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CHAPTER XIX
THE REBELLION OF 1641

Parsons and Borlase Lords Justices, Feb. 10, 1640-1

The Irish Parliament turn against Strafford

Radcliffe and the Irish Committee

As soon as Wandesford’s death was known Robert Lord Dillon and Sir William Parsons were appointed Lords Justices. As Master of the Wards Parsons had been useful in increasing the revenue, and he was an able official, though he has a bad name on account of his dealings with land. Dillon, whose son had married Strafford’s sister, had been Lord Justice before, and was obnoxious to the Irish Committee in London; he was therefore quickly superseded in favour of Sir John Borlase, who was a soldier without political experience, and not young enough to learn. Wandesford’s daughter, who was nearly fifteen when he died, says that these two old gentlemen ‘having lived in Ireland many peaceable years could not be made sensible that the Irish had an ill-design against the English,’ and perhaps that is not far from the truth. They were fully occupied at first with the difficulties made by the Irish Parliament. Strafford was in the Tower, and the two Houses who had been his very humble servants now joined in protesting that the complimentary preamble to the Act of Subsidy was ‘contrived, penned, and inserted fraudulently without the privity of the House either by the said Earl of Strafford himself or by some other person’ by his orders. Ormonde spoke against this, but in vain. The London Committee worked in the same direction, though Radcliffe, prisoner as he was and without papers, made a good case against them. They told the King that they had heard ‘with terror and amazement’ of Wandesford’s tearing the leaves out of the journals, and maintained that the subsidies, if raised according to his plan, would be more than the country could bear, while the ports were closed so as to prevent access to his gracious Majesty. Radcliffe showed that the trade of Ireland had doubled during Strafford’s reign, and maintained that substantial justice had been done. The late Remonstrance of the Irish House of Commons had been rushed through and did not represent the facts. To this the Irish Committee replied that Radcliffe was a member, and had not risen in his place to object, that many illegal acts had been done, and that the mild government which preceded Strafford’s had allowed Ireland to grow rich, while he had only reaped the harvest.²⁶⁸

Roman Catholic majority

The queries

Owing probably to the confusion among the official class and to the absence of some officers with the new army in Ulster, the Roman Catholics had a majority in Parliament during the early months of 1641. There were able lawyers among them who drew up a paper of queries or interrogatories which they sent up to the Lords for the opinion of the judges. The first shows the line taken: ‘Whether the subjects of this kingdom be a free people, and to be governed only by the common laws of England, and statutes of force in this kingdom?’ This the judges answered generally in the affirmative, pointing out that both in England and Ireland there was necessarily a certain amount of judge-made law to meet cases not covered by statute. The general drift of the queries was to dispute the jurisdiction of the Council and the Star Chamber. By what law, runs the sixteenth query, ‘are jurors, that give verdict according to their conscience and are the sole judges of the fact, censured in the Castle-chamber in great fines, and sometimes pilloried, with loss of ears, and bored through the tongue, and marked sometimes in the forehead with an hot iron; and other like infamous punishments?’ The judges did not deny the facts, but maintained that perjured jurors were properly censurable in the Castle-chamber, and they made a not very successful attempt to derive this jurisdiction from writs of attaint at common law. The House of Commons were not satisfied with the judges’ answers, and made a declaration disposing of each query in their own sense.²⁶⁹

Prorogation, March, 1640-1

Impeachments

Parliament was prorogued from March 5 to May 11, having previously appointed a committee to draw up articles of impeachment against Lord Chancellor Bolton, Bishop Bramhall, Chief Justice Lowther, and Sir George Radcliffe. Owing to the progress of events all these impeachments were dropped, and the question as to the Irish House of Lords’ judicial powers was not decided. Before the Houses reassembled the King had written to confirm all the graces and to suggest a Bill for confirming sixty-year titles in Connaught, Clare, Limerick, and Tipperary. But no legislation issued from the confused wrangling of those days, during which Ormonde showed great capacity for obstructive tactics. When Captain Audley Mervyn and others appeared as managers for the Commons Bolton received them with great courtesy, then returned to the Woolsack and declared himself impeached, protesting that he should never dream of disputing their Lordships’ jurisdiction. Thereupon Ormonde raised a point of order. The Chancellor, he said, was accused and therefore debarred from acting as speaker, and as there was no power to appoint another nothing could be done. Bolton at last entered into recognisances and the prorogation took place next day.²⁷⁰

New session, May 11, 1641

When a fresh session began the Commons were more unmanageable than ever. They asked the Lords Justices to let them search the Castle, lest Strafford’s servants should blow them all up in revenge for their master’s death. Borlase as Master of the Ordnance positively refused to show ‘the King’s most precious jewels,’ but assured them on his honour that there was no powder under either House of Parliament, which was no doubt the fact. The Lords Justices found that Strafford had died in debt to the Crown, and proposed repayment out of the tobacco, while the Commons urged that no tobacco seized after his attainder should be confiscated. The weary chief governors were glad enough to have a recess from July 14 to November 9. Before the latter date the rebellion had broken out, but the Lords Justices were saved the trouble which would have followed the return of the Irish Committee at the end of August.²⁷¹

A rising in Ulster foretold

The Irish in Flanders

Vane’s letter, March, 1640-1

Sir W. Cole’s letter, Oct. 11, 1641

Meeting at Multifarnham

As early as 1611 Sir George Carew had foretold that the dispossessed natives of Ulster would some day rebel, that there would be a war of religion, and that the Protestant settlers would be surprised. The Irish exiles in the Spanish service had ever since been a source of apprehension, and abortive plots were laid from time to time both in Spain and in the Netherlands. Communications by way of England were always possible, and Clarendon thought much mischief was done by the Committee from the Irish Parliament, ‘consisting most of Papists, and since the most active in the rebellion.’ In July 1640 a cipher code was established between Sir Phelim O’Neill in Ulster and Owen Roe O’Neill in Flanders, who received a visit from Hugh MacPhelim, afterwards one of the leaders in Ireland. O’Byrne observed that they were risking their lives daily to ‘succour a scabbed town’ for the Spanish king, and that they would be no worse off fighting for their own country. It was believed that Ulster and Munster would join together. Nor was the English Government without suspicion, for Vane, by the King’s orders, warned the Lords Justices a little later that an unspeakable number of ‘Irish Churchmen had passed from Spain to England and Ireland, and some good old soldiers,’ on pretence of recruiting, but that rumours of a rebellion, especially in Connaught, circulated freely among the friars. It was not, however, until about a fortnight before the insurrection that anything particular was noticed in Ireland itself. It was reported to Sir William Cole at Enniskillen that there was an extraordinary resort of the Irish gentry to Sir Phelim O’Neill’s house, Lord Maguire being specially active in journeying to and fro. A few days later he was informed by Hugh Maguire that many of his clansmen and neighbours were recruiting actively for the King of Spain’s service in Portugal. In itself this did not mean much, but great secrecy was observed, and Sir William reported what he had heard to the Lords Justices, who advised him to be vigilant. In the meantime there had been a great gathering of Roman Catholic clergy and laity at Multifarnham in Westmeath, but this was not known until later, though the Irish Council were aware that there was ‘great underhand labouring among the priests, friars, and Jesuits’ to prevent Strafford’s disbanded soldiers from leaving the country. At the Multifarnham meeting it was debated what should be done to the Protestants, and there was much difference of opinion. The only extant account rests upon the statement of a Franciscan guardian, who was present, as reported on oath by Dr. Henry Jones. Some of those assembled, the Franciscan spokesman among them, were for turning all the Protestants out of Ireland with some portion of their goods. This had been the policy of the Spanish kings towards the Moors. Others were for killing them all, and these maintained that the mercy, such as it was, of the two Philips was misplaced, and had caused all the misery which Christendom suffered from the rovers of Sallee and Algiers. A third party were for killing some and expelling the rest. The heretics once got rid of, no religion but that of Rome was to be allowed in Ireland, the King was to be reduced to his hereditary revenue, and the clergy to have representatives in Parliament. Poynings’ Law was to be repealed, and the kingdom entirely separated from England, civil authority resting in the hands of the ancient chiefs and nobility, each being absolute in his county or barony, but responsible to a native Parliament. The Earl of Kildare, who was an ardent Protestant, was to be removed, and all plantation lands restored to the previous owners. An army was devised consisting of contingents out of each chiefry, and a navy manned by an order like the Knights of Malta.²⁷²

The plot, Rory O’More

Lord Maguire

Hugh MacMahon

Military conspirators

The plot discovered

On October 21 Cole received more precise information about a plot to seize Dublin and other strong places, and he sent at once to the Lords Justices with the news; but the letter never reached them, having doubtless been intercepted by some of the conspirators. Early in 1641 it had occurred to Roger or Rory O’More that the King’s difficulties in Scotland might give an opportunity to Catholic Ireland. O’More belonged to the remnant of the sept which had once ruled in Queen’s County, but was settled at Ballina near the northern extremity of Kildare. He was an accomplished man and a persuasive speaker both in English and Irish, and had a great reputation in the country. By his marriage with a daughter of the noted Sir Patrick Barnewall he had many connections in the Pale. Colonel Richard Plunket was married to his wife’s first cousin. The meeting of Parliament gave O’More an opportunity of speaking to Lord Maguire, an extravagant young man of twenty-five, who, having married a Fleming, had influence in the Pale as well as in Ulster, and whose embarrassments disposed him to desperate courses. ‘He began,’ said Maguire afterwards, ‘to lay down the case that I was in, overwhelmed in debt, the smallness of my estate, and the greatness of the estate my ancestors had, and how I should be sure to get it again or at least a good part thereof; and, moreover, how the welfare and maintaining of the Catholic religion, which, he said, the Parliament now in England will suppress, doth depend on it.’ These were the arguments used everywhere, and the miserable condition of the Irish gentry in Ulster made them ready listeners. Hugh MacMahon, one of the chief conspirators, complained bitterly of the ‘proud and haughty carriage of one Mr. Aldrige, that was his neighbour in the county of Monaghan, who was a justice of the peace and but a vintner or tapster few years before, that he gave him not the right hand of fellowship at the assizes nor sessions, he being also in commission with him.’ O’More brought the Ulstermen together in Dublin, and visited the northern province himself. Lord Mayo was also expected to join, and help was confidently expected both from France and Spain. John O’Neill, calling himself Earl of Tyrone, a colonel in the Spanish service, was killed in Catalonia about this time, after which Owen Roe was looked to as the real chief, and Sir Phelim as the principal man of his clan until the other arrived. It was not till August that the plot to seize Dublin Castle took definite shape, the idea originating with the soldiers of fortune who were disappointed in their design for carrying Strafford’s army abroad. Parsons saw the danger of keeping these men in Ireland, but the Irish Parliament was largely under clerical influence, and that was exerted to prevent them going. Colonels Sir James Dillon, Hugh MacPhelim O’Byrne, and Richard Plunket were most active, and October 5 was fixed for the attempt. Delays occurred causing a postponement to the 23rd, and in the meantime a messenger came from Owen Roe, who said he had positive promises from Richelieu, that he was ready to join the insurgents as soon as possible. On October 15 Sir Phelim O’Neill, Lord Maguire, O’More, Ever Macmahon and Captain Brian O’Neill, Owen Roe’s envoy, met to make final arrangements. One hundred picked men from Leinster, under the guidance of O’More, were to take the little gate of the Castle, the main entrance being left to Maguire and one hundred Ulstermen. Sir Phelim was to go home and take Londonderry at the same moment, which he signally failed to do. The afternoon of Saturday the 23rd was the chosen time, for it was market day, and the presence of strangers would be less noticed. On the previous evening Maguire, O’Byrne, Plunket, Fox and others met, but it was found that only eighty men had been provided instead of two hundred, Sir Phelim and others failing to send their contingents. They resolved to go on with what force they had, and to meet again next morning; but late in the evening O’More and Fox came to Lord Maguire’s lodgings and told him that all was discovered.’²⁷³

Owen O’Connolly

O’Connolly discloses the plot

Hugh Oge Macmahon, a grandson of the great Tyrone, who had been a colonel in the Spanish service, lived on his property near Clones in Monaghan. He had a relation named Owen O’Connolly, belonging to the same county but employed by Sir John Clotworthy, married to an Englishwoman, and apparently a sincere Protestant. Some six months before the outbreak, when Macmahon complained to him of his neighbour Aldrige’s behaviour, O’Connolly replied that a conquered people must submit; to which the other retorted that he hoped they would soon be delivered from the slavery and bondage under which they groaned. O’Connolly warned him against engaging in plots, and advised him to report what he knew to the Lords Justices, ‘which would redound to his great honour.’ He refused to have anything to do with the business, and told several magistrates what he had heard, but they neglected it as baseless gossip. Finding that he had gone too far, Macmahon promised to move no more in the matter, and the kinsmen did not meet again until October 22, on which day O’Connolly, who had been summoned by letter, rode sixty miles and reached Dublin at seven in the evening. Macmahon took him to Lord Maguire, who disclosed the whole plot. Strafford had stored arms for 30,000 men in the Castle, with which the conspirators expected to free the country easily. ‘And whereas,’ said Maguire, ‘you have of long time been a slave to that Puritan Sir John Clotworthy, I hope you shall have as good a man to wait upon you.’ They then went with several others to the sign of the Lion in Wine Tavern Street, where they turned the waiter out of the room and fell to drinking health on their knees to the success of next day’s work. In order to make the others drink, O’Connolly had to swallow a good deal, and at last, to use his own words, ‘finding an opportunity, this examinate leaped over a wall and two pales and so came to the Lord Justice Parsons,’ who lived near.²⁷⁴

Action of the Irish Government

Proclamation of Oct. 23, 1641

News comes from Ulster

Weakness of the Government

O’Connolly came to Parsons at his house on Merchants’ Quay about nine o’clock in the evening of Friday, October 22. He had not quite recovered from the effects of his carouse, and the Lord Justice, who only half believed his somewhat incoherent story, sent him back to get more information from MacMahon, who lodged on the left bank of the river. Parsons himself went to Borlase, who lived at Chichester House, where the Bank of Ireland now stands, and summoned hastily such of the Council as he thought within reach. The constable of the Castle had already been warned, and the mayor had directions to apprehend all strangers. O’Connolly, having with great difficulty escaped the second time, fell into the hands of the watch, but was rescued by Parsons’ men. It was now very late, and only two Privy Councillors could be found, but O’Connolly’s information was sworn in proper form. Borlase did not sign the deposition, though the sitting was in his own house; and his son seems to suggest in his history that this was owing to a difference with his colleague; but perhaps he could not keep awake, for Strafford had long since pronounced him quite worn out. The Council sat all night and all next day, Sir Francis Willoughby, Sir John Temple, and the Vice-Treasurer Loftus being present. Before separating, both Lords Justices and eight Privy Councillors signed the first proclamation against ‘the most disloyal and detestable conspiracy intended by some evil-affected Irish papists.’ The document was quickly circulated through the country, but St. Leger, and no doubt many others, thought the words last quoted unwise. Good subjects were warned to stand on their guard and to keep the Government well informed, ‘and we require that great care be taken that no levies of men be made for foreign service, nor any men suffered to march upon any such pretence.’ Willoughby was made governor of the Castle, with a hundred men, well-armed, over and above the ordinary guard; and he largely increased his force by re-engaging some of his old Carlisle regiment who had come to Dublin after being disbanded. At midnight on Saturday, the 23rd, Lord Blaney brought the first certain news from Ulster. His family were prisoners, while Castleblaney, Carrickmacross, and many other houses in Monaghan had been sacked or burned. The rebels attacked Protestants only, ‘leaving the English Papists untouched, as well as the Irish.’ Three hours later came the news that Newry with its store of arms and powder was in the hands of the Irish. Dublin itself was a prey to panic, and for a moment even Willoughby thought that there would be an attack on the Castle. He so improved the defences as to make a surprise impossible. Next morning, being Sunday, the Council met again, and the proclamation, which had by this time been printed, was dispersed over the country. An express was sent to bring up Ormonde from Carrick-on-Suir, with copies of the proclamation to leave at every market town on the road. In all Ireland meanwhile there were but 2297 foot soldiers and 943 horse, and these were for the most part in distant garrisons. As to money, Loftus briefly reported that there was nothing in the Exchequer. The Castle contained great stores of arms and ammunition, the remains of Strafford’s preparations, but trustworthy men were at first much wanted.²⁷⁵

Willoughby’s narrative

Willoughby’s own graphic account shows how narrow the escape had been. He found no soldiers in the city, the Castle having for defence only eight old warders and forty halberdiers (to escort the Lords Justices to church), though it contained thirty-five guns with their fittings, 1500 barrels of powder with match and bullets, and arms for 10,000 men. On the morning of October 23 Willoughby saw the Lords Justices at Chichester House; they had been up all night, and gave him O’Connolly’s statement to read. They removed to the Castle by his advice, and he had himself to sleep on the Council table. His first care was to break down the staircase into Ship Street, lest there should be an attack there. He then strengthened the gates and trailed cannon into position commanding them. For fourteen days he dared not let down the drawbridge unless all the halberdiers were present, by which time he had enlisted 200 of his old Carlisle regiment, who had returned to Ireland after being disbanded. Plundered Protestants arrived daily with accounts of murders and burnings.²⁷⁶

Maguire and Macmahon taken

O’More and others escape

The Lords of the Pale

They are supplied with arms

Arms sent to the Ulster Scots

Of the conspirators, only two of any importance were taken – Macmahon at his lodgings, and Lord Maguire in a cockloft where he had hidden himself. Maguire denied everything, but he was confuted by Macmahon’s confession, and arms were discovered in his rooms. Macmahon, whose information was mainly from Ulster, declared the conspiracy to be universal, and believed, or professed to believe, that every garrison in Ireland would be surprised on the same day. ‘I am now in your hands,’ he said; ‘use me as you will; I am sure I shall be shortly revenged.’ They were both hanged in London, Maguire being a commoner in England. The point had been settled long ago in Lord Leonard Grey’s case, who was Viscount Grane in Ireland. Sir William Coles’ letter was now remembered, and there were other causes for alarm. The ease with which O’More, Plunket, Fox, and O’Byrne escaped showed that they had many confederates. Horsemen flocked into the suburbs, and Colonel Barry’s four hundred men in a ship on the river gave great uneasiness. Barry had rather suspiciously disappeared on the night of the 22nd, and the soldiers, who were not allowed to communicate with the shore, were nearly starved, and when landed were not permitted to enter the town. It was thought prudent to adjourn the Council from Chichester House to the Castle, and when the number of suitors increased, to Cork House, over the way. The Lords Justices could only hope that the Pale was not so seriously tainted, and on Sunday and Monday they were visited by the Earls of Kildare and Fingall, and by Lords Gormanston, Netterville, Fitzwilliam, Howth, Dunsany, and Slane, all of whom professed loyalty and declared that they now heard of the conspiracy for the first time. Whether this was true in all cases may be doubted, but they agreed in asking for arms. The Lords Justices hesitated about parting with their weapons, but thought it better to give a certain number, ‘lest they should conceive we apprehended any jealousy of them.’ Many of these arms were used against the Government, and St. Leger thought they ought not to have been given; while the Lords Justices were blamed by others for not dealing them out more liberally. Enough were given for seventeen hundred men in the counties of Dublin, Kildare, Louth, Meath, and Westmeath, and, considering that they were entrusted to private persons of doubtful loyalty, this seems to have been a fair allowance. Arms for four hundred men were also sent to the Scots of Down and Antrim, and these at least were not wasted. There was a great fleet of Scotch fishing boats in the bay, and five hundred men volunteered to land and be armed for the service of the State. The offer was accepted, but never acted on, for the fishermen were seized with a panic, put to sea, and never reappeared until the next year. The fugitives from Ulster soon began to pour into Dublin. Temple is open to criticism for his account of what happened in the northern province, but this is what he saw himself:

What Temple saw in Dublin

‘Many persons of good rank and quality, covered over with old rags, and some without any other covering than a little to hide their nakedness, some reverend ministers and others that had escaped with their lives sorely wounded. Wives came bitterly lamenting the murders of their husbands; mothers of their children, barbarously destroyed before their faces; poor infants ready to perish and pour out their souls in their mothers’ bosoms; some over-wearied with long travel, and so surbated, as they came creeping on their knees; others frozen up with cold, ready to give up the ghost in the streets; others overwhelmed with grief, distracted with their losses, lost also their senses… But those of better quality, who could not frame themselves to be common beggars, crept into private places; and some of them, that had not private friends to relieve them, even wasted silently away, and so died without noise… The greatest part of the women and children thus barbarously expelled out of their habitations perished in the city of Dublin; and so great numbers of them were brought to their graves, as all the churchyards within the whole town were of too narrow a compass to contain them.’ Two large additional burial grounds were set apart.²⁷⁷

An amended proclamation, Oct. 29

The Very Rev. Henry Jones

The Protestants at Belturbet

The Lords Justices mark time

On October 29 the Lords Justices issued a second proclamation. The words ‘Irish Papists’ in the first had been misunderstood, and they now desired to confine it to the ‘old mere Irish in the province of Ulster’; and they straitly charged both Papists and Protestants on their allegiance to ‘forbear upbraiding matters of religion one against the other.’ They soon had authentic evidence of how the old mere Irish were behaving in one Ulster county. Dean Jones came to Dublin at the beginning of November with the Remonstrance of the O’Reillys, which Bedell had excused himself from carrying. ‘I must confess,’ says Jones, ‘the task was such as was in every respect improper for me to undergo … but chiefly considering that thereby I might gain the opportunity of laying open to the Lords what I had observed … which by letters could not so safely be delivered, I did therefore accept.’ The O’Reillys declared that the outbreak was caused by oppression and by the fear of worse oppression; that there was no intention to rebel against the King; and that the people had attacked the English settlers without their orders and against their will. To prevent greater disorders they had seized strong places for the King’s use, and they demanded liberty of conscience and security for their property. Jones saw clearly that the rising was general and that the native gentry had no wish to restrain it, and he could tell what had happened to the English inhabitants of Belturbet. Philip Mac Hugh O’Reilly and the rest had promised these people a safe passage, and had allowed them to carry away some of their property, which they were thus induced not to hide. In the town of Cavan they were attacked, the guard given by the O’Reillys joining in the treachery, and robbed of everything. ‘Some were killed, all stripped, some almost, others altogether naked, not respecting women and sucking infants, the Lady Butler faring herein as did others. Of these miserable creatures many perished by famine and cold, travelling naked through frost and snow, the rest recovering Dublin, where now many of them are among others, in the same distress for bread and clothes.’ After a week’s hesitation, the Lords Justices sent back an answer by Jones, whose wife and children remained as hostages. This he describes as ‘fair, but general and dilatory, suitable to the weak condition of affairs in Dublin, the safety whereof wholly depending upon the gain of time.’ The Government yielded no point of importance. They reminded the remonstrants that fortresses could not be legally seized without orders from the King, and that the rebels had falsely professed to have such orders. If, however, the inhabitants of the county Cavan would peaceably return to their own dwellings, restore every possible article to its plundered owner, and abstain from all hostile acts in future, then the Lords Justices would forward their petition to his Majesty and ‘humbly seek his royal pleasure therein.’ The O’Reillys were in the meantime preparing to attack Dublin in force.²⁷⁸

State of the Pale

As regards the gentry of the Pale, Roman Catholics for the most part, the Lords Justices were in a difficult position. By mistrusting them they ran the risk of driving them into rebellion; by trusting them they increased their power for mischief, should they be already tainted. For the moment the first danger seemed the greater of the two, and commissions as governors of counties with plenary powers were accordingly issued to several of them, by which they were authorised to proceed by martial law against the rebels, ‘hanging them till they be dead as hath been accustomed in time of open rebellion,’ destroying or sparing their houses and territories according to their discretion. They were also empowered to grant protections.

Lord Gormanston

Sir N. Barnewall

Sir T. Nugent

Sir C. Bellew

The Earl of Kildare

Viscount Gormanston was thus made governor of Meath, and arms were given him for 500 men. He was in open rebellion a few weeks later. Sir Nicholas Barnewall of Turvey, afterwards created Viscount Kingsland by Charles I., became governor of the county of Dublin, and had arms for 300 men. Barnewall was a good deal involved in political intrigues, but soon fled to England to avoid taking arms against the Government. A commission as governor of Westmeath and arms for 300 men were given to Sir Thomas Nugent, who afterwards tried to fill the difficult part of neutral. Sir Christopher Bellew was governor of Louth, with arms for 300, but he very soon joined the Irish. To George Earl of Kildare, Cork’s son-in-law, his own county was entrusted and arms for 300; but he was a Protestant and suffered severely for his loyalty, while he was quite unable to curb his neighbours. Finding after a time that the arms given out would, if used at all, be used against them, the Lords Justices endeavoured to get them back, but they recovered only 950 out of 1700, and the enemy had the rest.²⁷⁹