by the rapidity and
completeness of his conquests, his conduct in Ireland
contrasted favourably on many points with that of the
Royalists there. His own soldiers, for ill-using the people
contrary to regulations, were sometimes cashiered the army,
sometimes hanged. When a treaty was made, he kept faithfully
to its terms. Garrisons that yielded on summons were allowed
either to march away with arms and baggage, or else to go
abroad and enter the service of any government at peace with
England. Before the war was over he had rid the country, on
these terms, of some 45,000 soldiers. Taking advantage of the
divisions of his enemies, he persuaded several garrisons of
English soldiers to desert the cause of Charles Stuart for the
Commonwealth. His conduct of the war was so successful that,
during the nine months of his stay in Ireland, the forces of
the Royalists were shattered, and the provinces of Leinster
and Munster recovered for the Parliament. Cromwell returned to
England in May, 1650, leaving his son-in-law Ireton to
complete the conquest of the country. The last garrisons in
Ulster and Munster surrendered during the course of the
ensuing summer and autumn. Ireton crossed the Shannon and
drove the Irish back into the bogs and mountain fastnesses of
Connaught, their last refuge, where fighting still continued
for two years after all the rest of the country had been
reduced (1651-2)."
B. M. Cordery and J. S. Phillpotts,
King and Commonwealth,
chapter 12.
"No admiration for Cromwell, for his genius, courage, and
earnestness—no sympathy with the cause that he upheld in
England—can blind us to the truth, that the lurid light of
this great crime [the massacre at Drogheda] burns still after
centuries across the history of England and of Ireland; that
it is one of those damning charges which the Puritan theology
has yet to answer at the bar of humanity."
F. Harrison,
Oliver Cromwell,
chapter 8.
{1769}
"Oliver's proceedings here [at Drogheda] have been the theme
of much loud criticism, and sibylline execration; into which
it is not our plan to enter at present. … To those who think
that a land overrun with Sanguinary Quacks can be healed by
sprinkling it with rose-water, these letters must be very
horrible. Terrible Surgery this: but is it Surgery and
Judgment, or atrocious Murder merely? That is a question which
should be asked; and answered. Oliver Cromwell did believe in
God's Judgments; and did not believe in the rose-water plan of
Surgery;—which, in fact, is this Editor's case too. … Here
is a man whose word represents a thing! Not bluster this, and
false jargon scattering itself to the winds: what this man
speaks out of him comes to pass as a fact; speech with this
man is accurately prophetic of deed. This is the first King's
face poor Ireland ever saw; the first Friend's face, little as
it recognises him,—poor Ireland! … To our Irish friends we
ought to say likewise that this Garrison of Tredah consisted,
in good part, of Englishmen. Perfectly certain this:—and
therefore let 'the bloody hoof of the Saxon,' &c., forbear to
continue itself on that matter."
T. Carlyle,
Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches,
part 5.
"Cromwell met with little resistance: wherever he came, he
held out the promise of life and liberty of conscience; …
liberty of conscience he explained to mean liberty of internal
belief, not of external worship; … but the rejection of the
offer, though it were afterwards accepted, was punished with
the blood of the officers; and, if the place were taken by
force, with indiscriminate slaughter."
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 5, with foot-note.
ALSO IN:
D. Murphy,
Cromwell in Ireland.
IRELAND: A. D. 1651.
The Massachusetts colonists invited to Ireland by Cromwell.
See MASSACHUSETTS: A. D. 1649-1651.
IRELAND: A. D. 1652.
The Kilkenny Articles.
"On 12th May, 1652, the Leinster army of the Irish surrendered
on terms signed at Kilkenny, which were adopted successively
by the other principal armies between that time and the
September following, when the Ulster forces surrendered. By
these Kilkenny articles, all except those who were guilty of
the first blood were received into protection, on laying down
their arms; those who should not be satisfied with the
conclusions the Parliament might come to concerning the Irish
nation, and should desire to transport themselves with their
men to serve any foreign state in amity with the Parliament,
should have liberty to treat with their agents for that
purpose."
J. P. Prendergast,
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,
part 1, section 2.
IRELAND: A. D. 1653.
The Cromwellian Settlement.
"By the term Cromwellian Settlement is to be understood the
history of the dealings of the Commonwealth of England with
the lands and habitations of the people of Ireland after their
conquest of the country in the year 1652. … The officers of
the army were eager to take Irish lands in lieu of their
arrears, though it does not appear that the common soldiers
were, who had small debentures and no capital, and no chance
of founding families and leaving estates to their posterity.
But the adventurers [national creditors, who had loaned money
to the government for the Irish War] must be first settled
with, as they had a claim to about one million of acres, to
satisfy the sums advanced for putting down the rebellion on
the faith of the Act of 17 Charles I. (A. D. 1642), and
subsequent Acts and Ordinances, commonly called 'The Acts of
Subscription.' By these, lands for the adventurers must be
first ascertained, before the rest of the country could be
free for disposal by the Parliament to the army. … Towards
the close of the year 1653, the island seemed sufficiently
desolated to allow the English to occupy it. On the 26th of
September in that year, the Parliament passed an Act for the
new planting of Ireland with English. The government reserved
for themselves all the towns, all the church lands and tithes;
for they abolished all archbishops, bishops, deans, and other
officers, belonging to that hierarchy, and in those days the
Church of Christ sat in Chichester House on College-green.
They reserved also for themselves the four counties of Dublin,
Kildare, Carlow, and Cork. Out of the lands and tithes thus
reserved, the government were to satisfy public debts, private
favourites, eminent friends of the republican cause in
Parliament, regicides, and the most active of the English
rebels, not being of the army. They next made ample provision
for the adventurers. The amount due to the adventurers was
£360,000. This they divided into three lots, of which £110,000
was to be satisfied in Munster, £205,000 in Leinster, and
£45,000 in Ulster, and the moiety of ten counties was charged
with their payment:—Waterford, Limerick, and Tipperary, in
Munster; Meath, Westmeath, King's and Queen's Counties, in
Leinster; and Antrim, Down, and Armagh, in Ulster. But, as all
was required by the Adventurers Act to be done by lot, a
lottery was appointed to be held in Grocers' Hall, London, for
the 20th July, 1653. … A lot was then to be drawn by the
adventurers, and by some officer appointed by the Lord General
Cromwell on behalf of the soldiery, to ascertain which
baronies in the ten counties should be for the adventurers,
and which for the soldiers. The rest of Ireland, except
Connaught, was to be set out amongst the officers and
soldiers, for their arrears, amounting to £1,550,000, and to
satisfy debts of money or provisions due for supplies advanced
to the army of the Commonwealth, amounting to £1,750,000.
Connaught was by the Parliament reserved and appointed for the
habitation of the Irish nation; and all English and
Protestants having lands there, who should desire to remove
out of Connaught into the provinces inhabited by the English,
were to receive estates in the English parts, of equal value,
in exchange. … The Earl of Ormond, Primate Bramhall, and all
the Catholic nobility, and many of the gentry, were declared
incapable of pardon of life or estate, and were banished. …
Connaught was selected for the habitation of all the Irish
nation by reason of its being surrounded by the sea and the
Shannon, all but ten miles, and the whole easily made into one
line by a few forts. To further secure the imprisonment of the
nation, and cut them off from relief by sea, a belt four miles
wide, commencing one mile to the west of Sligo, and so winging
along the coast and Shannon, was reserved by the Act of 27th
September, 1653, from being set out to the Irish, and was
given to the soldiery to plant. Thither all the Irish were to
remove at latest by the first day of May, 1654, except Irish
women married to English Protestants before the 2d December,
1650, provided they became Protestants; except, also, boys
under fourteen and girls under twelve, in Protestant service
and to be brought up Protestants; and, lastly, those who had
shown during the ten years' war in Ireland their constant good
affection to the Parliament of England in preference to the
king.
{1770}
There they were to dwell without entering a walled town, or
coming within five miles of some, on pain of death. All were
to remove thither by the 1st of May, 1654, at latest, under
pain of being put to death by sentence of a court of military
officers, if found after that date on the English side of the
Shannon." In the actual enforcement of the law—found
impracticable in all its rigor—there were many special
dispensations granted, and extensions of time.
J. P. Prendergast,
The Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,
preface, and parts 1-2.
ALSO IN:
J. A. Froude,
The English in Ireland in the 18th Century,
book 1, chapter 2 (volume 1).
J. Lingard,
History of England,
volume 10, chapter 6.
IRELAND: A. D. 1655.