23 day of this moneth We conceiving that as soon as it should be known that the plot for seizing Dublin Castle was disappointed all the Conspirators in the remote parts might be somewhat disheartned as on the other side the good Subjects would be comforted and would then with the more confidence stand on their guard did prepare to send abroad to all parts of the Kingdome this Proclamation which we send you here inclosed and so having provided that the City and Castle should be so guarded as upon the sudden Wee could promise Wee concluded that long continued consultation On Saturday at 12 of the clock at night the Lord Blany came to town and brought Vs the ill news of the Rebels seising with two hundred men his house at Castle Blany in the County of Monaghan and his Wife Children and Servants as also a house of the Earle of Essex called Carrickmacrosse with two hundred men a house of Sir Henry Spotswood in the same County with two hundred men where there being a little Plantation of Brittish they plundred the Town and burnt divers houses and it since appears that they burnt divers other Villages and robbed and spoiler many English and none but Protestants leaving the English Papists untouched as well as the Irish On Sunday morning at three of the clock We had intelligence from Sir Arthur Terringham that the Irish in the town had that day also broken up the Kings store of arms and munition at the Newry and where the store of arms hath lyen ever since the peace and where they found fourscore and ten barrels of powder and armed themselves and put them under the command of Sir Con. Magennis Knight and one Creely a Monk and plundered the English there and disarmed the Garrison And this though too much is all that We yet hear is done by them However We shall stand on our guard the best We may to defend the Castle and City principally those being the pieces of most importance But if the Conspiracy be so universall as Mac Mahon saith in his Examination it is namely That all the Counties in the Kingdome have conspired in it which We admire should so fall out in this time of universall peace and carried with that secrecy that none of the English could have any friend amongst them to disclose it then indeed We shall be in high extremity and the Kingdome in the greatest danger that ever it underwent considering our want of men money and armes to enable Vs to encounter so great multitudes as they can make if all should joyn against Vs the rather because We have pregnant cause to doubt that the combination hath taken force by the incitement of Jesuits Priests and Fryars All the hope We have here is the old English of the Pale and some other parts will continue constant to the King in their fidelity as they did in former rebellions And now in these straits We must under God depend on ayd forth of England for our present supply with all speed especially money We having none and arms which we shall exceedingly want without which We are very doubtfull what account We shall give to the King of his Kingdome But if the Conspiracy be only of Mac Guire and some other Irish of the kindred and friends of the Rebell Tirone and other Irish in the Counties of Downe Monaghan Cavan Fermanagh and Armagh and no generall revolt following thereupon we hope then to make head against them in a reasonable measure if We be enabled with money from thence without which We can raise no forces so great is our want of money as we have formerly written and our debt so great to the Army nor is money to be borrowed here and if it were we would engage all our estates for it neither have we any hope to get in his Majesties rents and subsidies in these disturbances which adde extreamly to our necessities On Sunday morning 24. We met again in Councell and sent to all parts of the Kingdome the enclosed Proclamation and issued Potents to draw hither seven Horse troopes as a further strength to this place and to be with us in case the Rebels shall make head and march hitherward so as we may be necessitated to give them battell We also then sent away our Letters to the President of both the Provinces of Munster and Conaght And we likewise then sent Letters to the Sheriffes of the five Counties of the Pale to consult of the best way and means of their own preservation That day the Lord Vice Com. Gormanston the Lord Vice Co. Nettervile the Lord Vice Co. Fitz Williams and the Lord of Houth and since the Earles of Kildare and Fingall and the Lords of Dunsany and Slane all Noblemen of the English Pale came unto us declaring that they then and not before heard of the matter and professed loyalty to his Majesty and concurrence with the State but said they wanted armes whereof they desired to be supplyed by Vs which we told them we would willingly do as relying much on their faithfulnesse to the Crown but we were not yet certain whether or no we had enough to arme our strength for the guard of the City and Castle yet we supplyed such of them as lay in most danger with a small proportion of Arms and Munition for their houses lest they should conceive we apprehended any jealousie of them And we commanded them to be very diligent in sending out watches and making all the discoveries they could and thereof to advertise us which they readily promised to do And if it fall out that the Irish generally rise which we have cause to suspect then we must of necessity put Arms into the hands of the English Pale in present and to others as fast as we can to fight for defence of the State and themselves Your Lordship now sees the condition wherein we stand and how necessary it is first that we enjoy your presence speedily for the better guiding of those and other the publick affairs of the King Kingdom And secondly that the Parliament there be moved immediately to advance to Vs a good sum of money which being now speedily sent hither may prevent the expence of very much treasure blood in a long continued war And if your Lordship shall happen to stay on that side any longer time we must then desire your Lordship to appoint a Lieutenant Generall to discharge the great and weighty burthen of commanding the forces here Amidst these confusions and discords fallen upon Vs We bethought Vs of the Parliament which was formerly adjourned to November next the term now also at hand which will draw such a concourse of people hither give opportunity under that pretence assembling and taking new Councels seeing the former seems to be in some part disappointed and of contriving further danger to this State and People We have therefore found it of unavoidable necessity to prorogue it accordingly and to
therefore to give them full satisfaction hereby declare and publish to to all His Majesties good Subjects in this Kingdom That by the words Irish Papists VVe intended only such of the old meer Irish in the Province of Ulster as have plotted contrived and been actors in this Treason and others who adhere to them and that VVe did not any way intend or mean thereby any of the old English of the Pale nor of any other parts of this Kingdome VVe being well assured of their fidelities to the Crown and having experience of the good affections and services of their Ancestors in former times of danger and Rebellion And VVe further require all His Majesties loving Subjects whether Protestants or Papists to forbear upbraiding matter of Religion one against the other and that upon pain of his Majesties indignation Given at His Majesties Castle of Dublin 29 Octob. 1641. R. Ranelagh R. Dillon Ant. Midensis Ad. Loftus Geo. Shurley Gerrard Lowther I. Temple Fr. Willoughby Ia. Ware God save the King ¶ Imprinted at Dublin by the Society Of STATIONERS BUt to return now to the Northern Rebels who so closely pursued on their first plot as they beginning to put it in execution in most of the chief places of strength there upon the 23 of Octob. the day appointed for the surprizall of the Castle of Dublin had by the latter end of the same moneth gotten into their possession all the Towns Forts Castles and Gentlemens houses within the Counties of Tyrone Donegall The greater part of Vlster possessed by the Northern Rebels Fermanagh Armagh Cavan London Derry Monaghan and half the County of Down excepted the Cities of London Derry and Coleraigne the Town and Castle of Encikillin and some other places and Castles which were for the present gallantly defended by the British undertakers though afterwards for want of relief surrendred into their hands The chief of the Northern Rebels that first appeared in the execution of this Plot within the Province of Vlster were Sir Phelim O Neale The names of the chief Rebels in Vlster Turlogh O Neale his brother Roury Mac Guire brother to the Lord Mac Guire Philip O Rely Mulmore O Rely Sir Conne Mac Gennis Col. Mac Brian Mac Mahon these having closely combined together with severall other of their accomplices the chief of the severall Septs in the severall Counties divided their forces into severall parties and according to a generall assignation made among themselves at one and the same time surprized by treachery the Town and Castle of the Newry Severall Forts and other places suddenly surprized by the Rebels the Fort of Dongannon Fort Montjoy Carlemont Tonrages Caricke Mac Rosse Cloughouter Castle Blaney Castle of Monaghan being all of them places of considerable strength and in severall of them companies of foot or troops of Horse belonging to the standing army Besides these they took a multitude of other Castles Houses of strength Towns and Villages all abundantly peopled with Brittish in habitants who had exceedingly enriched the Countrey as well as themselves by their painfull labours They had made for their more comfortable subsistance handsome and pleasant habitations abounding with corn cattell and all other commodities that an industrious people could draw out of a good inland soile They lived in great plenty and some of them very well stored with plate and ready money They lived likewise in as great security being quiet and carelesse as the people of Laish little suspecting any treachery from their Irish neighbours The English well knew they had given them no manner of provocation they had entertained them with great demonstrations of love and affection No story can ever shew that in any Age since their intermixed cohabitation they rise up secretly to do them mischief And now of late they lived so peaceably and lovingly together as they had just reason most confidently to believe that the Irish would never upon any occasion generally rise up again to their destruction This I take to be one main and principall reason that the English were so easily over-run within the Northern Counties The great security and confidence of the English in the Irish a great cause of their sudden destruction and so suddenly swallowed up before they could make any manner of resistance in the very first begnnings of this Rebellion For most of the English having either Irish Tenants Servants or Landlords and all of them Irish neighbours their familiar friends as soon as the fire brake out and the whole Countrey began to rise about them some made their recourse presently to their Friends for protection some relying upon their Neighbours others upon their Landlords others upon their Tenants and Servants for preservation The English betrayed murdered by their Irish friends servants and tenants or at least present safety and with great confidence put their lives their Wives their Children and all they had into their power But these generally either betrayed them into the hands of other Rebels or most perfidiously destroyed them with their own hands The Priests had now charmed the Irish and laid such bloody impressions in them as it was held according to the maxims they had received a mortall sin to give any manner of relief or protection to any of the English All bonds and tyes of faith and friendship were now broken the Irish Landlords made a prey of their English tenants Irish tenants and servants a Sacrifice of their English Landlords and Masters one neighbour cruelly murdered by another the very Irish children in the very beginning fell to strip and kill English children all other relations were quite cancelled and laid aside and it was now esteemed a most meritorious work in any of them that could by any means or wayes whatsoever bring an Enlish man to the slaughter A work not very difficult to be compassed as things then stood The intermixture of the English among the Irish a main cause of their sudden destruction For they living promiscuously among the British in all parts having from their Priests received the Watchword both for time and place rose up as it were actuated by one and the same spirit in all places of those Counties before mentioned at one and the same point of time and so in a moment fell upon them murdering some stripping only or expelling others out of their habitations This bred such a generall terror and astonishment among the English as they knew not what to think much lesse what to do or which way to turn themselves Their servants were killed as they were ploughing in the fields Husbands cut to pieces in the presence of their Wives their Childrens brains dashed out before their faces others had all their goods and cattell seazed and carried away their houses burnt their habitations laid waste and all as it were at an instant before they could suspect the Irish for their enemies or any wayes imagine that they had it in their hearts or in their
whatsoever they had to cover their nakednesse taken from most of them as may appear by the examination of Adam Clover of Slonosy in the County of Cavan who being duly sworn deposeth inter alia That this deponent and his company that were robbed observed that 30 persons or thereabouts were then most barbarously murdered and slain outright and about 150 more persons cruelly wounded so that traces of blood issuing from their wounds lay upon the High way for 12 miles together and many very young children were left and perished by the way to the number of 60 or thereabouts because the cruell pursuit of the Rebels was such that their parents and friends could not carry them further And further saith that some of the Rebels vowed That if any digged graves wherein to bury the dead children they should be buried therein themselves So the poor people left the most of them unburied exposed to ravenous beasts and fowls and some few their Parents carried a great way to bury them And this deponent further saith that he saw upon the way a woman left by the Rebels stripped to her smock set upon by three women and some Irish children who miserably rent and tore the said poor English woman and stripped her of her smock in a bitter frost and snow so that she fell in labour under their hands and both she and her childe dyed there Thus did their mercy in sparing those miserable soules in this manner prove by much a far greater cruelty then if they had suddenly cut them off as they did afterwards many thousands of Brittish that fell into their hands For now they starved and perished in multitudes upon the wayes as they travelled along and to those that outlived the misery of their journey their limbes only served to drag up their bodies to christian buriall there denied unto them For many of the men and most of the women and children that thus escaped either to Dublin or other places of safety in the North not long outlived the bitternesse of their passage but either overwhelmed with grief or outwearied with travell contracted those diseases which furthered by hunger cold nakednesse ill lodgings and want of other necessaries struck deeply into bodies that had lived long at ease with much plenty and soon brought them with sorrow to their graves THese were the first fruits of this Rebellion which now began to dilate it self into the other Provinces having covered over the Northern Parts of the Kingdome with fearfull desolations The first Plotters were yet undiscovered but the great active instruments appointed for the execution of this horrid designe fully appeared and had already deeply imbrued their hands in the bloody massacres of the English Sir Phelim O Neale being the chief of that Sept Sir Phelim O Neales proceedings and now the person remaining of nearest alliance to the late Earl of Tyrone assumed to himself the chief power among the Rebels in Vlster and by his directions guided the rest of his complices on in the destruction of all the English there He was one of very mean parts without courage or conduct his education for a great part of his youth was in England he was admitted a Student of Lincolns Inne and there trained up in the Protestant religion which he soon changed after if not before his return into Ireland lived loosely and having no considerable estate by reason of the great engagement upon it became of very little esteem in all mens opinions Yet such were the over zealous affections of his Countreymen in this cause their secrecy in attempting their suddennesse in executing as by their forwardnesse to destroy the English and get their goods he quickly over-run that part of the Countrey He had prevailed so far within seven dayes after he first appeared in this Rebellion by seazing most treacherously at the very first upon Charlemont where the Lord Caufield lay with his Foot company the Forts of Dongannon and Montjoy as that in his Letter written to Father Patrick O Donnell his Confessor bearing date from Montjoy the 30 of Octob. he was able to brag of great and many victories And presently after he had gotten such a multitude of rude fellowes together though in very ill equipage as he marched down with great numbers of men towards Lisnagaruy near the chief Plantation of the Scots for that part of their plot to spare them as they did in the beginning they found now too grosse to take therefore they resolved to fall upon them without mercy and yet left sufficient forces to come up into the Pale to take in Dondalke in the County of Lowth Which was a Frontier Town in the last wars against Tyrone Dondalke taken by the Rebels about the beginning of Novemb 1641. and so well defended it self as with all the power he had he could never recover it into his hands There lay now a Foot company of the old Army but the Lieutenant who commanded it having neither his men in readinesse nor armes or munition made little or no resistance easily giving way to the forward affections of the inhabitants who delivered up the Town into the possession of the Rebels about the beginning of November 1641. The Rebels presently after their taking in of Dondalke marched on further into the County of Lowth and possessed themselves of Ardee The Rebels march up towards Tredagh a little Town within seven miles of Tredagh anciently called Drohedagh So as it was now high time to provide for the safety of that Town The Lord Moore had already retired thither from his house at Millifont and there remained with his troop of horse and two companies of foot One was under the command of Sir John Nettervile eldest sonne to the Lord Viscount Nettervile He discovered in the very beginning much virulency in his affections by giving false frights and raising false rumours and making all manner of ill infusions into the mindes of the Townsmen who as it afterwards appeared were but too forward to take part with the Rebels It is verily believed they had in the very beginning some plot to cut off the Lord Moore and seaze upon his Troop and that Sir John Netterviles part was to begin a mutiny which he attempted that night he was to be upon the watch by giving ill language and endeavouring to make a quarrell with his Lordship which he very discreetly passed over and so carefully looked to the guard of the Town as they could take no advantage to put on their designe Howsoever the Townsmen were extreamly frighted with the thoughts of their present danger and the greater part of them being Papists were ready to declare themselves for the Catholick cause only their desires were things might be so ordered The ill condition of Tredagh represented by the L. Moore to the L. Iustices as would administer unto them specious pretences of necessity for the same The L. Moore gave present advertisement unto the Lords Justices and
thought laid as it could not well faile and the day once prefixed for execution they did in their publicke Devotions long before recommend by their Prayers the good successe of a great Designe much tending to the prosperity of the Kingdome and the advancement of the Catholick cause And for the facilitating of the Worke and stirring up of the people with greater animosity and cruelty to put it on at the time prefixed they loudly in all places declamed against the Protestants telling the people that they were Hereticks and not to be suffered any longer to live among them that it was no more sinne to kill an English-man then to kill a dogge and that it was a most mortall and unpardonable sinne to relieve or protect any of them Then also they represented with much acrimony the severe courses taken by the Parliament in England for the suppressing of the Romish Religion in all parts of the Kingdome and utter extirpation of all professors of it They told the people that in England they had caused the Queens Priest to be hanged before her own face and that they held her Majesty in her owne person under a most severe discipline That the same cruell Laws against Popery were here ordered to be put sodainly in execution and a designe secretly laid for bringing and seizing upon all the principal Noblemen and Gentlemen in Ireland upon the 23. of November next ensuing and so to make a generall Massacre of all that would not desert their Religion and presently become Protestants The Irish revive their ancient animosities against the English And now also did they take occasion to revive their inveterate hatred and ancient animosities against the English Nation whom they represented to themselves as hard Masters under whose government how pleasant comfortable and advantagious so ever it was they would have the world beleeve they had endured a most miserable captivity and envassalage They looked with much envie upon their prosperity considering all the Land they possessed though a great part bought at high rates of the Natives as their owne proper inheritance They grudged at the great multitudes of their faire English Cattell at their goodly Houses though built by their own industry at their own charges at the large improvements they made of their Estates by their own travails and carefull endevours They spake with much scorne and contempt of such as brought little with them into Ireland and having there planted themselves in a little time contracted great fortunes they were much troubled especially in the Irish Countries to see the English live handsomely and to have every thing with much decency about them while they lay nastily buried as it were in mire and filthinesse the ordinary sort of people commonly bringing their Cattle into their owne stinking Creates and there naturally delighting to lye among them These malignant considerations made them with an envious eye impatiently to looke upon all the British lately come over into the Kingdome Nothing lesse then a generall extirpation will now serve their turne they must have restitution of all the Lands to the proper Natives whom they take to be the ancient proprietors and onely true owners most unjustly despoiled by the English whom they hold to have made undue acquisitions of all the Land they possesse by gift from the Crown upon the attainder of any of their Ancestors And so impetuous were the desires of the Natives to draw the whole Government of the Kingdome into their owne hands The ends proposed by the first plotters of the rebellion to enjoy the publicke profession of their Religion as well as to disburthen the Country of all the British inhabitants seated therein as they made the whole body of the State to be universally disliked represented the severall members as persons altogether corrupt and ill affected pretended the ill humours and distempers in the Kingdome to be growen to that height as required Cauteries deepe incisions and indeed nothing able to worke so great a cure but an universall Rebellion This was certainly the disease as appeares by all the symptomes and the joynt concurrence in opinion of all the great Physitians that held themselves wise enough to propose remedies and prescribe fit applications to so desperate a Malady In those Instructions privately sent over into England by the Lord Dillon of Costeloz presently after the breaking out of the Rebellion the alteration of the supream power in the government and setling of it in the hands of the Earl of Ormond giving leave to the Grand Councell of the Kingdome to remove such Officers of State as they thought fit and to recommend Natives to their places were there positively laid down to be a more likely meanes to appease these tumults then a considerable Army In the Remonstrance of the County of Longford presented about the same time to the Lords Justices by the same Lord Dillon as also in the frame of the Common-wealth found at Sir John Dungars House not farre from Dublin and sent up thither out of Conaught to be communicated to those of Lemster peeces which publikely appeared soon after the breaking out of the Rebellion the main points insisted upon in them and severall others The true causes of the Rebellion were restauration of the Publick profession of the Romish Religion restitution of all the Plantation Lands unto the Natives and settlement of the present Government in their hands All the Remonstrances from severall parts and that came out of the severall Provinces of the Kingdome doe concurre in these Propositions with very little or no difference And therefore that the desires with the first intentions of those who are now out in Rebellion may more cleerly appear I have thought fit here to insert them as I found them Methodically digested into certain Propositions termed The meanes to reduce this Kingdome unto Peace and quietnesse 1 THat a generall and free pardon without any exception be granted to all his Majesties Subjects of this Kingdome and that in pursuance thereof and for strengthning the same an Act of Abolition may passe in the Parliament here 2 That all marks of Nationall distinctions between English and Irish may he abolished and taken away by Act of Parliament 3 That by severall Acts of Parliament to be respectively passed here and in England it be declared that the Parliament of Ireland hath no subordination with the Parliament of England but that the same hath in it self supream Jurisdiction in this Kingdom as absolute as the Parliament of England there hath 4 That the Act of 12. Henry the seventh commonly called Poynings Act and all other Acts expounding or explaining the same may be repealed 5 That as in England there past an Act for a Trienniall Parliament there may passe in Ireland another for a Sexenniall Parliament 6 That it may be enacted by Parliament that the Act of the 2d of Queen Elizabeth in Ireland and all other Acts made against Catholicks or the Catholick Religion
them and so conclude with some professions of their Loyalty and readinesse to give their advices for the advancement of his Majesties service and the common peace of the Kingdome This was an Answer such as might justly be expected to come from persons so deeply now involved in the guilt of so high a Rebellion The great indulgence-used by the Lords Iustices and Councell towards the Lords of the Pale It is no wonder that they were thus put to their shifts and enforced to take up such fond excuses and imaginary pretences for their disloyalty For they could not in their own consciences but be most sensible of the very great indulgence used by the Lords towards them They had not failed in severall particulars to manifest the great confidence they had in their good affections They had refrained from giving them any manner of provocation or jealousie They had forborn the doing some acts of hostility for a time upon some Rebels among them because they would not give them any the least cause of complaint And however it appeared by the Examination of Mac Mahone and severall others that they were privie to the first plot yet the Lords proceeded with so much caution and tendernesse towards them hoping that now the Conspirators had failed in the maine part of their design which was the surprisall of the Castle of Dublin that they might yet reclaime them thereby and draw them into a just concurrence with them for the preservation of the Kingdome out of the hands of those bloody Northern Rebels who in the beginning were the only appearers in the cause But all was to no purpose they were too deeply engaged to recede therefore they ran now violently on and drew along all the cheife Gentlemen likewise of the Pale with them And now it shall be declared Luke Nettervile and others of the chief Gentlemen of the Pale gather Forces and quarter them within six miles of the City of Dublin how the cheife Gentlemen of the Pale began and proceeded on to act their parts About the beginning of December presently after the late defeat given to the English souldiers in their march to Tredagh Luke Nettervile second Sonne to the Lord Viscount Nettervile caused a Proclamation to be made in the Market place of Lusk requiring all the chiefe Gentlemen and other Inhabitants thereabouts not to faile upon paine of death presently to repaire unto Swoords a Town within six miles of the City of Dublin And within few dayes after did meet there the said Luke Nettervile George Blackney Esquire George King Iohn Talbot Richard Golding Thomas Russell Christopher Russell Patrick Caddell William Travers Richard Barnwell Laurence Bealing Holywood of Artaine and severall other Gentlemen who began to gather great numbers of men about them and putting such Armes into their hands as they had in readinesse at the present made their provisions to entertaine a settled Camp within that place The Lords understanding of this unlawfull tumultuous Assembly The Gentlemen of the Pale required by the Lords Iustices and Councell to repaire to Dublin and deeply apprehending the mischievous consequences that might ensue thereupon sent this Warrant following in a faire manner requiring thereby their present repaire unto them By the Lords Justices and Councell William Persons Io Burlace WHereas we have received information that Luke Nettervile Esquire Blackney of Rickenhore Esquire and George King of Clontarfe Gentleman and other Gentlemen of the County of Dublin with great numbers of men are assembled together in a body at Swoords and there abouts within six miles of this City for what intent we know not but apparently to the terror of his Majesties good Subjects and although considering the unseasonablenesse of this time chosen for such an act without our privity whatsoever their pretence is a construction might be made thereof to their disadvantage yet we being willing to make an indulgent interpretation of their actions in regard of the good opinion wee have of the Loyalty of those Gentlemen who it seemes are principalls amongst them in that Assembly and conceiving there may be some mistaking in that enterprise we have chosen the rather hereby to charge the said Luke Nettervile Blackney King and all the persons there Assembled with them upon their duties of Alleageance to his Majesty immediately upon sight hereof to separate and not to unite any more in that manner without direction from us and that the said Nettervill Blackney King and six others of the principall persons of those who are so assembled at Swoords or thereabouts as aforesaid doe appear before us to morrow morning at ten of the Clock to shew the cause of their assembling in that manner whereof they may not faile at their extreame perils Given at his Majesties Castle of Dublin 9. December 1641. Ormond Ossory Rob. Dillon Cha. Lambart Jo. Temple Charles Coot But they were so farre from rendring obedience to the commands they received from the Board as they kept the Messenger in restraint a day and a night threatning to hang him and after returned a scornfull peremptory Answer signifying unto their Lordships The Answer made by the Pale to the Lords Warrant That they were constrained to meet there together for the safety of their lives that they were put in so great a terror by the rising out of some horse Troops and foot Companies at Dublin who killed foure Catholikes for no other reason then that they bore the name of that Religion as they durst not as they pretended stay in their houses and therefore resolved to continue together till they were assured by their Lordships of the safety of their lives before they runne the hazard thereof by manifesting their obedience due unto their Lordships These were the very words and expressions used by those Gentlemen in their Answer And accordingly they still continued together encreasing their numbers of men and threatning to come down and encamp themselves at Clantarfe a little Village standing upon the very Harbour of Dublin where some of their followers had already at a low water seised upon a Bark lying there and carried away all the Commodities they found in her a great part whereof they had put into the then dwelling house of the said King to whom that Village did belong This was an act of so high a straine and so eminently tending to the present ruine of the City as it required a sudden remedy Delayes were dangerous in a matter of such perillous consequence and the Lords Justices and Councell plainely perceived that if the Rebels were suffered to come down and lodge there that they might without much difficulty make themselves masters of those few Barkes then in the Harbour the State having at that time no Ships of force to guard them and so put themselves in a faire way if they could bring the Wexford Ships about to joyn with them to block up the Harbour and stop the comming in to their reliefe all such succours as should
THE Irish Rebellion OR AN HISTORY Of the Beginnings and first Progresse of the Generall Rebellion raised within the Kingdom of IRELAND upon the three and twentieth day of October in the Year 1641. TOGETHER VVith the Barbarous Cruelties and Bloody Massacres which ensued thereupon By Sir IOHN TEMPLE Knight Master of the Rolles and one of his Majesties most honourable Privie Councell within the Kingdom of IRELAND LONDON Printed by R. White for SAMUEL GELLIBRAND at the Brasen Serpent in Pauls Church-yard 1646. THE PREFACE TO THE READER I Have here adventured to present unto publick view the beginnings and first progresse of the Rebellion lately raised within this Kingdome of Ireland And although I cannot but take notice of such a multitude of imperfections in my self as render me very unfit for the performance of this service As also that I shall thereby raise up much malice and private displeasure as well against my person as my undertakings herein Yet such is my zeal and most earnest desire to appear in this cause as being now laid aside and for the present dis-abled in any other way to be further usefull to this unhappy Kingdome I resolved to deny my self and wholly departing from my own interests to imploy my weak endeavours in setting down the sad Story of our miseries I might peradventure with much more advantage to my own particular have looked back as far wiser men have done in their troubles and passed my time in forein Collections or penning some story of times long since past where the chief Actors are at rest and their unquiet spirits so surely laid as they are not to be moved with the sharpest charge that can be laid on their memories Nulli gravis est percussus Achilles Most men are great lovers of themselves and such constant admirers of their own actions as they think they do well to be angry at any thing that shall though never so truly be reported to their disadvantage They consider not their own naturall imbecillities their passions distempers or ill affections which leade them on to advize or act things of an ill fame but are ready to flye in the faces of those who shall even in the fairest characters represent or leave any impressions of them Hence it is that the truth of things comes quite to be overshadowed with false colours and so to remain as it were buried alive or otherwaies to appear extreamly disfigured through grosse errours base flattery or wilfull mistakes For most men that are present adventurers in this kinde are wise enough to apprehend their own danger and thereupon departing from the common interest that every other man hath in their story reflect only upon their own particular and suffer themselves to be overawed with the humour of the present times or so far transported either with the benefits or private injuries received from particular persons as they transmit very imperfect and weaker relations or otherwise fill them up with such counterfeit stuffe as posterity will owe little to their information Monsieur du Plessis a person of extraordinary abilities and learning a great Minister of State under that glorious King Henry the 4th of France undertook as it appears by a Letter of his to Monsieur Languet to write a Story of those times wherein he lived But I cannot find that he ever suffered that work to come to the Presse whether by just apprehensions discouraged frō publication or whether it otherwise miscarried I cannot say But sure I am in the same Letter he bitterly declaims against the humour of the times and there plainly tels us that after one hath writ an History he dares not adventure the publishing of it Memoires de Monsieur du Plessie fol. 45. Si non qu'il allege pour cause d'un effect ce que n'a pas este comme une cause genereuse au lieu de l'amour d'une femme d'une querelle de bordeau Such was then the iniquity of those times so abominable and shamefull the true causes of the imbrollments in that Kingdome that those wars as the Court was then governed had for the most part their first beginnings from some ill placed affection or a private quarrell in an infamous place And further speaking on this subject he intimates how dangerous it is to set forth the actions of men in their true colours and how bitter and corroding to the conscience of an Historian to disguise or make them appear otherwise to the world then they were in their first originall To speak truth exactly is highly commendable in any man especially in one that takes upon him to be a publick informer to raze to corrupt a Record is a crime of a very high nature and by the laws of the Land most severely punishable Histories are called Testes temporum lux veritatis Cicero de Orat. vita memoriae and certainly he doth offend in an high degree who shall either negligently suffer or wilfully procure them to bring in false evidence that shall make them dark Lanthorns to give light but on the one side or as Ignes fatui to cause the Reader to wander from the truth and vainly to follow false shadows or the factious humour of the writers brain To be false to deceive to lye even in ordinary discourse are vices commonly branded with much infamy and held in great detestation by all good men And therefore certainly those that arrive at such a height of impudency as magisterially to take upon them not only to abuse the present but future ages must needs render themselves justly odious They stand responsable for other mens errours and whereas in all other notorious offenders their sin and their life determines at farthest together the sin of these men is perpetuated after their decease they speak when they are dead make false infusions into every Age and court every new person that shall many years after cast his eyes upon their story to give belief to their lyes Therefore for my own part when I first undertook this task I took up with it a resolution most clearly to declare the truth I have cast up my accounts I have set up my rest and determine rather to displease any other man then offend my own conscience I have neither private reflections nor foreign ends I am now as it were reduced into my first principles and have taken this work upon me meerly out of publick considerations All that I aime at is that there may remain for the benefit of this present age as well as of posterity some certain Records and monuments of the first beginnings and fatall progresse of this rebellion together with the horrid cruelties most unmercifully exercised by the Irish Rebels upon the British and Protestants within this Kingdome of Ireland That when Gods time is come of returning it into the bosomes of those who have been the first plotters or present actors therein and that Kingdome comes to be re-planted with British and setled in
the late Treaty of Peace to have all the indictments legally put in against the principall Rebels and their adherents taken off the file and cancelled they would not be out of hope as these times now are to palliate their Rebellion with such specious pretences as that their barbarous cruelties acted beyond all paralell being forgotten it should with great applause passe down to posterity under the name of a holy and just war for the defence of the Catholick Cause And now in order to this designe they have taken all occasions to proclaime the huge pressures which they pretend to have suffered under the late government in this Kingdome and spare not to tearm it tyrannicall they speak as if their oppressions might be paralelled with the Israelitish envassalage in the Land of Egypt and their persecutions for Religion equalled to those of the Primitive times And then they further say That thereupon only some Catholicks considering the deplorable and desperate condition they were in and apprehending the plots laid to extinguish their Religion and Nation did take armes in the North in maintenance of their Religion and for the preservation of life liberty and estate together with his Majesties rights And that the Lords and Gentlemen dwelling within the English Pale were likewise by the great rigour and severity used by the State towards them enforced to take up armes for their own defence A Remonstrance of grievances presented to his Majesty in behalf of the Catholicks of Ireland and given in to his Majesties Commissioners at Trime March 17. 1642. These are the expressions and the language used in the late Remonstrance given in to his Majesties Commissioners at Trime to be presented to his Majestie in behalf of his Catholick Subjects in Ireland Wherein there are pieced together so many vain inconsiderable fancies many subsequent passages acted in the prosecution of the war and such bold notorious false assertions without any the least ground or colour of truth as without all doubt they absolutely resolved first to raise this Rebellion and then to set their Lawyers and Clergie on work to frame such reasons and motives as might with some colour of justification serve for arguments to defend it And it is indeed to speak plainly a most infamous Pamphlet full fraught with scandalous aspersions cast upon the present government and his Majesties principall Officers of State within this Kingdome It was certainly framed with most virulent intentions not to present their condition and present sufferings to his Majestie but that it might be dispersed to gain belief among foreign States abroad as well as discontented persons at home and so draw assistance and aide to foment and strengthen their rebellious party in Ireland But I do not much wonder they should take thus upon them to abuse the world with such scurrilous discourses and thereby endeavour to raise some ground or belief that they had just cause to enter into so desperate a Rebellion This hath been an ordinary course ever held in all designes of this nature And it is well observed by Polybius that there are commonly to be found in all such great undertakings Causae suasoriae and causae justificae The first such as are the true naturall causes and really first in the intention the other such as are most commonly obtruded to the world by way of cover and justification Now as the nature of water is most clearly seen in the first Fountain where it remains pure and unmixed without any drosse or soil that it afterwards contracts as it passeth along in the streams derived from it So certainly the quality of all humane actions is best understood and most clearly discerned when we look upon them as they appear in their first originall before the inconveniencies and fatall miscarriages which afterwards come to be discovered awake the first Projectors and teach them new artifices wherewith to disguise and colour over their abortive or otherwise unfortunate counsels Now as for the true Suasorian causes if I may so tearm them which enduced the Irish to lay the plot of this Rebellion were indeed really first in their thoughts they will sufficiently appear in this ensuing Story And for the justificall reasons of their rising in armes if any one hath a minde to take them up on trust from themselves let him seek no further then the Remonstrance before mentioned whereof much more is to be said then I shall give my self liberty to speak in this place well knowing that those notorious untruths and wicked impostures contained in it when they come to the test will be quickly discovered and the varnish they have put upon them soon fall away of it self If any one hath been ignorantly deluded hereby and desires to be rectified in his own judgement let him be pleased to turn over this ensuing Story Verum est index sui obliqui There needs certainly no other confutation of their false and virulent suggestions then a true impartiall relation of the first beginnings and progresse of this Rebellion which for what was acted within the space of the first two moneths after the breaking out of it I presume I may say without vanity he shall certainly finde here It is true I have principally applyed my self to give an account of what was done about Dublin the chief City of this Kingdom and the place where the Lords Justices and Councell continued using their utmost power and endeavours to oppose the fury of the Rebels Yet as all other parts of the Kingdom were under their government and their care and counsels as far as their generall distractions would admit extended to the whole what was acted in all other places of the countrey comes properly to be touched upon and the miserable condition of them to be represented in this following Story I shall not here trouble the Reader with any further Apology for my self or with excuses for the multitude of my own imperfections which will here appear in large Characters and will be peradventure looked upon with a Multiplying Glasse by those who are not pleased with what I have here exposed to publick view I do not at all pretend to silence the bitter expressions of malevolent spirits As I shall with great patience compose my self to bear the utmost that their malice can put upon me So I shall be alwayes ready with much meeknesse to submit to be reformed by any person whatsoever who can make it appear that I have either through ignorance or negligence for I am sure wilfull mistakes they will finde none miscarried in the relation of any particular here set down Sinnes of ignorance found a very easie expiation under the Old Law I will not say they had a pardon of course But if I have so carried my self as that no greater transgressions can be laid to my charge I shall be much satisfied and may peradventure be further encouraged to proceed on to a continuation of this Story and therein to transmit
Irish and out of their zealous affectioÌ„s for the conversion of a barbarous people applied theÌ„selves with great care and industry to the instructing of them in the true grounds and principles of Christian religion And with so great successe and such unwearied endeavours did S. Patrick travail in this work as if we will give credit to some writers we must believe that the Church of Armagh was by him erected into an Archiepiscopal See three hundred and fifty Bishops consecrated great numbers of Clergy-men instituted who notwithstanding the notorious impiety and continued prophanesse of the common sort of people being most of them Monks by vow and profession of great learning very austere and strict in their discipline were so much taken notice of in those rude ignorant times by other Nations as in respect of them some gave unto the Island the denomination of Insula Sanctorum But so quickly did the power of holinesse decay in the land as the name was soon lost and even the very prints and characters thereof among the very Clergie themselves obliterated the life of the people so beastly their manners so depraved and barbarous as that King Henry when he entertained the first thoughts of transferring his Arms over into Ireland made suit unto the Pope that he would give him leave to go and conquer Ireland and reduce those beastly men unto the way of truth Rex Anglorum Hen. nuncios solennes Romam mittens regaâ—it Papam Adrianum ut sibi liceret Hibernia Insulam intrare et terram subiugare atquehomines illos bestiales ad fidem et viam reducere veritatis Mat Paris an 1156. Answerable whereunto was the tenor of Pope Adrians Bull as appears at large in Parisiensis whereby he gave him liberty to go over and subdue the Irish nation A sufficient demonstration of the condition of that people and what opinion was held of them as well by their holy father the Pope as other Princes And the King at his arrivall found them no other than a beastly people indeed For the Inhabitants were generally devoid of all manner of civility governed by no setled lawes living like beasts biting and devouring one another without all rules customes or reasonable constitutions either for regulation of Property or against open force and violence most notorious murthers rapes robberies and all other acts of inhumanity and barbarisme raging without controll or due course of punishment Whereupon He without any manner of scruple or farther inquisition into particular titles resolving as it seems to make good by the sword the Popes donation made a generall seizure of all the lands of the whole kingdom and so without other ceremony took them all into his own hands And that he might the more speedily introduce Religion and civility Rex antequam ab Hibernia redibat consilium congregavit apud Lismore ubi leges Angliae ab omnibus gratantur sunt accepta et iuratoria cautione prestita confirmata Mat. Paris an 1172. and so draw on towards the accomplishment of that great work which he had so gloriously begun he first in a great Counsell held at Lissemore caused the Laws of England to be received and setled in Ireland then he afterwards united it to the Imperiall Crown of England making large distributions to his followers by particular grants allotting out in great proportions the whole Land of Ireland among the English Commanders who made estates and gave severall shares to their friends and commilitants that came over private adventurers with them But before I passe further I shall take the liberty here to insert one observation out of Giraldus Cambrensis concerning the causes and reasons of the prosperity of the English undertakings in Ireland He saith that a Synod Ireland divided by K. Hen. 2. among his followers and other adventurers or Counsell of the Clergy being there assembled at Armagh and that point fully debated it was unanimously agreed by them all that the sins of the people were the occasion of that heavy judgement then fallen upon their Nation and that especially their buying of English men from Merchants and Pirates and detaining them under a most miserable hard bondage Decretum est itaque praedicto concilio et cum universitatis conscensu publice Statutum ut Angli ubique per insulam servitutis vinculo mancipati in pristinam revocentur libertatem Gir. Camb. expug Hib. c. 18 had caused the Lord by way of just retalliation to leave them to be reduced by the English to the same slavery Whereupon they made a publique act in that counsell that all the English held in captivity throughout the whole Land should be presently restored to their former liberty If so heavy a Judgement fell then upon the Irish for their hard usage of some few English what are they now to expect or what expiation can they now pretend to make for the late effusion of so much innocent English blood after so horrid despitefull and execrable a manner There being since the Rebellion first brake out unto the time of the Cessation made Sept. 15. 1643. which was not full two years after above 300000 Brittish and Protestants cruelly murthered in cold blood The numbers of British and protestants destroyed since the Rebellion destroyed some otherway or expelled out of their habitations according to the strictest conjecture and computation of those who seemed best to understand the numbers of English planted in Ireland besides those few which perished in the heat of Fight during the war King John came into Ireland during his minority though to little purpose The fruitlesse expeditions of K. Iohn and K. Richard 2. into Ireland but after about the twelfth year of his Raign upon the generall defection of the Irish he made a second expedition and during his stay there built severall Forts and strong Castles many of which remain unto this day he erected all the Courts of Judicature and contributed very much towards the settlement of the English Colonies as also of the civill Government King Richard the second made likewise in the time of his Raign upon the same occasion two other expeditions into Ireland in his owne person But both those Princes out of a desire to spare the effusion of English blood as also the expence of treasure being likewise hastened back by the distempers of their own Subjects in England were both content to suffer themselves to be again abused by the fained submissions of the Irish who finding their own weaknesse and utter disability to resist the power of those two mighty Monarchs came with all humility even from the farthest parts of the kingdom to submit to their mercy And yet it is well observed by some that say they returned back not leaving one true subject more behind them than they found at their first arrivall Howsoever by the very presence of these Princes and by the carefull endeavours of the Governours sent over by other of the Kings of England those
the ill condition of the Kingdome the wants of the State and the Supplies absolutely necessary for their present defence and preservation And because the Letter to the Lord Lieutenant doth most clearly represent severall particulars which may much conduce to the knowledge of the affaires I have thought fit to insert a true copy of it which here followeth May it please your Lordship ON Friday the two and twentieth of this moneth after nine of the clock at night this bearer Owen Conally servant to Sir John Clotworthy Knight came to me the Lord Iustice Parsons to my house and in great secresie as indeed the cause did require discovered unto me a most wicked and damnable conspiracy plotted contrived and intended to be also acted by some evill-affected Irish Papists here The plot was on the then next morning Saturday the 23 of October being Saint Ignatius day about nine of the clock to surprize His Majesties Castle of Dublin His Majesties chief strength of this Kingdome wherein also is the principall Magazine of His Majesties Arms and Munition and it was agreed it seems amongst them that at the same houre all other His Majesties Forts and Magazines of Arms and Munition in this Kingdome should be surprized by others of those Conspirators and further that all the Protestants and English throughout the whole Kingdome that would not joyn with them should be cut off and so those Papists should then become possessed of the Government and Kingdom at the same instant Assoon as I had that intelligence I then immediatly repaired to the Lord Iustice Borlace and thereupon We instantly assembled the Councell and having sate all that night as also all the next day the 23 of October in regard of the short time left us for the consultation of so great and weighty a matter although it was not possible for us upon so few houres warning to prevent those other great mischiefes which were to be acted even at that same hour and at so great a distance as in all the other parts of the Kingdome Yet such was our industry therein having caused the Castle to be that night strengthened with armed men and the City guarded as the wicked Councels of those evill persons by the great mercy of God to us became defeated so as they were not able to Act that part of their Treachery which indeed was principall and which if they could have effected would have rendred the rest of their purposes the more easie Having so secured the Castle We forthwith laid about for the apprehension of as many of the Offenders as We could many of them having come to this City but that night intending it seems the next morning to act their parts in those treacherous and bloody crimes The first man apprehended was one Hugh Mac Mahon Esquire Grandson to the Traitour Tyrone a Gentleman of a good fortune in the County of Monaghan who with others was taken that morning in Dublin having at the time of their apprehension offered a little resistance with their swords drawn but finding those We imployed against them more in number and better armed yielded He upon his Examination before us at first denyed all but in the end when he saw we laid it home to him he confessed enough to destroy himself and impeach some others as by a Copy of his Examination herewith sent may appear to your Lordship We then committed him untill We might have further time to examine him again our time being become more needfull to be imployed in action for securing this place then in examining This Mac Mahon had been abroad and served the King of Spain as a Lieu. Colonel Vpon conference with him and others and calling to minde a Letter We received the week before from Sir William Cole a Copy whereof We send your Lordship here inclosed We gathered that the Lord Mac Guire was to be an actor in surprizing the Castle of Dublin wherefore We held it necessary to secure him immediatly thereby also to startle and deter the rest when they found him laid fast His Lordship observing what we had done and the City in Arms fled from his lodging early before day it seems disguised for we had laid a watch about his lodging so as we think he could not passe without disguising himself yet he could not get forth of the City so surely guarded were all the Gates There were found at his lodging hidden some Hatchets with the Helves newly cut off close to the Hatchets and many Skeanes and some Hammers In the end the Sheriffes of the City whom we imployed in strict search of his Lordship found him hidden in a Cockloft in an obscure house far from his lodging where they apprehended him and brought him before Vs. He denyed all yet so as he could not deny but he heard of it in the countrey though he would not tell us when or from whom and confessed that he had not advertised Vs thereof as in duty he ought to have done But We were so well satisfied of his guiltines by all circumstances as We doubted not upon further examination when We could be able to spare time for it to finde it apparant wherefore We held it of absolute necessity to commit him Close-prisoner as We had formerly done Mac Mahon and others where We left him on the three and twentieth of this moneth in the morning about the same hour they intended to have been Masters of that place and this City That morning also We laid wait for all those strangers that came the night before to town and so many were apprehended whom We finde reason to believe to have hands in this Conspiracy as We were forced to disperse them into severall Gaols and We since found that there came many Horsemen into the Suburbs that night who finding the plot discovered dispersed themselves immediately When the hour approached which was designed for surprising the Castle great numbers of strangers were observed to come to town in great parties severall wayes who not finding admittance at the Gates staid in the Suburbs and there grew numerous to the terrour of the Inhabitants We therefore to help that drew up instantly and signed a Proclamation commanding all men not dwellers in the City or Suburbs to depart within an hour upon pain of death and made it alike penall to those that should harbour them which Proclamation the Sheriffs immediately proclaimed in all the Suburbs by Our commandement which being accompanied with the example and terror of the committall of those two eminent men and others occasioned the departure of those multitudes and in this case all our lives and fortunes and above all his Majesties power and regall authority being still at the stake We must vary from ordinary proceedings not only in executing martiall law as We see cause but also in putting some to the Rack to finde out the bottome of this treason and all the contrivers thereof which we foresee will not otherwise be done On that
the affairs of great Brittain when Scotland lately in Arms had by their own power and wise managements drawn his Majesty to condiscend to their entire satisfaction as wel in their Church discipline as the liberties of that Kingdom And in England the distractions being grown up to some height through the great misunderstanding betwixt the King and his Parliament Ireland was at this time left naked and unregarded the Government in the hands of Justices the old Army dispersed in places of so great distance as it could be of little advantage the common Souldiers most of them Irish and all the old Commanders and Captains except some few worn out and gone This as the first plotters thought was the time to work out their own ends and masking their perfidious designs under the publike pretences of Religion and the defence of his Majesties Prerogative they let loose the reins of their own vindicative humour and irreconcilable hatred to their British Neighbours I will not presume to say they knew what would fall out in England or what miserable embroilments that Kingdom was ready to break out into for undoubtedly the first plot was laid and most exactly formed many moneths before the war brake out betwixt the King and his people But thus much I shall be bold to affirm that upon the very first breaking out of this Rebellion they did strangely conjecture and beyond all appearance of reason even somewhat positively divine of the dismal breach and fearfull distempers which afterwards followed to the disabling of the Kingdome of England from applying remedies towards the reducement of Ireland For the attestation of this truth I could produce the generall concurrence of severall circumstances many private discourses and advertisements as also a particular Letter which I had long by me written as it seems from a very intelligent Papist a great Zealot in the cause unto a Nephew of Sir Toby Matthew's then in Dublin who though lately converted retained yet a great friendship among them He tels him in the beginning of the Letter that he was desired from some well wishing friends to advise him as he tendered his safety and security upon the sight of those instantly to forsake and abandon that troublesom and most unfortunate Kingdom for God and man had speedily resolved to afflict and punish the overgrown impieties of these prophane times all hearts and hands happily conspiring to it and that he should be as speedy in his passage as was possible and rather as the case stood hazard all dangers by sea then the least at land to be sure not to stop in England especially at London that sink of sin as he cals it and center of disorders for by that time he arrived there he should be sure to find nothing but troubles factions and desperate distempers that he should dispatch therefore for Paris or rather Brussels where there should be order taken for the removall of all mistakes betwixt him and his Uncle This Letter was written about the beginning of Novem. 1641. which was some few dayes after the breaking out of this Rebellion and full six moneths before the taking up of Arms in England Now for the very time when this great Plot received its first forme The Plot for a Rebellion in Ireland first discovered to the Lord Mac Guire and others about the time of Master John Bellewes return out of England with commission to continue the Parliament in Ireland which was in Jan. 1640. though I conceive it of somewhat a more ancient date yet by all the examinations I have hitherto seen I can carry it up no higher then the moneth of January 1640. and that it was about that time communicated to some of the chief Gentlemen of Vlster the Lord Mac Guire doth sufficiently testifie as well in the relation written with his own hand in the Tower and delivered by him to Sir John Coniers then Lieutenant to be presented to the Lords in Parliament as also in his Examination taken before the Lord Lambart and Sir Robert Meredith Kinght in Ireland March 26. 1642. In both these he acknowledgeth that he being in Dublin in Candlemas Tearm about the time when Master John Bellew came out of England with the Commission for the continuance of the Parliament in Ireland Roger Moore acquainted him that if the Irish would rise they might make their own conditions for the regaining of their Lands and Freedome of their Religion and further saith that he had spoken with sundry of Lemster to that purpose who would be ready to joyn with them as likewise a good part of Conaught and that he found all of them willing thereto if so be they could draw to them the Gentlemen of Vlster Now for the manner of putting this Plot in execution the said Lord Mac Guire doth further testifie in his relation aforesaid that the said Roger Moore having the next day acquainted Philip O Rely Turlagh O Neale Brother to Sir Phelim O Neale Master Cosloe and Mac Mahone herewith did propose that first every one should endeavour to draw his own friends into that act at least those that did live in one Country with them and that when they had so done they should send to the Irish in the Low-Countries and in Spain to let them know of the day and resolution so that they might be over with them by that day or soon after with supply of Arms and Munition that there should be a set day appointed and every one in his own Quarters should rise out that day and seize upon all the Arms he could get in his own County and this day to be neer Winter so that England could not be able to send Forces into Ireland before May and by that time there was no doubt to be made but that they themselves would be supplied by the Irish from beyond the Seas Then he told them further that there was no doubt to be made of the Irish joyning with them and that all the doubt was in the Gentlemen of the Pale but he said for his own part he was really assured that when they had risen out the Pale Gentlemen would not stay long after at lest they would not oppose any thing and that in case they did that they had men enough in the Kingdom without them Moreover that he had spoken to a great man who then should be namelesse who would not fail at the day appointed to appear and to be seen in the act but that till then he was sworn not to reveal him but yet that upon their importunity he afterwards told them it was the Lord of Mayo who was very powerfull in the command of men in those parts of Conaught where he lived He further saith that in Lent following Master Moore according to his promise came into Vlster but that nothing was done there but all matters put off till May following where they met at Dublin it being both Parliament and Tearm time and that from thence they dispatched
since the twentieth yeer of King Henry the eight may be repealed 7 That the Bishopricks Deanaries and all other spirituall promotions of this Kingdome and all Frieries and Nunneries may be restored to the Catholick owners and likewise all impropriations of Tythes and that the Scits Ambits and Precincts of the Religious houses of the Monks may be restored to them but as to the rest of their temporall possessions it is not designed to be taken from the present proprietors but to be left to them untill God shall otherwise incline their own hearts 8 That such as are now entitled Catholick Archbishops Bishops Abbots or other dignitaries in this Kingdome by donation of the Pope may during their lives enjoy their spirituall promotions with protestation neverthelesse and other fit clauses to be laid downe for preservation of his Majesties rights of Patronages first Fruits and twentieth parts in manner and quantity as now his Highnesse receives benefit thereby 9 That all inquisitions taken since the yeer 1634. to entitle his Majesty to Conaught Thomond Ormond Eliogartie Kilnemanagh Duheara Wickloe and Idvagh may be vacated and their estates secured according to his Majesties late graces 10 That an Act of Parliament may passe here for the securing the Subjects title to their severall estates against the Crown upon any title accrewed unto it before sixty yeers or under colour or pretext of the present commotions 11 That all Plantations made since the yeer 1610. may be avoyded by Parliament if the Parliament shall hold it just and their possessions restored to them or their Heirs from whom the same were taken they neverthelesse answering to the Crowne the Rents and services proportionable reserved upon the undertakers 12 That the transportation of all native Commodities to all places of the world in peace with his Majesty may be free and lawfull his customes first paid and that the Statutes of 10 11 13. of Queen Elizabeth for restraining the exportation of native Commodities be repealed 13 That all preferments Ecclesiasticall Civill and Martiall in this Kingdome that lye in his Majesties gift may be conferred on Natives of this Kingdome onely such as his Majesty shall think meet without any distinction for Religion Provided alwayes that upon the Princes of his blood of England he may bestow what places he shall think meet 14 That a Marshall and Admirall of this Kingdome may be elected in it to have perpetuall succession therein with the same preheminence authority and jurisdiction as they respectively have in England and that the said places be ever conferred upon Noble-men Natives of this Kingdom 15 That there may be Trained Bands in all Cities Towns Corporate and Counties of this Kingdome armed and provided at the charge of the severall Counties Cities and Townes and commanded by the Natives of the same who shall be named by the Counties Cities and Towns respectively 16 That his Majesty may release all Tenures in Capite and by Knight-service in consideration whereof he shall receive a setled revenue of 12000. li. per annum being double the summe which he casually receives by them Reliefes Seismes Licenses for Alienations Escuage and Aydes neverthelesse to remain 17 That all Monopolies may be for ever taken away by Act of Parliament 18 That such new Corporations as have not the face of Corporate Townes and were erected to give voyces in the Parliament may be dissolved and their Votes taken away and hereafter no such to be admitted to voices in Parliament 11 That there may be Agents chosen in Parliament or otherwise as thought meet to attend continually his Majesty to represent the grievances of this Nation that they may be removable by such as did elect them and in case of death or removance others may be for ever successively substituted in that place and that such Agents may enjoy the freedome of their conscience in Court and every where else These are the means proposed by these Catholick Remonstrants for reducing of the Kingdom to peace these the great obstructions they would have removed the cōstant Counsel they would have followed in setling the tranquility present government of this Land so as we need seek no further evidence nor make any more curious enquiries into the secret causes of their first rising we have here enough out of their owne mouths to resolve the most scrupulous unbeleever of their first motives to this Rebellion The re-establishment of the Romish Religion onely a pretence for the rebellion And now for the matter of Religion howsoever I am very confident they ever really intended the re-establishment of that of the Church of Rome with all the Rites and Ceremonies thereof together with the utter extirpation of all of the reformed profession Yet considering the large indulgence and free liberty they universally enjoyed at that time in the full exercise of that their Religion throughout all the parts of the Kingdome it may be most justly suspected how zealously soever they now obtrude it that this was onely the bare outward couverture made use of by the principall undertakers to draw on a poore ignorant superstitious people to sacrifice their lives in this quarrell Neither can it by any reasonable man be ever presumed that such persons as made no conscience of committing treason so many cruell murders and all other kind of abominable villanies not to be paralleld in any other Country could be drawne meerly out of conscience towards God to act these for the regaining of the free and publike profession of their Religion This certainly was no more the true and main cause of their taking up Armes then the redresse of their pretended grievances All the grievances of the Kingdom redressed before the Rebellion brake out whereunto his Majesty had condiscended and out of his inclinations for their present reliefe had given much more satisfaction to their Agents lately in England then ever they could in any other time expect to receive or hope to enjoy Yet we see how little effect those great graces brought over not above two moneths before this Rebellion brake out took among them for presently after the return of their Agents with them this most detestable conspiracy which had been long in hatching began to work and to be put in execution And if we shall consider their maine designe and chiefe ends therein as they appear in their first principles or will give credit to the severall speeches and passages that we meet with among the Rebels in the very beginning of their breaking out as also to severall other testimonies that have since privately fallen from some particular persons among them we must beleeve that their designe cleerly was to destroy and root out all the British and Protestants planted within this Kingdom to cut off the Soveraignty of the Crowne of England and so to deliver themselves from their long continued subjection to the English Nation But to come to one maine particular taken into debate by the prime Movers
State here as to enable them by the assistance of those small Forces they confusedly gathered together to hold out till the arrivall of the Succours sent out of England I leave it to every one to consider with how much advantage they might have gone on at that time towards the accomplishment of so desperate a Project And for my selfe I must professe that I am cleerly resolved that had they at first overmastered the unexpected difficulties and fatall impediments they met withall at home and possessed themselves of the Arms and Munition within the Castle of Dublin and so flesht and blooded in the slaughter of many thousands of the English Nation had transported a numerous Army of Irish Rebels and sodainly landed them in some good Port within the Kingdome of England They would have prevailed very farre towards the miserable desolation and ruine thereof It must be remembred in what a most unhappy discomposure the affaires were at that time there what a diseased body the State then had and what high distempers then strongly working soone after brake out what a strong party they might have found within and with what great reputation they would have marched on under the glory of their late victories atchieved in Ireland signalizing the power of their armes with such horrid cruelties and bloody butcheries as would have wrought a strange terror among the people Thus we see what were the Causes and first Motives to this unnaturall Rebellion as likewise who were the chiefe Actors and the great instruments designed by the first Plotters to predispose the people to a readinesse to take Armes for the rooting out of the British Inhabitants from among them The Preparatives being all made the Plot in all points ripe for execution it was carried on to the very evening before the day appointed for the taking of the Castle of Dublin without discovery And though it pleased God to bring it then to light as hath been declared and so happily to disappoint it in the maine Peece yet it tooke in the Northerne parts being that very day fully executed in most of the chiefe places of strength within the Province of Vlster And whereas the Priests did long before in their publick Devotions at Masse pray for a blessing upon a great Designe they had then in hand so now as I have heard they did in many places the very day before the breaking out of this Rebellion give the people a dismisse at Masse with free liberty to goe out and take possession of all their Lands which they pretended unjustly detained from them by the English as also to strip rob and dispoyle them of all their Goods and Cattell They had without doubt by one meanes or other either private or publick instructions not to leave to the English any thing that might afford the least comfort or hope of longer subsistance among them This was the main bait used to draw on the common people The English goods presented to the Irish as a chiefe means to raise them up against them and this wrought farre more powerfully then all other perswasions fictions or wilde chimeraes that they infused into them It is most apparant that the prime Gentlemen in all parts as well as the Clergy pressed them on to despoyle the English of all their Goods and Cattell well knowing their avaricious humour and greedy desires to get them into their possession and that they could not possibly finde out any other thing that would engage them more readily to undertake or more desperately to execute all manner of villanies then the hopes of enjoying so rich a prey now presented unto them The people made beleeve by their priests that it was a Meritorious act to kill the English The people being now set at liberty and prepossessed by their Priests with a beleefe that it was lawfull for them to rise up and destroy all the Protestants who they told them were worse then Dogs that they were Devils and served the Devill assuring them the killing of such was a meritorious act John Parry of Dâ—uermosh in the County of Armagh deposeth that O Cullan a Priest told his Auditors at Masse that the bodies of such as died in this quarrell should not be cold before their soules should ascend up into heaven and that they should be free from the paines of Purgatory and a rare preservative against the paines of Purgatory gathered themselves together in great numbers assembling in severall companies through the severall parts of the Northerne Counties with staves Margaret Bromley in her Examination deposeth that some of the Rebels would say after their cruell butcheries that they knew if themselves should now dye their soules should goe to Heaven and that they were glad of the revenge they had taken of the English sithes and pitch-forks for at first they had not many better weapons And so in a most confused manner they began tumultuously to drive away at the first onely the Cattel belonging to the English The Irish rise and first drive away all the Cattel belonging to the English and then to break into their houses and seize upon their goods It is true there were some murders committed the very first day of their rising and some houses set on fire but these as I conceive were for the most part out of private spleen or where they had particular instructions so to doe as they had from the Lord Mac Guire to kill Master Arthur Champion a Justice of Peace in the County of Fermanagh who with severall other of his neighbours were murthered at his owne house upon the 23. of October in the morning But certainly that which they mainly intended at first and which they most busily employed themselves about was the driving away the Englishmens Cattell and possessing their goods The Irish Gentlemen possesse themselves of the Goods belonging to the English under pretence of securing them Wherein the common people were not the onely actors but even the chiefe Gentlemen of the Irish in many placrs most notoriously appeared and under plausible pretences of securing their goods from the rapine and spoile of the common sort got much peaceably into their hands And so confident were the English of their good dealing at first as many delivered their goods by retaile unto them gave them particular Inventories of all they had nay digged up such of their best things as they had hidden under ground to deposite in their custody Much likewise they got by faire promises and deep engagements to doe them no further mischief to suffer them their wives and children quietly to retire and leave the Country But others and especially the meaner sort of people fell more rudely to work at the very first breaking up of their houses and using all manner of force and violence to make themselves masters of their goods The next act was to strip the English man woman child stark naken and to turn them out of their
integrity and credit They are all upon Oath as all the other Examinations concerning cruelties before mentioned likewise are I shall leave the severall particulars to the consideration of such as shall please to take the paines to read them over And I may well say of them in respect of the former cruelties inserted as was said to the Prophet Ezekiel in another case Turne thee yet againe Ezek. 8.13 and thou shalt see greater abominations then these A generall REMONSTRANCE of the distressed PROTESTANTS in the Province of MUNSTER SEting forth from the gasping condition of thier most sad and distressed souls That wheras the Province of Munster through the vaste expence of English treasure and blood was reduced from the height of Barbarisme to such a degree of Civility that the power and dignitie of the English Crown was much advanced and extended by the surest and noblest bonds of a florishing people those of Religion Civilitie and Profit Of Religion witnessed by the enlarged Congregations both in Cathedrall and Parochiall Churches Civility by the many costly Plantations fair strong Buildings plentifull Markets and bountifull Hospitality And Profit by the free Trade and Commerce throughout Christendome Lands fully improved abounding with heards and flocks of all sorts of the best English Cattell which enabled us to advance great sums to his Majesties Customes contribute large Subsidyes and to supply the West of England with such a considerable proportion of Wooll and Cattle that a great part of the Trade of those parts subsisted therby And this begun at the great charge of the EnglishVndertakers in the time of Queen Elizabeth of famous memory since when few parts of Christendome from their beginning in so short space had such a Rise and growth which was not alone to our selves but the very Natives must confesse that their Estates were hugely augmented by our improvements And therfore let it not be wondred at that when we consider from what we are falne to what we are faln if the pain of losse strive to equall that of sence and if the depth of our Miseries have not sunke our soules to stupidity we may compare our Woes to the saddest paralell of any Story Our Temples demolished or worse prophaned by sacrifices to Idols our Houses and Castles become ruinous heaps our Nation extirpated destroyed No quality age sexe priviledged from Massacres and lingring deaths by being robbed and stript naked through cold or famine Passages of a notable peece of Clemency and Mercy The famished Infants of murdered Parents swarm in our Streets for want of Bread perish before our faces and many of our yet miserable remnant which lived plentifully and relieved others are forced to aske relief and those they ask of constrained by want to refuse them So as undoubtedly our present Miseries are not farre distant of those of Samarias Siedge and all those cast upon us by this unparalelled Rebellion at a time when we were most confident and secure more and greater Jmmunities and Bounties being granted by his Majestie that now is then ever was by his Royall Progenitours for what cause offence or least seeming occasion of provocation our Soules could never imagine Sinne excepted save that we were Protestants and his Majesties loyall Subjects and could not endure their poysonous breaths to belch out such prophanenesse as in a deepe measure pierced and wounded the sacred fame of our King and to colour this wee must goe under the notorious names of first Puritans and later of Round-heads For particular instances time would faile and length weary the Reader But we all together confident to make it manifest by abundant instances That the Depopulations in this Province of MUNSTER doe well and neere equall those of the whole KINGDOME The particulars whereof as of the multitude of inhumaine cruelties were collected and reduced to severall instances with ample proofe by the many Moneths indevours of a reverend Divine one Arch-Deacon BISSE thereunto authorized by vertue of a Commission under the Broad-Seale of this Kingdome who was most barbarously murthered by the Jrish expressing that to be the cause And because it may be thought requisite to touch something of the Demeanours of the Jrish since the Cessation as well as before many English have beene murthered as they travelled with other expressions of that utter detestations of the English that if any remaine which few doe nor surely will doe that can but breath but elsewhere then must they be in a degree worse then any knowne slavery And likewise for other parts of the Cessation they have beene totally broken and our Quarters being of large extent universally taken from us even to the wals of our Garrisons wherein we have often called to the chiefe of them for justice which being denied or which is worse delayed want of meanes to justifie our selves leaves us without remedy All which we poure forth our griefes and Supplications above to God alone and here on earth to our Dread Soveraign The EXAMINATION of Anne the late Wife of John Sherring late of the Territory of Ormond The Province of Munster neere the Silverworks in the County of Tipperary aged about 25. yeeres Sworne and Examined Deposeth and Saith THat about Candlemas was two yeers the said John Sherring her then husband going from his Farme which he held from Master John Kenedy Esquire neer to the Silverworks one Hugh Kenedy one of the brothers of the said John Kennedy a cruell Rebell together with a great multitude of Irish rebellious Souldiers then and there fiercely assaulted and set upon her said husband and upon one William Brock William Laughlin Thomas Collop and eight more English Protestant men and about ten women and upon some children in their company and then and there stript them of their cloaths and then with stones poleaxes skeines swords pikes darts and other weapons most barbarously massacred and murdered her said husband and all those Protestant men women and children In the time of which Massacre a most loud and fearfull noise and storme of thunder lightning wind hailstones and raine began The time being on a Sabbath day about an hour before night the former part of that day being all very faire but that thunder lightning and tempest happening suddenly after the massacre was begun much afrighted and terrified this Deponent and many others insomuch as those murtherers themselves confessed it to be a signe of Gods anger and threatning of them for such their then cruelty yet it deterred them not but they persisted in their bloody act untill they had murdered those said English Protestants and had hackt hewed slashed stab'd and so massacred them that many of them were cut all to pieces and her husband for his part had thirty grievous wounds then and there given him viz. some through or neer his heart ten mortall wounds in his head three in his belly and in either arme four and the rest in his thighes legs back and neck and that murder