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A25428
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A letter from a person of honour in the countrey written to the Earl of Castlehaven : being observations and reflections upon His Lordships memoires concerning the wars of Ireland.
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Anglesey, Arthur Annesley, Earl of, 1614-1686.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing A3170; ESTC R613
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23,258
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78
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bloody and guilty men that ever were under the Sun and fly the Kings Justice with reflection and scorn upon the State that was pursuing them for their Crimes and to avoid the inward stings of Guilt or Apprehensions of Punishment run head-long into open and a vowed Guilt among those who were under Gods Vengeance and the Kings I leave this to your Lordships more serious second thoughts Being out of the danger of Justice though your Lordship cared little for the Justices as how could your Lordship when you were associated with those who had bid defiance to God and the King yet your Lordship quickly saw a proof how civil and merciful they had been to you hitherto when they upon your escape shewed you they had power enough to pursue you and pillage and burn your House in your Mountain view and use your Family as Enemies which they might have done before but their constant course was to endeavour the re-gaining those who had faltered in their Allegiance and not to increase the number which was too heavy upon them already Your Lordship at length arrived to the beloved place designed the City of Kilkenny Head Quarters of the Confederate Rebels where you found many of your acquaintance preparing for their natural defence seeing no distinction made or safety but in Arms. Your Lordships heart was now at rest among your Friends and Relations to whom indeed after committing all the wickedness their hand of violence could reach to being defeated in several Battels by his Majesties Forces and driven into their Holds defence became natural their Crimes having left them no hopes but in Arms and who could expect no distinction to be made where they were universally involved in the same black guilt For this end your Lordship saith they had chosen a Council formed an Oath of Association made Four Generals of the Four Provinces caused a Seal to be made raised Monys constituted a General Assembly c. all ensigns of the more than Regal Power they had usurped To this Council your Lordship was sent for and being well prepared by those inclinations which made you forsake the Kings Government and the Laws you quickly closed with them upon the grounds before expressed and upon consideration of their model of Government and very reasonable as your Lordship judged it Oath of Association which your Lordship prints at large and their desiring your conjunction with thanks returned your Lordship engaged your self to run a Fortune with them upon very ill principles if anger and revenge inclined you to it as much as any other consideration which you intimate though you say you cannot resolve It s strange how the Earl of Castlehaven and Lord Audley in England could close so cordially with the Irish who had shed so much innocent English Blood in full peace and think himself justified by such an account of his ingagement as this unless he had been resolved in the justice of their cause from the beginning however he carried it with seeming fairness to the Lords Justices till he got out of their reach But ingaged your Lordship was and being thus Confederate and having taken the Oath of Association becoming one of their Council and General of the Horse under Preston and giving the most specious account you can of your proceedings in that quality Truth being the greatest and best friend I had rather one or several Persons and Families should lie under the Consequences of its impartiality than that the English Nation and Protestant Religion should suffer by a timorous unworthy concealing or withholding any part of it And since your Lordship to palliate or justifie your own Actions and the Confederate Irish Cause endeavours to render the generality of the English Protestants Criminal your Lordship must not think it much that I one of English Race and for Religion of the Church of England should be a little plain in their Justification and Defence and for that end remove the mask your Lordship hath put upon the face of Affairs by continuing my Remarques upon your Lordships Memoires And first to the constitution of a Council it was made up of Members uncapable of that trust by Law In the Oath of Association and Propositions grounded thereon there is not a word but breaths high Treason except the first thirteen lines which set up the Kings Name and Authority only in pagentry and mockery to be crucified and contradicted by all that follows and yet this Oath your Lordship held very reasonable as the case then stood that is when you and your Confederates were incouraged or heightned with a Power able as you fancied to make good what you had sworn And suitable to this ungodly trayterous Oath where all the subsequent proceedings of the Confederates their Councils at home and their Actions abroad their Cessations and pretended Peaces which I shall take notice of more particularly in their respective series of time The general Assembly met the 24th of October 1642 your Lordship saith it differ'd nothing from a Parliament but that the Lords and Commons sate together and not in two Houses Was this so inconsiderable a difference in the Opinion of a Peer of England as well as Ireland or fit for one of so noble Extraction to be submitted to against Honour Law and right Reason But the truth is and I speak it for the honour of the Nobility of Ireland the Rebels had not debauched enough of them either for interest or number to bear the Countenance of a House of Peers or to be of any considerable figure among that People who having cast off Majesty could not be warmed by the beams thereof which I count the Nobility but they resolved of course into common persons again and had but single Votes among the Croud instead of those Honourable Priviledges and Negative Voice which their Ancestors had acquired as the just reward of their faithfulness to the Crown in former times and in all Defections and Rebellions since the subjection of that Nation to England And this your Lordship ingeniously confesseth and saith we see it was a force-put upon you and you hoped in time the storm being passed to return to your old Government under the King Here you own the being fallen from it but could your Lordship imagine or any others believe this Cob-web pretence possible were you not all ingaged by the bond of an Oath to the contrary and to preserve your new upstart treasonable Model and Constitution and that the storm should never cease till you had by Arms attained a confirmation of all that you had done for which by the said Oath you renounced the receiving any Pardon or Protection but by your own Sword But that Assembly differed also from a Parliament in this That it was called by a packt party of bloody Papists in Rebellion and Confederacy and had neither Legal nor Regal Authority But to conciliate credit and belief you add That there were many learned in the Law amongst you whom
Irish their Commission and under his Majesties Authority at other times and sometimes under both It will be fitter at present for me to be silent therein than to attempt the unblending such a mixture and seperate your Acts of Allegiance from those of Opposition to the King which I must always blame you for or to condemn you intirely when some things your Lordship did were by full Authority though very fatal to the English Protestant interest in that Kingdom and no ways advantageous to his Majesty or his Affairs But the First Part of your Story which takes up three Sections of your Memoirs I cannot let pass unanimadverted and corrected without condemning the generation of the just suffering Blemish and Calumny to lie upon his Majesty and Government both in England and Ireland and leaving your Lordship in a mistake of having done well when I hope I shall evince that you did very ill unless the galantry of a Souldier can expiate for all that was amiss For this end I must take notice to your Lordship that all I find you urge to satisfie your own Conscience or to vindicate your Honour and Integrity to the World in this your ingaging your self amongst the Irish is to this effect Your Lordship saith That at the first eruption of the Rebellion which you seem to tye to the North but was universal you acquainted the Lords Justices with your willingness to serve the King against the Rebels as your Ancestors had formerly done in Ireland but they replying that your Religion was an Obstacle there being then a Parliament in that Kingdom sitting you were resolved to see the event sending your Brother to your House at Madingstowne in the County of Kildare to secure and defend it in case there were any rising in those parts Sometime after the Parliament being dissolved but you do not mention that you attended your duty in Parliament when it was sitting and declaring against the Rebels your Lordship desired a Pass from the Justices to go to England but they refusing you acquainted them with the condition of your Estate and desired a supply of Money till you could apply to the Parliament of England for a Pass to bring you over which they denyed You press'd them then to direct you what course you should steer to which they replied Go home and make fair weather You took this advice and being come my Lord of Antrim and my Lady Dutchess of Buckingham both Papists and after that deeply ingaged in the Rebellion soon followed whether by concert with your Lordship is not said and you were very well pleased with so good company But in a short time the Irish came and drove away great part of your Stock which you recovered by a party sent out with your Brother who brought with him two or three of the chiefest Conductors of that Rabble This inraged the Irish so much as you conceived your Brother was not safe there and therefore sent him to Dublin to attend the Justices Orders and assure them of your readiness to return on a call they sending a Convoy which they promised to do as Occasion required But your Lordship hearing that you were indicted of High Treason and hereupon your Brother addressing to the Lords Justices again to let them know that they had not kept their words with him in suffering this clandestine proceeding against you as your Brothers Letter calls it you went to Dublin and addressed your self to my Lord of Ormond as your Brother did in your behalf to the Lords Justices and Council to acquaint them with your coming and upon your appearance before them they ordered you to come the day following at which time without calling you in they committed you to Mr. Woodcock 's House one of the Sheriffs of Dublin Your Brother seeing as he calls it this rigorous usage towards you and being refused a Pass for himself to go for England he got away to the King at York and petitioned him that you might be sent for over to be tryed here by your Peers But his Majesties Answer was That he had left all the Affairs of Ireland to the Parliament upon which he petitioned the Parliament to the same effect their Answer was that they could do nothing without the King After this your Brother saith he was continually serving his Majesty in England Your Lordship once more placeth your self at Madenstowne whither you had at first retired by advice of the Lords Justices and continued there some Five or six moneths after in peace and quietness but your Lordship doth not mention that other neighbouring places possessed by the English did so or what in diligence your Lordship had with or gave to the State But proceed to say That in the mean while Parties were sent out by the Justices from Dublin and the Towns adjacent to kill and destroy the Rebels and the like was done through all parts of the Kingdom But your Lordship adds the Officers and Souldiers did not take care enough to distinguish between the Rebels and Subjects but killed in many places promiscuously on which partly and partly on other provocations that proceeded and some too that followed the whole Nation finding themselves concerned took to Arms for their own defence and particularly the Lords of the Pale did so who yet at the same time desired the Justices to send their Petition to the King which was refused And for their further discouragement Sir John Read his Majesties sworn Servant a stranger to the Countrey uningaged and an Eye-witness of their proceedings then upon his Journey to England prevailed with by them to carry their Remonstrance to his Majesty and to beg his Pardon for what they had done coming to Dublin and not concealing his Message was put to the Rack for his good will The said Lords having tryed this and other ways to acquaint the King with their Grievances and all failing an open War broke forth generally throughout the Kingdom Your Lordship next takes notice of your accidental entertaining my Lord of Ormond at Dinner immediately after the Battle of Killrush which you were a Spectator of being in sight of your House but that some who came with him turned this another way and publishing through the Army that it was a mighty Feast for my Lord Mount Garret and the Rebels this through the English Quarters past for currant And you believe it was much the cause of this under-hand villainous proceedings as you call it against you fore-mentioned Your Lordship proceeds to tells us That after Twenty Weeks that you had remained in Prison you were ordered to be removed to the Castle of Dublin which startled you and brought to your thoughts the proceedings against the Earl of Strafford who confiding in his Innocency lost his Head you concluded then that Innocency was a scurvey plea in an angry time besides your Lordship looked upon the Justices and most of the Council to be of the Parliaments Perswasion wherefore you resolved to attempt