of their affaires and humbly to beseech relief and redresse therein the said Lieutenant Colonel though your Majesties servant and imployed in publike trust in which case the Law of Nations affords safety and protection was without regard to either not only stopped from proceeding in his imployment but also tortured on the racke at Dublin 10 The Lord-president of Munster by direction of the said Lords-Iustices that province being quiet with his accomplices burnt preyed and put to death Men Women and children without making any difference of quality condition age or sex in severall parts of that province The Catholicks Nobles and Gentlemen there mistrusted and threatned and others of inferior quality trusted and furnished with Armes and Ammunition The province of Connaght was used in the like measure whereupon most of the considerable Catholicks in both the said provinces were inforced without Arms or ammunition to looke after safety and to that end to stand on their defence still expecting your Maiesties pleasure and alwayes ready to obey your commands Now the plot of the said ministers of State and their adherents being very ripe applications were incessantly by them made to the malignant party in England to deprive this people of all hopes of your Majesties justice or mercy and to plant a perpetuall enmity between the English and Scottish Nation and your subjects of this kingdom 11 That whereas this your Maiesties kingdom of Ireland in all successions of ages since the raign of King Henry the second sometimes King of England Lord of Ireland had a Parliament of their own composed of Lords and Commons in the same manner and forme qualified with equall liberties powers priviledges and immunities with the Parliament of England and only dependant of the King and Crown of England and Ireland and for all that time no prevalent Record or authentick president can be found that any Statute made in England could or did bind this kingdom before the same were here established by Parliament yet upon untrue suggestions and informations given of your subiects of Ireland an act of Parliament intituled An Act for the speedy and effectuall reducing of the Rebells in his Maiesties kingdom of Ireland to their due obedience to his Maiesty and the Crown of England and another Act intituled An Act for adding unto explaining the said former Act was procured to be enacted in the said Parliament of England in the 18. yeare of your Maiesties raign by which Acts and other proclamations your Maiesties subiects unsummoned unheard were declared Rebels and two Millions and a halfe of Acres arrable meadow and profitable pasture within this kingdom were sold to undertakers for certain sums of money and the Edifices Loghes Woods Bogs wastes and their appurtenances were thereby mentioned to be granted and past gratis which Acts the said Catholicks doe conceive to have been forced upon your Maiesty and although voyd and uniust in themselves to all purposes yet continue matters of evill consequence and extreame preiudice to your Maiesty and totally destructive to this Nation The scope seeming to ayme at Rebels only and at the disposition of a certain quantity of Land but in effect and substance all the Lands in the kingdom by the words of the said Acts may be distributed in whose possession soever they were without respect to age condition or quality and all your Maiesties Tenures and the greatest part of your Maiesties standing Revenue in this kingdom taken away and by the said Act if it were of force all power of pardoning and of granting those Lands is taken from your Maiesty a president that no age can instance the like against this Act the said Catholicks do protest as an Act against the fundamentall Laws of this kingdom and as an Act destructive to your Maiesties right and prerogatives by colour whereof most of the forces sent hither to infest this kingdom by Sea and Land disavowed any authority form your Maiesty but doe depend upon the Parliament of England 12 All strangers and such as were not inhabitants of the city of Dublin being commanded by the said Lord-Iustices in and since the said Moneth of November 1641. to depart the said city were no sooner departed then they were by the direction of the said Lords-Iustices pillaged abroad their goods seized upon and confiscated in Dublin and they desiring to returne under the protection and safety of the state before their appearance in any action were denyed the same and divers other persons of ranke and quality by the said Lords-Iustices imployed in publick service and others keeping close within their doores without annoying any man or siding then with any of the said Catholicks in Arms and others in severall parts of the kingdom living under and having the protection and safety of the state were sooner pillaged their houses burnt themselves their Tenants and servants killed and destroyed then any other by directions from the said Lords-Iustices and by the like direction when any Commander in cheif of the Army promised or gave quarter or protection the same was in all Cases violated and many persons of quality who obtained the same were ruined before others Others that came into Dublin voluntarily and that could not be justly suspected of any crime if Irishmen or Catholicks by the like direction were imprisoned in Dublin robbed and pillaged abroad and brought to their tryall for their lives The city of Dublin and Cork and the ancient Corporate Townes of Drogheda Yeoghell and Kinsale who voluntarily received garrisons in your Majesties name and the adjacent countries who relieved them were worse used and now live in worse condition than the Israelites did in Aegipt So that it will be made appeare that more murthers breaches of publick faith and quarter more destruction and desolation more cruelly not fit to be named were committed in Ireland by the direction and advice of the said Lords-Justices and their party of the said Counsell in lesse then eighteen Moneths then can pe paraleld to have been done by any Christian people 13 The said Lord-Justices and their adherents have against the fundamentall Lawes of the Land procured the sitting of both houses of Parliament for severall Sessions nine parts of ten of the naturall and genuine Members thereof being absent it standing not with their safety to come under their power and made up a considerable number in the house of Commons of Clerks Souldiers Serving-men and others not legally or not chosen at all or returned and having no manner of estate within the kingdom in which sitting sundry Orders were conceived and dismisse obtained of persons before impeached of Treason in full Parliament and passed or might have passed some Acts against Law and to the prejudice of your Majesty and this whole Nation and during these troubles Tearmes were kept and your Majesties Court of chief place and other Courts sate at Dublin to no other end or purpose but by false and illegall Iudgements Outlawries and other Capitall proceedings to
be maintained by her owne Clergy and her senants of impropriate Parsonages and Viccaridges Thirdly Your Maiesty and Your Royall Father in all the Plantations erected many Free Schooles and endowed them Fourthly many Protestants have built and endowed Free Schooles in speciall places whereas before there were few and those only in some Townes supported by very small salaries not able to give the Teachers subsistance and so in a manner discontinued as well appeared by the ill iteratenes and indeed barbarisme of the people in former times and it cannot be shewed that any Papist there has built or endowed any Schoole nay which is worse all the Popish Clergy and all other Popish Laiety from whom that Clergy can draw any such charity much being so gotten doe send all that can be so gathered to Schooles and Universities beyond the seas whereby that Kingdome is much impoverished and the love and dependency of the people much translated from Your Crowne to forraigne Princes and Potentates To the second Article As they have not spared scandalous and untrue aspersions against Your Maiesty and your Government and against Your Officers and Ministers Arti. 2. which is no other then Art used to cover or if it were possible excuse their odious murthers and other cruelties now committed upon Your Majesties Protestant Subjects so they have presumed to taxe Your gracious Majesty and Your glorious predecessors with want of love and care of their Subjects of that Kingdome by placing as the Remonstrants pretend in the seate of Government and other Offices of eminency men of mean condition and quality who were to begin their fortunes upon the ruines of the Catholique Natives which taxe untrue in it selfe is so undutifull to those Soveraign and gracous Princes as no person of honour will appeare in it but it must be devised by the Romish adversaries of the Clergy or Iesuited Lawyers who now appeare to have been the chiefe firebrands of all these horrible flames which have almost consumed that Kingdome for it cannot be denyed that Your Royall Majesty and the other excellent Princes Your predecessors have since the said Statute of Secundo sent thither to governe Earles Barons and others of noble extraction and plentifull esTates in England and when in intervalls for short times Iustices were appointed they were sometimes Noble men and otherwise men of the best ranke sufficiency and ability to undergoe that charge and it cannot be shewed that many of them have built their fortunes on the ruines of Your Majesties Subjects either Protestants or Preists to whom they 〈…〉 equally in all things but on the contrary some of them have lost themselves and have been much damnified in their estates by their imployment there partly by the unjust clamours and maliciou accusations of of some of those Catholique Natives never enduring long any English Governour or other servants of the King of England that endeavoured the peaceable and legall obedience to the Crowne And it is manifest that of 21 Lieutenants Deputies and Iustices successively Thirty Privy Counsellors and Twelve prime Iudges and several inferior Iudges sent thither out of England since the Statute of 2 do no one of them hath left any Estate there neither were they inriched by that service And though some others and not many left esTates it onely was for the most part by bounty of the Crowne and very few or none by their purchase except the Earle of Strafford who paid great summes of money for all he bought whereas on the other side of eleven prime Iudges and many inferiour Iudges of the birth of Ireland imployed there since the Statute of 2 do every one of them left visible and valuable estates many of them equall at least with the prime Gentry and severall of them in themselves or their posteritie since advanced to titles of honour by the favour of your Majestie and your Royall Ancestors whereby your Majestie may be pleased to judge whether the English or Irish officers have most built their fortunes on the ruines of Catholique Natives It is true that no Natives have been imployed as Chiefe Governours there since the 27. of King Henry the 8. but in former times many of them were untill the last of them gave cause to the King to alter that course And yet since that time most of the prime and inferiour Iudges and the Officers were of the Natives even untill towards the latter end of the Reigne of Queen Eliz. as is before said Vid. the Stat. of 10 H. 7. c. 8. and other Statutes for the prosperitie of Ireland while the English lawes were executed and how it decaied afterwards And if times be compared it will appeare by good records and histories that from the end of the first 90 yeares after the first comming of King Henry the 2d. in which time of 90 yeares the English Colonies spread over all the then most habitable parts of the Kingdome the Townes being also wholly English and the English lawes then only used and obeyed throughout all the English Colonies The Irish then and many yeares after declared enemies and aliens did encroach and prevaile strangely against the English Colonies which happened by reason of the unwise and irregular behaviour of many of the English Lords and Chieftaines of Irish birth who then and after degenerated into Irish manners and usages cast off the English lawes subjected themselves to the Brehon and Irish customes The English Lords falling into mortall quarrels among themselves called in and waged the Irish in their contentions who formerly lived in mountaines bogs were of no force whereby the Irish grew powerfull and bold and so wrested out the English freeholders by allowance of the English Lords which hapned chiefly in the times or by occasion of the civill wars in England joyned with the Irish in marriage fostering gossoprick and all other things even against their own fellow conquerors the English freeholders almost to their utter ruine The Governours also and otehr Officers being for the most part of those old English gave way perhaps necessitated in some times to the Irish encroachments and customes though some of them at severall times behaved themselves nobly and dutifully yet others raised Coyne and Livery and other Irish exactions upon the remaining English Colonies and all other Inferiors All which by the English governours and officers were after taken away insomuch as before the end of the Reigne of King Henry the 8. even al lthe Kingdome except the sive Shires of the Pale walled Townes and som small parts about them which also were much degenerated were turned Irish except a few of prime Nobility the English Law renounced Irish Captainships advanced many of the old English Lores turned Irish Captaines All which Captainships and all exactions coyne and taxes belonging thereunto were after taken away by Act of Parliament And all the Inferiors for the most part wholly reduced into Irish slaverie having neither lands nor goods but at the
Letters under his privie Signet for the passing and securing of the estates of his subjects here by Letters Patents under the great Seal and Letters Patents accordingly were thereof passed fines payed old rents increased and new rents reserved to the Crown And the said late King was further graciously pleased at severall times to send divers honorable persons of integrity knowledge and experience to examine the grievances of this kingdom and to settle and establish a course for redresse thereof And whereas your Majesty was graciously pleased in the fourth yeare of your raign to vouchsafe a favourable hearing to the grievances presented unto you by agents from this kingdom and thereupon did grant many graces and favours unto your subjects thereof for security of their estates and redresses or remove off those heavy pressures under which they have long groaned which acts of Iustice and grace extended to this people by your Majesty and your said Royall Father did afford them great content yet such was and is yet the immortall hatred of some of the said Ministers of Sate and especially of the said Sir William Parsons the said impeached Iudges and their adherents to any welfare and happinesse of this Nation and their ambition to make themselves still greater and richer by the totall ruine and extirpation of this people that under pretence of your Majesties service the publike faith involved in those grants was violated and the grace and goodnesse intended by two glorious Kings successively to a faithfull people made unprofitable 4 The illegall arbitrary and unlawfull proceedings of the said Sir William-Parsons and of the said impeached Iudges and their adherents and instruments in the Court of Wards and the many willfull erroneous decrees and Iudgements of that Court by which the heires of Catholick Noblemen and other Catholicks were most cruelly and tyranically dealt withall destroyed in their estates and bred in dissolution and ignorance their Parents debts unsatisfied their Sisters and younger brothers left wholy unprovided for the Ancient and appearing Tenures of Mesne Lords unregarded estates valued in Law and made for valuable considerations avoyded against Law and the whole Land filled up with the frequent swarmes of Escheators Feodaries Pursevants and others by authority of that Court. 5 The said Catholicks notwithstanding the heavy pressures before mentioned and other grievances in part represented to your Majesty by the late Committees of both houses of Parliament of this kingdom whereunto they humbly desire that relation be had and redresse obtayned therein did readily and without reluctation or repyning contribute to all the Subsidies Loanes and other extraordinary grants made to your Majesty in this kingdom since the begining of your Raign amounting unto well neer on Million of pounds over and above your Majesties Revenue both certain and casuall And although the said Catholicks were in Parliament and otherwise the most forward in granting the said sums and did bear nine parts of ten in the payments thereof yet such was the power of their adversaries and the advantage they gained by the opportunity of their continuall addresses to your Majesty to increase their reputation in getting in of those Moneys and their authority in the distribution thereof to your Majesties great disservice that they assumed to themselves to be procurers thereof and represented the said Catholicks as obstinate and refractary 6 The Army raised for your Majesties service here at the great charge of the kingdom was disbanded by the pressing importunity of the malignant party in England not giving way that your Majesty should take advice therein with the Parliament here alleadging the said Army was Popish and therefore not to be trusted And although the world could witnesse the unwarrantable and unexempled invasion made by the malignant party of the Parliament in England upon your Majesties Honour Rights Prerogatives and principall Flower of your Crown And that the said Sir William Parsons Sir Adam Loftus Knight your Majesties Vice-Treasurer of this kingdom and other their adherents did declare that an Army of ten Thousand Scots was to arrive in this kingdom to force the said Catholicks to change their Religion And that Ireland could never doe well without a Rebellion to the end the remain of the Natives thereof might be extirpated and wagers were laid at generall Assizes and publike meetings by some of them then and now imployed in places of great profit and trust in this kingdom that within one year no Catholick should be left in Ireland that they saw the ancient and unquestionable priviledges of the Parliament of Ireland unjustly and against Law incroached upon by the orders Acts and proceedings of both houses of Parliament in England in sending for and questioning to and in that Parliament the Members of the Parliament of this kingdom sitting the Parliament here And that by speeches and orders Printed by the authority of both houses in England it was declared that Ireland was bound by the Statutes made in England if named which is contrary to known truth and the Laws here setled for four hundred yeares and upwards And that the said Catholicks were throughly informed of the protestation made by both houses of Parliament of England against Catholicks and their intentions to traduce Laws for the extirpation of Catholick Religion in the three kingdoms and that they had certain notice of the cruell and bloudy execution of priests there only for being priests and that your Majesties mercy and power could not prevail with them to save the life of one condemned priest and that the Catholicks of England being of their own flesh and bloud must suffer or depart the Land and consequently others not of so neer a relation to them if bound by their Statutes and within their power These motives although very strong and powerfull to produce apprehensions and feares in the said Catholicks did not prevail with them to take defensive Armes much lesse offensive they still expecting that your Majesty in your high wisdom might be able in a short time to apply seasonable cures apt remedies unto those evils and innovations 7 That the Committees of the Lords and Commons of this Kingdome having attended your Majesty for the space of nine Moneths your Majesty was graciously pleased notwithstanding your then weighty and urgent affaires in England and Scotland to receive and very often with great patience to heare their grievances and many debates thereof at large during which debates the said Lords-Iustices and some of your privy Counsell of this Kingdom and their adherents by their malicious and untrue informations conveyed to some Ministers of state in England who since are declared of the malignant party and by the continuall solicitation of others of the said privy Counsell gone to England of purpose to crosse and give impediment unto the justice and grace your Majesty was inclined to afford to your subjects of this Realm did as much as in them lay hinder the obtaining of any redresse for the said grievances and
will of those usurping Chieftaines And that Kingdome in a manner from age to age infested with continuall bloody insurrections and intestine commotions In which case it continued even unto the end of the Reigne of Queen Elizabth notwithstanding all that the English Governours sent by her coulde doe being assisted for the most part all that time with Irish Counsellors Iudges and Officers as is herein formerly metioned The Kingdom being held in great poverty and barbarisme notwithsTanding the vast expence of English bloud and treasure spent there by that gracious Queen and some of her Royall predecessors Neither could the Revenues and Profits of the Crowne in any of those times be advanced to above 11000 l. per annum and many times far lesse yea sometimes nothing at all And all it was advanced to was spent there besides the continuall exhaust of treasure out of England even to keep life in the few English that continued there obedient to the Crown and Lawes of England whereas on the other side since the beginning of the Reigne of the blessed King James and Your sacred Majestie successively Vid. Statute 11 Iac. c. 1. in Ireland for the benefit of Law and English government by His and Your wise and pious couduct and direction the English Governours with the assistance of English Iudges and officers have wholly abolished and removed all those Irish powers and jurisdictions and placed the dependencie of the people entirely on the Crown setled and secured a Legall property in every subject of their lands and goods bringing them absolutely into the state of free subjects utterly rased out the Irish Gavelkinde and Tainstry the very pest of the Nation the Farmers and Yeomanry being formerly scarce able out of the earth to gaine meat and sustenance for themselves and for idle Gentry and unimployed youth They introduced Civilitie peace and legall obedience to your Majestie throughout that Kingdome dispersed English habitations and manurance in all parts and Provinces even formerly the most rude Irish and uninhabited who built and erected Corporations and civill societies set up Markets and Faire for Commerce built and placed Churches bridges cawsies and passages gaoles Session houses Schooles for education of youth and thousands of Castles and houses of stone and brick for habitation and defence as did also then by their example many of the old English and Irish which were civilized besides foure walled Townes built in necessary places now since that Rebellion begun maintained for your Majestie by Garrisons They caused inclosures of lands planting of Orchards and Gardens and drayning of Bogs in all places as farre as time could permit They also brought in English habit language and usage and the full and universall exercise of the English lawes in all parts of the Kingdome turning all not formerly turned into Shire grounds setting known limits to all the Counties and Baronies thereof Into all which Iustices of Assize and Gaole delivery were halfe yearely sent for the happy and orderly administration of Justice and setling mens properties Whereas before the Reigne of King James the Iudges could travell no where but in the Pale and that not ordinarily because of Rebellions They placed Sheriffes Iustices of Peace and all Officers of Law in each County well instructed to execute their offices They caused estates for lives yeares and otherwayes to passe between Lord and Tenant for comfort and settlement of the people who were before generally Tenants at will in all parts And by commixture of new English and old English with Irish established indifferencie of Tryall by Iurie in most parts which before by reason of combined Irish Septs and the power of Irish Lords could not be They caused the Irish and others to live in Town-Reads not wandring with their cattell and creates dispersedly and barbarously in mountaines and wastes as formerly They enchartered the Townes and Corporations with enlarged and necessary Franchises Liberties and Jurisdictions aswell for government as ornament and benefit to the great enriching of those Inhabitants and increase of Merchandise they setled a learned Protestant Clergy of all degrees in all the parts of that Kingdom and Ordained the Consistories in a Legall form They caused to be enacted Laws for the course of Justice and quieting mens Estates and Interests agreeable as far as was necessary to the Laws made in England since the 10. of H. 7. They reformed the exorbitancy of Sheriffs who after the Captainships were taken away did in many places succeed them in extortion and oppression They had setled an Army of 2000 foot and 1000 horse intended to be English who tooke nothing of the Country without ready money and a competent Navy to guard the Coast all paid there without charge to England And lastly they had advanced your Majesties Revenues certain and casuall from under 8000 l. per annum as it was when King James began to above 85000 l. per annum besides a great gaine the Farmers of the Customes had for a few yeares to come and all this done with little or no charge to England And as an addition of blessing to all this the people generally by this meanes did wonderfully increase in riches and substance far beyond all other times Rents raised as high as in many parts of England where before lands yeelded little or nothing The breed of Cattell of all sorts wonderfully enlarged bettered and prized and infinite numbers of cowes horses and sheep with very great quantities of wooll yearely sent into this Kingdome and corne multiplied in all parts which redounded to the benefit of the Natives equally if not more then to the English as may appear as by many other things so particularly by the large mariage portions given by the Lords Gentry and others with their daughters ten times above the rates of former times dowries and joyntures of wives and purchase of lands proportionably encreased Mony let at Ten in the hundred at most whereas formerly it was at 15 l. 20 l. and 30 l. and sometimes higher And lastly whereas in all Queen Elizabeths time they could give her but one Subsidie and that but a meane one of 13 s. 4 d. out of every plough-land occupied or manured to continue for ten yeares very few Subsidies having beene granted in Ireland to any former Kings that Subsidy of Queene Elizabeth by reason that the Townes and Corporations were by a Statute freed and that divers exceptions of Gentlemens estates and other waies were incerted and that great quantities of the Kingdome were in the hands of the Irish not till then divided into Plow Lands much whereof was never so done and lastly by reason of the Rebellions of those times did never amount to any considerable summe now in the happy and plentifull Raigne of Your Majesty they were able to raise and grant unto Your Majesty ten Subsidies of one and forty thousand pounds each Subsidy and some of them 45000. l. besides Lords and Clergy over and above great contributions
where hee then found aswell in the house of the said King as other houses in the Towne divers of the goods taken out of the said two Barkes robbed at Clantarfe And by this meanes was strucken off much of that danger And to the end it may further appeare That the Lords of the Pale especially of Meath were in the same Confederacie with the Rebells at Swoards and other parts of Leinster and not forced to take up Armes for their owne safety nor fearing to bee murthered by any under the command of the Lords Justices and Counsell as in the Remonstrance is maliciously and scandalously urged the Lords Justices and Counsell seeing dangers thus multiplyed on all sides receiving Letters of intelligence from all parts of rebellious Acts done and hearing many strange rumours of the generall combination before the said meeting at Swoards or killing at Santry robberies and spoyles being before that time committed on the English in every County in Leinster Their Lordships thereupon desired in their great distresse to have the advice and assistance of those Lords of the Pale in whose fidelitie they formerly much confided as appeares by their comfortable expression thereof in October before aswell to the then Lord Lievtenant in England as to your Majesties principall Secretarie the effect whereof appeared in the Parliametn order sent thither thereupon soone after and printed the twelfth of November 1641. wherein they declared that they conceived the Massacre was intended aswell against your Majesties good Subjects Antient Inhabitants of English blood though of the Romish Religion who have in former Rebellions given testimonie of their fidelitie to the Crowne of ENGLAND as against the Protestants and that they intended to move your Majesty for the encouragement of those English or Irish that should raise Horse or Foote against the Rebells that they should bee honourably rewarded and therefore on the third of the same December the Lords Justices and Counsell did write severall Letters unto those and other Lords in and neere Dublin to meet together with the Lords Justices and Counsell at Dublin the eighth day of the same moneth to the end they might conferre with those Lords concerning the present state of the Kingdome and the safety thereof and specially of the Citie of Dublin in those times of danger to this the Earle of Fingall and the Lords of Gormanston Slane Dunsany Nettervile Lowth and Trimletstowne by their Letter dated the seventh of the same December answered That they had cause to conceive their loyaltie was suspected and that they had received advertisement that Sir Charles Coote at the Connsell Board had uttered some speeches tending to a purpose and resolution to execute upon those of their Religion a generall Massacre whereby they were deterred to come not having securitie for their lives but rather thought fit to stand on their guard till they might heare from the Lords Justices and Counsell how they should bee secured They well knowing that the Lords Justices and Counsell had no force or having force had no intent to hurt them unlesse much greater cause appeared in which Letter they did mention the killing at Santry which it seemes they had not then heard of and could not take that for a ground of their rebellion as now they urge and so they did forbeare to come as they were required but the Earle of Kildare the Lords Fitzwilliams and Houth came at the day appointed with whom Conference was had Thereupon the Lords Justices and Counsell desirous and labouring by all the meanes they could to cleare all erronious conceptions in those Lords and to prevent their hurt by any undutifull resolutions and asmuch as they might to provide against any breach with them least thereby greater extremities might bee drawne upon them and the Rebells at Swoards might be raised in stomacke did print and publish a Declaration dated the thirteenth day of the same December and sent it those Noblemen therein positively affirming That the Lords Justices and Counsell did never heare Sir Charles Coote or any other utter at the Councell board or else-where any such speeches tending to a purpose or resolution to execute upon those of their profession or upon any other a generall Massacre and that that board never intended or meant to dishonour your Majestie or that State or wound their owne consciences by harbouring the least thought of so odious impious and detestable a thing upon any persons whatsoever And that they were had would be ready to inflict due punishment upon any man against whom proofe shall be made of speaking the same therein likewise requiring those Lords to attend the Lords Justices and Counsell at the Board on the seventeenth day of the same moneth of December Thereby also giving to those Lords and every of them the word and assurance of the State for their safe repaire to the Board without danger of any trouble or stay whatsoever of or from the Lords Justices and Counsell or any under their Command who never had intention to wrong or hurt them neither in truth did they feare any such massacre there having never beene any such thing attempted against Papists either in England Scotland or Ireland notwithstanding their difference in Religion and the Protestants provoked by many strange plots in former times The same thirteenth day also of December the Lords Justices and Counsell printed and sent to the said Luke Nettervile and the rest at Swoards their manifest setting forth the truth of the aforesaid action at Santry and that they had no knowledge of it till it was done and their readinesse to give redresse it upon prosecution there were cause either at the Board or at a Counsell of Warre therein also laying before them their high and unsufferable Contempt in not separating according to former Command declaring also that there was no intent or purpose against the lives of them or any other your Majesties good Subjects Protestants or Papists who were not actors or abettors in the traiterous murthers and robberies lately committed but that their care and endeavour alwayes was and should bee to cherish and preserve all your Majesties good Subjects of what profession soever requiring them againe forth with to separate and forbeare further terrour and annoyance to your Majesties good Subjects and therein the Lords Justices and Counsell required the said Luke Nettervile and the rest who formerly signed the Letler to appeare before them at the Counsell board on the eighteenth day of the said moneth where they should receive due hearing and further gave unto them and every of them the word and the assurance of the state as to their persons for their safe repaire unto them without any trouble or stay from them whatsoever and that they had no intention to wrong or hurt any of them all which notwithstanding they did not separate but on the contrary sent men to Clantarfe as aforesaid which gave the Lords Justices and Counsell full assurance that they were resolved to run on
according to their rebellious beginnings and so necessitated their Lordships to attempt them at Clantarfe as is before related and this as is conceived will appeare sufficient to vindicate the Lords Justices and Counsell from any just cause given of such malicious and scandalous imputation of faith breaking and otherwayes as in their remonstrance is pressed and from the guilt of such provocations to the said Nobility and Gentry of the Pale and other parts of Leinster to put themselves in posture of defence against the State and other your Majesties Protestant subjects Whereas on the other side those Lords and Gentry had most apparant cause to doe the same against their Confederates of Vlster who as they pretended so much terrified them yet being most true that while they joyned with the State in former times the Earle of Tyrone in all his strength durst never attempt them besides is hath been since made evident partly by discoveries made and examinations taken of notorious acts committed and partly in that many of the Inhabitants in severall parts of the Pale and other adjacent Counties and generally all the Irish inhabitants in Vlster and many in some Counties of Connaught had declared themselves Confederates or committed open rebellious acts and cruelties against your Majestie and your Protestant Subjects before the above mentioned killing at Santry which was the first act favouring of force offered and that but pretended to be offered by the Lords Justices and Counsell to those of the Pale or any of them viz. on the 23. of October 1641. and so daily after all the Irish of the Province of Vlster viz. in the Counties of Cavan Fermanagh Donegall Tyrone London Derry Ardmagh Monaghane and most part of the County of Downe and the County of Leitrim with part of the County of Sligo and many of the County of Roscomon in Connaught declared themselves in open rebellion and committed the acts of murthers and cruelties else-where mentioned And to shew that the common people aswell as the chiefe Conspirators were acquainted with the maine plot in the cheife part thereof it now appears by very many examinations that on the twenty three of October 1641 the Rebels of Vlster and in Leytrim generally told the Protestants whom they robbed that the Castle of Dublin was taken howsoever they formerly concealed the plot on the thirtieth of October 1641. the Irish of the County of Longford next adjoyning to Meath and Westmeath began to murther and rob and spoile all the Brittish and Protestants among them the Sheriff also of that County a prime man of the Farrels soone after ioyned in the action and on the second of November the Lords Justices and Counsell did write to Sir Iames Dillon uncle to the Lord of Costilo to imploy against those Rebels of Longford and others in Cavan 2000 men which he had gathered together under pretence to carry them into Spaine he liked not of that motion notwithstanding he had by former letters offered the service of those men but soone after imployed them against your Majesty and your forces notwithstanding he had lately at his owne suite received Arms and Ammunition for fifty men foote and horse for his own defence On the last day of October 1641 the towne of Dundalke in the County of Lowth in the Pale wherein was a Company of the old Army was yeilded up to the Rebels without stroke and your Majesties Armes lost against which neither Shane O Neale with whom all the Irish of Vlster and many other Irish ioyned could prevaile by assault nor the Earle of Tyrone with all his strength being other wayes provided then Sir Phelomy O Neale both in numbers of trained men and armes durst ever attempt it seldome gayne a few Cattle from it though he lay often within two miles of it their faith then sufficiently arming them against the stoutest Rebels and Drogheda had bin yeilded up within few dayes had not Sir Henry Titchburne come thither about the fourth day of November about that time also was the town of Atherdy in the County of Lowth so yeilded up to the rebells before the end of October and about the beginning of November 1641 many of the inferior inhabitants in the bordering parts of the County of Meath in the Pale especially the inhabitants of Kells robbed and spoiled the Brittish and Protestants with whom also some of the gentry ioyned the rest looked on about the same time also they did the same about Trym in the heart of Meath in the County of Westmeath also in the Pale they did the same about the same time Vpon the tenth day of November 1641 the Lord of Lowth having formerly received Commission from the Lords Justices and Counsell to command the forces in the County of Lowth came and delivered up his Commission pretending offence that Sir Christopher Bellew was ioyned with him in command and soone after went into Rebellion On the twelfth day of the same November all the Irish of the County of Wickloe which adjoyned on the South side to the County of Dublin entred into open Rebellion and murthered robbed and spoyled all the Brittish and Protestants in that County burnt and pulled downe all their faire English buildings and preyed and robbed within two miles of the City of Dublin on the sixteenth day of the same November they surprised and forced your Majesties fort called Carisfort in the County of Wickloe On the one and twentieth of the same November the Irish of the Counties of Wexford and Catherlagh entred into rebellion and ioyned with those of Wiikloe they seized on the Lord Esmonds house and all other the late undertakers buildings in Wexford and murthered robbed and spoiled al the Brittish and Protestants on the hither side of that County of Wexford and spoiled the Brittish and Protestants in most parts of the County of Catherlagh Before the fifteenth of November the Irish in some parts of the Queens County and Kings County robbed and spoiled the Brittish and Protestants there and defaced their houses from which time forwards they proceeded to growt o great numbers robbing and spoiling the Brittish and Protestants wheresoever they came On the twenty fourth of the same November all the old English and other inhabitants in the County of Lowth one of the five shires in the Pale ioyned with the Northern rebels in pen rebellion and with them also ioyned the Sheriffe Iohn Bellew who was formerly sent into England privately in some negotiation concerning the Parliament of Ireland and returned thither again in February 1640 many of the Inhabitants of that County had also formerly spoiled and robbed most of the Brittish and Protestants in that County of Lowth and defaced their houses which Country being full of old Castles was formerly defended against all Irish insurrections and the Inhabitants might now easily have done the like against those barbarous and raw men of Vlster if the former confederacy had not wrought amongst them and if their old fidelity had remained
their and and our joynt Agents did desire of your Majesty And we continuing amongst them in all love and amity without distrust your Petitioners and others who laboured to oppose those damnable designes and practices have been driven from their dwellings estates and fortunes their houses and Churches burnt and demolished all monuments of civility utterly defaced your Majesties Forts and places of strength throwne downe and the Common and Statute lawes of this your Kingdome utterly confounded by taking upon themselves the exercise of all manner of authorities and jurisdictions Ecclesiasticall and Civill both by Land and Sea proper and peculiar to your sacred Majesty being your just Prerogatives and the Royall flowers of your Imperiall Diadem to the disherison of your Crowne and your royall Revenues brought to nothing and the Protestant Clergy with their revenues and support for the present destroyed This your Kingdom in all parts formerly inhabited with Brittish Protestants now depopulated of them and many thousands of your Protestant subjects most barbarously used stripped naked tortured famished hanged buried alive drowned and otherwise by all barbarous cruell sorts of death murthered such as yet remaine of them are reduced to that extremity that very few of them have wherewith all to maintain a being and all of them so terrifyed and afflicted with those barbarous and inhumane cruelties the true report whereof being now spread abroad into the Christian world you Suppliants conceive feares that your Majesties Brittish subjects will be discouraged from comming againe to inhabite this Kingdome and the remnant of the Brittish left here will be forced to depart All this being done by the conspiracy of the Papists who did publiquely declare the utter extirpation of the Protestant Religion and all the Brittish professors thereof out of this your Majesties Kingdom And to the end it may the better in some measure appeare your Suppliants have made choice of Captaine Mr. William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Knight and Baronet Captaine Michael Iones and Mr. Fenton Parsons whom they have imployed and authorised as their Agents to manifest the truth thereof in such particulars as for the present they are furnished withall referring the more ample manifestation thereof to the said Captaine Mr. William Ridgeway Sir Francis Hamilton Captaine Iones and Fenton Parsons or any three or more of them and such other Agents as shall with all convenient speed be sent as occasion shall require to attend your Majesty from your Protestant Subjects of the severall Provinces of this your Kingdome We therefore your Majesties most humble loyall and obedient Protestant subjects casting downe our selves at your Royall feet and flying to you for succour and redresse in these our great calamities as our most gracious Soveraigne Lord and King and next and immediately under Almighty God our protector and defence most humbly beseeching your sacred Majesty to admit into your Royall presence from time to time our said Agents and in your great wisdome to take into your Princely care and consideration the distressed estate and humble desires of your said Subjects so that to the glory of God your Majesties honour and the happinesse of your good Subjects the Protestant Religion may be restored throughout the whole Kingdome to its lustre That the losses of your Protestant subjects may be repayred in such manner and measure as your Majesty in your Princely wisdome shall thinke fit and that this your Kingdome may be so setled as that your said Protestant Subjects may heareafter live therein under the happy government of your Majesty and your Royall posterity with comfort and security Whereby your Majesty will render your selfe throughout the whole world a most just and glorious Defender of the Protestant Religion and draw downe a blessing on all other your Royall undertakings For which your Petitioners will ever pray c. Subscribed by the Earle of Kildare the Lord Viscount Montgomery the Lord Blany and many others At the Court at Oxford the 25 of April 1644. HIs Majesty being very sensible of the Petitioners losses and sufferings is ready to heare and relieve them as the exigencie of His affaires will permit and wisheth the Petitioners to propose what they thinke fit in particular for His Majesties information and the Petitioners remedy and future security Edw. Nicholas And His Majesty looking upon the petition and the names of the subscribers commanded the same to be read and after the reading thereof His Majesty was pleased to expresse himselfe that he knew the contents of the Petition to be truth and that the same could not be denyed and required the Protestant agents to reduce the generals of the Petition into particulars And His Majesty then further said to the said Agents That the Agents for the Irish tooke it upon their salvation unto him that the Conspiracy in Ireland at first was not generall and that the English pale of Ireland were forced into Rebellion by His Governours of Ireland and that if his Parliament of England had permitted Him to have gone into Ireland when He desired He doubted not but He should soon have suppressed that Rebellion His Majesty having directed the Protestant Agents by His answer on the said petition to represent what they should thinke fit in particular for His Majesties information and the petitioners remedy and future security the said Agents likewise taking into consideration a scandalous and most false Remonstrance of the Irish rebels presented to His Majesties Commissioners at Trymme in Ireland the 27 of March 1642. which afterwards was printed at Waterford by Thomas Bourke printer to the Confederate Roman Catholiques of Ireland whereunto he affixed His Majesties Armes many of which bookes were published and dispersed by the rebels not onely in Ireland but at Oxford and other parts of this Kingdome and in forraigne parts of purpose to asperse the late government there and His Majesties good and faithfull Protestant subjects and to put a shew of reason upon the barbarous and inhumane cruelties which the said Rebels had acted on the Protestants of Ireland unprovoked in time of full peace The Protestant Agents for vindication of the late government and of the Protestants of Ireland and for the satisfaction of all good people conceived themselves bound in duty to God and His Majesty to present to His Majesty some collections of knowne truths in answer to the said Remonstrance of the Rebels of Ireland Which Remonstrance and the copy of the said Collections in answer thereunto were presented to His Majesty together with their first propositions in the behalfe of the Protestants of Ireland which first propositions follow in haec verba The humble Propositions of your Majesties Protestant Agents of Ireland in pursuance of the humble Petition of your Majesties Protestant Subjects aswell Commanders of your Majesties Army there as others presented to your Majesty the 18 day of Aprill 1644. and answered by your Majestie the 25 of the same 1. WE most humbly desire the establishment of the true
call by the name of publique uses to be in equall degree to the debts owing by the Rebels and by them all forfeited and many of them by Law duely levyed which is a most unequall and unjust thing and the said Proposition cannot nor doth make offer to have the popish Confederates cut off from the debts due to them which they have justly forfeited but onely for a colour of consideration to have the Protestants lose such debts justly due to them as have been unjustly taken from them who have done no act at all to forfeit them 6. Proposition That the late Offices taken or found upon feigned or old titles since the yeere 1634. to entitle your Majestie to severall Countreys in Connaught Thomond and in the Counties of Typperarie Limrick Kilkenny and Wickloe be vacated and taken off the file and the possessors setled and secured in their ancient estates by Act of Parliament And that the like Act of limitation of your Majesties titles for the security of the estates of your Subjects in that Kingdom be passed in the said Parliament as was enacted in the 21 yeere of His late Majesties Raigne in this Kingdom Ans Wee know not of any Offices found on feigned Titles nor what the Confederates may demand in respect of any graces promised by your Majestie which we intend not nor have any occasion to dispute but wee humbly conceive that all those who have committed Treason in the late Rebellion subsequent to your Majesties promise of those graces have thereby forfeited the benefit thereof together with the Lands to which the said graces might else have related and so their whole estates are now justly fallen to your Majesty by their Rebellion which wee conceive is of great importance for your Majesties service to be taken into consideration As first with regard to the Statutes made in the present Parliament of England Secondly by the necessary encrease of your Revenue decayed by the present Rebellion Thirdly the abolishing of the evill customes of the Irish and preservation of Religion Laws and Government there Fourthly the satisfaction of your Protestant Subjects losses in some measure Fiftly the Arrers of your Majesties Army and other debts contracted for that warre and for preservation of that Kingdome to your Majestie Sixtly the bringing in of more Brittish upon the Plantations Seventhly the building of some walled Towns in remote and desolate places for the security of that Kingdome and your good Subjects there Eightly the taking of the Natives from their former dependencie on their Chieftains who usurped an absolute power over them to the diminution of your Regall Power and to the oppression of the Inferiours 7. Propos That all marks of incapacity imposed upon the Natives of that Kingdome to purchase or acquire Lands Leases Offices or Hereditaments be taken away by act of Parliament and the same to extend to the securing of Purchases Leases or Grants already made And that for the education of Youth an Act be passed in the next Parliament for the erecting of one or more Inns of Court Vniversities Frée and Common Schools Ans This we conceive concerneth some of the late Plantations and no other part of that Kingdome and that the restriction herein mentioned is found to bee of great use especially for the indifferencie of Trialls strength of the Government and for Trade and Traffique And we humbly conceive that if other Plantations shall not proceed for the setling and securing of that Kingdome and that no restraint be made of Papists buying or purchasing of the Protestants out of their former Plantations where they were prudently setled though now cast out of their estates by the late Rebellion and unable to Plant the same again for want of meanes and therefore probably upon easie termes will part with their estates to the Confederates that those Plantations will be destroyed to the great prejudice of your Majesties service and endangering of the safety of that Kingdome Touching bearing of Offices wee humbly conceive that their non-conformity to the Laws and Statutes of that Kingdome is the onely mark of incapacity imposed upon them and wee humbly conceive that they ought not to expect to bee more capable there then the English Natives are here in England in like case For Schooles in Ireland there are divers setled in all parts of that Kingdome already by the Laws and Statutes of that Realme And if any person well affected shall erect and endow any more Schooles there at their own charges so that the School-master and schollers may be governed according to the Laws Customs and orders of England and the best of Free-schools here wee cannot apprehend any just exceptions thereunto But touching Universities and Inns of Court we humbly conceive that this part of the Proposition savoureth of some desire to become Independant upon England or to make a separation in the Religion and Laws of the Kingdome which can never bee truely happie but in the good unitie of both in the true Protestant Religion and in the Laws of England For as for matter of charge such of the Natives as are desirous to breed their sonnes for learning in Divinity can bee well contented to send them to the Universitie of Lovain Doway and other Popish places in Forraign Kingdomes And for Civill-law or Physick to Padua and other places which draws a great treasure yearly out of your Majesties Dominions but will send few or none of them to Oxford or Cambridge where they might as cheaply be bred up and become as learned which course we conceive is holden out of their pride and disaffection towards this Kingdome and the true Religion here professed And for the Laws of the Land which are for the Common-law agreeable to England and so for the greatest part of the Statutes the Innes of Court in England are sufficient and the Protestants came thither without grudging And it is a means to civilize them after the English Customes to make them familiar and in love with the Language and Nation to preserve the Law in the purity when the Professours of it shall draw from one originall fountain and see the manner of the practise of it in the same great Channells where his Majesties Courts of Justice of England do flow most clearly whereas by separation of the Kingdoms in the places of their principall instruction when their foundations in learning are to be laid a degenerate corruption in Religion and Justice may happily be introduced and spread with much more difficulty to be corrected and restrained afterwards by any discipline to be used in Ireland or punishments there to be inflicted for departing from the true grounds of things which are best preserved in unity when they grow out of the same root then if such Universities and Innes of Court as are proposed should be granted All which we humbly submit to your Majesties most pious and prudent confideration and judgement 8. Propos That the Offices and places of Command Honour Profit