to parliament, and Charles basely protested upon the word of a king and a Christian, that he had never given to the Earl of Glamorgan those commissions and powers, which he was then known by many, and now is known by all, to have repeatedly given. This colourable commitment of Glamorgan was not of long duration he was discharged upon his own and the Earl of Kildare's recognisance; the confederates having peremptorily insisted upon breaking off the treaty for peace, until he should be discharged.* Little can it be wondered at, that the confederated Irish, after having been thus deluded and betrayed by their sovereign, should in their subsequent negotiations require some more stable security for the performance of articles agreed to, than the word of a monarch so frequently violated in their regard. Under these circumstances, a very serious ground of difference, if not dissension arose amongst them, which retarded the conclusion of the peace, and greatly weakened their power: this internal division of the Catholics was most actively fomented by Ormond. The nuncio and a considerable party of the confederates objected against the conclusion of any peace, which had future concession for its basis: but there was no limitation to the confidence which the majority of them still placed in the promises of the king and his lieutenant. Nevertheless, however divided they were upon this and some other less important points, they all unanimously to the last adhered with inviolable attachment staunch to the royal cause.† Whereas Ormond not only resisted their pressing solicitations to lead them against the king's enemies, but the urgent importunities of his friend Lord Clanrickard, to place himself at the head of the confederates and immediately proceed against Sir Charles Coote, and the other parliamentarian rebels, who were daily violating the cessation, and committing the most barbarous hostilities against * Few instances of more Machiavilian policy occur in history, than in the conduct of Ormond, excepting that he never completely dissembled his execration of the Catholics. Dr. Leland frankly admits, that notwithstanding this colourable commitment, Ormond continued to regard Glamorgan as really entrusted by the king, and empowered to negotiate in his name. In proof of this be favours us with the letter written to the Earl of Glamorgan soon after his discharge, the original of which he had in his possession. (Vide App. No. XXXVI.) The same author adds, that both Ormond and Digby always regarded Glamorgan "as duly authorized by the king: and treated and ad"dressed him as a person still enjoying the royal favour and confidence. And “that he did still enjoy them in a very high degree, there is direct and positive proof in those letters extant amongst the Harleian manuscripts, in which "Charles assures him of the continuance of his friendship, and promises to "make good all his instructions and promises to him and the nuncio." (3 Lel. 283, 4, 5.) Vide some of these letters in Appendix, No. XXXVII. With reason then did King Charles express himself in a letter to Ormond only two days before the peace was concluded, that if the kingdom of Ireland were in perfect obedience," it is possible it may please God to restore me to "the other two, or be a safe retreat for myself." (C. O. 3 vol. p. 451.) the adherents to the royal cause: and finally even delivered up his sword, the castle, and king's authority to the commissioners of the parliamentarian rebels. In this disgraceful negotiation with parliament, Ormond acted with full reflection, and with the most interested views to his own domestic concerns; having stipulated with them for the price of his base surrender, viz. 5000l. in hand, 2000l. a year for five years successively, and a total release and discharge of all incumbrances upon his estates (which were very heavy) up to the time of the insurrection..... The spirit and motive with which he thus infamously betrayed the trust and authority of his royal master, appear more fully from the conduct of the Irish parliament, which was then sitting, towards him. Both houses addressed to him a vote of thanks for his excellency's treaty with the English rebels: in which they set forth, that his proceedings therein being such a free earnest of his excellency's love to their religion, nation and both houses, did incite them to come unto him with hearts filled with his love, and tongues declaring how much they were obliged unto his excellency. And that in order to perpetuate unto pos terity the memory of his excellency's merits, and their thankfulness, they had appointed that instrument to be entered into both houses, and under the hands of both speakers to be presented to his lordship. To which address his excellency answered, that this acknowledgment of theirs was unto him a jewel of very great value, which he should lay up amongst his choicest treasures: it being an antidote against the virulency of those tongues and pens, he was well assured would be busily set to work to traduce and blast the integrity of his present proceeding for their preservation.† Soon after these parliamentary compliments He had previously boasted to Colonel Leyburne who had come over with a confidential commissioner from the king, "that if there should be a neces"sity, he would give up those places under his command to the English rather "than the Irish rebels, of which opinion he thought every good Englishman "was." Immediately before Ormond delivered up the sword to the parlia ment commissioners, Alderman Smith, then Mayor of Dublin, aged near eighty years, a man of great integrity and loyalty, came to the council table, and acquainted my lord of Ormond, that it was generally reported in town, and spread so far as no man doubted it, that his excellency intended to deliver up the government to the parliament: that he came to acquaint his lordship, that himself was entrusted with the king's sword of the city, and that he would not resign it to rebels. Whereupon my lord of Ormond gave him some check and ordered him to withdraw: but upon further consideration his lordship and the council thought fit to call him in again, and to commend him for the resolution he had shewn in maintaining his majesty's authority: and withal read a letter from his majesty requiring the lord lieutenant to deliver up the sword to the commissioners empowered by the parliament of England: whereupon he said he would submit. (St. Let. from the Earl of Essex, p. 344.) To cover the turpitude of his own conduct, Ormond thus imposed upon the lord mayor of Dublin, by reading either a forged or a forced letter from his majesty, for had it been real he would have pleaded it in his own justification. + Com. Journ. of Ireland. had passed between the Irish houses of lords and commons, and their lord lieutenant, his lordship was ignominiously expelled from the castle, sooner than he intended to quit it, by the English committee, and forced to transport himself to England.* In this decline of the king's affairs the confederated Catholics met again at Kilkenny, where they took into consideration, that his majesty was in restraint, that all addresses to him were forbidden, and that some members of parliament who had ventured to speak in his favour, were expelled, "therefore in that "extremity," as they express themselves, "there being no access to his majesty for imploring either his justice or mercy, "all laws either human or divine did allow the said Catholics to take some other course, in order to their defence and pre"servation: not against his sacred majesty, but against those, "who had laid violent hands on his person, who designed to "abolish the royal authority, and resolved to destroy or extir"pate the said Catholics."+ ἐσ Ormond, to whose ambitious and self-interested views there were no bounds, having been thus indignantly forced from his favourite seat of power into exile by the enemies of his royal master, whom he had hitherto most basely favoured and courted, and wishing to use the unshaken loyalty and severely tried attachment of the king's firmest and best friends, as the instru ments of his own revenge, dissembled for the moment his implacable rancour to his Catholic countrymen, and affected with unqualified reserve to place the depending fate of his royal master in their exertions. He landed at Cork on the 29th of September 1648, and notwithstanding his insulting, harsh and perfidious conduct towards the confederates, and his mercenary treachery in surrendering the royal dignity to the parliamentarian rebels, he was received with universal acclamation, and invited by the general assembly at Kilkenny to conclude a peace, and earnestly join with the nation at large in making head against the parliamentarian rebels, who by their principles were generally engaged, and by the covenant were particularly sworn, to destroy monarchy, abolish the hierarchy and extirpate the Catholic religion. He was received in triumph at Kilkenny on the 28th of October 1648, having been met at some distance from the town by the whole body of the assembly and by all the nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood: he was received in the town by the mayor and aldermen with all the honours, * Before his departure the confederates again pressed him (but in vain) to put himself at their head in support of the royal cause: he had scarcely arrived in England, when he was forced to fly to France, having been informed that a warrant had issued for apprehending his person from the very persons to whom he had made the base and mercenary surrender of his high trust, dignity and power in Ireland. Walsh's Reply to a Person of Quality. ceremony and etiquette, which such corporate bodies usually shew to the supreme authority in the kingdom, and he was lodged in his own castle with his own guards about him. Still did Ormond pertinaciously persevere in rejecting every condition of peace proposed by the confederates that related to a toleration of the Catholic religion and the repeal of any of the penal laws. During this protraction of the peace, the treaty was interrupted by the open defection of Inchiquin's army and their declaration against the king: Ormond had ever been intimate with this nobleman, and he now took the occasion of suspending the definitive treaty, under the pretext of giving satisfaction to Inchiquin and his leading officers. Notwithstanding the confede rates well knew the instructions, which the king had given to Ormond respecting the free exercise of their religion, yet to the end he suppressed the extent of his powers; and absolutely refused ultimately to allow, what he well knew his majesty had most solemnly pledged himself to grant: and he immediately after boasted in a letter to Sir Charles Coote, " *that the advantages, which the Romish professors are supposed to have in point of religion or authority, are no other but pledges from "his majesty's confirmation of the other concessions, and are to "determine therewith." We have seen how earnestly the king had long wished for and how peremptorily he had commanded Ormond to make peace with the confederates. The consequences therefore, which ensued the protractions of that event, evidently lay at his door, who caused the delays: it was only concluded on the 17th of January 1648, a fortnight before the tragical end of that unfortunate monarch. And Carte observes, that "the news of the "conclusion of this peace did not reach England soon enough "to deter the execrable authors of the murder of their king "from perpetrating a villany, which how long soever they had "intended it, they durst not attempt to execute, till they thought "themselves secure of impunity by being absolute masters of "Great Britain without any considerable force in any part of "these nations to oppose their measures or take vengeance on "their crimes." Had Ormond been actuated by any sense of the welfare of the state, by any regard to the preservation of the constitution, by any zeal for the support of his own religion, by any real attachment or even common loyalty to his sovereign, he could not have boasted as he did. "And yet those arti"cles were not condescended unto, till all hopes of the treaty "then on foot in England between the king and the parliament "were overpassed, and the army were not ashamed to proclaim * 2 Vol. Cart. Orm. p. 52. 2 Orm. 2 vol. p. 52. + Ibid. "their purpose to commit an horrid and execrable murder and "parricide on the sacred person of his majesty. This (says he) we mention not as thereby in the least degree to invalidate any "of the concessions made unto this people, but on the contrary "to render them in every point the more sacred and inviolable, "by how much the necessity on his majesty's part for the grant66 ing thereof is the greater, and the submission on their part to "his majesty's authority, in such his great necessity, more opportune and seasonable: as also to call the world (and whom soever either any peace at all or the terms of this peace may "be distasteful unto) to testify hereafter, that as the full benefit "thereof cannot without great injustice and somewhat of ingra"titude (if we may so speak in the case of his majesty with "reference to this last act of their's) be denied unto them, so "any blame thereof ought to be laid upon those alone, who have "imposed the said necessity, the saddest to which any king 66 was ever reduced." 66 Ormond was now reduced to look up to his former power and influence in Ireland through the exertions only of those, whom he had uniformly persecuted and oppressed. What share he assumed to himself of the disasters of his royal master, by having so long deprived him of the assistance of his Catholic subjects cannot be known; but certain it is, that this awful moment of embarrassment was the first, in which he made any avowal honourable or favourable to his Catholic countrymen. Besides the reluctant, ungracious and half-penitent admission of their persevering attachment to the king in his utmost distress, he said in a letter to Lord Digby, that " I must say for this people, that "I have observed in them great readiness to comply with what "I was able to give them, and a very great sense of the king's "sad condition."* And in another letter of the same date to the prince of Wales, he notices, "† the very eminent loyalty of "the assembly, which was not shaken by the success, which "God had permitted to the monstrous rebellion in England: "nor by the mischievous practices of the no less malicious "rebels in Ireland." It is no small or unequivocal mark of the eminent loyalty and fidelity of the Irish Catholics, that at Charles's unfortunate execution, they formed the only compact national body throughout the extent of the British empire, who had preserved untainted and unshaken their faith and attachment to the royal cause, although they had been throughout his reign more oppressed, This was written to Digby on the 22d of January 1648;....within a week. of King Charles's death. † Letter of the same date. To these Ormond surrendered his sword for 15000/. |